AWAKE

Tarnava — 14 YBB

You learned to read at Murentam even as a bonded man. Impressive.

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Murentam Valley — 15 YBB

Snatches of the conversation Mother and Father were having in the kitchen drifted through the early morning air. Try as he might, Saf couldn’t pick out the individual words, just the abstract meaningless sounds. He bent down to continue his work, stroking the udders of the family’s single cow until milk squirted into the wooden bucket on the garden floor. There wasn’t much in the bucket at the end for such a large family, but they would make do. They always had.

Saf straightened up, lifting the bucket. The sun had barely passed the horizon, and light was catching in the huge yew tree that stood alone in the fields. The cold blanket of mist that would burn off later in the day was still drifting across the farmlands. Saf inhaled the wet air. There’s something nice about working early in the morning.

He made his way through the back door.

“Good morning!”

He was whispering in case some of the children were sleeping in the next room. But his parents had left the kitchen. He could hear them in the front of the house. Curious, Saf followed them, but they stayed ahead of him, leaving out the front door.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

No response.

“Mother! Father! Stop! Please!”

No response. Saf felt a panic rising in his throat. He raised his pace to a brisk walk. His parents broke into a run, heading down the dirt road towards the forest.

From back in the cottage, Saf heard screams. The little ones! Throwing one last glance at his parents, Saf turned around and sprinted into the house. The temperature had changed. It was sweltering now. The screams had changed too, lengthening and vibrating and modulating until they sounded more like..

Hissssses

Saf threw open the sleeping-room door. There were no human children here, just a horde or snakes crawling on every surface and hissing in a disturbing coordinated rhythm. The air was a furnace. Saf tried to scream and nothing came out. He turned back to leave the room and..

A cold sweat covered Saf’s body. What an awful dream. It was still night, and the four others lay asleep beside him. Saf stared up at the ceiling. As the terror drained slowly from his mind, his awareness of the strange sensation in his back returned. It felt like.. like snakes in my skin. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but distinctly uncomfortable. The long muscles in his back tensed and relaxed in unnatural ways.

Is it true? Perhaps Mina’s bizarre speech had meant something after all. He couldn’t sleep like this, with the snakes rooting through his back. He needed to find a way to look at himself. A Mark.. it was almost too ridiculous to think much about, but something was clearly going on.

He stepped lightly out of the room without waking any of the others. Where could he find a way to look at his back? The night-guards would have light and water, but Mina had said not to show anyone else whatever was going on. The kitchen. No one would be in the kitchen at this hour. Saf grabbed a torch from a sconce in the wall and treaded through the corridors to the kitchens.

At the doors, he froze. From somewhere in the surrounding hallways, he heard the patter of footsteps. He couldn’t help thinking of the murderer. Maybe he was being paranoid. But still. He waited for a few heartbeats, looking towards the noise. The dancing flames of the torches on the walls made little pools of light in the darkness. The noise, if it had ever existed, had stopped.

Cursing himself for his nervousness, Saf opened the door and stepped into the kitchens. It was unlit, and his own torch gave off the only light in the pitch black. It felt like the snakes under his shoulders had increased their pace, careening around in violent spasms.

Saf used his torch to light the wood in the hearth. A fire roared up, lighting the entire room. He jumped a little at the crackle of the logs. If someone found him, he would have a lot of explaining to do. And he wasn’t exactly in good standing as it was.

He found some water and poured it into a thin metal bowl. The result looked suitably reflective. Saf put the bowl on the table nearest the fireplace, took off his shirt and twisted awkwardly to try to find his own reflection. Weird. Despite the muscle movements he felt, his back looked motionless in the water. But was that..? Yes gods.. oh gods. It was hard to make out in the low light, but little dots of ink covered his back. It looked like there might be a pattern, if only he could..but it wasn’t any use. Saf couldn’t get a good look at the design that was forming on his skin.

He used the bowl of water to put out the fire and left the kitchen. On his way back to his room, he heard the patter again, this time much closer, echoing against the stone. Saf flattened himself along the wall.

At first the sounds stopped, and Saf let himself take a breath. But then the footsteps resumed, quicker, and heading in his direction still, judging by the sound. Saf couldn’t think of anything better to do than remain as he was, however little it actually hid him. Running would give away his presence for sure.

The footsteps kept getting closer. Saf’s heartbeat pounded in his ears. A hooded figure had entered the hallway crossing just ahead. All they needed to do was turn around and they would see him, splayed against the wall like a swatted insect.

A resin bubble burst with a pop in a nearby torch. Fuck. The hood-wearer swung automatically, searching out the noise. Fuck.

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The first thing Saf noticed was the sword gripped in the man’s hand. The second thing he noticed was that the man was Young Henerick. It’s him. He’s going to kill me.

Saf spun around as Young Henerick shouted something he couldn’t make out. All at once, a huge, general pain burst throughout Saf’s body. It felt like one of the mind-tortures of the mages. Nothing natural could be that sudden, that complete, and that total. Despite willing himself with every bit of his being to run, Saf’s body crumpled to the ground. The flare of pain had faded almost as quickly as it had come, replaced with a weakness and nausea. That’s it. I’m done.

Saf reopened his eyes, expecting to see a swordpoint. Maybe even a swordpoint in motion. swinging towards his throat. But to Saf’s bewilderment, he was in his sleeping chambers. Divia, Tammus, Ulliam, and Ahera slept peacefully. Shaking, Saf snuffed out the torch, which had ended up on the ground next to him, and got back under his blankets.

I hope to Aminingi he didn’t see my face. There he was praying to Aminingi again. Somehow it felt like the trickster god was the only suitable benefactor for sneaking around at night.

What just happened to me? He couldn’t have been taken back in time, and it couldn’t have been a dream, because he still had the torch and his fingers were still wet from the water in the kitchen. I just.. moved. Was it.. the Mark? He wasn’t quite comfortable yet with the word “Mark”. Is it possible? Marks were.. for Mages. Part of another world. For the people he knew, just seeing a Mark on someone else was a story to be told for a lifetime. Old Arran had seen a Battle Mage in action during the Garramanian Wars, and he told that story so powerfully and emotionally that Saf thought the story might be retold even beyond his lifetime.

Saf let the word “Mark” roll around a bit in his head. He sighed. He could tell he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night.

*****

When he heard the bustle of the early-rising kitchen servants in the hallways, Saf decided it was alright to get up. He had tried to sleep, as best he could, for a few hours. Light was streaming into the room from the couple of small holes high on the wall.

Divia, Ahera, and the twins would be up too soon. Not many servants were allowed to sleep much past dawn. Could he show them what was happening to him? Mina had said, “do not show or tell anyone whom you do not absolutely trust.” If he couldn’t trust them, he really couldn’t trust anyone. Still, he made sure not to wake them as he left the room.

Walking to the kitchens to find Mina, he kept having the bizarre urge to pat his wool tunic to make sure it still covered his back. He passed a servant-girl, Vikka, who gave him a friendly “Hullo!”

But every time Saf made eye contact it only left him more skittish, as if someone might see through his shirt and demand an explanation.

Saf heard Mina, shouting at the girls in the kitchen, before he saw her.

“Hurry it!”

“What are you yawning about, young woman?”

“These pots should be cleaned so shiny you can see your ugly mug in the bottom!”

Saf spotted her barking commands at her harried underlings from the opposite corner of the kitchen as he squeezed in past a girl on her way out. The girl waddled under the weight of a steaming pot of porridge, yelping as they nearly collided. Mina noticed him right away. He could see a look of worry flit across her face, before her usual steely countenance returned.

“Ah Saf, boy, come with me.”

She led him back out of the room. One of the scullions spilled some water from a pan as they passed. Saf winced, thinking of the hard work it took to bring water up to the castle. Mina launched into one of her typical upbraidings:

“If you waste any more water we’ll be replacing it with your tears!”

But Saf could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She was distracted by what she knew he was about to tell her.

In an alcove in the hallway he told her about his last night, omitting the run-in with Young Henerick. There’s no way she’ll believe that. He needed real proof if he was going to accuse the knight. Otherwise, Mina and everyone else would see it as an extension of the badwill from the training fight.

Mina didn’t seem to question why his powers would have kicked in at a random moment in the hallway in the dead of night. She had enough to think about.

“It could be some other magic, some intruder that did it to you. I don’t know, I can’t think why.”

She was uncharacteristically pensive. Most of the time, Mina knew the right answer immediately and let you know it.

“Come on. Let’s take a look at that back of yours.”

Mina led him on once more, up the tight circular staircase in the southwest corner of the castle. The noisy bustle of the servants going about their work on the ground floor faded as they stepped out into a carpeted corridor. Dusty tapestries hung on the walls. Mina guided him through an open door into a chamber more luxurious than any he had ever seen.

Morning light shafted in through glass windows. Real glass! Deep green drapes had been cinched up, away from the windows, against frescoed walls. Chests and bookcases and shelves of dark wood filled the room. A scroll with strange symbols lay pinned open on a wide writing desk. Saf would have loved to examine the ornamental set of armor or the tiny curiosities on the shelves, but Mina steered him towards a mirror, set in a bronze frame with stylized vine tendrils that crept onto the glass surface.

From the second doorway, the one they hadn’t come through, Saf could hear a man humming.

“Morning Bella!” came Sir Henerick’s voice. So this is what a lord’s chambers are like.

Mina grimaced. “It’s Mina!”

“Ah, so it is.” The old man strode out of his bedchamber, his jaw freshly shaven, and greeted Mina and Saf politely. If he bore any ill will to Saf for Saf’s underhanded attack on his son, Sir Henerick hid it well.

As the knight left to begin his day Saf couldn’t help wondering at how much respect he afforded his housemistress. And he had never heard of this “Bella” either.

Saf took off his shirt and reenacted the awkward twisting motion he had perfected during the night. This time, with a real mirror, and the overnight transformation complete, the image was much clearer.

Three distinct tattoos in hexagon shapes covered his back. Tiled against each other, they formed a rough triangle, stretching from his right shoulder blade down to his lower back and across to a midpoint on his left side. The upper right Mark showed some sort of red snake or dragon twisting over and under a warren of geometric black shapes. The beast was eating its own tail. The geometric shapes mesmerized Saf. It seemed like he might find some pattern if he stared hard enough, but no such pattern emerged.

The lower right tattoo showed a golden eye in a green triskelion against a pale blue background flecked with gold.

The final tattoo, on the left, consisted mainly of seemingly random lines connecting little black circles. A tiny key in an open palm lay in the right side closest to the other hexagons.

Saf and Mina stared for a long time. Mina was the first to speak.

“Marks.” Awe dripped from her voice.