Longing Ring

16

He is silent. His mother extends one arm the glint of the blade hidden behind her back in her other hand. Months have gone by since the thing entered his head. His mother asked him to speak to her. He thought it was dangerous, but she asked him to do it, and he did.

Over the many weeks a strange look entered her eyes. She became nervous. Often she stared at the walls, her attention frozen by the sight of something only she could see.

Nothing could bring her out of these spells. His father sometimes asked J'role if he knew what was bothering his mother but he only shrugged He knew it was his voice that had altered her mind; he felt miserable about it. He was driving her mad.

Night.

Above, the shadows of leaves. The last songs of birds. Thousands of insects chirping as one. The Blood Wood a single, giant animal breathing in and out.

The shadows of night and loneliness passed over him, seeping into his flesh. J'role felt the magic that bound the world arcing through his body and out into the dirt of the pit. The magic spun outward, into the dirt beneath the whole of Blood Wood, and beyond that, in all directions, out into the world. Where he stood at that moment connected to the kaer where he had grown up, to the room where he had slept as a boy, to the burial pit that held his mother. The world itself formed a tapestry showing his life frozen at that moment.

Releana stepped up to him. She had a spell, she said, that would help him climb better.

Though he was only a beginning thief, such a spell would augment his thief adept talents and perhaps give him the skill he needed to get out of the pit.

She took his hands in hers and very softly spoke the words of a spell. The words were in a language J'role did not understand, but in their sounds he heard deep age. She was tapping into the magic of the world, but in a different way than he could. He could only use magic to be a thief, and use it in a way the world allowed. Releana could take the magic and shape it to her own desires. As she spoke, her face became intent and thoughtful.

A tingle passed up through his fingertips, along his wrists, and through his arms. The strange sensation-like being air, J’role thought-spread through his body. Leaving him giddy. He smiled. Releana saw this and smiled back. Her pudgy hands felt warm and reassuring in his his chest suddenly felt empty, as if ready to be filled with a new life. He swallowed. Releana wasn't at all the kind of girl he'd ever thought attractive. She had neither the slender beauty of the elf queen nor the thorns that had somehow drawn him to the elf's touch.

Releana was plain by comparison. But good.

Was that enough? To be drawn to someone who was good?

She let go of his hands.

He looked up at the pit opening, sensed all the parts that made it; the connections between the grains of the dirt, the grains that made up the clumps of dirt, the clumps that made up sections of the wall, the sections that made up the pit. All pulsed in its walls like veins filled with blood.

He pressed his hand to the wall. The thief magic helped him know exactly where to put his fingers now; he sensed which part of the wall would give way and which would not.

Releana's magic made him more nimble and light; he could feel it in his muscles and bones.

He poked the toes of his right foot into the dirt then reached high above his head with his left hand, finding a spot to brace the weight of his body. A gasp came from Releana as he hoisted himself up and began to climb the wall. He moved like a light breeze.

His long limbs, once so ugly to him, thin, like a spider's, he now saw as good. The muscles strong, thanks to Releana's magic. His flesh taut, thanks to his hunger, with no excess weight to hinder his progress up the wall. A new way of seeing himself, a climber of walls. Successful. His body helped him.

Good.

He glanced up. A few feet above were roots growing from the wall of the pit. Already he saw them shift slightly; snakes ready to strike, awaiting their prey. Their slight shifts of preparation sank through the dirt of the pit walls and up through J’role’s fingertips. Their tiny tremors pierced his sense of touch as sharply as shimmering starlight reflected off the stones of a stream. He stopped for a moment, taking it all in-it being the world, the sensations, his own body. The world of his youth now seemed so far away. Once, a long time ago, so much longer than the few days that had actually passed, he had been alone, trapped forever, in the village outside his kaer. Now…

Now what?

He wasn't.

Now he was a thief using magic to escape the elf queen's pit in Blood Wood.

He looked up, mapped out a path along the pit wall. He could see it all so clearly now. It would be hard. But now he could see the best path-how to avoid most of the roots, which portions of the wall would hold strongest. He might not make it. But then again he might.

A slightly longer intake of breath, just before he began. He'd have to move fast. .

In some far corner of his thoughts he barely remembered his father. And the girl-what was her name? What could either one give J'role that he wanted?

Up.

His fingers dug deep into the dirt, so cold and damp. The dirt began to give way, his hand slipping out of the wall. But it was all right. He threw his other hand up and then dug his feet into the wall. Even as his new position began to crumble, his hands and feet scrambled for new holds in the wall.

The roots came at him, sending tremors up his muscles like an earthquake. Thwap! The tip of a root slammed at the side of his head. Bits of dirt smacked his face. More roots came for him. The cacophony of sounds and the tumble of motion from the roots-all augmented by the magic- confused him, nearly sending him falling away from the wall and back down into the pit.

But the thief magic came to him, a friend, draping its shadow arm over his shoulder and pointing to the wall. Focus, it seemed to say, but speaking through his muscles and not through his thoughts.

He scrambled.

Roots nipped at his heels. Bits of bark cut across his face. Before he even knew what was happening, a sharp sting passed over the back of his hand, and J'role knew that a root had drawn blood.

But none had caught him. He moved too fast for that. He dodged one way, then another.

Rarely did he move horizontally in trying to evade the roots. Always up. He knew the way to go, and the girl's magic helped keep him moving quickly. Each inspiration for movement came to him as needed, quickly replaced by the next.

It all ended much more quickly than he would have thought.

His hands clutching at the lip of the pit, J'role hauled himself up, staying flat against the ground. The darkness of night covered him like a thick blanket.

His breathing came quickly, less from strain than excitement. He tried to remember what had just happened, and the memories seemed distant, as if they'd happened years ago.

He'd been so alive as he'd climbed up the pit wall that memories hadn't time to form.

He looked about and saw a few shadows of people walking about. Elves, he thought at first, but he wasn't sure; perhaps they were the thorn men. Trees towered overhead, and he could make out their leaves shifting in the wind, blocking his view of the stars. Several hundred yards away, at the center of the clearing, he saw the Queen Alachia's castle, gray now in the starlit night, gray like the flesh of a rotting corpse.

He heard nothing from the pit below, but knew that the girl-Releana-was waiting for him to do something. To rescue her and the old man. His father.

He looked about. It seemed safe enough.

But should he? He felt something new twisting inside of him now. Not the creature, which he heard breathing lightly in his thoughts, apparently content that J'role had escaped the pit. Not the thief magic, which of course was telling him to leave the dead weight behind. Releana could come perhaps, for she had something to offer. But his father? His father, the thief magic insisted, was only a burden.

But even beyond the force of the thief magic came a desire to leave his father behind. He did not recognize its source at first, because he'd buried it so long ago. But it came to him as he lay at the edge of the pit, his cheek pressed against the cool dirt. The new thing inside him was, oddly, himself. Smart, strong. Growing. He didn't have to wait on his father. He wanted to test himself against the world without the burden of his father's despair and misery.

He could steal the ring back, travel on his own. Find Throal, somehow. Get the information he needed from the dwarfs. He could save the city. Get his voice back. He didn't need anyone else. The magic would support him. See him through the adventure.

From below came Releana's voice, softly calling for him. "Are you all right?"

Fury cut through J'role. How dare she take the chance of alarming the elves to his escape?

What did she think he was doing?

J'role waved his hand over the top of the pit, signaling her to be quiet. Silence followed.

Now what? Leave them or help them?

"Go," said the creature in his thoughts.

The magic tugged at his muscles. Leave now, it said before he began to feel sorry for his father. His own instincts tumbled. He wanted to be free …

Suddenly an image came to him. It was the two of them: Releana and he walking across a field of grass, the world now regrown and green. They were older. Friends. They'd adventured for many years. Trusted each other. They now wore fine arms and armor.

They topped-a ridge. Below them, a valley, stretching wide. A river wound through it, trees growing as thick as the elves wood. Within the sheltering darkness of the trees might be anything. Monsters, wild tribes of humans and trolls. Ancient ruins. Wealth and treasure and magic waiting to be discovered. Work to be done. And they would do it together. This valley would be their home, theirs to take and conquer. A base from which they would build their stories. Maybe J'role could speak; maybe he couldn't. It didn't matter. Releana didn't care. What mattered was that they had known each other for many years. A friendship forged in the midst of Blood Wood, many years before, when they had first started adventuring…

He pressed his cheek close to the dirt, afraid to think any further. Such a thing …Could he actually have it? He felt tears build lightly in his eyes. He wanted it so much.

His father's stories …

"No;" said the creature. "It is not for you, J'role." Something strange had entered the creature's voice. A touch of sincerity. Accidentally, J'role was sure. It knew something, had secret knowledge; knowledge of J'role's future.

No. Not his future. His heart.

"I want it," he begged the creature.

"Want all you want," the creature said lightly. The mirth came back into its voice, a humor poisoned like standing water. "I do not care, nor does the world. You shall not have what you want. Some people don't get to be happy, J'role. Didn't anybody tell you?

Your father wanted to see the elves. But I don't think these were the circumstances he had in mind."

Fighting for comfort J'role said? "But he did see them…"

"Very well. And you'll find your valley. But don't be surprised if it's littered with the corpses of those you love."

J'role dug his fingers into the dirt. "Stop. Please, stop."

"Go. Leave your father and Releana. They can’t mean anything to you. If they mean something, you'll only lose them. Why risk that pain?"

"I can have them now," J'role thought, and he brought himself up to a crouch, a new resolve entering his spirit, "They can make me happy now." He looked around. He would use a vine to bring them up, but he must keep them safe from the branches. He had to find a way to do that.

"What are you doing?" the creature asked with genuine surprise. "Your father's nothing but dead weight."

J'role's vision flooded red, apache froze. "He is my father!" he thought fiercely. "I want to bring him."

"Where was your father in your fantasy, boy? He didn't have a place in your little adventurers' group. He doesn't have a place in your life.”

"Quiet. ."

"That's right. No place in yours. But you have one in his, don't you? Servant. Wine-bearer. You clean him up when he vomits. You take the blows when he can't abuse himself anymore. ."

J'role fanned fists and punched himself in the face, over and over. Appease the thing.

Beat himself. It loved that. Make it stop talking. Choking back the gasps of pain, he slammed his knuckles again and again into his forehead and cheeks. He felt his face turning red, the dizziness coming over him as he held back his breath and accelerated the pace of the beating. Numb himself. Take all the pain away by rubbing the flesh raw. If there's nothing left that can feel. .

The creature purred.

Enough? What would be enough?

He stopped, fell forward onto the ground, supporting himself on his hands and knees. The ground beneath him rocked like mead in a drunken man's goblet.

No more.

Please.

The creature said nothing. Content. Slumbering, as if sated with a full meal.

J’role raised his head. He heard nothing from the pit bottom, but he knew Releana waited.

He would help, if only not to be alone with the creature.

Finding two long, thick branches, J'role carried them back to the pit, then placed one on top of the other over the pit's mouth. Next he found a sturdy vine long enough to stretch from a nearby tree all the way to the pit bottom. He tied one end of the vine around the tree, and then flung the rest over the crossing point of the two branches. Thus, the vine hung directly down the center of the pit, supported by the branches.

It had taken Releana and J'role hours to work out all the details, J'role using only hand signals and drawing pictures in the dirt, but they had come up with a plan. All he could do now was try.

In the darkness at the base of the pit he saw Releana tying the end of the rope around his father's waist. At her signal, J'role raised his father a few feet. He weighed little and came easily. Below, his father dangled right and then left, hanging from the rope at his waist.

Releana lay down on her back beneath Bevarden. Spreading her arms wide and exhaling forcefully she let out a powerful rush of air. The vine in J'role's hand went suddenly slack as his father rose upward, propelled swiftly by the column of air from Releana's spell.

J'role quickly pulled the vine up, hand over hand, racing to jerk back on the slack.

The next thing J 'role knew Bevarden had slammed into the branches that covered the pit, shooting right past the roots before they had time to grab him. It had worked!

Now all J'role had to do was get his father out of the pit.

The vine was taut, with Bevarden's weight supported by J'role's stiff grip. Soft moans of fear escaped his father's lips as he twirled right and then left, suspended over the dark chasm. The long roots snaked and reached for his father from the wall, but they could not reach him.

J'role let his fingers slide over the vine as he moved back to a tree a few feet behind him.

There he tied the vine so that it held his father in place above the pit. Returning to the pit he clapped his hands softly to get his father's attention. In response Bevarden only whimpered.

Realizing he would get no help from his father, J'role set his mind to coming up with a new plan. A desire to simply run off and leave the useless man hanging began to bubble up in his thoughts, but he forced it away

He realized he could control his father's position by carefully maneuvering the ends of each of the branches supporting him. By sliding two ends toward each other, J'role could move the point where the branches met toward the edge of the pit. As the intersection moved toward the edge, so would the vine, and so would his father.

He set to work, moving each branch closer to the other an inch at a time, fearful that if he moved them too quickly one might roll out of place and send: his father plunging back into the pit. Slowly but surely the intersection of the branches came toward him, and his father's body approached.

Soon Bevarden hung only a foot away, the branches bending low under the uneven distribution of weight. J'role reached out and touched his father's head. Bevarden looked up, saw J'role, and smiled a child's grin. "Son," he said surprising J'role. He'd thought his father couldn't recognize him anymore.

The thin, worn man reached out toward J'role, and his hands felt like well-worn leather.

Too soft. They had the touch of death about them.

J'role helped Bevarden up, led him to a spot a few feet away and sat him down. Bevarden stared at his son, perhaps with pride, but J'role could not be sure. He was no longer able to read his father's face.

Returning to the pit, he lowered the vine to Releana, who waited with arms upraised. She tied the vine to her waist, and then J'role gave it a pull, lifting her a few feet off the ground. Facing down toward the dirt, she spread her arms wide as she had done before, and again exhaled forcefully. Once more, a terrible rush of air expelled from her mouth.

The air crashed into the ground beneath her, spraying wet dirt upward. Then the massive blast of air rebounded straight into Releana, sending her up the pit.

Her ascent was not as vertically straight as Bevarden's had been, and she careened into the pit's wall. Roots lashed out at her and J'role heard her choke back a scream as the vine tugged wildly in his hand. No matter. The force of the air blast kept her moving up the pit, and he continuously hauled in the vine's slack, tossing it behind him as Releana's body raced toward him.

Suddenly the motion stopped and he heard her cry out in pain. Peering over the edge he saw her only a few yards down, hands clinging tightly to the vine. Several roots had wrapped themselves around her legs and waist. On her face was a mixture of pain and fear.

J'role swung around the edge of the pit to get better leverage from the branches. He could no longer see Releana, but he heard her soft whimpers of agony. He pulled as hard as he could but the roots would not give her up.

Again the thoughts came to him. Leave her. What did she mean to him? He had already saved his father. Wasn't that enough?

He almost gave in to the impulse to drop the vine and run off as quickly as possible, when he felt someone come up and grab him from behind. In his surprise J'role jumped and nearly let go of the vine. But then he recognized his father's hands. The hands wrapped themselves around the vine, and close to his ear his father whispered, "I'll…"

The voice trailed off, the thought incomplete. Then Bevarden began to pull, arms wrapped tightly around his son. Together they tugged as hard as they could.

— A shriek came from the pit as the vine suddenly slackened, and J'role realized they had freed Releana from the roots. J'role and Bevarden hauled up on the vine as quickly as they could until Releana's hands came up over the edge of the pit. She climbed up over the edge, her legs bleeding with raw wounds

J'role breathed a sigh of relief.

And then he heard the barking of the dogs.