Longing Ring

7

The memory of the nightmare is slight. Not as horrible as what is to come, but all connected somehow, a thread in the web of despair. A little matter, really. Probably not worthy of being relegated to the realm of nightmares. But there it is. He is four. The thing in the corner has not yet arrived His mother is alive. His father happy.

His mother speaks to him one day when his father is gone. He is her pride, yes. She can show him off to the neighbors, yes. He is facile with language. "Just like his father,”

everyone says, smiling. So happy.

"Be careful," his mother warns. Her face is serious. "Don't be like your father. People will expect too much. Don it speak so much. Don't show them how clever you are. "

Yet she continues to show him off, and he is expected to perform. When speaking to others, if he says the wrong thing — and he never knows what that might be-she looks down. Frowns. He is always disappointing her. He doesn't know why. Everyone else thinks him so clever.

When they are alone, she looks at him and sighs. He turns away. He wants to do the right thing, but does not know what that is.

One day she stares at him for a long time. "You're just like your father," she says quietly, hopeless.

He stared at the remarkable sight before him, not listening to a single word he was babbling. The road had not been there before. He would have seen it. It glowed. Tears formed in his eyes, and he did not know why. Was it the magic of the ring? The longing was strong within him now, stronger than it had been at any time since he'd worn the ring. The road was of course tied to the city, and the city was the source of the longing.

But no. The tears were for something else. For his father. Here, right before him, something so strange and marvelous. He wished his father could be beside him to see it.

Though Bevarden had spoken of many miraculous things, he'd spoke of them only through the memories of others. But he too had known a longing-to actually see the magic of the world- the extraordinary. Everything had gone- wrong, though, back at the kaer. First with his mother, and now …

J'role wished his father could see it.

A road of starlight. It was the kind of thing Bevarden always suggested they would find together.

He turned toward Garlthik, wanting to wake the ork up and show him.

Then he turned back toward the road. Could he show the ork the road? He fought down the ring's power to make him keep longing for the city, and pulled the ring off The road vanished. The barren lowlands again became mundane and stark.

J'role nearly cried out with excitement. But years of training had taught him not to speak out spontaneously, and the creature's warmth in his thoughts always kept the need for silence immediate.

He rushed over to Garlthik to shake the ork awake. When J'role was within five feet of the fire Garlthik suddenly rolled over and sprang up, sword drawn, eye alert and startled.

J'role stopped dead.

"Spirits, boy! Don't ever do that. Not unless you want to be able to carry your head in your hands." The ork looked around, seeking possible enemies, then relaxed. "What is it now? Don't you need sleep like the rest of us?"

J'role pointed toward where he had seen the road, then held out the ring in his other hand.

The ork lost his indignant manner and eyed J'role carefully. "Something about the ring?

The city?"

J'role nodded excitedly, then started walking toward the rocks where he'd seen the road.

Garlthik followed.

When they reached the rocks where J'role had seen the road, J'role swept his hand through: the air, gesturing to something out in the darkness.

"Is the city out there?" the ork asked.

J'role shook his head, and handed Garlthik the ring. The ork took it and said, ' You want me to put it on?" J'role nodded. "Ah, don't know about that. It hurts to wear the ring. A sweet hurt, but a hurt nonetheless.”

J 'role simply stared at Garlthik.

"All right."

The ork slipped the ring onto one of his large fingers. Immediately a strange expression shrouded his face; his body shook slightly and the shoulders slumped forward, as if an old wound had suddenly opened. J'role became apprehensive, wondering if the ork was in pain. Then Garlthik gave a strange smile-almost like a frown, but happy enough to be different. He sighed, his eye closed tight.

J'role tugged on Garlthik's arn. The ork opened his eye, and looked toward where J'role pointed.

A pause, and then Garlthik asked with a breathy voice, "Should I see something?"

A panic seized J'role. Had he imagined the road? He looked out across the starlit land. Of course, he saw nothing. With a sudden lurch he fumbled at Garlthik's hand for the ring.

He had to put it back on, to be sure. The ork immediately pulled his hand away. "No, no.

Just … Let … Feel it…”

Knowing he could not force Garlthik to give him the ring, J'role simply waited as the ork stared up at the sky. He thought hey saw a single tear appear under the ork's good eye, a soft and small object that seemed incongruous with the ork's rough, bulky body.

After many minutes Garlthik's body twisted harshly and he began to gasp for air. He put his hands together and wrenched the ring from his finger, throwing it to the ground. J'role grabbed it and held it tight in his hands as the ork doubled over, breathing heavily. “Oh, please, oh, please," Garlthik said over and over.

As he held the ring in his hand, J'role was amazed to realize how small it was. It fit him perfectly, and yet it had also fit Garlthik's finger, easily twice as big ask any of J'role's.

Could the ring change size? Starlight glinted off the silver as the ring rested in J'role's palm, and he saw clearly that the ring could not possibly have fit any of Garlthik's massive fingers at its current size.

The ring wanted people to be able to wear it. It wanted everyone to be able to wear it.

He turned back to where he'd seen the road earlier and slipped the ring on his finger.

The road appeared, glowing like a river burning with white fire.

Knowing he would never be able to make Garlthik understand what he saw, J'role leaped onto the rocks and then over them, funning down the long hillside toward me road.

“Wait, boy!" Garlthik cried with a gasp. J'role could hear a strain in the ork's voice.

"Wait!"

J'role did not. Either the ork would follow him or he would not.

Garlthik did follow. But J'role had enough of a head start that the ork never caught up.

J'role ran and ran, continuing for fifteen minutes, and then another thirty. The cool night air washed over his skin, the shining road stretching out ahead like the- finish line of a race. His heart pounded with effort and exuberance. He spoke all the while, describing carpets that floated through the air and beautiful gowns and robes worn by all the citizens of the strange and miraculous city.

Finally, with his lungs raw from the effort of running and talking, he reached the road. Its brilliance against the darkness of night blinded him at first, and it took several moments for him to look directly at it. Made of thick slabs of stone, it stretched off to the east and west. J'role walked up to the edge of the road and touched his fingertips to one of the stones.

The stone felt only slightly cooler than the air, and then J'role realized that his fingers had actually passed through the surface of the stone, vanishing slightly into the white glow.

He pulled his hand out quickly.

Behind him came Garlthik, gasping for breath. "What are you …?" he began. "Whats gotten into you, lad?" He staggered up to where J'role knelt and walked right through the stones of the road.

J'role looked up at the ork, startled. Could the road still be invisible this close? He removed the ring from his-finger, and immediately pain cut through his mouth from the incessant talking he'd done while running.

The road vanished.

He rubbed his jaw with one hand, holding the ring out to Garlthik with the other. He didn't think Garlthik would see anything — the ork had already suggested that there was a special connection between J'role and city. Maybe he could see things Garlthik could not when he wore the ring.

Garlthik took the ring. "What is it? What is it?'

J 'role gestured up and down the road. The ork looked in either direction. "I don't see. ."

J'role jumped up and jabbed his finger at the ring in Garlthik's hand. "I don't know,"

Garlthik said. "Not again, not now."

J'role slammed his open hands against Garlthik's chest.

The ork half-smiled, half-staggered back. "All right, all right." He slipped the ring on his finger, sighed as before, then gave a harsh gasp. Though J'role could not see the road any longer, he knew Garlthik was looking in the direction it lay "A road," Garlthik said, "a ruined road."

The momentary Joy slid to confusion. Ruined road?

"How did you see this from back there?" Garlthik asked. 'The stones are barely visible in the dirt." Then he saw J'role's confusion, struggled with his desires for a moment, then pulled the ring off. He looked at the empty ground. "You did see it, didn't you? A road?"

J'role nodded, but his face betrayed frustration. The two of them began an awkward exchange of words and gestures, each one trying to explain to the other what he had seen.

J'role quickly grasped that Garlthik had seen only the ruins of a great road. But he could not communicate to Garlthik that he had seen more than that. A road, yes. But whole and magical. They eventually gave up, not a little annoyed with each other.

"Well, a road, at least," said Garlthik. "At least we agree on that."

J’role nodded.

They continued on their way for three more days, taking turns wearing the ring and following the road, both ruined and whole. They came near several small villages much like J'role's, but they stayed clear of them. Garlthik had lost all his money when Slinsk searched his pockets, and so they had no means to purchase food. "People won't trust us unless we show money," Garlthik said. "If we had some, we'd be as good as family."

Their hunger increased daily, for the brown landscape yielded little sustenance. Although J'role had been hungry in the past, he'd always known that if things got too bad, someone-if only Brandson-would notice and give him some food. And if that failed, he could sneak into someone else's food stock to steal some rice and corn and berries.

Still despite the lack of food, J 'role's spirits remained high. As he continued to walk, the hunger transformed from a sensation of lack to a sensation of cleansing, as if the emptiness let him carry only himself and nothing more.

And he wrestled with the mystery of the road; why did each of them see something else?

Were they seeing the road at different times-J'role's view from the past, Garlthik's from the present? But the present view was that there was no road at all. Could it be that each saw what he wanted to find? Garlthik would be pleased to find a ruined city, empty, with treasure waiting. J'role wanted a living city, filled with; wizards who could remove the thing from his thoughts.

He did not know. It all made no sense.

As he had promised, Garlthik began J'role's apprenticeship as a thief adept. At first the ork's words confused J'role, for he expected Garlthik to speak of weaving magic spells or the careful ways one could sneak about, and insted the lessons consisted only of the ork rattling on about what an adept's talents were not. J'role thought that Garlthik was simply stalling, not wanting to teach him true magic at all. But he had no means to protest, and did not know what he would say if he could, so he listened. And slowly, because he could not express his impatience, he began to learn.

"A magician weaves spells. An adept does not," said Garlthik, his attention caught for a moment by a flock of birds, no more than dots, cutting across the blue sky. J'role thought he could hear their contented cries as they moved together in elegant flight. "Magicians write down their intricate, arcane works in grimoires. We do not. Magicians are trapped by their pasts as they create elaborate preparations for the future. We are not. We," he said as the flesh of his cheeks rolled back, revealing his astounding smile, “ find the magic, right where it is, at that moment, and letting ourselves go in that moment, float upon the magic."

J'role looked up at Garlthik, startled. He lifted his hand, palm down and fingers spread, and let it move up and down, like a bird floating on the wind.

"Yes. Strange, isn't it? Or so it seemed to me too, when I was a lad your age." Garlthik paused, just a half-beat, looking down at J'role with a sudden, tiny flash of sadness. Then he smiled. "But it's true. The magic is all around us. But most folks don't think in terms of the moment. They don't know how to let themselves respond to what's happening to them-right then and right there. And that's the adept's secret. Not much of a secret, actually. Most of them will flap their lips about it to anyone who will listen-a bad idea, I think. But there it is."

They walked on in silence for a few minutes as Garlthik searched for the right words.

"Now don't get me wrong. Magic doesn't just happen. Paying attention to the world is work, and every so often it makes sense to study something in detail. Like the rope Slinsk and Phlaren tied me up with. That was a mistake on their part. I knew that rope well-I studied all the rope we had when we were working together, just in case something like that should come up. I knew my hands, I knew the rope, so in that moment, even though I couldn't see my hands, could feel barely anything but pain from the broken arm tied around my back, I was able to know exactly what to do to free myself. I knew how the rope met my hands, knew just how-to tug it, knew just how much pressure was needed at each moment, all because I knew that rope so well.

"Anyway, that's why a metalsmith is so good. He gets to know the metal before he works it. Or the archer who floats on the magic. He knows his bow inside and out. Knows every nick and exactly how it's balanced. When he draws an arrow into it, he's got something a regular archer doesn't have: the feel of the world binding his hands to the wood of the bow, the bow against the air, and the air against his hands. It's all connected. There are good archers, but none are so good as those who know the magical side of whatever they're in contact with. That is, archer adepts. And we, lad, will be a pair of thief adepts."

And so it went. At first Garlthik spoke little of thieving itself. He tossed out ideas about the world and magic over and over again, all strange at first, but easier to understand upon each hearing.

One morning J'role woke before Garlthik. Rather than wake the ork, he stood and turned slowly around. A breeze touched him. He looked down and saw how many shapes and sizes of grains of dirt-made up the ground on which he stood. All rested against each other, an impossibly enormous number of them, on and on forming the land that stretched out forever and ever, wrapping itself around the world, all flowing beyond his vision, but all connected, oddly, to the very spot where he stood. "So," he thought to himself, "this is magic."

Toward evening they saw a village ahead. Like J'role's village, it was surrounded by farmland-patches of green that radiated out in wider and wider arcs, forcing their way into the brown and dry lands beyond. A small river ran beside the village, and a large mill rested on it, its water wheel turning steadily and slowly.

"We'll be staying there tonight."

J'role held up a palm, empty.

"Not to worry, lad. I've still got this." The ork leaned down and slid a wad of thick black clay off the edge of his boot sole, revealing a small compartment. J'role caught a glimpse of silver. Then Garlthik sent one of his fingers into the hole and fished out a small stone, no bigger than a fingertip. It was cut with several facets that caught the sunlight and turned the light silver and blue. The sight transfixed J'role; never had he seen anything so beautiful.

"My first haul," said Garlthik wistfully. "A diamond … You've never seen one before, have you? Beautiful stones. Stole it from a merchant in a citadel far south of here. The old man who taught me to steal, he told me to get it. It marked me. We'll use it to get lodging and food tonight."

He started down the slope leading to the village, but J'role caught the ork's arm and stopped him. The boy shook his head. He didn't want Garlthik selling his beautiful stone for the comfort of lodging and food. He patted his stomach and shook his head again, then pointed further along the route they had been traveling.

Garlthik laughed. "Don't worry about it, lad. It's something I want to do." He looked down at the stone. "It was ridiculous for me to keep it all these years. Not like me at all.

An adept's got to be true to himself, J'role. If you don't behave as you truly are, the magic will know. It'll turn you out. This … This has been a bit of vanity. I'd never hold on to something like this. It's as if I was waiting for something to go wrong, keeping a little extra hidden away just in case. Well, my boy, I’m not a 'just in case' ork. I either make it or I don't. So let's go spend it now and get it over with. We'll have a roof over our heads, some good food in our bellies and supplies for the rest of the trip. If they've any pack animals to spare, they'll be ours as well."

They went down to the village, meeting a few stares from farmers along the way, and even more when they reached the village proper. It occurred to J'role that almost everyone they'd seen in the villages they passed had been human. Remembering how strange Garlthik's appearance had seemed to him at first, J'role wondered what it was like to be Garlthik, alone in a world of staring eyes. And then he realized with a start that outcast and alone was exactly the way he'd lived his own life. Until now.