Chapter Nine #4
stop them. “It was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
She blinked, startled.
“I’m not trying to be flattering,” he added. “Just painfully
honest.”
She continued to stare. It occurred to him,
suddenly, that she was looking at him as if he’d said something strange,
something beyond the pale of normal interaction, and he had a panicked thought
that he was being wrong again.
He knew what happened when he was wrong.
“I mean, I’ve always known that I was horribly ignorant,”
Isaac said, feeling a very sudden rush in his chest, as if something had
finally uncorked and was now flooding through his mouth, unable to be stopped.
“I’ve never had much common experience. Books have always been my only
reference for much of anything that people take as fundamental. I thought I
could be satisfied with my training, my duty, and—and—and I convinced myself
that my father’s life was worth the discipline and pain and restraint and seclusion.
It was all I could do because my life has never been my choice to live. But I
never—it never occurred—”
He fumbled his words, feeling her gaze on him.
“I never truly understood the profundity of my ignorance
until . . . what happened in the chapel.” He got mad at himself. “Sex. It was
sex. The sex changed my perspective. It was like—like
gaining a new sense of reality. It was like becoming truly aware of myself.
Like every moment before then was just shadow, and having sex was my first time
seeing color.”
His words came faster.
“I feel aware now. Truly aware. I want to experience more.
More of everything. More life. I want to travel the world, I want to
laugh, I want to cry, I want to speak to so many people, I want to accomplish
all the dreams I’ve always had, I want to not feel punished for having dreams
at all, I want to do what I want, I—I—I—” He couldn’t get the words out
strong enough. “I want everything. You know? I want.”
“Isaac,” Zaria said, her grip soft on his arm.
He flinched, realizing how long he’d been talking, the
volume of his voice, how poorly he must appear. Suddenly, all his words seemed
painfully wrong. “Sorry, sorry, forget I—”
“Isaac,” she said. “Are you sayin’ I fucked you so hard it
made you rethink your entire life?”
“Yes, actually.”
She blinked a few times, her expression slowly changing.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling horribly seen and vulnerable.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—forget I said anything, I don’t—”
She tugged him a little closer. “No one’s ever been nice to
you before, have they?”
He tried to answer. The words did not come.
“Not properly, I mean. No love or care.” She searched his face. “Nothing but a cane.”
A knot was rising in his throat. He knew the pain was
coming. That’s all that ever happened. Any time he spoke of himself, any time
he ever hoped. . . .
“You ever had someone tell you you’re good enough?”
He looked down. His face was burning.
She leaned in close. “Have you had a hard life, Isaac?”
The tears came before he could stop them. He tried to pull
away, tried to run and hide, but she came forward, and her arms wrapped around
him, and she pressed him to herself, her fur warm and soft, her chin resting on
his head, and she held him gently and completely.
It was the first time anyone had hugged him before.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling small and afraid. “I’m sorry, I’m
sorry—please don’t—I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said.
And he wept on her shoulder, hugging her back with all his
strength, crying louder than he had ever dared before, crying with such a sense
of freedom that it only caused him to cry all the harder, her presence of
safety and warmth making him despair at all that he had never known, all that
had been denied him, and his tears came in such a flood that it felt like he
had saved them his entire life.
Far below the earth, in a lost city of the dead, he hugged
her, and she hugged him back, and for a time he did not worry of punishment.
He was not sure when he stopped crying. Time did not seem to
matter. The pale light did not shift. Nothing moved in the city. When he became
aware of himself, he rested his head against the crook of her neck, letting the
tears dry on his face.
“I’m so sorry, love,” she whispered in his ear. “I was
wrapped in my own concern. I lost my temper. I never meant to hurt you.”
He pulled back enough to meet her gaze. “It’s fine. Really.
Don’t—”
“Isaac, for fuck’s sake, stop apologizing. Stick up
for yourself.” She gave him a few slaps on the cheek, her paw pads like worn
leather. “Call me names. Spit in my face. You’ve been doin’ that well enough.”
He wiped his face, taking a deep breath through a raw
throat. “I meant what I said. What happened in the chapel—it was the best thing
that’s ever happened to me. It made me aware of all that I never knew, and all
that I want. You know, I—I liked it. I liked it a lot.
I’m glad it happened.”
She gazed into his eye, unsure of what to say.
“Of course,” he said, “you should’ve fucking untied me.”
She began to laugh.
“Truly,” he continued, “now that we’re on the subject, have
I heard any appreciation, for anything? ‘Oh, Isaac, thanks for rescuing me.
Thanks for giving me all the treasure. Thanks for protecting me from a
necromancer’s thralls.’ No, nothing. You—you—” He looked at her. “You fucking
pirate.”
She released her grip on him. “Okay, love. Point taken.”
“No,” he said, “you stupid bandit, I’ve risked my life
several times over for you, and I will hear some gods-damned thankfulness.”
She gave a small bow. “My brave squire. Couldn’t ask for
better.”
He retreated to his knees. “No. You know what? I care
nothing for the opinions of common thugs. I am beyond such concerns.”
“Oh, aye. Clearly. Made for better things.”
“Yes. Better things! Warlock at Arms! Chancellor of the
Spheres! Oh, the nations of the Diet will have no choice but to name me Archon,
mark me clearly!”
“Head so up your arse,” Zaria said, “you’ll taste your
breakfast.”
He got back to his feet, feigning a prideful look. “Keep to
your corner tonight, pirate. I expect no funny business.”
She returned a salute. “Oh, aye there, captain. You know me.
Prim and proper, as always.”
He met her gaze, and, for just a moment, he thought he would
find something hidden under the surface. He imagined some mockery held behind
the eye. He looked for a grimace on the edge of her snout. He waited for the
slightest hint of rejection, something that would betray her true inner
feeling, the reality that he was a wretched creature that could only be
tolerated, never enjoyed.
But he saw nothing. Zaria was looking at him with her usual
cocky expression. She flicked her head over to his blanket across the
watchtower. He looked away, felt himself smile, and moved back to his resting
spot.
He lay down on the blanket and looked up at the glowing rib
cage. He felt the heavy silence of the dead city around him. He imagined the
ancient sorceress further down the cavity of the giant corpse, raising more
thralls and abominations in response to their intrusion. He thought of his
father trapped somewhere in her lair. He wondered if he would still resemble
all the portraits he had seen of him.
“We’re not normal people, are we?” Isaac asked, suddenly.
“You said so, earlier.”
Zaria snorted. “Is that what you’ve always wanted?”
“Yes,” he said. “Always.”
She leaned onto her side, cheek in a palm. “Isaac, be
honest—would you have been happy shoveling shit and tilling fields? Would you
want to spend all your life on the same few acres of farm, hoping not to get
blight on your crops?”
He thought about it. “Probably not, no.”
“You think other people like being normal? You don’t think
they imagine knights and royalty and magic, too?”
“What do knights and royalty imagine, then?”
She shrugged. “Probably the deeds of some better knight.
They probably think how much more gold that king over yonder has in his palace.
If they’re real out of touch, they probably think that growing crops is some
noble callin’, much the same as you. People just want what they don’t have.”
He scratched at his bandages. “Is it ever possible to stop
wanting?”
“Why would you want to?”
“Because wanting just leads to suffering.”
“If you don’t want,” Zaria said, “then you’re not living,
far as I’m concerned. Life’s got too much to offer for you to spend it feeling
sorry about what’s gone or what never was.”
“It’s not that easy to let things go.”
“Oh, course not, love, but life wouldn’t be worth living if
that were so. Pleasure would mean nothing if you’d never known pain.” There was
a pause. “Truth is, I like being alive. Suffering and all. Won’t die with no
regrets, but I’m starting to think no one ever does.”
They lay in silence for a while.
“Isaac,” she said. “Thanks for mixing your herbs. I feel
better now than I have in days. Weeks, really.”
He had used many of his most important reagents. It was
likely that he would be unable to craft any other potions, should the need
arise.
“Sure,” he said. “Happy to help.”
They lay in silence again. Isaac tried to calculate the
dimensions of each of the giant ribs. A single one could’ve walled a village.
He tried to imagine what was causing the cartilage to glow as it was. He wanted
to climb up to the top of the body cavity and walk along the ribs and gaze down
at the necropolis and see it as no one had seen it
before.
“Hey,” he said. “What’re you going to do with your half of
the treasure?”
“Ain’t you worried I’ll stab you for it?”
“I just assumed the stabbing would be for some other
reason.”
“Wise of you.” There was a pause. “I’m gonna learn to read.”
He glanced over at her. “Really?”
“First thing on the docket, once I’m outta the waste.”
“Any reason why?”
She blew a raspberry. “Oh, none at all. Proud of my
ignorance, really. I love having to ask direction while standing next to a
sign. Warms my heart when I’m cheated for not reading a contract.” Her face was
held in profile, staring up at the cartilage light. “My father always promised
that’s what he’d do for me, the second he was able. Every time I handed him a
bag of coin, he’d go off about me attending some academy in the upper districts
so I wouldn’t have to pinch off the streets. Make something better of myself.
Always wondered what might’ve happened, if things had been different. Who I
could’ve been.”
“Are you doing it for him?”
“In some way, sure. Not all of it. It’s like—” She waved a
hand in the air. “It’s like you said, actually. I don’t know what I don’t know.
My ignorance is such that I don’t even have a true notion of it. Right? That’s
what you said?”
“More or less.”
“How can I be better if I don’t know better? How can I be
something other than a pirate if I don’t have no other talents? My lack of
letters has restricted me my whole life. Even now, it’s a struggle to fix my
words to my feelings ‘cause I don’t have the words themselves.” She paused.
“You tell me, Isaac. Is there a word for something . . . not becoming?
Something that never got the chance to exist?”
“Unrealized,” Isaac said.
“Could you . . . write that down for me?”
He ripped off part of his bandages, grabbed some charcoal
from his pack, wrote the word as legibly as he could, and handed it to her. She
looked down at the torn bandage, blinking.
“That’s it, then,” she said. “I want to learn my letters
because I don’t want to be ‘unrealized’. I want to have potential. I want to
steer the course of my life clear as I can. I want the tools to figure out what
I want in the first place. You get my meaning?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know exactly what you mean. I feel the
same way.”
“Never wanted to be a pirate, myself. Did you want to be a
mage?”
“I wasn’t given the choice.”
“And you never understood what you were missing, did you?”
“Not really, no.”
“Do you know better now?”
“Maybe. I’m starting to think I won’t ever know enough.”
“Will that stop you from trying to change?”
“No,” Isaac said. “It won’t.”
“I think we’re kindred souls, then.”
He didn’t answer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her
stare at the bandage again, trying to mouth out the syllables to the word,
connecting sound to letters. After a minute, she folded the bandage and tucked
it into a pocket at her waist.
“Gonna turn in now. You certain that spell will keep the
monsters out?”
“We’ll be fine. We don’t need to post watch.”
She paused. “You sure?”
“I promise.”
There was another pause.
“As you say, then. I’ll trust your judgement.” Zaria wrapped
the white blanket around her chest, closing her eyes. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he replied.
He lay there on the stone, staring up at the giant rib cage.
After a while, Zaria began to snore. He listened to it for a time. It no longer
annoyed him. In fact, it was a constant reminder that she was there, beside
him. Some time later, he closed his eyes, and he fell
asleep at once.
His dreams were vivid and wild.