Chapter 8 Rolan Falls in a Hole
When Rolan woke the next morning, the Arcanist’s chair was empty and Supper was gone. He sat up, blinking sleep from his eyes.
The storm had dissolved. Sunlight poured through the windows, warming the floors. A plate of ham, cheese, and flatbread had been left on the hearth, which Rolan devoured at once.
The big door was open, letting in a cool morning breeze that smelled strange. Sniffing, Rolan realized the earthy, wet, green scent must be the forest, and he grimaced.
“Hello? Luc?”
Padding outside, he stopped in astonishment when he came across a pair of boots by the door.
They were exactly his size and looked sturdy, if slightly worn.
He put them on, wondering where they’d come from.
Maybe the Arcanist had stolen them. Maybe they had belonged to his last “apprentice,” before Luc turned the poor fool into Cryptic bait.
Still. A boot was a boot, and if he left them sitting there, Supper would come along and eat them.
Outside, Rolan got his first look at just where he was.
The Arcanist’s house was bigger than it looked from the inside, with a tall, steeply pointed roof, a crooked chimney, and several outbuildings scattered about.
The land to the west and north was rolling green grassland with sheep and goats milling around, doing sheep and goat things.
To the east and south, the woods loomed like storm clouds, and he couldn’t stare at their shadowy depths for long without feeling ill.
The city was depressingly distant, the walls rising so far to the west that when Rolan lifted his hand, he could obscure it entirely.
It would be a long walk back.
All that connected him to home was a thin dirt trail through the grass. That was the way he’d go. He’d follow that path to the city. Maybe he’d even meet Anaya and Evaine on their way out to Sylvet. Maybe he’d just leave Crisanth behind and go with them.
Hearing a sudden splash, Rolan turned to see the Arcanist standing over a large wooden trough. He was pouring a bucket of water into it. When he noticed Rolan watching, Luc gave the boy a grim nod. He took a bar of soap from his pocket.
Rolan got a queasy feeling.
He eyed the path to the city.
Before he could work up the nerve to run, Luc walked over to him.
He was wearing dark trousers held up by suspenders, and the sleeves of his rough linen shirt were rolled to his ample biceps.
Rolan could not help but stare at the tattoos that swirled over his arms. They were monstrous, literally.
Cryptics curled and clashed and roared on the Arcanist’s skin in vivid, horrible detail.
When his muscles flexed, they seem to come alive, the ink flowing in malevolent lines.
And was it his imagination, or did the tattoos glow faintly?
“What’s the water for?” asked Rolan, dreading the answer.
“You,” grunted Luc.
“I ain’t taking no bath!”
“You aren’t taking a bath,” corrected Luc. “Except you are, because you stink to the skies. When’s the last time you washed?”
“Last month,” lied Rolan. In fact, he couldn’t properly recall the last bath he’d had.
There was no tub in his pa’s hideout, and he couldn’t go bathe in the river that ran through Crisanth.
The last time he’d tried, the gang of older kids who patrolled the banks had tied him up and dangled him upside down from the bridge.
When they’d dropped him in, he’d nearly drowned.
Anaya had to drag him out. Perhaps that counted as his last real bath, then.
Which meant it had been… over two years.
He gave Luc a wobbly smile. “I’m perfectly clean. I’m practically shiny. It’s Supper you’re smelling.” Leaning toward Luc, he added, “And let’s be honest… probably yourself.”
The Arcanist moved so quickly that he had an arm around Rolan before the boy could even blink. One minute he was standing innocently in the grass, and the next he was pinned under Luc’s arm like a sack of grain.
“Put me down!” yelled Rolan. He beat his fists on the only part of Luc he could reach—his rib cage. But the man didn’t even flinch. It was as effective as a squirrel punching an oak tree. “Put me—not there!”
When Luc did drop him, it was headfirst into the wooden tub, pausing only long enough to yank off Rolan’s new boots.
Rolan twisted and spluttered, splashed and cursed, as Luc dumped another bucket of freezing water right over Rolan’s head.
Then he chucked a brick of soap into the tub before retreating to a safe distance where even the most violent of Rolan’s splashes couldn’t reach him.
“If you want lunch,” said Luc, arms folded over his chest, “scrub.”
“You got my clothes all wet!” Rolan complained.
“They need it as much as you do.”
Puffing out an annoyed breath, Rolan picked up the soap and glared directly at Luc as he raked it over his hair. Luc waited long enough to be sure Rolan would follow through, then disappeared into the barn behind the house, giving Rolan privacy.
“Stupid Arcanist,” muttered Rolan as he peeled himself out of his soaked clothes and tossed them to the grass. “Stupid bath.”
Then Supper wandered near, ignored Rolan’s threats, and made off with his pants. Rolan sighed, knowing he’d likely never see those pants again. Pity. They were his only pair.
“Stupid goat,” he grumbled.
The water wasn’t as cold as it had seemed at first. The Arcanist must have heated it somehow.
Rolan finished washing then sat for a while, watching the clouds roll overhead and the goats butt heads in the grass.
A lazy feeling stole over him. When was the last time he’d been clean and had a full belly?
Not that he’d ever give Luc the satisfaction of knowing he might actually be enjoying the bath.
He was fully submerged in the warm, sudsy water, with just his nose above and still dry, when he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye—a flash of steel.
A dagger!
Rolan heaved himself out of the tub, his hand closing around the butter knife he’d kept with him all this time.
Naked and terrified, he rolled through the grass, coming up on the other side of the tub.
The water sloshed between him and the Arcanist, who stood gaping, a pair of sheep shears in his hand.
Rolan snatched his soaking shirt from the ground and held it up to cover himself.
Luc glanced from Rolan’s terrified face to the pitiful knife in his hand, then his expression went slack. He dropped the shears and raised his empty hands.
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he said, as if Rolan were a panicking colt.
“You were going to chop me up for the Cryptics!” Rolan shouted. He was shivering now, but only partly from the cool air on his bare skin. “That’s why you made me bathe! They probably like their dinner washed first!”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Luc said again, raising his hands higher for emphasis. “I was going to cut your hair.”
Rolan stiffened, reaching for the wet brown locks that hung past his shoulders. “I like my hair the way it is.”
“It’s matted.”
“And that’s how I like it!”
Luc sighed heavily, resting his hands on the edge of the tub. “Wait here. I’ll get you clothes. We can talk about it inside.”
Rolan kept his knife held high until Luc went into the house.
Then he started for the path to the city, before remembering he hadn’t a stitch of clothing on him.
With a snarl of frustration, Rolan crawled back into the tub, lurking there until the warm water eased the shivers from his body.
Luc returned a minute later and set down a pile of clothes on the ground.
“When you’re dressed,” he said, “come inside. I’ll make lunch.”
Rolan said nothing. He watched the man until he’d gone in, then lunged out of the tub and hurriedly dressed.
The clothes were clearly Luc’s and enormous, but at least they were dry.
The shirt hung below his knees. The pants were never going to work.
But there was a fawn-colored jerkin that went on like a tent, and a belt to cinch it all together.
He rolled the shirt sleeves about a hundred times before he finally found his hands.
If anyone saw him in this getup, they’d laugh themselves blue, and he wouldn’t blame them. Finally, he pulled on the boots.
“Right.” Rolan looked around and saw Supper watching him from the grass, his head cocked to the side and his eyes staring in two different directions. “What are you looking at? Maybe you’re gonna sit around and be somebody’s dinner, but I’m not!”
With that, Rolan started for the path.
He walked quickly, with many glances over his shoulder, but there was no sign that the Arcanist was following. In minutes, the house had vanished entirely, and Rolan laughed.
“So long, Luc! You’ll have to chop up some other stupid kid.
Rolan Strider lives another day!” He chuckled, reveling in his own cleverness.
He’d lost his clothes, but he’d gotten new boots, two good meals, a butter knife, and a bar of soap which was currently sudsing up the jerkin’s left pocket.
Not a bad haul. Not bad in the least. Rolan whistled as he walked, feeling downright jaunty.
Now. If he could just figure out which way Crisanth was—
Rolan cried out as the ground beneath him suddenly wasn’t beneath him any longer. He dropped, his stomach lurching, then landed with a gasp as the ground knocked the air from his lungs.
Lying on his back, his vision white, he coughed until he could see again. His breath took longer to return. When it did, he sat up, groaning.
He’d fallen into a pit.
Looking around at the canvas crumpled beneath him and the too-slick sides of the pit, he revised his assessment. This wasn’t just a pit. It was a trap.
He’d walked into a blasted trap. One with walls so high and smooth, his attempts to climb out only landed him on his butt, repeatedly, in defeat.
“What thrice-cursed idiot is laying traps out here?” he howled to the sky.
“That thrice-cursed idiot,” replied a gruff voice, “would be me.”
Rolan shrank back as a shadow fell across the pit.
The Arcanist’s big gray horse gazed down at him, with the Arcanist atop him.
“Is that what you were doing all last night?” Rolan demanded. “Building traps for me?”
The Arcanist grunted. He seemed to do that a lot. “Trap’s not for you. It’s for Cryptics.”
Rolan looked around him and shivered.
“If you’re going to the city,” the Arcanist said, “you should have hooked a left back that way. Not that you would’ve gotten far in that direction either. There are… a lot more traps.”
“Maybe I’m not going to the city,” Rolan said, drawing himself up to his full height.
The effect was rather diminished by the fact that he was standing in a hole three times as deep as he was tall.
“Maybe I’m going to Sylvet, as soon as I climb out of this measly hole.
Which I can do. I was just catching my breath for a minute. ”
“Ah.” The Arcanist leaned on the pommel of his saddle. “Sylvet. Then you should’ve hooked a right.”
“I don’t need directions.”
“What about pants?”
Rolan looked down at his bare legs.
“There are forty miles of open land between here and Sylvet,” said the Arcanist. “And probably a hundred Cryptics bigger than this horse. But back at my house I’ve got some shears, thread, and needles.
I can cut a pair of pants that will fit you, and a shirt too.
You can keep the knife, if it makes you feel better. ”
Rolan had taken out the butter knife the moment he’d seen the man, without even realizing it.
Looking at it now, it seemed pathetically small.
He felt pathetically small. All his cleverness and bravado popped like soap bubbles, and he was left with only the truth: he was shivering, trapped in a pit, and pantsless.
“If you go back to Crisanth,” said Luc softly, “Hoff will lock you up for a decade. More, if he can think of a reason to. Not that you’d last the first ten years. The duke’s prison is a terrible place, and more men die down there than ever see the light of day again.”
“Hoff will never catch me,” scoffed Rolan.
Luc studied him for a long moment before finally nodding. “Very well. Come back with me, we’ll get you into some better clothes and put warm food on your plate. Then after a good night’s rest, you can run away again tomorrow. I might even give you a head start.”
Rolan wilted. He lowered the knife, feeling stupid and useless. Luc tossed a rope down, and Rolan climbed up and out of the miserable hole. When the Arcanist extended a hand, he took it halfheartedly. The man hauled him up, and they rode back to the house on the hill and had lunch.
Then Luc got out his shears, and Rolan sat by the fire, wrapped in a sheepskin while the Arcanist cut his hair.