Chapter 9 Waiting
That night, Luc dressed for battle.
At least that’s how it looked to Rolan. He watched, slack-jawed, as Luc buckled on his sword, his daggers, his quiver of arrows, his bow.
He tucked vials of things into little leather pouches.
He put a jar of truth salve in his pocket.
He whirled his cloak around his shoulders and pulled the hood over his face.
“Where’s my sword?” asked Rolan. He had on new pants, cut from one of Luc’s old pairs, and a shirt that almost fit him. Luc’s stitches weren’t very good—Evaine’s were better—but Rolan had said nothing. He was just pleased he could walk without feeling a breeze in places no breeze belonged.
“You don’t get a sword,” said Luc.
“But I want one. How will I fight Cryptics? With this?” He held up his butter knife. The thing was useless, as he well knew, but he’d grown attached to it.
“You’re not fighting Cryptics.”
“So I’m going to watch while you fight them?”
“You,” said Luc, pulling open the door, “are staying here.”
“But—”
The door slammed with jarring finality, ending the conversation and the protests Rolan was still thinking up.
He felt stung, which was confusing, because he didn’t actually want to go into the woods or fight Cryptics or have anything to do with being an Arcanist. As far as apprentices went, he figured he’d be a spectacularly lousy one if it came down to it.
Which it wouldn’t. Because tomorrow, he would run away.
And this time, he would make it to Crisanth.
He’d be running there now, if it weren’t so blasted dark.
He went to the window and watched Luc ride off into the fading twilight. The man was clearly out of his mind. He hadn’t even taken a torch.
“I hope a Cryptic eats you!” Rolan yelled.
He’d thought Luc wouldn’t hear him, but the Arcanist raised one hand in acknowledgment that he had. Then he vanished into the gloomy shadows of the forest.
“Maa.”
With a sigh, Rolan turned to see Supper standing by the fireplace, his vacuous eyes gazing at both the door and the kitchen.
“How did you get in here?”
Grumbling under his breath about all the ways he hoped Luc would meet a grisly end, Rolan foraged for something to eat. With a plate piled high with salted pork, bread, and carrots, he settled into Luc’s massive armchair and feasted.
Luc was gone for hours.
Rolan roamed the house, bored senseless.
He ran his hands over his shorn hair, feeling like a stranger in his own freshly cleaned skin.
How long would it take for his hair to grow long enough that he could tie it into a knot, like Luc’s?
The man was a truthforsaken menace, but he did have awesome hair.
For a while Rolan tried to train Supper to sit, or dance, or do anything, but the goat only stared at him and maaed and tried to take a bite out of his new boots.
“Useless creature,” he muttered, abandoning the idea.
He explored more of the house, even taking a candle and climbing into the loft.
There he found boxes of pelts, broken bows, books, ropes, empty flagons, and other bits and ends.
Nothing too exciting, but he brought down a length of rope to tie knots with.
After an hour of knot tying, he grew bored of that.
Recklessly, he got it into his head to go after Luc, and he got as far as opening the front door. But the vastness of the night beyond stopped him dead in his tracks.
For a long moment he stood staring into the inky shadows, finding little difference between opening his eyes and shutting them. The night went on forever, though off to the west, Crisanth shone like a distant fire, aglow with its thousand lamps.
Then Rolan looked up, and gasped.
Stars.
That’s what those little lights had to be.
He’d heard about them, but he’d never seen them.
Crisanth burned so brightly every night, stars were a myth Rolan had only ever half believed in.
But there they were, countless tiny lamps in the sky.
Awed, he slowly waved his hand over his head, as if he could stir the stars with his fingers.
He stared and stared, until he heard a rustle in the grass, and with a yelp, he slammed the door shut and did not dare open it again.
Finally, he opened the chest of Cryptic parts, picking the lock Luc had used to replace the last one. This one was more complicated and took him ten more minutes, and he let out a whoop of victory when it finally succumbed to his fingers.
“Secrets, huh?” muttered Rolan. “What d’you think, Supper? You ever eat Cryptic stew with your old man?”
He tossed a glowing scale at the goat, but Supper panicked and bolted for the door. He bleated so loudly and frantically that Rolan finally let him out, opening and shutting the door as quickly as possible so no Cryptics could sneak in.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t think you’d take it like that. But don’t blame me if a monster eats you up!”
Returning to the chest, he methodically took out every piece in it, arranging them on the floor by type.
Each item glowed when he touched it, and soon the room was filled with hazy blue mist. There were twenty-two teeth, nineteen scales, five feathers, thirty-one assorted bones, twenty-seven claws, and one odd-looking, twisted thing that might have been a bone but looked more like a tusk. He set it on its own.
Done, he stepped back and considered the array, letting out a long, low whistle.
“That’s a lot of Cryptics,” he said. He tried to add up the numbers but gave up quickly. Still, it was a lot.
He thought of the monster that had attacked him in his cell, and felt ill.
Had Luc killed them all himself? Or were some of them killed by whatever Arcanist had come before Luc? There must have been someone before him to teach him the ropes. It was hard to imagine Luc as an apprentice. He seemed eternal, unchanging, like a mountain.
Rolan inspected the Cryptic parts one by one, wondering what Luc had meant by secrets, but beyond the fact that each glowed when disturbed, giving off a misty essence, they were ultimately boring. Finally he piled them all back in the chest and shut it, taking care to lock it again.
Then he threw himself across the armchair and waited for Luc to return. If he returned. Maybe he had been eaten, in which case Rolan figured the house and everything in it was probably his now. Wasn’t that how it worked, when you were an apprentice? He’d have to ask Anaya.
Anaya.
Had she and Evaine made it to Sylvet? Had they made it back? He didn’t even know why they’d gone there. Nobody traveled outside the city unless they absolutely had to. The risks were too great. Was something wrong? What if Evaine was moving to Sylvet permanently? What if he never saw Anaya again?
Rolan fretted until he fell asleep, curled like a cat on Luc’s great chair.
When the door banged open some hours later, he sat up in a panic, disoriented. He cringed, expecting his pa to come at him, cursing and red faced and swinging his stick.
But it was only Luc, looking battered and weary. He had a fresh cut on his jaw, the blood dried around it.
“I see you’re still alive,” said Rolan accusingly, jumping out of the chair.
Luc only glanced at him before stumbling to the fire and leaning against the mantel with a groan.
“Are you hurt?” Rolan asked, surprised to find a twinge of worry in his chest.
Again Luc ignored him. His eyes were shut, and he seemed to be concentrating on breathing.
Rolan anxiously looked for signs of other wounds but saw nothing obvious.
Maybe Luc was just old. Adults often groaned a lot and leaned on things when they got old, as if they were always on the verge of dying.
“Are you dying?” He prodded Luc’s arm. “Or just being dramatic? It’d be nice if you’d let me know, so I can—”
He cut short as Luc lurched away from the mantel and collapsed into the chair. His head lolled to one side, his eyes shut.
“Secret,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Secret.” Luc pointed a shaking finger at the chest.
Rolan scrambled to it and picked the lock. It took less time now that he’d worked out its mechanism, but still it seemed like ages before the latch finally gave. He scooped up a handful of the pieces inside and rushed them to Luc.
The Arcanist opened one eye and wearily lifted a single piece from Rolan’s outstretched hands—a curving talon. Its blue mist leaked through his fingers as he set it on the arm of the chair.
Then he pulled a dagger from his belt and drove the point of the blade into the talon, breaking it into bits.
Rolan gasped as blue light poured from the shattered talon and twisted up the dagger’s length.
The light seemed to sink into the metal, infusing it, swirling in the double spiral etched near the hilt.
The pieces of the talon then melted, fading into nothing.
A faint smell was left in the air, like rotten eggs and curdled flesh. It turned Rolan’s stomach.
Luc breathed in deeply, his great chest swelling and swelling until Rolan feared the man would burst, or die, or both.
But then the Arcanist’s eyes opened, and he sat up.
“Better,” he grunted.
He took the rest of the glowing pieces from Rolan’s hand and tossed them back into the chest, then kicked the lid shut.
“I guess there’s no use locking it,” he said, glaring at Rolan.
“Excuse me!” Rolan retorted. “I believe my lock picking skills just saved your life!”
“No.” Luc began unbuckling weapons and belts and satchels, hanging them from pegs by the door along with his cloak, which had a fresh new tear down the back. “You just saved me taking a few steps across the room.”
“You were dying!”
“I was only tired.” He paused, then added, “Very tired.”
Rolan crossed his arms. “And now?”
“I’m better.”
“How? Why? What was that just now? That light, and the way the talon disappeared—it was magic, wasn’t it?”
“It was a secret.”
“A secret!” The words burst from Rolan’s lips like a stone from a sling. “I’m sick of secrets! Why won’t you tell me what you do out there, in the dark? Why won’t you tell me about the things in that chest? Shouldn’t I know this stuff? Ain’t I your apprentice?”
“Aren’t I,” said Luc. “And are you? Or are you running away in the morning?”
“I…” Rolan clacked his teeth shut, blinking.
Luc shrugged off his jerkin and belt, then sprawled on his massive bed. “I’m going to sleep. You should too. You’ve got a long way to go tomorrow, if you’re making it to Crisanth.”
“Did you fight a Cryptic tonight?” pressed Rolan.
Luc dragged a pillow over his face. “Yes.”
“Did you win?”
Wordlessly, Luc swept his hand wide, as if to indicate the obvious: he was alive.
“How big was it?” Rolan asked. “What did it look like? How did you beat it?”
“Go to bed, boy.”
“But—”
Luc snored, and while Rolan was certain that it was a fake snore meant to shut him up, he let the questions drop. Angrily, he stalked into his closet and lay down on his little cot, and he stayed awake until morning out of pure spite.