23
Injuries
When you’re fifteen years old and nearly a man, waking up repeatedly to find yourself being carried home is kind of embarrassing. This time it was Ferius doing the carrying, which made it worse.
‘You’re strong for a girl,’ I said, cringing as the words came out of my mouth. Lately I was discovering that the more beaten up I got, the dumber my thoughts became.
‘Strong for a girl, I suppose, but just about average for a woman.’
‘I don’t know many women who can carry me,’ I insisted. ‘I’m not that skinny.’ Somehow it was important to win this point.
Ferius let out a little puff of air in a ‘pfft’ sound, which I gathered was meant to be dismissive. ‘Kid, the only women you have around here are born and bred to do their little magic spells and be pretty to look at. Kind of like what passes for men.’
I was fairly sure that was an insult to all my people but I wasn’t quite sure which part to argue against, so I just tried to focus my eyes on the street ahead of us. It was pitch black for the most part, families long having gone to sleep. We were halfway to my house, and normally the glow-glass lanterns on every corner would have illuminated our way, but Ferius didn’t have the magic required to light them and I wasn’t in the mood to try, so we proceeded in darkness. I wondered if this was what it was like for all the Sha’Tep servants who had to start their work day before dawn, shambling to whatever shops or households where they would perform their assigned duties in the dark. Did they carry torches? Ferius seemed to have pretty good eyesight because she walked sure as can be along the street towards my home.
‘What are you going to tell my parents?’ I asked.
‘The truth. I found you like this in the oasis with your three idiot friends and about a dozen squirrel cats.’
‘They aren’t my friends any more,’ I said reflexively. Ugh. I sound like a child.
Ferius glanced down at my face, which I gathered didn’t look very good, because she said, ‘Yeah, kid, I’m inclined to agree.’
‘I …’ I hesitated. There was something I wanted to say, or rather, something I wanted Ferius to say, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. ‘You haven’t said anything about what I did,’ I said finally.
‘Was there something you wanted me to say about it?’
‘No, I just thought …’ The truth was, I kept expecting her to say that it was brave of me to free the squirrel cat, that she was … I don’t know, impressed or maybe proud of me. I’m not sure why I cared what a Daroman wanderer thought when my parents were going to be furious with me, but it seemed unfair that I’d got so badly beaten up and wrecked my life and wasn’t even going to get complimented.
‘You want me to tell you that you did the right thing,’ Ferius said as we turned a corner. My family’s home was down the next block.
‘Well, did I?’
She stopped, her eyes still focused on the street ahead of us, not looking at me. ‘I don’t know, kid.’ She let out a long, slow breath before she spoke again. ‘When you see the world outside your home town, outside the walls of what you were brought up to see, then you discover that you almost never know if you’re doing the right thing. One action, brave and true, leads to war and destruction. Another, craven and greedy, leads to peace and prosperity.’ She let the words hang in the air a while, then seemed to come back to herself. ‘I’ll tell you one thing for free though.’ I could hear the smile in her voice even before she looked down at me. ‘You did what you did like a man.’
I felt my chest tighten a little, probably because my injuries were starting to flare up again. ‘You talk about being a man a lot,’ I said.
Ferius laughed. ‘I guess I do, kid.’ She resumed walking towards my home.
We were a few doors away when the pain from my various injuries really started to bother me. My ribs felt like they were breaking into bits, the inside of my mouth ached from where I’d been punched in the jaw, and even the skin on my right arm where I’d slid along the ground itched like seven hells. I scratched at it, which only made it worse. ‘Ouch,’ I said.
She looked down at me and laughed. ‘Ouch? “Ouch”? Is that what you were saying while they were punching and kicking you? “Ouch”?’
‘Shut up. It hurts.’
She ignored me and went on. ‘I mean, is it like one of those Jan’Tep magic words? “Ouch, I say to thee – nothing shall penetrate my magical Ouch shield!”’
‘Stop it,’ I said, still scratching at my arm, preferring the pain to the itching, but then it hurt so bad I yelped out loud.
‘Quit scratching, kid, you’re going to make yourself bleed and the cut’ll get infected.’
I held up my forearm to look for blood, but saw none, just the dirt and grit from the ground outside the oasis. I knew every twist and turn in the tattooed sigils of those bands, had spent countless hours and days begging for them to spark. Even in the darkness of the street, I sensed something had changed. The silver inks of the first band no longer lay flat and lifeless. They moved, a tiny, subtle movement, a delicate dance of magic beneath the skin.
‘Kid?’ Ferius asked.
I blinked, trying to see better, desperate to prove to myself I wasn’t imagining it. Oh please, I begged my ancestors. Please don’t let this be a trick. As I’d done thousands of times before, I set my will upon the band.
Nothing happened, and I saw that the sigils weren’t really moving at all. I felt such a deep, biting sense of disappointment that my eyes filled with stupid, childish tears. Even though I tried to hold it back, a sob escaped my lips.
‘Relax, kid,’ Ferius said.
‘You don’t understand! You never did! This is all I’ve—’
‘No, I mean it. Shut up and relax.’
All of a sudden I understood what she meant. When I’d first seen the change in the band on my forearm, I’d become elated, but you can’t exert your will on the fundamental forces of magic when you’re excited, just like you can’t when you’re crying like a baby. It takes calm. Control. Command.
I closed my eyes to stop myself from paying attention to the band itself and instead sent my focus inwards, calling forth the power that would attach to the silver sigils, willing the tiny tattooed links between them to break apart, freeing the magic inside me. I didn’t rush, didn’t think about how long it was taking or the fact that Ferius was still holding me in her arms or that I had no friends any more or that if I failed I’d become … I let it all go. I stopped asking myself if I had the magic of my people. I was done asking.
‘Hey, kid, look.’
‘I know,’ I said, my eyes still closed. I didn’t need to look at the sigils because I already knew they were glowing with magical force.
‘Which one is that?’ Ferius asked.
I opened my eyes, and then drew clean, beautiful air into my lungs before I said the single, awestruck word: ‘Breath!’
Ferius was looking down at me, not smiling exactly, but at least she wasn’t making any stupid jokes. I let myself stare at the silver sigils of the breath band, the tiny, beautiful symbols shining like stars on the canvas of my skin, each one representing a different form of breath magic I could now cast.
I had sparked a band.
I reached out with my other hand towards one of the glow-glass lanterns above us and pushed at it with my will. A soft light began to emerge, slowly pushing back against the darkness around us. It wasn’t much, in fact it was barely anything at all, but it was there. It was real.
I wasn’t Sha’Tep.
I wasn’t broken.
I had magic.
As the glow of the lantern began to warm my skin, I caught Ferius’s eye and was surprised by what I found there. She was staring at my face. ‘Aw, kid, no …’
I knew I probably looked a mess. I’d taken a beating that was so bad I could barely feel my cheeks or open my eyes from the bruising. But I still resented her for not having the decency to at least pretend to share my happiness. To the hells with her Argosi ways and her spite for my people. Still, I was feeling generous. ‘I know it looks bad,’ I said. ‘Guess even with magic I’m going to need you to teach me how to fight.’
Ferius opened her mouth but then closed it again. She hoicked me back up, the muscles of her face tensing as if I’d just got a whole lot heavier. ‘No, kid, now I’m going to have to teach you how to run.’