Renegade's Magic

Soldier’s Boy took the old blanket from Likari and shook it vigorously. The wind of its passage fanned the fire and dust hung thick in the air afterward. Soldier’s Boy regarded it sternly. “Tomorrow,” he announced, “you will wash the blanket and hang it near the fire to dry. For tonight, shall we sleep on it or under it?”



“Under it,” the boy replied decisively. Then he added carefully, “At least, you will. It is not a very large blanket. I wish there were more.”



“We will get more when we go to trade. Lisana used to have many thick rugs and colorful blankets.” Soldier’s Boy spoke the words as if they were a spell. I suddenly knew that he said them out loud simply because he missed her so badly. Talking about her made her seem more present, even if his only audience was a small, sleepy boy.



He spread the blanket on the bed of moss. Then he moved slowly around the room, carefully recalling it as it once had been. Likari remained by the hearth fire, sucking on a bone and regarding him curiously.



Moss and mildew covered the cedar chest that he tried to drag closer to the firelight. It fell into splintered fragments when he tried to open it. He pushed aside the white webbed remnants of the lid. Insects had long ago loosened the lush fur from the hides. Even the leather was holed and green. Woven woolen blankets had been devoured by moths into threads and rags, the bright colors lost to decay. Their hearts had rotted into a solid, smelly mass. With a grunt of disgust, he dropped the corner he had tried to lift and wiped his hands on the floor.



“You can go to sleep if you want to,” he told the watching boy. Likari was happy to scurry to the moss bed and crawl under the blanket. But he didn’t go to sleep. He regarded me with bright, curious eyes as Soldier’s Boy prowled the room, unearthing more remnants of Lisana’s possessions.



A heavy copper bowl had gone green and black with verdigris; the pattern hammered into it had been lost forever. The few wooden artifacts that had not vanished were riddled with wormholes or spongy with age. The more decayed bits of Lisana’s life that he uncovered, the more sad and rotten the derelict lodge seemed. He could not pretend she had been here just yesterday. Decades, if not generations, had passed.



Resignation and sorrow rose in him like a tide; I could not tell how much of the emotion was his and how much belonged to Lisana’s shade. He put more wood on the fire. In that circle of light, he set out the few possessions he had salvaged as if he were arranging a memorial to her. Two glass bowls. The soapstone lamp. A tiny jade spoon for cosmetics. He put them in a row. It reminded me horribly of how we had set out the plague bodies to await burial.



And all the while, he kept glancing back toward Likari as if waiting for something. Gradually the boy’s eyes sagged shut. Slowly his breathing deepened and steadied. Soldier’s Boy unearthed an ivory comb. He took it back to the fire’s light and spent a ridiculous amount of time cleaning it. When he was finished, he looked again at the lad.



“Likari?” he asked softly.



The boy didn’t stir. Satisfied that he was well and truly asleep, Soldier’s Boy gave a small sigh. He took a brand from the fire and went quietly to the far end of the lodge.



I thought at first that he was reliving Lisana’s secretiveness as he slowly walked his fingers along the moss and root tendrils that coated the log wall. The pegs that had secured the hollow piece had long ago rotted away. The roots that had penetrated it held the concealed lid shut more securely than the pegs ever had. He pulled and tugged them away carefully, but the lid still came to pieces as he opened the hiding place. I knew then it was not secrecy but reverence that had made him wait for privacy.



This had been Lisana’s secret. He lifted away the broken pieces of wood and revealed a hollowed space. Within it rested all that remained of her most treasured possessions. Here she had concealed her secret indulgences, the ornaments and jewelry that would have been appropriate to a woman of her people but not necessary to a Great One. They were, I realized, the trappings of her banished dream. For Lisana, it was not a cavalla saber or a set of spurs or a soldier-son journal. Soldier’s Boy drew from the niche a dozen heavy silver wrist bangles, gone black with tarnish, and then four wide torcs, three of silver and one of beaten gold. There were striated ivory bracelets made from some creature’s tusks and large hair ornaments of jade, hematite, and a blue stone that I didn’t know. The seams of the leather pouches beneath them had given way. He had to lift them carefully, cupping them to keep the contents from spilling out. These he carried one by one to the fire’s light. Woven gut strands were weakened or gone, but the polished beads remained, ivory, amber, jade, and pearl. Trip after trip he made from the cache to the hearth, setting out a king’s ransom of jewelry and carved ornaments. Layer after hoarded layer he took from the wall. I caught glimpses of Lisana’s memories of them. There were small trinkets, a bone fish and a jade leaf, that had been gifts from her father when she was a little girl. Some of the others were ornaments she had acquired by trading when she was a young woman seeking to draw a certain young man’s eyes to her. But most of it was the loot she had effortlessly gained as a Great One, gifts and offerings and treasures from a grateful kin-clan.