Chapter Text
“Arum . . . Arum! It’s all right. He’s dead.”
Those words punctured Arum Errarin’s delirium, and they set off cold ripples of dread. Dead? Who was dead?
His cracked lips croaked out: “Master Vok . . . ?” The sixteen-year-old boy stirred and then suddenly his eyes opened. There was another boy, about his own age, leaning over him. The boy was very fair, almost tow-headed, and he had a dusting of small brown freckles over his face. He wore a novice wizard’s gray robe. Arum himself was a dusky boy, with curly hair and a shield-shaped face, but with startling light-gray eyes. As he came to himself, he was aware of stiff swaths of linen bandages over his torso and left arm. Underneath, the flesh stung as if burned.
The two boys were alone in a strange, cool stone room, in shadow except for a shaft of daylight that came down from a high, narrow window. Disoriented, Arum asked, “Am I in prison?”
The fair boy laughed. “Of course you’re not! This is Galeddin.”
At the name of the Wizards’ City, Arum’s eyes went wide. “How did I get here?” he asked.
“The Master Wizards brought you, after they sacked Issmoroth’s stronghold,” the boy said.
Vok Issmoroth was Arum’s Master. Or had been. Had the other boy said someone was dead . . . ?
“Master Vok is . . . ?” he asked, fearfully.
“Don’t you remember anything?” asked the boy. “You got him! We won! You gave the Archmage the information he needed to prove that Issmoroth had broken his vows, and then the Masters came and put him down once and for all. They roasted him in his own juices!”
Arum turned his face away. Now he started to remember. He had sent information to that Archmage, Eldris Redigild, about the evil magics that Master Vok had performed, and had forced Arum to perform. Although Arum had loved Vok, he couldn’t live with himself anymore if he continued down that path. It needed to stop. And apparently, Arum had stopped it.
But “roasted in his own juices?” Tears flooded Arum’s eyes, and when he blinked, they fell. Vok had been the closest thing Arum had ever had to a father.
“Oh! Sorry! I’m sorry . . . I’m supposed to be up here getting you water,” the boy said. “I forgot! No wonder you’re crying. We’ve had the worst time getting anything into you for days. I’m Ban, by the way.”
Arum nodded, still not looking away from the rough gray stone wall that his bed was pushed up against. “Thank you, Ban,” he said, although at the moment he didn’t feel very thankful. He had wanted the Master Wizards to stop the terrible things that Vok had been doing. He hadn’t wanted them to kill the old man!
Ban gently lifted up Arum’s head and shoulders and tipped a wooden bowl full of water to his lips. It was cold and very good. Arum drank greedily, and Ban poured him another bowlful from a vessel that was out of sight on the floor. Arum drank that, too.
“I don’t know if I should give you any more right now,” Ban said doubtfully. “I’ll have to ask Mistress Reinne if it’ll be good for you.”
Arum nodded, and shut his eyes. Then a woman who sounded as if she might be standing down a flight of stone steps shouted out: “Banomor!” and Ban jumped.
“That’s Mistress Reinne. If I don’t come quick she’ll tan my hide. I’ll be back later!” and then Ban grabbed his things and left.
Arum opened his eyes again and stared at the wooden staves of the ceiling. So. Master Vok was dead. He remembered it now . . . sneaking a fragment of mirror into the ritual room where Vok had sacrificed his victims, the polished silver enchanted with the power to observe and record what happened there. Then he had caught a pigeon and witched it to think that Eldris Redigild represented its home—no mean feat, since Arum had never seen the man. He’d bound the mirror fragment in a linen pouch around the bird’s foot, and let it fly.
It hadn’t taken Vok long to realize that his student was hiding something from him. Arum never could successfully lie to the man. The resulting fight was far from fair. Arum was only a boy, and worse, he could not emotionally bear to strike against his master in any meaningful way. All he could do was fight a long battle of attrition, in which he simply defended himself until unconsciousness took him. Apparently, Vok had left him for dead in the deeply-buried workroom where they’d fought. How the Archmage and the Master Wizards had found him and rescued him he had no idea.
Strangely, Arum found himself not thinking about the innocent people who’d died at Vok’s hands, but instead of the gentle way the evil wizard had looked after him when he was sick or injured. He was no longer quite so much a child as to believe that there had been real love on Vok’s part, but he knew his own love had been devastatingly real. He cried bitterly, missing the man who had once bathed his wounds and dried his tears.
At length, he slept again.
When Ban returned the light from the window above had turned faint and rosy. The gods only knew if it were sunset or sunrise. Ben brought more water, as well as a thin gruel with wine and currants, which he spooned into Arum’s mouth. Arum was feeling listless, but Ban was filled with joyous excitement. “My master’s awake!” he cried. “That is, the Archmage. They say he’ll live.”
Arum hadn’t been aware that the Archmage’s life had been despaired of, but he was happy for Ban. If only he hadn’t ached for his own master so much!
“He’s the one who rescued you,” Ban continued. “When they found you in that pit, Master Eldris wouldn’t leave you, saying that you were the reason that they’d been able to move against Issmoroth. He carried you out of there himself, you know, even with the wounds he had.”
Ban’s last words carried a certain tone of reproof. Arum looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry your master was hurt.” He truly was. He didn’t want to think of another boy feeling the deep sense of loss he felt, and he couldn’t blame Ban for finding fault with him regarding his master’s injuries.
“I’m sorry he was hurt too,” Ban said, although the censure in his voice had faded.
Over the next couple of days, Ban and other young people came in to care for Arum, and he slowly felt himself getting his strength back. He even met the formidable Mistress Reinne, who forbade him from getting up except to take care of necessities, on pain of having his knuckles rapped. She touched his forehead and examined his eyes and tongue, and then said with some satisfaction that he was progressing well.
As Arum began to improve, he picked a small stone out of the wall, and began scratching pictures into the lumps and crevices of the undressed rock. He found rabbit shapes in the wall, and mermaid shapes, and the shape of a half-melted maiden setting fire to a salamander. Then when he’d outlined all of these, he moved to the floor, using his freed stone to score flame shapes, and animal shapes, and the shapes of numerous eyes deep into the wood. He was a very talented artist, and his sketches looked true to life.
None of this impressed Mistress Reinne, who shouted for a maidservant to bring her a switch when she caught Arum out of bed and sketching on the floor. In the end, all Reinne did was make the switch cut a whoosh sound through the air a few times as she warned Arum she’d warm his bottom the next time he tried something like that. She left him understanding that in no uncertain terms was he to get out of bed for anything other than the chamber pot, and that his room was to remain un-illustrated.
Eventually, the boy began to feel well enough to feel bored. He didn’t dare draw on the walls anymore, and with Mistress Reinne in charge he didn’t dare leave his bed. So he tossed and turned and fidgeted, and sincerely wished he was elsewhere.
One day, the Archmage visited him. Eldris Redigild turned out to be a compactly-built man with long dark hair that was silvering at the temples. His eyes were very dark, and as he limped into Arum’s chamber, they were concerned. Once he saw that Arum was awake and alert, he smiled. “Arum!” he cried, and shooed off the novice girl who had obviously been sent to make sure the injured Archamge made it to Arum’s room in once piece.
He painfully drew over the room’s lone chair, and settled himself into it. He reached out and brushed Arum’s face with the backs of his fingers. “I’m so glad you’re getting well,” he said.
This was the first real tenderness Arum had experienced in . . . well, Vok had counterfeited being tender with him. If that wasn’t counted, when was the last time? Arum was dismally unsure. His parents had feared what they didn’t understand, and had beaten him until he knew to lie about his growing magical powers. He knew there had to have been a time before that, when they must have loved him, but he couldn’t remember very well.
Arum met Eldris’ gaze and held it, puzzled. Was this man implying that he cared for him? Could that even be possible?
“Thank you, sir,” was all Arum had to say.
“I see you’ve been busy,” Eldris said, giving a smile as he gestured to the drawings all over the walls and floor. “You’re very good.”
Arum couldn’t help but give a bashful grin. Vok had appreciated his drawings as illustrations for their notes, when they performed Vok’s perverse experiments, but Arum couldn’t remember anyone else really liking his drawing as art before. His parents certainly hadn’t appreciated it when he’d scratched images on their walls and floor. “Thank you, sir,” he said again.
Eldris looked at him with a warmth that puzzled him, and then said, “Do you have any idea what the world owes to you?” he said. “The Masters had suspected for decades that Issmoroth was using his powers for evil, but we could never prove it. Not before you sent me that mirror shard.”
Arum looked up at the ceiling, not knowing how to respond. He had betrayed Vok. Betrayed the man who took him away from the village that shunned him. Yes, it had been necessary, but was he also expected to be celebratory about it?
There was a long, awkward silence, in which the only sounds were Arum’s and Eldris’ breathing, and the occasional shout or animal cry from outside. “I see,” Eldris finally said, very gently. “You loved him.”
Arum flung himself over onto his other side, so that he faced the wall, despite the fact that he was still bandaged and burned on his right. He absolutely forbade himself to weep, but he did it anyway. “Leave me alone!” he cried.
“No,” Eldris said just as gently. “No, you don’t need to be alone. You need someone to stay with you, whether it’s me or someone else.”
Arum shook his head violently, but couldn’t stop crying. Eldris put his hand upon his shoulder, and rubbed his upper arm. “I’m sorry, my son. I’m so very sorry.”
Eventually, Arum quieted, and he lay sniffling. Eldris produced a handkerchief from somewhere, and held it over the boy’s shoulder so that he could see it. Arum accepted it and used it to clean himself up. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said at last.
“There’s no need to be sorry,” Eldris said. “You had to make a terrible choice. I certainly don’t envy you. But I think that in time, you’ll see you made the right one.”
Arum gave a long exhale, and said a bit shakily, “I hope you’re right, sir.”