L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35 Page 7

  Over the next few days, I pondered his talk of change. It was a strange thing to hear, coming from someone who never seemed to change at all. He must have thought it important since he’d bothered to share it with me. But he didn’t bring it up again, and with time it sank to the back of my mind. People forget everything in the end. But the tumult beyond our borders did not cease just because I ceased to think of it. And I would be made to remember it soon enough.

  I was walking with a friend, Jemma, on the outskirts of camp one day in early spring. She spotted it first—a huddled form on the ground perhaps a stone’s throw from the camp entrance. A dead deer, we thought at first. But as we came closer, we saw that it was a man, lying face-down with arms outstretched before him as if he had been crawling. I could tell from a glance that he was not a clansman; his tattered garb was foreign to me and his matted hair a sandy color I had never seen. I hurried toward him at once, ignoring Jemma’s cry: “Noch, wait! There’s something wrong with him!”

  I knelt beside him and turned him over to see a dirty, pallid face that glistened with a sheen of sweat. He did not open his eyes, but his skin was hot and damp to the touch, and a pulse fluttered against my fingers when I pressed them to his neck.

  “He’s alive!” I called to Jemma. “Go fetch Shae from the Elders’ Lodge. I’ll stay here with him.”

  She gave me a wide-eyed, frightened look, but turned and dashed away. I remained beside the man, murmuring to him that help was on the way. A truly awful stench rose from him; I had to open my mouth to breathe, and even then, it seemed I could taste it on my tongue. When I caught sight of Shae approaching in the distance, I made to rise and half-raised a hand to hail him. I was caught off-balance when a force struck me hard in the chest, knocking me flat on my back.

  My head struck the ground and I bit my tongue hard. Stunned, eyes watering, I sat up to see that I was now several feet from the man on the ground who did not appear to have moved. I gazed at him for a bewildered instant. And then, before my eyes, his body caught fire. With a wordless shout, I scrambled to my feet and lurched toward him. I would have plunged my hands straight into the fire had they not met some unseen barrier that would not yield. Within seconds, the man was reduced to ash, and I fell to my knees shaking beside the smoldering heap.

  “Get up,” Shae’s voice said close to my ear, and when I did not obey, his hand closed on my arm and dragged me to my feet with alarming strength. We were walking then, swiftly, through the camp, he with a firm grip on my wrist as though I were a wayward child.

  “He was alive,” I kept repeating uselessly as he shunted me along.

  “Did anyone else see you touch him?” he demanded in a low, fierce tone. “Other than the girl? Can she be trusted to keep quiet?”

  “What are you saying? What does it matter—?”

  “Do you wish to be again the child of plague? Shadowed by death and shunned by the living?”

  “I survived the plague. You said I would never suffer sickness again.”

  “We do not know this sickness! It is not of this land!” We reached our tent. He pushed me inside and sealed the door flap behind us.

  “You will stay here,” he said, “until I can confirm that the stranger’s sickness has not touched you. Let us hope word of this does not reach the Council, lest they order your banishment. Councilor Glenn has forever sought to be rid of you; he needs only an excuse.”

  He sat me down by the fire, brought me the wash bin, and bade me wash my hands. When I did not do so thoroughly enough for his taste, he knelt before me and scrubbed each one until it stung. I was silent, vaguely ashamed that I had thought only of helping the sick man and not of the danger he might pose to my clan. Still, I could not block out the image of his burning body and feeling of horror and wrongness it brought me.

  As if he’d read my mind, Shae looked at me with jewel-like eyes and said, “Don’t hate me for this. I did it to protect you.”

  I could think of no reply. He moved away from me and sat watching the fire with his arms folded around himself. After a while, I noticed that he was trembling slightly.

  “The day you brought me here,” I proffered quietly, “I remember tents burning. I thought I must have imagined it.”

  Without looking at me, he answered, “You didn’t. The north side of the camp, where you lived, was overtaken with plague. It was spreading quickly. The Council had to act.”

  “So you burned them,” I concluded. “Alive.”

  “Some were alive. Many were dead. All had suffered. Fire was a mercy.”

  “And the people in my tent?” I asked, feeling cold. It was something I had thought I would never voice aloud.

  “They were still,” he said softly. “I do not know whether they were alive. But they did not feel the flames.”

  I put my head down on my knees and did not answer. After a period of silence, he added, “You were my small act of defiance. Somehow, I thought if I saved you, it would make everything all right. The Council still thinks I only kept you to spite them. But really, I kept you because I needed you. Their disapproval was only an added benefit.” He smiled somewhat sadly, and I felt a softness in my chest in spite of everything. In the end, there was nothing he could say or do to make me love him less.

  In sudden fear that he would think he had lost me, I crawled to him and put my arms around him. He stiffened at first, but then relaxed and let his head drop to my shoulder. He was smaller than me now, and it felt strange to offer comfort to the one who had comforted me all these years.

  The foreigner’s sickness did not affect me, but he plagued me in other ways. I dreamed again of fire, skeletal hands, and blackened figures crawling toward me. Such visions had not haunted me since childhood. Shae was distant from me; though he knew I had forgiven him, something had changed between us and I suspected he suffered over it. He was away more often, and some nights went straight to bed upon returning, ignoring the supper I’d laid out for him. I tried not to be hurt by this, telling myself it had more to do with the Council than with me.

  Jemma and I did not speak of the stranger we had seen, and no one seemed to notice the black scorch mark on the ground where he had lain. But, of course, the man was not the only newcomer to have wandered so far north. Reports came from neighboring clans of small groups of nomads passing through their lands. Some even settled down to stay. My clansmen were intrigued but not worried by the strangers. After all, they were only a few.

  Inevitably, we ourselves would play host to foreigners. They came one day—a group of seven, each thinner, dirtier, and poorer than the last. My clan welcomed them, offering food and drink as was our custom with travelers. They spoke a strange tongue, though one who seemed a leader knew a little of ours. She, a tall tow-haired woman, offered us thanks for our kindness and promised us peace. It was summer and fair weather, so fires were lit outdoors at the camp center as they would be for any celebration. The clan gathered in full force to look upon the newcomers, who huddled together, eating ravenously. Two of them were children, two elders, and all were so alike in appearance they might have been kin.

  Our Council members sat and conversed with their leader—to the limited extent they could. Shae sat with them as well, silent and watchful, shining hair and rich garb standing out in bright contrast to his drab company. It was no wonder he drew their eyes—the grubby little children who gazed at him in wonder. They meant no harm, I’m sure. One of them whispered in that strange tongue to the old woman beside him, who in turn whispered to their leader.

  She smiled slightly and spoke haltingly to Shae, “They wish to know if you are a prince.”

  He smiled in return and said, “We have no princes in this land. I am called a magus.”

  They did not know this word.

  “Sorcerer, magician,” one of the councilors tried. “Servant of the gods.”

  They shook their heads in confusion. S
hae stretched out a hand—more for show than need—and from the fire emerged a bright bird of flame that took wing and swooped over our heads before shooting off into the sky. My people murmured in pleasure as they watched it go; so rarely did they get to witness the power of our magus.

  But when my eyes returned from the sky to the faces of our guests, I saw something I could not have imagined. It was horror—there was no other way to describe that raw, twisted fear. One of the children was crying silently, and the old woman beside him clutched him with a shaking, claw-like hand. Their already pale faces were ashen and their large, haunted eyes round with fright. They looked ghastly to me all of a sudden; I couldn’t fathom how I had thought them only moments ago not so very unlike us.

  “Devilry,” their leader whispered huskily. “Evil.”

  And as our Council members protested all at once, Shae got up and left. I followed him immediately, only half listening to our Councilors’ weak insistence that magi were not to be feared. He went straight to our tent, and I burst in after him, needlessly declaring, “They’re wrong.”

  He was setting a kettle of water to boil and smiled at me in mild surprise. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But that doesn’t matter.”

  For once, I didn’t argue, but I thought it mattered very much.

  Despite their terror, the newcomers stayed. They were housed in a tent on the edge of camp, not truly part of us but not truly separate. No one knew how long they would linger. But Girah, their leader, could be spotted now and then coming and going from the Elders’ Lodge. “To promote peace,” some said. “If we are to share our lands with these southerners, they must understand our customs and we theirs.” Others said it was abominable to let an outsider sit beneath the Council’s roof—let alone one who denounced our magus and our gods.

  In any case, for this reason or for one I could not guess, things went truly sour between the Council and Shae. Due to his characteristic silence on Council matters, I was not made aware of the falling out until many months had passed. It was winter when Councilor Glenn made another unwelcome appearance at our door.

  “Shae is not here,” I informed him, making no effort to disguise the chill in my voice.

  “I know,” he replied. He looked, if possible, grayer and grimmer than I had ever seen him. “It is you I am here to see.”

  I crossed my arms against the cold, refusing to invite him in. “What can I do for you, Councilor?”

  He looked about us and grimaced. “Perhaps you would accompany me to the Elders’ Lodge so that we might speak more comfortably?”

  My first instinct was suspicion, but this was quickly overtaken by my age-old curiosity. “Very well,” I said. “Let me get my cloak.”

  I had never been inside the Elders’ Lodge. It was a privilege few were offered. I could not help but feel a little awed as I stepped through the dark doorway after Councilor Glenn. It was dim inside and hazy. A fire burned low at the center of the oblong room, permeating the air with smoke. I had to cough as I breathed it in; it was strong and herb-scented. Around the fire, figures were seated on rush mats laid on the bare earth floor. There was no luxury here. I recognized each Council member, though their faces were strange in the smoky half-light. As we drew near to them, Councilor Glenn bade me sit.

  I knelt on the empty mat before me, and he took his place opposite the fire. The full Council was present, and I realized that the place I had taken must be Shae’s.

  “I thank you for agreeing to come here, Noch,” the councilor said, his voice oddly muffled by the stuffy silence of the lodge. “You have become, as we’d hoped, a reasonable young man.”

  I had to stifle a laugh at this, thinking that I never would have reached manhood if the Council had had their way. “Certainly. Now, what’s this all about?”

  “As you may have noticed,” he replied grimly, “Shae has ceased to attend all Council meetings.”

  I blinked, trying to hide my surprise. I had noticed nothing, but they needn’t know that.

  “This is not the first time he has opposed us—as you well know,” Councilor Glenn went on. “But I fear the consequences if this goes on much longer. Magus and Council must act as one. Without proper leadership, the clan is at risk.”

  “I’m sure he’ll come back eventually,” I said with no small measure of defensiveness.

  “I admire your faith,” he said dryly. “Unfortunately, we can never be quite sure of anything when it comes to Shae. He has always been willful, temperamental—but lately he seems to have passed beyond all reason.”

  “If he has forsaken you, I’m sure he had reason enough,” I replied sharply.

  “Child,” the elderly woman to my right broke in. “We say this not to vilify Shae. It worries us to see him isolate himself like this. Shae’s well-being is essential to the clan’s well-being. We merely wish to reach out to him.”

  “If you could speak with him,” Councilor Glenn added, “reason with him, encourage him to return …”

  “You wish me to speak on your behalf?” I scoffed, amazed at their gall. “To act as your liaison?”

  “We ask you to act on the behalf of the clan,” the councilor said sternly. “To set your personal feelings aside and do what is best for all.”

  I felt sick then, wondering if these were the precise words he had spoken to Shae before my family had burned. The smoke seemed thicker all at once, and I was stricken by a feeling of entrapment. Overcome with a need to be under the sky, I rose to my feet and left. I could not say what I wanted to say: that my loyalties lay not with the clan but with Shae. To speak such words would verge on treason, and this would not help Shae in the least. Already the Council mistrusted him enough to come to me behind his back. I dared not give them a reason to mistrust me as well.

  It took me what felt like hours to find him. He was by the lake, gazing out over the ice-crusted waters. I couldn’t guess how long he’d been there, but his hair and clothes were wind-tossed and he was not dressed for winter.

  “What are you doing out here?” I demanded, removing my cloak and wrapping it around his shoulders. “It’s freezing.”

  He glanced up at me with a vague smile. “Haven’t I ever told you? I don’t feel the cold.”

  A dozen questions rose in my mind, but I pushed them aside. “Let’s go home,” I said.

  Without my cloak, I was shivering by the time we reached our tent. Shae brought the fire to life as we stepped inside and nudged me toward the circle of warmth. But I turned to face him, arms folded.

  “The Council has discovered a use for me at last. They wish me to act as their agent. I am to attempt to reason with you—for the good of the clan, they say.”

  He showed not the slightest bit of surprise. “Yes, I thought it would come to this. I’m only surprised they waited this long.”

  “You could have warned me,” I exclaimed. “I never would have gone to that musty, old lodge in the first place.”

  “It’s no good to defy the Council,” he answered with a shrug.

  “You’re one to talk! They say you’ve abandoned them entirely.”

  “I have.”

  “Why?”

  He sighed and brushed past me to approach the fire. “How about some tea?”

  “Don’t do that,” I snapped. “You promised to always tell me the truth.”

  He paused and gave me a bleak look. “I was stupid then. I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “That you would grow up to be a person. That everything I said and did would affect you, and you would remember it all.”

  I didn’t know what to say to this. I splayed my hands hopelessly. “Of course I remember. You were my whole world. Everything I am is because of you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he sighed. “Noch, sooner or later the Council will ask you to report on my actions and words. I
want you to tell them the truth. Be as difficult as you must be but never disloyal. I want them to keep you in their confidence.”

  “No,” I replied sharply. “I will not spy on you for the Council, nor on the Council for you. I will not act as your go-between or as their lackey. Speak to the Council yourself, Shae, for pity’s sake.”

  He lifted his brows at me. “If the Council wants a lackey, they will have one. You’re already attempting to reason with me, just as they commanded.”

  “Because you’re being unreasonable,” I shot back. “Just go to them—show them you’re all right. They think you’ve gone mad. They talk about you like you’re dangerous.”

  He let out a soft laugh. “Are they wrong?”

  “Of course they’re wrong—”

  “Noch, I burned your family before your eyes. It didn’t even occur to me that you would remember. I gave you nice things, kept you warm with that same cursed fire, and held you when you woke up crying without even bothering to wonder why you had so many nightmares. How can you tell me I’m not dangerous?”

  “Is that what this is about?” I spluttered. “Shae, that was years ago.”

  “Twelve years. Almost to the day. I have you to remind me—every winter when I see you’ve grown a little bit taller.”

  “Because you saved me,” I reminded him, voice trembling. I didn’t know why, but there was panic rising in my throat. “You walked into a plague-ridden tent to get me. When no one else would come within fifty feet of me, you held me in your arms. That’s right, I remember that too.”