Olga McArrow - Hot Obsidian

Aven and her fellow mages were listening to Sarien with bated breath, surprised, to say the least. Why was she suddenly so friendly and open with the boy? Even they, her battle brothers and sisters, had never heard that story!

Kosta Ollardian was silent for a long time but Sarien Sarra didn’t say anything to hurry him up. Aven had no idea that her boss could be so patient.

“That woman was my mother,” Kosta confessed at last.

“Small world!” Sarien smiled admiringly. “Tell me, my dear, are you your mother’s only child?”

“No. I have siblings,” answered Kosta, as honest and vague as Juel was with Aven when they first met.

“Ah, don’t worry, I’m not going to interrogate you about personal things,” said the old mage in a warm, soothing voice. “It’s the way you and your mother resisted morok magic that interests me greatly. Your mother never taught me her secret. Will you?”

“No,” Kosta shook his head.

“But my dear boy,” Sarien chastised him softly, “it can save countless lives. Just think about it!”

“It’s just impossible to learn,” explained young Ollardian. “It’s what you can only be born with.”

Sarien Sarra looked disappointed but didn't change her sweet attitude toward the boy.

“Tell me, where is your mother from?” she moved to the next question. “Are all people in her native land like her?”

“There is a small settlement in the No Man’s Land. It’s almost near the Karmasan Sea, in the forest. The name’s Marnadrakkar.” Kosta shrugged. “But my mother is an exile. She was not like the other people there, so they told her to go away. That’s all I know. My mother rarely spoke about her past.”

The younger Crimson Guardians exchanged a few silent gestures when their boss wasn't looking. After so many years of working together, they had their ways of understanding each other without words. It was as clear as day to them that the old mage had big plans either for the boy himself or for his mother’s people.

Before his simple no, she must have dreamed of legions of specifically trained monster-slayers marching through the No Man’s Land. But after that, the flow of her thoughts changed: now it was Marnadrakkar people that interested her.

Sarien Sarra had a way of making a suspect spill everything out and was very creative in her approach. The grandmotherly tone she had chosen for that shy little boy was working extremely well. Slowly, one tiny confession at a time, the young Lifekeeper was opening up.

He knew little about his mother’s origins, indeed. Her ancestors called themselves Marns and were a small tribe surviving between a rock and a hard place, with yellow dragons reigning over the Karmasan Sea and children of the night prowling in the No Man’s Land. That must have been why there were so few of them.

Aven and her three fellow mages listened to Sarien Sarra with breathless attention. One word from her – and the Elder Rule would be enforced; one word from her – and the massive raid on the No Man’s Land dark creatures would begin. That meant a bloodbath, the end of the fragile peace they all were working so hard to keep, that meant a lot of mages, warriors, and civilians would die… One word. Just one word. Maybe not even Sarien’s but Kosta’s if he really knew something the old mage needed.

There was a moment when Aven was sure that her worst fears would come true: Sarien fell silent for a while, thinking, brooding over something, a frowning, pondering expression overshadowing her mask of grandmotherly kindness. Finally, she wished the young Lifekeepers goodnight and signed to Aven and the others to leave the room.

***

“You didn’t tell her everything, right?” asked Orion, a shaky mix of optimism and desperation in his voice. He was the one who broke the silence that followed Kosta’s report of the last night’s events. “That disease of yours is gone. You are no longer coughing.”

“Yes. I didn’t mention that to lady Sarra,” nodded Kosta.

Bala opened his mouth to say something but dropped the idea as he suddenly recalled the end of Kosta’s illness, that mass of black clots and red blood he had coughed out…

“My father warned me against telling anyone about it, even you. I was allowed to speak about my immunity to wild horror magic but never about the cause of my magical addiction,” he explained looking at Orion alone.

“Why?” a question followed. That was Lainuver.

“It would make me too valuable to Greys and Crimsons, Father said. They would recruit me whether I wished that or not.”

“Call me a shlak if I get what’s going on,” Oasis shook his head. “Kosta, can you just… explain that to me that like I’m five? I swear – and everyone else will join me, I bet – that your secret will be safe with us. We’re all your brothers of the Order, after all. And your friends.”

Not a single muscle moved on Juel’s face to betray his emotions but the last phrase hit him hard. Since the very beginning of the journey, he was doing his best to be distant. He failed. Those boys were good people. The more time he spent with them, the better he got to know them, the more he liked and respected the whole lot.

That peaceful time they were having together in Firaska worked wonders on the team’s mood. Also, it made Abadar’s words about the true purpose of the journey and the true fate of everyone under Juel’s command seem distant, almost unreal. Now, Juel’s memory shoved all that into his face again.

Anger, terrible, uncontrollable like a forest fire, rose in the young Faizul’s heart, consuming everything he held dear, leaving only duty and oaths behind…

“Shut up!” he growled at Oasis but instead shut up himself, terrified by his own inner rage.

Oasis took no offence. Just like Kosta was immune to horror magic, the urban jungle boy was immune to insults of any kind. He didn’t care to reply to Juel’s outburst – indeed, he barely even noticed it. Only Kosta mattered to him at the moment.

“I wasn’t going to keep you in the dark forever,” said young Ollardian. “I just had hoped that it would go away like it always had before. And, honestly, I didn’t know how to explain such a thing to you properly…”

“So your magical addiction is a reversed one: not absence but presence of the addiction’s target triggers it, right?” said Milian, excited. “It’s an extremely rare type!”

“Yes,” Kosta nodded again. “But not only a morok can trigger my illness. Any other child of the night can: drekavak, navka, siren, vetala, bargest, werewolf… you name it. The closer they are to me and the longer I stay close to them, the worse my illness gets. You saw that yourself. It started with just a sore throat at the Magrove Forest but worsened every day I stayed in Firaska. I hoped that the monster would go away or that the Crimsons would kill it.” Kosta lowered his eyes, suddenly shy. “I’ve never killed any dark creatures before. This morok was my first kill…”

“Why didn’t you tell us? We could've helped you!” grunted Lainuver.

Bala turned to him and made a hasty forbidding gesture which, along with Bala’s sad face, explained a lot. Maraskaran alone, of all people here, knew how helpless a warrior was when a wave of morok’s magic hit him.

“Well, we could have told the Crimsons about the monster then,” Lainuver kept going, “let them face that thing with a couple of battle Sevens!”

“No, we couldn’t,” Orion stopped him and added with a tired reproach, “Kosta already told you why. Just imagine what the mages would do to him if they learned that he can sense the darklings!”

A heavy silence fell. It made the gloomy little room look even darker, despite the golden rays of the morning sun slanting through the open balcony door.

Kangassk Ollardian was right to warn his son against revealing his secret to anyone. And most likely about the mages instantly recruiting him too. They would drag him into every raid, use him to detect dark creatures as a village sorcerer uses a divining rod to find water. “Oh, the boy is coughing again? Good! Reinforce the perimeter and tell everyone to stand ready!”

Kosta’s life would turn into endless torture. How long would he live? An illness that makes you cough blood is no joke. Oh, but no, they would not let him die too soon! They would prolong his life – and suffering! – with medicine and magic and in the end they would assign a battle Seven to him so the donors would sustain his life as long as possible.

Sainar used to say that the worldholders and their mages would do anything “for the greater good”. So why wouldn’t they sacrifice one boy to a "good" cause…

That made Sainar’s own decision – about sacrificing not one but nine boys to his Order’s plan – look quite ironic. But only Abadar, Orlaya, and their apprentices knew that, of course.

For the whole time of Sarien’s Sarra interrogation, it was touch and go whether Kosta would live. The boy steered through all her tricks and traps as gracefully as a pirate captain steers his ship through the Perilous Archipelago. Even Juel gave a deep sigh of relief after learning that. He wished he could somehow steer between his oaths, duties, honour, and the Order’s mission the same way and bring his little team – all the boys – alive to the final point of the journey. It was a beautiful dream, a dream worthy of living for. One moment, it quenched Juel’s rage and lit a small candle of hope under his heart. But a reminiscence that rose in his mind the next moment barred its way…

“I don’t want to lead these people to their death,” said Juel, looking his master in the eye. “I’m not a murderer and not a liar.”

“I know,” said Kangassk Abadar, crossing his arms on his chest. His cloak was flapping in the wind like a flag. “I will be honest with you, Juel. There is no one to murder there. They died a long time ago, even before becoming the apprentices of the Order. You alone are real of the whole team.”

“I don’t understand…” recoiled Juel.

“I know. But you will,” Abadar leaned forward. “You will see the truth, all of it, very clearly, when you step onto the shore of the Karmasan sea with Hot Obsidian burning on your chest.”

“…died a long time ago…” The cruel phrase echoed in Juel’s mind again.

He raised his eyes and saw that a lot of time had passed while he was brooding over the past, relieving the strange conversation over and over again in the vain hope of grasping the meaning of his master’s words.

Bala was busy cooking breakfast for the whole team. Kosta had changed into a clean set of clothes and was asking Pai about a magical way to remove blood stains because plain soap had been no help. Orion was making a wooden flute for Jarmin, and Jarmin was nagging Oasis about more stories…

With Kosta's life no longer in danger, there were chatter and laughter in the room again. More than ever, the small flat felt like home.

“…you alone are real of the whole team…” another echo rose from Juel’s memory.

The austere Faizul hid his face in his hands. He felt like crying now, as a helpless little child would.

When I was small

My sworn oath was spoken

And I will honour it whole.

My word was given

Ere my mind was woken

When there was peace in my soul.

I kept my promise

Through the years, unbroken

And I have won me a sword.

If I could return,