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Chapter Three: Leaving
Marly's books, clothes and cat were packed within the hour. Her horse, which had been a gift from the town when she turned sixteen, as was custom, was ready to go. Jacen and Marly were out of the city by the time the sun hit the ocean water, Marly turned and took one last longing look at Jehana.
Jacen slowed down, bringing his mount to a stop. Marly followed suit. "I have fifty men in the woods. They weren’t expecting me to bring back a..." He trailed off.
"A woman?" She finished for him, her stomach giving a slight lurch.
"Yeah, a woman, so just fair warning, they haven't seen anything but woods in weeks." He clicked to his mount and he rode off. Marly trailed only slightly behind.
He didn't have to say anything more. Marly got the picture, and she didn't like it. But she would be fine, she always had been. And if nothing else worked, she did have two forked knives at her waist. She knew she would be able to take care of herself if it was indeed a fight she faced. And if these men wanted a fight, they where going to get one.
After a long ride, Jacen slowed his stallion down to a light trot, and Marly did the same.
"Get off the horse." Jacen said, dismounting his stallion. Obediently Marly slid off her bay with somewhat of an annoying scowl, and checked on her cat, who was sleeping in the basket-like addition that Marly had attached to the saddle. "Come on." Jacen said. Marly led her horse behind his.
Marly froze as a whizzing sounded though the air just inches from her ear. Her horse yanked away her nervously. Jacen looked back at her, his eyes dancing with amusement. Marly pulled her horse up beside his, so that she and Jacen could walk together.
"Well, I'm glad you think it's funny." She whispered hotly. "But I know what I heard, and I heard an arrow."
"That'd be Terry, he's the lookout, he's just letting everyone know we're coming, so they don't jump out of a bush and cut our throats." he stated, his voice flat. "So where did you go to school?" he asked.
"I didn't, I'm self-educated." Marly answered matter-of-factly. Why did it matter where she went to school? Jacen looked at her, and could have sworn she heard him mutter, 'uneducated prat.' Just in case her ears were correct she shot back a fiery retort in ancestor’s Native tongue, "Wiha di yu tahanaki yura mususunagu witaha hara? I mu natu sumu edicetadi perata."
"I have no clue what you just said." Jacen stated. So he admitted to weakness.
"That would be the point," She snapped. "Who’s uneducated now? You people sit in your classrooms and they make you memorize facts from fiction. They only teach you what they think you should know, and nothing else. But when I taught myself, I learned the fact and the fiction. I read anything and everything, and I thought about it. I tested it. I wrote about it. I learned it
"Alright, you proved your point, now. Hush up." he said. Marly shot daggers towards him out of the corner of her eyes. She had the urge to smack that smirk from his face.
"See that there?" Jacen pointed to a small orange dot on the horizon, "That’s where we're going." He remounted his horse. "I wouldn’t have gotten off, but I had to make sure they knew we where coming." Marly got back on her bay. Jacen had already begun to trot, and was in the transition process towards a gallop when Marly caught up with him.
Being on horses again, made the trip shorter. Jacen dismounted his horse quickly, and threw his stallion’s reins over a nearby tree branch, stepping into campfire in a clearing in the woods.
He was greeted warmly by his men. Almost like he was a close brother. But he must have been one of them once, before he became the Spymaster. Marly thought as she watched the men from the shadows of the trees. Marly slid off her horse and waited.
"So," One man said, "Were is this Mr. Reigly, we were sent to bring back?"
---
Jacen sat down by the fire, and shot a glance in Marly’s direction. He could not see her, but he knew she was there, he could sense her some how. There was something amiss about her. Something out of place that just didn't seem to fit. He knew who she was, and she knew Jacen knew it. It was going to be an interesting trip.
"I met with Mr. Reigly Cop'n in Jehana. He said he was too old for the travel. He will be staying in Jehana, but he has sent his friend and former employee to take his place.” There was a sudden uproar from the men around the circle. "He guarantees that she will be good." He said, trying to calm the angered men. His attempts did work to an effect, but one word stuck in their minds.
This quieted them for a moment before some one said. "She?" One brave soul dared to voice the question that was going through everyone’s mind from the anonymous safety of the semi-darkness.
Jacen glanced again towards the spot where Marly stood. This was it. The defining moment. If the men didn't accept her, than there was a good chance she'd be dead by tomorrow. If they didn't trust her, she'd be dead by the end of the night. These guys weren’t the most trusting people, but who could blame them? Most of them were taken out of homes where their parents beat them. Or they where taken off the streets. Some were even taken off their deathbeds.
"Well, where is she?" Ivan asked. "I don't see her."
"Marly?" Jacen called.
---
Marly stood transfixed on the edge of the shadows. After a long moment, she stepped into the fire light, trying to calm her lurching stomach.
Everyone was silent as they took in the woman standing before them. "This is Marly O'Dera house of..." he trailed off, not knowing what house she was from.
Marly shook her head, "No house,." She stated abruptly. A slight stir went over the men, so she went into detail. "I was disowned.”
"So what does your full name mean?" One man asked.
“Oh, come on, Lang. Why do you always have to ask that question?” The man beside him punched him in the arm.
Marly looked him over, her dark eyes taking in his every detail, standing up he was probably five feet nine inches, he was a fighter, and scars visible on face and hands probably meant he came off the streets.
"In Native tongue, it means mysterious flower. In the Old Tongue of Men it means Wielder of the Blade, and in Modern Tongue it means, Bringer of Light." Marly looked around at the men before her. They didn't trust her and she could tell that wasn't a good thing, in fact it could mean her death, and that could not happen if she were to do what Mr. Reigly had asked her too. These men didn’t trust, and if they didn’t trust they got jumpy, and when they got jumpy, they got deadly.
Jacen could sense her unease; he knew that the other men could too. She could smell her own death on the blades of the men. She didn’t know what to do, she could tell them all about herself, but then that would raise more questions.
She looked up at Jacen as if to ask, ‘What the hell am I suppose to do?’ he shrugged and began to talk softly to the man on his left. “So tell us about yourself.” A man close to her said.
"Um, I’m self educated. Don't make the same mistake you captain did and think just because I'm self educated means that I am not smart, and that I don't really know what I'm talking about. I will prove my point, one way or another." Marly wanted them to know they could trust her, but she did not want to give away too much, because she didn't know if she could trust them. "I've been out on my own now for about fourteen years, I have a cat, who is sleeping at the moment, and a horse, and if you try to take advantage of me, you will be extremely sorry you did so."
The men stirred, they no longer knew what to think of this young girl who came barging in, telling them what they could and could not do around her. Most of these men where older than her. It was bad enough having to take orders from a captain who was younger than you, but now a girl? They weren’t sure if this was going to work out. And the speech she made, was she trying to impress them or something, or was she trying to throw them off guard?
"Do you believe in Magic?" Someone asked.
"Yes." Marly answered with out hesitation.
“Do you use it?” The man asked.
“Sometimes,” Marly said, “I try not to use it in day to day life though. I must admit, I’ve always been a little afraid of it." She looked around at their confused faces, "There are two types of power that make up the one power we call 'The Center', is there not?" They nodded their heads in agreement. "There is male and there is female, two halves make a whole. There are Gods and there are Goddesses, two halves make a whole." They nodded again. "There is good and there is evil, two halves make a whole." They nodded, and seemed to understand, "If 'The Center' can be used for good it can be used for evil. Power corrupts both male and female alike. If you let the greed of wanting to know more and more and more over take you, then the magic of 'The Center' will corrupt your mind and the magic will bend you to it's will."
"You seem to know a lot about that." Jacen said. He didn’t get it how could one girl could obtain so much information, when he himself, Captain of the King's Spies and head of the King's Personal Guard, struggled to grasp the concept of magic from day one.
"I read." Marly stated flatly. Who did he think he was accusing her, of dark magic, "You would be surprised how much you can find out when you’re just reading from ancient text, myths, legends. I believe our ancestors had a firmer grasp on the concept of magic than we do." Marly said. "They knew the consequences their actions had; they understood magic was not a toy to be played with. They understood magic should only be used for good and not for evil..." She hesitated, and they all leaned forward to hear her speak.
Even Jacen who was trying to resist the fact that when she talked she seemed to spin a spider web of pictures and words, which wrapped around him as he listened. He could see the things she could do to him; if she ever discovered this it would not be good for him. He told himself at any cost she would not, but never the less he leaned forward to let her spin her seductive web of words around him.
"That is why they created the Sword of Suhanadirula, the Natives believed it is the blade that holds the power of the sun and the moon, and together they are one. The name it's self just means Blade of Light.
“The sun and the moon are opposites; once again, male and female, good and evil, it all balances. In the old tongue, it means the Sword of Mighty Light, and the symbols on the blade itself mean nothing. In today’s tongue it means Bringer of light, and the symbols again mean nothing more than pictures."
"You are a mysterious flower, little one." said one of the older men. He had a mess of brown hair that had a few grey streaks in it, but his eyes danced in the fire light, like a shadow of his life before he was put into the service of the king. "My name is Reise, just Reiss and only Reise. No house." He paused, and lit his pipe, "You are too wise for your age, and you carry a burden not even you can imagine yet. -You have no home and no family now, but you will find it again, before your life ends, whether by blade or by decay."
He paused, "You will love again, little one. I know it may not feel like it but you will. This journey you have chosen to begin with us, will bring you closer than you are willing to go, and bring you further out than you can stand. Hard times come yet, little one. Don't jump. He will come to you, and you must face him."
Marly stood up, and stared at the man named Reise. "How? What?" The words fell out of her mouth like five people trying to get though a door at once.
"You little one, are more gifted than you could possibly ever know. You must call it to you." Then without another word as to what he meant, he left. Reise just walked into the woods with his pipe and vanished into the shadows of the iron night.
Everyone sat in stunned silence. Every one openly stared at Marly. As if the Gods had blown a breath of distaste on the group, everyone began moving an talking at once, forming a low hum, adding to the cracking of fire, and music of the crickets.
"Alright, who’s taking the first watch?" Jacen asked speaking over everyone, as Marly sat back down. "I can do it, do we have any volunteers... or would you like to volunteer someone?" Jacen learned growing up in a private school that if people didn't really want to do something, then they would not volunteer themselves, but they would, volunteer other people so that they would not have to do it.
Every head swiveled around to face Marly O'Dera, who was looking straight into the glowing embers of the fire, too lost in her own thought to know what was going on. She seemed to snap out of it quickly enough, though, and looked at everyone who was looking at her, and nodded, before saying, "That’s fine." Jacen wondered if she knew what she had agreed to.
The men walked over to the line of small black and green tents that where lined up against a rock wall. Marly settled herself, with her back towards the tents, and her eyes settled on the woods in front of her, not really looking at anything, but enjoying the sounds and sights of a night in the woods. Jacen settled himself beside her, and he too looked into the fleshy night. "They like you." Jacen said finally, when he could no longer stand the silence between them.
Jacen could see her smile in the fire light, "I'm glad. Maybe I have a fighting chance of not being murdered on the first night then." She turned her attention back to the woods in front of her. She had read about the animals that roamed in the woods at night, and how they left their victims.
"There nothing out in these woods that is so terrible, nothing but the normal, creatures." Jacen reassured her, as if he could read her mind. But it was not her mind he could read it was her face. Her face with it's high cheekbones, and dark eyes, gave her a delicate beauty, that was deceptive.
Jacen could tell even in the fire light that Marly was not a woman to mess around with. He could tell she was not used to taking orders, or giving them. Somewhere under that mask that she had put on when he entered the shop, but then let it drop when Symon came in, was the truth about her, hidden under a flawless mask of ivory skin. She had put it back on when he left, there was something very interesting, and different about this girl.
"You haven't lived in a city that fears the woods, almost your entire life." Came her reply. "The people of Jehana live with their backs to the warm waters of the ocean, they do not fear the waters of mighty ocean, which is so blue you can see straight to the bottom. They face these woods, always someone is watching. I guess it's because they can't see all the way though the woods like they can the water. People fear what they cannot understand and what they fail to see."
"You have an explanation for everything, don't you?" He asked, looking at the woods. She was right you couldn't see a foot into them.
"Not always." She said, Jacen waited for more, but nothing came.
Just sitting there, her vision began to fizz around the edges. She felt herself falling backwards.
“You didn’t tell him?” I asked walking into the Spymaster’s office.
“You told me not to.” Brandon said, “You’re mad.”
“Yes, I’m mad. I was counting on you telling the King before Owen did.” I yelled at him, “Gods, you’re suppose to be the Spymaster, Brandon!”
“Then you shouldn’t have made such a convincing argument.” He said.
“Brandon!” I yelled.
“I’m sorry, Romous, what else do you want to hear. You should have told me that you needed the King to know. –If you wouldn’t make everything so damn complicated all the time.”
My anger flared. I grabbed the front of his shirt, and slammed him into the wall, “I did not get where I am today, by sitting around on my ass, and allowing everyone to do everything for me. I am where I am because I took care of things, my way, and if you have a problem with that…”
“I don’t have a problem with that Romous.” Brandon said softly.
I let go of his shirt, and sucked in a deep breath, “This is ridiculous, we shouldn’t be fighting.”
“I know, I agree.”
Jacen waved a hand in front of her face, “Are you okay, you’re looking a little dazed.”
“I’m fine.” She said running a hand over her braid. What was going on? That was the second time today, that she had that happened to her. She didn’t even know what to call it. A vision, maybe.
Romous McNi, was the greatest hero Rona had ever seen. Her family had been killed by Western raids at a very young age. She was escaped the Slave Trade, hid herself as a boy and became the first Woman Knight of Rona…
“Maybe you should go get some sleep.” Jacen said.
“I’m fine.” Marly said, “Just thinking.”
“About?” He asked.
“That is none of your business.” She said calmly.