Land of Sky, Land of Rain (Chapter Ten)

Chapter Ten- The Little Spy and Her Story

“Sae Noridsemi.” Attaraya says with ice in her voice.

The girl stares back at her mutely.

Attaraya looks a bit taken aback. Apparently, she expected the girl– Sae– to give her some sort of Big Bad Guy speech.

“Ahem. Sae Noridsemi. My name is Attaraya D’Nar, head of Naroth’s guard--”

Recognition flashes across Sae’s face. “Eil!” she says, her child’s voice hoarse and weak.

“Stop interrupting me!” Attaraya snaps. “Now, as I was saying, I’m Attaraya, head of Naroth’s guard, and I’ve come to avenge my friend, Renketh, whom you mercilessly murdered, by returning you to justice in the great city of Naroth--”

The girl stiffens. Attaraya pauses mid-dramatic-speech.

Then, quite suddenly, Sae whirls around and, using only her left hand, begins desperately scrabbling at the rubble behind her, trying to push it away and make a path through which she can escape. Her right arm continues to flop uselessly at her side.

“H-hey, you’ll collapse the tunnel!” I shout at her. She turns back to us, but this time, her face is illuminated by a handful of crackling flames floating above her left palm.

“Back up!” she cries. Her English (or, well, Hanoran, I guess) is only slightly accented. “Back away from me. Now!” she adds, and the flames flare.

That sounds like pretty reasonable advice to me, but Attaraya stretches out an arm and pushes me back into place before I can go anywhere.

“Get back or you will all burn.”

“We are not cowards!" Attaraya shouts, “We’ll stay where we are!” Iarin glances at her and gives a little “Eh.” of uncertainly. As for me… well, I don’t think I’ve ever met one person I want to slap more than the self-proclaimed VIP holding me back from the exit. Courage and honor be damned, I’ve got bigger things to worry about than fighting a kid, particularly a kid who can conjure fire.

Sae extends her hand, letting the edge of the flame catch the fringe of Attaraya’s scarf. Attaraya lets out a screech rivaling a bad violin and runs like hell out of the tunnel, dragging us with her. As soon as we’re out, though, the flame vanishes, leaving a slightly singed scarf behind.

“What the hell is with you?” I ask, grateful as I am to be out of harm’s way.

“Those flames... would have never gone out. When we found Renketh, she’d overturned a whole barrel of water on herself trying to put out the fire all over her.... but...she was... Like I said, it’s witch magic. It’s not natural fire.”

Meanwhile, Sae looks to be staggering out of the tunnel, throwing her arm up against the wall for support less and less as she gets used to walking again.

Attaraya, who was clearly never the sharpest crayon in the box, is apparently not grateful to have been saved from almost certain death by burning. She charges back at Sae with an honest-to-goodness snarl of rage.

Sae looks up, startled. The flame jumps to life in her hand again, but smaller, this time, and now Attaraya is ready. She leaps into the air, and drawing a fistful of throwing knives from a pocket, hurls them at the spy.

Sae dodges just in time, awkwardly, her right arm flopping at her side. As soon as she’s out of range of the knives, she hurls the fireball at Attaraya, who leaps to the side with a high-pitched yelp. The fireball, missing her, zooms toward Iarin and I, and I duck quickly to avoid being hit full in the face with it.

An even match, it looks like. Neither one seems able to gain any sort of upper hand. I dunno if I should step in or not. On one hand, my help could tip the scales and prevent Sae from escaping, on the other, is it safe for me to fight? If the marionette strings kick in again, I could end up attacking Iarin or ‘Raya, and letting Sae get away.

With a sudden wave of her left arm, Sae sends a sharp and powerful gust of wind in Attaraya’s general direction, sending the knives she’s just thrown off course.

While Attaraya stares in obvious confusion, Sae darts down the steps of the ruin and into the cover of another fallen building. I hurry towards it to cut her off.

Sae skids to a stop, dust puffing under her feet, with a few words that most people of her age probably wouldn’t have dared say in front of their parents. She whirls around, but Attaraya is coming to close in on her on the other side, and to the right, Iarin is hurrying to cut her off (though admittedly Iarin’s not much of a threat). To the left lie a few open feet and then another wall. Sae is completely surrounded.

She backs up against the wall. Attaraya draws a knife and points it at her pale neck.

“Going to kill me, are you?” Sae says, her voice rasping in her throat. “Go on. I don’t mind, especially.”

Attaraya stiffens.

“What?” Sae asks. “What about your revenge? You can’t honestly say that standing there holding me at knifepoint makes you feel any better.” She shrugs. “May the vreihymel bless me in the next world. If they even exist. If not, well, it was an interesting life and all, wasn’t it?”

Attaraya glares.

“But you’re not here to kill me, are you?” Sae says slowly. “I thought not. You weren’t aiming to kill.”

“You... you will be returned to Naroth, to serve out your sentence for espionage!”

Sae looks shaken for the first time since we surrounded her.

“No.” she says, looking like she’s trying hard to stay calm, but shaking nonetheless. “No! No, I won’t.” she presses herself further against the wall. “I won’t.”

“Really,” says Attaraya coolly. “What’ve you got to bargain with?”

Sae’s eyes light up. She reaches into the sash of her uniform and pulls out a small, unremarkable black book.

“I have this.”

Attaraya’s eyes widen. She pulls the knife back.

Sae smirks. “So it is valuable.” She tosses it into the dirt. Before Attaraya can lunge for the book, she places her foot firmly down upon it.

I don’t know what that thing is, and from the looks of it, neither does Iarin. Attaraya, however, looks as though the tables have definitely been turned on her.

Sae bends down, uses another fire spell, this time only a little spark. It floats just off her fingers, dangerously close to the little book.

“I’ll burn it.”

Attaraya looks from the book, to the flame, to Sae a few times before stepping back a bit.

“Where did you get that?”

“Renketh.” Sae says. “I stole it from her. Before I set her on fire, of course.” she says, apparently enjoying the fact her words are having upon Attaraya, who looks as though she might be sick. “What? An eye for an eye, after all. Bit of a taste of her own medicine.” She smiles. “I hear this is quite an interesting little volume. Renketh said it contains notes on all the intelligence you’ve gained about Sareil, and– Renketh’s special little section– all you still need to know. Only the Hanorans would leave something like this where it could be lost, ena?”

“What do you want from us?” Attaraya snaps at her.

“Firstly, I go free. Secondly, I want to go home.”

“Go, then!” Attaraya yells, clearly at the end of her rope.

“I wouldn’t last ten minutes trying to cross the border on my own.”

“Y-you want us to take you back to Sareil, don’t you.” Iarin says.

“Samei-Kozca, to be more specific.”

“What?” Attaraya demands. “Hell no! Why would we help you?!”

“You don’t have to.” Sae says, “but if I were you, I’d hate to loose an important book such as this.”

“Erm.” Is all I have to say. This isn’t going according to plan at all.

“Alright, I get it!” Attaraya snaps. “We’ll do it. Now hand over the book.”

“Actually, I think I’ll be keeping this.” says Sae coolly. “Since there’s no way you’d take me to Samei unless you needed your book. I’ll give it back to you when we’re in Samei, how’s that?”

Attaraya lets out an exaggerated groan. “Okay. We’ll go.” she says.

What about Koreth? I want to ask her, but I doubt it will make any difference. Attaraya was willing to give up her revenge for this book, it’s probably a lot more important to the greater good of Hanora than Koreth is. We’ll have to find another way… but in the meantime, we’ll have to stick with Attaraya, make sure she doesn’t snap and kill the poor kid, or something.

Oh, shut up, I tell myself, forget it. Stop lying to yourself. He’s dead, he’s dead, okay? D-E-A-D. Dead. Do you understand that?

Maybe not. Maybe not. Even Iarin said there is a chance, a little chance.

Exactly. A little chance. Since when has anything like this gone well for me? Besides, even if he was alive, he’d be dead by now. It’s been almost five days. Without any water, maybe without any air. Why the hell wouldn’t he be dead? It’s not like some random person just happened along to save him. Stop lying to yourself. You’ll have to face facts eventually.

Yes, but...

My God, am I arguing with myself again?

I’m out of my mind. I’m out of my freaking mind.

* * * * *

No one’s really in the mood to hang out here, but it’s getting dark and we still aren’t sure of a good way to get over the border unnoticed, so we walk south into the mountains in search of a good place to set up camp for the night. Attaraya, obviously in a bad mood, refuses to talk to anyone and is walking far ahead. Iarin is– you guessed it– reading. So I fall back to talk to Sae.

“So... um... hi.” I say awkwardly.

Sae glares.

“You’re... Sae, right?”

Sae glares. I’ll take that as a yes.

“Um... I’m Emma.” I say, “Emma Bering. I’m from Phoenix, Arizona... I think. But actually, I sort of just found out that my memories aren’t right and I...” once again, I launch into the story of the circumstances that brought me here. Sae listens without much reaction. I know perfectly well that I’m babbling, but I don’t know what else to do. Sae’s not exactly forthcoming with conversation, and I can’t stand the uncomfortable silence pressing on all sides.

I just don’t get her. This slight and glaring ten-year-old who can speak of death with such indifference yet panics at the very thought of being returned to Naroth... why? I don’t understand.

“Um... are you hungry? I ask, pulling an apple out of my bag and handing it to her.

She studies it warily.

I sigh. “It’s not poisoned or anything.” I grab it from her and take a bite out of it, just to prove it.

Sae takes it from me and begins to eat ravenously, as though she hasn’t had any food for days.

“Hey!” Attaraya snaps, “Stop feeding all our supplies to the Bleachead midget!”

Sae looks up at her. “Don’t you ever close your mouth?”

Attaraya ignores her. “Give me that!” she takes the apple back from Sae, who barely blinks in response. Iarin closes her book and looks up to see what the argument is about this time. “If you want food so bad, go get it on your own! Kill some squirrels or something!”

“Well, I couldn’t, with this arm, could I?” Sae says, indicating her right hand.

“What’s wrong with it?” I ask.

She answers with a small bitter chuckle. “What isn’t?”

She gives us a long, measured look, as if she’s deciding whether or not to do something. Then she steps back from us a bit, and, looking away, gently lifts her sleeve away from her arm.

I drop the bag.

The arm looks like something out of a horror movie. It’s twisted in an odd shape, both the forearm and the upper arm broken in several places each. There’s not an inch of skin that still retains its original color, between open gashes, shining burns, a sickening mess of wounds of all descriptions. On her shoulder I can see the ends of other scars across her back, her hand is followed by five broken fingers without any nails.

Sae drops the sleeve and goes on walking, looking anywhere but at us.

Staring after her departed back, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good chance of throwing up. I mean... but... I... she’s a kid! She’s ten!

“W-wait a second!” I say, “We should… should get you to a doctor, or something… better yet, Iarin’s a Healer, she can--.”

“There’s not point. The wounds have been Sealed. You can’t do anything for them.”

“What... what happened?”

Sae glances back at me, then at Attaraya. “Renketh.” She says.

Attaraya stares at her, mute.

“What...” I ask, “why?”

She indicates the little black ledger, “There are still empty pages in this book. Many of them. It was Renketh’s job to fill them.” She looks away. “It’s better for us… for Sareil, I mean… if those spaces remain empty. And... so...” Sae’s voice catches and she falls silent, gesturing at her arm.

Attaraya just stares at her, trembling, her mouth opening and closing as she struggles for words. “You... you...” she swallows, “You’re lying!”

Sae doesn’t answer.

“Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it! Stop lying to us, tell the goddamn truth!”

“I am telling the truth.” Sae says. “Do you think I did this to myself?”

“Liar!” Attaraya’s voice is higher and shriller than I’ve ever heard it. “Liar! Liar! Liar!” she bites her lip, getting herself under control. “You... you’re a goddamned liar...” she says weakly. “A goddamned, stupid, heathen, Bleachead witch of a liar.”

“As you like.” Sae tells her.

“Wait...” I say, “Sae...”

“What now?”

“But... You... you’re just a kid. Who the hell would force a kid into fighting here? Into spying when they could so easily be caught?”

“We weren’t going to get caught. Our identities checked out, the Hanorans couldn’t have figured us out on their own. We were betrayed by someone.”

“That’s not my question! Who sent you here in the first place?”

Sae looks suspicious, suddenly. "Why do you want to know so badly--"

“It’s their queen.” Attaraya snaps, “This fat old bitch who rules Sareil like a tyrant. She--”

“Shut up!” says Sae, speaking loudly now. “It wasn’t her idea at all, it was Kagami’s! You’re just an ignorant little bitch, you've got no idea--”

“Oh yeah? And what do you know about anything?”

“Wait!” I shout again. Sae and Attaraya both turn to me. “Sae, what... did you just say?”

Sae points to Attaraya. “I called her an ignorant little--”

"No, before that. The name. The one you said had the idea...?”

Sae stares at me, confused. “Kagami,” she says, “Ka-ga-mi. Do you have a problem with that?”

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Well. There it is. I was... weirdly hesitant about posting this chapter. I suppose I've read it through so many times, and it kinda falls flat. But I'm going through a weird period of a lack of confidence this month, so that might be part of it. *drags self away from Ptolemy's Gate* I should know better than to reread my favorite books while I'm trying to work up the courage to post an iffy chapter.

In any case, this is a major turning point, and also the end of part three. Oh, I so hope things go well for the next story arc... There are times when I really doubt this story. And I feel... just really self-conscious about this part of the book... maybe it's the shift in overall tone. *sigh* I dunno...