“Anyway, I never saw him again after he left the inn.”
“Really?”
“That’s right. I have no idea if he is alive or dead. Dead, I expect. He was a man of strange, dark moods, and I never expected him to have a long and happy life.”
“How odd.”
“In a way. And then again, not at all odd, but sadly all too common.” She took a path that would lead them back toward the city, and Aric stayed close to her side. “Because he made clear that he wanted nothing to do with our lives, I never told you about him, Aric. And as I told you at the start, I’ll never speak of him again, so don’t bother asking. I’ve given you all the details you need. Your father was a man who loved and hated me at the same time, hated all I was, and it’s for the best that you never knew him.”
After that, whenever Aric wandered the city streets and byways, he wondered if his father had truly died, or had simply avoided the elves. He stared at every older man he saw, those of an age to have been his father, searching for some sort of resemblance to himself. But he never saw any, and the man never returned to make any claims upon him.
He had never felt altogether comfortable in the elven district. His mother had barely been tolerated there, and when she took up with a human man, that tolerance was stretched even thinner. Aric grew up on its outskirts, not part of human or elf society, hated by both. His mother continued to work her stall, and brought young Aric with her, but from an early age he understand the glares and curses and epithets hurled his way.
The first time he touched a metal coin, it came from a human. That had been during Aric’s fourth year. A woman bought several bolts of cloth, planning to make dresses for several daughters, and paid with a metal coin. That was a rare enough event that Keyasune handed it to the boy, so he could see what it looked like. As soon as his tiny fingers touched it, he saw details, in his mind, of the life of the woman who had given it to his mother. He saw her moving with melancholic loneliness through a noble’s estate, thinking about a husband who was rarely at home. Servants cared for two children, both quite young, and she looked in on them, an expression of delight animated her face, but sorrow showed through her eyes. Keyasune, struck by the detail her young son offered, asked a slave she knew who worked for the family, and the slave confirmed Aric’s account.
After that, she tested her son often. He seemed able to do similar things with other metal objects, and in this way he developed his psionic connection to metals. He didn’t know until years later that she had kept the coin, although it represented a great deal of money to her. He had worn it ever since, as his medallion—though when she had presented it to him in that way, she had reminded him that if he was ever in desperate enough straits, it could still be used as currency.
Then, in his tenth year, his mother died. The elves, who had never truly embraced him, banished him from the market. On his own, frightened and hungry and dressed in rags, young Aric tried to make his way in the city, begging or stealing to keep himself fed, refusing to part with his coin medallion.
Aric went to the chaotic intersection where Cutpurse Lane intersected with Red Mark Alley and Finder’s Alley. The carvings on the walls there showed scenes of an ancient battle, with humanoid soldiers engaged in combat against creatures with reptilian features and long, forked tongues. One of the buildings had a niche cut out of it, at ground level, and for a time, that spot had been where Aric had curled up to sleep at night.
One night, he awoke there to find a bundle tucked up beside him, wrapped in cloth. When he opened it, he was astonished to find clothing in his size, meat and vegetables, and even a few coins. That was the first time he became aware of his mysterious benefactor, and since he knew of few people wealthy enough to give such treasures to a stranger, he decided it must have been a gift from Nibenay himself.
This expedition truly was a gift from Nibenay, although it remained to be seen whether gift was the right word. Assuming he survived it, though—and assuming there really was metal beneath the ruins of this city, because if they didn’t find any, Aric had a feeling he’d be blamed for that failure—it could be the best thing that ever happened to him. He might amass enough wealth to join the nobility. If nothing else, he could enlarge his shop, hire some hands, get work from the kingdom crafting all that new armor and weapons. In any case, it appeared that poverty was in his past now, that from now on he wouldn’t have to worry about how to take on every job that came his way because he could ill afford to turn down a single one.
No, he was certain that at journey’s end, his life would be irreversibly changed. And he was ready for change. He enjoyed working with steel, crafting swords especially. But they were always for someone else. His life was fulfilling, he supposed, in a limited way. Life on Athas was more a matter of survival than fulfillment anyway. But he had a passing acquaintance, through his readings and even the occasional night at Sage’s Square listening to the scholars ramble on, with the works of Athasian philosophers, and he had the sense that there should be more to life than that. There should be some sort of satisfaction with one’s lot, and acceptance that one had done everything he could to live his life to the utmost.
So far, Aric had not done that. A half-elf ordinarily couldn’t expect much more than basic survival, or so he had been told. But he wanted more from life than survival. Perhaps this was the curse of the literate, the knowledge that there was more to be had, and if this expedition gave him that, he would take it gladly.
Elsewhere in the city, the man was back at the fringes of the elven market. He had ventured into the market briefly, spent a few bits on spices, eyed some of the elf women, and then retreated into a dark alleyway from which he could watch the goings-on.
He had tried, once again, to resist the urge that compelled him here. But he could not do so. The memory of that last time, the slashing of his blade, the blood slicking its polished surface and spattering wetly on walls and road, the astonishment on the face of the elf as she watched the human with her dying, then realized the blade would bite her next … these things were too powerful to deny. They held him in an iron grip, their images seemingly more real than his daily life. His family members spoke to him with words that sounded distant, their faces ghostly, while the dying breaths of those he had killed were immediate and alive.
He realized that each time he did it, the compulsion to return and do it again gripped him sooner. If this kept up, if he could not forestall his own appetites, he would be here every night. That would never do—he would be seen, recognized, remembered. Already there were more foot patrols in the area, soldiers in the market, forcing him farther back into the alley, where he could lose himself in shadows.
Maybe tonight he should go home, lie in the arms of his wife, put all this from his mind. He was torn, not wanting to turn away from the market, but wishing he wanted to. Then he saw a human man strike up a conversation with one of the elf women. She didn’t look like a prostitute, but he couldn’t always tell. Anyway, elves were notorious for loose morals—prostitute or not, most of them would do anything for a few coins.
The elf and her human struck away from the market, toward the seedier end of the Hill District. Just as the last pair had done. These had a similar look about them, too, the man obviously of a high enough station to pay well for an hour’s pleasure, the elf fair-skinned, voluptuous, with hair so red that when he cut her, the blood would hardly show on it.