His father kept his arm extended, so he could take J'role's hand But J'role stopped a few feet away. Just beyond was the pit, fifteen feet wide, and very, very deep. Eight feet down from the pit's brim glowed the surface of the pale blue liquid. It was thick, and bubbles appeared every so often.
The home of the dead.
When they'd put his mother in the pit, after stoning her to death in the fountain of the Atrium, with everyone in the kaer participating, the water no longer flowing so they could collect the blood, the statue of Garlen looking on. . After they'd stoned her, according to the ritual to drive the Horror out of her body and out of the kaer, they brought her body to the pit and threw it into the viscous blue liquid. She followed many other corpses who had died much, much more peaceful deaths.
For weeks afterward J'role had returned to the pit when no-one else was around, waiting for her to come back. It seemed to him, eight years old at the time, that she should. She had been punished, and wrongly so, because it was he who had the Horror in his head and not her, and it was his fault they thought she was possessed, and now it was time for her to come back.
Every time he stood at the edge of the pit he tried to say how sorry he was. He would open his mouth, forming his lips into the shape to make the sound I, rolling the tip of his tongue to the edge of his teeth, desperately wanting to say, “I’m sorry." But as soon as he began to make a sound, he felt his jaw turn prickly, lost the sensation of his tongue, and knew that the creature was still in him, ready to take control of his mouth should he try to speak. So he said nothing
Nothing, even after all these years.
"What is it, lad?” asked his father. "Oh, the pool. Yes.” He turned and looked into it.
"Lost in there among all the other dead." He picked up his flask from the floor, placed the spout to his mouth, and took a long swallow. Then he leaned his head back slowly, until it came to rest against the stone wall, eyes closed, happy. Happier than when he smiled at J'role, and J’role knew it. Truly happy. He remained motionless for a moment, still savoring the drink, then slowly turned his head toward his son.
J'role, confused, eager either to leave his father quickly or to please him, knelt down on the stone floor and set the bundle before him. He unwrapped it and the food spilled out.
Bevarden smiled at him. “Ah, J'role, my fine boy. How good of you." He rolled over and picked at the bread with his fingertips. "Can' t say I'm hungry right now, though."
J'role tore off a bit of bread from the loaf and raised it to his father's mouth, as he'd done so many time in the past.
"No, no. Not hungry now." His father closed his eyes. His face suddenly contorted with deep pain. "Why?” he whispered to no one, as if J'role had suddenly gone and he was free to voice all his confusions aloud. He then placed his hand on J'role's knee. Unlike Garlthik's hand, which was rough and alien and full of something strong, the touch of J'role's father was familiar-horribly familiar and weak and tied to misery. “Thank you for the food. You're a good son. Did you beg some money?”
J'role nodded.:
"From some adventurers?"
He raised one finger. "Ah. A man with a sword?”
J'role nodded, but barely. He knew what was coming, and did not welcome it.
"What I could tell you about adventurers! Your great great-great…" He stumbled, having lost track of the count long ago. "Grandfather, who traveled far and wide, even once visiting the island of Thera far to the southwest, the very man who entered this kaer four hundred years ago, he told many stories of his adventures. He encountered a great many creatures across the land. He even fought Horrors, before they became so great in number and there was naught to be done but seek shelter in the magical kaers." He slumped against the tunnel walls, his eyes closed tight. "Oh, the stories I heard when I was a boy!
What I would give to be young again, to know I had the opportunity to go off on the same quests that have traveled the family memory all the years we waited for they Scourge to pass." He looked at J'role, saw the disappointment on his son's face. He faltered.
Immediately J'role felt bad: he hadn't meant to reveal anything. He knew he had to react faster, know when people were going to look at him. Reveal only what people wanted to see, or nothing at all.
His father continued. "Ah, and who's to say I won't go yet. You're right, J'role, you're right. I've got it all planned out in my head. There's a treasure waiting for me. I'm just in the middle of my life. I could make it happen. I need only make the preparations. It'll all be so easy." He stretched himself out on the floor. "Just the preparations, and then it's a sojourn for me. What more need be done? The life of wealth and adventure, eh, my son?"
He reached out to take J'role's hand. J'role clamped down his thoughts, felt nothing, let his father pull him close, cradle him in his arms. "It's ours when we want it, son," he said softly. "Ours when we want it. Ah, life can be so grand. Who knows, I might get enough money, find the magic to grant you your speech again. Eh? Wouldn't that be something?
Magic to get your speech back. There are finer magicians than Charneale in the world, mind you, and with enough money-the money from a treasure guarded by a dragon or perhaps from a kaer not as fortunate as ours, empty of life now, but still full of treasure.
With preparations one could go out and find these things, claim them, forge a destiny."
For a moment Bevarden's thin arms tightened too much, and J'role thought his father might start to hit him as he sometimes did, his thoughts confused by drink. A quick, tearful apology always followed.
But no violence came. His father's voice trailed off as he rocked J'role in his arms.
J'role was stiff as a corpse, eyes wide, uncertain. The silence of the kaer enveloped him like his father's arms, and he felt momentarily transported to the earliest days of his childhood. Born in the underground world of tunnels and magical lights, he had existed without a true conception of the world outside. Until the day Charneale announced that the Horrors had gone from the world and it was safe again to go outside, J'role had believed he would spend his whole life within the corridors of stone. Living in the earth did not seem strange at the time. But now, having lived in sunlight, returning to the kaer invited uncomfortable sensations he could not identify. It seemed a strange thing to do, to return to the dark recesses of one's childhood.
Then he heard the faint echo of shouts through the corridors, all edged with anger. To J'role's well-developed perceptions, the shouts carried one clear message. Somewhere within the kaer's corridors, danger had gathered.
3
J'role is seven and something has happened. A day ago. A week ago. Months ago. The dream is a buried mystery, and within the dream the memory of another mystery.
His mother is close to him, her face a breath away from his. "Speak to no one. Speak to no one. No one but me, do you understand?"
She touched his face, her hand so warm and wonderful, but he flinches at the touch.
Something is wrong.
His mother turns away, upset. She bites her lip. Walks a few steps away, then turns suddenly and comes back. Kneeling next to where he sits, she hugs him tight. She begins to cry and then say she is sorry.