Divided (17 page)

The wagon started moving again before Kilik realized that
Calis was staring at him.  When he did realize it, he flushed, looking a little
self-conscious.  “What is it?  Don’t worry about the milk,” he said.

“Is your shoulder hurt?” Calis asked, without bothering to
mask how closely he’d been watching Kilik.  After all, surely the boy had
noticed that Calis was watching him work with growing intensity as the sun
progressed.

This seemed to take Kilik entirely off guard, though.  His
blue eyes widened for an instant before he was able to regain his composure. 
“What?  Of course it is.  Why?”  The words tried to sound confused, but there
was a knowing nature about them.

“I saw you flinch.  When he hit you, it looked like he hurt
you,” Calis said softly.  His concern was outweighing his need to be coy for
the time being.

Kilik seemed to realize that there was no getting out of
this.  He struggled for a few moments, and then offered a very reassuring
smile.  “You get very involved in other people’s woes,” he pointed out.  Calis
thought of informing him that this wasn’t usually the case, but he decided
against it.  “My shoulder is just bruised.  Rijit hit it,” he explained.

There was an undercurrent to the voice, but there was
nothing Calis could say or do to prove anything but what Kilik had just told
him.  So, he just nodded, letting the issue drop.  “Shouldn’t you get the
healer to treat it?”

“She has,” Kilik answered.  “It’s getting better.”  Then,
though, he didn’t sound very confident.  Perhaps the bruise was a side effect
of the illness that he’d had a few suns ago—and quite possibly still had.

The last few stops were uneventful, though Calis took extra
care to make sure he didn’t throw off any more milk bottles.  Kilik worked with
increased diligence as well, which only made Calis more skeptical that he was
as alright as he pretended to be. 

Lycael smiled at both of them as he began shuffling through
his coin purse.  Calis watched him without much interest.  Whether Kilik liked
it or not, Calis was going to give him the whole share.  Finally, Lycael placed
two gold coins in each of their hands.  “There,” he said with pride, “since we
got done so much faster—I can almost afford to pay you both.”

Kilik flushed.  “No!  You don’t need to pay us extra.  I
promise.”  He earnestly held out one of the gold coins that he’d been given. 
“Keep it.”

“Kilik,” the man said softly, “how many times have you
refused pay from me, anyway?  I think I can afford to give you a little extra
every now and then.  Don’t be so soft-hearted, boy, or you’ll lose
everything.”  The man stared into Kilik’s eyes with a harsh seriousness and
then nodded to Calis.

Calis just nodded back, unsure what the gesture meant. 
Maybe the man thought Calis was going to take advantage of Kilik.  “It was good
to meet you, sir,” he said after a moment.  Then, he mounted the wagon and
pushed the mules drawing it forward.

“I appreciate your help,” Kilik said warily.

Calis smiled and shrugged his shoulders.  Kilik certainly
didn’t seem to be as angry as he had been, though Calis could still see the
guarded disposition behind his eyes.  “It was my pleasure, and I appreciate
your not letting me make a fool of myself,” Calis said.

They headed back towards the house, and Calis could only
assume Lee had remained there for the few shifts that it had taken to deliver
all the produce.  “You do that every sun?” Calis asked.

Kilik nodded.  “Normally, I only do it at dawn when the
shipment arrives, but this sun, they had two coming in—so I helped.”  Then, he
paused.  “I’m surprised you’re still here.  Weren’t you thinking of leaving the
sun after the dance?”

“I was, but I found a few interesting gems in this town, so
I’ve been sticking around,” he answered.  That was honest enough, without being
entirely honest.  “Must be nice,” Calis continued, “having a vigilante around
to help with your problems.”

There had been no original intention of talking to Kilik
about the Phantom Blade, but he found himself immensely curious about the boy’s
opinion on the matter.  Surely some of Dark District residents didn’t trust
this person.  “Yes,” was all Kilik said.

“That has to be a sense of security.  Seems like the nobles
from the Shining District like to come give the commoners a hard time.”  He was
desperate to get an opinion from this soft-spoken boy. 

Kilik looked dismayed after a few moments of silence.  “He
can’t protect everyone.”

“Why do you say that?” Calis asked.  “Are the nobles really
that common here?  I haven’t seen that many.”

They were walking with a pace very similar to one another,
though Kilik was a bit shorter—and he had to step more than Calis.  Even the
way Kilik walked seemed to be carefully calculated, as if he was thinking about
every step without pausing to think about it.  He was graceful—incredibly so—in
everything that he did.  “They have been less common lately.  I think they are
busy with other things, but there have been times when we’ve needed many
vigilantes.  The nobles are cruel, and they strike like cowards—in packs.  None
of the citizens here know how to fight them.  That… the guy you saw before… is
the only one that stands up to them.  Everyone else will stand idly by while
their own people are beaten.”  His words were pained.

An infuriating thought struck Calis, and he didn’t even
bother wondering why it seemed like such an abomination in his mind.  “You
sound like someone who has suffered such an experience,” he said, with a tremor
in his voice.

Kilik grinned, though there was a darkness in it.  “I… well,
obviously.  No more than others.  And I understand it, I know why they can’t
help me—but others, I know they don’t get it… they don’t know that it’s just
out of fear that people don’t help them.  So, they become bitter.  It’s like a
disease that the nobles carry with them.”

There were flashes in Calis’s head, of nobles, of
Tareth—beating the boy before Calis now—without reason, and as Calis thought of
Dark District people who must have stood idly by, he grew angrier.  Everyone in
Telandus made him sick when he stopped and thought about them.  “What would you
do,” Calis asked, “if you saw nobles picking on someone?”

“I’d try to stop them,” Kilik said without pause.

That didn’t surprise Calis at all, and he had no trouble
believing that Kilik was one of the few in Dark District that wasn’t afraid to
step in on someone else’s behalf.  “Do you think that is why he does it, then?”
Calis asked the question he’d posed himself aloud.

“Who?” Kilik asked.

“The Phantom Blade.  Do you think he wants people to have
more hope in themselves?  I wonder if that’s his reason.”  The thought was a
profound one.  Perhaps a bit of a stretch, though it made sense.  Why else
would this masked individual constantly throw himself in the way of danger, and
remain anonymous?  Perhaps because it made all of Dark District see the Phantom
Blade in everyone around them. 

What an idea.

“I don’t doubt it,” Kilik answered after a moment.  There
was an amused smile on his face as they walked, and Calis got the impression
that Kilik was warming up to him faster than he’d thought he would.  “What
about you?” Kilik asked.  “What would you do if you saw someone being
attacked?”

Before, Calis would have responded that he’d walk away.  He
wouldn’t have thought twice about it.  The affairs of commoners had been taught
to him at an early age to be irrelevant and not anything with which he should
involve himself.  Yet, as he stared at Kilik, he knew at least one instance in
which he would do much more than get involved.  “For a total stranger?” he
said, “I don’t know.”

“Why not?  They could have a family,” Kilik prompted.

“But they could also deserve it,” Calis answered warily. 
“Not everyone is a good person, and you said yourself that most of them would
probably not help me.  In fact, most of them would probably stand there and
watch me die.”

“Yes, but what if the one time you didn’t help—was someone
who would have helped you?  What if it was the bloody Phantom Blade?  You
wouldn’t know.  And if you saved them, maybe they would save you the next
time—just because you saved them.”  The words were soft, as though Kilik felt a
little bad for saying them to Calis.

Then, Calis just smiled and nodded his head.  “I think
you’re right.  I think that I will think about it that way from now on.”  Oddly
enough, he knew that was precisely what he meant.  Because lying for the sake
of bettering reputation was something Calis had left in Dokak.

This seemed to unnerve Kilik a little bit.  There was a
flash in those blue eyes that meant that the boy thought he was being toyed
with.  His cheeks flushed a soft red color, and he stared towards the opposite
side of the alleyway.  Kilik was probably willing the walk to be over, but
Calis couldn’t find a pace slow enough.  “You had never unloaded shipments
before,” Kilik said briskly.

The blond just smiled and nodded his head.  He didn’t know
if Kilik could see the nod, but he nodded no less.  “I suppose that was
obvious.”

“It was,” Kilik said.  “What do you do, then?  For money?”

“I make deals,” Calis answered more honestly than he’d
intended.  But that was all he’d ever done.  He had never done an honest sun’s
labor in his life, but he had delegated for a man for whom should never be
delegated.

Kilik chewed on his lip.  The sun was setting so that there
was a red hue over the entirety of Dark District.  The buildings were orange,
rather than brown, and Kilik’s bronze skin seemed to glow with the light.  His
blue eyes were dimmed with the orange, though the brightness of them would not
be entirely silenced.  “So you trade, then?  Barter?” he asked.

Calis supposed this was as close to the truth as he was
going to allow Kilik to get, so he just nodded his head with a light hearted
smile.  “I do.”  Then, before more questions could be directed at him, Calis
decided that he would venture a question about Kilik’s own past.  “What about
you?  You said you did not originate in Telandus.  Where are you from?”

The boy seemed unsure for a single moment.  His eyes flashed
with pain, as though he were trying to think of something that just eluded
him.  Or perhaps he was working not to think of it.  “I… don’t remember,” he
admitted warily.  “I woke up in the middle of a storm near Telandus.  So I came
here,” he told Calis lightly.  “I don’t remember anything before that.”

That seemed strange.  Kilik didn’t strike Calis as the type
who’d had to restart his life.  He handled everything as though he had experience
well beyond his years.  “When was that?” Calis asked.

“Nearly five years ago,” Kilik answered without pause. 
Perhaps he had just accepted the fate as a fact of life, and so he didn’t let
it influence the way he handled things.  That, or he chose not to speak about
his past, because there were things in it that he didn’t want to remember. 
Calis frowned at the idea.

A smile made its way onto Calis’s lips again, though,
eventually.  “Five years,” he said, as though remembering a fond story.  That was
when he’d left for Dokak, though telling this boy that would not have been
advisable.  “That must have shaken you up.  Have you looked into your past?”

“No,” Kilik snapped, as though the question was offensive. 
So, perhaps he was trying to forget something that had happened in the past. 
The boy cleared his throat after a moment, seeming to discover that he had not
responded appropriately.  “Apologies,” he said shortly.  “I didn’t… it’s just…
there isn’t anything I can do.”

Calis didn’t know if pushing the issue would get him
anything more than a punch across the jaw.  So, he simply smiled, observing
Kilik with a tilted head.  This boy was no less interesting than he had been
the moon of Dark District festival.  “You seem to have found a good home with
the healer and her daughter,” Calis said.

Kilik offered a very strained smile and nodded his head.  “I
got lucky.”

“I don’t think so.”  Calis surprised himself, once again,
with the words that sprang from his mouth.  Whatever Kilik was, he was putting
quite the hex on Calis’s ability to check his words before he spouted them.  At
Kilik’s curious glance, though, Calis had to continue.  “I just… your
personality…” he said.  Or rather, he spat, he hadn’t the slightest idea what
he was saying.

Calis could see Kilik’s jaw muscle tighten with his words.  He
was sure he’d managed to insult the poor boy, somehow.  “Wh-what about my
personality?”

“It’s different.  They probably felt… compelled to…”

The insult, he guessed, was worse than he’d anticipated. 
Kilik flushed and jerked his head to the side.  The house was in view, and
Calis was sure Kilik intended to bolt towards it.  “There is nothing wrong with
my personality, sir,” he said, “I do not need any sort of special attention.”

Calis sighed, heavily.  “I meant that you have a charming
personality—a likeable one—so there would be no luck involved in finding people
that would be willing to support you,” Calis corrected with less than diligent
words.

The boy didn’t seem to believe him.  “What?” he  asked after
a moment of uncertain staring.

Without pausing to think about how rude the gesture may
seem, or how frightened Kilik may be of it, Calis grabbed the boy’s hands in
his own and offered one of the most sincere smiles that he’d ever displayed. 
“What I’m trying to say, my suspicious workmate, is that I like you.  I like
you very much.”

The flush on Kilik’s cheeks was worth the awkwardness, Calis
assessed.

“‘Does he love his land, or does he love his woman who
resides within the land?’ Aleia, the Magister of Direction, would ask.”

-A Hero’s Peace v.i