The Forever Knight: A Novel of the Bronze Knight (Books of the Bronze Knight) (3 page)

“Are you angry about Cricket or are you angry about my idea?” asked Gilwyn as I headed out.

“When’s she coming back?”

“I don’t know; a day or two. Go see her if you want. She’d like that. And Lukien? Think about my idea, all right?”

“Right.”

“It’s a good idea. You know it!”

“Congratulations on the baby, Gilwyn.” I waved as I started down the hall.

But I did think about his idea. I was worried about Cricket and worried about Jador and Grimhold and everything else, and I was
sick
of worrying. I imagined disappearing, going back home to Liiria or wandering around Norvor, or maybe going to a place where no one had ever heard of me. I could be a new person, I figured. I could forget about everything.

Just like Cricket had.

I bathed before going to see White-Eye. She was the Kahana and I was a tramp, and although she was blind and wouldn’t have minded my filth, it would have been an insult to her beauty. I took my time to ready myself, soaking the sand out of my fingernails and shaving the beard that had sprouted from my days in the desert. I let the serving girls comb my hair and convince me to perfume it. I was nervous about seeing White-Eye, and it irked me that I should feel so.

Not everyone in Jador has an Akari. They are rare things, gifted to those in dire need. They are immortal but not indestructible, and White-Eye had learned that in the most horrible way, having her own Akari ripped from her by a demon. After years of being able to see through her Akari’s eyes, she was once again blind. But she was not bumbling or stupid, and most of all she wasn’t helpless.

I found White-Eye that evening, looking after a group of playing children. There she sat in the middle of the garden, her delicate fingers macraméing as the boys and girls climbed trees and chased each other around a foaming fountain. I stopped at the edge of the garden, my face hidden by a trellis of vines as I studied White-Eye, looking at her belly for a hint of her growing baby. A contented smile warmed her dark face, working the knots of the fabric she was making, her head tilted slightly as she listened to the children frolicking around her. They were Jadori children mostly, with the same dark skin as her. Some of them I recognized, others I’d never seen before. As I took my first step toward them, only one of them noticed me at all—a sightless boy named Alik.

He stopped midway up the tree he was climbing, turning his blind eyes toward me, seeing me in his mind the way White-Eye once could. I could easily imagine his Akari, Dianis, whispering my arrival in his ear. Before I could put a finger to my lips to silence him, Alik sprang down from the tree.

“Lukien!”

Some of the children turned to see me; others played their games. But White-Eye lowered her macramé at once. “Lukien?” She stood up, cocking an ear to locate me. Alik rushed to take her hand.

“He’s here!” cried the boy, pointing at me as though White-Eye could follow. The green landscape between us was no obstacle at all to him. Everything, every plant and stone, was revealed in his mind by his Akari. Discovered, I laughed.

“It’s me, White-Eye,” I said, going toward her and the boy. “I’m back.”

A gaggle of children gathered around me, except for Alik, who protectively held his Kahana’s hand. I greeted them as best I could, pretending I knew them all. A girl with a clubbed foot like Gilwyn’s bounded toward me with ease. A deaf boy smiled when I said his name, understanding me perfectly. These were the children of Grimhold.

“All right, let me talk to White-Eye now,” I told them gently. “Go back to playing—I’ll be around.”

White-Eye kindly waited for me near the fountain. She had no need of young Alik’s help but held his hand anyway. The boy beamed at me.

“We were wondering when you’d come,” said Alik. “Me and Kahana White-Eye was just saying that!”

“Well I’m back now,” I said brightly. I leaned down and looked into Alik’s blank eyes, knowing he could see my face precisely. “Thank you for taking care of White-Eye while I was gone. Maybe I should call you ‘little Shalafein,’ eh?”

“Alik likes to touch my belly. He says he can feel the baby inside me,” said White-Eye. She managed to grin at the silly notion so only I could see it. “Will you let me talk with Lukien, Alik?” she asked him. “Go and play—you can see him later.”

Alik ran off without offense, the other children following his lead. When it was only us two, she gave me her prized smile.

“Have you come to touch my belly?” she joked.

But the offer was irresistible. I gently placed the palm of my hand on her stomach, feeling the flatness of it but knowing that inside it grew the offspring of my two closest friends. White-Eye sighed and closed her own hand over mine.

“You will be the finest mother any child ever had,” I whispered to her. White-Eye chuckled. She’d been brave when her father died and brave when her eyesight was stolen. Having a child seemed not to trouble her at all.

“And you must stay here to help us raise this child, Lukien!”

“I’m here now,” I said without commitment. “Let’s sit.”

We lowered each other to the edge of the fountain. Around us the children played and laughed. The great, white wall of Jador loomed in the distance, separating us from the throngs of foreigners that had come to White-Eye’s home. Foreigners like me. I had washed and scented myself, but White-Eye could tell I was troubled, and there was no point at all in hiding it from her.

“I saw Gilwyn. Did he tell you?”

“He told me. I expected you to come sooner, Lukien.”

“I needed a bath first.”

“No. I meant I thought you’d come home to Jador sooner. You were gone a very long while this time.”

I nodded. “It is nice to be missed, though.”

“You won’t find what you’re looking for in the desert. There is nothing in the desert. Only Jador.” She looked sad. “Jador won’t make you happy.”

“And this scheme of Gilwyn’s? Do you think that will help me?” I asked sincerely. “I have been an adventurer most of my life, White-Eye.”

“Adventure? You don’t understand, then. Purpose is what you need, Lukien. Find a cause and give yourself to it. And when you’re done, return here to us. That’s all we’re saying.”

I looked down at her belly, imagining the child growing within. “I need to see your child,” I said. “I can’t be gone for that.”

“Of course,” said White-Eye. “You must be here for that. I told you—I’ll need your help with this bundle! But there’s many months before the baby comes. Just go and then return. You can do that, can’t you?”

Her words baffled me. Not her question but her statement. I kept staring down at her unborn child. “White-Eye, I’m a fighter. A killer. You want a child who lives in peace. What can I possibly teach your baby?” I thought about it. “A boy should learn how to use a weapon, I suppose. And I’m a good horseman . . . I could teach your baby that.”

“Lukien, no,” said White-Eye. “Anyone could teach our baby those things.”

“What, then?”

White-Eye grew unusually serious. “You make me say this? You saved this city from invasion. You destroyed the demon that took away my Akari and made me blind. You are the hero of everyone in Jador. Lukien, boy or girl, you will teach my child the most difficult things of all. Things that cannot be learned from scrolls or stories: bravery and honor. But most of all, you will teach my baby goodness. Because even if you don’t think so, you are a good man, Lukien.”

I sat there. I nodded. But I didn’t argue with her because I could not even speak.

Ever gracious, she allowed my silence. She went back to her macramé, diligently making knots as I sat there beside her and watched the children play.

H
ow can I describe Cricket? She’s like a mirror image, the opposite of what you think you see. She’s pretty but doesn’t care at all about looks. She hordes trinkets till they’re spilling out of her pockets. She complains about her chores but does them to perfection, and she loves to be alone but clings to me like bark. Near as we can tell she’s fourteen years old. Sometimes she acts half that age, sometimes twice it. She’ll talk for an hour then shut up tight for days, and no one—not even Minikin when she was alive—can ever figure out what’s going on inside her impish head.

The day we left Grimhold, Cricket was in the mood to talk. She wore the cape we’d made together out of the rass skin, proudly primping it over her little shoulders as her pony sauntered through the canyon. I’d gone to Grimhold myself so we could work on the cape together. When she saw me arrive, Cricket circled me like a child searching for sweets, wondering what I’d brought her. The sun was hot on the black cape as we rode, but Cricket didn’t care. She was full of questions and eager to get back to Jador. I was happy just to see her smiling.

A decent road winds from Grimhold to Jador, through a canyon of sheer, red rock. Inhumans and Jadori have used the road for decades, keeping their alliance secret. Before Gilwyn took over, Minikin was Grimhold’s mistress. She’d spent her vast lifetime searching for the kind of kids Gilwyn had been once. Blind kids or crippled, she brought them all to Jador for an Akari, for the chance to live a normal life. I’m an Inhuman now, too, in a way, because Malator keeps me alive. Without him, my old wounds would quickly kill me.

Cricket isn’t one of us. She has no Akari, and no use for one. She’s not blind or lame or deaf. She’s normal in every way—except for her broken memory—and it’s only because Minikin loved and pitied her that she has such access to our world. Seekers from the Bitter Kingdoms had found her in Akyre. She’d been wandering, they said, starved and alone. No family and no memory of one either. All she knew for sure was her name. Cricket.

I rode beside her on my horse, listening to her explanations. Ahead of us, the two Jadori warriors Gilwyn assigned as escorts bobbed on the backs of their green-scaled kreels.

“It was like a dream,” Cricket exclaimed. “Like it was talking to me. It was screaming, and no one else could hear it.” She turned, imploring me. “That must have happened to you once, right Lukien?”

“No, Cricket. I’ve never had a chicken talk to me.”

“With its
eyes
,” she stressed. “It knew I would help. I had to!”

“Uh huh.” I nodded, bored with her horseshit. “What about all the chickens you actually eat? Can’t they talk to you? And what about the cistern?”

“He told you that?” Cricket frowned. “Gilwyn’s an ass.”

“Hey!” I reined in my horse.

She kept riding for a while, then stopped. “Sorry.”

The warriors turned around to look at us. “Go,” I told them, waving them on. “It’s all right.”

I rode up close to Cricket. “You want to go live with the other Seekers in the shanties?”

“I’m not a Seeker.”

“Anyone who comes across the desert to Jador is a Seeker, Cricket. And any one of them would trade places with you. You live in the palace because Gilwyn lets you. So show him some respect.”

“I said I was sorry.” She sighed as she got her pony going. “You ain’t been in such a great mood either, you know. Like you got an itch or something.”

“Yes, I’ve got an itch. And I don’t need you making it worse. I come back from the desert and all I hear about is how worried everyone is about you. I’m not your mother, Cricket.”

“What’s itchin’ you, Lukien?”

I still hadn’t told her about Gilwyn’s idea. I’d meant to, but the days just sort of slipped away. “Nothing,” I said, “forget it,” and reached up to scratch beneath my eye patch. Cricket stared, trying to see under it.

“You got an eyeball under there?”

“Of course I do. It’s gone white, that’s all. Sometimes I get a grain of sand in there. Makes me crazy.”

“How’d that happen to you? You’re a handsome man, Lukien. Bet you were pretty to look at when you were younger.”

I smiled, because she was so good at changing subjects. “You’re dodging, Cricket. We’re not done talking about the cistern.”

“I’ll paint it back to normal,” she groaned. “So what happened?”

“A Norvan scimitar.”

“From when you were a mercenary?”

“That’s right.”

“Must make it hard to fight, having one eye.”

“Two would be better,” I admitted. “Doesn’t hurt any more, though. Malator sees to that. Nothing hurts me anymore. Not for long, anyway.”

We both got quiet, the horse hooves echoing around the canyon. The claws of the kreels clicked on the sandy road as their tongues flicked in and out. Cricket looked at me. She wanted a story.

“Norvor’s a lot like Akyre, I guess. Just a bunch of barons fighting for territory now. No real king or queen any more. There’s been fighting in that part of the world since I can remember.”

“Yup,” nodded Cricket. That much she already knew. Everyone figured it was the fighting that took her family away, but Cricket couldn’t remember.

“I had to be a freelance,” I continued. “Didn’t want to be, but I was exiled from Liiria then. Not much else to do but hire out my sword. The Diamond Queen was rich enough to pay, so I took it. Got a lot of cuts and scrapes working for her, but this was the worst of ’em.” I gestured to my blind eye.

“Norvor,” she echoed. “The people who brought me here talked about Norvor, thought I might have come from there. I told them I was sure Akyre was my home. Don’t know why, though.”

“You’ll remember one day,” I told her. “If you want to.”

“Of course I want to! It’s all in my head, waiting for me to discover it. Maybe it’ll come to me in a dream someday.”

“Or maybe a chicken will tell you where you came from.”

We laughed, which was good because neither of us liked the way the conversation had gone. The sun was warm and the sky was crystal clear, and all of a sudden I just started talking.

“Gilwyn thinks I should go away,” I told her. “He says Jador doesn’t really need me right now. Says it’s time for me to find out about myself, just like you.”

Cricket’s round face tightened. “Huh?”

“I’m thinking he’s right. I’ve been restless here. That’s the itch. I need to see what’s out there for me, maybe do some good in the world. Like a knight-errant. Try to find my mission.”

“You’ve got a mission, Lukien. You’re Shalafein!”

“Yeah, well, I’ll still be Shalafein. I’ll just be doing it somewhere else. Don’t you know how a knight-errant works? He rides around helping people. I’d be doing that in the name of Jador.”

Cricket looked puzzled. “Sounds like being a mercenary to me. You’re the Bronze Knight, Lukien. Why do you need to go around proving yourself all the time? Why can’t you just stay here?”

“Because I’m going mad here, Cricket.” I slowed down, letting the Jadori get further ahead. “You remember when you told me how you like to keep doing things, how sometimes you can’t control yourself because the stuff in your head drives you crazy, because you’re trying to remember so hard that you can’t stop your mind from buzzing? That’s what it’s like for me. You need to remember things . . . but I need to forget.”

Cricket lifted her chin. “You mean Cassandra.”

“Yeah. Cassandra.” I touched my sword, thinking its power would make me feel better. “Maybe we’re the same, you and me. Always looking for trouble. Sometimes I have to fight just to feel something besides sorry for myself.” I looked at her. “You understand. I know you do.”

Cricket nodded. “I do. Just thinking about myself, I guess. With Minikin gone, and now you . . . What’ll happen to me, Lukien?”

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” I said. It was all I could think to say, the kind of thing no one ever wants to hear. “If it wasn’t safe here I wouldn’t be going.”

“But what’ll I
do
? I don’t even know who I am. And Gilwyn’s always too busy for me. He’ll just shovel me under with chores.”

She looked genuinely scared. Not about the chores, which was nonsense, but about being alone. And that’s when I had my idea. At first I just smiled as it came over me, then I chuckled. Cricket grimaced.

“It’s not funny.” Her face got gloomy. “I don’t want to stay here without you.”

“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “a knight should have a squire. What about that?”

“A squire?”

“Someone to look after my armor, my horse. You think you could do those things?”

“Me?” She looked as startled as I was by my idea. “But what about your mission?”

“You could be my mission, Cricket. You want to find out about yourself? So do I. We can go to Akyre together, try to find something to knock loose your memories.”

“Akyre.” Cricket’s gloominess returned even darker. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

Before I could answer, Malator screamed in my ear,
Yes!

I patted my sword to show them both I wasn’t afraid. “There’s no safer place than at my side. I’ll have a squire, and you’ll have your own bodyguard—one that can’t get himself killed.”

That’s idiotic
.
You
can
be killed! You’re not immortal!

I said to Cricket, “Gilwyn’ll try to talk us out of it, but I’ll make him understand. It was his idea in the first place. Why should he begrudge me some friendly company?”

Because she’s just a kid!

Cricket thought about it, then gave me her little grin. “I want to do it,” she said. “It’s like I’m out there, wandering around somewhere. I want to go find myself.”

“It’s a long way,” I warned. “Hard travel.”

“I know it; I already did it once. I can make it,” she promised.

“Good,” I declared, pleased with her passion. For the first time in months I felt happy.

We rode on, Malator chattering at me the whole while. Out of spite I ignored him. Malator didn’t control me, I told myself. Let him rant and rave. I was a man, not a boy. I’d go wherever I damn well pleased.

When I get an itch, I scratch till it’s bloody.