The Seascape Tattoo (10 page)

Toes. A footprint.

“A mountain troll,” Neoloth said.

“We're a long way from the mountains,” Aros growled.

Fandy's large, soft eyes protruded. “Oh my. Oh my. We should be going.”

 

TEN

The Grave

Two hours before the sun buried itself in the western horizon, Aros asked, “Do you ever intend to tell me where we're going?”

“Almost there,” Neoloth said. Draped around the wizard's neck, Agathodaemon flickered his tongue and hissed. The snake was content. Judging by the swelling in its belly, Neoloth had fed it, although Aros had not seen the moment of truth. Neoloth stroked his pet, perhaps as much to annoy Aros as anything else. “What, dearest? Where do we go?”

“This is ridiculous,” Aros snarled.

“Shhh.”

They traveled a bit farther and then Agathodaemon pulled back. “Here,” Neoloth said. The serpent slithered down from the horse's flank, curled around its leg, and then crawled across the ground to a heap of rocks Aros had missed on first glance. A cairn. Agathodaemon crawled all the way around the heap. And then coiled, forked tongue flicking.
“Heeeere.”

Aros frowned. “This is it? It's not even marked.”

Neoloth had grown thoughtful. “No, it isn't.” His face seemed longer, his mood heavy. “When I first considered this journey, I merely wished something I knew I'd find on the bones. But now…”

“How old are you?” Aros asked, looking down at Neoloth's slithering pet.

Neoloth's mouth creased in annoyance. “What difference does that make?”

“You still look the same as when I first saw you, ten years ago.” He paused, shifting in the saddle. “Do I?”

“No,” Neoloth said, still not grasping the issue. “You're thicker through the body. It's muscle, but probably better marbled than once it was.”

Aros snorted and made an obscene suggestion. “Whatever. You've not changed. You are … living on a different scale. I don't think you understand. For you, a little more magic, a little more power, and you can stay young. The best that men like me can hope for is to stay alive. You don't understand. I doubt you ever will. But some part of you remembers, and the grave of a child moved you. Death such as this moves you. You are still human. Who knew?”

To that, Neoloth had no response. They unhorsed and removed rocks one by one and then dug with shovels from the packhorse. A few minutes of careful work uncovered a pitiful little bundle of oilskins.

Without a word, their motions had become less gross and eager and more delicate, as they might have if swaddling an infant. The wind whistled around them and then died down, as if even nature hushed her roar in the presence of tragedy.

Dark withered skin, and bird-like bones. For a moment, all sound was suspended, and they were alone with the pitifully small corpse of Elio Silith. A child who had been sent across the world as a bargaining chip, a tool to knit kingdoms together. The body was curled on its side, amid a scattering of toys: a top, a woven horse, and a ship carved in whale bone. And one item of value: a broad golden Aztec coin bearing the image of a handsome, hawk-nosed woman. A small hole had been drilled or punched at the top, and a rotted leather thong had passed through the hole. A necklace, perhaps.

“Strange,” Aros said.

“What?”

“I wonder. It almost seems that the bandits loved him more than his own parents did. They left a gold coin with him.”

“Perhaps to purchase his way into paradise,” Neoloth said. “Jade is Azteca royalty. This image might be her mother.”

The mood had changed suddenly, from a sense of celebration and discovery to something somber. The sun cast long, bleak shadows.

Neoloth examined the contents of the oilskin more carefully. “Look at this,” the wizard said. “Could be natural causes. No obvious damage. Buried with his toys.”

“Respect?”

“Possibly.” He pointed to a bracelet. “That's a health talisman, made of herbs and such. They tried to heal him. Look at this.”

He pulled out the horse, knotted patiently from twine. Aros pointed at the form of the neck. “Look at this knot around the neck,” he said, holding it close. “A bowline. That's a sailor's knot.”

“What does that mean?”

“That someone who had been to sea traveled with the boy,” Aros said.

“Perhaps his guardians?”

“More likely the raiders themselves,” Aros said. “They made him a toy.”

Neoloth nodded, surprised at the sadness he felt. “Could be. I think they intended to ransom Elio. Then he sickened…”

“And they tried to make him well. They couldn't. He died. They buried him with respect.”

The two of them were silent. Aros was the first to speak. “For most of us, this is all that remains. You wizards seek a way to cheat death His due.” The wind gathered up his mane of black hair and then settled it again. “There is no way. I've lost track of the number of ‘immortal' sorcerers Flaygod has sent to hell. ‘I'll live forever!' they say. Right up until they squeal with their guts on the tip of my sword. They always look so surprised. Do you really think yourselves so superior to the rest of us?”

“Yes.”

Aros's full lips curled in a smile. “At least you're honest,” he said.

“Squeal?” Neoloth said. “They actually squeal?”

Aros smiled at him. “I look forward to demonstrating, one fine day.”

“When our present business is concluded, of course.”

“Indeed,” Aros said. “When our present business is concluded.”

Aros removed a small leather bag from his waist pouch, scattered a pinch of dust over the body, then squatted and chanted.

“What are you doing?” Fandy asked.

“It's a ritual my people use to pacify a soul. We use magic too, Neoloth. He was just a boy,” Aros said. “They used him like a token in some grand game. He was captured. We'll never know what happened to him before he died. They buried him in an unmarked grave. Now we're robbing his body … for what?”

A pause. Then, “For love,” Neoloth said.

Aros stared at the wizard, as if wanting to believe. “If you're lying,” he said, “I'll kill you.”

“Fair enough.”

As Aros studied the bones, Neoloth's fingers twisted as if possessed by individual life. “Sigils … awaken!”

The tattoos on the leathery flesh twitched, but that was all.

Aros squinted. “Ummm … what's wrong?”

Neoloth frowned. “There is resistance.”

“Resistance?” Aros asked.

Neoloth gritted his teeth. “Sometimes … the spirit of the dead can resist if the living being would have resisted.”

“I can't imagine why a boy wouldn't want an ancient wizard violating his corpse.”

“I suppose you've a better idea?” Neoloth asked.

“Let's try honesty.”

Aros knelt at the side of the shallow grave and gathered the bones into his arms. “I never knew you, Elio,” he whispered. “You died alone … as I've been alone. I hope I'm wrong, that there was someone who cared for you. I don't know. I need to borrow something of you, in order to save a woman. I will need your mother and father to believe I am you. We have no wish to hurt them, only to rescue an innocent. I will do all I can to be fair to them. I wish your spirit no disrespect and know that you love them still.”

Neoloth cleared his throat and then could think of nothing to say.

“If you will let me do this,” Aros continued, “I will return your bones to your land of birth. Or allow you to remain at rest here. Tell me which you wish.”

The wind stirred. And if he listened carefully, Neoloth would have sworn it moaned,
“Hooome.”

“Home,” Aros said. “I have no home. I understand, and swear.”

Aros turned to Neoloth, another thought coming to him. “Could we take his bones with us? After we are done, we could arrange for them to be delivered to his parents.”

“That could be risky,” Neoloth said. “Too risky.”

“Then we can arrange for them to be told this location,” he said. “I wish to keep my promise.”

“That,” Neoloth replied, “we can do.”

The wind swirled and formed into a dust devil that hovered above the grave and then disappeared. The ink lines of the body wiggled.

Neoloth felt his own excitement building. “It's happening! Get ready!”

Agathodaemon wrapped itself around Aros, who had stripped to the breechclout. He was muscled like a circus acrobat, skin inscribed with arcane symbols and images. The barbarian groaned as his flesh crawled and the tattoos began to flex and stretch.

“Wizard!” Aros called. “I should have told you! Those tattoos: I had the woman work them over old scars! They're taking the scars with them!”

“Good. I knew,” Neoloth said.

The tattoos and the scars beneath were crawling onto the bulge in the snake's belly. They sorted themselves, crescents and sea creatures and weird text, lumps and puckers and the long sword slash, crawling headward and tailward. Now they were lost in the patterning of Agathodaemon's markings.

Aros gaped, then turned to Neoloth. “What did your snake swallow?” The bulge was half the size of Fandy.

“You don't want to know,” Neoloth said. “Really. Wait…” The tattoos on the withered corpse began to crawl. “Touch him. Quickly.”

Aros set his hand on the corpse's chest. Markings flowed up Aros's arm and onto his body and then settled in appropriate locations. Chest: a sunburst in gold. Shoulder: a black star, like a flag Aros had seen once. Streaming up his arm, distorted into river lines, then crawling down his back: a young girl's face.

The wind died down. And then there was stillness. Aros looked down at himself, blowing like a bellows.

“How does it feel?” the wizard asked.

“I have no words,” the warrior replied.

“That,” the wizard said, “would be a nice change.”

“Can we go now?” Fandy pled. “Please?”

“Yes,” Neoloth said, and gathered his coat's collar more tightly around his throat. “I think it may be time.”

*   *   *

They had set out their camp, eaten, and bedded down. Aros had barely closed his eyes when he detected Neoloth rolling out of his blanket and creeping away from them. The barbarian rose and followed silently.

Aros found the wizard around the bend of a rock. He had a small square of blanket spread on the ground. A small cylindrical object lay in the middle of the square. It was surrounded by something like a heat shimmer. The wizard gestured and chanted.

Aros watched until curiosity overwhelmed him. “What are you doing?”

Neoloth's head whipped around, and he snarled. “Go back! This is not for your eyes, Aztec.”

“To hell with that,” Aros growled. “Save your orders for Fandy. What are you doing? What is that?”

Neoloth looked as if he wanted to chew rocks and spit arrowheads. “I'm going to tell you a secret,” he said. “The magic really is dwindling.”

What kind of game was this? “I've seen magic.”

“Think of gold in the ground, everywhere,” Neoloth said. “As long as people only use a little of it, it lasts forever, or seems to. But build a huge city with artisans on every corner making gold jewelry and gold statues and gold ornaments and you deplete it rapidly.”

“That's what magic is?” Aros asked. This was unexpected and fascinating. Oddly, he had never really wondered what magic was … only how it might help or harm him.

“Close enough,” Neoloth said. “But out here”—he gestured at the desert plain—“where people have not plundered, magic remains.”

“And because the great chief's people don't use as much of it as the cities…”

“I can borrow some, yes.”

Aros considered. “And this device enables you to do this?”

“If I understand it properly, yes.” Neoloth turned back to his work, while Aros watched.

After a time, the barbarian spoke again. “You know, when people say ‘borrow' they generally mean something that they intend to return. Otherwise it is called ‘stealing.'”

“The sort of distinction I'd expect you to be familiar with.”

“Are you?”

“Very,” Neoloth said.

Aros grunted. He sat for a while and watched, then finally realized he was yawning restlessly and returned to his bedroll. He watched the play of lights, a bit like an electrical storm, just beyond their camp.

He examined his new tattoos with interest. Fandy watched him.

“This is a strange feeling.”

Fandy scrambled closer. “How is it strange, Aros?”

“I've traveled. And sometimes I had my flesh paint-pricked to remind myself of a port … or a woman … or even an enemy.”

“An enemy?” the elf asked.

Aros nodded. “Yes. I actually tattooed…”

He paused as Neoloth approached him, eyebrows arched in query.

Aros shrugged, changing his mind. “Never mind.”

“No,” Neoloth insisted. “Really.”

Aros's eyes narrowed.
“No.”

He stood in the moonlight, looking at the new empty space on his flesh. “You took my scars,” he said.

“Yes,” Neoloth agreed. “Yes. Some of them.”

Aros's voice lowered until it was nearly gravel. “I want them back.”

“When we're finished,” Neoloth replied. “But I have to ask … why?”

“Who am I without them?”

A thin thread of wind rustled the leaves. Neoloth sighed. “Who are any of us, without our memories?” He sat next to the fire, gazing into it.

“Aros,” Fandy said.

“Yes?”

The elf's ears twitched, perhaps with the cold. “If you were not your history … who might you choose to be?”

That might have been the oddest question Aros had ever heard. “I don't know,” he said. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”