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Fish awoke in a dim cave, not certain whether it was night or day. He closed his eyes against disorientation and nausea, clenched his stomach against the bile that rose up in his throat. He managed to move himself from a curled-up position to a sitting one upon the cold, damp rock beneath him. The silver chains were long enough to allow that, at least. He shivered violently, searching his mind for the thing that had been so important.
Then he remembered, and the shock of it jolted him, rattling the chains. He tried to look around, but his eyes were not working properly. He could make out some kind of phosphorescent blur above him: was that the roof of the cave? Or had he somehow become turned around, and it was the floor? He tried to search for something, anything, that would ground him, stop his head from spinning and his insides from heaving so much. He could not find Nico. Without him, Fish was lost, not even sure which way he was facing.
“Easy,” came a harsh voice from the corner. “I think you have a concussion. Try to settle down.”
Fish froze. Wide-eyed, he turned his whole body towards the voice, searching until he spotted a murky outline.
“Nico?” he breathed, even though he would have known its timbres anywhere.
“The same, Deryck.”
Silence settled in the cave, apart from the chains rattling and Fish’s heart beating somewhere in his throat. Either his eyes getting used to the dark, or perhaps the phosphorescence was getting brighter, because he could see more clearly now. It was a large, airy cave they had been chained in, the roof towering nearly fifty feet above them. A guttering oil lantern set somewhere near the entrance did very little to illuminate the shadow. The cave floor was composed of rounded boulders, many of which had been fitted with stakes and chains. Only two of these were occupied at present. Fish was staked in the middle of the cave, with Nico sitting roughly ten feet away from him. Somewhere, water trickled with a soft chittering, and when he leaned far to the side, he could see a thin stream flowing between the boulders to his right.
By the light of the phosphorescence, he could also see Nico’s scowl, as ugly an expression as the blond assassin had ever worn in Fish’s presence. It was not only the look on Nico’s face that disquieted him, though. His partner looked much the worse for wear. His face was scuffed and bruised, his shirtsleeve torn, and he huddled over his sprained arm, maintaining a tense, unnatural position to keep it cradled in his lap.
What had happened to him? Fish tried to remember their journey into the mountains, carted along by the necromes, but only flashes returned to him. He had struggled, and the creature holding him had thrown him against the cliff, cracking his head on a rock. Things were hazy after that. Taunus’s dry chuckle. Nico’s voice, threatening something. The descent into the caves. The grunting of the necromes and their overarching stench.
“What a pass we have come to, Deryck,” Nico remarked dryly, and Fish raised up his head.
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
His voice fell harshly amongst vague echoes. Nico’s eyes met his, from across the chasm between them.
“That’s your real name.” Nico’s eyes bored into him. “Isn’t it?”
Fish snorted softly.
“What else is there that you haven’t told me?”
Fish’s head snapped up. “We don’t ask questions about each other’s past. Remember?”
He glared across the gap, and for a moment Nico seemed abashed. Then he rallied.
“My past contains nothing that could ever endanger you.”
“And how was I to know that any of this would happen?” Fish snapped. “Why did you stand and fight, Nico, when I screamed for you not to? Why wouldn’t you listen to me?”
“If we hadn’t been captured, would you ever have told me your story?” Nico snapped back, not missing a beat.
Fish was halfway through answering in the affirmative, when the word stuck in his throat. Nico’s breath hissed through his teeth.
“You’re so used to lying that you can’t even answer that.”
Fish glared at him and subsided into silence. But Nico was not ready to let it go.
“That—what you did,” he began. “That was magic.”
Fish saw no point in denying it. “Yes.”
“You’re Mage-Gifted.” Fish didn’t answer. “You’re from the Forest of the Morning.”
“No,” Fish whispered. “I’m from Vailana, as I’ve always told you.”
“I can’t deduce much,” Nico said, “but it seems that someone’s been after you all along. This sorcerer—this Taunus—he’s been hunting you.”
Fish did not reply.
“Did you know he was after you?”
“Does it make any difference what I say?” Fish demanded.
An even darker shadow passed across Nico’s face, and Fish saw his good hand clench as if he would have liked to wrap it around Fish’s neck. For some reason, he felt a dark glee at the thought.
Another beat passed in silence. Then Nico turned to him again.
“I trusted you with my life, Fish!” he burst out. “Personal history is one thing, but you’ve had hunters on your tail all this time! And now we’re in a worse spot than we’ve ever been, surrounded by magickers and mutant creatures and only gods know what else!” He paused for a moment. Fish’s heart was beating so loudly that he hardly heard Nico’s next words, which were almost whispered.
“I don’t suppose you can... do the magic again? Try and get us out?”
Seething with frustration, Fish held up his cuffed hands. “These are plated with silver. Silver will not tolerate a magical field within its vicinity. I can do nothing unless I get out of these cuffs.”
He continued to stare at Nico, his breath coming heavily. “You don’t understand,” he shot bitterly at his partner. “You don’t understand how much—what our friendship meant to me. What I would have done just to stay by your side.”
His heart felt as heavy as lead, and he was nauseous. It felt as if something had shattered between him and Nico. It was the vision of himself he had tried so hard to maintain. A pretence of someone who had no past, who was always cheerful and casual and ready to take on any fight. A vision of someone Nico would like. Would love.
“And now you know,” Fish threw into the silence that had fallen. “Now you know what I am.”
“Fish.” Nico’s voice, though still strained, was calmer. “Fish, please tell me the truth.”
“You know enough, don’t you?” Fish fought the urge to hide his face. Instead he crouched lower on his rock to avoid Nico’s eyes. “You know I—the magic—my father—” A spell of dizziness and attendant nausea struck him, and he leaned over, touching his aching head to the cold rock, trying to orient himself once again.
He had no idea how much time had passed, but when he was finally able to lift his head and take in his surroundings once more, all he could hear was Nico shouting for him. It sounded so stupid that he might have laughed, if his head hadn’t hurt so much. That nickname... he’d always been ridiculously attached to it. The first name he’d had that didn’t connect back to his father. Fish had come before the alias of Benjamin Fisher, the full name he’d dreamed up as an explanation for what the old woman in Zarath had called him.
Cautiously and slowly, he brought himself upright. Nico subsided, but Fish could still feel the tension and desperation practically emanating from where he sat.
“You have a concussion,” Nico said again. His chains rattled as he leaned forward. “Damn all of this to the realm of Thrombolis! Do you have anything on you that might help?”
Fish shook his head weakly. He lowered his head, and curled up again. It was uncomfortable, as were all positions on this flattened rock with the slight length of chain afforded to him. He stared up at the roof of the cave, where the glow was definitely much brighter than it had been before. Perhaps the strange organisms which produced the light in these underground places had a daily cycle.
He could hear Nico breathing heavily, a catch of pain in the sound. Fish furrowed his brows as resentment burned acid in his gut. How many times had he saved Nico’s life, now? They had been getting into dangerous situations together for more than a year, and Fish was not too bashful to say that it was his own skill and cunning which had usually extricated them. And what was his reward for all of it? Indifference and fury. Blame for something he could not control. Shock and horror at the monstrous magic that his father had bequeathed him...
But as he lay, a memory unbidden stretched out before his mind’s eye. A pirate with an axe. A direct hit against his ribcage, cutting right through his leather armour. Blood everywhere, much more blood than what he thought there ought to be. Exhaustion, falling, and then a sudden waking. Nico carrying him like a child, the warm, safe feeling of knowing that his partner was with him. Nico tightening the linen bandages across him, muttering soothing and meaningless words. Nico’s hand on his cheek, slapping him to keep him awake.
Wake up, partner. We’re going to get you patched up good and proper.
Another flash of memory, this one totally different, yet related. Nico’s arm around his shoulders, singing a drinking song at the top of his voice as they wandered back from the pub, in a surprisingly impressive baritone. Nico supporting him as he retched in the street, even smoothing his hair away from his sweaty forehead. The slight shock and thrill as Nico lifted him bodily, carrying him the rest of the way home.
Gods only knew what would have happened on that particular night if Fish had been in control of his reactions. As it was, he had been far too drunk to do or say any of the things he’d dreamed he would.
But that wasn’t Nico’s fault, he had to admit to himself. He will never be your lover, but have you ever had a friend who cared this much about you? Bar the old woman, of course. But she’s dead.
Tears stung Fish’s eyes, and he resolutely wiped them away. He knew that Nico cared for him, maybe even loved him. Like a brother. They ate together, worked together, spent the best part of each day together, looked out for each other. The only things that had ever come between them were their secrets.
Nico, never afraid to set a boundary, had said this out loud. We don’t ask questions about the past. But Fish had never come so far as to admit that he even had a past. He had been so stupid. He had thought that Arran would never find him, grown complacent over the years, started to believe that maybe they had forgotten all about him.
Started to believe that the magic would leave me eventually. That I would never use it again.
He wasn’t sure, in the end, how long he lay there, drifting. But it must have been for hours at the very least, for when he woke, the glow from the roof was dimming and Nico was snoring softly in his chains.
His throat was parched. Fish perched on the very edge of his boulder and contemplated the babbling little stream below. With some manoeuvring, he managed to get his feet over the rock so they dangled in the water, but his arms would not reach. He climbed back up and tried again.
Eventually, he found a position where he could dangle his hands in the water and bring them carefully to his mouth. He did not feel much the worse for wear from hanging upside down, and with some relief, he realized that his concussion must have taken care of itself.
Nico had awoken with the noise of Fish’s chains rattling about with all the repositioning, and was now perched upon his own rock, enviously looking on. Fish’s mind was starting to clear at last, and he had an idea.
“Nico,” he called, “throw me your boot.”
His partner’s face lit up, realizing what he had in mind. Nico threw one of his boots over and Fish caught it deftly, then hung back upside down to fill it in the stream. He wound the bootlaces round and round the top to keep it closed, then threw it back.
Nico made a face at the taste, but didn’t complain. “Your head feels better, then?” he asked, and Fish nodded.
Fish waited for a moment, listening to the insistent drip and clink of water falling over the stones. Then he gathered his courage.
“Nic, the reason I never told you about—about my past.” He took a deep breath. “I was too ashamed.”
“Ashamed?” Nico repeated the word back to him with no inflection.
Fish sighed. “I simply wanted to escape my father.” He didn’t wait for Nico to ask. “Arran Sylvaissen. The dark sorcerer of Armour City.”
Nico stared at him for a long moment. Finally he spoke.
“Your father is the king of Vailana?” He wrinkled his brow. “So... does that make you a prince?”
“That was the rank they gave us,” Fish acknowledged quietly. “Five of us there were, all adopted. Father couldn’t have children of his own, the dark magic prevented that.” He stared at his boots, seeking to avoid Nico’s intent gaze. “He kidnapped us, bought us... in my case, he gave a handful of silver pawns to some passing slavers who had captured me. I was just a babe—unlike the others, I don’t even remember my real parents.”
Nico’s face was troubled. “Fish,” he said quietly, “you’re not making all this up, are you?”
Fish felt like laughing hysterically. Instead he schooled his face to calm. “I’m not.” He didn’t offer any platitudes, swear on anything he held dear, plead for Nico to believe him. Nico would just have to decide for himself.
To Fish’s faint surprise, Nico seemed to accept that. “And then what happened?” he asked quietly.
“Then I was a child,” Fish replied, “in the care of a succession of nurses and teachers. Arran didn’t try and teach me much magic until I was older. I was as normal a child as you can imagine, save that I didn’t see my father very often. But I never knew, back then—I didn’t see the things—” He broke off. “I didn’t... didn’t know what he did when he wasn’t with me.”
“I understand,” Nico said quietly.
“I was a nobleman’s son no different from any other, I suppose.” Despite himself, Fish glanced briefly over at his partner, and saw the ironic amusement flicker briefly over Nico’s face as well. “My nurses taught me my letters, history and geography and languages, even helped me exercise some minor magicks.” Fish looked down at his right hand, lying caged now in shackles of silver. He almost imagined he could see the path that the lightning-quick outpouring of magic had traced through his veins, leaving a dull ache behind, faint patterns stirring under his skin. “My abilities came on me early. My father was so pleased and proud. I quickly became his favourite child, and my brothers hated me for it.”
Nico didn’t say anything. Fish became aware that his body was trembling, whether from the chill in the cave or because of something else, he could not say.
“My father began training me around my eighth year. It was then that I discovered my true purpose.” Fish flexed his fingers, rattling the cuff of the chain. “Arran wanted us as war leaders. Five magically gifted children, we would be his generals in the war to come. We would carry out his orders, help him with his dark magic—”
He hesitated, and shook his head, wishing he could shake the memories away. “Nico, you can’t—you can’t imagine the things that must be done in order to invoke my father’s magic.” He rubbed his arms reflexively, feeling the shame crawl across his skin. “The things I was forced to do.” He glanced at Nico, who sat grim and silent, his beard hiding whatever expression was passing across his face. “Take those mutant creatures, for example. The necromes. You kill a man and seize his life-energy, which spills out of him at the moment of death. Then you use it to make him come back to life again—the corpse you just killed, creating a thing that obeys orders, does not tire, and hates the living with every ounce of its will.”
He looked away from Nico’s stricken face. “Anyway, there’s not much to tell after that. I ran away from him when I was eleven. I didn’t know they were still hunting me, though I should—I should have suspected. I stopped using my magic entirely.” He directed a pleading glance at Nico. “I hid from him—successfully, until now. I never thought I would have a reason to tell you all of this.”
Nico sighed. “That’s a lot to take in, Fish.”
Fish tried to keep his cool, but the burning question simply could not be halted.
“Do you hate me because of my magic?” he asked softly, scanning Nico’s face.
Nico frowned. “Fish—you keep talking of dark magic, but I remember we were taught that it was an inborn trait. The Morgei were born that way, the monks told me when I asked. And no history ever tells of the people of the Forest of the Morning using such a thing as dark magic.”
Fish shrugged expansively. “Be that as it may. I wasn’t born in the Forest of the Morning, and the dark side is all I know. What my father taught me.”
“You were a child,” Nico said. “You weren’t to blame.”
“Nico, when I was a child, do you know how many people I killed?”
“And do you know how many I did?”
Fish fell silent, staring at his partner.
“Perhaps not so young as eleven,” Nico conceded, looking away and masking his own past once again. “But you can’t carry that guilt, Fish. It’s what got us captured, and it’s what will prevent us escaping. You were a child. And you still had the courage to escape from him.”
Fish didn’t answer. Nico curled up on his rock, sighing loudly.
“Been a few times when a bit of magic could’ve come in handy,” he remarked. “Imagine those Guild buggers’ faces if you’d sent a fireball at ’em...”
Fish chuckled softly, mostly from relief. “Still partners?” he whispered across the space between them, half afraid to even ask the question.
Nico gave a grunt as he lay down and stretched his arm across his forehead. “Still partners.”
––––––––
Fish woke again, how long afterwards he could not say. The glow in the roof of the cave was still dim.
Had he imagined that sound? The patter of a pair of feet coming across the rocks?
Fish turned himself to look around and gave a start, nearly falling off his boulder. There was a shadow standing in front of him, a slight figure with long straggly hair.
“What do you want?” he demanded of the girl, whose large dark eyes seemed to pierce the gloom to meet his.
She did not answer, but proffered something wrapped in a rag. Fish took it and wound the rag open. There were strips of dried meat, some very old bread, and a leather skin of fresh water.
Fish was taken aback. “Thank you.”
She said nothing, leaving him to wind her way around towards Nico’s rock. Once she had delivered him his ration, she turned her back on both of them and headed towards the mouth of the cave.
“Wait!” Fish called. “Bree!”
She paused and turned around uncertainly. Fish held up the bundle of food.
“Why don’t you stay and eat with us?”
Warily, Bree came closer. She was raggedy, and there were old bruises on her face, but for the first time Fish noticed that she was not starved. There was something strange about her, about the way she held herself...
When Fish offered her some of the dried meat, she shook her head.
“Not hungry?”
She shook her head again. “I have food,” she said in a low voice. Even the short sentence was melodious, her intonation almost like a song. She would have stuck out in Svanfeld for that accent alone. Fish knew that his own manner of speaking was mixed all together from all the places he’d lived, from Armour City to Zarath to the ship that had plied the western ocean until he’d disembarked in Ülhard. It was a powerful advantage, from his point of view, because he could easily slip into someone else’s style of speaking, putting them at their ease.
“How do you get food?” he asked, shifting now from the intonations he had always used with Nico.
She shrugged. “There are soldiers.”
“Human soldiers?” Fish asked quietly. She nodded.
Fish wanted to ask why they fed her, but stopped himself in time, since it was something he thought he already knew the answer to. Instead he changed the subject.
“My name is Fish,” he said, “and this is Nico.”
She frowned. “I heard Master Taunus say that your name was Deryck.”
“Not anymore,” Fish said decisively.
She looked at him quizzically. “If I call you Fish, you must call me Brialise.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” Fish said without missing a beat. “Is that what your parents called you?”
She looked down and nodded.
“What were their names?”
She took a moment to answer, and Fish waited patiently until she did. “Analise Grenova, she was my mother. Fiolon was her husband and my father.”
“They lived in Qwu’Mallorn, did they not?”
“Yes.” She looked back at him. “And your parents?”
“I never knew them,” Fish answered simply. “Slavers took me when I was very young, and sold me to an evil man.”
“Master Taunus calls you brother.”
Fish grimaced. “Our father was the evil man.”
She gave a sudden giggle, startling Fish again. She really was no older than fifteen.
“Do you want to come and sit down?” he offered, moving slightly to one side.
Brialise tilted her head sideways, as if she were considering. She was in full possession of her magic, yet Fish knew that not all magical ability was created equal. The majority of Gifted children would never be able to throw a fireball nor spin a black web. Arran had taken particular care to select adoptive children who seemed to show an ability beyond the usual. The least powerful of the five of them had been Taunus, and even he could probably outmatch most of the peasants who lived in the Forest of the Morning.
The waif climbed up the rock to sit beside him.
Had Fish been a different brand of felon, she would have regretted that decision the moment she came within arm’s length. But he had no intention of hurting the girl, especially when she dropped down cross-legged beside him, inadvertently revealing the reason why she moved so awkwardly.
The threadbare dress and cloak she wore were too big for her and had kept her covered up, so far. But as she sat, briefly cradling her belly, it was all too obvious.
Fifteen, family dead, abducted from home, heavily pregnant. No wonder she doesn’t seem to care if I strangle her to death. Nico and I aren’t the most desperate ones in this cave, not by a long shot.
––––––––
The girl returned sooner than Nico had expected, slipping into the cave to sit next to Fish again. Nico could not help but be impressed by the charm Fish had worked on her in such a short time. He had long known that his associate was personable and persuasive, but the friendship Fish had struck with the little war orphan had been something to watch. He had played it perfectly, being sympathetic and funny and even a little dangerous at times, convincing Brialise that he was capable of protecting her from a tribe of rampaging goblins, or necromes, if only his chains were struck off. Nico rather hoped that the girl was not more devious than what she seemed, but what other choice did they have?
He leaned forward just far enough to overhear their whispered conversation. Brialise appeared to have forgotten his very presence, which as far as Nico was concerned was all to the better.
“There is a storm approaching from the north,” she was saying. “They say it will be a heavy one, a last winter storm. Master Taunus was expecting a visitor, but she will not come if it snows. She will have to wait for it to clear.”
“A visitor?” Fish inquired.
“His sister,” Brialise replied, and Nico saw Fish’s brows come together above his slightly-slanted oval eyes in a way that betrayed concern. “She has long golden hair, and is very beautiful. It was”—she seemed to choke for a moment on the words—“it was she who attacked our homestead, and took me. I saw her. She killed—so many.”
“The storm will give us cover,” Fish said. “We cannot wait until my... until Taunus’s sister gets here. We must be safely away before she can lay eyes on us.” He paused. “Did Taunus send for anyone else?”
Brialise shook her head. “I don’t think so. I have not heard, but it could be secret.”
Fish leaned forward and touched her cheek. “Be brave, now. Lie low. When the storm breaks, that is when you must come to us.”
She obeyed him and left, lingering with a last trusting look.
Nico waited several long moments, listening to the chattering of the little stream that flowed through their cave, before speaking.
“Fish, are you sure this is a wise plan?”
“My magic is sufficient to get us back to the village,” Fish replied, clenching and unclenching one hand. Some of Nico’s frustration must have showed on his face, for Fish took one glance at him and continued, “Truly, Nic, Taunus is not the greatest threat here. I know him. I know how he thinks. He will not anticipate our escape, and his response will be too slow. We have a chance, if we are willing to take it—escape him now, before...” He trailed off.
“Before what?” Nico prompted. There was something strange and dark behind Fish’s eyes, something that unsettled him. He knew what it was to be haunted by the past, by things that had been done to him, and until now he had never fully grasped that it was a darkness Fish shared as well. He shivered internally. Fish might be a good liar, but Nico knew him well enough to know that there was more beneath the smooth exterior that Fish had quickly painted on after their last conversation. More about his family, his adoptive siblings whose power Nico could not begin to fathom. The revelations Fish had shared had stunned him, and yet he felt as though he had still barely scratched the surface.
Fish clenched his hands together. “Before my sister gets here,” he said in a low voice.
“Your sister?”
“Dannine,” Fish whispered. “My sister. She was the only one who loved me... once. Undoubtedly she hates me now. Dannine was never the forgiving sort... and I abandoned her.” Fish glanced up. “I am much, much more afraid of what she might do. Taunus was cruel, but never had her drive and determination. Truth be told, I would rather be facing my father.” He looked towards the cave roof, where glow-worms gave off a dreary radiance. “I will protect us, Nico. I have enough magic to ward against the storm.”
I hope you’re right, Fish. By the sly eyes of Vermayn and all the rest of the gods, I hope so. Nico said nothing aloud. There was, after all, no choice but to trust in his partner. To trust that this wild-eyed magician was the same person underneath, the boy who had won Nico’s trust and become his best friend. Because the assassin had no idea what he’d do without him.
Gods damn me, Fish, but it’s true. I couldn’t imagine life without you as my partner.
