The second time I used my demon, I was fifteen, and just beginning to realize I was in love.
His name was Peter Alivayani, and he was a novice of the Red, sent to Nestevyo to assist our resident priest. In one sense, Peter was the worst possible choice for my affections. In another, my feelings for him were inevitable.
The position of the priest in Nestevyo was a strange one. There was no man more respected, for reverence for the Church ran strong among the villagers. Holy Murnsk had never suffered from the schisms and conflicts that afflicted lesser nations like Vordan, leading them into heresy and disregard of spiritual matters. There was one Church, the Sworn Church of Elysium, and its red- and white-robed priests were the gatekeepers of salvation.
But in spite of this respect, or perhaps in part because of it, the priest was and would always be an outsider. He was not from the village, or any of the villages around the Sallonaik. Elysium’s domain was vast, and a stroke of some functionary’s pen had sent us a man from the western shore, along the Borel Sea, whose accent grated harshly on the ears of the natives.
He was a Priest of the White. When I first arrived in the village, there were two priests, one of the White and one of the Red. The former’s attention was fixed on spiritual matters, while the latter tended to the material needs of the Church—the collection of tithes, the maintenance of Church property, and so on. When I was fourteen, the Priest of the Red completed his term of service and returned to Elysium, and for a time we had only Father Orrelly. He was an old man by then, white haired and bent backed, but with a fine strong voice and an eye for sinful behavior all the village children had learned to mind.
In place of his departed companion, Elysium sent us Peter. He was a novice of the Red, a priest-in-training, and this was his first posting. Managing the business of a remote church like ours was considered good experience for a boy—he was my age—and in the meantime Father Orrelly would continue his spiritual education.
Like his teacher, he was not a part of the village. He assisted Father Orrelly with services, helped the villagers with a bit of basic medicine, and studied books in the stone-walled house attached to the back of the church. The other boys and girls in the village gave him a wide berth, and the adults ignored him. But while Father Orrelly had had years to get used to his solitary life, I think it must have grated on Peter to live in a place where he had no one to talk to except a half-deaf old man. That would explain why he was wandering the day he found me reading in the clearing.
***
As I’d grown up, my relations with the village children had worsened. I was no longer a novelty to be shunned, but a stranger in their midst, and by tormenting me whenever they could they strengthened the bonds of their own community through a mutual enemy. The boys would taunt me when I crossed the village, and if there were no adults about they might push me or hit me to get me to run so they could give chase. The girls made their disdain clear with elaborate gestures, walking around me in wide circles so they wouldn’t have to breathe the same air I did, or averting their eyes if they were forced to talk to me.
I didn’t mind, much. I had never had the company of other children, so I did not miss it, though I did not enjoy being pummeled, either. I kept to myself, and unless my father needed me for some errand I stayed away from the village, out in the woods along the rocky shore of the Sallonaik. There was a clearing where a giant old pine had toppled and made a space, and I would bring my books there to read.
My father’s library had expanded over the years. The peddlers who were the town’s main contact with the outside world usually had a worn volume or two on their carts, and they were more likely than most to need my father’s skills. I worked for them, too, sometimes, copying out letters and bills, quill scratching eagerly in the knowledge that some new book would soon be mine for the reading. So in addition to the Wisdoms and the bare few histories my father had brought with us, I had read whatever had fallen into my lap: biographies of famous kings, romances of the Borelgai court, religious treatises, and descriptions of journeys to strange lands.
The day Peter found me, it was the last of these that I was enjoying. It was Heart of Khandar, the story of the Vordanai explorer Merric’s doomed attempt to follow the Tsel to its source, beyond the Great Desol. This was the third time I’d read it, and while my Vordanai was still weak, I was able to puzzle through some words that had eluded me before, so I turned each page with a fresh pleasure. I was so absorbed in the task that I didn’t notice when a shadow fell over me.
“Is that interesting?” the intruder said, eventually.
I shot up like a startled cat, terrified the village boys had invaded my hiding place. Peter was sitting on the fallen log, watching me with his chin in his hands. I recognized him, vaguely, from Sunday service, but we had never spoken before. He was taller than me, with wispy blond hair that stood out from his head like a dandelion puff. He wore the robe of his office, a shapeless gray thing with a red stripe near the collar to mark the order of the Church he aspired to join.
For a moment I said nothing, trying to slow the beating of my heart, clutching the book to my chest. Peter frowned.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I scare you?”
“No,” I said. “No, I just … didn’t expect anyone to find me here.”
“I imagine not,” he said. “We’re pretty deep in the woods.”
His Murnskai had a different accent than the villagers’ did, a hint of a lilt that I learned later was the mark of the far north, of Elysium. It made him sound like he was always half laughing. I looked at him, still suspicious, and said nothing.
“Do you come here often?” he said, gently, with the air of someone patiently taming a wild animal.
I nodded. “The light is good here, during the day. If it doesn’t rain.”
“I like it,” Peter said, looking around. “It’s peaceful. Nothing ever bothers you? The other boys told me there were wolves in these woods.”
I sighed. “They’re just trying to frighten you. The villagers shot out all the large animals around here ages ago. Sometimes you can hear wolves at night, but they’re up in the hills.”
“That’s good to know.” He looked down at the book again. “So. Is it interesting?”
“Fairly.” I shrugged, for some reason wanting to play it cool. “Captain Merric takes his men up the Tsel, fighting crocodiles and natives and never really sure where he’s going. Only he gets the blue fever and dies, and his men have to go back without ever finding the source. Only ten out of thirty made it back to Ashe-Katarion.”
“You know how it ends?”
“I’ve read it before. We haven’t got that many books, so I read them over a lot.” I flushed a bit, embarrassed. None of the villagers have any books at all, of course, but I thought that a novice from Elysium must find my pretensions at literacy pathetic.
“I used to read a lot,” Peter said with a sigh. “The Great Library at Elysium has thousands of books. Thousands. Some of them are as old as Karis the Savior. None of the novices are allowed in there, though. Here, Father Orrelly only has the Wisdoms, and he barely takes it down from the shelf anymore. He knows it by heart.”
“I read the Wisdoms, too.”
“I bet Captain Merric and Khandar are more interesting, though.”
I wasn’t sure if I should answer that truthfully—he was a priest, after all, or would be—but the look of longing on his face was such that I couldn’t help but nod. Then, moved by an uncharacteristically generous impulse and the odd, fluttering feeling that was just beginning to take root behind by breastbone, I said, “You could borrow this. If you promised to bring it back.”
For a moment Peter lit up, but then his face fell. “I can’t. If Father Orrelly found it, he’d scold me, and he might take it away.”
“Then come back here tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll bring this for you to read, and something else for me.”
“Really?”
I nodded, feeling like a prince dispensing spectacular munificence. Peter’s smile made me feel warm, and slightly buoyant, as though I might float away into the midsummer sky.
***
That was how we met, and how we started spending every sunny day reading in the clearing. At first we always sat in silence, reading, but eventually we began to talk a little as well. Peter told me about his life at Elysium, where he’d grown up from a very young age. Classes with the other novices, theology and languages and sums. Endless chores, rebuilding decaying sections of the crumbling, ancient fortress-city. Meeting boys from everywhere in the world that knew the Savior’s grace, Vordanai and Old Coasters and Deslandai.
In return, I showed him my life in Nestevyo, the paths through the woods with which I’d grown so familiar. I knew where the old mother fox lived with her kits, and a place where there was a hollow tree so big we could both fit inside it together, pressed tight and giggling. In the end, I even agreed to take him to the tidal pools, which I hadn’t returned to since that horrible day six years before.
Perhaps I should not have done that. Those pools have been nothing but evil luck for me.
***
Sagamet had lived another four years, then died from what my father said was probably a trouble with his heart. I had sat by my dog’s side, listening to his labored breathing, and in the back of my mind I’d wondered if I could help him, if I could still call up that cold feeling of the demon under my skin. But I’d promised my father, never again. We buried Sagamet in the stony soil in back of the house, and I’d cried myself to sleep. Going back to the tidal pools made me think of him again, and my eyes were unexpectedly misty as I led the way through the woods to the rocky shore where the natural basins could be found. Peter followed close behind me.
At his request, we bypassed a few of the shallower pools, where I’d once gone to look for fish and strange artifacts. Instead, I took him to a deeper basin, twenty feet across and full to a substantial depth even at low tide. Getting down to it involved a scramble over a series of ledges of protruding shale, edged with unexpectedly sharp points of rock. My hands were scraped and twinging by the time we reached the water’s edge.
I looked at the water dubiously. It was clear enough that I could see the bottom, and there was nothing more dangerous than a couple of trapped fish. Certainly no salverre. But it was too deep to pick the fish out with our hands, and we hadn’t brought poles or spears. Peter knelt and trailed his hand in the water.
“Brr. Not exactly a bath, but it’s warmer than the stream.”
Then, to my astonishment, he shed his robe in a heap. Underneath he had only an undershirt and breeches, and he was soon out of these as well. Before I could say a word, he backed up a few paces for a running start, paused, and jumped out over the water with a yell. He hit with his knees pulled up to his chest, creating a gigantic splash that flicked spray across my face.
I stared. We didn’t swim in Nestevyo. The Sallonaik was deep, dark, and cold, and the villagers who took boats out onto it treated it with an almost superstitious dread. There were worse things than salverre in there, lurking in the depths. I had never been in water deeper than my shins, and watching Peter stroke easily across the tidal pool was as startling as if he’d casually started to fly.
He reached the other side, took hold of the rock, and looked back at me. “Well? Aren’t you coming in? It’s not that cold.”
“I don’t …” I shook my head. “I can’t … I mean, I don’t know how to …”
“You don’t know how to swim?” Peter pushed off from the wall and dove under the surface, skinny pale legs kicking for a moment in the air. I watched with mounting horror until he popped back up with a gasp right in front of me. “It’s shallow enough to stand here. Come on, I’ll show you.”
“I’ll just … watch,” I mumbled.
“Come on,” Peter said. “It’s only water.”
Whether it was his mocking smile or the heat of the summer day that convinced me, I couldn’t say. Eventually, though, after much prodding, I left my own clothes in a pile beside his and slid gingerly into the pool. It was cold, but not as cold as the lake; the sun on the rocks had warmed it a little. I had a moment of panic when my feet slipped on the slimy bottom, and Peter caught my hand to steady me.
“Try putting your head under,” he said. “Getting your hair wet feels good.” His dandelion-puff hair hung heavily around his head in thick blond masses.
It took a lot of coaxing, but eventually I managed that. Peter took my hands and convinced me to take my feet off the bottom, kicking so frantically that I beat the water to a froth. He laughed and laughed, and I ducked my face in the water to hide my flushing cheeks. After an hour or so, he had me doing a reasonable dog paddle. I even, breathless with my own daring, followed him out into the center of the pool to tread water over an abyss perhaps eight feet deep.
“Where did you learn to do this?” I said while we were resting.
“At Elysium.”
“I thought Elysium was up the side of a mountain, next to a river of ice that never melts. Wouldn’t you freeze?”
Peter nodded. “There are places where water wells up out the ground, too hot to touch. That’s why Saint Ligamenti built the first fortress there. He was fleeing into the mountains, his men were all freezing to death, and God showed him where there was a spring warmed by an eternal flame. Nowadays it’s all pipes and valves and things. The water goes into these big cisterns to cool, and you can swim in them.” He winked. “If you’re smart enough to get away from the barracks without the priests finding you.”
I laughed. “I thought it was all books and chores.”
“There’s plenty of that, too.” He pushed off the wall, grinning. “Come on. Let’s try to touch the bottom.”
***
When the sun started to slip toward the horizon and the cold waters of the Sallonaik began trickling over the lip of rock separating the pool from the lake, we reluctantly decided it was time to go back to the village. Peter scrambled back onto the rock where we’d left our clothes, and held out a hand to pull me up. We stood for a moment, dripping and shivering but thoroughly happy. It occurred to me, the thought springing from nowhere, that I would like nothing more in the world than for Peter to kiss me.
I turned away from him immediately, fumbling with my clothes. By the time I managed to get dressed, Peter was already climbing the ledges, and I scrambled after him. Our wet hair and damp garments made it cold in the shadow of the trees, so we set a brisk pace on the walk home. We’d come some distance, though, so I had time to think.
It wasn’t that I’d never thought about that sort of thing before—I was a fifteen-year-old boy, after all—but it had always seemed to take place on another world, something I could view via the telescope of my books but never touch. None of the village girls had ever shown the slightest interest in me, and I had long ago written them off entirely. The Borelgai court romances were full of brave knights and their ladyloves, but their affairs seemed to consist almost entirely of pining, jealousy, and tragic or violent deaths. What I felt now—what I had felt for some time, I began to realize—was entirely different.
Before I had decided what I could possibly do about it, we were approaching my shack. This was usually where we separated, me to return to help my father with the evening’s tasks, him to report back to Father Orrelly. Today I saw that our little boat was halfway out of the water, as though my father had been out fishing and had gotten distracted before he’d gotten the chance to pull it entirely onto the rocky beach. It wasn’t until we left the trees behind that I saw the crumpled shape beside the boat, and my throat went tight. All thoughts of Peter were immediately gone from my mind.
“Father!” I said, running the last few yards. He lay on his side beside the boat, one hand stiffened into a claw and tangled in his shirt, his eyes wide and unfocused. His breath was harsh and ragged, and his skin had darkened to an ugly gray. He gave no sign that he noticed my approach, but only kicked his legs feebly.
“Father,” I said, already crying freely. I fell to my knees beside him, groping for his hand. “Father, what’s wrong?”
“It’s his heart,” Peter said. I looked up, my eyes blurry with tears. I had forgotten he was there.
“What should we do?” The Priests of the Red were taught a little bit of healing, I knew. They were often the only recourse of lonely villages, far from the cutters and surgeons of the city. “Help him!”
Peter chewed his lip. “We can take him inside, try and get him warm.”
I nodded, sniffling, and went to take up my father’s legs. Peter took his arms, and somehow we managed to lift him. The world seemed to spin around me. This was my father, the man who had been at the center of my life since I could remember, as unchanging and eternal as the sun and the moon. Now we were carrying him into our shack like a sack of wheat, his head lolling, a spreading stain on his breeches where he’d pissed himself. I nearly dropped his legs several times, and once we had him laid out on his thin pallet, I sat down and started sobbing.
Peter spoke to my father, tried to get him to respond, snapped a finger in front of his eyes. He bent down and put an ear against his chest, then sat up.
“What do we do now?” I said.
“I don’t know. I don’t think there is anything to do.” Peter shook his head. “Abraham, he’s going to die.”
“No!” I slammed my fists against the earth. “No. There has to be something you can do!”
Peter just shook his head. I closed my eyes and wiped the snot from my nose, breathing hard.
There was nothing he could do. Maybe nothing any doctor could do. But there was something I could do, something I’d sworn never to do again. Deciding to break my solemn promise took me only a moment.
“Get out of here,” I said to Peter.
“What?” He stared at me. “What do you mean?”
I couldn’t let him see what I was going to do. “I mean go. Leave. Please. Leave me with him.”
He shook his head again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Peter—”
The breath rattled in my father’s chest. His hand twitched, weakly. There was no more time. I put Peter out of my mind, put everything out of my mind except my father and the cold feeling of the demon, sliding up out of the depths of my soul and down into my fingers like an old friend coming home.