Fate’s Pawn

Raziel shivered and opened his eyes to a blue sky with fat lazy clouds hanging in the air. He felt sweaty but he was cold. No, that was wrong. How could he be cold while sitting in the sun on a summer day? He felt strange, a sensation tingling around his head that he couldn’t name, something right on the edge of fading off into the background.

It was a perfect day really. It wasn’t too hot or too cool. The sun was covering the world in golden afternoon light. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something cold and dark was pressing in around him.

He reached up and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. He looked at his hand. It was shaking and too small. It was a small child’s hand. But he was only four. Why should it be any different?

He got to his feet and started walking towards his mom. They were on a hill that overlooked town. Sara sat beneath a tree with her sketchbook in hand. He’d been intending to tell her that he didn’t feel good and ask to go home, but as he moved he felt better. Maybe he had just been too hot after all. He came up behind her, trying to be quiet, but she turned to him with a smile.

He looked at her drawing with awe. Sara had taught Raziel’s father to draw and often encouraged Raziel to try it as well. He did his best, but his hands were clumsy and nothing seemed to come out better than stick figures. Sara had captured the shape of the whole town on her paper in no time. It seemed impossible to him that anyone could make such precise, delicate lines.

“Mom, that’s so pretty,” he said.

Her smile widened at his words. “You think so? It’s pretty rough.”

“No, it’s perfect,” Raziel said with the complete sincerity only possible from small children.

She laughed and put an arm around him and pulled him close to plant a kiss on the top of his head. He might have fought her kiss if his friends had been around, but he’d have let her win. His stomach rumbled. Loudly.

“Well then,” his mom said, mock offense on her face. “We better get you home and feed you before that monster in your belly gets out.”

She carefully packed up her art supplies, took Raziel’s hand, and they made their way back toward the town. The hill was only a little way outside the city, near the river that gave Riverton its name. Raziel walked for a while, sometimes running ahead, sometimes sticking close. As long as he stayed within eyesight, his mom didn’t mind. In some parts of Arcas it would have been dangerous to go this far away from the city but, despite being a small town, Riverton was fairly close to the capital, and it was very rare for anything dangerous to wander close to the city.

Eventually though his legs got tired. After all he was taking two or three steps for each of hers, . She bent down and let him crawl onto her back and ride for a while. It was fun to be tall, and her hair smelled nice, but it kept getting in his face so he laid his head on her shoulder.

His head came up when he felt his mom stop suddenly. First he saw that they were near the bridge. Then he saw the people and the animal on the bridge.

A boy and a girl, both a few years older than Raziel, were backing slowly away from a canine that wasn’t big enough to really be called a wolf but was still more than large enough to be a threat. The dog was crouched low, moving slowly towards them. Sara knelt, and Raziel got off her back.

“Raziel, I need you to hide behind that tree, right now. Stay quiet.” Her voice was perfectly calm and utterly commanding.

Raziel quickly obeyed and ducked behind a nearby tree but he couldn’t help sticking his head out to watch what happened. Sara moved with complete confidence. There was not an ounce of fear in her posture or demeanor as she approached. The dog’s attention shifted from the children to her. A low, harsh growl bubbled up from its throat. Sara didn’t slow down, didn’t even seem to notice.

“Get behind me,” she commanded the two children, as she continued moving forward. She placed herself between the dog and the children and drew herself up to her full height. Though she was not a tall or imposing woman, with her outspread arms, her sketchbook case swinging from one hand, her posture and her dress, she seemed far larger than she actually was.

The dog was no longer growling but it wasn’t running either. They stood like that, frozen in an instant of tension, before the dog put one foot back to step away. The moment the dog began to retreat, Sara gave a great shout and stomped on the first wooden step of the bridge. She looked silly, but the dog turned and ran, tail tucked between its legs. Sara bellowed and ran after it, stomping as loudly as she could on the bridge. The dog ran even faster and disappearing into the woods. Sara gave a great sigh of relief. Then she rounded on the two children still at the base of the bridge.

“And just what did you two think you were doing, going off into the forest without an adult?” she demanded imperiously. Raziel did not envy the two children the tongue lashing they were about to endure. He tried not to giggle to himself as she marched back to the two kids who cowered away from her wrath almost as much as they had from the dog.

Then from behind him came an animal rumble. Raziel turned slowly around and saw another dog approaching him. Its eyes were more yellow than its bared teeth. He wanted to scream, but the sound caught in his throat. It came forward one careful step at a time, its terrible eyes holding Raziel in place as surely as if he’d been tied to the tree.

It crouched low, readying itself to pounce. Raziel finally was able to cry out and flinch away. He covered his eyes and face with his hands and screamed as it leapt.

“Raziel, be quiet.” His mother’s voice every bit as calm and confident as before.

He looked and saw her kneeling between him and the dog, the meat of her forearm in its mouth. Blood fell on the ground, but if Sara felt any pain she didn’t show it. The only thing on her face was a perfectly composed and utterly absolute rage. The dog was not moving, maybe surprised to find its target had suddenly changed. Sara raised her free arm, and the dog started to growl. She drove her fist down ruthlessly into its nose. The strike must’ve hurt her as much if not more than the dog, but it yelped and let her go. She didn’t stop though. Before it could turn on her again, she gave the dog a swift, hard kick in the ribs. All the fight went out of the dog. It rolled away before tucking its tail and disappearing into the forest with a whimper.

Sara was still for a few moments, watching carefully to see if the dog would return or if there were others also lying in wait. She looked so tall to Raziel. She was bleeding, but her back was straight and her head held high. A dragon could have come crashing through the forest, and Raziel was sure she’d have stared it down without flinching. But there was no dragon and no more dogs to attack them. She turned finally to Raziel and looked him over with that same strange calm. She flashed him a smile to let him know everything was okay.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Sara walked behind him as they moved to the bridge. She moved to the center of the bridge with him and assigned one of the children to each end to watch for any more dogs. Then she sat and tore the ruined sleeve of her shirt off before tearing it again into strips. Raziel winced. He knew that was one of her favorite shirts.

Luckily her arm had been far enough in the dog’s mouth to avoid its longer canine teeth but the bite had still left two deep, ragged cuts that oozed blood. Her whole forearm was bruised, turning purple right before his eyes. She carefully wound the strips around her arm before using her teeth and one hand to tie it tight. She didn’t let any of the pain it must have caused her show, didn’t let out so much as a hiss.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said, seeing the look on his face.

“I’m sorry you got hurt,” Raziel said, barely above a whisper.

She smiled again, every bit as sunny as she had when he’d complimented her painting. With her good arm she reached out and drew him near before planting a kiss on his forehead. “I’m not,” she said and held him close for a moment. “Now come on. We need to get home. Still have to feed you. Come on, you two.”

The two other children came at her command. Together they walked back to Riverton. They all stayed close to Sara until they were well within the city. Sara made the two promise not to go back into the woods without an adult and informed them that she would be having a conversation with their parents tomorrow before letting them run off.

Things felt almost completely normal to Raziel by the time they made it back to their house. Sara asked a neighbor to go and find Gosa, the town healer, so he could come have a look at her arm. The neighbor gone, Sara walked into the house with Raziel. She sent him to play in his room while she made food.

He took his time going to his room. He didn’t know why. Normally he ran everywhere he could. But something in his mind wanted to take it slow. To enjoy the creaking of the stairs, the feeling of the wood banister under his hand. The smell of his mom’s cooking drifting from the kitchen. It felt so pleasantly familiar that it hurt. And yet he couldn’t stop wanting more of that pain. He wanted desperately to be right where he was.

When he finally came to his room, it was dark. Which was strange. He couldn’t possibly have taken that long to get to his room. Was it an eclipse? He’d heard of those. He only had one window to look out of though and it was above his tall dresser. But that had never stopped him before. He hurried to stack a pile of books onto a chair and clamber up onto the dresser.

It was night outside, full dark with a sky full of stars. And that wasn’t the strangest thing. The roof and the entire town beyond was covered in snow. And that still wasn’t the strangest thing.

There were tracks in the snow where someone had been walking outside his window.

There was a knock at his door, and Raziel froze. A dozen different thoughts screamed through his head. What was going on outside? Why did he want to go out there? Why did he want so badly to stay in his room? Who was at his door, and why was he so afraid?

“Raziel? I’m coming in, sweetie,” his mom’s voice. But not his mom. He was sure of it. The person that stood in the opening as the door swung open wore Sara’s face. But the smile was predatory and chains draped from her remaining shirtsleeve. In her other hand, she held a leatherbound book that was tied shut with leather cords. He knew that book. It was his father’s. And his mom’s blood was dripping on it from the dog bites.

“Can you open this for me, sweetie?”

“M-mom?”

“I can’t seem to with my hand this way. I need your help.” Her voice was horrible. It was like someone else was using her as a puppet and saying the words for her while her mouth moved.

Raziel pressed himself against the window, the cold of the glass a shock to his senses. His mother was stalking towards him, even her movements wrong now. They were shaky, and with every step the chains in her sleeve clinked and clacked.

The only escape was through the window and despite everything he didn’t want to use it. As bad as it was in here, he wanted what was out there less. Something inside was screaming that the moment he went out there she’d be gone forever. He’d never see her again.

“Raziel, please,” she asked, her voice cajoling but her face twisted in a snarl. She raised her good arm, and the chains began to quest forward like an octopus’ tentacles.

That’s not her. Go. You don’t want to think of this when you think of her.

And that was it. He turned and slipped the latch on the window. He dug his fingers beneath the seal and lifted as cold iron dug into his leg.

“No, sweetie. Come back. Don’t go.”

Raziel tried not to think about her lips pulling back from her face and her teeth gritted against those words as though she was fighting against them. He had to use every ounce of his strength to pull himself through the window, the chains clawing at him and trying to drag him back at every inch.

And then, they were gone. And he was alone in the snow. He shivered in the cold but he couldn’t help looking up. The snow wasn’t falling anymore, but the sky was full of stars like glowing snowflakes frozen in place. The white moon stared down at him, the whole night lit as brightly as night could be.

He gaze began to drift down though he tried to fight it. Raziel looked down to the snow and saw the footprints. They led up over the crest of the roof. They led to a boy standing in the snow at the highest point in the roof, his pale skin, white curling hair, and white clothes standing out starkly against the dark of the sky, a reverse silhouette.

Raziel’s feet began to move, dragged forward by the force of memory no matter what he tried to do. He wanted to scream. He wanted to dive back through his window, run to his mother and warn her. But that wasn’t what he’d done that night. He hadn’t known what was going to happen.

The boy was looking off in the distance. Raziel didn’t want to look, but his neck turned and his eyes saw. There, in the distance among the clouds. It was a city in the sky. Like one of the gods was lifting an island, it floated in the sky. And it was coming for his home.

“No,” Raziel moaned. “No, no no no no no. Not again, no not again.”

Pain poured through his head like it was caught in a vise. . He was so hungry. So thirsty. So afraid. But more than anything in the world, he did not want to watch that flying city come for his home again.

He forced his eyes to close. He felt sweat pouring down off him despite the cold. But he dug in his heels and came to a stop, leaning away till he was almost in a sitting position. Till he was sitting.

He tried to reach up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. but found his arms wouldn’t move. The headache was all consuming now, a constant horrible pain. With a monumental effort, he managed to open one eye.

He wasn’t on the roof of his old home in Riverton. He was in the room where he’d talked with his grandfather beneath the Peritura hospital or one very like it. His arms were tied to the chair, and as he tried to move he found that his legs were too. He tried to move his head, but the pain that brought on made him gasp.

“Almost had it that time.” It took Raziel a moment to place the voice. Alban. The man was standing behind him, the fingers of one hand clasping the back of Raziel’s head. “I don’t know where you keep going in your memories, but you won’t escape me forever.

“I won’t give it to you.” He had wanted to sound tough. Confident. Strong. The voice that came out was quiet and ragged, nearly a sob.

“You will. Eventually.”