A/N This takes place a few years before The Immortals series, when Numair (Arram, at this point) is still on the run from Ozorne. Thanks to my two betas: LunaSphere and Sweet Sassy Sarah. You two are absolutely amazing and I am honoured that you would even bother with me. :P Thanks so much for your help.
A Word of Power was nominated to the Summer 2009 Knighthood of Ficship Competitions!
Arram pulled the rag out of the garbage and pressed it to his head to slow the bleeding as much as was possible. He felt his nose with his other hand and knew it was sore, but not broken. His shoulder and right arm were covered in sticky blood from the gash running from his temple under his hairline, but he knew about head wounds and how much they bled so he forced himself to not worry about it. He was worried about how hard he had hit his head on the way down (for the third time) and how much it hurt to take a full breath, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about that.
There was a rustling in the garbage beside him and he jumped, wincing as his slight gasp jarred his ribs. He cursed the rat that ran away at his movement. Feeling lightheaded, Arram sank down against the wall, taking care not to bump his head or jar his ribcage further. He closed his eyes, thinking bitterly of the fight that had landed him in this condition. Not that it was much of a fight– he had never had the physique of a fighter and his magic had always been enough in the past. Unable to use a spark of it for fear of drawing Ozorne's mage-sniffers, he had fought against the group of men who thought to steal his measly juggling earnings as well as he could.
He smiled– cursing when his lip split open afresh– when he thought that he hadn't made too bad a show of himself. One of them would definitely have a broken nose and the other two would be nursing black eyes and bruises.
His amusement faded, though. Fighting back hadn't forced them away and he had still lost the few coins he had gained that day. Along with that, he had probably gained himself a worse beating by making them angry.
His stomach rumbled painfully and he forced himself to stand up, leaning against the wall for a moment until the dizziness passed and he could walk. He didn't want to stay in this town and risk facing down those men again, especially since there was every chance that they could find friends to bring to the next fight while he…
He had no chance of that.
He staggered a little as he walked out of the alley into the bright sunlight and he pulled up the hood of his cloak. There was no use dwelling on the past or on what he had lost when he had to make it down the road to the next village before evening if he was to have any chance of eating today.
Sir Alanna of Olau and Pirate's Swoop, the Lioness, the King's Champion and the only lady knight in the Eastern and Southern lands had heartburn. Although not yet showing her pregnancy, she was certainly feeling the effects.
It wasn't this bad when I was pregnant with Thom, she thought, trying to keep her face from showing her discomfort as she and Raoul listened to the villagers attempt to sort out their account of the raider's attack. They weren't just having trouble with the number of attackers– which were always exaggerated– this village couldn't agree on when the attack happened, which direction the raiders had came from, what they did, in which direction they left… Alanna tapped her leg impatiently. Her chest burned with a fresh flame of pain and she cursed. She was going to kill something very, very soon.
Two of the villagers were swearing at each other as another yelled over their quarrel to try to tell the knights and their soldiers his version of the story. Alanna's temper snapped.
"That is enough!" she yelled. The villagers jumped and shut up as her voice echoed across the small square. "I will not listen to another word of this insane, useless drivel! Tell me which way they went or I will challenge each of you to a duel and by all the gods I will hold you to it. Now!"
There was a moment of dead silence before a quick, quiet, discussion had them all pointing to the east.
Raoul called for the soldiers to move out and hurried his horse to catch his friend, who was already halfway out of the village.
"Have I ever told you that pregnancy agrees with you?" he asked.
The reply was snapped back. "I can hurt you."
The town was a small one near the fiefdom of Olau, he was told by the farmer who drove him part of the way in his wagon. Arram sat up front with the old man, behind the mule that pulled them and the piles of hay the old man was taking into town to sell to the inn's stablehands. Arram closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet smell of the hay in the back and listened to the kind, every day observances of a good man and he thought that, despite everything, that perhaps life would be all right, in the end.
"Mithros defend us," the farmer breathed, pulling on the reins to slow the horses. Arram's eyes snapped open and he looked at the smoke and the flames that consumed part of the town that had just come into view as they rounded a curve in the road.
Arram and the farmer tied off his mule before pushing their way through the chaotic crowd to get closer to the source of the flames. Arram got the story out of a hysterical woman quickly enough– this area of Tortall was well known for its raiders. They had hit the town just moments ago, and Arram tried to ignore the death and destruction as the townspeople rushed around him, either calling out for lost family, hurrying to get away, or trying to put out the flames which ate up the shops and houses which lined the main road.
The farmer, a tough man despite his age, joined a line that was trying to get buckets of water from the nearest well, but it was too late. There were already three buildings aflame and the wind was pushing the fire deeper into the town. There was nothing to do once the fire got this large except get out of its way and wait until it ran out of fuel. Arram had grown up in forest fire country, where long dry spells were interrupted only by lightning storms. He knew a lost cause when he saw it.
Someone began to yell that there were people inside and Arram tightened his face, turned away from the scene, began to walk away. He could not help, he could do nothing. Not for them, because he didn't know how close Ozorne and his mage-sniffers were. If he helped these people it could mean that he would end up back in the dungeons of the emperor and he just couldn't. Why were they worth his sacrifice?
He heard the screams of someone trapped in a nearby building and louder, in his mind, he heard his old voice, the one that had debated in the university and had spent long nights talking with Varice. The voice he had lost in the dungeon of his closest friend and in the streets, where university learning had no place amidst hunger, anger, depression, shame and fear.
The voice he had lost whispered, Ozorne would turn away, too.
He had let the Emperor take his home, his friends, his name, his family, his life. He had let Ozorne take everything in his power-hungry madness but he would not let Ozorne take him; take what good was left in him.
Arram would never become like him.
He turned, hardly noting that a group had arrived on horses, armoured and carrying weapons. It didn't matter. They were too late to save these people.
He wasn't.
The word of power came to his lips, delayed so that his mouth moved and the world froze and his heart stopped in that moment of exhilarating, all-powerful ownership of everything, and in that moment Arram understood how Ozorne could have gone mad with his power, if he felt even a fraction of this.
Then the word was shouted to the world and the earth shook. The fire jumped into the air, obeying his order as it hovered over the screaming crowd, twisting for a moment before it disappeared and fell to the ground as a sheet of hot rain. The horses of the soldiers panicked and drew Arram's attention. He made eye contact with the redheaded knight near the back of the group before his strength failed and he fell to the ground.
He was done. It was over, all his months of running and hiding and the suffering he had endured. But as he stared up at the sky, he thought it was worth it, if he hadn't ended his life like Ozorne.
He can't take this from me, Arram thought, at peace.
The sky was blocked from his view by a pale face, framed with red hair and holding the strangest purple eyes he had ever seen.
"You're alive," the knight said, dryly surprised. Arram closed his eyes.
"If I pretend I am not, will you go away?"
The knight snorted. "No. Pray tell me how someone like you, meaning no offense, could possibly know a word of power?"
The man didn't answer.
Alanna shook him and got no response. She checked his pulse and sighed, relieved, when she found it.
"What in Mithros' name was that?" Raoul asked from behind her.
Alanna shook her head, taking her fingers from the stranger's throat and laying her hand of his chest, letting her magic flow through him.
"Do you have that kind of power?"
"Nowhere near," Alanna admitted. "That was a word of power, Raoul. It takes a black-robe mage to command those and live to talk about it. There are less than ten of them in the world. What a black robe is doing like this…"
"Are you sure about him?" Raoul asked, looking at the man's filthy state, his cut lip and bruises, the thin limbs, the torn clothing. "He did pass out, after all."
"That might have something to do with the malnutrition, exhaustion, three unhealed broken ribs and the bleeding in his brain," Alanna muttered, taking care of the worst of it as she spoke.
"From the spell?" Raoul asked.
"No. This man has been through some sort of hell, Raoul."
"And we can't let a mage like that run around unsupervised in Tortall," he sighed. He looked up at his soldiers, who were following his orders in collecting accounts of the raiders' direction, helping the wounded and covering the dead with bolts of cloth. Both Alanna and Raoul knew they could spare no time if they were going to catch the raiders before they disappeared into the countryside. "Olau is closest. How long will he sleep?"
"A couple days, at least. More if I heal him."
"We'll have to call in help, make sure there are mages on hand in case he wakes up angry."
Alanna nodded her agreement and watched Raoul march towards one of his lieutenants for a report. She looked down at her new charge. She hadn't told Raoul that she wasn't sure how much help the mages he could call in would be, hadn't told him that this stranger had more power than she had seen in Roger or Thom, even as worn as he must be by sickness and injury.
She hadn't told Raoul because something whispered that this man belonged where he had found himself and that it was her responsibility to keep him there.
She hadn't survived this long by ignoring her gut.
She looked over his long form, all arms and legs. "How are we going to get you on a horse?" she muttered, shaking her head.
He was laughing. His tutor was glaring at him, but he couldn't control the peals of laughter that escaped his mouth. A few of the boys around him were joining in, either amused at the tutor's expression or because they wanted to be ones who laughed at his joke, no matter that they didn't even know what it was. The cause of Arram's outburst was sitting to his left; angelic and straight-faced, staring down the tutor as if daring him to comment.
"If you are finished, Master Draper?" Arram stifled his last bit of laughter and nodded. "Your Highness?" the tutor asked, bowing as Ozorne nodded his permission to continue the class. As soon as the teacher's back was turned Ozorne turned to grin at Arram.
"Well?" he asked.
"You're right, of course," Arram whispered, his breathing rushed from laughing. "But I don't see how you managed to get him to admit to it."
Ozorne smiled again, but it turned from the companionable grin of a sixteen year old to the cold, menacing smile Arram remembered from much, much later.
He jumped, stifling a groan as he woke up in a bed for the first time in nearly two years. He was staring at the ceiling of a small bedchamber, lit by sunlight that filtered in through the window to his left. He turned his head away from the light– even though it was not shining directly on him it caused sharp pains to shoot from behind his eyes all the way through his brain. On the other side was the door to a small hallway and Arram watched the two people who argued in quiet voices right outside the door.
One of those talking the redheaded knight, and Arram was surprised to note that, without the helmet, this was actually a woman. Taking in the armour and weapons, he frowned for a moment. Then, he blinked again and remembered the jokes the university students had passed around about the Lioness of Tortall and realized that he was looking at the King's Champion. The man was a couple of feet taller than the woman, with a giant's build and short curly black hair.
"Alanna– you're not supposed to be doing anything rigorous," the giant said.
"I know, Raoul," the Lioness replied, the warning clear in her tone.
"Your husband is already going to find some tricky, backhanded, painful way for me to die when he finds out I let you come with us after those raiders."
"I stayed at the back of your Company! And I have to get in there and heal him–"
"Alanna, in your condition–"
"I'm pregnant, not dying– unlike that man in there, so if you don't get out of my way-"
"I'm not dying," Arram said, unable to resist, and yet sounding as if he were.
The other room went dead quiet as they turned to stare at him. Alanna recovered first, moving into the room quickly and standing by his bed. Arram struggled to sit up but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.
"You haven't been healed fully, yet. I made sure your broken rib wasn't going to puncture anything, but I had to leave the worst of it in order to chase after those raiders before they destroyed another town– or disappeared into the hills," she said, staring at him sternly with those mystifying eyes. "Stay still until I can deal with you." Arram considered arguing just for the sake of arguing but he saw the determination on her face and settled back instead. Perhaps one day long ago he would have spoken up anyway, but he had been too tired for too long. He watched the purple fire flow from her hands, through his arm and along his bones and muscles.
The other knight, Raoul, was still standing by the door, but he moved in close enough to be on hand to protect the woman from Arram, as if he had the strength to harm her. Just lying back on the pillows had a stupefying effect and he was close to passing out.
"What's your name?" Raoul asked, ignoring the glare he received from the Lady healer. Arram looked away, closing his eyes as he faced the light, and didn't answer.
He couldn't. He hardly knew anymore. He had given so many names over the past few years, had made up so many, that they had all blended together until he couldn't have recalled one of them if he had tried. But he couldn't give his name, either, because he finally realized that it didn't belong to him anymore.
He was not Arram Draper. He was not the honoured student, the friend of the monarch, the pampered member of Ozorne's inner group. He was no longer the brilliant son of Tyran merchants, because Arram feared he had lost that part of himself long, long ago– when Ozorne first turned to him in the hallway outside their class and smiled. Besides, he couldn't go back to that life, not after living as practically royalty, and not while he was on the run from the most powerful ruler in the Southern Lands.
He was not even Reed's inside man in his quest to introduce some portion of humanity to the slaves the palace and the Empire had tossed aside, because that was not what, in the end, had caused his downfall. All that had made that name had been taken from him in that moment where he had realized that his best friend would be willing– more than willing, too much more than willing– to have him rot and die and be gone forever.
And so Arram did not answer the question because he could not. He did not know the answer anymore. The years of exhaustion caught up with him quickly in the brief moment of comfort he had been allowed and he fell asleep.
Alanna sighed, shaking her head at Raoul.
"We can't just leave him here, let him get better– and stronger– while we have no idea who he is," Raoul said, more as a complaint to the sleeping man than as a reprimand of Alanna.
"Myles has sent for George," she responded. "Hopefully he'll be able to do something with the description. Now, don't you have paperwork to do, Knight Commander? I seem to remember a skirmish with some raiders this afternoon."
"Just like you to get involved in all the fun and then push the work onto me," Raoul whined as he left the room. "I'm sending in some guards, to keep you safe in your matronly condition!"
"Go push papers, you useless lump!" Alanna called back, smiling as she ignored his chuckle and pushed herself further into the healing.
It was dark. He moved frantically, fumbling as he shoved all of the objects he had been keeping in Varice's room into his bag. The rooms were empty– she had been told to be somewhere public, to be somewhere she would be seen the entire time. No way she could be included in this hell, if they knew exactly where she was when he disappeared. Arram prayed she had the composure to not give him away, but he wasn't sure– he wasn't sure of anything. He didn't dare go back to his rooms to pack; they would be there. They would look there, if it was discovered that he was missing.
Lindhall had taken an unacceptable risk, using his contacts to get Arram out of that– that cell. And he didn't have long. He looked around the familiar room one more time by the eerie, ghostly blue light of the mage orb that hovered over his right shoulder. He noted his black robes, lying on the ground where they had been thrown before… before… before his world had fallen apart.
He hesitated for a second before shoving them into his bag along with the other, measly possessions he had been able to collect. He put out the mage light and pulled his cloak's hood over his head as he hurried down the hall, praying to all the gods that his disguise would hold, that he would find somewhere safe.
Please, just let me get to somewhere safe, he prayed as the darkness of the palace turned into the darkness of the grounds and he hurried into a hidden passageway that would take him from everything he knew.
He woke, gasping. The room was dark and he struggled to get away from the dream, away from the terrifying hours after his imprisonment, away from the memories of his frantic flight from the capital. But the room was dark and he couldn't quite find himself and the fear closed in.
A light sparked from the doorway and Arram caught his breath slowly as he watched the light of the oil lamp flicker and then grow steady to illuminate the room and the man who entered it. He was incredibly average looking– tall, with broad shoulders and tousled, light brown hair. He set the lamp on the table beside the bed and pulled the chair Alanna had been sitting on while she was healing away from the bed so that when he sat down he was nearly in the shadows.
"Nightmare?" he asked, in a kind, steady voice. Arram was still catching his breath and only nodded. He sat up tentatively, surprised when he felt no flashes of pain at the movement.
"It's been three days since you've been brought here and my lass is a good healer," the stranger said, smiling as he watched Arram's movements. "You should be good to move around a bit."
Arram nodded. "Your lass?"
The stranger smiled. "I'm George Cooper, the Baron of Pirate's Swoop, and your healer's husband." He held out his hand and Arram shook it, thoroughly confused by the oddness of a nobleman who would visit in the middle of the night, mostly in the dark.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Arram muttered as a reply.
George laughed. "Yes, a pleasure to meet you too, Master Draper." It took a moment before it sank in, and then Arram was up, on the other side of the bed, away from this stranger who knew his name and was no doubt there to kill him, or take him back to Ozorne, no matter the lies he told about his identity.
He'll have to kill me, Arram thought. I'm not going back.
"Calm down," the man said, holding out his hands in a peaceful gesture. He stayed in his chair, watching Arram. "I'm not going to hurt you, lad. Sit back down on that chair behind you and we'll chat."
"I will not go back," Arram said, gasping slightly as his ribs and head flared with the movement. There was the pain.
"No, you won't," the man replied, as confusing as ever. "Sit down– my lass's healing might not be up to so much jumping, although you won't be telling her I said so."
Arram glared at him for a few long moments before he grudgingly sat on the chair that was set under the window.
"I'm not here to take you back to your Emperor," the stranger continued when Arram was seated and calmed. "I'm here to offer you a place in Tortall, and protection by the Crown in exchange for your residence and services."
Arram waited for the joke, and when it was clear that this stranger was completely serious, he laughed in the dark, bitter way in which his joy had been twisted.
"You want me to believe your monarchs are offering me protection from Carthak? From Ozorne? From the force of the Empire, which could fill your country five times over? They couldn't possibly think me so naïve."
"Our country has more strength than its size would suggest," the man said, shrugging. "We could stand up to Carthak, and we would have the rest of the Northern countries to support us if Ozorne declared war. And, of course, we wouldn't announce you were here. You would be able to pick a new name, create a new life. Ozorne would have no proof you were in Tortall and would have no reason the northern powers would accept to declare war upon us."
The words sparked a tiny bit of hope within Arram which he crushed mercilessly. A new name? Like he would ever be able to stay long enough in one place to have a name that counted. A new life? When his old one was stolen from him, he had lost his only chance at a life.
"He would know," he said, thinking of the mage-sniffers he had been shown, thinking of Ozorne's promise that he would be found, no matter where he ran, no matter what he did.
"He hasn't tracked you this far," the stranger said. "They lost track of you when you took a ship into Tortall from Tyra, instead of the roads. They weren't expecting you to head south again and take to water, I'm sure."
"No, he knows," Arram whispered. It couldn't be true that this hope was real.
"They do not know where you are," George said, his voice nearly unbearably kind. "You could stay here and work for the Tortallan crown."
"I will not be another court's toy. I cannot –" He stopped, embarrassed, when his voice broke.
"You will have an important role; working with me, I daresay."
"Working with you?" Arram asked, suspicious.
George smiled. "As a consultant, and an active agent on occasion. Perhaps Carthak could spare you as the Emperor's pet, but here we have a very real need of someone with your knowledge and your power. In your spare time you will be able to do research or experiments in the palace, or anywhere else in the country you wish to be set up. You will not be a toy."
Arram tried, one last time, to stop the hope from rising, but he couldn't quite kill it. It sounded too real. "Even if this is true," he said, his voice low. "Even if your monarchs would stand against the Empire… Why would they possibly want a fugitive? I am not the type of man kings take into their company."
"You were in Emperor Ozorne's company, Master Draper."
Arram flinched, and then met George's gaze defiantly. "That did not end well. And I– I am not the man I used to be. I am nothing, now. What could your king possibly want with a street-performer? A magician, a juggler, a pickpocket? A broken man who was expelled from his home and has spent the past two years on the street? You are trying to tell me your king wants me? He wants this man?"
George leaned forward, his kind eyes suddenly serious and reflecting a deep hardness which he could hide behind his drawl and his crooked smile, but which was revealed in the dim light when hidden pains and dark pasts were discussed. The hair on Numair's arms stood on end. "I grew up in the slums of Corus. It weren't long before I was caught for stealing, and not long after that where I wasn't getting caught at all. When I was sixteen, I killed the Rouge's King and I took his place in the Thieves' Court, ruling over the dark streets of the Lower City," he paused, ignoring Arram's stare. "And now, well... just look at me. A baron and married to my Lady wife.
"The monarchs here are not like others, anywhere. The king helped my wife fight the conservatives and become a knight. The queen was in exile herself, ran here from her home to get away from the devastation there. The Champion is a woman who's never fit into any normal roles of court, and where else would you find a baron who's a pardoned thief?
"You could belong here, Arram. You could make a real difference here, have a real role. And you would no longer have to fear your Emperor. Tortall could be somewhere safe, your place to rest. Think on it."
With that he was out of his chair and slipping through the darkness silently; the only sound of his departure was the click of the door as he shut it behind him and the only sign he had ever been was the lamp left behind. Arram stared at the door. It was not locked. He could slip away, disappear from this place and… and continue changing names and starving and juggling for scraps and fearing that every stranger he met would be the one to drag him back to the horror of Ozorne's dungeon? Or simply put a dagger in his chest?
Arram sat, staring at the door, until the darkness of the room lifted with the grey of dawn. He stood carefully, minding his still-healing ribs, and looked out the window, watching the pink line start across the horizon until Tortall was before him, lit with the bright colours of daybreak.