What Doesn't Kill You
CHAPTER TWO
1
The house was small and quaint, surrounded by a white picket fence that her husband had built, the Riot House seemed empty without the tall presence.
To Marco, it had always been thus. Sometimes, if his mother was sad enough, she would tell him what his father had been like.
To this day, Marco didn't understand why he'd left. He could still feel the pressure of his father's hand on his head, hear the man's smile in his quiet voice.
"I shall return as soon as I can. I always do, don't I?"
He hadn't returned, though.
"Marcus, why do you refuse to come to Mass? Your father attended regularly… if only to make fun of Father Duane…" Tia said, her mind already busy with who would replace Father Duane again.
"Because they're a load of lying hypocrites and I can't stand the lot." Marco snarled.
"MARCUS!"
"Mother, that is what they are. You've seen them do their false miracles!"
"And how know you that they are false? You are but a boy."
"Soon to be a man. Surely they are not true, Mother. How can they be if they proclaim that no man can produce a miracle, and then do so themselves?"
"They do it in the name of Iocus. Iocus works through them." Tia insisted stubbornly, as she had with his father and with him for the last six years.
She walked out the door and around the corner, waving absently and smiling.
2
Ashley watched her move away from the house. Going to Mass, the part of him that knew every inch of her and every angle of her face whispered. She won't know who I am…Whispered the part that had brought him here.
He briefly considered stopping her, speaking to her, but decided against it.
As Callo Merlose once said, direct action is perilous.
Instead, he turned his attention to the house. If he was correct, which he apparently was, one more occupant remained within the house.
Ashley silently slipped to the window, the illusion of invisibility once again cloaking his shoulders.
A boy, perhaps as young as ten or as old as twelve sat in a wooden chair by the fire, wrapped up in a quilt and thinking heavily.
I still sit like that, 'pon occasion. Ashley thought, looking inside longingly, but then recovered his decorum and remembered that as an immortal, he wouldn't even get frostbite.
He looked at the boy, with his red hair and his long limbs, and wondered when the boy would surpass Tia in height. Soon, no doubt.
*
Ashley walked through the busy, snow-filled streets of Winhill, his boots thudding tiredly against the cobblestones and his cloak swishing about his knees.
The cloak ripped beneath his boots and he nearly tripped over his feet.
The Dark rippled from its usual swath about his shoulders, drawing his attention to a blonde woman with piercing green eyes staring at him.
She could see through his illusion, Ashley realized. She beckoned him into an alley.
"Master?" she asked, her voice cold and alien.
"Yes?" he replied quietly. He had long ago learned to humor the members of Sydney's cult.
"Whither lieth Sydney's grave?"
"…" There was nothing to say. He'd had naught to bury, nor any means to recover any of what he might bury, but the Dark's piteous howl at the death of its Master had kept him awake for nights. It had been unending. All the Dark had sobbed into his mind were the words "Sydney" and "dead" for a week. It had been bloody useless, really.
"Whither LIETH Sydney's grave?" the woman repeated.
"There is no grave, woman. There was naught t' bury, and no way to recover aught I might bury."
"At least ye're no' a liar. A Jan Rosencrantz fellow came 'round, a few days afore the disappearance, askin' after Mŭllenkamp and the Riots. 'E claimed as t' be the Master of the Dark, but he was no such thing, and I a told him so."
"Disappearance?" Ashley asked.
"Oh, aye. I pity Tia, the poor lass. Lost her husband to th' VKP's wars."
"Did she?" Ashley asked.
"Well, the VKP ne'er did say aught on th' matter, th' damned fools. Tia ne'er remarried, either. Raised the lad with no father, and he turned out a'right. He refuses to attend Mass, the good lad." With that, the woman chuckled.
"My thanks for the information," Ashley said. "Now, 'ave ye aught more useful?"
"Aye. They've set up wards about the Church, s' try not to enter there. There be no other Mages in Morgain, and the lot of 'em are mostly weak, any how. They'll listen t' ye, should ye need it."
"Thank you." He turned to leave.
Just before he left the alley, he heard the woman's gruff voice call, "And don't forget to stop by what once was your home, Ashley Riot!"
Ashley ignored her jibe as he strode from the alley, his steps echoing as hollowly 'gainst the stone as Sydney's had.
INTERLUDE
Tia looked into the window by the door, smiling softly at the sight of Marco curled up on the floor, wrapped in a blanket.
The snow hadn't stopped, she noticed as she stepped through the door and realized that the house, despite the roaring fires in each room, was icy cold.
It was enough to chill her very bones, the thought of Marco leaving a window open in this storm. The snow on the floor caught her eye; shaped vaguely like footsteps, the snow glistened and melted into small puddles of water.
Someone had entered, and they hadn't stamped their feet before doing so.
3
Ashley cursed the man patrolling the VKP recruiting building; not only was it a large port city, Dollet was the VKP's largest supplier of knights and agents.
It also contained, deep within the recruiting building, a very large archive of every agent's personal history and physical and political status.
It was a pity his amnesia had never bothered him; had he thought on it, he might have come to Dollet again and discovered the truth. He'd had an opportunity, once.
Finally, Ashley decided to wait. Callo's history and political status could wait; VKP spy or not, she had been right.
Tia and Marco yet lived, and that was almost more important than making sure the VKP couldn't find and hang him. While ineffectual, hanging would hurt, and it would attract more notice than he needed.
Ashley slipped off, teleporting back to the grave yard in Winhill.
*
The night's cold wind seemed to rip violently at him and the dead trees' leaves rattled in the bitter gale. The place would have frightened him, had he been made of lesser mettle. He still couldn't help but wonder if the tales of demons haunting graveyards were true. Even so, he could handle whatever demon this graveyard threw at him.
"Sir?" Asked a quiet voice from behind him. "Sir, are you ill?"
He knew that voice; it was achingly familiar— he knew every tone, every slight inflection, every pause and the meaning behind it all.
And the owner didn't know him at all. His illusion must have slipped— and even that was an unfortunate miracle.
He turned around; his shape changed into a ragged, weary traveler.
"Nay, lass. I merely wandered in and need a bit of rest. I shall return to the inn directly." Ashley said, his illusory voice hoarse.
INTERLUDE
As Tia watched the strange man leave, his steps oddly labored and his breathing wheezing, she considered asking the man to stay with her. But the inn was closer, and she couldn't risk having someone like him around Marco.
She watched him go, and her mind flitted back to that single, sweet instant when she had thought she had seen Ashley.