20 For his future’s sake

When I awoke, it was daybreak and Yal was sitting on his bench eating a cold porridge. My companions were also awake, and so was Little Wolf. Little Wolf was sitting on the straw and looking around in bewilderment. I smiled, stretched, and said:

“Good morning!”

Yalet swallowed his mouthful and said with a sigh:

“Yeah, good morning. Say, sari. Mind telling me who the hell this one is?”

“It’s Little Wolf,” I replied, ruffling the blond boy’s hair.

The little one stared back at me, I smiled at him, and Manras asked, approaching curiously:

“Hey, Little Wolf. What’s your real name?”

“He’s mute,” I explained. “And his name is Little Wolf, period.”

“We could call him Ramidolphus!” the Priest said, looking inspired. “Like the saint. They say he was blond and—”

“Ramidolphus, your mother!” I interrupted, bursting into laughter and throwing myself on the straw again. “Ramidolphus, he says! It’s awful.”

“If Ramidolphus heard you…” Rogan snorted in a reproachful tone.

“Draen,” Yalet interjected, leaving his empty bowl on the floor. “Can I talk to you alone for a moment? The rest of you, get out.”

His tone of voice did not bode well. Wiping the smile off my face, I frowned anxiously as Rogan and my cronies obediently left the room. By now, Little Wolf was crawling on all fours on the straw, probably trying to figure out why the scenery was so different and why the witch who was taking care of him was no longer with him.

“Sari,” Yal sighed then. He leaned back against the wall, sitting on his straw mattress, and continued with a tired face, “I think I remember telling you: your newspaper cronies, fine, Rogan, fine, and not one more. He’s small, all right. But I’m afraid, if I let you take him home with me, you’ll bring me two more gwaks tomorrow, and I can already see us at the end of the year squeezing together like ants, with a bunch of… Little Wolves around.” He sighed again, loudly, as he saw my decomposed look. “No offense, sari, but don’t you think you’ve got enough problems as it is to take care of a little kid who can barely walk?” He paused for a moment and added, holding up both hands, “I’m not going to take care of him. The best thing would be for you to take him to an orphanage. He’s still young enough to be accepted without problems. And don’t give me that face,” he protested. “If you want, I’ll take him.”

I gasped, frightened, and stood up, hurriedly picking up Little Wolf.

“No way, no, Elassar! I’m taking him with me. I swear I—”

“Don’t swear,” Yal replied. “I understand why you brought the little one to my house last night. It was snowing, it was cold… Fine. But what are you going to do with him now? Carry him around with you while you deliver messages? Be realistic, come on… Hey! Where are you going?”

I passed in front of him, with Little Wolf in my arms, and my master promptly blocked my way. We stared at each other. We ended up both looking away at the same moment, I lowering my eyes, he raising them to the ceiling, and I murmured:

“Sorry, Elassar. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m leaving.”

Yal opened his eyes wide.

“What? No, no, no, wait a minute! What do you mean, you’re leaving? Hold on your horses. Tell me, what happened to your face?”

I huffed, weary, and left Little Wolf on the floor while I answered:

“Kakzail already asked me that. When I told him I fell down some stairs, he didn’t believe me, but it’s true. For once, I beat myself up without any help… It’s the sokwata’s fault, otherwise I wouldn’t have fallen. Say, Elassar. You believe me, don’t you?”

Yal rolled his eyes.

“Of course, sari. So, the other night you found yourself without sokwata and that’s why you didn’t come… Did you ask Kakzail for sokwata?”

I laughed.

“Me, ask Kakzail for sokwata? No. Now we’re getting something else. A friend of mine discovered it. It costs us nothing because the plant grows everywhere. No, when I say I’m leaving, I mean I’m going to work, because yesterday, I arrived late, and the director got pretty annoyed. He’s not a bad guy, but Yum says he’s stiffer than a fly—By the way!” I exclaimed. “Did you know that Kakzail was a fly? I couldn’t believe it when I found out. It gives me the creeps just thinking about it. What’s up?” I wondered when I saw Yal grinning from ear to ear. And I widened my eyes. “You knew!”

“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” my master replied. “So is it true you’ve found a cheap painkiller that works?”

“Yes, it works incredibly well,” I said with a smile. And I took Little Wolf by the hand. “Well, I’d better get moving or I’ll be late. Say, Yal,” I added, already near the door.

“What?”

I stared at him for a moment, observed the dark circles under his eyes, and asked:

“How was the theater yesterday?”

Yal seemed to choke on his saliva.

“Uh… well, sari. It was fun.” He smiled and rolled his eyes at my mocking expression. “Work well,” he greeted me.

“Natural I will!” I said and went out encouraging the little one: “Come on, Little Wolf, the Swallows don’t wait! Why are you crying?” I said, surprised, seeing that the blond boy’s eyes were drowning in tears. “Oi! Don’t tell me it’s because you miss Grandma?”

Joining Manras, Dil, and Rogan at the entrance to the courtyard, I managed, with their help, to bring the little one back to an expression of astonishment and wonder, cleaned his face, and putting him on my shoulders, walked up the hill with my companions, with a quick step… When we reached the Square of Tarmil, I said to them:

“Wait, comrades. I have an idea. Come on.”

Curious, they followed me to a nearby dead end behind some barrels. I put Little Wolf down and quietly took out my purse of coins and pulled out a few. I put them in the hand of a surprised Dil.

“You can use them as you please, but you take care of Little Wolf and feed him, it runs? But I’ll take his necklace with me, just in case,” I added, taking the blue gem from Little Wolf. The latter didn’t seem to notice because he was so busy diving and pulling his hands out of a puddle to see the waves that were forming.

As Manras moved closer to get a better look at my purse full of goldies, Rogan huffed, impressed.

“May the Spirits have mercy on our souls. Where did you get all this, Sharpy?”

I pushed the purse out of the little dark elf’s curious hands and bit my upper lip, smiling.

“Well, from Coldpalm. She says she’ll give me more tonight. So I can take care of Little Wolf. You guys can come with me, so we don’t get extorted.”

“Well, natural!” Rogan agreed. “Say, if you give me a little something, I’ll even let you put the hat on for a while…”

“Natural,” I laughed.

And, as it was not practical to work as a Swallow with too many coins anyway, I gave him almost everything. The Priest was euphoric, and he gave me a hug which nearly sent us both tumbling into the mud. He lent me his hat, and pushed it so far down on my head that it covered even my eyes. The moment I lifted it, I saw the terrifying figure of a fly at the entrance to the dead end. I stiffened abruptly. Oh, no…

As Rogan retrieved his hat without losing sight of the agent, the latter approached, looking menacing, and questioned:

“What are you doing?”

I bet he already had a rough idea. We gave him no answer, of course. Instead, we fled in a stampede: pulling Dil by the sleeve, Manras ran around the agent to the left; Rogan went the other way, dodging the fly’s outstretched arm; I hurriedly picked up Little Wolf with a very bad feeling, and… the agent got in my way. Irritated at seeing so many gwaks escape him, he came forward quickly with the intention of catching me, I shrank from him, and observing his nasty expression, I feared for Little Wolf, I put him aside, and looked anxiously at the man. He was a dark-haired caitian, and his face was familiar to me, for I had seen him many times before on Tarmil Avenue. I remembered Swift reporting him to me as one of the usual gwak hunters, the ones who would spend the day watching you when you were panhandling, working for the stores, or stealing, and then come up to you and confiscate some of your earnings. These kinds of flies could smell gwak money from miles away.

“Come on, gwak, cough up or I’ll take you to the hole,” he threw at me in that tone of voice which means: you’re a damned delinquent, but, both of us, we’ve got our lives, so let’s be friends, you give me the money, and I won’t send you to the inn.

This made me angry. But, of course, I was not going to tell him that I had not stolen the money and that it was a witch who made false papers who had given it to me. With an angry look on my face, I took out the coins and gave them to him. The fly pocketed them, and when he had done so, he plunged his hand into each of my pockets, took the rest that I had hidden, and, being generous, left me a fivenail. Finally, satisfied with his good catch, he gave me a warning look.

“Next time, come to me and I’ll only take a third. If you run away, to the hole.” He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me to the entrance of the dead end, adding, “And now get outta here.”

Under his frowning gaze, I took by the hand a Little Wolf who was staring at the fly, and left without a word. I looked for my companions for a moment, but logically they had not stayed near the danger. I estimated that the fly must have stolen about four siatos from me. We still had eleven left. It could have been worse. The only problem was that I no longer had those two siatos that I owed Dalem for the cap…

The thought of it made me so nervous that I arrived at the office with my left hand all sweaty. Well, I thought. If Coldpalm was going to give us money… what did it matter if they kicked me out? I’d enroll in any school for my probation if I had to, and then that was that. I sighed and stopped on the messenger building steps. I took a deep breath. And turned around.

“To hell with it, Little Wolf. I’d rather leave than be fired,” I admitted. “Well! What do you want us to do? We have the whole day free.” I smiled at the thought. “Isn’t that wonderful? The whole day! Let the director stew. Anyway, he is a nail-pincher, and it’s not good to work for nail-pinchers, I know that for a fact.”

I ruffled the blond boy’s hair, smiled at him, and… someone said behind me:

“Good thing the boss hasn’t heard you, or he’d kick you out, newbie.”

I turned around and saw Yum standing by the stoop. He had not yet put on the uniform. He had just arrived.

“Blasthell,” I let out. Then I regained my composure. “What does it matter: it’s like he’s already ratted me out.”

The dark elf arched an eyebrow, and after glancing towards the messenger door, he lowered his voice and asked:

“You meant the hat thing, right? I heard what happened last night. Everybody knows about it, because about nine o’clock at night some weird guy came in and paid for the two siatos and gave them to Dalem and said he was sorry for what the dog did and everything. You didn’t know, did you?”

I blinked, bewildered. Someone… someone had paid in my behalf? I stammered:

“G-good mother. I didn’t know, no. Tell me. That weird guy… was he a hobbit?”

Yum smiled as he nodded.

“Yep. The dog owner’s friend, apparently. Well, are you leaving or staying?”

I shook my head, still stunned. I couldn’t believe Yabir had done something like that. Well, I didn’t really know him, but… precisely. I snorted.

“I’m staying, of course,” I said. And I looked at him curiously. “I thought you didn’t work in the morning on Sacreddays.”

Yum laughed as he climbed up the stoop.

“Wake up, Draen! Today is the White Festival. We’re marching in the parade. Did you forget or what?”

I whistled through my teeth as he pushed open the door and walked in. Damn. In fact, I’d totally forgotten that we messengers would be parading around in our uniforms. With a half-smile on my lips, pulling Little Wolf behind me, I followed Yum into the office.

Dalem did not even mention the incident of the day before: that day, he was all smiles. Dermen gave me my new cap, I washed my face, cleaned Little Wolf, and I think that, if he had not been mute, he would have filled the messenger building with cries of protest: given the layer of dirt that I removed, I doubted he had ever washed during the past two years. Anyway, I was full of enthusiasm for the imminent parade that all my office mates were talking about, when I learned that I was not going to participate. The director himself announced it to me in passing, commenting that at least a messenger was to remain in case of emergencies. I didn’t quite understand why I had been chosen: because I was new? Because I had not behaved well the day before? Or maybe because I still had a bruised face and was not presentable, who knows. The fact is that at eleven o’clock, while a whole troop of messengers was leaving for the White Festival parade, I stayed behind, sitting with Little Wolf on the stone bench of the messenger’s room… deeply disappointed. And to think that the previous year I had spent most of the day with Manras and Dil clowning around with other newsboys… I sighed and thought to myself that at least, with all the excitement, no one had noticed Little Wolf. He was hyperactive. Once the fright of the sudden change had passed, he was now trotting, snooping, falling, getting back to his feet, and bringing me everything he found on the ground. And I, for lack of a better pastime, commented on his finds while chewing my asofla, talked to him about nonsense, about Rogan, about my cronies, about the people I knew, and at one point, I said to him:

“Did you know my cousin taught me to walk on my hands? I swear. In the Well, I taught it to many. We didn’t have cards or dice or nothing, and we could see the sun even less than you, so we played hand races on the platform. You want me to show you? You watch.”

I gave him a demonstration, and the little one looked at me very strangely, but only for a moment, for then I saw him try to lift his feet in the air, but in vain. I laughed, grabbed them, lifted them off the ground and helped him to walk through the messenger room, singing to him:

Little Wolf smiled, opening his mouth in a silent laugh. His laughing eyes said it all: they shone with happiness.

It was just ten o’clock in the evening when I rushed back to the office.

“Just in time, kid,” Dalem said, accepting the receipts I handed him. “Hurry up, I’m closing.”

“Flying, sir!” I shouted at him as I rushed to the lockers. There were still a few caps missing from the racks, I noticed. Yum’s was one of them. I left mine on, changed quickly, and made my way to the messenger room. There I found Little Wolf fast asleep on my coat. I shook him gently, woke him up, put on the coat, and dragged the half-asleep pup down the hall. When I arrived at the exit door, Dalem was already waiting for me with the bunch of keys.

To my surprise, he smiled at Little Wolf and ruffled his hair before saying:

“I know today was a holiday, but… bringing outsiders to the Swallow’s office, it better not become a habit, or the director will give you a scolding. Good night, Draen.”

I gave him a hesitant smile.

“Good evening, sir,” I replied, and I crossed the threshold.

I took Little Wolf down one step at a time and was about to cross the street when I heard a:

“Sharpy!”

I stopped and turned to see Rogan walking down the sidewalk, followed by Manras and Dil. I smiled broadly.

“Comrades! What are you doing here?”

“We’ve been waiting for you!” Manras replied, jumping up and down excitedly.

“Natural, to go see the witch,” Rogan explained. “Since your cousin seems to have kicked you out, we thought it best to wait for you here.” He looked up at Dalem, who was closing the messenger door, and he put his hand to his hat like a gentleman before asking in a low voice, “No luck with the fly this morning, right?”

“You said it,” I agreed. “But it could have been worse. And, besides, guess what, the hobbit paid the two siatos straight to the office, for the cap. Ah, why do you say my cousin kicked me out?”

Rogan and Manras looked at each other, and the former shrugged.

“Well, that’s the impression he gave me. Am I wrong?”

I sighed and shook my head. I noticed that Dalem was slow to close the gate in front of the door, and I frowned, wanting to get away from there.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. And I added decisively, “Come on, let’s go.”

We set off in the direction of the Cats, and Rogan inquired cheerfully:

“How is Ramidolphus?”

“It’s not Ramidolphus!” I laughed, giving him a swat.

“Well, then, how is Little Wolf?” the Priest corrected.

“Well, as you can see, wind in the sails,” I replied. “He’s been snoozing all afternoon. I put him in a corner with my coat, and he slept like a king! Didn’t you, Little Wolf? How about you guys?”

“Wind in the sails too,” the Priest smiled. “Of the golden eight you gave me, I have two times two left. I thought and bought a coat for Little Wolf, because with this tunic he must be freezing. Here, wait, I’ll put it on him. And,” he added, as he quickly dressed the blond boy, “I bought two of these.” He handed me a small piece of wood, and I took it curiously, but when I recognized the object, my stomach turned. It was a clasp knife.

“Is it… because of the Frashluc War?” I questioned in a whisper.

Rogan straightened up, taking Little Wolf on his shoulders and confirming:

“That’s why, yes. This afternoon, I went by the Cats… The atmosphere is rather tense. As I heard an old cat say, ‘Go out with a chive if you want to live’. Best to go unnoticed, but you never know…”

I made a nervous face and nodded:

“Dead round.”

We walked on at a good pace as Manras began to tell us all about what they had eaten that day. He and Dil, especially, had eaten like pigs. They hadn’t sold a single newspaper: they’d met Diver, Swift, and Syrdio, and the latter had given them a taste of everything in every shop they entered. They had even go bowling and shared a chocolate cake. Gosh. And I had spent all the afternoon working like a convict. But what worried me most was that they had joined Swift. We were walking down Tarmil Avenue when I interrupted the little dark elf.

“Say, shyur. Didn’t they ask where you got the money from?”

Manras nodded.

“Natural.”

I squinted, anxious.

“And? What did you tell them?”

Manras shrugged.

“Well, of course, I told them what you told me, that it was Coldpalm who gave it to you. Ah, Swift said that, in any case, he didn’t want you to get angry with us because we had spent it all.” He smiled, “I told him not to worry, that the witch would give you more tonight.”

For a moment, I could not believe my ears. Then I reacted, stopped dead in my tracks and looked at Manras with an incredulous expression.

“You told him…? Damn your ancestors, I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed. I drew a frown from a passerby and spoke lower as I walked towards Manras, altered, “But don’t you know that Swift is a vulture? He’s got a real gang! He’s going to devour us… Do you realize what you’ve done, you moron? Now he’ll be waiting for us at the entrance to Death Row!”

As I moved towards the little dark elf, he backed away until he hit the wall of a house with a deeply contrite look on his face. I saw him flinch and bend over, as if he was preparing to receive some corporal punishment, the kind Warok had made him so accustomed to… His reaction made me put things into perspective at once. Well, Manras had blundered, he was guileless, but who wasn’t at his age… Perhaps we could come to an agreement with Swift and… It wasn’t worth getting too worked up, I decided. Finally, I muttered a:

“Blasthell.”

And I continued walking towards the Cats. For the rest of the way, Manras was in a sad mood and did not open his mouth once. Rogan, on the other hand, broke the silence when we entered the Labyrinth.

“Sharpy. Can I ask you something?”

I looked at him in surprise.

“Natural.”

We walked down an alley in near darkness, lit only by the dim light of a few fireplaces. At last the Priest asked in a low voice:

“Why did Coldpalm leave Little Wolf to you? You barely know her, yet she gives you fifteen goldies… I dunno, shyur. You have to admit it’s a little weird.”

I bit my lip.

“Yeah…”

When I didn’t add anything, Rogan continued:

“It is said that some witches buy your soul. They bind you using a spell and promise you a treasure. But, afterwards, that treasure never arrives for real and your soul is lost forever in her clutches and never again do any ancestors greet you, because they don’t recognize you anymore.”

His words made me shudder. I did not know what to say. Then, as we came to the Wool Square, Rogan slid Little Wolf to the ground and said:

“If you want me to go with you to get that witch’s gold, Sharpy, we need to talk first.”

I understood he meant to speak in private. With a sigh, I nodded. We left Manras and Dil with Little Wolf, and I followed the Priest into the square. It was almost deserted, for the gwaks had found other, warmer havens as winter approached. At last we stopped by the well, and I said bluntly:

“This whole soul-selling thing is a slugbonery. The witch didn’t buy anything from me.”

The Priest huffed.

“And you’re going to make me believe that she gave you the fifteen goldies just like that. You don’t have to explain it to me. I just want to know if you’ve blundered through and made a dangerous deal with that witch.”

He didn’t want me to explain it to him?, I repeated to myself, surprised. I shook my head vigorously.

“No. Nothing dangerous. She’s very old and… she wants me to give Little Wolf a future, that’s all.”

There was silence.

“She wants you to give him a future,” Rogan repeated in a whisper.

I cleared my throat.

“Yes. Me. Well, are we going or not?” I asked, impatient.

Rogan sighed.

“You must know what you’re doing. But I’m staying in the alley.”

I smiled.

“Coldpalm is not a bad witch,” I assured him. “She’ll even make us rich!”

I turned my back on him to call the troop, and we resumed our march. The deeper we went into the heart of the Labyrinth, the more tension we felt. We could tell that people were not walking around as quietly as they used to. At one point, a group of hooded men with weapons passed us, and we stuck to the wall, holding our breaths. As soon as we lost sight of them, we hurriedly made a detour so as to not come across them again.

After going through a lot of corridors, climbing ladders, crossing bridges and taking stairs carved out of the rock, we finally arrived at Death Row. It was so well hidden that I surprisingly felt safer and thought that, just as the Labyrinth was the heart of the Cats, this area was the heart of the Labyrinth.

We stopped at the crossroads and looked around. Everything seemed to be deserted. I cast a spell of harmonic light, made sure that all five of us were there, and finally, silently, I entered the Death Row, followed by my companions, tense as needles.