28 The ruined house

The doctor did not come, for he dared not follow Swift, but medicine came, and miraculously our condition improved a little. I slept soundly for the first time, had a hearty breakfast, and took advantage of my lucidity to do what I should have done all along: teach Little Wolf to wake up his morjas. I spent a good while trying, until the blond boy, fed up with me bothering him and whispering necromantic advice, pulled something out from behind a rock and turned his back on me. I became exasperated.

“Little Wolf. If you don’t learn and I disappear, you’ll pop off,” I whispered. He didn’t seem to care. I snorted. “Look at me, demorjed.”

I took him by the arm to make him turn around, and I noticed, disturbed, that he was holding in his hands two bones joined by a tendon that was already starting to come off. Who knows where he’d gotten that from? From a corpse, that’s for sure, but I couldn’t figure out its nature. My confusion increased when I took his hands and felt an energy flow. I frowned, and instead of taking the toy away, I concentrated and suddenly smiled widely. Little Wolf was sucking on the morjas! He was doing it clumsily, like a puppy learning to walk. But he was unmistakably sucking it up.

Moved, I laughed, kissed him on the head, and in front of his surprised look, I said cheerfully:

“Blessed soul! This is great. If you do that, maybe you don’t even need to wake up your own morjas. That’s good news. I’ll have our comrades bring you all the bones they can find. I’ll make you a doll. A nice one. Like the one I used to have. And you’ll see how you grow, like an oak tree!”

I ruffled his hair, smiling, and leaned against the wall, pulling the blanket over me again. It was cold. All of us sokwatas were in the shelter, except for Diver and the Priest, one because, though ill, he had important “business”, and the other because, he said, he had some spare nails to get back to pay Swift for all that the gang had done for him. In fact, despite my insistence, he was still reluctant to officially join the band. The Priest was a stubborn one.

I spent the morning almost motionless, playing “I-spy” and chatting with my companions about everything. The effects of the medicine began to wear off around noon, and we were already getting tired again when some figures appeared at the dilapidated entrance to the house. When we saw two hobbits with a huge dog crossing the threshold, we all fell quiet.

“Good mother…” I muttered.

Yabir approached, glancing curiously around at the half-extinguished fire, the pretty views… He stopped, bowed gracefully, and declared in Drionsan with a horrible accent:

“Hello! I am Yabir. I already told your friend here that I would be coming. Just pretend I’m not here. I’m not here to cause any trouble: I’m just here to take notes.”

In spite of the fatigue, we had all risen. There were only seven of us: Damba, Syrdio, Venoms, my cronies, Little Wolf, and me. My attention immediately focused on Dakis. The wolf’s cursed yellow eyes pierced me, mocking. He bared his teeth at me, sat up, and looked down… at Little Wolf. A wave of fear swept over me.

“The wolf, out,” I said, forgetting to greet. “The wolf can’t come in. Either he goes out, or the three of you go out. The wolf, out,” I repeated.

I saw Yabir pout and Shokinori’s face darken. The latter muttered in Caeldric:

“Let me guess. The kid wants Dakis to go away.”

Yabir sighed.

“I told you. You shouldn’t have bring him with you.”

Shokinori let out an exasperated sigh, grunted something through his teeth, and abruptly turned around when Swift appeared on the threshold. The red-haired elf came panting in and looked like a spiky cat as he abruptly came upon intruders in his home. He stopped dead.

“Blasthell… Who are you?” he asked, altered.

I saw him hastily hide a small bottle full of pills, very similar to the medicine he had brought us the day before. Except that, the day before, he had gone to the apothecary with six siatos, and this time, he had probably done so with empty pockets and a swift hand.

In a calm and affable tone, Yabir explained his writing project and its chapter dedicated to the gwaks of Estergat. From his accent, it was obvious that they were foreigners, and calming down, Swift showed interest. He asked if the book would have pictures, how many people would read it, and such things… Despite my protests, he allowed the wolf to remain near the threshold, and as it was the decision of the kap, I had no alternative but to comply. Shokinori did tie him up with a rope, but I doubted the hobbit could keep that monster from coming after us if it felt like it…

After a while, Swift stopped talking to the hobbit. The hobbit sat down with his notebook on a stone, after removing the snow, and Swift began to distribute the pills in the shelter. When he gave me mine, I whispered to him:

“Did they see you?”

“You mean, the apothecary?” Swift shrugged and smiled. “Well, he clearly did, but I had put on a veil, like those in the north. Well, the flies hate me like the devil, but, since I was twelve, they haven’t caught me once with my hand in the cookie jar. Look at the expert and learn, namesake.” He waved the bottle of medicine and put it between two stones of a low wall, saying, “There are enough for several times. I’ll leave them there for you guys.” His smile widened, and he ruffled my hair. “I’m glad to know I won’t have to bury you so soon. Well, I’m off. Keep the house well and make sure those weirdos don’t take anything, huh? Ayo.”

“Ayo,” Manras and I replied at the same time.

The kap walked away, exchanged a few words with Yabir, and I saw him smile, satisfied, before walking away. Yabir continued to write. If the wolf had not been there, I might have approached him out of curiosity and tried to find out more about the treasure hidden in the White Opal, but with the wolf, I hardly dared to scratch my head. So when Yabir called to me in Caeldric with a “boy”, I stayed where I was and gave him a worried look. Understanding my problem, Shokinori leaned over to the wolf to rub his ears and called out in Caeldric:

“He’s not going to bite you, kid. He’s a mist hellhound. I communicate with him mentally. I know exactly when he’s angry or not. And you don’t make him angry. You amuse him, at most. And you make him a little nervous because… you reek of fear, from what he says.”

He grinned at me, and I swallowed. I caught Syrdio’s and Venoms’s mocking pouts and glared at them. Then, to my surprise, Dil pushed me gently to encourage me. Finally, not wanting my companions to call me a coward either, I stood up and approached Yabir, trying not to let the harmonies play tricks on me.

“What are you writing?” I asked, glancing at the Baïra’s notebook.

Yabir answered with a word I didn’t know and continued with a smile:

“Then I’ll put it in order.”

I blinked.

“Natural. You don’t mind if I speak in Drionsan, do you? It’s just that I haven’t spoken Caeldric for a long time,” I admitted.

The hobbit smiled broadly and spoke in Drionsan:

“Not at all. This way I learn. Just try to talk a little slower, huh? Okay. So, you live here, don’t you?” I nodded. “And… don’t you get cold at night?”

I shrugged and pointed to the almost extinguished fire.

“The comrades bring wood, and we put it there. We don’t get cold when the fire is lit,” I assured. I smiled. “Besides, this is the Rock. The ground isn’t as cold as when I lived in the valley. That’s because there’s magic down there,” I explained, kicking the ground. “That’s why the snow doesn’t last long. The Rock is the best thing in the world.”

Yabir watched me thoughtfully, playing with his pencil.

“A special rock, no doubt. They say around here that it’s sacred, don’t they? Mm… Tell me, if I told you that the Rock is full of tunnels, would you believe me?”

My face darkened, because that reminded me of the tunnels in the mine.

“Well, I don’t know. Is it?”

Yabir bobbed his head.

“Probably. According to a book at the Conservatory, it’s full of tunnels. Some lead to the old mines. Others were dug more than a hundred years ago, when the Tassians laid siege to the city, which wasn’t as populated then.”

With a voice that was both passionate and serene, he began to describe to me the city of Estergat of a hundred years ago, which apparently did not have so many districts, nor so many factories, nor so many boats on the river. This had not been the case many centuries before: once Estergat was the richest and most beautiful capital of Prospaterra. But terrible decades had come, deadly plagues, wars… Then Estergat had finally risen from its ashes, filling up with people from the Valley, from the North, from Plaar… And, ruling over all of them, the same nail-pincher families, the same Arkolda people from always.

Yalet had never told me anything about the history of the city. He’d mentioned a few events, yes, but at the Peak, he always went back to his lessons on locks and burglar traps. So what I knew of history I’d learned from Yerris and the newspapers… Well, let’s just say I didn’t know any more about history than I did about geography, and I was impressed that the Undergrounder, being a complete foreigner, knew more about my city than I did.

As Yabir made the effort to speak in Drionsan, more than one gwak decided to approach, and we ended up sitting in the shelter around the hobbit, listening to his wise and cheerful voice. He was smaller than Syrdio or Venoms, and yet how much he knew! He told us of his life in the Great Library of Yadibia, of daily life in his city, of some of the jokes that were made there about those “strange beings on whose heads a ball of fire beat every day”. He knew a lot of things, but he also had a sense of humour, and after a while, I found myself looking at him, my heart swelling with admiration, and I imagined that I was becoming a Baïra like him, that I was becoming a scholar and that I was starting to write a chronicle… How far from reality I was! But as my master had said to me one day: dream and perhaps you will see your dream come true, do not dream and even imagination will not come to your aid. He had said something like that to me once, long ago, when I had asked him to turn me into a bone dragon. His answer had left me pondering for days, until I realized that my master was simply unable to turn me into a bone dragon.

Manras, Damba, and I kept asking Yabir questions, especially to explain words he knew only in Caeldric. And why this and why that… Finally, the poor hobbit, saturated, declared:

“Well, young people! The shadows will soon cover your Rock, and it is time for me to return to my own refuge. I said I wasn’t going to bother you and here I am, telling you stories upon stories!” He smiled and raised an index finger. “I just want to ask you a few questions, since I’ve answered yours. Is that okay with you?”

We nodded. I rubbed my face. My eyelids were closing with fatigue, and my fever was coming back. Several of the gwaks of the band had already returned, but once they knew what these intruders were doing there, most of them had decided to ignore them, and they had stayed outside or sat on the ruined walls, passing the time, chatting, smoking smograss, and chewing rodaria.

As I let my hands fall, I suddenly saw Rogan and Swift on the threshold. I saw the former give money to the latter before they both entered and walked around the wolf lying near the “entrance” to the ruined house. Diver followed them, looking exhausted.

“Well,” Yabir muttered. Clearly, the presence of so many gwaks was beginning to make him uncomfortable. “Just a few questions. If it’s not too much to ask, I’d like you to tell me, each of you, how you ended up here.”

Manras answered abruptly, pointing to the kap:

“Swift! This is Swift’s house. And, we’re from his gang. See that?” he asked, and with evident satisfaction rolled up his sleeve over his dark arm to show him his scar. “I did that with a knife, and now, this is my house.”

“Ah, uh… sure, but… what about before?” Yabir questioned, pencil ready to write on the notebook. “Your name is Manras, isn’t it? How old are you?”

“Eight. I’ll be nine by the end of winter, just like Dil,” the little dark elf announced proudly.

“A real little man,” Yabir teased. “And… tell me, Manras. Have you always lived on the streets? Don’t you have parents?”

Manras made himself reserved, and when he did not answer, Yabir cleared his throat. Swift leaned against a wall without interruption, and Rogan came to sit beside me, looking half-awake.

“Sorry,” the hobbit apologized. “I don’t want to stir up any bad memories. I just wish I had more details about you so I could put them in my chronicle. Examples give life to the theory. I see you, big and small mixed up in a street gang, and I can’t avoid wondering where you came from and why you’re here.”

‘Why are we here,’ I repeated to myself mentally. I shook my head, puzzled. What exactly did he mean? It was Damba who answered:

“Because I’m better off here. Much better.”

“Better than where?” Yabir asked curiously.

“Than in the hospice,” Diver replied, sitting down heavily.

“Than on the roads,” Venoms intervened.

“Than at home,” Damba said earnestly. “At home, it was hell. That’s why I legged it.”

“You… legged it,” Yabir repeated while writing in his notebook. “At what age?”

Damba made a vague gesture as he calculated.

“Two years ago. A little before my ninth birthday. Sometimes I come back. But only when Father and Mother aren’t there. I go see my siblings,” he explained. “And I bring them some money. Because they are very poor and I help them out.”

Yabir nodded with a thoughtful pout. I already knew the story of Damba. They were things that gwaks in a band told each other. Sharing one’s story meant sharing experiences, and most of them had no one to listen to but their mates. But, this time, we had a learned hobbit who was a little interested in us. So the others decided to tell their stories too. Syrdio said that he had grown up in a hospice until he was seven, and that he had run away with Swift for reasons similar to Damba. Venoms said her earliest memories were of a bunch of brats begging on the roads. Manras and Dil remained silent. Diver had fallen into a deep sleep after taking the medicine. Rogan briefly told his story of being a child of Charity, a chimney sweep, and eventually a Priest, gwak, and artist.

“Artist,” Yabir repeated, amused. “No doubt you have the vocation.”

“No doubt,” Rogan agreed mockingly.

“All he needs is a hat,” I interjected. “He still has one, but some isturbags took it away from him. I will give him one some day. Believe me, Priest,” I assured him, giving him a push, for he did not seem to believe me. “But only when I get some money; right now I haven’t got a nail. A top hat of extra quality. I swear to the Spirits.”

“Pff, stop swearing, Sharpy,” Rogan replied, obviously flattered by the promise. “Besides, you want the hat for yourself.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Dirty-minded Priest,” I said indignantly.

“Your mother.”

“Demorjed,” I smiled.

Rogan was about to continue on when Yabir stood up and said:

“Young people. Thank you for everything. Your company has been and will be unforgettable and… er… uplifting? They say that, don’t they?”

We greeted his pompous words with laughter, and I protested:

“Say, Yabir. Don’t forget to put me in the chapter, huh? You didn’t write anything about me in the notebook.”

Yabir smiled.

“You will appear, no doubt, trust me.” He bowed. “Good evening, young people.”

Swift shook hands with him, and as our learned guest walked away, a thought suddenly occurred to me. Despite my fatigue, I got up and ran to the hobbits.

“Yabir!” I said. I trotted out of the ruined house. “Yabir! Don’t put anything about the Black Daggers in the book, eh? Korther wouldn’t like that. Yal once told me that discretion is a thief’s most precious jewel…”

I fell silent as I realized how bold I had been to come so close to the wolf. The wolf was barely a step away from me.

“Don’t worry, boy,” Yabir replied in Caeldric. “I will not speak of your brotherhood.”

I swallowed, and taking a step back, whispered:

“It’s not my brotherhood anymore. They kicked me out. But I don’t want them to think I’m a snitch… Thanks. And also for the visit. Will you come back?” I asked.

“Uh… like I told that kid you call Swift, I don’t know,” Yabir admitted. “I have material to make a short chapter, but I wouldn’t mind making it longer… Would you like me to come back?”

I smiled and nodded fervently.

“I do. I would love to. Today was not a good day. I’m sick. But, another time, maybe I can help you a little more with the chronicle and… I liked the stories you told. My… my master used to tell me a lot of them,” I muttered.

Yabir was smiling slightly.

“Yes. That’s what you told me the other day. Okay… well, then, maybe I’ll make up my mind and come back one of these days.”

I bit my lip, smiling, and scratched my head as I stepped back.

“Well… ayo then,” I said. I looked at Shokinori, at the wolf, and repeated, “Ayo.”

The wolf wagged his tail. I came back to the doorway and watched them as they went down the slope. I felt Swift leaning against the wall beside me. He handed me a half-burned cigar. I took it, and he asked:

“Where do you know him from?”

“Bah… Thanks to a Black Dagger matter,” I explained, inhaling the smograss. “Korther has a deal with them. They’re celmists. Real mages. They’re even looking for some magical treasure, you know. Well, Yabir says he’s not, that what they’re looking for is a secret passage back home, down under. But it would be great if they found a treasure, don’t you think?”

“What treasure?” Swift inquired, puzzled.

I shrugged.

“Dunno. Maybe it doesn’t even exist. Yabir says it’s just a legend. But that some legends may be true. If we found the treasure, we’d become filthy nail-pinchers, you do realize it, namesake, don’t you?” I smiled and pouted, “But Yabir says he doesn’t want to look for it. It’s a slugbonery to not try. It must be pretty damn fun to look for treasure.” I leaned against the wall near the kap and sucked in the cigar smoke. “Say, Swift. What would you do if you were a nail-pincher?”

Swift did not answer immediately. After a silence, he said:

“Buy me a house. A real one. And get married in the temple. Have children. And send them to school.” He turned to me with a mocking pout. “What about you, namesake?”

My view was lost on the houses across the street as I replied:

“I’d go to the Storm Hills.”

“Good mother, and where is that?” Swift asked, surprised.

“Very far,” I said. “I don’t know exactly, I’d have to go look at a map. Do you know where there are maps?”

Swift took the cigar from me and nodded.

“In the Capitol, there’s one in the main hall. It takes up a whole wall. It’s huge. Have you never been there?”

I shook my head. Yal worked there, but I had never been inside. At the Swallow, Yum was always in charge of bringing messages to the Capitol: he was the one who knew the backstage of that great public palace best.

“I’ll take a look tomorrow,” I decided, stepping away from the wall. “By the way, Swift, thanks for the medicine.”

Without moving the cigar away from his mouth, the red-haired elf smiled and muttered:

“You’re welcome, namesake. It’s natural: we’re family, right?”

I smiled broadly and intoned:

“Isturbag,” Swift laughed. “It looks like you’re getting better. Where did you get that song from?”

“From Carnation, natural!” I replied.

I caught Swift’s mocking expression before I entered the house. The sky was already very dark, and Ragok had just started the fire. I found a good spot near Rogan and Diver, lay down, and, driven by fatigue and fever, fell asleep almost immediately. I dreamed that I was in the valley, lying under the stars. I admired them, counted them, and said to them: ayo. And they would take off their caps and kindly answer me: ayo.