11 My master’s secret

“There, there, behave yourself, shyur. Dakis, what are you doing? Move aside, otherwise it does not work. Come on. Good. And now…”

I pushed the sled, climbed up, and shouted:

“Yoo-hoo!”

We slid on the snow and went down the slope faster and faster. Little Wolf laughed silently, I shouted and tried to drive the sled, as my master had done with me in the past. Finally, we came to a place with too much snow, and we got stuck. We had gone barely a hundred feet. But, well, that was something! I got off the sled quickly and asked:

“Did you like it, Little Wolf? Eh? Did you like it?”

I didn’t need oral confirmation: Little Wolf’s face was beaming.

“Well, let’s do it again then!”

I pulled the sled up the hill with Little Wolf on it. Dakis circled around us, wagging his tail, having realized that it was all a game. We were all anxious to move: a storm had kept us from going out for days, and until the snow had settled down a bit, it had been impossible to try the sled. However, that day was perfect!

When we reached the top of the hill, I saw my master sitting on a rock a little way off watching us. He was pensive. He was often pensive, but I felt that lately he was more so than in the past. I smiled at him and said:

“Look at this, Elassar!”

I raised my hands and, bending over, thrust them into the snow, and raised my feet to the sky, shouting:

“It was my cousin who taught me! Look, look! I can walk on my hands, and whenever we race, I beat all my comra…”

Crash! I fell flat on my face trying to get a hand out to take a step. My fall was cushioned by the snow, and I stood up, snorting and finishing:

“Comrades.”

The nakrus was laughing—his jaw opened and closed rhythmically. I rolled my eyes, turned to the sled… and blurted out:

“You, blasthell of blasthells!”

Little Wolf had just kicked the snow, I don’t know if to stand up or what, but the sled started to slide down the hill. I got up, tried to catch him, slipped, and fell with my legs sprawled open. And Little Wolf kept going down. Dakis went behind him, his hind legs skidded, he tried to regain his balance and could not. Finally, the sledge stopped, and Little Wolf looked around like a chick lost in the snow. I burst out laughing.

“What a demorjed… Don’t move, I’m coming!” I shouted at him.

And Dakis and I carefully made our way down to the sled. Dakis got there first, and I had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a lightning grey shadow in the snow before it disappeared behind a tree. I breathed in, amazed. It was…

“A squirrel!” I exclaimed. “Little Wolf! Did you see the squirrel? Of course you have seen it, it even came to see you, right? They’re my friends, do you want me to introduce you to them?”

I picked up Little Wolf, and we walked towards the tree trunk where the squirrel had disappeared. I sang: “Squirrel, squirrel, come my friend, come!”. It did not come. I sighed.

“That’s what happens when you leave for a long time: the squirrels change and they don’t recognize you anymore.”

Little Wolf looked up at me questioningly and smacked his lips. He used to do that when there was something he didn’t understand and wanted to understand. Except that, at that moment, I didn’t quite understand what he wanted to know. I shrugged my shoulders.

“The squirrels I knew loved to play with me, and they would show me their acorns,” I explained. “You don’t know what acorns are, do you? Hmm… Well, it’s food. I used to share berries with them in the summer too: they loved them. Ah, but they didn’t like crayfish… A crayfish is a small black thing with a shell and claws, you know what I mean? It doesn’t matter: it’s delicious. Let’s see if we can find a squirrel. Squirrels!” I suddenly shouted. My voice tore through the morning air. “It’s me, Mor-eldal, don’t you remember me?”

Obviously, no, they didn’t remember me. I continued to call to my friends as I walked between the trees with the little one. Dakis soon grew weary and turned back, probably to return to the cave and escape the snow. After a while, a squirrel with very dark fur poked its head out from a branch. I pointed to it and whispered:

“There, there, you see it?”

Little Wolf nodded, and I smiled broadly as I approached and thought I recognized the squirrel. He had a tuft of black hair standing on his head.

“It’s Fufu!” I said, laughing.

I was half laughing at myself for feeling so moved by the encounter. And as the squirrel remained at a distance, I called to him in song. At last, to my relief, he came over for good, climbed down the trunk with lightning speed, and perched on a root. I whispered:

“Ayo, Fufu.”

The squirrel recognized me and came forward. Then, Little Wolf took a step towards him… and Fufu ran away.

“Oh,” I said, surprised, and then, rolling my eyes, I ruffled a bewildered Little Wolf’s hair. “It’s natural, shyur. It’s a squirrel. And squirrels are even more chicken than chickens themselves.”

I fell silent, biting my cheek. Seeing that squirrel again had really confused me… Instead of reminding me of my games with the other squirrels in the valley, it had reminded me of my companions in Estergat. I had already left them for… about twenty days, including the journey. What day was it exactly? I didn’t know. I hadn’t bothered to think about such things… But now it seemed important. And if it seemed important, did it mean that I had ceased to be quite the wild child of the valley who did not know what an hour was or what a watch was? Did it mean that my life here, with master, was not what I wanted? I, who had so often dreamed of being able to return with a ferilompard bone, to turn into a nakrus and follow in my master’s path!

But, on second thought, what was my master doing? He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, he hardly needed to feed himself with the morjas of the bones, he had three books that he knew by heart, and he had contemplated the stars for hours and hours… What else did he do?

How disturbing it was to think about, and even more so to consider the possibility that in the end my master’s way of life did not suit me. I, for one, could not live happily just looking at the stars and sitting on a trunk. That was fine for a nakrus who had lived a thousand, two thousand years and didn’t care to spend a whole year figuring out the most profitable way to move the distal phalanx of the little toe. And I wasn’t like that. I felt more gwak than necromancer, and more alive than dead. And a real gwak lived among sajits, not in a lost cave.

I shook my head, confused at my own reflections, and as Little Wolf stirred in my arms, I stretched and said:

“Well, let’s go back to the sled, shyur. Come on.”

On the way back, I noticed that more than one squirrel had approached. Had they come to greet me, alerted by the black squirrel to my presence? Perhaps. But I didn’t feel like playing with them anymore. My thoughts had disturbed me: I felt the urgency to speak with my master.

As I emerged from between the trees, I saw that the nakrus was no longer sitting on the rock. I took the sled and climbed heavily up the slope. Despite the many layers I wore, the cold seeped through like a treacherous snake. I arrived at the cave, put Little Wolf down, put the sled away, and found my master staring at the mirror. I tilted my head to one side, curious, but I did not want to interrupt him. I took off my boots, then those of Little Wolf, wrapped us in the warm blanket and shared with the little one the leftover lentils I had cooked the night before. I still had provisions for, perhaps, two weeks. Then it would be almost spring, the snow would not be so heavy, and it would be easier to find roots, insects, and… anyway, I didn’t have to worry about food. Even less if I decided to leave again.

I turned nervously to my master. He looked so serene… But I had to ask him.

I scratched my head, put the top hat back on, took it off, and was already opening my mouth when my master seemed to come out of his meditation, he turned his magic eyes towards me and broke the silence.

“Oh. Have you eaten yet? Good, good. Do you want me to keep healing Little Wolf?”

I nodded. After a few days of trial and error, my master had managed to figure out what was wrong with Little Wolf’s bones and why he couldn’t grow on his own, and since then he spent hours with the little one fixing his bones, one by one. It was a laborious task, but my master was capable of anything.

I took Little Wolf to the trunk and said:

“Elassar? You know, down there with the squirrels, I was thinking.”

My master’s eyes smiled.

“Unbelievable,” he scoffed.

I shrugged my shoulders without losing my seriousness.

“I’m serious, Elassar. I was thinking about… about you. And I can’t figure it out, Elassar. Don’t you get bored? Why do you always stay here, in this cave? Why don’t you go out and explore the world like I did?”

The nakrus laughed silently.

“Ah, what questions you ask of me, Mor-eldal,” he pronounced. “How do you know that I have not explored the world a hundred times before as you have? The more you know and the more you explore, the more you realize that, in the end, whatever you seek, you can find it without moving. And as I am a great lazy person and a great lover of the mountains, I stayed here, a few hundred kilometres from my native village which may no longer exist. I cannot have those ‘comrades’ you have. I already had them. And they are all dead. Time is unforgiving,” he assured in a serene voice.

He shook his head gently under my startled gaze. As far as I could remember, It was the first time he talked to me about the days he was alive. After a silence, I saw him reach for Little Wolf’s head, but I interrupted him.

“Narsh-Ikbal,” I said. “Is that your real name?”

My master gave a slightly wistful, muffled laugh.

“No. It’s one of many names I’ve had.”

“And what was your name when you were alive?” I asked. I swallowed under his suddenly bright eyes. “I mean… before you transformed. You get what I mean.”

The nakrus mimicked a sigh.

“That’s ancient history. Just imagine, living three thousand years and trying to remember what you did in the first century… My memory isn’t good enough,” he joked.

I widened my eyes in disbelief.

“So, you don’t remember when…? I mean… you don’t remember anything?”

“Hmm, that’s not quite true either,” my master replied. He seemed to be amused by my deeply curious expression. “Well. I remember three or four details. Nothing to do with your hectic gwak life, I’m afraid,” he smiled. “I had a life dedicated to study, in a monastery by a great river. I was taught arts that were not frowned upon in those days, depending on how they were used. Unfortunately, I made bad use of them. I ran away from the monastery to transform myself. And, strangely enough, it was only after I did that I really felt alive. But, once transformed, my memories become confused. You can’t be three thousand years old and not have memory lapses. But, anyway, son, the past matters little to a nakrus.”

I frowned thoughtfully, trying to imagine my master’s life, and then I asked:

“What about the future? Does that matter to you?”

The nakrus seemed to be enjoying the conversation.

“The future?” he repeated, amused. “Hmm. As my old friend Orferyum would say: there is no one more afraid of death than a nakrus. Yes, the future does matter to me, Mor-eldal. But yours matters more to me than mine.”

This made me turn my attention back to myself, and the thought that my master would at last give me an answer filled me with hope.

“So, you already know what I should do?” I inquired.

“What you should do? No, Mor-eldal. Only you know that,” he replied, raising a skeletal index finger at me. “What if I tell you to return with your family?” He paused, scrutinizing my reaction, and then added naturally, “Or go away to explore the world further, or stay with me and turn into a chatty little nakrus. What do you say, son? What do you really want? That is the key question. And in that, all I can do to help you is giving you my opinion.”

I looked at him, eyes wide open, holding my breath. So he had an opinion on the subject. But what was it? If he asked me to stay with him… would I listen? Of course I would. How would I leave my master against his will? That wouldn’t happen.

“What would you do?” I finally asked.

My master had placed a hand on the trunk, and Little Wolf was examining it with great attention, but the nakrus did not seem to notice: his eyes reflected a deep meditation.

“What would I do,” he repeated. “Probably something you would never do. And, if you did, it would be a mistake. I would run away,” he explained. “I would run away from the people I know and go where no one would tell me what to do. And, yet, Mor-eldal, running away in your case would be a mistake. I am a loner. A nakrus who died when he lived and who lived the best years of his life when he was already a pile of bones. But that’s not you, son. You are a boy who can be happier in one year than a nakrus in ten thousand years. My point is, you need to go back to Estergat. Whatever you do there, you must go back to that city.”

I nodded silently. Okay. It runs. I’d go back to Estergat, but then what? Perhaps guessing my thoughts, he added:

“Do not fear the future. Always be yourself. That’s the most important thing, Mor-eldal. Always be the person you love to be. It’s not always easy, but it’s the best reward you can give yourself.”

I blinked. Gosh. That sounded really serious.

“I don’t get it,” I admitted.

My master laughed.

“It’s all right. You’ll understand one day.”

Then he looked down at Little Wolf, put a hand on his head, and concentrated on healing the little one. I didn’t interrupt him, because I knew that these spells were ragingly difficult. I stood by in case Little Wolf became frightened, but with my master’s stun spell on him, he barely reacted, and his eyes always remained dazed throughout the session.

While my master was working, I noticed that Dakis was not there. Where had he gone? Out hunting, perhaps? From what my master had explained to me, mist hellhounds ate a little of everything: dirt, bark, insects… They also ate red meat, but apparently Dakis hadn’t eaten any since he was adopted by Shokinori when he was only six moons old. He was, as he said himself, a pacifist hellhound. According to what my master said, of course, because I, unfortunately, still couldn’t understand the brejic conversations between the nakrus and the hellhound.

“My boy,” my master suddenly called out. “I need a little more strength for this tracing.”

I helped him as best I could. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I knew how to follow his energy, and when he said “now”, I injected morjas at the same time as he did, and he modulated it somehow. It was exhausting, but we had ferilompard bones to recharge, and well, we didn’t lack a supply of morjas.

The sun had already passed the zenith when my master joyfully declared:

“It’s more or less finished! Well, there are probably still a few bones that aren’t quite there yet; tomorrow I’ll check, but, overall, I’d say this little one will be able to grow up all by himself and like an oak tree.”

I pulled Little Wolf to lay him down, smiling from ear to ear.

“That’s great!” I rejoiced. “For sure, Coldpalm would bless you. She told me that, if I didn’t take good care of Little Wolf, her spirit would come and punish me. But now she may well come and sanctify me!”

I laughed. Perhaps because of so many spells, the blond boy had fallen sound asleep. I left him bundled up and asked in increasing astonishment:

“Where’s Dakis, really?”

I walked away to the entrance of the cave and stood there, frowning. No matter how hard I looked, I could not see the hellhound. After a while, I came back inside and shrugged my shoulders.

“I hope he didn’t get lost,” I commented.

From his trunk, the nakrus scoffed:

“A mist hellhound getting lost? These creatures have better orientation than a map. Don’t worry, Mor-eldal: he’ll be back.”

He seemed so sure of it that I did not worry until nightfall, when I saw that Dakis still had not returned, but as my master did not mention it, I said to myself: well, perhaps that is normal. And I swallowed my worry. However, deep down, I couldn’t stop thinking that Dakis had abandoned me. I didn’t feel angry with him or anything. I felt rather pained. The next morning, not seeing him, I shouted his name all over the hill. Nothing happened. I tried to convince myself that, if he had left, it was because of the cold and because he missed Shokinori, not because he was bored with us. After an hour, I decided to leave Little Wolf in the cave with my master and go looking for him.

“You’re not going to find him, Mor-eldal,” my master warned me.

“It didn’t snow last night, sure I can see his footprints,” I reasoned.

“Then I can tell you where his footprints go,” the nakrus assured quietly. “Nothing could be simpler: they go downward and toward the rising sun. But go ahead and check it out for yourself.”

I gave him a frown.

“You said he would come back.”

“Ha! He will,” my master assured me cheerfully. “But he will not come back alone.”

These last words left me standing at the entrance to the cave, stick in hand. What did he mean, he wouldn’t come back alone? That… that meant that…

“Blasthell and cinders!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “Shokinori and Yabir are coming here, right? But… and, you, you know that? How long have you known? And… and how do they know they have to come all the way here?”

“All good questions,” the nakrus asserted, his eyes kindly mocking. “Yes, the hobbits will come. Yes, I knew it, and have known it since the first day you came, when Dakis told me that he wore around his neck that Black Opal that caused you all so many adventures here and there. And since the hellhound must have left marks all along the way, those good Baïras must be about to arrive, and Dakis has gone to greet them. Don’t make that face!” he laughed. “You yourself said those hobbits didn’t do anything to you when they learned you were a necromancer. I don’t think I need to worry, and anyway, even if the rumor spreads that a terrible skeletal monster lives here, I don’t care because I’m going to leave this place.”

This last news more than anything else made me hiccup with amazement.

“You…you’re going to leave?” I repeated, my heart beating hastily. “What do you mean, you’re going to leave? Where to? To Estergat?” And as he shook his head, I added, more and more confused, “To Yadibia?”

“Whatever would I do in Yadibia, my dear?” my master mocked. “Yesterday you yourself asked me why I was still living in this cave. Well, I’ve been here almost five hundred years… maybe that’s a good reason to move around a bit. This summer, Marevor Helith suggested that we have a little reunion of old friends. I wasn’t planning on going because I thought I’d wait another hundred years for you, in case you came back, but since you’ve already come back… I told Marevor I’d go. He’s working on a series of monoliths to make the trip easier for me. I just hope I don’t lose an arm along the way in the Steppe of Corobia or who knows where!” he laughed.

I could not believe my ears. I was flabbergasted. I put down the stick, and with hesitant steps, walked back to the trunk, trying to figure out whether my master had lost his mind or he was being serious. And, unbelievable as it may seem, he was not joking.

“You aren’t going to say anything, my boy?” my master worried. “I thought that, since you were going back to Estergat, you would not mind if I left too.”

I shook my head.

“I… well… no. Of course not,” I stammered. “But… you’re not coming back?”

My master looked at me, left his trunk, and stood up. He was a good two heads taller than me. He was as tall as Korther, and I wondered if, like the Black Dagger kap, he had once been an elfocan. In any case, maybe Yerris was right when he said that I looked more like a gnome than a human, because of how slowly was I growing.

Instead of answering me, my master turned and crouched down, and with amazement and excitement, I saw him take out a golden key and put it into the lock of the chest. He had never, ever, wanted to tell me what was inside, let alone open it. Of course, I had tried to find out the great secret, I had cast perceptive spells, but to no avail, and I had even stolen the key once, but my master had caught me before I could get to the secret I was so excited to know.

I said nothing. I dared not speak a word. I watched intently as the nakrus turned the key in the lock and cast a spell. Then the lid of the chest opened like a spring. My master pushed it open, opened it wide, and uncovered… a pile of bones.

As I knelt, fascinated, by the trunk, my master warned me:

“Don’t touch.”

He pulled a small bag from a corner and took out a metal locket. It was identical to the one he wore around his neck, I observed.

“It belonged to Azlaria,” my master explained. His voice, usually quiet, amused and mocking, was now infused with deep feeling.

“Azlaria,” I repeated.

He had never mentioned anyone by that name, but it sounded as if it had been someone important to him. Then I felt a sudden chill. Those bones…

“Is that…Azlaria?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

My master nodded, his gaze fixed on the bones inside the chest.

“We lived together for almost two thousand years,” he related, regaining his composure. “An accident tore her away from me, and I swore I would find a way to revive her. But I stopped trying a long time ago. A nakrus that dies cannot be revived. Only liches can die twice.” He gave me a smiling look. “Not everyone can say they lived an idyllic love for two thousand years. She loved the mountains,” he added, this time turning his gaze toward the cave exit. “You’ll think it’s ridiculous, but for me… she was beautiful, oh, she was. At least for a nakrus. And anyway, back to what I wanted to tell you,” he added, swinging the locket. “We made these pendants together, and Marevor Helith helped us perfect them. Each pendant senses the mortic energy in contact with the other. And, through the pendant, one can cast mortic spells to help the other stay alive, for example. It didn’t work with Azla. It was too sudden and… I wasn’t paying attention. The concept has its flaws, but, regardless, if you wear it and touch it with your right hand, I’ll be able to know you’re okay… as soon as Marevor helps me fix the one I have. It’s broken. When it’s fixed, you’ll feel a small mortic jolt and you’ll know that I, your great master, am here, taking care of you from somewhere in Hareka,” he concluded, his eyes crinkling into a smile.

He passed Azlaria’s locket over my head. I was deeply moved. My master was offering me nothing less than a relic that had belonged to his lady!

“You’ll take good care of it, huh?” he asked me. I nodded vigorously, and he closed the trunk, joking, “If you lose it, don’t throw yourself into a ravine to get it either, eh. Old things get lost sometimes.”

“I’m not going to lose it, Elassar,” I promised, taking the medallion in my gloved mortic hand. I stared at the closed chest where I had seen her bones and affirmed, “I swear to you.” I blinked, turned to my master and added shyly, “Thank you!”

And I hugged him, for it broke my heart to think of that Azlaria and to imagine the pain of my master. So, after turning and turning my thoughts, when I stepped aside, I asked him:

“Can I go with you to that meeting?”

The nakrus made a sound of surprise mixed with a laugh.

“Do you really want to know the craziest people in all of Hareka, son?”

I shrugged mockingly.

“I already know you.”

“Ha! All the more reason for not knowing others like me,” my master assured. “I’m not going to shut the door on you. It is you who choose. But, when the monolith is ready, you, too, must be ready.”

I frowned. There you go, one more choice. Blasthell, always choices. But, deep down, I knew this one wasn’t realistic. Not because my master wasn’t capable of taking me over the monolith if I asked him to, but because I didn’t want to leave everything behind. Because I felt I had to help my family. Because I didn’t want to lose my cronies. I mean, for a lot of reasons. And I felt very responsible when I thought about all that, I felt like an older brother, almost like an adult, like a hero.

I looked down at the locket. It was circular, with designs engraved on it.

“Gosh… Are those Caeldric signs?” I asked.

“Four years spent teaching you Caeldric signs, and you ask me that?” the nakrus gasped. “They’re not in Caeldric. These are signs invented by Azlaria. She was an avid linguist and loved to create new alphabets.”

“What’s written there?” I inquired curiously.

The nakrus, of course, did not need to look at it to recite:

“Let there be peace and wisdom and love.” His magical eyes widened, and he added, shaking his skull, “I’m going for a walk.”

I nodded, but called to him as he was already leaving the cave.

“Elassar!” I hesitated, “How did you get to talk to Marevor Helith? I thought he was a professor at an academy, far away from here.”

“He was,” my master corrected. “Last winter, he roamed the Storm Hills in search of gahodal bones. And, now, he has taken it into his head to have a reunion of old friends. He wants to introduce me to an apprentice of his and toast to bones and ancient times and what have you. That good man doesn’t know how to keep still for two years.”

“But then… he came here?” I asked, confused.

“Marevor? No way. I communicate with him through the mirror. A relic too, but this one was made by none other than Marevor Helith’s master, may he rest in peace. The monoliths sent him to hell. Like I say, nakruses will do anything to escape death, but then they tend to be complete reckless fools. I don’t include myself, obviously,” he smiled. “The monoliths of Marevor Helith will have to be ninety-nine percent safe before I cross them. The risk is worth it!” Then he looked upward and added, “I think the hobbits will be here before long. Let me know if they appear: I’ll be on the star rock.”

And he walked away, with that rigid, characteristic gait of his. He soon disappeared from the entrance, and I sat down on the warm blanket beside Little Wolf. The little boy was sleeping placidly, completely cured by the best man in the world. By Elassar. Elassar, who was going to go far away while I would return among the sajits with the medallion of a lady nakrus around my neck.

I shook my head, smiling, lay down beside Little Wolf, and whispered:

“I think I got it, Little Wolf. The houses move with the people. My master leaves with his comrades. And me, with mine. And my family won’t send me to that youth center. Kakzail says my parents work to feed my brothers and sisters. Well then, I’ll bring them nails, so they won’t get angry. I’ll feed them. I can do it. And, that way, the barber won’t send me the flies, because he’ll be happy with me. I’m on the right track, ain’t I?” I muttered.

Still asleep, Little Wolf rolled over and clutched my coat. I bit my lip, and in a burst of confidence, confirmed aloud:

“You are ragingly on the right track, Mor-eldal.”