Chapter Fifty-Two

“Where did she go?” Illyana asked with a lingering look that wavered only to search the face of the room’s new occupant. “Is she- If she does something outrageous, I could be punished.”

Skana’s lips pursed together thinly while she sought a reassuring answer. “She’s rash, but I don’t think she has the staff here in mind.” She stood and went to the window, folding her hands behind her back, she looked out over the city. “Do you believe in heroes, Illyana?” Skana asked, and she could see in the clear glass, the translucent reflection of Illyana moving with practiced, grateful steps toward the far wall, putting herself as far away as possible.

‘I don’t blame her. Only the gods and she know what kind of hell this gilded cage really sees.’ Skana thought, and so did not criticize her while she watched Illyana’s long stare become a mix of hateful and thoughtful.

“I’ve never seen one, mistress.” It was a short statement, filled with bitterness, that was clear from the way her mouth twisted while she thought Skana couldn’t see her face.

“I have. I haven’t told Speranzi this, I don’t know if I ever will. But I owe you one for telling the truth before, there were things she needed to hear, and they couldn’t come from anyone but somebody like you.” Skana swallowed the lump in her throat, “I know you hate me, just looking at me, but I’m not the evil you think. I was a brigand… but out of need, not want. There are a lot of people worse than me, who are worse for less reason than I could ever be. If I can help you, I will… but be honest, you’re not going to trust a human, are you?”

She could see the way the blue eyes of the slave stared in frigid silence, even without a word spoken, Skana knew the answer to that.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, mistress.” Illyana answered, her heart was racing all over again as she felt a dangerous situation coming her way.

“But you won’t really mean it. Don’t protest, it’s okay, I wouldn’t either, if I were you.” Skana answered and took a long, heavy breath. “You wouldn’t trust me unless you had something on me. So, I’ll give you that something. I know it’s reckless, but…” Skana paused and put her hand on the glass while she looked outside, she wasn’t looking at nothing, she was searching for Speranzi, and she soon found the woman walking across the grass with her back straight and head level, no doubt with her eyes forward. ‘If the gods never answer a prayer again, I pray she has the sense to keep her Paladin instincts in check. She has to know she can’t do anything in a situation like this, where the law is against her…’

A perverse bit of gratitude toward the one to lash Speranzi in Laylan flashed darkly across Skana’s mind, that experience if nothing else, would serve as a warning to the paladin that moral and legal were sometimes opposed to one another, and the former usually loses to the latter.

“But, mistress?” Illyana prompted, and Skana gave her head a vigorous shake as the question yanked her back to reality.

“But whatever Speranzi comes up with, I will probably need the help and cooperation of someone who knows the city. Knows the people in it. Somebody like say…you.” Skana finished without turning around, her position at the glass let her covertly observe Illyana too well.

Still, the elf didn’t answer, she stood still, her serious face an absurd contradiction when set against the lewd, flesh baring clothing she still wore, her ears went down, as did the corners of her lips when they curved into a little frown. “If mistress wants to help me, I’m just livestock, according to the laws of the gods of men. She can simply buy me, do what she likes with me, there’s no need for anything complicated.”

“I suppose I didn’t need to ask if you believe in heroes, not with that answer.” Skana snorted. “I do, by the way, I’ve seen them.” She said while she watched Speranzi vanish out of view beyond the wall. “When it’s easier to do nothing, they do something. When they see someone fall, they won’t leave anyone behind. When they are the only thing between the people they’re supposed to protect, and a fate worse than death, they’ll stand and die… even if the people they protect are just… trash.” Skana closed her eyes to the sight of the city outside.

“They do exist. And they’re terrifying, reckless, and sometimes stupid… but we need them. More than that, even if someone can’t be a hero, they can still support one. So… I’m willing to give you something to hold over me. If any other human learns of this, I doubt I’ll even get a trial. Even she… she would probably kill me. But in exchange, I want your trust, to speak only the truth to me and to help me, and… her… in whatever way we ask. If you ever doubt me, like I said… you can command my death with a whisper.” Skana promised, and Illyana took two steps forward toward her.

“Mistress… why would you think I wouldn’t just ruin you right away? The chance to kill a human doesn’t come around often.” Illyana immediately cursed her words, but to her surprise, Skana only laughed.

“Maybe you will, but I’ve been on borrowed time for years now, I’ve nearly died several times this month alone. What’s one more at this point?” Skana asked the rhetorical question and then said, “Even from here I’m sure you heard about the invasion of the God of Demons, his alliance of demihumans that invaded North Qadish? And you heard that he was sealed away and his army was defeated?”

“Yes, mistress.” Illyana answered abruptly. “I heard that many humans died.”

“Yes, many did. By the end though, it was mostly demihumans who did the dying. They fell apart after the Demon God was sealed, he was the only thing keeping them together. The bards love stories of the big victory, but until the end I didn’t know how much they left out. Like… hundreds, maybe thousands of routed demihumans living in hiding, raiding farms, villages, even towns to survive. Some didn’t even know the war was over. They just kept fighting, others knew and couldn’t go back, their lands lost to the other demihumans or their leaders killed or… they just liked being able to rampage. They had a lot of reasons to stay even after the fighting was over.”

“How do you know that…mistress?” Illyana felt a chill run up and down her spine as she looked at the tense way the human stood looking out the window, one hand balled into a fist behind her back, shaking from the tension she put into it.

“Because they’re a complicated people… demihumans, I mean. A lot of them hate humans, a lot more hate other demihumans more, and they run the gamut on character. So many different types… and I know that, because some of them worked with human bandit groups… like mine. Bodger… that was our leader, he was a lot of things, but picky wasn’t one of them.” She chuckled a little against her own better judgment.

“He once said that if somebody can stand up, hold a sword, and die, they’re good enough for him. He didn’t care if they were human or not. Just whether they were useful. So sometimes he took in demihumans on the run. They never lasted long, but they were there, and so was I. Bad enough I was a brigand, but by most people’s count, I was a traitor to humanity too.” Skana dropped her hand away from the glass and looked over her shoulder, blinking back angry tears of her own.

“Like I said, my life is in your hands. All you have to do is tell her when she gets back, and even if she doesn’t just kill me out of hand, you’ll still destroy my life. So… now that you’ve got me, will you trust me at least a little? Enough to tell her whatever she wants to know when she gets back?”

“This woman,” Illyana said with at least somewhat more confidence than before, “is she a hero?”

“To me, yes.” Skana answered and looked toward the window again, within her eyes for the woman out of sight who would never be the same, and for the elven woman’s translucent reflection, to whom she had no idea what to say next.

Speranzi had no destination, no idea where she was going, but in her own mind, she did have a duty. A duty to see things for herself, to see clearly what Corwin and to a lesser extent, Skana, had tried to tell her. To see without blinders what she should have seen in the elven prisoners she took and even the young boy Corwin brought back, ‘showed’ her.

Their callow, underfed faces, the fearful way they’d been unable to so much as speak, even the very attack on her soldiers. ‘Unarmed, half starved, half naked people don’t just attack people in full armor with swords and bows ready for use. Only the mad, the desperate, or the unreasonably strong, like a monster, would do that.’

The more she thought of the elves, the more she looked back on her own life and teachings, and the actions she’d carried out in her youth. ‘If that can be true of elves, could it be true of demihumans?’ There was an ugly thought that she considered as she watched the living city around her.

The horses clip clopped down the streets, their hooves making steady, rhythmic noises as they drove, atop the carriages there were usually young boys. While they looked eight or nine, they had cropped ears that marked them as elves or half elves. Illyana’s statement about what was done with the offspring of elven slave women came back to mind and she briefly stopped at a corner intersection to watch the faces as they passed by.

In particular her eyes were on the people riding the carriages, versus those driving them. More than once she saw the man’s face framed on young half elven features.

Her eyes followed each carriage as they went past, and details filled her mind.

It wasn’t unusual for demihumans to filter in through wildlands that divided human and demihuman territory, for small groups, tribes, to slip within in search of food or land. A village they could dominate, a caravan they could rob. Some even joined with human brigands. And occasionally? ‘How many demihuman young were slaughtered beside their parents? We’ve always just thought of them as monsters… but if they’re not…’ They were clearly intelligent, at least some of them, able to form armies and make weapons, armor, cast magic spells.

‘They’re a threat to humanity and must be destroyed!’ Damadeqi’s rebuke rang in her mind as sharp as a whip’s crack. At the time, Speranzi had been hard pressed to argue, ‘Suffer not a danger that will make your name a curse to your heirs, or your heirs a memory unto you.’

And demihumans were on that list of dangers. ‘You are a paladin… you only did what you were taught was right.’ She told herself, with the dual thoughts of both her merciless and merciful choices dancing like intimate partners to the music of her questions and her self rebukes.

And still Speranzi walked the streets of Wenmark, the humans, for the most part, seemed well enough off, if anything it seemed a city of wealth and prosperity, the polished walls, clean streets, the soldiers in shining full plate armor…

Those truly caught her eye, they marched in common rhythm through the streets, side by side, each group of eight led by one man on horseback, the two soldiers at the back held bows, their commander a sword, and the rest long and polished halberds.

The clink of metal and the smell of the oil used to keep it clean and serviceable said as much about their skill and discipline as their synchronized steps.

Too, she noticed how the people, even young children, made way for them on the public streets, while the guards in turn made way for carriages and men on horseback. ‘A place is given to all by the gods, in accordance with their blessings.’ The scripture rose up unbidden to her mind, and she promptly thrust it aside.

The general trend of the flow of people was ‘more or less’ in one direction, and so she followed it out of idle curiosity, wondering what would draw them in as uniform a direction as the fish she saw beneath the barge.

The answer came in the form of a gallows.