Winter Mist

I stood in the wintry forests, gazing out at the snow-laden ground, black and yellow from the tracks of others through its path. Rows and rows of trees with narrow trunks, and its pathetic gnarled branches crusted with chunks of snow, towered into the air. The sky was already beginning to lighten with that particular dusky hue of red, surrounded by the swirls of clouds. Wind shivered through the winter mist, swaying the barren trees. There was quiet all around except for the occasional chirrup of a bird or squirrel.

“Let’s go, Evander, ” a soft voice said from behind me.

I turned around slowly, purposefully, and eyed the man. His hair was a light brown, the color of pine, his eyes the color of a wintry afternoon sky. His cheeks were slightly red from the cold. He stood a little taller than me, dressed in a thick black coat and boots, brown trousers, white shirt with high collars and sleeves. A simple belt was worn about his waist, on which hung a scabbard carved with engravings. The hilt was stylishly plain, but an emblem, the shape of a hawk, was carved into it.

My gaze was without reproach, just a gaze, but he immediately took a step back, his eyes lowering from mine, afraid.

“We will go when I say.”

Just a statement, but I saw him swallow nervously and nod. I looked back to the landscape and etched it into the recesses of my memory, as though I might one day take it out and review it, like that of a precious gemstone. But I knew I wouldn’t do that. It spoke far too much of sentiments and feelings. Remembrance. It required feelings to be able to do that, something I didn’t have. I had given that up so many years ago when I’d given up my own heritage and destroyed what there was left of my race. It was something so large, so significant, yet I had forgotten why I did it; couldn’t remember why I would slaughter my own kind, for my memory had somehow been stripped of the reasons for its destruction and my past. And somehow, along with it went my emotions, passions and sentiments.

I was a man who felt nothing, a man who owned no past, a man who drifted from place to place like the currents in the wind. Homeless with no legacy. Empty. I ought to have felt sad at those thoughts, but I didn’t feel anything, my heart an empty void of space.

“Come on, Sythe, “ I finally said, “we’re going now.” And I turned away from the scene before me knowing I wouldn’t miss it.

--

We tracked along the dangerous trail, where mountain thieves and robbers were known to attack the unsuspecting and innocent travelers. But Sythe and I were far from unsuspecting and the term innocent was something that probably hadn’t been used to describe us for many years. Or at least me.

I had said that I had destroyed all of my kind, but I had said wrong, for beside me was Sythe, a man who came from the same race as I did, with the same sandy skin color, like that of the sand on the beach the ocean swept. But apart from the colors of our skins, we were very different. My hair was raven black and wavy, falling to my shoulders. My eyes were the color of the gray stormy skies.

Sythe was my servant. At least he was now. What he was to others and me before, I did not know. But I knew that he had been at my side two years ago, aiding me in my recovery of sore bruises and aching bones on the day I had called upon the winds and storms and the fiery fire that wiped out the people of Brefuer forever. I still remembered that day, even if of nothing before it. The entire sky was a smoldering red, while smoke lingered in the air like bitter perfume and all around me was the waste of my homeland. Death. The fires within me that felt like it would never quench, the sick nausea and then there was the pain. Fiery insensible pain. So much of it, I thought it would never leave. But there was Sythe and he had nursed me back to health. He had remained unscathed from the destruction. An impossible notion.

I questioned him after I was well, but he claimed amnesia of the events. I questioned him on my motives to annihilate my kind and the obliteration of my emotions, but he shook his head and wouldn’t say, or maybe, he really couldn’t remember. I had him tied up to a post and tortured him with instruments that I’d made. All the time with him screaming “Mercy!” But I didn’t know mercy. There was nothing in my heart for mercy. All I knew was that the information was vital, and there had to be a reason why I destroyed my race, yet left him alive. Or if I hadn’t meant to leave him alive, how did he escape the blistering and scorching torrents of wind and fire that poured down from the skies?

“Tell me. You must know,” I said. My voice was even. I felt no pity for him even as I saw him writhe in pain. His body was a bloody mess of wounds and open sores. He groaned and whimpered, his hands testing the ropes that bonded him. Helpless, afraid. But all I could think was that he was my own. He would have his own Rikia, powers that my kind held.

But he didn’t try to escape once, never showing a hint that he had Rikia within him. I tortured him with only logical calculation, ensuring that every stroke I dealt him gave him pain but never death. Our kind could take a lot before death came and I exploited that advantage. But he never gave, if he even ever knew the truth. Finally after a month, I released him. I nursed him as he did me. But I never really did let off my suspicions of him.

Even after all these years.

But he served me well. Even now, he climbed the trail ahead of me, as though he thought he would be the first to take whatever arrow or blade that may sail through the air. He walked with a light step, his athlete body used to the long treks that we made once every full moons. Not that the moon ever showed up much in these deserted winter lands. The last place had been a transitory place between travels, when the blizzards came down. We had managed to find an empty cabin and settled in there for a while.

He stopped halfway and knelt down as though to observe prints in the snow. I stopped beside him, and saw his gloved hands tracing the marks.

“What is it?” My voice held no concern, just query.

He stood up and frowned, “I have been noticing such tracks in the ground for a while now.”

“What kind of tracks?”

He whispered, “That of people. Horses. In different directions.” And then he breathed, “Bandits.”

I knew what he meant. We were already in their trap, the horse thieves probably observing our movements even now. So it was no surprise when we heard the hooves of their horses, and spied them galloping towards us, brandishing knives and swords. There were seven of them. They wore shabbily in drab colors; strips of cloths were tied to their foreheads, knotted to the back of their heads. Thick beards covered their faces.

I had no swords or knives on me. Sythe reached for the sword in his scabbard and drew it just as the horses came within reach. He deflected the vicious assail of swords easily and unmanned two of them from their horses within seconds. I tackled three of them, setting aflame their clothes so that they rolled out of their horses onto the frozen snow. One of them was crushed beneath the weight of his own horse, frightened by the flames. I looked on as Sythe fought off the rest of them. He was very skilled. His blade pierced the thieves, and another two fell off their horses. But it was never a killing blow, always only injuries. Sythe, he had a kind of incomprehensible sense of justice, a moral code of standards that he kept, and sometimes even expected me to keep. I didn’t understand why he felt for thieves who would cut our throats if they could gain our money. He always said it was because I couldn’t feel. But I was certain that any other wouldn’t have given him the same mercy he had shown them.

The battle was almost won. Only one man stood. But then just as Sythe had gone in for the victory blow, one of the men he had spared sneaked up behind him and thrust his blade threateningly at the side of Sythe’s neck. Sythe froze, the tip of his own sword only halfway at the midrib of the other man.

Easily, they disarmed him of his weapon, his head forced upward in an awkward angle by the second bandit’s blade. A trickle of blood was beginning to flow from his neck where the skin broke.

The two standing bandits then called out to me. “We have your friend. Give us what we want and we wouldn’t harm him.” They threw him down to his knees, and jerked his arm back in a horrible twisting action that I was sure would have broken off his arm if he wasn’t of the Brefuer people.

“And what would you want?” I asked, politely, as though five people weren’t lying on the snow-covered floor groaning away.

“All your valuables,” the one to the right of Sythe spat.

“All? You ask for too much. Take his life and leave.”

The two bandits stared at me with wide eyes, as though they somehow couldn’t comprehend what I’d said. Sythe’s pale eyes snapped to mine, his gaze confused, beseeching. I looked on calmly at the three of them. It wasn’t that I was unwilling to give up my money to save Sythe’s life. It was true that I felt nothing for him as a friend. I never treated him as one, just someone who always followed and did what was necessary. But I wasn’t cruel. I didn’t feel revenge, hate or sadistic satisfaction. All I knew was that this was a good time to test if Sythe had Rikia and was hiding it from me all these while. If I didn’t save him, he might feel compelled to do so using his own Rikia.

“You don’t think we would do it?” And the man poked the blade deeper into Sythe’s throat so that blood now poured in a steady stream. Sythe’s eyes were no longer looking at mine. He had closed them, his face emotionless, as though mirroring mine, accepting that this day he would die. In a way, Sythe knew me. Knew that it was useless to beg me, for I had no compassion within me.

I stood there unmoving. “Do it.”

His eyes flashed opened at those words, and he searched my gray depths, searching as though for familiarity, some sort of anchor. But I wasn’t too sure. I didn’t read the expressions of others well, having none of mine.

Then the sword was thrust away from Sythe’s throat, making an arc towards his head. It was only three finger’s width from making the connection of blade and flesh that I called a strong wind, and snatched the sword from the bandit’s hand.

I took out my waist pouch of gold inaks, and tossed it to them. “It’s all I have. Take it and leave.” There was no point in letting him die. He had proven that he didn’t have Rikia, or at least if he did, he wouldn’t use it.

The bandits stood there, their mouths slack from the shock of seeing the sword resting near my foot, where it had once been making the downward movement to chop off their victim’s head. But in the end, they picked up the bag, checked it for its value, searched Sythe and found his money pouch, picked up their fallen comrades and left, muttering under their breaths about Ikloha’s spells and magics. Ikloha was a community of people who lived in the west of Brefuer. They practiced spells and potions, but they never did magics.

I walked to the still kneeling Sythe and held out an arm to him. He clutched one hand to his neck, trying to stem the flow of blood. But he refused my help, choosing instead to get up with the strain of using one arm to lift him off the ground. I pulled back my offered arm.

He staggered to one of the trees and sat down, his back against its trunk. I pulled out some herbs from the traveling sack, which when pressed against a bleeding wound would help staunch the flow of blood. He let me do it, his head turned away so that I could have better access to his wound. When the flow stopped, I got up. “If you are too weak, we can rest here for a while.”

“There’s no need,” he said quietly, and then he got up and trudged ahead, as he always did when we traveled.

--

“I’ll pay you back,” he said when the sky was shrouded by the shadows of the night and we had settled down in front of the fire we’d made. The only noise apart from the crackling fire was the hooting of some owl. Otherwise the night was silent, as that before a great storm.

I didn’t understand what Sythe was talking about at first. He had been silent throughout the trip, these being his first words spoken since the incident earlier. “The inaks?” I finally asked. The question came out flat on my tongue, as it usually was when I spoke. It was not the lilting rhythm, filled with passion when Sythe spoke.

But his voice was quiet now, like mine. “Yes. Whatever you gave, I’ll return you.”

“There’s no need. I have more of that,” I told him. I had lied when I said that that bag was all I had.

He eyed me across the dancing flames, leaning on the bark of a tree. His tone was sharp. “Yes, but apparently I was not worth the exchange. How much was there in that bag? Twenty? Thirty inaks?”

“Twenty.”

He spat to one side. “Twenty. And I’m not even worth that.”

“They didn’t want twenty. They wanted everything.” I knew what Sythe wanted. An explanation. So much of the foolish man he was.

He snorted.

“You failed in your task. You didn’t kill the men. Or you wouldn’t have fallen.”

The fire spit and sparks flew. “So I deserve to die?” His voice was a quiet fury.

“Kill or die,” I told him.

His gaze cut into me from his position across mine, and suddenly, I was alert. If he did have Rikia, he would use it now. Yes, I could see his anger boiling over. He had never taken that tone with me before.

“Sythe.” I filled my voice with warning.

He took the warning and jerked his gaze from mine, and turned away from me, lying down to sleep.

I found myself watching him until the fire we’d built died out and the sky brightened to dark gray, passing for morning. I didn’t trust him not to kill me in my sleep with his blade. The thought flickered that I should kill him now. He wasn’t safe to be with any longer. But I didn’t do it. Some part of me knew that this man was the only one who shared my history with me. He wouldn’t admit to remembering anything but there were days when I would see him gaze at the night stars, his mind away, thinking. It was whatever that was in his mind that I had to steal. Force him to tell me what had happened in that day of spewing fire. It wasn’t for sentiment. I had none of that in me. Rather, it was a rational thought to know my past, so that I could plan the future. And I needed to know if this man was my enemy, if I had planned for him to die on that day too.

I would watch him for a few more days. If his attitude didn’t change, I would engulf him with flames.

--

The bitter cold seeped through our thick coats. An easterly wind was beginning to sweep from the mountainous regions. Another few days had passed. I had watched Sythe closely, trying to conjecture what he thought and the emotions that ran through him. He had shown no sign of resistance or rebellion at my instructions since, as though that day had never happened. But I still remembered that he had told me once that it was always the humble man, the most unassuming man who turned around on their masters.

Was this what it was now? To fool me into security so that I would not know when he turned against me? But I wasn’t a man who could be fooled. I trusted no one. There was no attachment I could form to another being, same race or no.

We were trekking up a tenuous path where it steeped perilously. I caught on to the rocks for footing. But I slipped. My vision had been blurry for the past two days. I had come down with the fever. I sat up. I saw Sythe continue his hike, unaware that I had slipped. But even his image was hazy, as though the winter mist had swallowed the outlines of him.

He turned then and I saw his fuzzy image coming towards me, his boots crunching on the wet snow.

“Evander,” he called me, and then moved as though to slip his hand under my arm to pull me up. I called a gust of wind and slapped him in his face so that he fell beside me in the frost.

I stood by myself. I didn’t want him to touch me, least he knew that I was down with the fever. I could not let him know that I was weak, especially now, when my suspicions of him were so strong. But I swayed on my knees when I did. And I felt myself crumbling down.

He had stood by then and he watched me with his eyes. My vision struggled to form a single image of him. “Evander,” I heard him speak, but his voice seemed to echo and bounce in a distant way, “let me help.”

He came towards me again, and picked me up with both arms. I should kill him now, before he kills me. But then I must have passed out before I could do it, because when I woke up next, it was dark and Sythe was very much alive.

I was lying next to a fire, so much like any other encampments Sythe and I had set up before. Sythe was busy at the fire, roasting something. A rabbit, most likely. His face was filled with concentration, perspiration beaded on his forehead from being so close to the fire.

I pushed myself up so that I sat, my face towards him.

He turned to look at me and nodded towards the meat that was at the center of his attention, “Dinner.” He finally took the cooked meat from the fire and unsheathed one of his daggers from his boot, and cut through the meat. He gave me half. I took it from him, but waited for him to take a bite out of his own before I did the same to mine, as was my habit. Never knew when he might decide to poison my food.

The taste of meat filled my mouth, and I suddenly realized how hungry I was. I felt better; my fever seemed to have subsided. That was quick.

Until he said, “You were unconscious for two nights.”

Two. I had no memory of it.

He continued, “Your skin was on fire. You should have mentioned the fever earlier. Such things claim the lives of men.”

I looked to check myself for wounds. Something. Two nights gone to the world. Anything could have happened then. A servant with the downward stroke of sword thrust between my breasts. But there were no wounds. No pain. Pain-- it was the only feeling I seemed capable of anymore.

“What else?” I asked.

“I took you to shelter, took care of you.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “Nothing much else. Unless you want to know of how you called my coat to flames when I tried to feed you soup, and how the lash of your Rikia sent me spiraling to my back each time you tossed.” He paused, his hands and mouth still busy devouring his kill. “But I don’t think that would interest you Evander. Safety to my being had never been one of your priorities.”

I nodded. I didn’t care for such. I just wanted a review of events, events that I missed. It seemed to matter that I no longer missed anything else since I no longer remembered anything from my past. I needed no blanks in my memory, or the pieces would fall apart, and I would no longer be able to think rationally.

He paused in his eating. “Ah yes, never mind that Sythe took care of me. Never mind that he carried me up the path through narrowing treacherous lands to find shelter. Never mind that he nearly burned and became a pile of ashes when I set his coat on fire. Never mind that his body is covered with bruises from being thrown about. Never mind Sythe, just a weaseling worm, unworthy of my attention.”

He took another bite of his meat, chewed on it and then his gaze returned to me as though, what, challenging?

“You do not want to challenge me, Sythe.”

He laughed. “Evander, Evander, the all powerful, almighty one, the last of our tribe to stand with Rikia in his veins. And me, Sythe the nobody, challenge him? Ah, I think not.”

His words indicated that he didn’t want to challenge me, but his stare said differently. His eyes seemed the color of dark obsidian in the light of the fire and it burned with something, something that I could never understand, but I had seen it burn that way before when he turned his head up to the stars and think.

“How much do you want?” I asked and took out my pouch to pay him for his service.

“How much? How much?” He said with contempt in his voice, and he opened his mouth to say something else but closed it. And then he sighed, “Cancel the debt of the twenty inaks.”

I nodded. It seemed fair. He had done me a service and he was duly paid. I wondered why he didn’t take the chance when I was ill to dispose of me. Could it be that he had no intentions ever to? He finished the meat and tossed the bones onto the ground. He got up and I followed him with my gaze as he went to his bag and took out his canteen.

He handed it to me. “Here, drink, you must be thirsty.”

“You drink it first.”

“Gladly,” he replied and gargled the water down his throat. It poured down messily onto his clothes and then he shoved it back towards me, and walked away. I sipped from the canteen, staring at his turned back. Something bothered me about this. But I couldn’t put a hold on what it was. It had something to do with Sythe handing me the water, and about how he’d picked me up after I’d struck him down.

But I didn’t know what it was that bothered me so. And so I ignored it.

--