The Brat's Final Gambit

“Really, I hadn’t wanted to start any trouble. I just wanted to think. I know you guys think I go out looking to make a mess, but…”

. . . But that’s when he heard it. The same whispery yet clear Voice that had spoken to him the morning he followed the dog’s ghost came to him again. Its command was unmistakable. “LISTEN.”

The Voice was so clear Niam automatically stopped and looked around for a moment to see who had addressed him. A quick look told him no one there. But when it spoke again, it had the same unmistakable quality as it had the first time he heard it, seeming to come from an outside source, yet he knew it only occurred in the space between his ears.

“LISTEN.”

In front of him, the passage of innumerable carts and wagons had packed the dirt road nearly as hard as the cobblestone streets of Kalavere, and Niam gazed along the route toward Pirim Village. To his side lay the ruins of the old abbey that had burned down twenty years ago. Now nearly covered over by vines, between the broken lines of collapsed walls, young and slender hardwoods rose up to spread their branches, and the stony home of men gave way to the leafy home of birds and squirrels.

Niam experienced a strong urge to walk down toward the old ruins; instead, he planted his feet where they were and held his head back to speak. “No,” he called out. “I’m not going to listen to anything you have to say to me . . . and DON’T I GET ANOTHER DOG THIS TIME?”

At least if I’m going crazy, Niam thought to himself, no one will hear me. With that, he gave a dry chuckle. IF—and this was a big IF—there were something real behind the Voice, Niam wanted more than elusive directions from a disembodied voice directing him to go and do who knew what. And if he was going crazy? If the stresses of the last year had finally taken their toll on him? Well, he felt like it was important to preserve some shred of his dignity. No matter what Davin and Maerillus thought of him, Niam did have his principles.

But there was still the matter of young Tim. The Voice and the dog had led him to the injured boy, hadn’t they? Every time Niam looked at it, he was always led back to this one, indisputable fact. Yet what if that had been just one of life’s strange coincidences, like twin brothers dying on the same day scores of leagues apart? Or thinking of someone at the exact moment they knocked on the door? Or perhaps he had actually heard Tim’s voice, a pained groan, perhaps, or a call for help, and his mind cooked up a fantasy that made him a rescuing hero; after all, wouldn’t such a thing help him cope with the sense of helplessness he felt day in and day out? Even in his dreams, all of his efforts seemed fruitless. No matter how hard he tried, he never reached his sister.

Well, Niam thought, not this time, not today. Disembodied voice or mental break, whatever it was that spoke to him wasn’t going to have an easy time. He had put up with Bode and his type long enough, and if fate was going to become another Bode, he was done being pushed around.

“Do you hear me?” he cried out more loudly this time. “You’re going to have to tell me why!”

As if on cue, the Voice spoke again, just as subtly as the first time, with just as much insistence behind the command. “LISTEN.”

“No!” Niam shouted, but his voice quivered. He felt an overwhelming urge to close his eyes and concentrate on hearing whatever it was the Voice urged him to listen out for. He knew he would hear something. Besides, if he did hear something, wouldn’t that prove he wasn’t crazy?

Instead, Niam forced himself to move forward, and he began humming a bawdy tune he often heard in the local taverns. His legs warred with the rest of his body, and at first, moving was like wading through a chest deep stream, but with each step, going forward became easier. Looking around, Niam shouted, “And where’s my ghost dog!?”

From somewhere in the distance, a dog began barking and lapsed into a series of low growls.

“Not the same thing and you know it!” Niam retorted.

Whatever held Niam suddenly eased off completely. Though he moved freely and easily, he only got a few paces further down the road when he caught a familiar, plaintive sound—the gurgle of a child crying. Niam stopped walking and his humming trailed off. Now he had to pay attention. He couldn’t pass a crying kid by.

“Oh?! A child? Really?” he bellowed in frustration at the source of the Voice. “That’s low!”

He cocked his head to be sure he had heard correctly. Sure enough, off to his left, where an empty field began to slope down toward a dark line of dense trees, he saw a familiar figure with her head buried in her hands. Beyond her were the ruins of the old Pirim Abbey. Its skeletal walls peeped up like stone fingers through the greenery that had grown around them.

What has Bug gotten herself into now? Niam wondered to himself. Unhappily, he set off toward her sobbing form. As he stepped off of the hard dirt road, Niam mentally swatted away the annoying buzz feeling that he was doing the right thing. He felt like this was just the thing the Voice wanted him to do, and to him, it was too much like a command.

As he drew closer, Bug seemed to notice him for the first time. When she looked up and their eyes met, she let out a small whimper of relief and ran toward him. Niam stopped and braced himself. Just seconds before she reached him, she leapt with all of her might into the air and flew into his arms in her best attempt to imitate a cave bear’s embrace. Ever since she had been seven, this had been their ritual. She called it the “running-jumping.” And usually, when he caught her in his arms after a running-jumping, she giggled herself silly.

Today, her face was scrunched and reddened in frustration. Niam let out a loud “Umph” as she collided with him. Instead of a hug, she pushed off of his stomach and began punching him in the gut.

Her small fists furiously pummeled him as she let out a feline growl of anger. Niam looked down at her quizzically and let her continue venting her anger for several more seconds. Shortly, his ribs became tender and he grabbed her hands and held her arms apart.

“Easy Bug, easy,” he said softly, “you’re going to hurt me.”

A tangle of tear-matted hair hung in thick disarray across the front of her face. She struggled so ferociously that it reminded Niam of a wild kitten he had found hiding in one of Sartor’s barns a year ago. The thing spat and swatted venomously for days before finally taming enough to be handled safely. Niam quickly drew her into his embrace and pressed her against him until she lost all of her leverage and stopped struggling. At last, she went limp and sagged into him, and the animal fury of the eleven-year-old girl left her. Throwing her arms around him, she sobbed loudly.

Niam held her, and for a while he did not think she was going to let go.

At last, Niam brushed her hair away. “Madeline,” he said tenderly, “What’s got you so fired up?”

She pressed her small head into his stomach, and when she spoke, her voice was muffled and Niam couldn’t understand a word. He bent his head down as she continued to talk away.

“Can’t understand a word you’re saying, sweetie.”

She shook her head and remained where she was.

“Madeline, you’ve got to tell me what’s wrong.”

She held her head back a small space. “I hate it when you call me that.”

“What? Your real name?”

“I’m Bug now, remember?”

Niam pushed her back a bit and bent down to look into her bloodshot eyes. She had been crying so hard that her lids were puffy and the entire upper half of her face had become raccooned in a pink angry hue. Niam offered her his best smile and nudged her shoulder with his open hand. “Sure, I’ll call you whatever you want.”

“You’re the one that gave me that name,” she reminded him sullenly.

“Yep—because you’re the bravest girl I know.” And that was the truth. The first day he met her, he had been attracted to a group of younger children milling around one of the fruit trees in Lord Joachim’s largest orchard adjacent to the Sartor estate. He arrived just in time to see Madeline scoop up a ball of honeybees that had swarmed and landed in a large, fat ball on the lower branch of a pear tree. All of the other children ran as she turned toward them holding the teeming mass in her open palms. When she saw that only Niam remained, she looked up at him with a mischievous grin, “What’s their problem?” Then she held up her hands. “They just tickle.”

Niam’s whole body shook as he laughed. He had never seen someone deadpan a funny line like that with thousands of bees capable of doing lots of very bad things to many, many people if they decided to. “How are you able to do that and not get stung?” he asked. “The way you made them all clear out of here . . . I’d pay good money to be able to do that. Bet I’d get killed if I tried what you’re doing,” he said, inclining his head down to where her hands were concealed beneath a fuzzy yellow ball of potential death. He kept a respectful distance as he spoke—especially if he needed to run for help. If they began stinging her, he honestly didn’t have a clue whether or not he had the courage to wade through a cloud of angry bees to save her.

Madeline just shrugged her shoulders as if it were a regular part of life: wake up in the morning, wash, dress, eat breakfast, pick up balls of bees. Who knew, maybe when she was done with that she wrestled deadly cave bears from their dens and played with their cubs. When she moved toward him, Niam stepped back quickly.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Would you like to see them?”

“I think maybe I’d rather set my pants on fire and swim in a pool of lamp oil,” he told her.

When she kept coming, he said, “No, seriously. Like lamp oil—not so much bees.”

She giggled at that, and for once Niam thought there was actually someone in the world that might make him look normal. “They won’t sting you,” she said—as if these words were supposed to somehow make him feel reassured.

“My grandfather once said the old bull he used to keep wouldn’t charge him, either. That was before he lost his left leg . . . what did he know, right?”

She stopped and looked at him as if he were the strangely unreasonable child, and she the older and more mature teenager. “Now you’re just being silly,” she told him flatly.

“Well I’m not the one holding thousands of winged minions of flying death, am I?”

“If you would listen to me,” she began in the most adult imitation he had ever heard a girl her age use, “you’d know that bees are docile when they swarm.”

“Oh,” he said. For a moment, the tone in her voice nearly made him forget she was at least five years younger than he was. “Wait a minute,” he said as this sunk in. “How do you know?”

“I know,” she went on in a matronly tone, “because my father is Lord Joachim’s new beekeeper.”

“Was the other one stung to death?”

“I think it was his heart,” she said matter-of-factly.

And that was how Niam met Madeline, and how Madeline had been christened that day as Bug. That had been several years before Niam’s brother and sister died. And during their frequent idles, Niam taught her everything he knew about pulling pranks and making rude jokes. She had proven herself an admirable understudy. And at times more impressively bold and fiery than any other girl he had met. It suited her well.

Now, however, she was in no mood for humor. “Sweetie,” he tried calming her, “What happened?”

Bug let out another growl and began pummeling his stomach with her small fists again. “HIM!” she shouted. “It was that beast, and I hate him! He ruins everything!”

Niam took her arms in his hands once again. His ribs were beginning to smart. When she got older, Niam almost pitied the boy who got on her wrong side. Whoever she ended up marrying he definitely DID pity. It was going to take a man of stout heart and stouter upper body to live safely in her presence. And the thing of it was, Niam knew he had encouraged her to be this way.

“Corey and I were in our secret cave playing like we were Shakta bandits,” she sniffled. Niam wasn’t surprised. Bug had always been fascinated by stories of the elusive Shakta who made the terrible deserts beyond the human kingdoms on the continent their home. Travelers who survived the deadly wastes reported that when the Shakta raided caravans, they killed only when their victims fought back. Leaving the caravans with only enough to make it out of the desert wilds, survivors emerged, nearly dead, with this one warning: stay out of our lands.

How this made them bandits Niam could not fathom. To his mind it was a reasonable if extreme method of making sure outsiders remained outside. After all, the Shakta could have taken everything and left the travellers alone to perish beneath the parching rays of the unblinking sun. The lands beyond the eastern fringes of the desert offered up strange and exotic treasures for the traders brave enough to evade bands of Shakta tribes. They also contained dangers, for if one went too far, and penetrated beyond the mysterious lands of the east, the ancient and ruined land of the Kobor lay like a malevolent giant slumbering until the day it woke again to make the earth shake beneath its fearful tread.

In the last age, over a thousand years ago, it had taken the might of the Dread Lords to defeat the Kobor, and in the end, they had become a scourge in their own right.

And as a result, the central part of the continent was now a haunted place, full of the evil remnants of the last battles that pitted one Dread Lord against another.

Niam had once heard Lord Joachim discuss the Shakta with his parents. From what he had been able to put together during his continental travels, the Shakta considered anyone not of the desert waste to be what they called goldash reye, or reye food.

Whatever a reye was, Niam was sure he did not want to know. He had heard tales of the beasts of the desert. The Shakta, for instance, rode large six-legged creatures resembling a cross between a large lizard and a spider called garavel. With lizard-like heads and short tails, their bodies sat low to the ground, and observers said the creatures’ wide sprawling legs helped them tolerate the heat of the desert sands and maneuver through rocks better than camels or horses.

But those animals were natural, if strange.

There were horrors in the misty forests of the central continent: there were also things on the edge of the desert—where even the Shakta refused to go—that gave the most toughened desert wild men nightmares. Or so Lord Joachim said he heard.

Niam put more faith in the things Lord Joachim had heard than the things other men knew.

“Goldash reye,” Niam said under his breath, too low for Bug to hear. That’s what people were to Bode and his father. People like himself, his friends, Bug.

“We worked for weeks on our Shakta lair. We filled it with hay for our garavel nests, straw to start our cook fires, and . . .” she sniffed, “we even found crates to sit on and rolled in a large rope spool for our table.”

“Oh my,” Niam said consolingly. “That does sound like a lot of work.”

“Stop treating me like I’m eleven,” Bug pouted.

Niam fought to suppress a chuckle. That was spoken just like a true fiery tempered eleven-year-old. “Well it does sound like a lot of work.”

Bug looked up at him suspiciously, with the look she always gave him when she thought he was pulling the I’m-older-than-you-card and treating her like a child. “It WAS a lot of work,” she complained bitterly.

“What did he do to you, Bug?” As he asked it, he wasn’t surprised to feel his heart speed up in his chest. He suddenly found that keeping his voice even and smooth for Bug’s sake was extremely difficult. When he spoke¸ there was a savage snarl that wanted to free its way out of his throat, but if it made it into the air, poor Bug might not realize she was not its intended target.

Bug wiped her eyes. “We worked so hard on our hideaway and had just started a fire . . . that’s when Bode and his bullies came into our cave and tore everything up.”

“Go on,” Niam said, encouragingly.

“We even blocked off a passage leading back to a stinky place under there so no one would fall into it.”

“Stinky place?” Niam asked, uncomprehending.

“Yeah, there’s a small drop off, and if you don’t have a lantern, you’ll fall down and there’s bad mud in it.”

Niam eyes suddenly arched. “Oh! I know just what you’re talking about! And you’re right, it does stink something awful.”

It had been a long time since Niam had explored the ruins. His eyes constantly played tricks on him around there in a way he didn’t like. The shapes in the rubble always appeared to merge into things they weren’t. The last time he was here, there constantly seemed to be a man in a monk’s hooded prayer cloak watching him from the corner of his eye. But every time he looked, the monk turned out to be nothing more than a dark thicket of vines running up a jagged stand of ruined wall or the misshapen remains of a column.

Still, the place made Niam nervous.

But the smell? Niam knew what that was, and there was nothing imaginary to it. The fires had collapsed the walls enclosing the privy well. Now all that remained was a shallow soggy pit, and an area that remained permanently damp. And always held a lingering funk.

As Niam thought of this, he brushed Bug’s hair away, checking for signs of violence. He had to will his fingers to be still as he looked her over. “Did he hurt you, sweetie?”

Bug closed her eyes and pinched her face in an effort to keep herself from crying. “I screamed at him to go away, but Corey . . . he . . .” Her voice began to catch and she stopped talking for a moment.

Niam knew why. Corey was Bug’s cousin and older by two years. He was two years younger than Niam, and had a personality that was completely opposite of Bug’s. Where she was tempestuous, courageous, and headstrong, Corey had a sweet, gentle, and shy nature—and were it not for Bug, Niam doubted he would ever step foot away from Lord Joachim’s estate, where his parents, like Bug’s, were servants. Corey was not like other children his age. Loud sounds and quick movements terrified the boy.

Corey was, in short, easy prey for Bode.

Goldash reye.

No.

Goldash Bode.

“I understand,” Niam told her.

“He broke Corey’s nose!” Bug yelled furiously. Somewhere on the other side of the sprawling expanse of vine-choked rubble lay in the opening into the cellar’s twisted guts.

Bug picked up a rock and grunted as she hurled it toward the corpse of the old abbey.

Niam’s fists tensed.

Bode!

Always Bode.

He began to pace, slowly at first, but his thoughts began to gather together like a dark and furious storm cloud. Bug was eleven.

Eleven!

What had she ever done to him? Niam had always worked hard to steer her clear of that sack of worthless dung. There had never been any way he would have brought her any farther into Bode’s range of malevolent attention than she had to be. Niam discovered long ago that Bode was like a destructive force of nature, and no one could avoid him all the time. And really, a little eleven-year-old girl wasn’t going to draw his attention beyond his usual casual moments of cruelty. Especially since Niam had stridently forbidden Bug from playing any pranks on him.

When Bode was with the rest of the gang, that’s when the danger for younger children grew. Especially when Card was around. Where Bode was an ill wind, his followers were like the detritus such winds stirred up.

And now they were down in some dark hole beneath the Abbey’s ruins doing….

Niam’s train of thought stopped here.

And Niam’s pacing stopped.

Like the velvety glide of a newborn colt’s coat beneath his fingertips, the Voice came again.

GOOOOO. LIIISSSTEN.

A flash of annoyance passed through him. He didn’t need the damnable Voice interfering right now. And perhaps it rasped against his pride because the sense of curiosity that came with it this time was in complete agreement with Niam’s own inclination. What were they doing? Why were they down there? Bug said she had heard Bode say he wanted a place to talk where there were no meddling ears. If Bode was up to something that required real secrecy, somebody needed to go down there and find out what that something was. Nothing good ever happened when a Grimmel was around.

Only, Bode’s followers were down there too.

Niam turned. Bug sat on the ground concealed behind a circle of azaleas. He walked over to her and ran his fingers through her hair. Its fine silken strands had become stiff with dried tears. “Look sweetie, I’ve got to get down there so I can hear what they’re up to—”

“I want to come!” she interjected before he could finish.

“Absolutely NOT,” Niam said, perhaps a bit more roughly than he intended to, because Bug flinched as if he had raised his hand to her.

“Oh, I’m sorry Bug,” Niam said, “but I might get hurt, and I couldn’t live with myself if I got you hurt too.” As he spoke, Bug’s face began to tense and quiver.

“That’s my hiding spot. MINE! And it’s not fair that you won’t let me go with you. I take you to my dad’s hives and that could be dangerous if you swelled and lost your breathing.”

Niam was adamant. He gently took her by her shoulder and began to lead her away from the Abbey and back toward the road.

“The hives are not the same and you know it, Bug.”

“They are too,” she said, stamping her foot like an annoyed filly. “You just have to know how to handle your bees is all.”

Niam stopped at the road’s edge and bent down until his nose brushed up against hers. “And just how would you handle these bees?” he asked gently.

Bug looked down, thinking. When she could think of nothing, her bottom lip began to quiver.

“The problem is, I don’t think they’re bees at all. You’ve got all of the salt and fury of a barn cat, but they’re venomous. And there are too many of them for it to be safe for you.” And then Niam felt guilty. He felt like he was on the verge of taking something vital away from her, so as an afterthought he quickly added, “But you need to understand that it’s only for today, Bug. When you are a little older, they’ll be no match for a girl like you.”

Where new tears welled up beneath her bottom lids, Niam wiped them away. Then he held one of his fingers up and placed it against his lips. Its taste was bitter and salty with her sorrow, but Niam smiled and said, “Always sweet as syrup!” And then he picked her up and she let out a squeal of surprise as he turned her upside down and shook her. “And I can always pour a little of you over my toast in the morning!”

“Niam,” she said drying her eyes once more as he held her right side up, “there are candles burning so you can see where you’re going. If you leave before they do, will you put them out for me?”

Niam laughed. “Now THAT’S the Bug I know and love.”