Chapter Four: Breaking His Bonds
THE FIRST DAY Nilhin spent fully in his cage, he tried to hold his hands out and make flames appear. It was the most basic spell that one could do, because fire was the base of pyretic energy, which was the dominant force that made mages be able to perform magic. Fire should have come easily to Nilhin, especially because he was a man, who made this energy far faster and easier than a woman might. Nilhin huffed as he failed to even make a spark. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong at all and nobody had been able to teach him either because nobody at the brothel knew magic!
“How’s it coming along?” Maer asked a few hours after Nehe left, giving them each a torn piece of bread.
“It’s not working at all,” Nilhin admitted with a groan of frustration.
“Well, maybe try something else?” Maer asked. Nilhin growled, something inhuman that he didn’t know he could make and then he quickly stopped. Maer sighed, probably used to it after the previous night. Nilhin hadn’t known what was wrong with him, but he was so… so angry, he growled and panted, and made all sorts of beastial noises as he moved around in his tiny cage. He hadn’t calmed down until whatever medicine they had given him ran out. After that, he was just so tired. The kind of tiredness that made the rest of his body feel like he suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. No matter how tired Nilhin was, he couldn’t risk sleeping.
“I don’t really know any other spells,” Nilhin said. He held his face in his hands. “I have to know something. I refuse to let this be the end. I will get a doctor for mother.”
“Well you can’t make fire, so what other kinds of spells are there?” Maer asked.
“I don’t know. Lots of spells, but I never learned them because I was supposed to master fire first,” Nilhin explained. Maer sighed, and shuffled around in his cage again.
“We’ll think of something, Nilhin,” Maer said. Nilhin wasn’t sure they would, that Nilhin was capable of it, but he nodded anyway, taking his words to heart. Nehe arrived later and carted a few empty cages out of the shed before he came back with more bread for them. He let them all have a drink from a cup of water. As Nehe gave Nilhin water, the boy reached out to try and touch the front of his shirt. Nehe jerked away from him, after Nilhin’s fingers caught on the warm fabric.
“I’ll give you all my necklaces if you let me out,” Nilhin reasoned.
“Why would I do that?” Nehe asked. “You’re worth twice as much as them, and if I sell you, I’ll get paid for the necklaces ontop of it… you’re stuck here, kid. Just accept that. Things’ll get easier once that happens.”
“I can’t be here,” Nilhin tried to argue. “My mother needs me. You said you understood, since your father--”
“My father’s still alive,” Nehe said.
“But you said…”
“I lied.” Nehe continued along the cages. “I don’t know why you’re trying to appeal to my sympathy or whatever. I’ve been doing this since Angla was born, and she’s in her twenties. This is how we survive, and I wouldn’t stop it. I won’t let you go, no matter what I said when we were travelling or how you may feel about me. You’re not special, Nilhin. You never were. I just needed to lure you here, that’s all,” Nehe finished watering his prisoners, and tossed the cup onto a workbench not far away. Nilhin was silent. “With a boy as beautiful as you, we might even entice someone like Luc Gallus to come and take a look. His appetite for slaves demands the most attractive and youthful, but he does have a preference for girls.”
“I hate you,” Nilhin said. He twisted his fingers against the bars keeping him trapped. “I hate you.”
“I’ve heard it all before, and I’m honestly not that surprised,” Nehe said, before he headed out of the shed, pulling the doors shut and leaving them in patchy darkness behind him.
Nilhin continued trying to use magic, but it never worked. He just wasn’t meant to be a mage, no matter how much his mother insisted that magic was in his blood. She cited that his father was a mage, a famous one from the Luc Clan, but now Nilhin knew that his father was the clan leader. He would disappoint his father with his inability, but at this rate, he may never be able to escape to find him.
When Nehe came back to feed and water them, Nilhin remained quiet. It wasn’t until the second day that Nilhin had been trapped in his cage that Nilhin pressed against the front of his cage. His fingers struggled as he tried to push his hands through. There was much that Nilhin had learned in life, and magic had never been the thing he had been taught by anyone other than his books. What he was really taught, what he knew came from his aunties.
His mother told him that what she did, he shouldn’t ever do. She told him that one day he would truly love someone, but no matter what that young woman said, he needed to respect her, and never do what the men did to his mother. He could never have sex with someone. The other aunties, despite his mother’s words, argued the opposite. They said he would be the best courtesan in Kedaya, and he could be far more famous than Nilbi ever could be.
“Please, uncle, I need to speak with you,” Nilhin said, but he couldn’t be as effective in his seduction since he was trapped. Nehe turned to him, glanced for a moment and looked away, only to double take and stare at him through his confines.
“What is it?” Nehe asked, his lips parted in shock.
“I don’t want to be sold,” Nilhin said, he quickly countered with, “Maybe I could just work for uncle instead?”
“Why would I need a slave around here?” Nehe asked. “Especially one like you. You’re too weak to do any heavy lifting. You look like all you can do is weave baskets, and Angla does that just fine herself.”
“The aunties back home told me that, too, uncle. They taught me how to do other things,” Nilhin said. He pressed his lips to the bars. “The aunties… you would call them prostitutes. I came from a brothel.”
“You’re lying,” Nehe said, shaking his head.
“I can prove it. Let me touch you, let me show you,” Nilhin said. Nehe wasn’t buying his words, even if they really were the truth. Nilhin changed tactics. “Let me out,” he said, crooning like his mother had to her highest paying clients. Nehe started to walk away. “Let me out,” Nilhin repeated, his heart starting to pound, the desperation clawing at his throat.
“I know--”
“Let. Me. Out!” Nilhin said, and suddenly Nehe made a sound, a choked sound as his legs started to move. It looked unnatural from the backlighting of the opened shed doors, and he staggered over, his knees bending awkwardly and his feet landing wrong, sometimes more on his ankles.
“What?” Nehe asked. “What’s going on? What is this?”
Nehe continued to walk past the cages and towards Nilhin.
“What is this… this… this sorcery?” Nehe asked as his body sagged forward once he stood outside Nilhin’s cage. Nilhin backed away from the gate and Nehe’s quaking hand reached into his pocket to pull out the keys hidden inside. He forced the shaking key into the lock and twisted it. As soon as it was pulled free, Nilhin kicked the door of the gate out and jumped out on top of Nehe’s prone body. Nehe gritted his teeth, blood flowing freely from his nose.
“I can’t feel my body,” Nehe said with a manic laugh. “What did you do to me, you fiend?”
“What do you mean, uncle?” Nilhin asked, straddling his chest. He plucked the keys out of Nehe’s quivering fists. “You let me out of the cage? I can’t tell you why you do the things you do.”
“I wasn’t in control,” Nehe explained. “You must have done something. Maybe something’s wrong with you.”
“I doubt that,” Nilhin said, standing up. He began to unlock all the cages in the room. Nehe remained on the ground, but as soon as Nilhin unlocked the first cage, Nehe started to shout.
“Tsani! Tsani! They’re escaping!” Nehe shouted, and Nilhin ran back to him and jumped on top of his chest before he fell to his knees over his ribs. Nehe kept coughing up air and choking on it as well. Suddenly it was knocked from his lungs, and Nilhin relished in this man being helpless against Nilhin. Nilhin brought the sharp end of the keys down against Nehe’s chest. One time to start, then twice, but it didn’t stop. Soon, Nehe’s shirt was stained red, and bits of flesh dangled from the end of the key.
“What’s all this ruckus?” Tsani asked as she stood by the doors. Nilhin stood up, and she gasped, seeing him. “You! What have you done, you little monster?”
Nilhin started to run towards her, and then the world moved slower. He could hear her screaming, and he tasted her blood in his mouth. His hands felt so small against her flesh, but her skin felt like paper beneath his claws, which easily tore her to shreds. When the world settled around him, Tsani was mutilated, parts of her were missing from the rest on the floor. The children in the cages behind him cried, but he couldn’t recall why or what had happened to put Tsani in such a state. She, at least, didn’t have the ability to shout at him anymore. He reached up to wipe the drying blood from his lips. He could still taste it on his tongue, sharp and pungent, salty and metallic. It actually tasted very good, but Nilhin couldn’t afford to think about how delicious that bitch was. He unlocked the cages, and went to Maer last.
“Maer…” Nilhin said, looking down. Maer’s hand landed on his shoulder and gave him a squeeze.
“What was that?” Maer asked, reaching out to wipe the blood from Nilhin’s face. “You… you weren’t even human, it was like… it was like there was an animal standing over her body.”
“I don’t know,” Nilhin admitted. “I think it was magic, that’s the only way I can explain it. I’m not educated in the ways of magic enough to explain what it was, though.” Nilhin ran his bloody fingers over his shoulders in a nervous gesture meant to self-soothe. He wrapped his arms around himself entirely. “Was it scary?”
“Whatever spell you used…” Maer said, his entire body shaking as he recalled the memory. Surely it couldn’t have been that horrible, Nilhin thought. The boy sighed and came towards Nilhin, reaching out to put his hand on his tangled, messy hair. “It was scary, but you saved us. We couldn’t be scared of our saviour, could we?”
Nilhin nodded, it would be dumb to be afraid of your saviour… it would be wiser to suspect them, however. Nehe had saved him from travelling on foot alone for miles, but he had betrayed him. As far as these children knew, Nilhin could have similarly ulterior motives for saving them -- although he didn’t, of course.
“I need to find my mother’s jewelry,” Nilhin said. “The ones Tsani stole from me, and then I have to leave. I think we should travel together, at least for a while. It’s safer that way, I think.”
“You’re right,” Maer said. “You get your necklaces, and grab food and stuff we might need while you’re in the house, and I’ll gather the kids together so we can get the wagon together and the buffalo hooked to it.” Maer waved him off, and Nilhin headed out of the shed. He held his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun after days without being out of the dimness of the shed. He headed to the house. He walked around the house without much fear. Tsani was dead, and Nehe would be soon enough. He dug through the rooms, trying to find his mother’s jewelry, but instead he found beads and jewels having been pried from the necklaces themselves. That wench had destroyed his mother’s jewelry. He clenched his fists as he looked at the gift his mother gave him, to help him on his journey, mutilated on a rickety wooden desk. Nilhin swiped his hands across the desk, knocking everything to the floor. He struggled to lift the desk, but he threw it as hard as he could. He grabbed the blankets from the bed and struggled to tear them apart. Suddenly, his nails ripped right through them, and he dug his fingers into the mattress, pulling out a variety of hay and dried plants used to stuff it soft.
By the time the room was in ruins, Nilhin sat on the floor, tucking himself in a corner. He closed his eyes as he tried to catch his frantic breath. He clenched the few necklaces he continued to wear in his hands and let the cool wooden beads and metal ornaments press into his skin, forcing their indentation against his flesh as if his body could just absorb them.
This only lasted a moment, because Nilhin did not have much time to worry, nor was this only about him and his journey now. He had responsibilities, and so he gathered the torn blankets and the rest of the jewelry, all less valuable than that his mother gave him, into his arms and carried it outside. As he passed the kitchen, he saw Angla, staring at him. She opened her mouth and a pitiful moan came out, not a single intelligible word escaped her lips. Nilhin glared at her, and she whimpered, getting up and running away from him despite being over half a decade older than him. Nilhin continued outside.
He didn’t know what would happen to Angla, and he found that he didn’t really care, either. He used the torn blankets to help protect the children from the back of the wagon as well as the elements. He gave Maer the jewelery from Tsani’s room so they could sell it on their way before he went back inside and gathered all the food he could carry. He stuffed it into a satchel and made sure to give everyone a piece of food before he jumped onto the front bench besides Maer. Maer held the reins for the buffalo and flicked them, causing the buffalo to begin to move.
Nilhin didn’t look back at the place he had been held captive in for the past few days.
“Hey, Maer,” Nilhin said as they approached the first town since they left the outside of Villas, “Where will you and these kids go?”
“I don’t know,” Maer admitted. “Are you still going to Capvita?”
“I have to. It’s the only way I can find my father. He’ll have enough money to get a doctor for my mother. She’s what’s really important.” Nilhin leaned his head on Maer’s shoulder no matter how bumpy the wagon made the road. After so many days alone and scared, it was nice to touch someone else, especially someone who had no desire to hurt him. “What use is my father besides that? My mother wants me to live and help him for the rest of my life, but where has he been anyway? Why would I help a man who had forsaken me my entire life? If he helps me with my mother, then perhaps I’ll know he isn’t as terrible as I suspect.”
“Do you know anything about your father?” Maer asked.
“My mother has told me many stories. About how he lives in a beautiful castle made of white stone and gilded with gold. She told me that he was kind to her, and was well-spoken as well as beautiful. Mother spoke of his handsomeness often--” Nilhin felt his cheeks warm. He had once asked his mother if his father was as handsome as the one man he’d seen visit. She had gotten very upset with him, telling him that little boys didn’t find men handsome like she found them handsome. She told him, firmly, that little boys wanted beautiful women to hold and cherish. Nilhin had never had the courage to ask her what was wrong with him then, because he wanted a woman like his mother to love him, but he wanted to sink his fingers into the firm flesh of a man just as well-- “The last time he visited, she had proven she would make a fine wife and mother for their children. She had known she was pregnant with me, and brought out her favourite book of poems. He left that night and never came back. That was two full seasons before I was even born. What should I think about a man who abandons his responsibility like that? Or in general, such a kind and caring woman who so clearly loved him?”
“Do you wish for a kind and caring woman to love you?” Maer asked, snorting a trail of snot into his nose from where it had gathered on his upper lip. Maer had been sneezing since they left, coughing too, but Nilhin didn’t often get sick with normal sicknesses -- that’s why his mother’s sickness was so incurable without the best doctors. They were resistant unlike any of the others in the brothel.
Some of the other kids were getting the sniffles, too, a tell-tale sign that they might be getting sick. Maybe his father will be as great as his mother said, and he’ll help pay the doctor for them, too. It wasn’t their fault they were all too poor to afford a doctor, after all, but they didn’t deserve to be sick because of it.
“Yes, of course,” Nilhin said with a laugh. “I don’t care what she actually looks like, but I know she’ll be beautiful and the kindest person. I’ll keep her safe, just like I kept all these kids safe, and maybe she’ll brush my hair for me and stuff in return. Or clean the blankets, because I hate that chore.”
“Do you think there are real kind people that exist out there? People that aren’t just like us?”
“What’s wrong with being like us?” Nilhin asked.
“We’re poor and helpless. We can’t do anything on our own, and no matter how hard we tried if we wanted to, we’d never be accepted. We’d be beaten before we could achieve any form of power,” Maer said. “That’s what’s important in the world: power. Your mother used it to keep you safe, and now she wants you father to use his to help you both. Even you have some. That’s how you defeated those creeps that locked us up. Real power, though… I’d kill to have some of that.”
“Power is what the older boys outside the brothel used when they would beat me up and ruin all my hard work when I did my chores. Is that what you mean? Or like how the madam owns us? Is that power?” Nilhin asked. He had never heard of it spoken like that, or spoken of at all. It was just assumed. He had just assumed that the world was the way it was, and he could never change it.
“Yeah, that’s power.”
“Well, how do I get some of it, then?” Nilhin asked. “If I had more of it, I could help you out, and make my father help me and mother.”
“Well, you can’t just get it, that’s what I’m trying to say,” Maer said with a sigh. “It’s something you’re born with, really. It’s sort of complicated. The only way someone like us could become powerful is if we become close to someone else who is powerful. If we can get them to be our friend, then they’ll help us. That’s what your mother was trying to do. She seems like a smart lady.”
“The smartest,” Nilhin agreed. “I’ll become powerful one day, Maer. I will, and then I’ll find you, so don’t go too far from Aurumte.” Maer laughed, but his gentle and warming laughter quickly devolved into a horrible fit of coughing that reminded Nilhin too much of his mother for comfort. Nilhin got on his knees beside him and rubbed his back. No blood came from his mouth, but globs of green stuff did instead. Maer wiped it on his pants and cleared his throat.
“I’ll wait for you, Nilhin. If anyone can suddenly break all the rules, it seems like you could. After all, you can turn into a dog when you’re angry.”
Nilhin nodded, and then he paused. When had Nilhin turned into a dog? He didn’t remember that. Nilhin opened his mouth to speak, but Maer choked on his breath and so Nilhin rushed to rub his back and snatch the reins from him so that he didn’t have to focus on it. All thoughts about turning into dogs vanished as Nilhin took over the duty of directing them through the streets and forward towards Seritium, the city that hosted Capvita.
As the sun settled, Maer handed some of their last pieces of food out to the group and then sat down, holding out a piece of dried eel to Nilhin. Nilhin’s stomach clenched at the sight. He was really hungry.
“Have you had anything to eat?” Nilhin asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Maer said. “I’m the oldest, so I’m supposed to take care of you. So here you go.” Maer shoved the dried eel towards him.
“Why don’t you eat it, and in a few hours, we can rest. I’ll go hunt and use whatever magic I used before to try and catch us some actual food,” Nilhin said. Maer looked down at the food in his hand.
“Are you sure? You’ve already done a lot for us.”
“Of course I’m sure,” Nilhin said. “Just eat and relax, so that you can keep watch over the even younger ones in the back while I’m out.”
Maer ripped the already small piece of eel in two, struggling to get it to rip since it was so tough, and then he shoved one piece in his mouth. He put the other piece in his pocket.
“I’ll eat this other piece, but only if you can get us something else. Otherwise, you’ll need it,” Maer said. Nilhin nodded, and continued to guide the buffalo. Once Maer was done chewing, he inched closer and closer towards Nilhin before he put his head on his shoulder, the same way Nilhin had been doing, and held his forearm in his icy-but-sweaty hands. Nilhin tilted his head just slightly, so he could feel Maer’s hair against his cheek properly. Maer needed a bath, a hair wash, and a good brushing, but so did Nilhin at this point.
“Maer,” Nilhin said. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know,” Nilhin admitted. “For being here for me, with me. I was so scared of being alone, that I clung onto Nehe, but he was a liar. You’re not. You’re just… my friend. So thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me for not treating you bad,” Maer asked. “Jeez, where did you even come from? That’s the bare minimum. I’m your friend because I want to make sure you succeed with your goals, and I want to help you stay safe in the process. You’re my friend because you saved me and want to help me, too. That’s what friendship is. If someone is just treating you with the bare minimum of decency, they’re not your friend, they’re just doing what they’re supposed to.”
“Were you a wealthy kid before Nehe got you?” Nilhin asked. “Even my mother couldn’t tell me what a friend was, she just said I’d probably know if I met one. None of my aunties told me either, they just said that friends were people who paid them more than the others to… to find pleasure with them…” Nilhin shut his mouth. He didn’t really want to talk about this topic anymore. Maer shook his head.
“I wasn’t wealthy, but I wasn’t poor, either. My parents died in an accident, right before Nehe found me. I thought he was just a nice man, too. I was wrong, but I never thought he was my friend. Adults are supposed to help children, that’s their duty to society, even if those kids don’t belong to them.”
“These ideas are revolutionary,” Nilhin muttered to himself. “Have you ever told anyone about this?”
“My mother and father taught me about it, actually. They were scholars, and worked for a very important clan, even though they weren’t actual disciples because they weren’t trained young enough to harness their internal energies properly. I don’t know anything beyond that. You just have to get there younger than adulthood to become a mage. You’re already set if you can do at least one spell, which you obviously can.”
“I wished I could have met your parents, Maer. I’m sorry they’re gone,” Nilhin said. He found a place not far away to stop the buffalo before he unhooked her from the cart. “Now, I’m going to find some stuff. I think I can hear water around here, so maybe you can get some for the kids and yourself while I forage and hunt. I’ll keep an eye on the buffalo. I don’t think there are many predators out here, other than people that is.”
Maer waved him off into the night, and Nilhin carted the buffalo towards the water he heard from the road. He tied her to a nearby tree so she could graze on the grasses growing and satisfy her thirst. He looked around at first for berries, but then his ears started to twitch as he heard others sounds too. In fact, he heard so many new sounds and it was easy to tell what they were. It’s like these sounds, that he had never heard before, were so obvious. His fingers started to twitch, and his legs began to ache before he couldn’t help it and started to creep around to where he was listening to those sounds. He knew that whatever was burrowing in the undergrowth, beneath the fallen oak leaves, would definitely be fat and it could taste good, too.
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