Simon Levack: The Demon of the Air

How many times over did I owe him my life?

“I might want revenge,” I gasped, “and so might you, but Nimble doesn’t! He just wants to talk to me, Shining Light! He wants to know who his father is-me or Young Warrior! That’s it, isn’t it, lad?”

I felt giddy. It may have been the blood I was losing from the cuts on my neck, or relief that the boy, at least, did not want me dead. Or it may have been the effort it took to voice the suspicion I had kept at bay for so many years: that Maize Flower’s child may have been mine after all.

As if from a long way off, I heard Nimble speak. “Father …”

Shining Light howled. “Don’t call him that!” Suddenly the blades stopped pricking my neck as he raised the sword. “You’re mine, don’t you get it? This piece of shit is nothing to us. Nothing! And now he’s dead!”

“But aren’t you listening?” I cried desperately. “Nimble doesn’t want you to do this!”

“Shining Light, please!” the boy pleaded.

“Nimble.” It came out as a long, regretful sigh. “You’re so young. You haven’t learned to hate yet, that’s all. But I have. You taught me!

“I’ve heard your tale so many times, and heard you weep as you told it, and listened to you still weeping long into the night afterward when you thought I was asleep. And I’ve burned with anger and wanted to flay your father alive for the pain he’s caused you. And all you wanted to do was talk to him! Even though I could see it wouldn’t do any good, I went along with it-I promised to help you find out the truth. I kept my promise, too-remember when I went to see Yaotl at my own house? But talking doesn’t lead anywhere, love. It just hurts and confuses.

“So don’t worry about Yaotl, Nimble. You’ll get over his death in no time-I’ll see to that!”

“Shining Light!”

In my brother’s mouth the name sounded like an obscenity.

Lion was on his feet, leaning against the shelter. He lurched forward, seemingly oblivious to the boy just a couple of paces from him as he gave all his attention to the merchant. His voice was thick with pain and contempt.

“They’ll burn you alive, you pervert. You’re disgusting. You’re like those little worms that fall out of our backsides. You make me puke. You can’t live cleanly and you can’t even make money honestly.” Lion was trying to goad Shining Light into making the first move. “Your sort don’t even fight like men!” My brother truly resented being hit with a paddle.

I could not move. I could not see the sword or tell whether it was still poised to lop off my head or anything else. I could see only my brother, still mouthing insults as he staggered toward us and sank to his knees.

“It’s no wonder you have to hide on the lake, surrounded by scum. You’d never be allowed in the city.” He was visibly weakening, toppling forward until his hands slapped the wood under him while his voice became a breathless croak. “The women would sweep a piece of filth like you off the streets before morning … Yaotl! Look out!”

Lion shouted the last words.

In an instant he was on one knee and then on his feet. He had slipped his cloak off and held it in both hands, and as he leaped forward he hurled it over Shining Light’s sword arm.

I threw myself to one side.

The cloak missed, but as he darted out of its way Shining Light slipped and toppled over me. Obsidian blades buried themselves in the deck beside me with a sound of splintering wood.

Roaring furiously, Shining Light tore the weapon free and jumped up to face my brother. Lion charged him with just his bare hands. The sword became a blur as it sliced the air between them. It carved flesh from both my brother’s arms, but the blow was mistimed: Lion was too low and too fast and his wounds were shallow. He did not groan or cry out, but as the sword reached the end of its arc, before Shining Light had time to react, he straightened up and delivered a kick to the other man’s stomach that sent him sprawling onto his back, gasping for breath.

“Got you!” Lion cried joyously as he threw himself on his foe, hands clutching at his hair and twisting it brutally. “You’re mine now! My beloved son!”

“Lion!” I hauled myself to my feet. “You’re not on a battlefield now! Just fucking kill the bastard!”

I was too late. Shining Light writhed, twisted, slithered like a live fish out of my brother’s grasp and jerked himself free to the sound of his own hair tearing. He ran toward the shelter, screaming for Nimble.

Shining Light still had the sword. As he scrambled away it flailed wildly behind him, missing Lion’s face by a finger’s breadth. My brother, thrown off balance, took a moment to get after him, and by the time he did, the merchant was on his feet again and facing us.

The boy stood by him, holding the paddle in both hands.

“What now?” I asked.

“The merchant’s mine,” said my brother. “You take the boy. When I say go-”

“Wait a moment! They’re still armed!”

“Come on, Yaotl! Do what he says!” roared Shining Light. “Let’s finish this now!”

“Stop this!”

Nimble’s cry was not loud. It was something between a sob and a muffled scream, a noise of distress and desperation that made the rest of us, all three, pause for an uncertain instant, staring at each other asthough we had all seen something so momentous it dwarfed our quarrels.

“I didn’t want this,” the boy gasped. “I didn’t ask you to kill those men. I only wanted to talk to Yaotl, to find out how it was.”

“I got you out of the marketplace,” said Shining Light.

“You didn’t get me out of the city! You made me run your errands for you, you made me stay on the boat, you wouldn’t let me go and see him, you wouldn’t-”

“He’d have taken you away!” the merchant shouted. “I’d have lost you! Didn’t you want what we had-wasn’t that enough?”

Suddenly I saw how it had been with Shining Light: the years of smothering and pampering by Lily, the urge to be free and what had resulted: the lies and the bizarre parody of a household he and the boy had built, here on the lake. Nimble had depended on him utterly, but there had always been a nagging doubt, the fear that someone would rival him for the lad’s affections.

When it happened, it made no difference if the rival was the boy’s father.

“Put the sword down, Shining Light,” I said gently. “I’m not the one you should be afraid of.”

His head darted left and right, taking in the boy, my brother and me, before alighting for the last time on Nimble’s upturned, troubled face.

“I’ve lost you, then,” he said desolately.

Nimble stared at the deck. The paddle slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the planks by his feet. “It can’t be like this,” he mumbled.

Shining Light did not speak again. He just raised the sword high over his head and charged.

He ignored my brother. He came for me, his mouth open in a scream of rage and his weapon poised to split my skull. I had no time to move or defend myself. It was Nimble who reacted, throwing himself forward and crashing into Shining Light from behind, knocking him down just as the blades began to fall.

Lion jumped in from the side, hurling himself at the merchant as he stumbled under the youth’s attack. My brother made sure of the sword this time, snatching the wooden handle with both hands and twisting it as violently as he had earlier twisted his enemy’s hair.

There was the briefest struggle before Shining Light relinquished the weapon. He did not want it. He wanted me. As my brother reeled backward, caught off guard by the ease with which he had won his prize, Shining Light charged me again, leaving Nimble behind him and slamming his forehead into my freshly broken nose.