John Marco - The Forever Knight

“Tell me what you do remember,” I said.

“What? Nothing’s changed.”

“They found you wandering around Akyre, Borlis and the others. You were alone. Starving, they said.”

“I remember,” said Cricket sharply. “ Before that’s the problem.”

For a long moment I didn’t say anything. I hoped the peace of the night would loosen her tongue and maybe her memory too. “Look at that moon. You ever see one so big? They say the heat here makes it look like that, all pink and shimmery. I like to watch it.”

I stared at the moon, and Cricket stared too. Then she let out a big, relaxing sigh.

“What will we do when we get to Akyre, Lukien?” she asked. “How are we going to find out about me?”

“I’m not really sure,” I told her honestly. “Look around. See if you recognize anyone, or anyone recognizes you. Ask some questions. First we have to find out what’s going on in Akyre. The things I hear don’t make me happy.”

Cricket nodded, because she knew the stories too. War stories, mostly. Atrocities and all the things that come with war. Cricket gazed blankly at the moon.

“Cricket. .” I said it softly. “How do you know your name’s Cricket? How can you remember that, if you can’t remember anything else?”

She shrugged. “How do you know your name’s Lukien? I just do is all. I haven’t forgotten how to talk or walk either. It’s just some things I can’t remember. Sometimes it’s on the tip of my tongue and I can’t get it out. .” She closed her eyes and grumbled, “It makes me crazy! I try to remember. I have dreams sometimes and can’t remember them.”

“Don’t force it. You have to come at this thing from the side, not head on. It’ll all fall in place eventually. Maybe when we get to Akyre.”

Cricket put down the fruit and drew her rass skin cape around her shoulders. She looked tired but restless too, like she wanted to keep talking.

“There’s one thing I remember,” she said. Her eyes narrowed as she focused on the memory. “A waterfall. Maybe a river, but I think it’s a waterfall. I can see myself there.”

“In Akyre?” I asked.

She closed her eyes completely. “Yes. Definitely Akyre. I can see it, kind of.”

“What else do you see? Are you alone?”

“I’m. .”

She struggled, holding her breath. And then she opened her eyes and looked at me.

“Can we go there, Lukien?”

“Where? You don’t even know if it’s a river or a waterfall.”

“We can find it. Akyre’s not a big country. We could ask around. We could do that, right?”

She was fixated suddenly, and I didn’t understand it. “Sure,” I told her. “We could do that.”

Like a charm, the promise calmed her. She leaned back against the ridge. “Now it’s your turn,” she said. “Tell me something you remember.”

“You’re an imp. It’s late. I don’t feel like talking.”

“Ah, you’re always making excuses. You have as many secrets as I do, Lukien.” Cricket smiled at me. “I just want to know about you, that’s all. Not just the stories everybody says about you. Not just how you lost your eye. Before that.”

“Oh. When I was your age, you mean.”

Her brown eyes blinked at me. I couldn’t escape. So I settled back and told her what life was like for me before becoming “the Bronze Knight.” I told her about growing up in the streets of Liiria, about how I lived by breaking into stores to keep warm at night and by stealing food. My mother had died before I was old enough to have memories of her. But when it came time to tell Cricket about my father, I had to stop. What could I say about a man who left me to fend for myself? Who one day decided that life was too tough for him?

“There’s only one way a man should leave his family,” I said finally. “By dying.”

Cricket looked baffled. “He just left you? Out there on the street?”

I couldn’t look at her. I stared at the moon. “Right.”

“Didn’t you wonder what happened to him? Didn’t you try to find him?”

“You mean beg? You can’t beg someone to love you, Cricket. I decided it was easier to hate him. Now. .” I stood up and brushed the sand from my trousers. “It’s late and I’m tired. More next time, all right?”

As I walked toward my bedroll, Cricket said, “Lukien? You think I’ll ever be able to remember stuff like that?”

All of a sudden she sounded like a little girl. And I was the closest thing she had to a father.

“Yes, I do,” I told her. “When you’re in a stronger, safer place, you’ll be able to remember. That’s why I’m here. So we can find that place together.”

Malator had been strangely quiet since we left Jador. For the first two days I felt him hovering just out of reach, like a child peeking around a corner. Within the sword I could feel his presence, stoic but solid, but by our fifth day I could barely sense him at all. He had stopped speaking to me entirely, and when I touched the sword it was almost like a normal blade at my side.

Perhaps I had been hard on Malator, and perhaps his silence was just childish payback, but I was determined that he should be my servant now and not the other way around. Akari are kind and generous with their powers, but they aren’t angels, and they aren’t selfless. They see the world from a mountain peak none of us can ever reach, but there’s one thing they forget-they need us, we poor humans. I intended to remind Malator of that.

Our fifth day in the desert was blazing hot. By noon the sun felt like fire on our hoods. The sand, which was everywhere now, blinded us as we tried to look ahead. We had already skirted south of Ganjor, making good progress east. Maybe two more days of riding and we’d be out of the desert. That alone was enough to give us confidence. With the sun mighty on our backs, I let Cricket drink her fill from our canteens. Head down, I rode without thinking.

“Lukien?”

Cricket’s voice took me out of my daydream.

“Look at that,” she said, pointing north. A caravan of drowa riders were heading east as well, their path slowly crossing our own. They were still far away, but I knew they had seen us; the gait of their hairy mounts slowed a little.

“Ganjeese,” I said.

Cricket’s voice rose. “Really? How do you know that?”

“First, because no one else would be traveling east. And look how they ride-like an arrowhead, you see?”

“Uh huh.”

“They ride like that to keep the rass away,” I said. “It doesn’t work.”

We had gone all this way without seeing another soul. We were practically knocking on the door of the Bitter Kingdoms. And now Ganjeese. My hand went fast to my sword.

“Malator? You still here?”

I don’t know why I doubted it, because Malator barreled into my mind.

Company?

“Maybe trouble, maybe not,” I said. Cricket looked at me, but she knew who I was talking to. “We can’t avoid them.”

“They’re coming this way,” said Cricket.

“Hospitality of the desert. They’ll ask if we need anything, maybe try to trade.”

“But they’re gonna know we’re from Jador.”

“No way to hide it. Keep riding,” I said, “and don’t be afraid.”

As we closed the distance I could see their expensive looking clothes, the kind of colored silks and dyed skins the wealthy of the city wore. There were four men, with a big, well-fed fellow leading them. He rode at the tip of the arrow, bouncing on his drowa with a scimitar strapped across his chest. A jet mustache glistened against his dark face. When we were finally close enough, he raised his hand in greeting.

“Aman da Vala,” he called.

The words mean ‘Vala watches us.’ Even Cricket understood, but as a girl she wasn’t supposed to return the greeting. I lifted my own hand and called back the response.