three…
When Aven and Sarien arrived at the detention station, a couple of young Crimson Guardians woke up everyone in the room and escorted them away, leaving Bala and Kosta alone. They were going to be questioned, that was as clear as day, so they prepared themselves. Kosta, now scrubbed clean of most of the bloody filth, hastily combed his hair with his fingers in a feeble attempt to look nice. Bala did his best to put on a brave face; he was the “adult” here, after all, and needed to look like one.
Seeing the “adult” warrior the Crimson Guardians had told her about, the “adult” who in fact was just a teenager scared out of his wits, Sarien got suspicious, to say the least. But learning that this boy wasn’t even the one who had killed the morok and that the younger one – a twelve-year-old! – had done it, made the old mage almost furious. Was Aven Zarbot that incompetent? Obviously, those kids were not the ones who had killed the monster! But who did it then? And why did that person decide to hide? That seemed worthy of Sarien's attention.
“I heard, my dears, that you had killed a morok,” said Sarien sweetly, like a loving grandma would, while her battlemage companions inconspicuously spread around the room, keeping an eye on the boys’ every movement.
“Not we,” said Bala, a shame in his eyes, “Kosta did. To protect me. He is the true warrior here.”
“You?” Sarra gave the younger Lifekeeper a long look, with a very convincing surprised expression on her face. The kid’s clothes were still splattered with blood even though he had tried his best to wash it away.
“Yes,” he nodded with quiet dignity.
“Oh how interesting!” almost cooed Sarien and sat at a cot next to Kosta’s. “I feel that you are telling the truth, my sweet. But it’s all so very puzzling! The morok was killed with a simple sword. It’s so rare! You see how old I am and I’ve seen that done only once in my whole life. Thirteen years ago. I was leading a team of young mages through the Firaskian forest and we met a whole pack of moroks: four ancient monsters hunting together! Their illusion was extremely convincing: they pretended to be a family – wife, husband, two kids – and played their parts so well that it took us long enough to recognize the trap. By the time we did that, we were doomed. My companions were no battle Seven, and a single mage, even a mage of my calibre, was no match for a morok pack. A young woman saved us that day and she, too, like you say you did, killed the moroks with only a sword. Only her sword had a handguard, unlike yours, and was not a katana. But that woman was immune to the horror magic, just like you must be if you’re indeed a morok-slayer. She had raven-black hair, black eyes, and – I never forget a face, my dear! – she even looked somewhat like you.” Sarien looked Kosta in the eye, a silent question in her gaze. “Well, what else? The woman was wounded in the fight and I treated her wounds; it was the least I could do to repay her. That encounter left her four claw marks on her right shoulder. She didn’t say much about herself, not even her name, but she mentioned that she was from the No Man’s Land.”
Aven and her fellow mages were listening to Sarien with bated breath, surprised, to say the least. Why was she suddenly so friendly and open with the boy? Even they, her battle brothers and sisters, had never heard that story!
Kosta Ollardian was silent for a long time but Sarien Sarra didn’t say anything to hurry him up. Aven had no idea that her boss could be so patient.
“That woman was my mother,” Kosta confessed at last.
“Small world!” Sarien smiled admiringly. “Tell me, my dear, are you your mother’s only child?”
“No. I have siblings,” answered Kosta, as honest and vague as Juel was with Aven when they first met.
“Ah, don’t worry, I’m not going to interrogate you about personal things,” said the old mage in a warm, soothing voice. “It’s the way you and your mother resisted morok magic that interests me greatly. Your mother never taught me her secret. Will you?”
“No,” Kosta shook his head.
“But my dear boy,” Sarien chastised him softly, “it can save countless lives. Just think about it!”
“It’s just impossible to learn,” explained young Ollardian. “It’s what you can only be born with.”
Sarien Sarra looked disappointed but didn't change her sweet attitude toward the boy.
“Tell me, where is your mother from?” she moved to the next question. “Are all people in her native land like her?”
“There is a small settlement in the No Man’s Land. It’s almost near the Karmasan Sea, in the forest. The name’s Marnadrakkar.” Kosta shrugged. “But my mother is an exile. She was not like the other people there, so they told her to go away. That’s all I know. My mother rarely spoke about her past.”
The younger Crimson Guardians exchanged a few silent gestures when their boss wasn't looking. After so many years of working together, they had their ways of understanding each other without words. It was as clear as day to them that the old mage had big plans either for the boy himself or for his mother’s people.
Before his simple no, she must have dreamed of legions of specifically trained monster-slayers marching through the No Man’s Land. But after that, the flow of her thoughts changed: now it was Marnadrakkar people that interested her.
Sarien Sarra had a way of making a suspect spill everything out and was very creative in her approach. The grandmotherly tone she had chosen for that shy little boy was working extremely well. Slowly, one tiny confession at a time, the young Lifekeeper was opening up.
He knew little about his mother’s origins, indeed. Her ancestors called themselves Marns and were a small tribe surviving between a rock and a hard place, with yellow dragons reigning over the Karmasan Sea and children of the night prowling in the No Man’s Land. That must have been why there were so few of them.
Aven and her three fellow mages listened to Sarien Sarra with breathless attention. One word from her – and the Elder Rule would be enforced; one word from her – and the massive raid on the No Man’s Land dark creatures would begin. That meant a bloodbath, the end of the fragile peace they all were working so hard to keep, that meant a lot of mages, warriors, and civilians would die… One word. Just one word. Maybe not even Sarien’s but Kosta’s if he really knew something the old mage needed.
There was a moment when Aven was sure that her worst fears would come true: Sarien fell silent for a while, thinking, brooding over something, a frowning, pondering expression overshadowing her mask of grandmotherly kindness. Finally, she wished the young Lifekeepers goodnight and signed to Aven and the others to leave the room.
***
“You didn’t tell her everything, right?” asked Orion, a shaky mix of optimism and desperation in his voice. He was the one who broke the silence that followed Kosta’s report of the last night’s events. “That disease of yours is gone. You are no longer coughing.”
“Yes. I didn’t mention that to lady Sarra,” nodded Kosta.
Bala opened his mouth to say something but dropped the idea as he suddenly recalled the end of Kosta’s illness, that mass of black clots and red blood he had coughed out…
“My father warned me against telling anyone about it, even you. I was allowed to speak about my immunity to wild horror magic but never about the cause of my magical addiction,” he explained looking
