The Seekers of Fire (37 page)

Somehow, he did not pick the whip. It was not because if he did, someone would whip him, severely and perhaps to the death, later. Right now he did not care about that.

Dominick stood there for a long time. He did not pick the whip, did not move from his place at all, but somehow his body felt as if he had been in a serious fight. He was dizzy, trembling, sweating, panting, not well at all.

The old man's eyes bore into his.

"So, my boy, you do not think it would be right to hit me?"

He could barely nod.

"Why?"

Why? There were only so many why-s an exhausted, perturbed boy could take at a time. Angrily, he blinked, but still the tears wet his face.

"My son." He blinked again as a bony hand softly brushed his head. "I never said listening to the Master would be
easy.
And responsibility can be a hard, thorny path. Do you wish to learn how to walk it?"

Again, he could only nod.

"Good. Good. What is your name, then?"

"It ... it is Doncho, sir. But I don't like it."

The old man almost smiled. "Well, is there a name you like?"

Was there, truly? The grown Dominick wondered. He had been wondering about many things, wondering too often in the last days, often enough to make up for eight years of walking on a straight, nondivergent path like a harnessed horse whose side vision was obstructed by the bridle. For, even Maxim's hard, thorny path was still a path. It might bend your back and scrape your knees, it might sometimes beat you so hard that it forced the air out of you, but it was there—in the dark forest, between murky shadows, beneath overcast trees, it was a bright thread to follow. It was a way. It kept the forest
out
.

Twenty-three days ago, this thread had ended in the middle of dark leaves, green twilight, and shadows, and there were times Mentor Dominick felt as lost as a pitiful little peasant with a flower in his hand.

He was still a Mentor. Even though he might be a most foul murderer, one who would attempt to destroy a fellow Mentor—one who would destroy the man who had been like a father to him for eight years. The Bers had restored his whip and title upon Maxim's own words, and time after time he still preached the Master's infinite wisdom and unerring ways.

But it all felt empty. Even the Day of the Master eight days ago had felt empty. Dominick's own preaching, the Judgement of youths, the Bers charging his Mentor's detector for the New Year—none of these had touched his heart this time. If anything, the detector had started hurting even stronger. Perhaps the Master
had
erred this time. For twenty-two days now, ever since he had awakened, Maxim had been supporting Dominick's innocence but still refusing to see him, as well as refusing to disclose what had happened that night and why.

A
samodiva
who could not exist, together with the vague image of a man whose face he had not seen, and his own dagger stabbing Maxim. Dominick turned his hands before himself and watched the now bright morning light stream on his clean, pale palms.

"You are not much of a help, are you, Master?"

The shadowed images of the Master stood silent on their walls.

"Damn you, if you are not here for me, at least be here
against
me!"

His right palm colored red as he smashed one of the chandeliers, but he felt nothing, so he smashed the other one, too.

"Punish me, all right? Prove that this world is not an accursed, profane chaos where anything can happen!"

Shards of glass and metal pieces sprinkled the polished stone floor, but besides that, nothing. He tore the curtain next, kicking the bed behind it—the bed, the temple's Confession secret, the place for a Mentor who had entered too many base, dirty minds to lie down and dream of trees, Lost Ones, and shadows, until his own mind broke through the web of stark confusion and made him walk and talk again.

By the time Dominick had wrenched the bed out of its alcove, blurred images were playing before his eyes and he was panting, but the tension inside had not eased at all.

"Do something, damn you! Strike me with lighting if you wish. Just be here for me. Just"—He shoved the bed away—"Be. Here."

A metal piece of a chandelier smashed into the wall, and Dominick laughed as he watched the sunrays. Already broken by various metal pieces and glass shards, they hit this particular piece and started dancing on the wall itself.

The wall was illuminated now, even if it were just a tiny spot—even if it were just a piece of the old Master's red robe's hem,
the Sun was shining on the wall
.

"So that's the way it works, then?"

Dominick

Morning 8 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

An hour later Mentors Ardelia and Nigel made only a vague attempt to stop him before Maxim's sickroom, and he rushed inside, barely slowing to kick the door open.

"Ah. So you come, at last. I have been expecting you."

Dominick halted in the small, Sun-lit room with bright yellow curtains, staring at the white-clad, frail old man on the bed. Suddenly, his own presently sweaty, ruffled hair and crumpled brown robe, and especially the whip he had waved at Nigel and Ardelia, seemed very out of place.

"You are making me feel like a loutish little peasant again," he said in a soft, controlled voice, all vehemence suddenly draining away from him to leave hollowness and shame.

"Am I now? Can anyone truly make you feel anything you disagree with, my son?"

I don't know,
Dominick wanted to say.
I don't want to think about it. I want to be angry, like a moment ago, so that I can shout at you and be done with it.
But anger was a useless weapon against these sharp, all-knowing eyes. Looking at them, as well as listening to Maxim, more often than not made you wonder why exactly you were angry.

"Max." Dominick sat on the edge of the bed, watching a face that bore many wrinkles whereas eight years ago it had born almost none, and gray hair that had been almost black but was now almost silver. The stabbing wound and the consequent fever had made Maxim's skin pale and sallow, both on the face and the thin, bony hands—but, strangely, what worried Dominick the most was the thin white pajamas.

Had he ever seen the man in anything but a somber brown robe with starched cuffs and collar? Maxim looked ... smaller right now. The accursed pajamas seemed to have taken something away and taken it away irrevocably—something important. His dignity. His strength. Dominick clenched his fists around the whip's handle. He was a Mentor and a man, but were he a twelve-year-old snotty-nosed peasant, right now he would have cried.

Maxim watched him, saying nothing. He had that habit.

"Max." Dominick unclenched his fingers from the whip and drew his dagger. "I need to know."

"What do you need to know, my son?" The old man did not even look at the weapon, and Dominick sighed, laying it on the sheets.

"Start with why you said you were expecting me, while I was told you had refused to see me. And why the fools outside let me in so easily today. For all they know, I might be an accursed murderer going to finish the deed!"
For all I know
.

"Ah, one of the answers is easy. They let you in because I told them to do so, even though they were reluctant to obey." He cast a Dominick a sideways glance. "That is, I told them to do so if you showed persistence."

"You told me to not come."

"Yes, my son." Maxim took Dominick's dagger, the dagger that had almost killed him, in his weak, trembling hands. "Yes, I did." He played with the weapon, shifting it so that it would catch the Sun and make Sun spots on the wall. Like a child, playing with a toy. "But you came, and I am glad."

"Why?"
Why are you playing with me
?

"Dominick, my son, will you indulge an old man and accept '
I cannot tell you
' as an answer?"

"Maxim, my father, I wonder if I would indulge you better if I answered '
yes,
' or if I answered '
no.' "

Maxim laughed, a weak laugh, but behind it—behind the whiteness of his pajamas, behind the wrinkles and the frailty of his figure—his eyes were no less sharp than ever, and even sharper still.

They were both silent for a while, and the old man closed his eyelids, his breathing becoming as slow and regular as if he had drifted into sleep. The Sun spots on the wall jumped, disturbed, as Dominick pulled his dagger from his hand.

He could kill him so easily. Just a quick snap with the dagger, and the thin, tired man would be gone. It was all so wrong, so unbalanced. A stab, and then the man was broken and the healer could not fix him for days, and then another stab, just a tiny little stab would be enough to finish him ... A stab with a tiny metal blade. A piece, a toy that humans had made, could undo humans. Such a fragile thing, a human. Such a fickle thing, a life. Dominick closed his fingers around the handle. A little thing, such a tiny, insignificant thing, but how much power it held.

And why was he, Dominick, thinking about all this? Gently, carefully, he pulled the white blanket to the old man's chin and wrapped the corners beneath his shoulders.

"You know, old man," he whispered to the sleeping figure, "the why-s are all your fault. You could have whipped them out of me so long ago. I should know, I have whipped some why-s out of people myself. But you did not do it, and I don't know what to do any more." He put the dagger back into its sheath. Why had he drawn it, anyway? "Probably don't even know who I am."

"Pretty normal for your age, actually." Dominick almost jumped at the calm, not-at-all-asleep voice. "I might have once been like that myself." The sharp eyes bore into Dominick's again, suddenly not weak and sick, but strong, authoritative, invading. A Mentor's gaze, which no one had applied to Dominick for years. What, in the name of the Master?

"Doubt, as you well know, is the path to a Mentor's undoing. But, Dominick, my boy, do you know what a Mentor
is?
"

Dominick remained silent.

"A Mentor's primary task, my boy, is to take care." Maxim reached out, propped a pillow in the corner where the bed met two walls, and raised himself to a sitting position. His movements were slow and deliberate, but he was not trembling. Suddenly the white pajamas did not matter so much.

"Your task is to keep those who are weaker than you, more stupid than you, more lost than you, on the straight path and away from the dark, devastating forest—and sometimes that means that
you,
my boy, have to step away from the path and into the darkness, so that you can find those wandering and bring them back. Talk to them if you have to, lie to them if you need, whip them if they will let you, do whatever else you see fit—but
bring them back.
" He extended his hand towards the glass of water on the nightstand, but Dominick was faster, handing it to him. Despite his slowness and the transparent thinness of his limbs, the old man's shoulders were still broad, and somehow that made things better. Maxim drank, deeply.

"It is the path that is important, my son, or, rather, the system of paths that traverses the world, but you—you no longer have the luxury of staying on a path, even the hard, thorny one. It is a useful path, the path of thorns and trials. Nigel and Oliver walk it. Ardelia does. But you have strayed from it, for you have too much doubt in you. Well, doubt can be used. Now you have a choice. Will you be lost in the forest, or will you make finding the lost ones your priority? Will you break? Or will you build? Will you be a Mentor?"

"Old man." Dominick closed his eyes for a moment, running a hand over his forehead. The detector vibrated again in the other one. "I have been to other people's damn minds. I don't know what worse, darker forest there could be."

Like he had done eight years ago, Maxim bent his long, bony fingers, reached out, and knocked on Dominick's skull.

"
Other
people's minds are still a path."

"What are you aiming at, Max?" Dominick returned his gaze. "I know you. Such a speech on the edge of aberration has a purpose. What has gotten into you this time, old man?"

"Gotten into me?" Maxim placed his glass back on the nightstand, carefully, by himself. "Nothing ever gets into me, Son. It is all there already. Oh, well. I have a task for you, Mentor."

"Mentor, you say. Well, I should tell you something, Mentor. Just before I came to you, I vandalized the damn temple."

Maxim watched him calmly, not revealing any judgement or surprise. Dominick sighed.

"Max, if I were a Ber or the Head Mentor—if the power to elevate or fell Mentors belonged to me—I would not have let one such as I remain here for a single moment after"—he clenched a fist—"that night. Whatever happened then, old man? Did I try to kill you? Did I see a
samodiva,
Maxim?
Samodivi,
little peasants, Balkaene stones, accursed visions. Doubt. I dream of her at night, did you know? It is trouble waiting to happen, damn the Bers and the Head Mentor! Whatever you have told them about me, they should know better! I am damaged. Can't they see? Can't they do something? I am a danger to all that is good and right, Father!" His clenched fist met the nightstand. "I am confused and thus I am weak!"

"And therein lies your greatest strength. For we have all become too certain, too set in our ways."

Dominick did not look at him, but strode to the window, staring at the temple at the other side of the street, barely controlling himself to not tear down the curtains. His breathing was uneven; his heart was beating too fast. The Sun was glaring at him, light reflecting from the rods at the temple's roof. The Sun had hit old Haralambi from Goritsa, long ago, and his heart had beaten exactly like this when Dominick had run to him and touched him.

"Drink some water."

Damn old Maxim, did he ever say a word that was not calm? But he drank.

"Did you try to kill me, you ask? Did you see a
samodiva?
How can I know?" A voice. A disembodied voice, for currently Dominick could not see its owner, shadows scampering before the young Mentor's eyes, his body nearly falling. A voice of harsh authority with the barest hint of softness.