Shadow Blade, Chapter XII: Irrevocable Metamorphosis

Shadow Blade, Chapter XII: Irrevocable Metamorphosis

Chapter XII: Irrevocable Metamorphosis

"Erik...what's wrong?" Aruna quietly asked the marksman. This new, withdrawn mood had come on quite unexpectedly given that during the height of summer, Erik had been even more exuberant than his ordinary self. Rue would forever link the feeling of that sweltering heat to the joy of greeting Erik's and Leah's daughter Justine just hours after her birth. Erik had taken tremendous pride in showing Rue how to cradle the newborn in her arms, a task she'd been terrified to try without her sight...but Erik had guided her in everything. Finally, he'd had her counting all of Justine's little toes and fingers; Justine had cooed in her tiny infant's voice, even wrapping her fingers around Rue's thumb.

Erik gave a long, defeated sigh. "I don't know what to think," he slowly replied, his bass tone even deeper than normal. Over the past several weeks, Aruna had heard Erik sniffling faintly in combat instruction as if fighting a cold...or stifling tears. "It's Justine. I can't help feeling like it's my fault...like I did something. She's my daughter...I--"

Even though Rue had adored Erik as if he were family since she was four, he had never just poured his heart out to her in this way. "Good Lord, Erik! There's nothing you could've done to change things! You can't blame yourself for her blindness...and she'll be just fine, especially here. Really, just think of Kirian and Merele, and..." Rue paused to reconsider her next words. "They're doing something wonderful, and there are people who owe their lives to them."

"I understand...but you know about my family, don't you? Hardly anyone in my father's line sees well. Only Sámeyel, the next youngest after me, has truly good sight. The rest of my siblings all have some kind of trouble or another. Adhán has more in common with me than with the other sighted ones. He sees nothing to the sides, only what's right there close to his face. And my great-grandfather Willen was just as blind as I am. When I think of all this, I can't help feeling responsible, that I let Justine down...and Leah too." Rue well remembered Leah's hopes, but held her tongue. She pulled Erik near--a small task that once required a frustrating amount of concentration but lately was becoming more and more instinctive. She searched her heart for words of solace. "But I love Justine," he lamented, "I swear I do, no matter if she sees or not...!" He shuddered and sobbed voicelessly.

"Erik...I think it's natural for people to want good things for their children," Rue tentatively began. "That's nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn't take away from how much you love her. I've heard the two of you together--and you can't tell me that she learned that high-pitched little laugh from you!"

"Now that was because she stuck her fingers into my nose!" Erik laughed faintly. "But I still worry for her. Grandpa Willen was very, very lucky. They still sing his songs all over Restma, and I've occasionally even heard them in Arkuen or Gehraeth. Still...I worry for Justine. My brother Adhán has been struggling for years...he's the eldest and age is taking what little sight he has. He inherited our father's land, but he's having a hard time and won't take a thing from any of us. Not even me--and if any of us could've gotten through to him, it would be me. I still try...but anyway...I know what can happen. And especially to a girl! And Leah...she knows what it's like to see, and I keep thinking she must be upset...or angry..."

"Erik, she's known about your family for a long time, hasn't she?"

The marksman conceded with a brief silence. "I kept nothing from her," he finally said. "She knew before we married. And she's met Sámeyel and Adhán."

"Then she understood very well that blindness runs in your family. Leah loves you...I don't think she could possibly hold something against you that's not under your control. It's God who chooses if or how a child is born. It was God's choice that I could be born to two mages. And you know what Grandfather Michael says about why He chooses for some to be blind..."

"That it's possible someone might see the grace of God in a man like me," Erik paraphrased.

"Maybe for the people in the Scriptures that grace was shown when they were healed," Rue speculated, "but don't you think that for a lot of the blind, that expression of grace is in what they say and do just as they are? Leah's told me about all the good you've done for her...maybe because you have a different way of judging people--a way that let you see what an amazing lady she is instead of the poverty her father made her live in. A lot of people couldn't recognize that, but you did. Do you really think Leah could lose sight of something so life-altering? And there's something else--don't you think that in a way Leah's already been through it once...with me?"

Erik found himself without a reply.



Over the next week Erik slowly regained the joy in his voice; Rue celebrated silently for him, at the same time reflecting that until her initiation Erik would never discuss such a personal matter with her. Few things could have more effectively impressed her new status upon her than this--and fieldcraft. At times Aruna would join a triad of the initiated, and at others she was placed with Kahbren, a twelve-year-old student Thorn had just recently admitted to the class. It fell upon her to supervise and reinforce the crucial elementary techniques Thorn had given him.

That afternoon, though, Aruna walked with a pair of full Guardians--Alleric the navigator on horseback and his protégé Kalle. Although Alleric now got around the Keep with relative ease, he would almost certainly never enter battle again. He relied upon a walking stick and could no longer run for any length of time. Long treks through the woods pained and tired him; therefore to continue as teacher to Kalle and assistant to Thorn, he always rode on horseback. It mattered little to him that Thorn still had to help him on and off his horse; Alleric had refused to miss a single session once Zarine had released him from her care.

Their triad practiced reconnaissance maneuvers; these long-range scouting missions typically required a navigator. As for Rue, Thorn had suggested that a small, quick-moving Guardian like her would be ideal for intelligence-gathering. Furthermore, if she were dressed in ordinary peasant's clothes, few would immediately suspect a woman of spying--this in spite of the fact that some of the known world's best spies, including in Guardian tradition, were women. It was for this reason that Rue had been ordered to move alone towards the Keep as if to gather information about its comings and goings. Thorn had strongly discouraged such individual forays among the uninitiated students--but required them of Guardians.

The wind blew fierce, snatching insistently, malevolently at her. Alleric suspected it was a precursor to evening storms. Rue struggled to sort out the sounds of possible pursuers from the frantic rustling of leaves and underbrush scattering as if trying to avoid the storm, for Thorn could be tracking her. She focused so intently that she never noticed the slackening of a tiny pressure that might have warned her something was about to give way.

"Aaaaah!" Rue cried out involuntarily, mortified at the momentary lapse even as the first shock of agony hit. The sun attacked her sensitive, weakened eyes with impossibly vicious intensity to which she could bring no focus--just a frightening white-blue-green-brown blur that gave no coherent message besides knifelike pain. Tears streamed uncontrollably as Rue struggled to shut out the assault. She could not move--she needed her hands to search for her lost blindfold but dared not pull them away from her face--she could hardly think--

Something crashed through the brush, no longer making any pretense of stealth. She cursed herself inwardly for letting slip that cry as the last person she would have ever wished to discover her in this moment worriedly demanded, "What happened?!"

"I...I tripped myself!" Rue practically shouted, willing Thorn to go away, wanting anything but to have to reveal the source of her pain to this man, of all Guardians, who had endured so much worse. She would figure out something...maybe she could get one hand free, maybe Kalle would come for her after she got rid of Thorn--

"I never heard you fall!" Thorn accused. "You have to tell me what's really wrong!"

"The wind...it got my blindfold...it's my eyes!" she gasped out, desperately trying to hide the pain and the shame of her helplessness.

"Sit down!" Thorn ordered. He knelt behind her and pulled up the hood of her robe, and with her head down it offered some slight protection--even if not much. "Stay still--give me a moment!" As Thorn worked at--her mind raced too fast for her to wonder what--she heard him snap at someone else, "Back to what you were doing! I've got this--let us be!"

After a tense minute or so, where Rue wept as much from humiliation as from her pain, Thorn said, "Aruna--I can take care of this." Surrendering completely, Rue sensed Thorn slipping back behind her. He put one hand to her shoulder. Once oriented, he brought his hands around, silently commanding her with a finger under her chin to raise her head. When she felt the soft cloth of a blindfold brush across her hands, she lowered them reluctantly. There was another brief stab of pain before Thorn fit the blindfold over her eyes and she gasped despite herself. His fingers swept across her cheeks with surprising tenderness as he prepared to tie the knots.

Returned to near darkness, the pain at last began to fade. Rue tried to stop the incessant stream of tears as she stood, but her success was limited. As her mind cleared somewhat, she suddenly began to ask, "This isn't--"

"It's not," Thorn curtly replied, needing and wanting no further words. He spun her around, firmly clasping her arms. "For God's sake!" he exclaimed, sounding genuinely stung. "Don't you ever try to hide something like that from me again!"

"I just--I didn't want to--I don't know, I don't know...!"

Thorn lowered his voice. "Rue," he gently inquired, "were you trying to protect me from the truth? Don't answer--I know that's what you were thinking. Dear God, you're still trembling! What happened to me is not the most important thing in a situation like this...I can tell your pain was very real! Think about this, please! Would you have just waited for someone else, and let it keep getting worse while you're essentially paralyzed? And don't you think," Thorn continued, his voice shaking now, "that I am the best person to help you? I've dealt with things not unlike that myself! Of course I don't like hearing you in that kind of pain, but you can't refuse my help!

"I know you were in shock. So please...let this be a lesson. You mustn't lie about something like that, because had you been in real danger, the most important thing would have been to get you ready to move as soon as possible." Without warning, Thorn pulled Aruna into his strong embrace, one hand on her back just below the shoulders, the other slipping her hood back up and then gently pressing her head to his chest. His surprising warmth--and the further deepening of her darkness--began the work of soothing her anguished soul. She found it easier to control the trembling that had come with the shock. "It's okay now...it's over...try to let your body relax," he intoned hypnotically. "It's done...be calm, Aruna...what I want you to do is rejoin your triad and try this again, because you must learn how to recover a mission after something goes wrong. As long as the pain isn't crippling, you need to try. Do you think you can do that?" Thorn asked.

"I think so..." Rue whispered. The pain had subsided to a dull, throbbing ache behind her eyes and at her temples.

Thorn let her go. "Very well. Be grateful that you've learned this young, when it won't cost you. After we're through today, I want to talk with you again in my office, and we'll discuss some things for the future. Oh...and Aruna?"

"Yes?"

"If anyone asks what happened--be honest."

"Yes, sir," Aruna mumbled, thoroughly chastened. She drew in a deep breath and set off for her triad's rendezvous point.



Thorn never mentioned the lie again, but had spent quite some time lecturing Aruna in level tones on the necessity of learning to be more clearheaded even when in pain or disoriented. Somehow the omission of her transgression stung even more than another lecture. Thorn then informed her that the second blindfold had quite literally been hidden up his sleeve, tied just above his left elbow. He advised her to do the same as long as her eyes perceived any light. Rue couldn't remember having ever noticed the hidden spare; he showed her how to tie it without a noticeable knot under the loose sleeve of her robe.

"How do you feel?" Grandfather Michael inquired when he and Aruna returned from the evening meal. Before Rue had time to choose a response, he continued, "Thorn told me what happened. You've got to understand, I require it, no matter who it is or how they've been hurt."

"Well...aside from a bit of a headache, I feel better."

"That's good to know." Grandfather Michael sighed. "I didn't even think to warn you of the possibility. Not many of us are born sighted--even fewer have gone through what you are now. You're only the fifth to become a Guardian this way."

"How long will it take to be done with this?" Aruna implored. "I know very well why I'm doing it," she said, fingers tracing the neriskalt on her sword, then the Katurjeskalt at the hilt--the triangular insignia of the Order. "I still believe in it...but I just want this part to be over. After these five months, I feel more like you or any other blind person than someone who for fifteen years could see. I've never felt that so profoundly until today when that little glimpse of light was so damn hostile...it didn't belong to me. There are times I really do miss my sight...but that...I just wanted right then to be completely blind. I really do." She imagined that to anyone outside the Order of Guardians, those words would seem strange or even terrifying--but fewer truths could have been more heartfelt.

"I don't have an answer," he replied. "It seems to differ for everyone, so I don't want to give you false hopes. I can at least say that it did happen to Kestrel and all the others. I wish--for your sake, anyway--that I had some kind of experience of my own to relate to you. It's clear the process has already started, though. I'm told the pain is because your eyes have become photosensitive; they're not used to taking in any but the most minimal light. And the disuse takes away the ability to focus."

"It was terrible," she said. "I just wish Thorn hadn't been the one to find me...I'm sure Kalle would've come up with something--but Thorn--this just had to confirm all his worst fears. I've never felt so pathetic..."

"Come here," Grandfather Michael softly commanded, and Aruna sat next to him on the divan. He drew her close, draping his arm over her shoulders. "I think, more than anything, it hurt him that you tried to brush him off. It was bad enough for him that you were in pain--but worse that you shut him out."

Rue contemplated her shame in silence once more, then said, "God...I really didn't mean to hurt him that way. He trusts me...and I betrayed that."

"Show him that you trust him. If he's already reprimanded you once, he won't want another apology--he'd just as soon never discuss it again. Follow any advice he gave you religiously. Don't say a word unless he asks--just do what he's told you. And talk to him. I know he can be a difficult man sometimes, but try. Thorn is trying very hard to open up to you, even if it doesn't always show. You chose rightly not to discuss what passed between the two of you before your initiation, but a month or so ago, he found the courage to tell me what he did. What Thorn allowed you to see, very few outside his own family have seen since he was first injured. It may be that his healers, Leah, your father--and now you--are the only ones.

"You mustn't ever let Thorn know you've heard this, even if he tells you himself someday, but he described for me once exactly what kind of hell he went through during his illnesses and healing. He thinks that sometimes people didn't realize he was conscious--the only way to tell was if he moved or spoke to them, which he couldn't always do. Some people...including the healers treating him...didn't think about their words, and said things around him that an ill, injured little boy should never have to hear about himself."

"Oh, dear..." Aruna realized immediately what had literally added insult to hellish injury.

"I can only imagine how it broke his heart." Without a single trace of self-pity, Grandfather Michael said, "I know my eyes can be unnerving at first glimpse...I think Thorn always liked me when he was a child because I know how to handle sighted people's reactions to them. But my eyes seem not to bother people who know me for just a short while. For him...I have no firsthand concept of it, but he said the reactions to his appearance were severe, from people who saw him when he was too sick to wear a blindfold. He says people were frightened, revolted, sometimes even intentionally cruel to him. He had a lot of trouble in his youth...I think that besides finding his purpose as a warrior, to this day he feels much safer around the blind. I can tell you, though...your kindness has meant something very special to him--and when you got hurt, he had a chance to stop your pain completely."

"He's always in pain, isn't he?"

"Not very many, even of us, know what he goes through because for the most part he excels at hiding it. But now...over forty years later, not a day goes by when he's completely free of the pain. He never takes anything for it, not even when it's at its worst."

Aruna wondered, "Why not?"

"He doesn't believe in dulling his mind with anything. Haven't you noticed that aside from a small sip of wine with the Eucharist, he abstains completely from strong drink?" Searching her memories, Rue realized she'd never once seen Thorn with the tankard of beer many of the Guardians shared at the evening meal, nor smelled it since her initiation. "He knows the trouble he could get into trying to dull the pain through anything but meditation. That's the only weapon he'll use to ward it off...and he doesn't always succeed on his worst days.

"So perhaps now," Grandfather Michael concluded, "you can understand why he regards you the way he does. He can relate to you in ways that he can't to Erik, Kirian, and me. You're the closest link to his past, the one who best understands how he thinks. He'll always think at least a little like the sighted, and you maybe even more so. But they don't understand his perspective...at least not intimately the way you're starting to. He really does want to help you, even though he opposed our training you. He'll adjust himself to it over time...but you need to make sure he knows he can speak openly with you."