Distance

Summary: The loss and reclamation of hope: Arram Draper vs Numair Salamain.

The first few days were the worst. It wasn't that bad in the throne room. Varice thought it was the worst when Ozorne was staring down at him, radiating cold fury, saying: "Get out now," but it wasn't, really. He could deal with that. That was survival, right? Emerald fire to black fire, the Emperor Mage against the youngest black robe mage ever, the first in decades. Just enough to get out, to get him out of the castle in one piece. It wasn't bad when he was ransacking his study, dumping notebooks and food and clothes into a bag. It was bad when he had to leave his books, his research. He hoped that Lindhall Reed would take all his books. As a last thought, he set fire to his desk, with all of his research, his work, his papers, his notes on spells. That was hard. He stood at the door, watching it burn, before Varice's hurried whisper drew him away.

It wasn't hard to get on the boat, still in his black robe, going below to change. It was hard to stuff the robe deep into the bottom of his pack, keeping it out of vanity, out of a final link to his past, to something, to something that meant something to him. Something Ozorne couldn't take away.

Escaping Carthak alive...now that, that was hard.

There were close run-ins. He didn't dare use his Gift, in case Ozorne's mages spotted him. He couldn't go home, either, because that would just put his family in danger. Arram Draper was, in short, very much alone.

And to be truthful, he wasn't Arram Draper anymore, either. So when it came to people who defended Arram Draper, that number was down to zero.

He thought about his mother, sometimes, when he was lying awake. The location varied. Sometimes it was the hayloft of some forgotten inn, where he hoped nobody would notice him. Sometimes it was the hull of a ship that would accept the coins he made from his street-magic, all tricks. He didn't steal, money or food. There were one or two women in town that knew him, under different names, thought he was running from a woman, or that he was a criminal in another village, or that he was poor or mentally disabled. He acted paranoid enough to warrant it, sometimes, checking the people in a room before he walked in, alert for the sparkle of magic or, truth be told, dark skin. This far north all the people looked alike. He was lucky he looked like them.

"They beat you? Surprise. My parents beat me too," Varice had said. He couldn't forget the look on her face as she said it. He wondered if he looked like that, now: bitter and hunted and defiant.

He thought of how, when it snowed, his mother would stay inside and knit, her hair falling in her face as she concentrated on the work. He thought of his father, who always worked late and always came in tired, thought of his parents sitting at a table together, across from each other, the wood between them like a desert, a chasm that couldn't be crossed. He thought about marriage and love and the small sounds things made in the night. Sometimes he didn't think love was real.

Varice wasn't love. Varice was--Varice was a lack of better things to do. That wasn't right, either, because Varice was charming and funny and sarcastic and shallow and honest about it. She was endlessly fascinating and erotic and worldly. But after he slept with Varice all he could think of was the distance between them, was the kitchen table with the single candle, separating his parents so they could no longer touch, so everything was out of touch. He thought about magic and his blood flowing slowly through his veins and thought: someday, all these things will make sense.

He tried not to think about the future because of all the things he wouldn't have. He tried not to think about the past, and all the things he had lost. The past was harder. Somewhere back there was his magic, his black robe, his Gift, his life, everything he had worked for. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't throw the black robe away.

When he woke up, he woke up exhausted, his face on the floor. He lifted his head and blinked, wiping the remnants of dirt off his face.

"You idiot," someone near him said, and he blinked again.

"Hello?" he ventured, but the taste of dirt on his lips made him wipe his face.

A shoe entered his line of vision. "You idiot!" a voice said again, sounding disgusted.

"Varice?" he asked muzzily, trying to roll over, but there was something on the other side of his head--what was that...?

"What? No," the voice said. He blinked and sat up, cursing as he banged his head on something.

"You don't even know where you are?" the voice asked again. He could have sworn it was Varice. The sarcasm was perfect.

"It's been a very long day," he said, blinking as his vision cleared. He was sitting just under a table, in the floor of what looked like a bar. He ducked his head out from under and looked around, making no attempt to get up. "Where am I? Just a refresher course, you understand." He shook his head. "I don't think there was any alcohol...?"

"If you drank anything, it wasn't in here," the woman said. She sat back. She had short hair and large eyes; he couldn't tell anything else about her. The room was dark except for sunlight that streamed in round windows on one side, making her face shadowed. "I don't know who you are, but you're an idiot to have this on you." She threw something at him: he caught it and grimaced. He didn't need to unfold the black wad of fabric to know what it was.

"You went through my things," he said dryly. He saw them now, his rucksack lying on the floor a few feet away.

"Yes, I went through your things," she said. "You were lucky I was in here last night and that I was the only one to do so."

"So what?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant as he stuffed the fabric back in his rucksack. "Spare clothes. Nothing suspicious about that. I'm a magician, remember?" He pulled the rest of his tricks out of the bag: handkerchiefs in bright colors, shiny fake coins, a pack of cards.

"I don't know what you are," she said. "But I know that's more than just spare clothes. I have some Gift myself, you know. And the Sight as well."

He winced inwardly. Damn.

"That's not just a robe," she said, meeting his eyes. "That's a black robe."

He tried out a variety of responses in his mind, from oh, you're not colorblind to oh shit to I stole it, and came out with: "Yeah, so?"

"Yeah, so. Do you know how you got in here, or did you nasty fall knock that out too? I'll give you a refresher course, since you asked. You are on a ship. The Lady Magnolia, in fact, set for Port Leggand. You were, in fact, transferred from The Thief's Mistress. I trust you remember that much?"

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. The Thief's Mistress had looked promising enough. They were just a dinnerboat and show who needed a resident magician. It seemed harmless enough...at least until the Carthaki showed up.

"You transferred over in the middle of the night, as the two ships met up to join supplies. When the Captain's men found you in the bar and had no record of you coming on board, they weren't very happy."

He remembered that, too. He'd boarded silently, climbing up the rope to the sides and sneaking in a porthole. He'd just had time to change out of his wet clothes before he saw someone coming. Bars were, above all else, inconspicuous places. In bars you could hide, sit in a corner by yourself and not be noticed. Except by the bouncers. Damn over-achiever bouncers. Most of them were big guys, so thick they could barely write their name, but not these two.

"You were lucky I was here," the woman continued. "After they knocked you out they were going to throw you overboard. Lucky for you, I am a woman of principles and some concern for the immediate safety of others, so I said you were my drunk friend."

"I'm overjoyed," he said, lowering his head. He could feel all this going bad. He could feel it...

"I was, of course, wondering why someone with a Gift like yours would be lying about passed out in bars, sneaking aboard ships and pretending to be a street magician as well," she said. "I'm sure if you can provide me with a satisfactory explanation..." She let the sentence dangle, and leaned back in her chair.

They sat in silence. "Can we not talk about it?" he asked, looking up at her.

"No," she said shortly.

"Worth a try," he mumbled. "I'm...on the run, from someone." That was true enough.

"And that," she said, kicking his rucksack. "That is yours?"

He bit his tongue, debating lying. It was foolish to keep it, it really was. After six months of hiding and lying and changing his name every three weeks and going from job to job and never, never daring to touch his Gift just in case there was someone out there, six months of never being full and never having enough to eat and leaving inns in the middle of the night if someone dark-skinned came in, six months of loneliness and tiredness and sleeping wherever he found himself, six months of hell--

The black robe had always been everything. The only period in his life he'd actually done for himself, worked for himself, the one thing in his life he held as the most important, the most sacred, even more so in this time when it was worthless. He couldn't fight for himself, because there was nothing left to fight for. But he could fight for the one thing in his life that meant something.

"Yes," he said, finally, because it was true.

She let out a low whistle. "Then I know who you are," she said simply. "You're Arram Draper, the renegade mage from Carthak--"

Before she could finish the sentence he had leaped at her, pulling a knife out of his boot and going for her throat. She fought back, unexpectedly: she looked short, but her arms were pure muscle as she met his blow, dagger to dagger. But he was cornered, and he fought like an animal cornered. There was no grace, no finesse in his movements as the two wrestled to the floor, kicking and punching and jabbing with the blades. Once she was pulled to the floor she pinned him, easily. His arms and legs were too thin. With her weight pinning his arms down, he could feel the skin stretch across his ribs as he breathed.

"That was stupid," she said. She wasn't even out of breath.

"Let me go," he said, his voice low. "Let me go and you'll never see me again, let me go and I won't kill you--"

"No, let's do this the right way," she said, tightening her grip on his arms. The sharp intake of breath was indicitave of pain. "One. You're not going to use magic, are you, because you're afraid someone will recognize your Gift. Two. You cannot beat me in a physical fight. Not happening. The end. Three. You are going to listen to me if I have to pin you down the whole time, because I can help you."

"Help me?" His words came out in a strangled, breathless laugh. "Help me!? Hah, you're funny! Help me do what? Escape from Carthak? Escape the Emperor's spies? Good luck with that! Give me protection? Like to see you try! No country on this planet wants anything to do with me after what Ozorne's had circulated, the lies and the list of crimes and the reward on my head--"

Another jerk on his arms silenced him. "Maybe you're out of world affairs," she said dryly, "But I am in a position to help you. As of late, Tortall and Carthak have been...less than friendly toward one another."

"So what am I?" he asked. "Bait? You want to negotiate with them using me as a bartering chip?"

"I said I'd help you, not hand you over," she retorted, applying more pressure on her hold as emphasis. "I am in a position to offer you sanctuary from Ozorne in Tortall."

Sanctuary--?

"It's not possible," he said, flatly.

"You have obviously not met Jonathan and Thayet," she said.

"Johathan and Thayet--the king and queen?"

"The same," she said shortly. "Can I let you up or are you going to attack me again?"

"Let me up," he said, and she released him from her pin.

He sat up slowly, rubbing the sore places on his arms. "Gods, you're scrawny," she said, eyeing him disdainfully.

"Sorry I'm not presentable," he muttered, checking his elbows. "I've not exactly been living on milk and honey the past six months--"

"Do you know the price on your head?" she asked.

"No," he said shortly, not meeting her eyes.

"Your weight in gold," she said, and he looked up, shocked. She added dryly, "but of course that's not what it used to be--"

"This is madness," he said, sinking back against the wall. "Nobody can afford to give me sanctuary. I'll be shot down within a week."

"I think you're still misunderstanding the nature of this sanctuary," she said. "We're not only protecting you. You're protecting us."

"I'm--what?" he asked. "In case you haven't noticed, I can't even protect myself."

"You are a black robe mage," she said. "One of, oh, what is it, eight? Eight in the world? You take an oath to use that magic to serve the king and country and we'll give you sanctuary."

"I won't use my magic like that," he said sharply. "I'd rather not use it at all if I'm going to be some war mage of the king, some puppet of power--"

"Oh, shut up," she snapped. "We're not asking you to wipe out entire cities. We're not even at war. But some of us think that you could be useful to have around. Besides, your Emperor Ozorne is far from our friend at the moment."

He met her eyes. For the first time, he noticed they were deep blue, almost violet. "You really mean it?" he asked. "Permanent sanctuary?"

"On my honor," she said. "That's not something to be taken lightly, you know."

"Who are you to offer a deal like that?"

She grinned, her face caught in a square of sunlight. "The King's Champion," she said. "A good thing you finally turned up, too. I've been tracking you for weeks."

"You've been--what?" he asked, caught off guard. "You've been tracking me? Up here?"

"All along the coast," she said. "I was sent to bring you back to King Jonathan, willingly or not. Good thing you're coming willingly."

"Ozorne will have you all killed too," he said, simply. "He's not like normal people, he'll do anything to get revenge--"

"Sounds pretty normal to me," she said. "Besides, he can't go against an entire country. Tortall is too strong. This isn't some random group of people, Arram, this is the King and Queen and me, as well--"

"Not Arram," he said.

She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

"Numair," he said, standing up. "Numair Salamain."

She stood up as well. She was quite a bit shorter than him, her stocky figure all muscle. "Mages and their fancy names," she muttered, but held out her hand. "Alanna, the Lioness."

They shook hands, holding for a moment longer than necessary.The handshake seemed like a bridge, stretching across the chasm between them. For once, Numair allowed himself to hope. Alanna grinned. "Welcome to Tortall," she said.