[Flash Back] Javen Vyta: Someone Who Cares

[Javen Vyta]

17th Summer, 498 AV

He was nearing his sixteenth birthday and Javen for all of his youthful enthusiasm felt more like a prisoner then a boy. He had come down with a mild fever yesterday and had been caged in doors ever since. His parents spoke of a sickness in town.

His father was an Assessor - an independent appraiser of goods that trafficked through Sunberth. His mother was a capable accountant, and, more formally, the acceptor of bribes from the interested parties who wanted his father's appraisals to go a little high or a little low.

Don't get greedy, son - that's the real secret son. If someone wants to throw you one coin so you can hike a price by ten take it, if he wants to give ten for a hundred, you politely point him over to the competition. With any luck, your competition will wind up dead and you get to keep on doing business.

Advice. Always more advice. Javen only half-listened to these endless diatribes on the finer points of appraisal. His father had high hopes to get Javen into the business and get established. Mostly, so he could get out of it.

The fact is that Javen was always reading. A book of scriptures for the god Syna was one of his favorite. He loved how they could describe a sunrise so many different ways and all it be the same sunrise.

He was reading this book today, on his bed. His mother was doting on him as he had now been sick for barely a day, but to listen to her he was on his deathbed. A long, boring day that drug on and on is what it had been so far. But, according to the note under his bed, his friend Brado had plans to break him out tonight for some work with Brado's father. Brado's father worked the city gates and was always getting into some trouble. But at the end of the day, Brado's father made more then his father did in a week, and then some.

Javen imagined himself on a team of Doormen - that's what they called themselves anyway, fighting crime int eh streets of Sunberth. The stories that Brado told of his father were heroic and exciting. They sought the worst sorts and sent them packing from Sunberth and they got paid handsomely for what they did. The Boss, Brado didn't know the man's name, only that his Brado's father always called him the Boss, would tell them where to find the men, and they would seek them out like dogs on the hunt.

It certainly sounded better then sitting around looking over carts of junk and rattling off the value of each and every item for a couple of competing shop keepers. Javen was pretty sure that being an appraiser was just about the worst job in Sunberth.

What was more is that no one ever looked twice at Brado, except maybe to nod with respect in his direction. No one ever said it, but they all knew that his father was a Doorman and that commanded respect.

For now though, all Javen could do was wait. His fever wasn't really severe and his over-protective mother had been standing on his last nerve since he woke up.

Tonight was all he could think about, and he couldn't say a word about it.

[Javen Vyta]

17th Summer, 498, Midnight

The knock at Javen's window told him it was time. Like all windows in Sunberth, Javen's was boarded almost completely from the inside. He peered between the cracks and saw Brago waving at him in the alley.

He grabbed his clothes from under his bed - black breeches, black shirt, just like Brado's note had instructed, and slid out of his room. Tip toeing across the house, he unlocked the chain at the door and slipped outside.

"They're waiting at the bar, here, put this on." Brado's voice was hushed but riddled with excitement as he handed over the black cloth. Brado had one wrapped over his face, as well. "We don't want anyone identifying us - first rule of a Doorman."

Javen tied his mask on tightly, a little too tightly. Brado was already running towards the bar and Javen had to almost break into a sprint to catch up.

"Second rule is never use your real name. I'm Prog. You're Dreg." Javen chortled as he said 'Dreg' but in truth, Javen didn't really care. He was already having more fun then he had had in days. "Dad's name is Fang, his boys are inside."

Brado and Javen slipped inside the bar, ignoring a sign with a big red 'X' with the words 'Go Away' scrawled underneath it.

Four large men stood just inside the door. The smallest, though certainly not small by any normal standard, wore a red mask and stood apart from the other men. He patted Brado roughly on the head as they entered.

"Boys, 'is night we got a couple o' hands 'at wanna learn 'da ropes a bit, eh? So, how 'bouts we gets ta know 'em. 'Is one is Prog and 'at one is Dreg. Now, Prog, Dreg, 'ats Grim, Wolf, and Clutch. 'An I's Fang. Only fing you need be knowin' 'at 'is point is 'is. What I say goes. Ya do what yer told and ya don't do nuttin else. We're goin' be bustin' up a bad sort tonigh' an I recon it'll be a fine payday all 'round for roughin' up one lil' runt. Wolf, ya know where we're goin', lead on."

Javen and Brado filled in behind Fang after his nod and the other three men went out ahead of them. As they left the bar, Fang looked down at Brado and said "Swing hard an' make me proud." With that he handed each of them a small wooden club.

The group of six filed across the street quickly, though certainly not discreetly. It was obvious to Javen that while most of Sunberth wasn't foolhardy to be out at night these men weren't afraid of the nights here. Quite the opposite, they were one of the things everyone else was afraid of.

Proud and anxious, Javen's hands sweated profusely making his grip on his club slippery.

Across the street was the Inn. Even though it was open, a single light on, it was empty. The Innkeep bowed his head and lowered his eyes as the six entered and obediantly pointed towards the stairs.

"Third door on the left, an' tell yer Boss 'at I don' wan' no trouble wit' him." The innkeeper spoke, mousely as he stared at the floor, idly wiping a glass mug. Not saying a word, Wolf continued right to the stairs in long measured steps that were muffled by the cloth padding wrapped around his shoes.

The Innkeepers behavior seemed odd to Javen, but refreshing. The same innkeeper had thrown a rotten apple at him last time he had walked in here to get a small keg for his father. Most of the street knew he was an angry drunk and that he was drunk all of the time.

At the third door, Wolf stopped still, looking to Fang. The other two lined up behind him. Fang looked to the boys and nodded towards Wolf. Brado and then Javen each filed in behind Clutch and waited.

Fang lifted his mace and nodded.

Wolf kicked the door in without an effort and stormed into the room, his knotted wooden cudgel raised over his head. Grim tried to duck around the big man and get the first blow in with Clutch trying to jump over both of them. Brado ran inside right behind, ducking under Grim's legs. Javen, momentarily shocked with the sudden violence stopped.

Then he felt Fang's mace jab him in the ribs and the jolt sent him reeling into the room.

On the floor, already a bloody mess, was a feeble looking man in an over coat that may been green before all of the blood, now it was just a mess. His face wasn't wholly distinguishable except for his wide yellow eyes. He was huddled, unmoving on the floor, his assailants now circled around him. His lips were moving quickly but he said nothing.

Fang sauntered in last, confident and over-bearing. He parted between Grim and Clutch and knelt down beside the man, conscious to stay out of the mess.

"Ya got fair warnin' ta leave town an' ya didn't. I don' need tell ya what 'is goin' cost ya now. If ya wanna beg fer life tho', I'll hear ya out - dunno what good it'll do tho, but ya can if ye wanna." His gruff voice was condescending and direct, as though he were speaking to a child caught stealing a fruit.

The man's lips kept moving and Brado was pointing the man's hand, which was fingering something on a necklace. Fang's head snapped to the man's and his hand fired out with blinding speed, wrenching a small bronze disk free. He threw the blood spattered disc across the room, his eyes wide with fury.

"YOU WERE WORKIN' A SPELL! YOU STUPID MAGIC LOVIN' FOOL!" Fang lifted his mace with two hands over his head, shaking with rage.

And the bloody man smiled, lifted one hand, and said one word that Javen heard clearly - "Plague."

Fang fell to the floor, dropping the mace onto himself in the process. Immediately he began hacking violently, blood expelling from his mouth and nose, running in streams from his ears.

Shocked the group stood by and watch, Brado fell to his knees beside his father, and then they all in turn began falling down. The blooded man pointed and spoke and Wolf fell. Then Clutch, and then Grim, in quick succession, all of them writhing on the floor in spasms.

Javen stood up just as the man pointed to Brado and again uttered 'Plague" and Brado tore the mask from his face as he fell, screaming.

Javen wasn't even sure what he was doing - the man looked up at him in surprise, suddenly aware of the by standing over him now, club raised high. The man was lifting his finger and Javen brought it down and the momentary scream from the figure on the floor was all of the confirmation he needed.

Javen ran from the Inn, completely ignoring the Innkeeper and the two other armed men who recoiled behind the bar as he escaped. Running outside, Javen ripped the mask from his face, vomiting into the street. He was crying, he was scared, as he wiped his face he realized his hands were covered in blood and now he was horrified, as well.

"Calm down, kid, I' known yer father fer nearly twenty years. You wash up in the horses trough and you get home. I ain' tellin nobody you was 'ere, but ya need be gettin' gone fas'." It was the Innkeeper, acutely sober and more kindly then Javen even knew he was capable of.

Javen nodded violently, his throat choked shut in his emotional state and dunk his face into the stagnant trough beside him, rinsing his hands quickly, and then turned to run home. He looked back and he could already see horses and torches approaching the Inn fast.

I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe this happened. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do next. He was weeping and breathing when he walked into his house, his mother waiting just inside the door as he walked in - her eyes instantly changing from seething anger to absolute terror as she saw the watery blood running off of his clothes.

He couldn't say a word, he was shaking in fear and shock, he collapsed into her arms and everything went black.

[Liminal]

It was a long, long time that Javen remained unconscious, floating in and out of the darkness. There were random images, voices heard down a long, foggy tunnel, strangely painful sensations that lasted only a split second. It was all confused and tangled, and no sense could be made of it.

Finally, Javen's eyes blinked open. He was on a cot in a bare room that he didn't recognize, and sunlight was streaming through a half-shuttered window. There was no sign of his mother or father; indeed, the only person in the room was a portly man who was reading a book. The book alone would have marked him as a wealthy man, but he was also very well-dressed. At the sounds of Javen waking, he put the book down and walked to the young man's bedside.

"Ah, so you've woken up," he said. "I wasn't sure that you were going to. It's been...almost four weeks now. You're a very sick man, Javen Vyta, and you're lucky to be alive. Here, drink this." He pushed a cup of some sort of steaming liquid into Javen's hands. "And then -- if you can -- tell me what happened to you. We've been working to keep you among the living, but I've never seen this set of symptoms before."

[Javen Vyta]

Javen looked the man over, straining to recognize him. A hundred different thought ran through his head, not the least of which was to run. Yes, he wanted to run.

Trying to move his legs was a futile effort, he was very weak.

The man was wealthy, he had coin, and if he had coin in Sunberth, he had influence and power. His father had spoken of a cardinal rule in dealing with men like this:

When dealing with wealth, assume nothing. Avoid the truth if it will cost you anything, but do not lie.

"Where are my father and mother? " Javen was desperate to change the subject while he thought about what to do. His head felt slow, like he was too weak to concentrate. Groggy and stiff - he wasn't even positive if he was awake or not.

The portly man stared at him calmly and said nothing, patiently awaiting an answer to his question. Changing the subject wouldn't get him anywhere here.

Certainly his father had no qualms with lies among competition, or virtually anyone else for that matter. But if his father knew anything, it was how to save his own hide.

Perhaps some measure of the truth was appropriate here.

"I - I remember something. Like it was a dream - a nightmare. I am still afraid." Javen took a deep breath. "I was with Brado. We were supposed to help out his father with a job. I can remember, something - terrible. I remember - " He cut short as a spasm wracked his body. The pain surged in waves that seemed to overwhelm his senses. He heard pain, saw pain, tasted it.

"I remember the dark man - and he killed everyone. I do not know who he was. I didn't... I was afraid - I was terrified. I remember him killing... I ran. I ran home."

Javen looked to the man only a moment and then the spasms began again. Everything went black and the pain was a backdrop to his unnatural sleep.

The last words he thought he said were "It was power" but in truth, the memory of words and screams blend well together and are not easily separated.

[Liminal]

The man seemed poised to respond, but Javen passed out again before he could hear the words on the man's lips. The darkness returned, punctuated with flashes of incoherent images and inscrutable sounds.

*****

He awoke again in the same room, in the same bed. It was later -- the shadows cast by the light coming through the partly-open window were longer now -- but otherwise, nothing seemed to have changed.

Once again, the man put his book down and walked over to Javen's bed. He looked at him with an expression that might have been concern and stroked his chin once.

"To answer your first question, my name is Montgomery. I have some small training in the healing arts, and I know your father. He, how shall I say, did me a favor once, and he asked me to return in kind." He spoke quietly, his voice unusually deep.

"And you, Javen, have been the subject of a magical attack. You're quite lucky to be alive, as I think I mentioned before, and even luckier that you managed to tell me what happened the last time you awoke. I've been able to halt the progression of the injury for now, but I don't have anything like the skill to reverse it or cure it." The man smiled sadly with one corner of his mouth.

"Drink some more." Again, he put the cup of steaming liquid into Javen's hands.

[Javen Vyta]

Staring at the man, at the sly smile, Javen's mind raced to insert implication where he knew too little to puzzle out the meaning. The man knew something more, that much was as obvious as the sun at midday.

He didn't answer where my father and mother were. And he knows.

"Magic - like wizards and witches, stuff? I read books and I know this sort of stuff. But, if the man that attacked me was a wizard - what can I do? Am I going to die? Is there anything I can do to get better."

And then the sudden realization came to him - and fear shattered what thoughts he could muster.

"Is the wizard still alive? I mean - I, err they couldn't kill a wizard could they? Only wizards and knights can kill a wizard - is he still alive. Is he ... is he going to kill me?"

Javen began to sob, the realization that the man in black, the wizard, may still be alive - alive and looking for him. This was suddenly more terrifying then the very real consideration that his parents may themselves, be injured or dead.

Always take care of yourself first. His father's words. Javen understood them clearly now.

Killing is ugly business. Of course, dying is terrible business. You come to face with a choice like that and you have to know - there is no choice at all. You kill. The voice of Javen's father now seemed like more of a haunting then a remembered lecture. Why did all of these little words of wisdom start surfacing now. Maybe, somewhere, this was his father watching over him, even in the smallest of ways.

Mustering a fracture of determination, a will to survive, he stopped his tears and looked Montgomery in the eyes, "What must I do? Is there a way out of this?"

A coldness swelled in him then. He was suddenly very alone. At the same time, he was very comfortable in this solitude. He was sick, dying maybe, but he knew, somehow, he could find a way to live.

Above all else, he had to find a way out.

[Liminal]

The same sad smile came to Montgomery's face. "You're dying, Javen," he said, the voice even softer than before. The light was beginning to grow dimmer; dusk was falling outside.

"I don't know how long you have. Months, maybe even years. I've slowed it considerably, but I can't stop it." The man gently put his hand on Javen's back. "It's a plague of some kind. I've put some protection on myself, but for most people, it will probably be contagious."

He stood slowly, and stepped to the window. Fading light fell on his squinting brown eyes. "I don't know about the wizard, although I think it likely that he killed everyone he really cared to kill. Regardless, you're in hiding now, so to speak -- we're well outside of Sunberth. Your parents are in hiding as well, and probably aren't within a hundred miles of here." He laughed slightly. "Your parents know how to take care of themselves."

Montgomery turned back toward Javen, and now there was sadness again on his face. "I don't know how to cure you, Javen. And I don't know who could. Some deity, perhaps, or a very high-level wizard. But you'd have to find one, and I'm afraid I'm not on good terms with any suitable gods or magicians. You should regain some of your strength soon, but I've done most of what I can do for you."

[Javen Vyta]

Javen took a moment to absorb what Montgomery had said.

He would have to make his own way. That much was certain. One step at a time - he had to be able to take care of himself for now.

I don't know how long you have. Months, maybe even years

The words rang out to him now, reverberating, he had some time.

"I understand" he said weakly. "I would like it if you would show me how to make some of these medicines you've been giving me. I'll leave here as soon as I can. I truly appreciate all that you have done for me. I will repay you, if I ever can."

Javen slid out of bed, weak but ready to begin the road ahead. He looked to Montgomery, hopeful that the man's generosity would stretch just a little further.

[Liminal]

The man nodded. "Perhaps we will meet again, Javen. But in the meantime, take this."

He reached into an inside pocket of his coat and withdrew a glass vial. A green, cloudy liquid swirled inside. "Bar grass, sea lavender, blessingflower petals -- and Barney Watson's Famous Old-Time Gin, although I'm fairly sure that any similar alcohol would work. This is what I've been giving you. It's a good combination for slowing the progress of a disease, especially a contagious one. Not a cure, mind you, but a temporary slowing." He handed the vial to Javen.

"And this," he said, producing a second vial, "is pure splinter-blossom oil, with a touch of sea salt. It's a potent immunity potion...but an unpredictable one. I've used it dozens of times, so I know it works for me. But for some people it doesn't do anything at all -- no protection at all -- while others have a severe reaction from it that can be fatal. There's absolutely no way to tell without testing it on someone. Splinter-blossom will set you back several mizas, so don't be too profligate with it."

He handed the second vial to Javen. "What of your possessions you had with you when you were brought to me are in the next room. I'd recommend staying here one more night, but if you feel well enough to leave, you may do so."

[Javen Vyta]

Javen nodded, accepting the gifts, and despite all of the generosity he had seen so far, found himself waiting for the catch.

Some people in this world are really just kind-hearted and generous. The problem is that they look just like the thieves who are only generous when they are robbing you blind. I don't trust a generous man - he's either bad at business or just plain bad.

Saying nothing, nodding, and completely lost in what to do next, Javen looked down at the floor, at his feet. His psindly legs, far too thin, thinner then they ought to be, stretched up. It was an unnatural weakness that he felt. A slovenly, oily sense that coated his insides like fish oil.

The medicines - bar grass, sea lavender, blessingflower petals and alcohol - he would need that. Splinter-blossom with sea salt - he would need that too. Others have a severe reaction from it that can be fatal.

All of these tools began to simmer quickly in Javen's mind as he shuffled into the other room. Plots began to percolate like a tea coming to a brew.

If you have nothing to sell, buy someone else's wares and sell them for more. If you can't do that - then sell nothing at all, but sell it for as much as you can. You'd be surprised how many people will give you money for nothing but a smile and a tall story.

It was time to go out and make his own way - and maybe he could use his sorry state to his advantage. Maybe he could do more then just die - he might as well try. Pulling on his old clothes, sagging in the sleeves and waist, all but hanging from his frame, he looked once more to Montgomery.

"I appreciate what you've done - truly. It's time I be going - I need to be going - I need to move again before my body dies right out from under me. I need to find... someone, anyone, who might cure this - as soon as I possibly can."

Javen packed up his small handful of goods into a knapsack, which, with some small exertion, he threw over his back and made for the door. Looking back at Montgomery, he nodded with approval.

It is possible that Montgomery was one of those rare, genuinely good people in the world. Javen believed that may be the case. Because of that, however, he knew he could never come back here. Javen was not a good person, he didn't see people with his heart - he never really had before, and he certainly wasn't going to start now.

People were tools. And while it might break his heart to use this man who had helped him so much, given the need, he would do it none-the-less. So, for both of them, this was for the best.

West - follow the setting sun and move west - one step at a time.