Algernon Black

(Chapter 60) A Man's Confession

"The boy you asked for has arrived." A servant announced to the back drop of
ominous crashing night waves.

"Bring him," Devane ordered, stacking aside some documents as his doors opened to a poor sight.

The child from the orphanage walked in with very controlled movement, so that the scabs on his back would not stretch and bleed.

"I would offer you a seat, but I know how painful it is to sit after such a thing." Devane said and instead offered a plate of food.

The boy looked down skeptically, but when the aroma of seasoned chicken wafted into his nose he immediately began to feast.

"Are they not feeding you enough?" Devane asked, after a few moments of quietly watching the boy scarf down.

"Of course not." He spat, through a mouth full of chicken. "Why would they feed army fodder like us enough?"

"Is that what you think of yourself?" Devane asked, handing the boy a napkin for the grease dripping down his chin. "Army fodder?"

The child hesitated to accept the cloth. "What else would you let us be?"

"What is it you would be if you had the choice?" Devane asked back. The boy paused to think. "Back on the streets starving, and begging for food along with every other abandoned child not in the orphanages? Or would you be a hero, like the one you were when you protected your friends?"

The boy lowered his plate and met Devane's eyes. The advisor could instantly tell he had been right in his assumption. "What is your name?"

"Kurr."

"And what made you have to be the hero that day, Kurr?"

"You really care?" Kurr asked. It was a rarity that anyone cared what an orphan said. In fact, it was the first time an adult ever took an interest in him outside of his training. Devane nodded and offered the boy a glass of water.

"One of the guards," Kurr said, taking the glass. "He kept worrying the girls. But we couldn't say anything to anyone that cared. So me and some of the stronger kids switched beds with the girls he was bothering and one night he tried to sneak in, so we attacked him." He spoke without a hint of remorse for the assault but undertones of sympathy for the girls. "He said we were trying to escape, that we made some elaborate plan to lure him in but we were just trying to keep him out." Kurr drank the water despite his emotions clotting his throat as he had long ago learned how to swallow his emotions.

"Which guard?" Devane asked.

Kurr shrugged. "They all look the same behind the armor, but I gave him a broken arm and a bad cut on his side."

Devane made a note of it, though he was already certain of which guard it was.

"And how are your wounds healing?"

Kurr shrugged again. "It itches."

"Don't scratch them," Devane advised. "If it gets infected it will only grow." He looked down at the boy meaningfully. "And an infection grown to big can only be burned away."

Kurr nodded though he felt the words weren't really meant for him.

"You're a brave child," Devane remarked but gazed into his fire, "And you'll be a good leader one day. We'll need that in these desperate times to come."

"Are you talking about the rumor?" Kurr asked. "About some war with a boy in black?"

"So even you've heard of it." Devane sighed as there was no hope of containing the gossip, now that it leaked so far down even the children heard of it.

"Do you think we'd ever be able to stand up to him?" Kurr lamented. "We're just kids."

"Every great fighter there ever was started as a child," Devane recited. "But it was in how they choose to grow that made them heroes." The advisor turned away from the fire back to the boy. "Have you decided in which direction you'll grow?"

Kurr looked down at his empty plate. "I won't grow much with how small the portions you give us are."

"I'll see to that," Devane promised. "And I'll see to the other matter as well. So do your best in perfecting your magic, and learning to fight, so next time someone gives you a scar you take their hands."

Kurr nodded, and Devane gestured for the guard to take him, but before the boy left he had one more question.

"What are you trying to be?" Kurr asked. "You don't seem like a hero."

Devane regathered the documents he set aside. "I'm trying to do as little evil as possible in the pursuit of good."

"Is that working?"

Devane looked over the boy. One of the lashes had reached across his collarbone and peeked through his shirt in a permanent scar the child's skin. "No." He confessed.