The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 6a

The man that walks his own road, walks alone.

—Arkendian proverb.

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ON BROKEN OATHS

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In the air beside him, Harric heard Fink's unmistakably graveled voice. "Hey, kid," it whispered.

Harric glanced around, but saw nothing.

"Didn't want to spook you." Fink's hunched black form appeared beside him in the straw.

Harric rose and hurriedly closed the gate to his stall, glancing up and down the stables to be sure no one approached.

"How can you be here?" Harric said. "It's day."

"Not quite. Dawn broke over the horizon, but it's not over the crags, here. We have some time."

"Actually, this isn't a great time. Lots going on here."

Fink studied him with pupilless white eyes. "The girl. She's upset you."

Harric looked at the bat-like creature before him. He opened his mouth to speak. He closed it. "You wouldn't understand."

"Oh. Well, sure. If you mean I wouldn't understand a girl twice your size kissing you and saying don't you dare kiss me or I'll hurt you, then, yeah. You're right."

Harric gave him a sharp look. "You were here for that?"

"But if you mean I wouldn't understand how you're in love with her but can't act on it even though she acts like she loves you because she's under the spell of that ring, and since it's not actual love you have to bottle your feelings even when she starts rubbing on you, so you're basically walking around with a broken heart and a cob like a sledge handle, then yeah, I don't get that, either."

Fink quirked his bald black head to one side and looked at Harric.

"Okay," said Harric. "Maybe you would understand a little."

"A little, he says. They don't call us tryst servants for nothing, kid."

"What do you mean? A tryst servant. That's what you are?"

Fink nodded. A tryst servant is what they call the moon servant of an Unseen magus—though in my case I should say moon partner, not servant." He leered, needle teeth chillingly bright. "You freed me from that."

"What does 'tryst' have to do with anything? In Arkendian, tryst means 'secret romantic encounter'." An image of a bunch of bat-like Finks crawling about delivering love letters made Harric let out a short laugh.

"That's exactly what it means, kid. In the old days on the continent, one of the first things some novices did the day they became a Black Magus was to have their tryst servant lay a charm on the prettiest boy or girl they could find. It's very unpopular with magi of the other moons, so they outlawed it in the Iberg Compact. But you of all people don't need that; your big girlfriend can hardly keep from kissing you—"

"You could help her!" The words exploded from Harric in a shock of realization.

"Help her kiss you? I guess I could. I mean, I could get naughty if you really—"

"No! I mean help get that ring off her finger!"

Someone coughed outside the stables, and Harric jumped. He peered out to see Lane trudge past a door, calling someone to get a wheelbarrow. Lane disappeared, and Harric turned to Fink.