Chapter 3:

“You’ve only been recovering for four days, and were knocked out for the first two,” Ameris protested.

“I can’t just lay here,” Laren pointed out, “I stayed abed all of yesterday because of your advice, I feel fine now.”

“You not once mentioned anything about getting out of bed,” she said through her teeth, her hands still firmly planted atop the blankets. His limbs ached to move, but he did not have enough strength to push both her and the blankets off yet.

He could have sworn he mentioned it at least, or was it in his head? From what he did remember since waking up after the white plague, he did not talk much. He did not remember much either. It was running from Calihara, the beating, then Ameris. There was something he didn’t remember, a large something.

“You’re doing it again,” Ameris sighed.

“Sorry,” Laren laughed. He wondered if it sounded forced. She told him to act a thespian: when things were not fine, to pretend they were. The things that triggered them were different than for other people, others would find it strange. Strange things were not accepted, most especially from an unfamiliar face.

“Pay attention to what is around you. Don’t disappear into your head, no one can follow there, not even if you wanted them to.” She sighed, “You maybe can get away with it now. Blame it on your family’s death. That won’t last you long though.”

The boy nodded. He knew. Mourning was not something that should interfere with life. Necessary, but… there were always things that needed to be done, there would be far more deaths if one mourned too much just for one, or many, in his false family’s case. He decided eight was a good number, four brothers and two sisters and a father and mother. That was the number of siblings added to Errien’s father’s household, he had counted, in his last visit to them, how long ago had that been?

If he counted the actual number, no one would believe him, or if they did, they would wonder why they had never heard of the family with such a large number. He smiled to himself.

“Think when you’re alone,” Ameris scolded.

Laren looked up and gave an easy smile, “Maybe I wouldn’t get lost in thought if I were allowed to get up.”

She gave an exasperated sigh, “You have only been here for four days since you collapsed, two of which you were dead asleep,” she repeated.

“The body can only be strong if asked to be strong,” he tried to reason, a quote Errien’s father often used.

He just wanted to move.

“Fine,” Amaris relented. He made her sigh a lot. He wondered if he was special in that regard.

She began pulling off the blankets, and with each layer he felt warmer, it was one of the stranger feelings he had had.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position, it took more effort than he thought it should. She said he had been recovering for four days, yet before he had been able to walk through a crowd to her.

Ameris gave a strange jerk, her voice a forced calm, “Where are you wounds?”

Laren furrowed his eyebrows and looked at his arms, his torso, he stopped. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth. He looked up at the girl, confusion sweeping through him. Didn’t this girl have any sense at all? No embarrassment? She was either a medicine woman or a w***e to be so at ease seeing a man’s body.

She was still staring at him, the brief look of horror now set to confusion, almost a rival of his own.

Wounds, wounds, she had made an exclamation about wounds. He didn’t see any. He was just skinny. Bones poking out skinny. No wonder she was so insistent on feeding him.

“What about wounds?” he asked.

Her eyes did not focus, she was not looking at him, she was in memory as she said, “You were covered in bruises, awful and large, with scabs all over. Large bumps on your head. That does not heal in four days.”

He was a demon afterall. ‘Ice-wraith’ he had heard one of his assailants call out before they all closed in. He did not remember much before the beating, he did not want to, but that was not the first time he had been called such, or been treated such. He shrugged it off, “Maybe you’re the same.”

“I’m not,” she murmured. Her eyes focusing again, “But we are similar, more so than coincidence.”

Laren gave a hint of a smile, “Does that mean I have the right to ask you for some clothes?”

Her eyes widened a fraction, and she left the room, but not before calling back, “I will, but get back into bed. I don’t want you collapsing again.”

He complied, and pulled a blanket atop himself, yet as the door closed, he got up once more, stretching his limbs that had succumbed to bedrest so easily. He stood and walked around the room, feeling slightly strange as he strutted somewhere unfamiliar in nothing but a cloth for his nethers. He was surely a strange sight.

He kept his demon vision alert in case any one approached the room, and there were a few times where he rushed towards the bed, and pulled the blanket over himself, only for that bundle of heat to pass by the door.

Eventually fatigue and nerves at being found naked convinced him to once more get into the bed, and pull a blanket atop himself. He stared at the ceiling, and listened to the creaks of the inn. It was not well taken care of, it seemed. The boards above him gave creaks every time someone walked over it. There was shouting and laughter somewhere, indicating thin walls. Most inns held a tavern on the lower levels, yet the better built ones allowed for restful sleeping from the guests. He searched the brightness around him, and yet could not find Ameris, she was too far away and blocked by too many things. He could hardly use his demon vision to see beyond the room. Even when he had paced it, it had taken much concentration to focus beyond the door.

And he was tired, and his muscles were worked, and he once more fell to sleep.

-+-

Adulavera closed the door behind her, hoping the boy would listen to her words. She didn’t think him stupid enough to go outside of the room, and she thanked the stars and the goddess of luck that he seemed to have shame for being unclothed, that would keep him in there at least, if nothing else.

She would not know how to explain his lack of heat, something she herself still did not understand.

“Ameris,” Karabel called, muffled. She was probably carrying laundry, wanting to force some of the task on her. Why else call for Adulavera when it was not her shift?

Even so, Adulavera turned towards the voice and asked, “What is it?”

“Can you help me?” Karabel turned the corner and a truly massive pile of sheets came into view, carried by the dainty little Karabel, for pity’s sake in all likelihood.

“Only if you can offer me some male clothing in my cousin’s size.” Might as well make the most of the situation.

“That’s not fair, I’m dying here,” Karabel wailed.

“You made it this far,” she replied, turning away. She needed to get those clothes. Keeping in there was not an option, but neither was him going traipsing around in a semi-clean piece of nethercloth.

“Everyone else is busy.”

“I am pulling day shifts,” Adulavera tried to reason, but wasn’t moving. She wasn’t going to win this argument, not if she wanted some semblance of good will from the rest of the staff. Karabel was their little manipulative queen disguised as a damsel.

“Dead hour! Nothing happens then.” Not on tavern side, maybe.

“There’s no strain in your voice,” Adulavera said, hiding her irritation.

“Ameris!”

“Sneak a hand into one of your lover’s drawers later,” Adulavera gave-in, trying to take some sheets from the top. It all toppled. Not completely on accident, she suspected, though that suspicion evaporated as she saw the contents.

It was more than just sheets, it was customer clothing as well. Adulavera sighed. She should have expected as much.

“It better not have holes in them,” she muttered to the lazy maid.

“Will do,” Karabel laughed. Her scheme had worked, and Adulavera was seen for a fool.

Adulavera helped with the laundry, the man was probably impatiently waiting, but he would probably sink into that head of his… that wasn’t good. Wherever he went, it was no place a sane man should go.

She hefted up the sheets and led the way to the laundry room, the large baths of water steaming. No one was there; no wonder Karabel sought her out, everyone else was slacking off on their tasks too. None of the staff seemed to care about the inn side, too rustic and boring with too much labor, she had once heard the girls complain. They preferred drunken men grabbing their asses, though she could hardly blame them considering there was quite a tip the morning after. Had Adulavera not been raised as she was, she could not say that she would pass up half a silver lining her pocket by midmorning the next day.

They arrived at the washing room, and the steam blasted them as they opened the door, which they closed as soon as they were able. It was easier washing clothes in hot water. Each set their piles on opposite sides of the basin sized hot spring. It was rather ingenious using the hot water for laundry, she had to admit. It got the smell out better. Which was fantastic for most of their customers who splurged and booked a room just for their clothing. Such people were typically miners and dung and muck cleaners. The inn did not service dyers and tanners. There was no fixing that smell, the owner said.

“So,” Karabel started. Adulavera braced herself for the interrogation, and readied her prepared facts. She was getting rusty, not that she had ever had the need to forge a past for someone else, but she hadn’t had a need in a long time to fabricate her own story. Hers was set. “Your cousin,you never mentioned you had family outside the city.” And that inevitably made holes.

Adulavera shrugged and grabbed a sheet and began the work, “I was never particularly close to that side.”

“Then why seek you out?”

Good question. Why would the fabled Laren seek out an estranged cousin in the city? There was a custom in Mervone, what was it again? “I was the closest relative, and my immediate family has a bit of trader blood in them, and likes to wander. I’ve been the only one that stays in the same place long enough for letters to reach them.”

“Why’ve you been so secretive about him?”

“I haven’t been secretive,” Adulavera tried to reason,putting more effort into laundering.

“You dragged him in here, rented him a private room, and told no one to enter: how is that not secretive?” Teasing and accusing, ah, Karabel.

If Adulavera had tried to be secretive, she would have moved him in when no one was around, she knew enough of their schedules to avoid them. She had not deemed it important enough, and it would have caused far too many questions, more than what was already asked. Yet, Karabel’s questions urked her, “He is not in a stable state, a horde of strange faces would not help him recover. From what I can gather, he was mugged when he came into the city. He had not a penny to his name and he did not trust strangers enough to ask for directions. He is skin and bones now, and not a pretty site to look at. Why would I want someone waltzing in, bombarding him with questions?” And if any of them touched him, there would be harder questions.

She still didn’t understand how a person who felt so cold could be living. But they both survived the White Plague, and that in and of itself was not understandable, and in many ways it seemed as though they botxh floated aimlessly through the world without a tether.

“How bad is he?” Karabel asked soberly. Her tone almost gave Adulavera pause in her laundering. The great gossip Karabel was asking something seriously?

Adulavera answered honestly, “Not so bad now, he is skin and bones and he does not know how long it has been since he was mugged. It seems like he has lost part of his memory.” That should cover for him in some part.

“Ah,” trailing words. “You said you found him near the slums? My brother was killed down there. Nasty place.”

Adulavera continued to scrub the clothes, and she heard the other workers come in. Perhaps it had been a setup to plunder her for information, thankfully it had worked to her advantage.

The laundry slowly came down to a manageable level and none of the customer’s clothing was ruined for once. It was a price some of the customers had to pay with this  inn, though not one they often took kindly. Clothes were expensive. Though Karabel’s lovers seemed to be a bit on the upper scale of wealth.

She looked up at the girl in question, as the last of the laundry was being done, “You promised me men’s clothing, any size I think will do.”

“How big is he?” Karabel asked, slightly exasperated.

Adulavera hadn’t seen him standing since just before he collapsed, and even then it looked like he was hunched over. But she had seen him lying full length on the bed. Average height, a bit tall? But that was by noble standards, for a commoner, she supposed it would be quite tall and lanky. “He is a handspan longer than the length of the bed in that room.”

Karabel nodded and left, the other maids finished with the folding and left the room, some casting glances back at Adulavera, whispering quietly to each other. They hadn’t said a word to her the entire time, but that wasn’t unordinary.

Adulavera consciously relaxed her shoulders.  She hated the laundry, but it seemed like she had found a way to get the man some clothes. Adulavera certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford it, not with how the room was eating at her purse. The money she had earned at the Popping Kettle had been gone in a flash and she was well into her savings from her previous work at Resting Orchard Inn. Her savings would be gone in another two weeks.

Once the man could walk and had some damned clothes, they would have to find some place else to stay. She had a few ideas, but that would lead to them imposing horribly. It would be one thing if it was only her, and especially if the man was a child, but he wasn’t, he was, hopefully, a stranger to everyone in her circle.

But what if he was known by the people of the city? That thought struck her. What if he ran into someone he knew from before he contracted the White Plague? What would happen?

It was almost unthinkable. It was unthinkable.

If he did run into someone that knew him before, then he and Adulavera would leave. But that was a hassle, and assumptions were dangerous. If he did know anyone in this city, it was not anyone friendly to him, judging from the way he looked when she took him in. He seemed to heal incredibly fast, and so what she saw was recent. Very recent.

Adulavera wondered if she was not too far off in her cover story. It had been near the slums when he came to her.

By Harol, she had not seen him at first! When she finally focused on him, it was almost as though he suddenly appeared, her mind was telling her that he was both there and not. For so long she had associated heat with people, with living things. Even dead things had some heat.

She remembered her increasing agitation as the nothing approached her, and her fear when she felt the ice on her shoulder, and the nothing behind her, only to see a head almost skeletal, bruised and bloodied.

She would have screamed, but she couldn’t, and his final words ensnared her, You are like me.

Somehow that struck an insane curiosity, and she abandoned her errands and took him to the inn, wrapping the worst of him in her cloak midway. What a sight she must have been, guiding the emaciated wraith of a man.

She needed to feed him again, more than clothe him, he needed to be fed. For the past two days she came in frequently with a small bowl of porridge, something to get into his belly without causing sick.

Porridge was cheap, she could afford that. And starving men and women weren’t a completely strange sight, so it didn’t attract too much attention when she brought him in, no more attention than… she did not know what she was doing. She did not know what she was trying to accomplish with this either.

The man seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders at least, aside from claiming himself a demon… and often disappearing into that head, his eyes becoming unseeing.

She needed to hurry, Adulavera increased her pace.

-+-

Laren woke up again, and Ameris still did not return, not for a while. A long while. Or it felt like it. The room had no window. The candle was near spent, but he did not know how long these specific candles burned, these were not the twelve hour candles of home… home.

He had to stop thinking like that. He needed to stop thinking like that. Laren was his name now. Laren would not have been able to afford twelve hour candles.

He took a deep breath, trying to discard all the names and faces and habits he had before, that Errien had before. He would have to restart living as a human-- make believe he was a human, a normal human.

He was a demon, that was truth. He had burned Errien’s grandmother, that was truth.

Yet his name was Laren now. A new person. A new life. More than he deserved.

Laren knew no woman named Aldis, held no relation to her. His father was not a man that ran away from that very woman he called mother at age thirteen, and his father did not become an esteemed horse breeder and rancher. His father did not take in countless children whom Laren called brother and sister.

The names Hazak, Jeref, Calmer, Emil, Farlon, Margaer, Aldis, Harl, Arrietta, Adrienne, Karic… none of them meant anything to Laren. Their faces meant nothing. Their actions meant nothing. Their past and future meant nothing. To Laren.

And Laren meant nothing to them.

Laren would not brood on them, Laren would not think of them.

Laren mourned his own family, killed from some sickness that only affected the household. The memory of their deaths was somewhat old, the initial, horrible shock was gone.

Laren had to strike up his own life and march on, showing Death that the only sway it could ever have on him was to take his life…

The demon did not fear his own death.

Laren had to look at life and find a reason to go on.

Was Laren a demon, was the demon Laren? It did not matter, because no matter how much Laren wondered, it would not change fact.

Ameris took care of him, and Laren would not ruin her efforts. He would play along with her act