Not All That We Remember

Fiction - by Alex Fosse

The memories came like mice that had infested a thatch roof, each rushing past more quickly than the last. Larina could picture a turquoise gown with linen sleeves and a collar that always scratched so mercilessly at her throat. She could see herself standing beside her mother, her hair gathered beneath a fine net. She could feel the stone steps under slippered feet and hear the rustling of her gown as she crossed cold marble, standing so demurely on the raised dais.

All of it so different from this woman in a mangled tunic who moved across the same courtyard. This woman with her hair so brittle, and her face so deeply lined. 

“Do you feel that?” The boy—Amir—kept her arm wrapped over his neck as they took another faltering step. “You have to feel that. It’s like it comes from the stone itself.”

“It was long ago,” Larina said. “All so long ago.”

“But you can feel it, can’t you? Someone got hurt here.”

“I— I do not know.”

Larina risked one hurried glance behind them. Old, she had grown far too old, so much before her time—a woman not yet middle aged, stunted by distance and memory, stiff after so many days of travel. Even the boy looked almost haggard. His skin no longer quite so vibrant. His eyes filled with only questions and fear.

“It was someone important,” Amir said. “Someone that didn’t expect it.”

Larina didn’t answer him, holding tightly to the boy’s arm as they took three more steps across the uneven cobblestones. They soon came to a halt in front of a wooden door at the base of the tower. Amir forced the door open, and then helped Larina enter the cold space beyond. A spiral staircase twisted above them, rising upward. Amir turned as soon as they were inside and swung the door shut.  It settled into place with a heavy thunk, taking most of the light with it.

Larina closed her eyes, remembering how the tower had first appeared as they rounded a turn in the road below. The stone structure rose over the rest of the keep like the gods themselves had erected it, pale mortar set against white brick, all of it climbing straight upward.

“Was it you that got hurt?” Amir asked. “Is that what you won’t tell me?”

“We are close now,” Larina said.

The boy glanced at the darkness that loomed above them. The sound of a horse moving across the cobbles came through the shuttered door, growing ever more distant. “I still say it’s not worth it. This doesn’t make any sense. Not any of it.”

Cold air felt damp against Larina’s skin. Much had changed since her days at the keep, since she had first fled from this place. There were rumblings of war in the streets below them, talk of looming strife with Derrelia. And other tales that seemed even stranger, stories that she could hardly give credence, tongues wagging of how her mother still ruled at the keep, as if the woman’s ghost haunted these stone chambers, roamed these barren halls. 

She moved in front of Amir and placed one foot on the bottom step.

“Come,” she said.

The boy scraped across the stone floor, edging closer. “Was it you that did it then? Is that what you’re trying to hide from me?” He fastened one hand against the wall. “Did you hurt someone here? Back before you left. Is that what you won’t let me see?”

“No,” Larina answered far too quickly.

She moved to the second step, turning as the stairs spiraled above them. They had traveled such a great distance together, she and Amir, moving from the markets of Kardonne, filled with the smell of cloves and turmeric, through the hard, barren lands that separated Kardonne from Argen. Larina had wondered, when they first crossed the border, if they made a terrible mistake coming here, returning to this land that was so often drenched in chilling rains, here where the people dressed in heavy wool and smelled of nothing but wet and damp.

“I don’t like it, not any of it.” Amir followed close behind her. “This necklace, whatever it is. It’s not worth it.”

Larina climbed three more steps, realizing that she should have known it would take more than a few words of assurance to silence Amir, knowing that he deserved far more from her. She had told Amir little about the necklace itself, though what she had shared was true enough; that much, if nothing else, had been the truth. The emerald pendant had once belonged to her mother, Lady Mila. Set in simple gold, the stone was easily as big as Larina’s own thumb, large enough that it would sell for a small fortune, a sum that could keep them both fed for years.

That much she had told Amir.

Larina looked up, squinting. She had also told Amir, and even for some time managed to convince herself, that they came here for the necklace alone. They came to retrieve the pendant that she had hidden all that time ago, though she knew full well that the truth went deeper. She had come back to know all that had happened here. She would remember all of it.

“After we get it.” The boy kept his pace steady. “After we find this necklace, you can have it. I don’t care.”

Larina climbed another step.

“But once that’s done,” Amir continued. “I don’t owe you anything.”

Heat pulsed through Larina’s neck. “Owe?”

“Yes, I won’t owe you anything more. Not once we’re done.”

“Amir.” Larina turned, perched on the step right above the boy. “You have never been in my debt.”

When it became clear that Amir would say nothing more, Larina continued to climb. Keeping one hand pressed against the wall, she moved upward and focused on the steady curve of the wall. Her thoughts trailed backward, groping for that day when she first met Amir.

Had it been six months before?

No, longer. It must have been far longer.

She could still almost feel the oppressive heat. It had cut down from the heavens, turning the ground of Kardonne into hard-packed clay. That much she remembered, just as she remembered that she had long suspected that there was another within the city who bore the mark.

She had first spotted the boy as he trailed behind a man with gray hair and a small, pinched face. Amir followed the man so closely that at first she wondered if the man had tied the boy to his waist, tethered him with a leather strap.

The two of them approached a woman clad in fine silks. At some signal from the man, Amir began. He drew on the dark magic. His efforts called out to the void, stilted and malformed, but still clear enough. The woman stopped. She stood with her mouth partway open, eyes vacant. The man freed her purse from the folds of her gown with one swipe from his knife. Then he curled one hand over Amir’s arm and dragged the boy away.

They left their victim before she even understood that she had been robbed, pushing their way through the unsuspecting crowd.

Larina caught up with them not far from the pig stalls.

“You play with forces that you do not understand.”

The man did not release his grip on Amir.

“Forces that demand a heavy price.” Larina looked right at the man. “Though it is not you that must pay, is it?”

The man spit; a dark glob landed near her feet.

“That’s not your concern.”

He pulled the boy closer and tried to move past her, but Larina blocked his way. She reached for Amir, placing one hand on the boy’s shoulder as she spotted the dark bruise on his face. She decided right then. Reaching through the dark currents of the power, she felt for the pulse. She groped toward the boy and joined his strength to her own, directing it outward.

A dark swirl formed above the man. A storm of memories that turned slowly in the harsh sunlight, twisting over the man’s head. Thin and crystalline, the memories shimmered with deep brilliance, like shards of cut glass. Larina worked quickly, tugging at the edges of one. She separated it from the others, drawing it forth and then forced it open. Move away! She thrust the single thought into the memory, locking it within. Move away! Move away! The memory closed like the petals of a flower folding back on itself.

Just as quickly as the storm had formed above the man, it collapsed, falling into the man’s skull until no trace of it remained, and the newly-formed image slotted in place.

The man took one small step back. Rubbing his forehead, he muttered a few words under his breath, before he straightened his tunic and offered a hurried apology and then stumbled away from them, nearly falling in his haste to flee. And so, Larina and Amir were left alone.

That was the beginning.

That was when she first started to plan her return.

Larina squared her shoulders, watching the boy as he continued to climb behind her, trying to picture him as that small thing who had curled into a tight ball when she first brought him back to her rooms, remembering how she had knelt in front of him and pushed a curl of hair away from his face and smiled, smiled for the first time in so many days.

Later, as she washed and dressed the wounds on the boy’s back, she saw the mark. The boy’s mark was so much like her own, only larger, much larger. It covered the skin that stretched from his neck clear down the top half of his spine—a patch of smooth skin that shined almost silver, so much more grand than her own mark that covered only one wrist.

“Marked,” she had told him then, in the darkness of her rooms. “You are marked, and that will change everything.”

Larina’s breath came up short as they reached the top of the stairs. The door at the far side of the landing hung open, leading into a circular chamber. A small table stood next to a lancet window. The clay vase propped on the wooden surface was familiar, though for once it did not hold fresh blooms. Larina bowed her head as she moved through the doorway. The trundle bed in the corner was stripped. A writing desk was set beneath the window, free from the collection of quills and parchment that had always been strewn across it.

Larina strode forward. “It will be here.”

A thick tapestry covered much of one wall. The hunting scene—men on horseback with braying dogs—had faded, though all of it was still just as she remembered. Pulling the cloth aside, she ran one hand over brick.

“I will need your help.”

Loose mortar crumbled, sprinkling to the floor. It took them a few attempts to wrestle the brick free. Larina nudged it back and forth, jostling it from side to side. The boy then coaxed the brick the rest of the way out from the wall and set it down with a thump.

A dark hole gaped back at them.

Larina pressed her chest close to the wall and reached inside. Her hand groped downward until it brushed against dry cloth. She brought the bundle up slowly. Careful to not drop it, she pulled the small thing away from the wall, though before she managed to draw it into the light, she knew that all was not right. The bundle was far too heavy for a start, oblong and irregular.

“What?” Amir said.

He took the bundle away from her. Tugging at a thin cord, he unwrapped it with a steady hand. Old linen unrolled easily, turning ever faster. Metal flashed, dull and tarnished. The blade had rusted; dark spots clung to the hilt, and the bone handle had turned a deep shade of alabaster.

Her knife, her very own blade.

“You must forgive my daughter.” A voice carried easily across the chamber. “She can be most tiresome. I assure you. Most tiresome when one is not accustomed to her.”

Larina turned.

A dark figure stood just inside the doorway.

“Her thoughts often get away from her.” The figure came closer, leaning heavily against a wooden cane. “This madness. It takes hold of her. It possesses her, though heaven knows I have tried to stop such foolishness. I have long tried to beat such submissiveness out of her.”

Larina’s mother had aged. Her eyes shone like two black pearls set in wrinkled cloth. Her hair was pulled back across her scalp, strands of dark gray bound tightly.

Larina pressed her back against the wall.

“Though in many ways I have missed her,” Lady Mila said. “Strange as that may seem.”

“No closer, come no closer.”

The woman stopped. She stood with the cane perched beneath her. “Yes, my dear. I see that little has changed.” She brought her eyes up. “Though I had hoped to find otherwise. I had hoped that my sources tried to deceive me. My daughter, my own flesh and blood, half crazed in the streets, raving for all who cared to listen to her.”

Larina swallowed. Unbidden, the memory flashed through her, the same memory that had taken hold of her time and time again. A foul taste came into her throat, filling her nostrils with a putrid stench. And blood.

Above it all, the smell of blood.

Her mother’s cane struck the floor as she took one more step toward them. “Though I assure you, these stories you have told yourself of my demise. They are quite exaggerated. These suspicions you have of how I perished here in this tower, most preposterous.” The old woman’s hand curled into a fist. Pale knuckles wrapped against the table once and then again. “Do you hear that, my dear? I am no angry spirit. I am no hungry ghost returned from the realm beyond.”

The boy made a small sound.

Larina draped a protective arm across his chest, pulling him back toward her. “Who?” Her eyes came up to look at her mother. “If not you, then who?”

The mark on Larina’s wrist tingled, calling on remnants of the ancient power. Someone had been killed in this room. She was certain of that much. The dark magic could alter a memory. It could change and reshape one, but it could not create one out of whole cloth.

“Think Larina. Think for once in your life.” Her mother waved dismissively at the air. “If I needed someone killed. If I needed some threat extinguished, do you think I would need to work on my own? Do you think I would need to soil my own hands?”

“Who? Tell me who.”

“I need not resort to such violence. Even you must understand as much. There are others who can take care of such matters on my behalf. And not here, never here.”

Larina kept one arm pressed tightly around Amir. “This was a mistake.” She remembered the boy’s warnings from down in the courtyard, how he had pleaded with her to leave before they approached the tower. “We should never have come here.”

If her mother heard Larina, she showed no sign of it. The woman came yet closer, her cane rattling against the floor. “But enough of this pettiness.” Her other hand waved at the empty air again, tracing a meaningless pattern. “There are more important matters that we must discuss.” With long fingers, she reached down for the knife that Amir still held. “I am sure that you have heard that all is not well.” She rose and turned away from them. “Events are in motion. Even as we speak, the Derrelian delegation is on the road near our northern border. They will be at the keep in two days, three at the most.” She moved back to the writing desk and set the knife down, placing it on the corner. “There is much that I must know. What fortifications have they erected? Their strength. The nature of their armaments. Have they planted a spy within these walls, as I well suspect? I must know all of it. Every last detail.”

“No,” Larina said.

“My dear.” Her mother turned back to face them, crossing the chamber again. “I was not speaking to you.” She stopped right in front of them. Bending low, she looked directly at the boy for the first time. “Amir. Do I have that right? They call you Amir.”

The boy shifted back, but said nothing.

With one hand, Lady Mila reached beneath the collar of her robe. “Amir,” she said again. “Yes, that is right. Is it not?”

The boy nodded, one quick jerk of his head.

“I am most pleased to meet you.”

“He cannot help you,” Larina said.

Her mother glanced up as if she only then remembered that Larina was with the two of them. She brought her arm away from her collar, her fingers bent around a gold chain. “It is a fitting name. The name of a prince. One meant to rule.” Her arm came up yet higher. The pendant dangled at the end of long fingers, just as Larina remembered it. The stone shined deep green, filled with a rich luminance. “Tell me, did my daughter share with you what this stone can do?” The pendant twisted at the end of the chain. “How it allows one to harness the dark magic over great distances, wield it in ways that otherwise could not be possible?”

The boy looked up then, his eyes shifted from Larina to her mother.

“It’s not that simple,” Larina said.

“All things work as they should. All returns to its proper place.”

Larina felt her past unfurl behind her like threadbare cloth. How often had her mother come to her in this chamber? How often had Lady Mila climbed those stairs and opened the locked door to find Larina at her desk, toiling with her quills as if any of that would matter.

Distant memories rumbled through her. The pull of the dark magic. The way that it would tear through her, possess her, filling her with a deep bitterness. The messengers from distant lands who her mother suspected of treachery. The soldiers assembled in the courtyard, tied and subdued, waiting for the confirmation of treason that would seal their fate. The merchants hauled in from the market, accused of weighting their scales. One by one, she opened their minds. Larina peeled their thoughts open as easily as cutting into ripe fruit. She tore through the minds of ambassadors still confined to their ships. She pulled at the thoughts of minstrels suspected of acting as foreign agents. She took from so many, stole that which had so long been sheltered.

And each time, she lost some piece of herself. She stitched some new memory into place, weaving it into her own past and in turn losing some part of herself, discarding some piece of her history. There was so much that she had lost. She had become like a ghost in her own body.

“So tell me.” Lady Mila let the emerald hang right in front of Amir. “Did Larina share with you what the stone can do? Did she tell you of the power that it possesses? Believe me. You have only touched the most remote edges of your talent. You have only tasted mere shadows of your full potential. Did my daughter tell you this?”

Amir scratched at his neck, though still he said nothing.

“No, I see she did not.” Lady Mila stood back upright, letting her arm fall to her side. “She kept you ignorant. So much alike, she and I. Different in many ways, yet alike.”

“I did not intend to use the stone.” Even to Larina’s own ears, her voice sounded far from certain. 

Lady Mila pursed her lips. “The gods touch so few.”

Larina moved forward. Her hand fell away from the boy as he refused to move with her, but instead remained planted in front of the tapestry, arms folded tight.

“The mark is not a gift to be wasted,” her mother continued. “It is not meant to be spent on mere trifles, pinching purses and stealing baubles.”

“Come,” Larina said, though the boy seemed to not hear her. “We must leave, now.”

“The gods touch so few.” Her mother’s voice rose, taking on a high-pitched cadence. “They touch so few.”

Larina stopped. Heat pulsed down her neck as she turned to face her mother. “Not you, mother. The gods did not choose you. You bear no mark.”

“Some are meant to lead, my dear daughter.”

“Not you,” Larina said again. “It’s never been you.”

Lady Mila bristled. “Long have I known that I must wield the tools given to me. Some must direct the actions of others. Ensure that all is done for the common good.”

“Yet you solve nothing.”

Her mother stammered, her mouth opening and then closing. “Did you think that I would not know of this boy?” She pulled her head back. “You must realize that I had your every step followed.” Her cane came down hard against the floor. “I have known of your every move since you left these walls. I could risk nothing less. Believe me, my dear daughter, the air that you breathe. The blood that flows through your veins, none of it is truly your own.”

A hard, metallic taste came into Larina’s throat.

“It is the gods who speak.” Her mother curled both hands over her cane, holding it close. “It is the gods who have brought me another who bears the mark. Another like you.”

 “No,” Larina said.

Her mother’s eyes grew wide.  “Do not defy me. I will have you thrown in the stocks. I will see that you are entombed alive. Whatever is needed. You will take your proper place.” 

Larina’s gaze landed on the writing desk. The knife—her blade with the bone-white handle—sat where her mother had left it. Her thoughts raced backward. She could feel the dull thrust of the blade as it cut through skin and muscle, the sharp jolt as it struck bone.

“I stopped you.” Larina brought her eyes up. “Right here in this chamber. I stopped you once.”

“You? You did nothing.”

“I see it now.” Larina watched her mother as the distant memory rose within her chest. “I have lived with it all this time. I stopped you once.”

“You would not dare!”

“But I would.” Larina blinked. “I know that now, I would.”

Her mother’s eyes shifted from Larina to the desk and then came back to Larina. The two women stood still, only the sound of their labored breathing cut through the chamber, until they both moved at once. Lady Mila seized the knife, pulling it back, though she failed to hold it properly and the knife fell, rattling down to the tiled floor.

“No closer.” Larina snatched the blade up. “I told you. Come no closer.”

“I am not alone here,” her mother answered. “I warn you. I am far from alone.”

“Let us leave. That’s all I ask.”

“Your place is here, where it has always been.”

“I never chose it. I never wanted it.”

“Not you, but the gods. It is they who chose.”

“We want no part of this.” Still holding the knife, Larina reached for the boy. She took one step and then another. “We won’t help you.”

Lady Mila waited no longer. She brought her cane up. It rose over the woman with a long, smooth motion, before it shot down. A hard crack echoed through the chamber. Pain burst through Larina’s arm. She fell, tumbling to her knees as she struggled to keep hold of the knife. Her mother struck again, hitting her with such force that all of the strength went out of Larina.

“The stocks will not be good enough for you.” The cane made a whistling sound as it swung back. “You will be shown your place.”

Blows rained down on Larina, hitting first her shoulders and then her back. The cane made a heavy sound each time it struck. Larina bent down to the floor, arms wrapped over her head. Pain burned clear down her back.

“Wasted. I have wasted far too much on you.”

Larina struggled to move away from the assault. She searched for the knife but saw no sign of it as another blow landed on her legs, then her head. Blood flowed from her scalp, matting against tangled hair.

“This is your doing. It is all your doing.”

The blows came faster, growing in strength, one and then another. Larina bent closer to the floor, searching for Amir, seeing only then that he was no longer with her. She managed to come up to her knees when the final blow landed. It struck hard against her shoulder.

And all at once, Lady Mila went still.

Her mother wheezed. One hand shot down to her side. Blood pooled between her fingers, shining deep scarlet before Lady Mila crumpled to the floor. She landed with one hand still wrapped over the knife, the blade dug into her side. Blood pooled beneath her, forming a dark circle just as it always did in the memory—clear and crisp and so utterly certain.

Lady Mila made a low, gurgling sound as she struggled to rise, before she fell again, landing on the polished tile.

All just as it had always been.

Only the boy was different. He stood over them both, his face smeared with blood and his hand curled into a small fist, hanging at his side. “Not all that we remember.” His voice sounded as if it traveled across some vast distance. “Not all that we remember is the past. Not all of it has been. Some of it . . . some of it must still come.”

The words rang with sharp clarity. Amir whimpered, his whole body tense, before he collapsed. Larina came up to her feet and wrapped one arm over him, drawing Amir toward her, shielding him from the sight of her mother, though pain still coursed through her own body, rippling down her back.

“It is not all in the past.” Amir pressed his head against her. “Some of it . . . some of it lies ahead of us.”

The memory fell into place. It took its proper spot in the long stream of Larina’s own history, no longer foreign, the same memory that had haunted her time and time again. This chamber. The smooth tile stained dark. The smell of blood, just as it had always been.

Not her own.

The memory had never been her own, never her past. But Amir. The memory had always belonged to Amir. It had begun with him, just as it had ended with him.

The distant memory from this chamber.

Amir. It had always been Amir.

They rode through what remained of the day and into the night, only stopping once the sun had set. Larina dismounted. Her feet settled on hard ground. The boy clambered down behind her and then led their horse, its snout covered in a thick lather, over to a small grove.

They had left the keep much as they entered it, a half-stooped woman hobbling at the side of a boy, moving across the courtyard until they reached the gate. The alarm had sounded not much later, the keep’s bell tolling once they were partway down the road, though they were not followed. They saw to that much, drawing on the dark magic as they moved past the keep’s guards, forcing them to look away.

Pale shadows traced a rough pattern across the ground, gray patches that shone in the growing moonlight. Larina opened and closed her fist so that the stretch of pale skin on her wrist—the mark—felt stiff against the cold. Her arm and back still throbbed, and blood had caked against her scalp, but she ignored all of it.

“I— I am sorry.” Her voice came raw and uneven. “I should not have been so reserved with you. From the beginning, I should have been forthright.”

The horse shook its head and snorted. Amir ran a coarse brush over the animal’s neck, offering her no response. Larina set about gathering wood for a fire, picking up old, dried branches and assembling them with some thin flakes of bark from a willow tree. She returned more than once, finding the boy still engaged with the horse, still distant with her.

A short while later, a spark from her flint set the tinder alight.

“You knew, didn’t you?” The boy did not turn to face her. “You knew the necklace wouldn’t be there.”

Larina folded one hand over each knee.

“You knew we’d find the knife.” Amir pulled the brush back, holding it tight. “You hid it there, in the wall, all that time ago. You hid the knife, not the necklace.”

“No,” Larina said.

“I don’t want any more lies.” His hand came up to his face, rubbing against one cheek. “You knew I’d have no choice.  She would have killed you if I hadn’t stopped her.”

“No.” Larina did not look at him.

 “She was right. You’re not so different, are you?” Amir dug the heel of his foot into the ground. “You know how to not get your hands dirty. How to get someone else to do it for you.”

“That’s not true.”

“It had to be you. No one else could have hid the knife.”

“No.”

“Stop lying, Larina. For once, just stop lying.”

Larina struggled to remember that distant day when she had first left the keep. When she first became certain that there was no future for her between those stone walls. Her mind trailed back, but again and again she found only that one memory. The sound of her mother’s rattling breath. The look of fear in the woman’s dark eyes. The smell of blood.

Always, there was blood.

The boy came around the back of the horse, running the brush along thin fur.

“I didn’t know.” Larina poked at the growing fire, sending up a flurry of sparks. “Not back in Kardonne.” The fire popped. “Only the necklace, that is all I remember.”

The boy finally turned to face her. He watched her for a long time, as if some part of him was ready to climb back on the horse and leave her there. They sat in silence, only the sound of the fire cutting through the growing night, until finally Amir made a soft sound in the back of his throat. His arms fell to his sides as he joined her next to the fire.

“That necklace was trouble.” He sat down so that the flames cast a harsh glow over his face. “I can tell you that much. We were right to leave it there.”

Larina placed a dry piece of wood on the fire and leaned in closer, watching as the wood began to darken.

Amir held his hands up, rubbing one against the other. “It would only have hurt us. It would only have caused trouble.”

“Yes,” Larina said.

The tug of something heavy against Larina’s neck drew her attention back to her body. One hand came up to her chest, sheltering the pendant that dangled on the end of the chain. She pressed her fingers against it as she sat back upright, feeling the cold stone against naked skin.

Her eyes closed again as she remembered the vacant look on the boy’s face, the distant stare as the memory took hold. The memory that had haunted her for so long.

Amir leaned back, settling on the ground. He folded his arms as an orange glow continued to play across his face. She could picture him still, remember the boy from when she first met him in the city market.

“Yes,” she said again. “I remember.”

She would tell Amir, she promised herself as the chain tugged at her neck. She would tell the boy that she had taken the necklace, tell him that she had pulled it from her mother’s stiff body as the dark magic still possessed him, as the currents of the power held Amir so firmly.

She would tell the boy all about the necklace.

In the morning, come first light.

She would tell him everything.

And some small part of her almost believed as much.