Tyr
followed Rag and Baldr back into that weird torture chamber they had been in
the day before. No one else was around. A square of tatami mats had been set up,
demarcating the area on which his sparring match would take place. Rag and
Baldr knelt down on opposite corners while Tyr walked around the room
exploring.
After a
brief visit with the doctor this morning, he had spent most of the day in the
gym located on the same level as the bedroom he shared with Rag and Baldr. The
two had turned out to be congenial though not very talkative. They seemed as
curious about him as he was about them, but something—fear maybe—seemed to hold
them back. Tyr had a hunch that Flavia had ordered communication be kept to a
minimum and sanctions, as he knew, could be severe.
The trip to
the doctor had brought no surprising revelations except that, as Flavia had
predicted, the amputation wound was already completely healed. The scar was red
and raised, but the pain was gone. The mirror held up for him also revealed the
scars on his head and when Tyr had asked about the amnesia the doctor had only
said that this wasn’t unusual after a traumatic brain injury. But since his
brain had healed so nicely, the doctor had added, his memory would surely soon
return. Somehow the doctor’s words hadn’t rung true.
First thing
back upstairs Tyr had asked Rag to cut his hair—not that Baldr, blind though he
was, could have made the situation any worse, but it almost physically hurt him
to have the rest of his long hair cut short. But half of it was already gone
anyway—and with only one hand he couldn’t braid it to keep it out of his face. Surprisingly,
Rag had called someone else. The man, similarly tall and well-built as the
others, had introduced himself as Vali. He hadn’t done a half bad job; and even
though he hadn’t cut it brutally short, it didn’t look quite as lopsided as
before. Tyr checked his reflection in the broad, gleaming blade of a halberd.
Not too bad at all.
He stopped behind
a rack containing a large number of short weapons. Combat knives, throwing
knives and stars, kunai and sai, daggers, dirks, switchblades and straight
razors, an overall impressive collection.
Toward the bottom of the rack several
sets of throwing blades were stored in strap-on holsters. He picked up one and
holding it in his teeth he pulled the velcro apart. Surprisingly, neither Rag
nor Baldr seemed to be disturbed by the noise. Hidden from Rag’s view as he
currently was, Tyr pulled up the leg of the hakama he wore and strapped the
holster around his lower left leg. Fortunately velcro was something he could
manage fairly easily with his one hand. If his luck held he might be able to spirit
them away. Tyr was sure that there were surveillance cameras everywhere. The
question was, however, would someone be looking at what he was doing?
He didn’t
need the blades for the upcoming fight, but he wanted to have a weapon he could
conceal easily, one that gave him a degree of range and could double as a tool
when necessary. The throwing blades were ideal.
He
continued his circuit around the room. Together with the hakama, he wore a top
that was styled similar to a traditional kataginu with its wing-like, overcut
shoulders over long tight sleeves—well, one long and one short sleeve. Flavia
truly had a flair for the dramatic, having him dress up like an ancient samurai
warrior. But the top was in fact more than just decorum. With its soft, padded
leather with integrated guards and cinches it was comfortable and would provide
him with a good amount of protection from his opponent’s attacks. Like every
other piece of clothing he’d been given, it had been tailored to fit him
perfectly and enclosed his right arm snugly without being constricting.
Tyr rotated
his shoulders. From what he’d figured out so far, today’s fight was more a
gauge of his abilities than a true contest of dominance. Having been given the
choice of weapon, he had opted for the hanbo, a medium length staff, just under
a meter long. At a double disadvantage because he had lost his dominant hand,
he needed a weapon that he could also manipulate with his remaining upper arm.
After
trying out several different weapons, he had decided that the hanbo worked best;
mostly because it wasn’t too heavy. At his suggestion, Vali, who seemed to
double as the resident tailor, had added a leather loop to the inside of the shortened
right sleeve through which Tyr could slip the hanbo while holding it under his
armpit which gave him a reasonable degree of control over the weapon. Some more
time to practice would have been good though.
Training in
the gym earlier in the day had brought back some of his lost memory. He had
remembered many, many other gym sessions; weights and machines, but mostly
hand-to-hand combat and long weapons’ training. He also remembered sparring
with several other men, but all their faces remained blank in his memory, he
couldn’t identify anyone of them. Though he did know that they were somehow professionally
connected—so by his best guess he was either a professional trainer, a police
officer or, and that somehow resonated most, a soldier. And if that—where was
he from, how had he come to be here and was this Garran one of his faceless
training partners?
Tyr stepped
in front of the podium. The empty chair was lit up again and the bird was
perched in the same spot as the day before. It sat unnaturally still, its eyes
closed. Since it didn’t seem to be tied to the perch it sat on, Tyr would have
expected at least some kind of reaction to his proximity. He turned toward
Baldr and Rag who still knelt where they had dropped onto the mat. “What’s up
with that bird? Is it asleep?”
“It’s a
robot.” Baldr answered. “It activates automatically when Flavia is close by.”
Tyr walked
closer and inspected the motionless bird. “It looks so real.” He reached out
his hand and touched it. It felt soft, like velvet. He plucked out one of those
velvety things, the name of which he couldn’t remember and twirling it in his
hand, carried on his exploration.
Behind him
the bird’s eyes opened, blinked once and closed again.
Finally Tyr
arrived back where he had started and still nobody else had arrived. He knelt
down halfway between Rag and Baldr, looking in Rag’s direction. Baldr wouldn’t
know the difference anyway. He held out his hand toward Rag. ”What is this
white thing called?”
“What? The
feather?”
“Ragnarok!”
Baldr barked, but it was too late. Memories were cascading like an avalanche through
Tyr’s mind. White. Feather. Whitefeather.
His name. Soul Whitefeather. He closed his eyes against the flood of
information released inside his brain. He fought for composure, feeling instinctively
that if he gave the tiniest indication of what had just occurred, he wouldn’t
leave the room alive. The bird had been a tease; an attempt to determine how
well he had forgotten. He quickly stuffed the feather behind the neckline of
his top, hiding it from view. He hadn’t been sure if his presence here was
accounted for because he knew something that they were waiting for him to
remember or because they were counting on him to stay amnesic. Now he knew. Every
ounce of memory he regained made him more dangerous and more vulnerable at the
same time.
The bird
started to move and Tyr took a deep breath, shutting the door on his memory
just as a door next to the podium opened and Flavia stepped into the room.
Behind her entered another towering, heavily muscled man whose arms, legs and
chest where covered with unusually dense body hair—like a boxer he only wore a
pair of black shorts and combat boots. Flavia, wearing another elaborate robe,
this time in pale green with a high, semicircular collar and overlong trumpet
sleeves climbed the stairs and stood in front of her ornately carved chair.
“Tyr,
please meet Fenrir.” Her deliberate, seductive voice floated through the room
once again, followed by the giggling that had made Tyr shiver before. He could feel the undercurrent of malice in the room.
The tall
man, Fenrir, walked towards the mat, stopped at the edge and bowed; first in
Flavia’s direction, then towards Tyr. Tyr stood up, but stayed on the far side,
not bowing in return.
“Which
weapon have you chosen?” Flavia asked.
“Hanbo.” Tyr
replied. He turned and picked up the staff he had brought from downstairs,
while Fenrir went and picked another from a rack. Then Fenrir stepped to one
side of the mat and motioned for Tyr to take opposite position, so they were
standing side-on to Flavia. When they bowed at each other, Tyr thought he heard
a low, guttural growl. Hanbo in his hand, Tyr stepped in for his first attack.
***
Garran was
lying on his bed again, fully dressed this time, but he still hadn’t been able
to summon up the courage to leave his cabin. How would the crew see him now?
Word had surely spread that he would remain paralyzed, forever dependent on
some kind of mobility device, wheelchair or other, to get around. Hell, he
couldn’t even make it from his bed to the bathroom and back without it being a
major production.
Would they
feel sorry for him? By Horlus, he felt sorry enough for himself all on his own,
but the thought of being the object of someone else’s pity sat like a rock in
his stomach.
The door
opened unannounced and Doc strolled into his room.
“You can
still knock, you know. I’m not deaf.” Garran complained.
“I could
have, but you would have sent me away—probably with some choice words, which I
would have ignored—so what’s the point of knocking in the first place?”
“Just
saying.” Garran grumbled, silently acknowledging that Doc had a point since
that’s exactly what would have happened.
“I brought
you something.” Doc lifted a bottle he was carrying in his hand.
“Hey, that’s
what I call a true friend. You’re gonna help me drown my misery?”
“No. I
thought I’d give you my one and only bottle of single-malt so that you can
drown yourself in misery and then tomorrow when you go back on duty as the co-pilot of this vessel and apologize to
Aurra for letting her down, you at least have a reason to feel sorry for
yourself.”
Garran didn’t
answer. He did feel guilty for having skipped several shifts by now, but didn’t
a man in his position deserve some consideration? Who was Doc to lecture him?
The anger he had just started to bring under control flared up again. “I’m a fucking
paralyzed, amputee cripple, so what does Aurra want with me anyway?”
"You were a
paralyzed, amputee cripple already when you came on board. That didn’t prevent
you from entering into an agreement with Aurra to be her co for the next six
months, nor did it seem to feature in that hot and heavy make-out session I
interrupted. And now all of a sudden because things are not going your way
Aurra’s needs and reasons are no longer worth considering?”
Aurra’s needs. That just conjured up all kinds of images and
feelings Garran momentarily wished to forget. If only he could. He extended his
hand for the bottle, beckoning with his fingers.
Doc extended
his arm, too, but held the half full bottle just beyond Garran’s reach. Garran
lunged for it, but Doc pulled it back. “You need your attitude fixed, not your
body. You are no less of a pilot than you were two days ago. Aurra still thinks
very highly of you, so don’t screw it up. You're a better man than this.” Then he
turned and carried the bottle to the sideboard on the far side of the cabin before
he turned on his heels and left.
Great episode and superb last line!
ReplyDeleteI'm really enjoying both plotlines...either would make a compelling story on its own, but together...Wow!
ReplyDelete