Chapter 5 – A Wizard’s Memories
Uncle Galo’s memories were confused and out of order. Sonata flowed through them like she was on a wooden raft in white water cataracts. The memory of an event would stream out before her like water, with images moving from below the stream to above it. Little pictures into the life of a man who had seen too much, done too much, killed too many to count. Every memory began in order and intact. Then they would scatter, repeat with some images removed, new ones added, as if her uncle had remembered it wrong the first time and was going back to make corrections. After a while, the memories themselves would overlap, and she could not tell the difference between one event and another. It gave her a headache.
It made her heart ache, too. Not only because the final answer to the dragon’s five questions was something Sonata did not expect, but before her lay Uncle Galo’s entire life, from the first memory as a boy to his last battle at the head of a Viscano foot battalion. And none of it had he shared with her in all the time they had lived together. Was he ashamed of it? Did he not trust her with the information? If the former, perhaps it made sense to hide it. If either, then why would he grant her access at all? Unless, there was something in here that he wanted her to see, that he needed her to see.
She swam through it all, as quickly as possible, trying not to overload her mind. So many brutal memories, of war, of death, of triumph, tragedy. Even the memories of Guilherme Cavaco, as he and Uncle Galo worked against each other in war, and then together to bring a war to an end. Cavaco was quite dashing as a young man, his hair dark brown, his well-kept beard complementing his narrow face. Uncle Galo wasn’t ugly either, though his visage lent itself more to an unbridled animal magnetism that was both appealing and frightening. And it would appear from several memories that women found both wizards irresistible and terrifying.
The memories of her mother were the most compelling, and Sonata lingered among them the longest.
Maria Galo came out of Uncle Galo’s memories like a dervish, a swirling beauty full of life and love. Sonata had forgotten just how long her mother’s hair had been, how dark and supple, for on the streets in the last few years of her life, Maria’s hair had grown thin and dry, and she had pinned it up more often than not to keep it out of her eyes, which were also growing tired and weak. But the images stopped when her mother was young, and then suddenly jumped to the morning of her death, something Sonata did not need coaxing to remember. That memory would forever be etched into her mind, just like it seemed to be with Uncle Galo as well. Sonata paused in the stream and watched her mother die all over again.
Why the jump? Sonata wondered. Why would Uncle Galo skip almost twenty years of his sister’s life? Could he not remember? Did he not know the details of her life then? Was it too painful to include? Or, were there things that happened in that time—like Sonata’s birth—that he did not want Sonata to know?
One way or the other, old man, I’ll find out.
She reached the memory where Uncle Galo had been attacked by the Estrela Verde assassin, Heliodoro, the night that she and Fellfang had taken flight. What an odd, fearful image, she thought, as she watched, through her uncle’s eyes, the painted assassin strike again and again his face with fists that the old man could not deflect anymore. How odd it was to witness all the brutality that her uncle and Cavaco had perpetrated on whole armies in their youth, and now, the old man was being beaten near death. How the mighty had fallen, indeed.
Heliodoro struck her uncle once more, then darkness. The stream of memories went cold and black, but still they flowed onward. The darkness was taking her somewhere, and Sonata let herself go.
She stopped and floated as if she were in a lake at midnight, quiet and unmoving. It almost felt like she was Uncle Galo himself, lying there in the Stretch, a lump of dead flesh on top of him. The darkness and silence seemed interminable. Sonata got bored.
And then scratching. First faint, then louder and louder. The scratching became a tapping, metal on metal, metal on stone. Then voices. Then lamplight. Dirt was being brushed away from her face, and though she could not blink, she could see fuzzy faces through the yellow glow of the light. Many faces. Dozens. Then she felt hands on her and rope being wrapped around her stiff, stone body.
She moved, for the first time in months. Up and out of the ground, the light and sweaty faces coming into focus. She was being carried, like a coffin, by pallbearers she did not recognize. She felt a hatred for them, but it wasn’t her hatred per se. It was her uncle’s. It was he who was being carried, being hoisted out of the ground after months of waiting, waiting. Uncle Galo’s hatred was similar to her own. Like his youthful pictures, his rage was primal, non-specific, like the bestial rage of the jungle apes in the southern kingdom of Algarvo. Uncle Galo wanted to kill the men who had a hold of him, and so did she.
She was hoisted into a wagon, and there she waited some more. Then a face came into view. A smoother, more refined face than the men that had placed her in the wagon. A large face. A royal face.
Duke Ernesto’s face.
✽✽✽
Sonata fell out of the Catacombs and onto the floor beside the Santa Dominica priestess. She was drenched in sweat and shivering. She was cold, so, so cold. She sat, pulled her legs up against her chest, and hugged herself. The priestess beside her opened her eyes. She blinked, saw Sonata beside her, and opened her mouth to scream for guards.
Sonata punched the priestess twice in the face, knocking her back out.
She ran. Her head hurt, and she was dizzy. She stumbled through the Dominica chapel like a drunk, knocking over chairs and pews. But she kept running until she reached the entrance where Fellfang was waiting. Praise the Gods, he was still there. He greeted her with a warm muzzle. She grabbed his leash, and they fled without saying goodbye to the estudante who seemed confused by her sudden appearance, her erratic behavior, and her quick departure. Sonata did not care. She had to go. Sacudente do Mundo was rising.
She did not stop running until she was blocks away.
She fell to the ground in an alley alongside the Purloined Goat. She sat there with Fellfang’s head on her lap until her breathing stilled and the sweat began to dry. She breathed deeply to catch her breath. She ran her hands through her hair and scratched her itchy scalp. She leaned her head against the stone wall and considered her next move.
Duke Ernesto has Uncle Galo. She had not expected that, though perhaps she should have. Nathyn Sombrio had been looking for him, certainly, but she hadn’t considered anyone higher as interested. In the end, Sombrio might have had nothing to do with Galo’s capture, since he had been tracking Sonata south into Rosa Blanca. He was dead now, so even if he knew at the time, it hardly mattered. Duke Ernesto was, by title and birth, the true head of the Night Guard. And now he had her uncle.
Did he still have him? That was the question. She had not lingered any longer in the Catacombs to see if other memories had come after her uncle’s unearthing. Perhaps if she had stayed a little longer . . . but no. She couldn’t. It was all too much. Borshen Galo’s mind was a cauldron of raging emotions and memories, memories too painful for her to revisit.
What to do . . . Sonata tried to clear her own thoughts and plan her next steps. She stroked Fellfang’s head. It calmed her, and it made her accept what she’d have to do next.
She’d have to break into Duke Ernesto’s tower.
Uncle Galo despised Duke Ernesto, but there were two rules that he had always made Sonata live by. First, never thieve in your own community; don’t piss off your neighbors. And second, never piss off the boss. Duke Ernesto was the boss.
She collected herself and stood. She walked to the mouth of the alley and stared up at the black tower that loomed over the entire of Cragsport. Adriana’s Breath curled around it like stripes on a candy cane, but it was no magical place. Within lay Duke Ernesto, his ample security detail, the entire administration of Cragsport and Viscano at large, and perhaps, Uncle Galo.
“Come, boy,” Sonata said, rubbing Fellfang’s soft back. He cuddled up next to her with each rub. “We’ve got work to do.”