6 Seth

A forest bird never wants a cage."- Henrik Ibsen

The tugging intruded subtly on Julie's sleep at first. She was barely aware of it; it was such a gentle force. But something was not quite right about it; there was a deliberation to the pulls. Julie opened her eyes groggily. There was a small dark shape in front of her forearm. Its movements were jerky, and the bobs of it seemed to be in time with the tugging. She blinked to clear her vision, and bit back a yelp as she realized what it was.

A large raven stood in front of her, its beady eyes fixed on her bracelet, a thin silver band with a gyrfalcon's profile on it. It would tip its round head from side to side, considering, and then grab the band delicately in its long beak and tug. It seemed to be trying to discreetly pull the thing from her arm, but the way she was laying made it difficult. She could almost see the frustration in its eyes.

It was mildly amusing to watch the bird's ineffectual efforts, but she decided that was enough. Hoping to startle it out of future tries, she sat up suddenly, throwing her arms wide.

It did indeed have her desired effect. The raven almost did a backwards somersault, flapping its wings crazily and scattering black feathers everywhere. And then something very unexpected happened. The bird went hopping backwards, but as it went it began to speak, in a hoarse, croaky voice, but nonetheless in English.

"It was Seth, it was Seth, all his idea!" rasped the raven. "Not Corax, all Seth, he made me do it!"

Julie stared. Never before had she heard a bird talk aloud, much less in an understandable tongue. Across the clearing Luke jerked awake, looking all around in total confusion.

The raven continued to flap and hop, though it had calmed down somewhat since Julie's scare. It kept croaking at intervals, "It was Seth!"

"Who…?" Luke asked groggily at the same time Julie said, "What?"

Then, another voice spoke, not from anywhere around the clearing, but from almost directly overhead.

"Ichor blast it, Corax, what kind of friend are you, you useless lump of tarred feathers?"

The voice was young, male, and exasperated. Julie found herself groping for her knife for the second time in several days.

The trees started to rustle up above, and several leaves fluttered to the ground.

"Well, that's the whole game blown now, isn't it? I hope you're happy, you fool bird."

The raven flew to a branch above Julie's head, cocking his own to gaze down at her with his beady intelligent eye. Julie looked quickly for Icarus and Athena. They were on higher branches, looking tense, but not attacking. That made her calmer. A bit.

The raven spoke again. "'No honor among thieves', says Seth. That applies to thieves' bonds too." So it was a bird bond, thought Julie. She wondered if its incomplete, halting speech came from the fact it was speaking English aloud or its youth. She remembered Icarus had spoken the same way when he was younger.

"Dang it, I hate when you use logic on me, Corax. You toss all my words back in my face." Before either Julie or Luke could move, there was a loud rustle of foliage, and a dark shape swung down out of the branches, around the trunk of a nearby tree, and slid to the ground with hardly any noise.

"Don't move," Luke warned, advancing slowly on the newcomer. Julie thought this was either brave or stupid of him, since neither of them had a weapon in their hand.

The person ignored him completely. He was scanning the clearing with a practiced eye, and as he did Julie got her first good look at him.

He was about Luke's age, perhaps a year older, and his frame was long and whippy. He was wearing a long, ragged brown cloak that stuck close to his body like a shroud. His face was dark complexioned, and the lines of it were angular. His hair was black, and it fell in pointy strands over his forehead and then swept in a spiky mane back over his neck to his shoulders. Despite the darkness of his look, his eyes were a startling green, and there was an odd mixture of ease and wary cleverness about his features. He wore a thin belt with something in a sheath on it.

He inspected Julie, then Luke, then the two bird bonds on their branch. He did it with the searching air that he was analyzing and memorizing every inch of things. Then he held up his hand and made a low croaking sound in his throat without moving his lips.

The raven swept down from its perch and landed on his wrist. Julie had always though of ravens as inelegant bonds to have, but the two of them seemed to fit; the beady-eyed black bird and the dark, green-eyed boy.

Ignoring both Julie and Luke the boy brought the bird to his eye-level and said sternly, "Are you going to rat me out every time we do this? 'Cause you're going to be useless as a thief's bird otherwise."

The raven bobbed its head. "Seth says, 'No honor among—"

The boy jerked his wrist impatiently, jiggling the bird. "Yes, yes, I know, but that doesn't necessarily apply to your partner-in-crime!"

Julie fought down the urge to smile. Somehow, hearing that the boy was a thief didn't frighten her. Maybe it because he was arguing with his bond just as she and Luke sometimes did with theirs, with that air of exasperated banter. And it didn't surprise her either. After all, someone who looked like that could only really be a thief.

Luke had finally managed to locate the knife Julie had brought. He advanced on the boy from behind. But before Julie could tell Luke that it probably wasn't a good idea, the boy whipped around. His feet snapped out, down and sideways, sweeping Luke's feet from under him. His free arm shot out and took the knife out of Luke's hand. But the most amazing thing was the raven. It stayed firmly on his wrist the whole time, bending and balancing so it didn't fly off.

Luke lay winded, taken completely by surprise. The boy twirled the knife idly and tossed it down in the dust beside Luke. "I'd think twice about doing that if I were you," he said mildly, inspecting Luke as if he were a slightly interesting exhibit. "Brave, but dumb if you really think about it."

"What are you doing here?" gasped Luke angrily from the ground.

The boy ignored the question. "I'm Seth, as Corax probably told you already." He spoke to the clearing at large, but Julie knew he was telling it to all of them, bird bonds included.

"And you're a thief," Luke pointed out, still sounding irritated. "Your bird was trying to take Julie's bracelet, wasn't it?"

"Corax is a he," corrected Seth calmly. "And yes, he was. And yes, I am a thief, and so is he. By nature, of course."

"When you say, 'by nature', do you mean you or the raven?" asked Julie, as boldly as she could. Some part of her was telling her it was absurd to be speaking so easily to a stranger who had tried to steal from her and knocked Luke effortlessly in the dust, but she was finding it strangely hard to be afraid of Seth.

Seth wheeled to look at her, and could have sworn she saw a glimmer of amused respect in his eyes. "Maybe both of us," he answered, smiling slightly.

"You still haven't told us what you're doing here," Luke pressed.

"And you still haven't had the common courtesy to introduce yourselves and your bonds," Seth replied smoothly.

Luke was starting to turn a dark shade of red around his neck, so Julie intervened quickly. "My name is Julie Naya, and this is Luke Beroli." She inclined her head upward to the branch where their two bird bonds sat and added, "The gyrfalcon is mine, Icarus. Athena is the eagle owl, she's with Luke."

Seth nodded in acknowledgment at each name and gave each of the birds a respectful tilt of his head. Julie felt oddly satisfied. Thief he might have been, but it was obvious that Seth still knew the etiquette when it came to greeting bird bonds. She sent a thought to Icarus. What's your verdict?

I like him, replied the falcon. He knows how to treat bonds. His raven likes him, that much I can sense. He's quick, he sees things, knows things. He could either be very helpful or very dangerous.

Julie sighed. Sometimes Icarus never seemed to give her straight answers, but then birds didn't see things the way humans did.

"Where're you going?" Seth asked offhandedly, breaking her communication with Icarus.

"Stop that!" Luke snapped angrily. "You keep turning all our questions around and asking your own!"

"It's an annoying habit of mine," answered Seth with a twitch of a grin.

At last a bit of caution entered into Julie's ease. "Why do you want to know?"

Seth sighed. "A traveler can't take a bit of interest in another traveler without arousing suspicion. What's the world coming to?" His green eyes dropped his mournful pretense and became serious. "I know you're from the village to the east of here. I know you left because The Whipper wanted you. I know you're running away."

Julie sucked in a breath. One word escaped her lips. "How?"

Corax croaked softly. Seth ran a slim hand over the raven's shiny back feathers. "Because I'm a thief, and also a spy," he answered matter-of-factly. But there was something offhand in his voice that made Julie frown. He wasn't telling the whole truth.

"I watched you leave the village. I've been watching you. Following you."

"Why?" Luke demanded. It was clear the idea made him very uncomfortable. It bothered Julie too, but not quite for the same reason. Luke didn't like feeling exposed, he didn't like the idea of someone watching him without his knowing it. But Julie's concern went deeper. Her burning question was, "Why did he want to?" She didn't realize she had said it out loud until Seth looked at her.

He shrugged. "I liked your bracelet. I thought it might be worth something. We thieves ordinarily tend to think about things in terms of value."

But a voice whispered in Julie's head, Icarus's soft whistle. But he is not an ordinary thief, the gyrfalcon said, almost to himself more than Julie. Julie ground her teeth. Still no straight answers out of her maddening bond.

"But now that I've met you…" Seth continued, "There is safety in numbers. Mind if I come with you, just for a time, wherever you're actually going?"

"We do mind," Luke said, his voice flat and firm. "This isn't a fun little adventuring party. It's not open to all comers."

"You certainly didn't seem to mind joining me without permission," Julie reminded him. Somehow, a big part of her was pushing to let Seth come. Icarus's words had intrigued her. And Seth himself intrigued her.

Luke sputtered for a second, and then narrowed his eyes at her. "You're taking his side?" he asked incredulously.

"I'm trying to be logical," Julie argued. "He's right, if we come across anything bad, he'll be helpful in a fight." She decided not to cite Seth's easy defeat of Luke as an example. "And he knows about surviving out here, obviously. What harm could it do?"

"How do we know we can trust him?" Luke demanded, not bothering to keep his voice down. Julie shot a quick glance at Seth to see how he was dealing with this. He was examining the leafy treetops with apparent interest, seemingly oblivious to the fact they were discussing him.

"I don't know, Luke. But the birds seem fine with him, and I don't have any bad feelings. That'll have to be good enough."

Luke huffed out an angry breath and then said, "Fine. You're technically heading this little expedition anyway."

He walked away from her and began to pack up. Julie bit her lip. She hated having Luke mad at her, but hopefully he would forget it soon. To cover her anxiety, she walked across to Seth. "You can come," she told him.

"Excellent," said Seth smoothly.

Julie hesitated and then said, "Do you need to get your things?"

Seth laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh outright. It was an oddly bright sound in contrast to his quiet, dark demeanor. "What things? The only things I've got are Corax and what I have on me now."

"Oh." It was all Julie could think of to say. Seth did not seem to notice her discomfort.

"Is your friend angry with me? I'd hate to cause trouble." She couldn't read his face well enough to tell if he was being sarcastic.

"He'll be fine. He's just grumpy in the morning," Julie lied.

Seth nodded. All he said was, "Ah." But his eyes gleamed at her as he turned away to speak to Corax, and she knew instantly that her fibs did not work any better on this strange thief than they did on Luke.

There was far more tension now as they walked. Luke kept a fast, steady pace, watching Seth constantly to see if he slipped up or lagged behind. Seth did nothing of the sort. On the contrary, he was everywhere at once, sometimes striding along beside them, sometimes weaving in and out of the tree shadows, sometimes leaping up into the trees themselves to bound effortlessly from branch to branch like some kind of wild cat. This was a constant source of irritation to Luke, and his jaw clenched tighter and tighter the farther they went. Finally, Seth seemed to realize he was pushing his luck, and he went back to strolling casually along at their pace. The birds seemed to have a little less reserve. But the fact remained that they were human bonded, and thus open to the emotions of their partners. So while Icarus seemed perfectly happy to glide alongside the raven, Athena kept her distance.

Luke still had not calmed down when they stopped for the evening and built a small fire. Seth pretended he was completely oblivious to Luke's hostility. Julie was left with the painful position of trying to initiate conversation between them, playing the neutral party. But by the time the sun had gone down completely and they had eaten their meager dinner, Julie was already thoroughly exhausted by Luke's attitude. She didn't remember if there had ever been a time he had been this angry for so long. Luke was usually easygoing, and it bothered her not to have her friend speaking to her much.

After dinner, Seth vanished into the surrounding woodland, saying he wanted to teach Corax some more human speech. Apparently the bird's lessons were ongoing. Julie spent about twenty or so tense minutes in the silent camp with Luke before she gave up. "I'm going to find Seth," she told him. She was beginning to tire of his acting like a petulant kid. Luke just shrugged in reply.

Whistling Icarus down, she set off among the trees, listening for the sound of human or raven voices. After about five minutes of walking, she heard a croaky sound. Following it, she soon found a small clearing where the ground was padded with fallen leaves. Seth was lying on his back on the ground, his brown cloak spilling around him and Corax sitting on his chest.

"For the last time," he was telling the raven, "The word is 'trees'. I swear, there must be something wrong with your speech abilities. You keep forgetting the 'r'. It's not 'tees,' Corax."

Julie smothered a snicker at his tone of voice, and at the concentration in Corax's beady eyes as he listened to his bond's words.

Somehow, Seth heard. He stiffened; sitting up so fast it launched Corax off his chest. His eyes flickered like searchlights, sweeping the clearing until he picked out Julie's shadowy form half-concealed behind a tree. "Oh, it's you." He relaxed visibly, settling back down on his back. He didn't seem to mind that Julie was here. She came forward a couple steps, and when he didn't object, she came and sat down a couple feet from him. She suddenly felt the need to apologize for Luke.

"Listen, I'm sorry about how Luke's being..." she began, but Seth waved his hand dismissively.

"I learned a long time ago that not everyone likes me, and I've since accepted that not everyone has to. He's got reason enough."

There was a strange, almost bitter undertone in his voice that seemed to give the words a deeper meaning.

"Seth?" Julie asked tentatively, "Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot." Seth looked unconcerned, but Julie swore she saw him tense. Corax hopped from foot to foot, ruffling his feathers.

"Why did you really follow us?"

Seth sat up very slowly. For a second Julie thought he was going to be angry, but there was no anger in his eyes. Just sorrow, and bitterness. When he spoke, he did not seem to be speaking directly to her.

"The Whipper wanted you, too." He turned and met her eyes with his green ones. They were dead with some remembered pain.

Julie thought of what he'd said earlier. "I know you left because the Whipper wanted you." Something clicked in her head. "Is the Whipper your name for Lord Maeron?"

Seth twisted and spit on the leaves. When he looked back at her, there was anger his eyes, and disgust. "He ain't worthy of the title," he growled. His voice had lapsed suddenly into a rougher dialect, as if he had trained himself to talk differently and was forgetting now. "Lord indeed. He's the Whipper t'me and the other thieves, always will be."

Julie decided this was not the time to ask about the "other thieves". Instead she said, "Do you call him that because of his skill with the bullwhip?"

Now Seth turned away. "Some of us do," he said, his voice flat in a way that made true fear crawl down Julie's spine. "I have a different reason."

Quite suddenly, he whirled back to her. Corax cawed throatily, his voice harsh and anguished. Julie moved back involuntarily at the look in Seth's eyes. "Do you want to know why I followed you? Do you really want to know? Because we both have history with the Whipper. Because just that you were his victim…in a way makes you like me. Because I thought maybe you two would understand why the Whipper is a name I will never forget. Because he won't let me."

"Seth," croaked Corax softly, almost tenderly.

Julie realized that Seth's quiet self-control was gone. He was shaking. He took a deep breath, and then reached around his back. "I'm sorry," he breathed, and then he undid his cloak and lifted his ragged shirt.

Julie felt nausea and terror strike her in equal measure. A wave of fury and horror drowned her and slammed her to her knees. She had never seen anything like it, and hoped she never would again.

Seth's skin was tanned and dark, his back swathed in the same flat, thin bands of lean muscle that Luke had. His shoulders were narrow, and his muscles were not those of a worker or a builder, who were bulked with lumpy cords of skin, but the slim, almost invisible muscle of a fighter, an athlete. But none of that registered with Julie, not really.

Seth's back was crisscrossed with a very precise X, two long red welts that split his back neatly into quarters. The ragged flesh had long since solidified into a knotty scar, but that made it no less horrifying. And at each tip of the X there was a huge sunburst bruise of red, blue, and yellow, so large they were almost visible dents in Seth's skin. Bruises that had never healed, even though they were clearly as old as the welts. Bruises that could have been made by only one thing, the rock tied to the tip of a certain bullwhip, to make it crack when it was wielded. But this time, Julie realized, as bile surged up her throat, the rock had cracked not on air, but skin. Seth's skin.

There was nothing for Julie to say, nothing she could have forced past the choking sensation that knotted her throat. "I'm sorry" was inadequate. Pity could do nothing for this.

Without speaking, Seth lowered his shirt. He seemed to have gotten control back. With steady fingers he fastened his cloak at his throat again. Then he looked up, and his eyes held Julie's. "I followed you because I know what it's like to want to run from him. I followed you because somehow, we're the same. He got your friend, too, didn't he?"

"You'll have to ask him about that," Julie managed to say loyally. She wasn't giving up Luke's secrets without his permission, no matter how irritating he was being.

"Maybe I will," said Seth, almost to himself. Then he murmured, "Julie, will you tell him for me? Will you tell him about…you know." He gestured to his back.

"Are you sure you want me to?"

"Yes. But I don't think I can do it again. I can't say it over again. But tell him for me. Tell him he isn't the only one."

He really is perceptive, Julie thought with surprise. Somehow, Seth knew that Luke had had a run-in with Maeron, though certainly not one so awful. "I will," she answered aloud.

"Good." With a heavy sigh, Seth lay down again. He picked a long weed stem and stuck it pensively between his teeth. Corax puffed himself up and hopped back onto Seth's chest. Seth began stroking the raven absently again.

Julie tiptoed away, suddenly feeling she was intruding. The last glimpse she saw of him was Corax reaching out to run his beak through the thief's spiky black hair with gentle care.

The image of Seth's back weighed her mind down like a tangible thing, burning on the backs of her eyelids whenever she tried to shut it out. She had always known Maeron was cruel, the evidence of that was in her own past. But this was beyond cruelty. What had happened to Seth was a monstrosity.

But as she walked quickly back to camp in the dark, she thought up to Icarus, What do you think?

Nothing like that should ever be inflicted upon a thing that lives, Icarus said, his voice a grating screech in her mind. It is a disgrace to life itself. Sometimes it seems impossible that such people can do such things.

You know what, Ic? I'm glad he came with us. I can't put my finger on why, but I'm really glad.

I am too. He is interesting. His mind is interesting.

They had reached the clearing. Julie crossed to sit beside Luke and began to talk in a quick, urgent voice. "Listen, Luke. You may not like Seth, but he's a lot more like you than you know."

And she began in a strained voice to relate Seth's injury to her best friend, who sat transfixed in the dying firelight, the expression in his eyes darkening with every word she spoke.