The Silver Thread / Heart of a Soldier

The Silver Thread

Someone was tugging at him.

Hall opened his eyes. There was nobody there. He was in his narrow bed, straw poking out of the holes in the mattress against his back. He looked around to see if his cat had crawled into the bed in search of heat, but Moonface was lying against the side of the hearth, a gray puffball in the light from the embers.

But still, someone…or someTHING was tugging at him. At his belly. He pulled the blanket from his midsection. And then he saw it.

There was a silver thread attached to his body. Going directly into his navel at one end and stretching from there in a straight line across the room. Even in the dim pre-sunrise light, the thread shimmered and danced in the air. And it tugged at him, gently but insistently.

Hall thought for one mad moment that a spider might have spun a web inside his navel…that it had somehow crossed the room and continued on outside. But no spider could spin a thread this strong or this thick. And Moonface would have eaten any spider that crossed his path.

He reached down, pulled on the thread. No, it was connected TO HIM. It was as much part of him as his arm or his toes. Some kind of magic, he thought, getting to his feet.

There was so little magic left in the world. Hall had never seen any actual magic before; the lords and ladies kept it for their castles. While his ancestors had used magic to cause bricks to appear and buildings to rise, Hall the brickmaker had to knead the clay and push it into wooden frames by hand.

The silver thread was a perfect, straight line. He knew the lines of bricks and buildings: lines that were almost, but never quite straight. There was nothing in nature to compare to the thread. Magic, then, he thought. A magic that tugged at him gently.

What would he tell the men and women at the building site? Hall wondered. How would he do his work if he had to carry around a silver thread?

He dressed, letting his tunic hang over the silver thread. Then he gave Moonface an absentminded head-scratch, lifted the burlap that covered the entrance to his hut, and went out into the street.

The thread hung in the air, stretching from where Hall stood into the distance. The soldiers would see, he thought. They would punish him. Disorderly conduct. Disorderly thread! he thought.

There were already men and women about as the sun peeped over the horizon. He watched a woman, hands carefully placed on a pot resting atop her head, as she walked from one side of the street to the other. Towards the thread. Hall’s voice was paralyzed. She would be cut in two by the thread, or –

But the silver thread stayed where it was, and she walked straight through it, and continued on around the corner, unharmed.

He must be going mad, Hall thought, like his uncle Neil who had thought himself called to a purpose. If HE was the only one who saw this thread that tugged at him…

Then, the logic of the brickmaker: There was no getting rid of the thread from THIS end, so Hall would have to find the OTHER end. When he took a step in the direction of the silver thread, it did not sag or fall to the ground. When he took a step back towards his hut, the thread did not pull at him any more firmly. He could move as he wished.

One of his neighbors was observing him stepping back and forth, and Hall straightened his tunic, shrugged at the man, and walked in the direction of the silver thread.

It tugged him at him to walk down the street. Behind a merchant’s stall. Through a back alley, and then…and then Hall saw it enter the town’s temple some yards away.

Ah, he thought. So, he WAS being called to a purpose, after all. He whispered an apology to his mad uncle Neil and walked the remaining distance to the temple. Hall could not tell if the silver thread was being gathered into his stomach somehow through his navel, or picked up at the other end in the temple somewhere, but he supposed it did not matter.

Ternin the Priest was sweeping the temple floors; she looked up in surprise when Hall entered; he had not been to the temple in many years. Hall had his affairs, and the temple had its affairs, and he had not seen any reason to visit since the time he had delivered a handcart of bricks to Ternin long ago.

Ternin stopped and leaned against the broom. “Do you come here seeking something?” she asked.

Ah. How to explain. Hall lifted the silver thread that was coming from under his tunic. Then he realized that Ternin could not see the thread, and that it must appear to her as if he had come into the temple simply to raise his tunic at her. He blushed.

“Do you seek penance? Absolution? Forgiveness?” she asked.

Another tug. His eyes followed the silver thread along the temple floor to where it disappeared out the back door. The temple was not his destination, after all. “I wish you good day,” Hall said, smiling at Ternin and walking quickly away from her.

“A good day to you, brickmaker Hall,” Ternin called after him. “The temple is always open to you!”

His destination was not the temple. It was not the Merchants Quarter that lay beyond it, either. With rising alarm, Hall realized that the silver thread would take him past his place of work and far beyond.

He stopped at the barracks that were under construction. At this point, they were only two unfinished walls amid piles of bricks. “You are early for work,” his sun-burned master, Rial, said. “But we pay the same copper, regardless.”

Hall was fond of his work, and much less fond of Rial. “I will not be at work today,” Hall explained. “I have something else to do.”

Rial frowned. “It is a brave man who abandons his profession for a day.” Hall could see the copper coins dancing in Rial’s mind. “By my numbers, you shall owe an extra day’s interest.”

Every day Hall worked, he took home half his pay in copper, and Rial kept the other half to pay off the tools Hall had bought from him years ago. Hall thought that the tools must be paid for by now, but Rial had explained to him the ‘magic’ of something called ‘interest’. Hall thought that if this was magic, he did not care very much for it.

Hall nodded. “I will see you again tomorrow.” He turned away before he could give Rial the satisfaction of seeing the other man smile. Ternin had her gods, and Rial had his ‘interest.’ And yet neither saw the thing that was plain in front of them: the silver thread that tugged at Hall, that urged him to move onward.

The thread continued out of the town center, and Hall began to worry. How long could this thread be? Would it stretch into the fields? As far as another town? Was there an end to it?

There must be an end, he reasoned. All ropes have two ends.

By dusk, he found the end, down by the lilies floating at the edge of the mill. The silver thread ended abruptly at a short, dark-skinned man with a frizz of brown hair and clothes as rough as Hall’s were. The man was holding his end of the thread and looking at Hall, puzzled. The tugging had stopped.

“Hello,” Hall said.

“Hello,” the man said.

They took in the strangeness of the moment, and then the man introduced himself. His name was Jevis, and he was a carpenter from the next town over.

“I woke up this morning,” Jevis said in a deep voice, “and I found THIS attached to me.” He smiled. “I tried to saw it off, then I tried to hack it off, but it is as strong as obsidian, and it pulls at me. Gently, but it does pull at me.”

Jevis hefted the thread. “If I had such a material in my work, I could make furniture that would last forever,” he said. Then: “But I would not be able to sell a table – or chairs – that nobody could see.”

“Yes, yes,” Hall said. “Nobody can see it…not even my cat, and it is said they have the sharpest eyes of all.”

Jevis smiled. “You have a cat?”

“Indeed, and his name is Moonface…”

And Hall told Jevis of Moonface, and Jevis told Hall of the next town over, where his pay was somewhat less than Hall’s, but meals were included.

It was a long way back to the other town, and Hall offered Jevis a place to sleep for the night. He knew not what had come over him; his quarters were barely large enough for himself and Moonface.

Jevis accepted, and they walked back into Hall’s town, talking when they wished, and being silent when they did not. Like a river, words flowed easily between them.

Jevis petted Moonface, and fussed over him, and Hall was pleased to see that when he lifted the unprotesting cat, Jevis held one hand under the cat’s rump and another across the cat’s side, as was proper.

They sat on the little bed at one point and did not speak. “It is all right, I think,” Hall said. “We are connected in this way” – he gestured at the thread. “I do not believe we need the blessings of the temple.”

“I find temples drafty,” Jevis said, then pulled Hall towards him.

A strange day, Hall thought as he drifted off to sleep in Jevis’s arms. A silver thread, a search through the town, and finally, Jevis. Brickmaker and carpenter. Such a match made sense. They would solve the mystery of the silver thread in the morning. Or perhaps it would disappear like a dream in the night, now that they had met each other at last.

When Hall awoke, he saw that Jevis was studying the silver thread in the dawning sun. Hall’s eyesight was none too good, and he surmised that a carpenter must have better sight than a brickmaker.

Jevis lifted the thread that lay between them. “Look closely,” he said.

Hall peered at the thread. The THREADS, he corrected himself. Yesterday in the dusk he had seen only one thread. But now, he saw that there were two. Jevis’s was a lighter silver, and his a darker one. At the point where they joined, there was a tangle of thread.

He and Jevis worked at the tangle, and when they had freed the threads, they saw that they were not joined at all. As soon as the tangle was undone, Hall felt another tug; a longer segment of each thread lit up, a segment that started where the tangle had been and went on and on.

Jevis’s lighter thread went off through the hut towards the burlap door, and his own darker thread went off towards the back of the hut.

“Then…” Hall said, “I suppose we each have some distance to go.”

Jevis kissed him. “I will not forget you,” he said. “I will be back to visit Moonface again, if you would have me.”

Hall smiled. “Of course. You are my thread-brother, even if we are not at the end of each other’s threads.”

Jevis had to get back to his town and his carpentry, and they said goodbye. Walking through the streets, Hall saw a young woman with her own thread: it was sapphire blue. She was following it with purpose, gathering it in her hands as she went. He wanted to call after her, tell her that she did not need to collect it, that it would manage itself. But that was a discovery for her to make, after all. And perhaps she knew something he did not.

He would not follow the thread today. He would go to work instead, Hall thought. There would be time enough to find the other end. Time, and others to meet along the way: carpenters, priests, soldiers, perhaps even lords.

If he travelled long enough, then eventually he must find the other end.

It would not take forever, he mused. There was someone at the other end who was searching for him.

When Hall had time, he would follow the thread to its conclusion. He had to. Otherwise, he would continue to feel that gentle tug, that little voice in his ear that whispered:

“Come along. This way. There is someone that you must meet.”

-----

Heart of a Soldier

The war was endless. Eternal.

It had started before Veren and Horace were born, and it would go on long after they were gone. Lightning bolts and mortar impacts rained down on the city year after year. The builders continued to rebuild the city, and the soldiers continued to fight the war.

Veren and Horace met in the basement of a building during a raid, huddled together, whispering words of encouragement, hands reaching towards each other in the dark.

Their marriage was held in front of the only wall that remained of a church; it stood in a field of bricks. They were joined by the few relatives who were not fighting.

Each month, the army drew lots, and one month, it drew Veren’s name.

“You will fight, and you will return,” Horace said as he lay against Veren’s chest in their cabin, playing with his husband’s hair. He tried to sound like he meant it.

“I will return, and we will celebrate,” Veren replied, and drew Horace to him. In each family, one would fight, and one would stay and wait. It had always been so: If all went off to fight, there would be no one left to wait.

Horace listened to the beat of Veren’s heart and thought: This I will miss most of all. Their cabin was small, and it was scorched from a lightning strike, but it was their refuge.

Veren’s commander, General Lise, came to collect him the next morning. She was tall and blonde and had a sharp smile like a diamond. She did not promise Horace that Veren would return; there were no promises in war.

But Veren would return, Horace thought. He spent his days cutting and grooving and stitching leathers for the war effort, making armor for other foot soldiers like Veren.

And Veren did return, and if he limped a little going up the stairs, Horace said nothing. After the all-clear sounded, they sat in the garden and Horace fed his soldier strawberries and dabbed the juice from Veren’s lips, and they laughed together.

The next time Veren was chosen to go to war, there were no more strawberries, and Horace spent the days sitting in their root cellar, surrounded by heavy black cloth over the windows, listening to lightning bolts fall onto the ruined town. Veren would return, Horace thought. He dropped fresh garlic cloves into canning jars, packed the jars with vegetables, and poured hot brine over them.

General Lise’s assistants came to collect the pickled vegetables for the war effort. Horace stopped himself from asking after Veren: they would not know…or they would not tell him.

And Veren did return, though he walked a bit slower this time. When they undressed for bed that night, Horace stopped in shock.

Veren had very dark skin, but now his left foot, and right thigh, and part of his stomach were pale white. “We were caught in a barrage of lightning bolts,” Veren explained, not meeting Horace’s eyes. “Split into pieces, each of us. The mages put us back together…but they could not find every last bit.” He laughed a hollow laugh.

But Veren’s body still felt like Veren, and Horace lay against him let himself drift into sleep. Even if his foot and his thigh and his stomach were a pale white, this was still Veren…

Horace had kept one jar of pickled turnips in defiance of the war drive, and they ate the turnips and spoke of better times. Veren steered the conversation away from the war, and they pretended that there was nothing beyond the walls of their little scorched cabin.

The war was going well, and so the army needed more soldiers. Or perhaps it was going badly? Horace did not know; they always needed more soldiers. General Lise arrived with her diamond smile to take Veren from him, and he did not shake her hand. Of course, he would return, Horace thought. He always did.

When Veren came back, the tide of war had turned – though if it had turned for the better or worse, Horace did not know. He did not care. Stripped of its leathers, Veren’s body was now a patchwork of black and brown and white, muscled and fat and lean in places. One of his eyes was now a bright blue, and the other brown.

In the middle of the night, Horace awoke in terror. Veren was gone! He was – But no. Veren lay next to him. His arms were around him, and…

And there was no heartbeat in his husband’s chest. Nothing but silence. Veren opened his eyes and asked Horace what was wrong. Horace could not find any words to say.

General Lise did not return his calls. Horace sent a formal letter requesting her presence, and given his service to the war effort, she agreed to pay him a visit when she had some time.

They sat in the sunlit kitchen. “Is he…alive?” Horace asked her in a whisper. Veren had gone out to help lift fallen rocks and dig out men and women who had perished in the latest bombing.

The General smiled her diamond smile. “He is as alive as you or me.” She tapped the armor over her chest. “At close range, a magical weapon is remarkably effective at destroying body parts such as the heart. But our healers have their own reanimating magic. We were fortunate to save such a brave fighter.” Then: “You should be very proud.”

That evening, Horace watched Veren polish his boots by the fire. The soldier caught his eye and smiled. “My love. Why do you look at me so strangely?”

“Forgive me,” Horace said. “You look so…different than you did before.”

Veren put down the cloth and swept Horace into his arms. “Do not worry,” he said. “I still remember our wedding…the nights of dancing…the strawberries and cream.” He kissed Horace’s neck. Then he spoke the vows from their marriage day: “I am your Veren, and you are my Horace. As before, as always.”

And the next time? Horace wondered. And the time after that? Veren would continue to fight and continue to be injured. There would come a time when so little of him would be left, that he would no longer be Veren.

Horace lay his head against his husband’s chest and heard nothing. He listened, and he thought: When it happens – when he becomes nothing more than a collection of bits and pieces of other soldiers – how will I be able to tell?