"It is. A child of violence only begets violence, and brings disaster to whatever it touches."

"I saw my own omen," she informed him, and for the first time, she spoke of the phoenix bird.

He stared at her skeptically, and when she finally told the tale, he said, "Even a.s.suming it's true . . . of what interest is that? Of what moment?"

"It was a sign to me," she said firmly. "A sign of birth and rebirth. A sign of great things that were going to happen to me as a result of a birth. I asked a soothsayer about it," which was a flat-out lie, but she wanted to bolster her credibility.

"A soothsayer," he said with a snort. "A soothsayer will say whatever sooth you desire to hear if the money's right." But he didn't appear to want to press the point after that, settling for walking out with a final look of cold disdain, the loud banging of the door intended to signal his annoyance and opinion of the entire matter.

The thing was, even though she was lying about the soothsayer, my mother spoke the truth about her beliefs. She was of the firm conviction that her pregnancy was part of some grand plan. That her having witnessed the birth of the phoenix was indeed an omen, and that I was the centerpiece, the payoff, of that omen. In a sick sort of way, it's almost amusing.

My mother's carnal activities were curtailed after that. I was an active sort, you see, and since I had stumbled upon my motor skills, I became rather adept at letting my presence be known at inopportune times. Plus, several weeks after that, it became a moot point as my mother's belly began to swell in a distinctive manner, so much so that even a blind man would have seen the truth of things. So my mother restricted her activities to serving drinks and waiting for me to make my arrival upon the scene.

In a perverse sort of way, a family almost formed around her. There was another serving wench, named Astel, and she was a kindhearted young thing. Surprisingly bright for a mere server, Astel was younger than Madelyne, and yet seemed to take her under her wing. Astel had thick curly blond hair and a musical laugh, which I would have cause to hear later on in my life any number of times. She also had wide hips and an ample bosom, but when she ran she did it so lightly that it seemed she was made of mist. She heard of my mother's tale about the phoenix, and seemed entranced by it. She fancied herself a diviner of mythic matters, and told my mother that as far as she was concerned, Madelyne's reading of the situation was absolutely on target. This excited Astel somewhat, for she said she had never been in the presence of future greatness, and appreciated the opportunity that fate had afforded her.

She was the midwife the night that I was born.

When Madelyne went into labor, it was not a quiet affair. Oh, she described herself as being brave and silent, but that wasn't how Astel described it to me in later years. In point of fact, Madelyne howled like a tornado. Her caterwauling was so loud that it supremely disturbed the customers. So Stroker exiled her to the stable for the duration of the labor in order to spare the delicate sensibilities of his usual crowd of drunkards, layabouts, and petty criminals.

Considering the set of lungs Madelyne possessed, they likely would have heard her from the d.a.m.ned moon, if not for the fact that a h.e.l.lacious storm showed its face that night. Astel told me that it was one of the most terrifying nights of her life, and I do not doubt it. Horses belonging to various patrons reared up in their stalls, whinnying fearfully, as Madelyne lay sprawled on a bed of straw and huffed and puffed away.

The calm that she had displayed all during the pregnancy, the quiet certainty that she was fulfilling some magnificent part of a greater plan, all evaporated during that stressful night. She bellowed profanities, she cried out for mercy, she cursed the knights who had done this to her, she cursed my name and she didn't even know what my name was. She just cursed it in spirit.

During all that, the dedicated Astel stayed by her side. Madelyne clutched Astel's hand so tightly that she nearly broke her fingers, but that didn't stop Astel from remaining right where she was, determined to help Madelyne see it through. She wiped the sweat from her brow, gave her small drops of liquid, spoke gentle words of support and endearment even though there were times that she was convinced Madelyne didn't hear a word.

Madelyne thrashed and screeched some more, and the horses were going mad with fear. It was a d.a.m.ned good thing they were tied to their place, otherwise they might have stampeded and my existence on this sphere would have been abruptly truncated as my newborn form was ground to pulp beneath panicky horses' hooves. Thunder smashed overhead, G.o.d apparently desiring to make a personal statement about the agonizing birth process that he had chosen to inflict upon humanity. Sort of like affixing one's signature to a particularly grisly masterpiece.

With one final, hair-raising howl that she seemed to be channeling from d.a.m.ned souls confined to the lowest recesses of h.e.l.l, Madelyne's muscles convulsed and I was spat out of her nether regions into Astel's waiting arms.

It was not an auspicious debut.

Apparently not satisfied having exiled a woman in need to a stable filled with the pungent smell of sweaty animals and their droppings, Stroker felt the need-moments after my birth-to see for himself why something as simple as a woman trying to force something the size of a grapefruit through a bodily orifice the size of a grape should be causing such a hullabaloo. The door to the stable banged open, thunder cracking to accentuate the nominal drama of his arrival, and he stared at the scene in front of him.

My mother was gasping, covered with sweat, still not having quite recovered her senses. Astel was cradling me in her arms and cooing softly. She looked up at Stroker and, apparently expecting him to share in the joy of the moment, said, "It's a boy."

"Good. He can pull his weight around here-" Stroker started to say, and then he caught sight of me. "It's deformed!" he snarled.

"He's a he, not an it," Astel said, but she didn't dispute his observation.

"Look at him!" said the angry Stroker, standing over me. "His right leg! It's withered and twisted! He'll never walk properly! And he's underweight! He's a runt, all shriveled and no meat on him! The first good cold snap will kill him!"

"He'll fill out . . . he'll be fine," said Astel.

"My baby . . ." It was Madelyne, speaking in a coherent and relatively calm manner. Her arms were weak but still half-raised, her fingers fluttering. "Let me hold him . . . ."

Astel started to hand me over to Madelyne . . . and then Stroker intercepted her and s.n.a.t.c.hed me out of her arms.

"I'm exposing him," Stroker announced.

"No! You can't!" Astel said, horrified. She started to move toward Stroker to try and s.n.a.t.c.h me back, but he drew back a meaty hand and Astel, who wasn't always the most stalwart of things, retreated before the antic.i.p.ated blow could land.

"I'm doing it a favor," Stroker informed her. "Better a quick death before Madelyne becomes too attached to something that won't survive anyway."

Madelyne was still confused, still not fully understanding what was happening around her, but she was able to grasp enough of it to realize what Stroker's intentions were. He was going to lay me out on a rock somewhere, or deposit me in the forest, leaving me to die from the elements or-just as likely-to be killed and devoured by the first pa.s.sing predator looking for a light snack.

At that point, I started to mewl as infants generally do shortly upon birth, waxing nostalgic for the safety and warmth they have just left behind. This pitiful wailing was enough to spur Madelyne and, weak as she was, she still managed to lunge forward and grab at Stroker's leg. "No! He's mine! Mine! Give him to me! I'm his mother! Give him to me!"

"Stop your yowling, shrew!" he snapped, and he kicked at her with his free leg. He caught her squarely in her still weak stomach, and she lost her grip on him and rolled up in pain. But she didn't stop shouting, didn't stop demanding that he give me back to her at that very instant.

"I'm doing what's best for all concerned!" Stroker said, and he slung me over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.

My little mouth was right at the base of his throat.

And I sunk my teeth into him.

Teeth? I hear you say. Yes, that is correct: teeth. A right leg worth a d.a.m.n, I did not have. Body weight, there was none. But G.o.d-in his infinite perverse wisdom-had chosen to endow me with a full set of teeth the moment I sprang from the womb. And they were, so I'm told, sharp little things, and powerful jaw muscles accompanied them. I hear you say. Yes, that is correct: teeth. A right leg worth a d.a.m.n, I did not have. Body weight, there was none. But G.o.d-in his infinite perverse wisdom-had chosen to endow me with a full set of teeth the moment I sprang from the womb. And they were, so I'm told, sharp little things, and powerful jaw muscles accompanied them.

My teeth crunched down into his neck as if I were a tiny vampire. I was probably just hungry. If so, the first liquid to cross my lips was not mother's milk, but blood, for that was what I drew when I bit him.

Stroker let out a startled yelp that was so high-pitched one might have mistaken him for a woman. "Get it off!" he shouted and, matching deed to words, he shoved me off him and sent me tumbling through the air. Had I landed on my head that might well have been the end of me, but Madelyne rolled across the floor and caught me.

"It bit me! It bit me! It bit me!" Stroker cried out, waving an outraged finger at Madelyne.

To which Astel replied, trying her best to maintain a reasonable tone of voice, "Consider you were trying to kill him, Stroker. And consider who his mother is . . . and the violence of his conception. So he's born with teeth and bites you? That's certainly apropos."

And to the astonishment of both Astel and Madelyne . . . Stroker laughed. It didn't seem like something that was part of his character. He had appeared all bluff, bl.u.s.ter, and arrogance. He never seemed to have any sense of humor at all. But there was something about the insanity of being chomped upon by a newborn that appealed to his sense of the ironic . . . whatever that might have been.

"Yes," he growled. "That is most certainly apropos. That's the child's name."

"What?" Astel looked confused. "You . . . you can't name the child . . ."

"It's my stable, my inn. And I've never given a child a name before. Besides, you came up with the name, not me."

"But I . . . that's . . . but . . ." Astel, now completely befuddled, turned to Madelyne.

Madelyne, for her part, simply lay there and gently stroked my hair, which was already coming in as a fuzz of red. "It's all right, Astel," she said softly. "One name is as good as another, and 'Apropos' is as good as any."

"He's still going to be bad luck," Stroker said, and he rubbed the base of his neck and glowered at Madelyne, cradling her child in her arms. "At least now we'll have a name to curse when misfortune befalls us." Then he turned on his heel and walked out.

"I thought the child was finished for sure," Astel said. She looked wonderingly at Madelyne. "It's amazing how he changed his mind."

"Not amazing," Madelyne replied with a knowing smile. "It's . . . Apropos."

"It certainly is." Astel craned her neck slightly, trying to get a better look at me. My mother had used a wet cloth to remove the normal blood and slime that one accrues while being born. "He's certainly well on his way to having a head of flaming red hair."

"That's also apropos."

"What do you mean?"

Madelyne drew aside the blanket that she had wrapped around me, and exposed my hip. There, quite plainly, was a most unusual birthmark. It was in the shape of a small burst of flame. "You see? I was right. I witnessed the flaming death and rebirth of the phoenix . . . and here is a sign upon him. It's more than a birthmark, I'll wager. It's a linemark, a sign of lineage. Of greatness. Could there be any more clear a sign than that? Oh look . . ." she said as I began to whimper and squirm, "I think he's hungry." She held me up to her breast so that I could nurse.

"You know . . . that mark might still be a plain old birthmark . . . it could just be coincidence," Astel said doubtfully.

"No. No, Astel . . . there is no coincidence. There is simply . . ." She paused for dramatic effect. " . . . destiny."

I bit her.

It seemed apropos.

Chapter 4.

The area around Stroker's Inn was hardly a hive of industry, but nonetheless, after a period of time, a village started to develop. I suppose it shouldn't have been much of a surprise. As near as I can tell, men were showing up in the evening, drinking well into the night, and then resenting the distance they had to stagger to get home (to say nothing of those who were drinking and riding, tumbling off their horses and being dragged behind when their feet snagged in the stirrups). Faced with the prospect of choosing between home and pub, a large number of men opted to combine the two, and relocated their homes to within easy staggering distance. Naturally their a.s.sorted businesses went with them, and that was more or less how the town was sp.a.w.ned.

There was some debate over what the town should be named. There was a sizable group of annoyed wives who advocated the name "Drunken b.a.s.t.a.r.dville," and believe it or not, a number of the men embraced it as well before someone explained to them that the women were making fun of them. Finally they called it "the Town," so that even the most inebriated of men could remember it. As towns went, it wasn't much. Then again, it was probably what you would expect from a town that was created and centered on a tavern. Fortunately, as it turned out, the Town was well positioned along some of the more traveled paths, and so did a fairly brisk trade from transients. Furthermore, people procreated as is their habit, and a decent next generation of Townies sprang from the diseased loins of the founders.

My mother continued to ply her trade with willingness, if not great abandon. She didn't especially care one way or the other as some new pa.s.ser-through huffed and puffed atop her. The only thing she was capable of feeling, really, was that she was helping to fulfill some sort of great destiny that awaited me, and she dedicated herself to that end. She told me about it repeatedly enough as I grew. She likely emphasized that for two reasons. First, she felt some sort of need to justify her activities to me, her son, since she probably felt that sooner or later I would judge her trade and find her wanting (a reasonable concern). And second, she wanted me to feel better about myself since I had to cope with my deformity.

A misshapen right leg is not something that one tends to grow out of. I was far slower to learn how to walk than the average child, and even when I finally did get the hang of it, it was only after a fashion. When other children would run, the most I was able to manage was a brisk limp. For the first years of my life, mother fashioned for me some crude crutches, which enabled me to get around with some vague efficiency. I disliked them intensely, however, mostly because they underscored my vulnerability. This was driven home by the tendency that patrons of the bar had to kick the crutches out from under me whenever I would happen by. Since there was a steady flow of new patrons, each one thought that he was clever enough to have been the first one to think of it. So down I would go, time and again. Madelyne would always let out an aggrieved yelp, help me to my feet, and scold whichever patron it was who had decided to show what a tough man he was by abusing a helpless child. Her ire would invariably be greeted with guffaws, and a patronizing slap on the rump or a squeezed breast. This scenario played itself out so often that I came to think of it as a sort of ritual and took no personal offense. Nonetheless, the banged-up knees were certainly no fun, and I stopped using the easily targeted crutch by the time I was five. Instead I subst.i.tuted a stout cane. I didn't get around as quickly as with the crutches, but it forced me to develop more strength in my left leg and a modic.u.m of strength in my twisted right leg. Whenever possible, I would even disdain the cane and-in the tavern, most often-make my way by leaning on furniture or pulling myself around by clasping onto timbers in the wall. Consequently I gained some considerable upper-body power, although I didn't think much of it as I watched other boys, both older and younger, sprinting down the street with an ease that I could only envy and they could only take for granted.

Nor did I think much of my mother's frequent male visitors. In retrospect, it is amazing what children will take in stride. I shared my mother's small room. She had her cot, and I had a bedroll shoved off in the corner. If it was night and I was in bed (or on floor, as the case may be), and the back room was being used for some other private function, she would think nothing of bringing customers to our quarters. I would lie there in the darkness and occasionally be lulled to sleep by the rhythmic creaking of the cot. It meant nothing to me. It was simply what my mother did. I just a.s.sumed that everyone's mother behaved in a like manner.

I was disabused of this belief when I was about six or seven. I had been working in Stroker's since I was old enough to walk, or at least what pa.s.sed for walking. I did whatever needed to be done, be it cleaning tables or mucking out horse stables. I didn't have all that much contact with the rest of the kids in the town, though. I was either too busy with my ch.o.r.es, or simply watching from a window and seeing the speed and alacrity with which they moved, knowing I couldn't possibly keep up. This particular day, though, Stroker had sent me on an errand, to fetch a new mug from the silversmith to replace one that had corroded. I limped past a group of young boys who were gallivanting f.e.c.klessly in the middle of the street-if a wide swath of dirt can reasonably be called a street-and they took notice of me. They stopped their ball game, and one of the larger ones stepped forward in what could only be called a challenging manner. His name was Skrit, and he was easily a head taller than I was. Still a child, of course, but to me at that time, he appeared a behemoth. Skrit had a broken nose and scarred lip from an earlier fight, and it was possible that he was looking for easier pickings.

I, in the meantime, was paying no attention to them, for I had found a coin lying on the ground. It wasn't much, but it was sitting there dirty and forgotten. I wrapped my small fingers around it and grinned. I had money of my own.

"h.e.l.lo, Wh.o.r.e's Son," he called.

I glanced over my shoulder to see who was being addressed. It took me a moment to realize I was the addressee. What threw me was the deceptively pleasant tone in his voice. To him, it was sarcasm. But I was relatively friendless, knowing only the love of my mother the cot-creaker, the sympathetic looks of Astel, and the gibes and cuffs of the patrons of Stroker's. I had no experience with peer att.i.tudes.

My hearing was also not the greatest.

"My name isn't Orson," I corrected him politely, or thought I had. I slid the coin into the pocket of my tunic without its being noticed. "It's Apropos."

" 'Wh.o.r.e's Son' is apropos," replied Skrit.

"But that's not my . . ." I decided I was being unclear and started again. "Are you sure you're talking to me?"

"Are you the one whose mother is a wh.o.r.e?" he said with a sneer.

I leaned on my cane and scratched my head. "I don't know. What's a wh.o.r.e?"

Skrit stared at me, clearly trying to figure out if I was being coy or just stupid. But the expression of polite confusion on my face was probably too difficult to fake. "She's a woman what sleeps with men and gets paid for it, that's what! And the men what sleeps with them, they're wh.o.r.e-lovers!"

I thought of money clinking on the table next to the bed when the men would depart, and instantly knew that that indeed described my mother perfectly. Still, to me, that was the norm. Plus, I remembered times when my mother and Astel would be talking, and they would say things such as money was the only reason men were worth being with, and that what Madelyne did was no different than what the most respectable of women did. There were just different measures of what they were willing to sell themselves for. For other women, it was respectability, t.i.tles, land, gowns, and dresses. Astel would opine that Madelyne was more honest about what she did than those others. "It all comes down to money," Astel said. "The only thing that's different is where and how it gets spent."

With those thoughts ringing in my ears, I said to Skrit, "Does your mom get a place to live and food and clothes from your dad?"

Skrit blinked in slow surprise. He glanced at the others and they shrugged, uncertain of what direction this conversation seemed to be going. I wasn't responding to their taunts, as they would have wished, apparently: with rage or tears or some other thing they could reasonably lampoon. Instead I was simply earnestly confused and inquiring. "Yeah," Skrit said guardedly.

"Well, then . . . she's a wh.o.r.e, too, so I guess we're both wh.o.r.e's sons," was my cheerful response.

In retrospect, it was probably not the brightest answer I could have given.

For this comment was something that Skrit could easily understand. He saw it as an insult, and acted accordingly: He charged.

Alarmed that the conversation had taken a violent turn, I backed up, b.u.mping up against a house. The much larger Skrit loomed over me, and he hit me hard in the stomach. I gasped, feeling my stomach tighten into a knot of pain, and then he hit me again on the side of the head. I went down, dropping my cane. Skrit took the opportunity to kick me full in the face. I felt my nose crack from the impact and knew immediately that it was broken. I rolled onto my back, blood fountaining from my lip and nose. One side of my face was covered with blood.

I had no idea what was going on, for it had all happened so fast. I heard the hooting and hollering of the other boys, and shouts of "Get him again!" and "Show him what-for, Skrit!"

I felt abandoned and alone, as if I didn't have a friend in the world, as if the entire universe had arrayed itself against me. I was unable to focus on a simple street fight: to me, it was a cosmic condemnation. My face stung, partly from physical pain, partly from humiliation and embarra.s.sment.

I grabbed up my cane, gripping it firmly, gritting my teeth against the agony of my face that seemed on fire. Skrit was making no further move at that moment. Instead he stood over me, laughing, his hands on his hips. I had never desired much as a child, but at that moment, there was nothing I wanted more than to wipe that insufferable smirk off Skirt's face.

I swung the cane around. Cane? "Bludgeon" would be the more appropriate word, for it was large and thick and could serve as a weapon as easily as a means of aiding locomotion. The former was the capacity in which I used it at that point. I swung it as hard and as fast as I could, and it caught Skrit squarely in the side of the head. He staggered, not going down, but clearly surprised. A look of pure, glorious stupidity danced across his face.

I jammed the cane between his legs to trip him up, and succeeded. He went down onto the dirt and I was immediately upon him. I got in a couple of good whacks with the cane before the other boys converged upon me, dragging me off him.

They bashed me with whatever they could get their hands upon. Sticks, stones, rods, feet, made no difference. All I could do was curl into a ball and try and shield myself from as much damage as I could. Unfortunately that wasn't particularly easy. As poor a walker as I was, I began to wonder somewhere in the midst of all that punishment if I would ever be able to walk again.

Then a voice started shouting, "Stop!"

They didn't hear it at first, or chose not to. Above the raucous shouting of the boys, I could barely hear it myself.

Suddenly someone started yanking the boys off me, one by one. Before I knew it, I was suddenly clear of them. I had been crying in pain and humiliation, but considering my face was bruised and dirty, tears probably weren't especially noticeable. Still, I shielded my face until I heard a voice say, "It's okay."

I looked up.

It was an older boy. Rakishly handsome, a large hank of brown hair hanging down and in his face. He was grinning lopsidedly. "You okay?" He was dressed in a green tunic and brown leggings. He had several armbands, all of them multicolored in green, brown, and flares of orange. He looked like a giant leaf. "You okay?" he asked again.

It was a staggeringly stupid question, but I wasn't feeling up for sarcasm at that moment. "Yeah," I managed to get out. I paused a moment to spit, because my mouth felt full, and I was annoyed-although not surprised-to see a tooth land on the ground.

Skrit, however, didn't seem particularly inclined to let me off that easily-if a severe beating can be termed "easy." He pointed a quavering finger at the newcomer and shouted, "Get outta here, Tacit! This ain't none o' your business."

"It is now," Tacit said with quiet confidence that seemed far beyond his years. "This how you amuse yourself these days, Skrit? Beating up on crippled kids?" Tacit couldn't have been more than ten, but he used the word "kids" as if he were an adult.

The side of Skrit's face was already swelling up where I'd struck him. He rubbed it indignantly and said, "But . . . but he . . ."

"Come on, Skrit," Tacit said slowly. Skrit's protests didn't seem to have registered on him. "If you're that hungry for a fight . . . take a swing at me."

"Now . . . look, Tacit . . ."

But Tacit wasn't looking. Instead he struck a defensive pose, brought his fists up, and said nothing. No more words were required. It was time for Skrit to rise to the challenge or not.