Authors: Usman Ijaz
Jonas walked across the marble floor and out
onto the balcony. The wind immediately tugged at his cloak and whipped his hair
around his face. His eyes scanned the palace grounds below, the surrounding
city of Hanna, and then the rolling countryside beyond. The countryside of
Lapos seemed bare and dry for this time of year, but it was to be expected this
far north. “Because you and I cannot touch the Source.”
“Are you certain of that?” Mordred asked
skeptically.
“Of course I am, you fool!” Jonas bellowed as he
turned and backhanded his son across the face. Mordred fell to the floor.
Surprise ran over his face quickly before being replaced by a smoldering
stillness. One hand rose to wipe at the trickle of blood that ran down the
corner of his mouth. “If you are stupid enough to wonder, then go and touch it
and see what it does to you!” Jonas bellowed. He shivered at the memory it evoked.
The boy said nothing and Jonas turned back to
the balcony and watched the servants scurry around below. He shouldn’t have
struck the boy, he realized, but he of all people knew the cost of touching the
Source and the boy should not have questioned him. The memory of that flaring
pain still made him cringe, and thank whatever gods there were that he was
still alive. At times he woke up from nightmares full of that pain. And yet it
was still not the worst kind of pain a man must endure, he had found. He
watched the mice below, ensconced in their duties, blind to everything around
them. Theirs was a world that he had found easy to penetrate, a hierarchy based
more on greed and lust than true lineage or ability. It had made it easier for
him to attain his current station. It did not matter to him how high he was, as
long as he had some power. He had lived once without power, and had had
everything torn from him. At battle’s end only the powerful were left to make
any decisions. There was a different sort of battle coming now than the world
was used to, and he meant to see it put an end to the light of men. Let the
kings and queens of the world do as they pleased, for he knew their time was
drawing at hand.
Mordred came and stood beside him, his wild,
dark hair blowing in the wind. Jonas’s brown eyes pierced the landscape before
him, staring through a window of time. His voice was hoarse as he told his son,
“I can still remember the night they came. The steel in the moonlight, the
sounds, the screams. I remember the rain .... And now it is to be one of ours
who will bring an everlasting darkness to their world ... as they did to ours.”
Mordred said nothing, gripped in sullen silence.
Jonas ignored him, gripped in the euphoria he
felt when imagining the change he would bring to the world.
I want them to rue that night and the
massacre that followed!
His hands shook from their
grip on the balustrade.
I want them to rue what they did!
1
Adrian sat with his back to the bar and listened
to the old man singing on the small dais near the back of the common room.
Hamar and Owain sat to one side of him and Alexis and Connor to the other. The
five sat in silence, having passed their meal in much the same manner. They
listened to the music over the sounds of a half-filled common room. The room
was small and dim, the smell of sawdust covering the floor mixing with the
aromas of meat roasting over spits. They had arrived in the small town of Haven
just as the last light was leaving the sky, and Haven, with its cobble-stone
streets and white buildings, reminded Adrian too much of Port Hope.
“I don’t mind, I don’t mind,
What you say to me, my dear,
But I’ve got something to show you,
I know what you want to hear,
But I’ve got something to show you,
Never fear, I’ll always be true,
My blood is on the table, you see,
My heart is beating, you see,
For you, my dear,”
The man sang in a deep rumbling voice while
another man played a lute in the back and a third strummed on his harp. They
had the look of wandering musicians to them, playing for beds or food. Adrian
focused on the words, wanting to be carried away as a good song was sometimes
capable of doing. When Hamar spoke beside him it startled him, as much a result
of the gentleness to the voice as the suddenness of it.
“Listen, lad. What happened to your people was
brutal. I’ll admit it, and so will many others, but sooner or later you’re
going to have to realize that you can’t change it. The past is in the past, and
I don’t think even the Ascillians could have changed it. You can’t let it keep
eating you, or else soon there will be nothing left of you but a broken mind,
and we need you whole.”
Adrian looked at him, and thought that he could
see children looking up at this man and calling him “Father”. He nodded at
Hamar’s words and went back to listening to the man on the dais.
Hamar stood up, running a hand through his hair.
“I'm going to sleep, all this noise is giving me a headache.”
“He’s right,” Owain said over the empty stool.
“You’re far too young to break your mind over such matters. If it makes it
easier, think of the present; it’s all that matters after all.”
Adrian nodded glumly, taking in Owain’s words as
well. The men on the dais finished to great applause. Adrian applauded without
being aware of it.
They had been gone from Port Hope for less than
four days, and already he was beginning to wish that he had remained there,
that the Legionnaires had never been sent for him.
They remained for a while longer, listening to
the man with the harp play while the others took a rest. When the common room
began to clear out, they all headed upstairs and to their rooms. Again Adrian
noticed the Legionnaires keeping their guns concealed, but ready to spring for
them. It might not be too out of the ordinary to see a man with guns, but he
thought people would take special notice of the beautiful guns the Legionnaires
carried.
He dreamt that night.
2
Darkness. All around him there is darkness.
The world is nothing but pitch black. Thus he is surprised when he reaches out
before him and is able to see his arm clearly. There is a sense of falling, not
precisely moving for all the still darkness around him, but falling
nonetheless. He moves through the darkness, that for all he can see might as
well stretch for eternity. Not only is there not even the slightest hint of
light, but there is no sound either. He is stuck falling in this dismal cocoon,
wondering what will greet him at the bottom of his fall, or if there
is
a bottom.
A voice. A woman’s light chime, sudden and
from all around him.
Go forth.
Do not be
afraid.
And before he is able to truly grasp what the voice is saying, he
realizes that he is indeed moving forward. There is nothing to tell him that he
is moving, the unchanging darkness still holds all around him, and yet there is
a sense of floating.
You cannot go back. Not now. Not ever.
A light. Up ahead and so small as to be
mistaken for a star in the night. He gravitates towards it, seeing it grow
larger as he draws nearer. The light pulses and wavers, as if struggling to
keep the darkness at bay, to keep itself from being swallowed. He floats
closer, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. The light is of the purest white,
so bright that it should sear his eyes simply from looking at it , and yet it
does not. Instead it bathes him in brilliant warmth.
He reaches out to touch it, only aware in
some small way that his arm is cast in white brightness, and the source of the
light suddenly bursts apart. The darkness is pushed away, and the light before
him is now a giant sun that pulses with the same beat as his heart.
He is swallowed into it, and there is only
the light.
3
In the morning the Legionnaires woke the boys.
Adrian and Connor dressed and went downstairs where Alexis waited for them to
break their fast on a small meal. They were not to be left alone at any time,
it seemed. Many of the other patrons were up as well, and the streets outside
were already full of people going about their way. The sounds of a waking city came
in loud through the door of the common room.
“Why are we heading out so late?” Adrian asked.
When they had left Port Hope they had woken with the sun.
Alexis grabbed a small roll of bread and stood
up. “People traveling so early might draw unwanted attention. Let’s go.”
They went to the stables and found Hamar and
Owain saddling the horses, pots and pans clinking. Adrian and Connor went to
their own horses and began to saddle them in silence. Having spent much of
their lives working in the stables it came to them easily and soon they were
ready. The small party led the horses out into the brightness of a new day.
“I could have used a little more sleep,” Connor
muttered.
“And the boy says he wants to be a Legionnaire,”
Owain muttered.
The streets of Haven were busy despite the early
hours of the morning. Carts and wagons fought their way through the throng,
while the unconcerned people ran about or simply sauntered from shop to shop.
Vendors beneath their flat-topped canvas booths shouted to the passing crowd,
trying to draw interest to the wares they displayed. A grizzled old man shouted
at Adrian as they passed.
“Over here, boy! The best
rast
you’ll
ever eat!”
Adrian looked at the greasy mess slopped on the
plate the man pushed at him, and walked on. The crowd didn’t allow much room,
so they were forced to lead their horses in a single line with Hamar leading
and Owain bringing up the rear. Adrian looked to the two Legionnaires and saw
them scrutinizing every face that turned towards them. They looked about the
crowd as if expecting an attack from out of thin air, but Adrian thought it
would be near impossible to pick an assailant out in this crowd. Instead he
thought of the dream which he only now remembered in bits and pieces. What he
remembered most was the whiteness, and how it had flared at his touch. He
pondered silently on it as they walked. Ahead of him, Connor seemed lost in his
own thoughts.
A vendor, her dark hair held back by a shawl and
her small eyes peering out of a doughy face, attempted to get Hamar’s
attention. He glanced at her, and she blinked and shut her mouth and turned to
shouting at another wanderer.
Alexis laughed. “Always the gracious one, aren’t
you Hamar?”
“Shut up, boy,” Hamar said. “If you were
experienced you would find something better to do than joke and laugh.”
“I
am
experienced,” Alexis told the other
man firmly. “I wouldn’t have been chosen if otherwise.”
Hamar grunted. “You were chosen because of
your--”
An elderly man dressed in rich silks walking
past them suddenly collapsed to the ground, clutching the small hilt of a knife
buried in his chest.
4
“Hamar!” Owain shouted.
Hamar let go of his reigns and his hands darted
inside his coat. He turned around to look at Owain, guns already in hand, and
saw the old man lying on the ground. Immediately his eyes darted to the crowd,
but it was impossible to discern an attacker; the ones who saw the corpse drew
away, but the people farther away still looked unperturbed. The attacker could
be anywhere.
“Alexis! Take the boys away!” he shouted as he scanned
the crowd around them. Yet Alexis hesitated, gripping his own guns and watching
the crowd. “I said take them away, you fool!”
“What’s going on?” Connor asked.
Alexis at last retrieved sense enough to holster
his guns and grab each boy by the hand. “We have to go. Hurry!” He looked to
Hamar one last time. Hamar gave him a silent nod. Alexis led the boys up the
street, pushing and shoving through the throng.
The loud roar of a gunshot made Hamar turn
around towards Owain. The other Legionnaire had pulled his guns from his
blanket rolls and had them aimed towards the angled rooftop of a building a
little further down the street.
The sound of the gun was like thunder in the
clear morning. For a moment there was only silence, broken by fearful murmurs,
and then the crowd broke out in panic. They began to run like a startled flock
of sheep.
“The bastard’s on the rooftops!” Owain said. “I
don’t know how many of them there are, but there’s definitely one up there.”
“Keep him in sight,” said Hamar as he scanned
the crowd for the irregularity. There had to be more than one, sending one was
suicide. Abruptly sharp pain exploded in his side, and he fell to one knee. He
looked down and saw the small hilt of a knife sticking out from beneath his
ribs. Owain didn’t come to him, which was for the good; he was well trained,
after all. Hamar grunted as he pulled the knife out and tossed it aside. Blood
immediately soaked his shirt beneath his coat and ran down his side. He stood
up, blood-covered hands gripping steel guns.