Zahariel stepped away from his cousin and looked towards Master Ramiel, who nodded and said, ‘Winner, Zahariel.’
He let out a great, shuddering breath and dropped his sword to the floor. It landed with a ringing clang, and he looked over to where Nemiel was picking himself up from his pain. Ramiel turned from the bout and marched resolutely towards the arched exit, leading his students towards their next gruelling lesson.
Zahariel held out this hand to Nemiel and said, ‘Are you alright?’
His cousin still had his hands clutched to the side of his head, his lips pursed together as he tried to hide how much his head hurt. For a brief second, Zahariel was sorry for the hurt he had done to Nemiel, but he forced the feeling down. It had been his duty to win the bout, for giving anything less than his best would have been contrary to the teachings of the Order.
It had been two years since his induction into the Order, and the ninth anniversary of his birth had passed less than a month ago. Not that there had been any special reason for marking the day, but the instructor knights of the Order were very particular about marking the passage of time and keeping the census of ages and merits of its members.
Nemiel had turned nine a few days before him, and though they were alike in features and age, their temperaments could not have been more different. Zahariel could see that Nemiel had already forgotten the outcome of the bout, having learned how he had been defeated.
‘I’m fine, cousin,’ said Nemiel. ‘That wasn’t bad. I see what you did, but you won’t get me that way again.’
That was true, thought Zahariel. Every time he fought his cousin and employed a method he had used previously, he was roundly beaten.
You could beat Nemiel, but you could not beat him the same way twice.
‘Try not to be too disappointed,’ said Zahariel. ‘I may have won, but it wasn’t a pretty victory.’
‘Who cares about its prettiness,’ snapped Nemiel. ‘You won, didn’t you?’
Zahariel’s hand was still extended towards his cousin, who finally accepted it and hauled himself to his feet. He dusted his robes down and said, ‘Ah, don’t mind me, I’m just sore about getting beaten again, in front of Ramiel as well. I suppose I should think of all the times I’ve put you on your back, eh?’
‘You’re right,’ said Zahariel. ‘I think there’s something in human nature that makes us concentrate too much on our disappointments at times. We should remember how lucky we are.’
‘Lucky? What are you talking about?’ said Nemiel, as they followed the other students from the training halls. ‘You just beat me in the head, and we live on a world infested by killer monsters. How is that lucky?’
Zahariel looked at Nemiel, afraid he was being mocked. ‘Think about it: of all the eras of Caliban’s history, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the same period as men like the Lion and Luther. We are to take part in the campaign against the great beasts.’
‘Oh, well I can see how that would be considered lucky, getting to march into the forests and face a horde of monsters that could swallow us whole, or tear us apart with one sweep of their claws.’
Now Zahariel knew he was being teased, for Nemiel could always be relied upon to boast of how fearsome a creature he would slay when he was finally allowed to declare a quest, venture into the forest and prove his mettle against one of the great beasts.
Instead of backing down in the face of Nemiel’s teasing, he continued.
‘We’re here, supplicants of the Order, and one day we will be knights.’
Zahariel gestured to their surroundings: the high stone walls, the racks of weapons, the spiral on the floor and the giant mosaic on the wall depicting the Order’s symbol, the downward pointed sword. ‘Look around you, we train to become knights and eradicate the threat of the beasts from our world. The moment when the last beast is slain will be written into the annals of the Order and Caliban, and will be preserved for thousands of years. History is unfolding, and if we are lucky, we will be there when it happens.’
‘True enough, cousin,’ said Nemiel. ‘People will say that we lived in interesting times, eh?’
‘Interesting times?’
‘It was something Master Ramiel said once, you remember, when we were outside in the dark petitioning to join the Order as novices?’
‘I remember,’ said Zahariel, though in truth he remembered little of the night they had spent in the darkness beyond the safety of the gates of the Order’s fortress monastery, save for the terror of the great beasts, and of the night.
‘He told me it was a phrase from ancient Terra,’ continued Nemiel. ‘When people lived through periods of change, the kind of days when history is made, they referred to them as “interesting times”. They even had an expression: “May you live in interesting times”. That’s what they used to say.’
‘May you live in interesting times,’ echoed Zahariel. ‘I like it. The expression, I mean. It sounds right, somehow. I know knights aren’t supposed to believe in such things, but it sounds almost like a prayer.’
‘A prayer, yes, but not a good one, “May you live in interesting times” was something they said to their worst enemies. It was intended as a curse.’
‘A curse? I don’t understand.’
‘I suppose they wanted a quiet life. They didn’t want to have to live through times of blood and upheaval. They didn’t want change. They were happy. They all wanted to live for a long time and die in their beds. I suppose they thought their lives were perfect. The last thing they wanted was for history to come along and mess it all up.’
‘It’s hard to imagine,’ Zahariel said, picking up the sword he had dropped and returning it to the weapons’ rack. ‘Imagine anyone being that contented with their lot and not wanting to change it. Maybe the difference is that we grew up on Caliban. Life is so hard here that everyone grows used to blood and upheaval.’
‘Maybe things were different on Terra?’ suggested Nemiel.
‘Maybe, but maybe it’s because we take it for granted that our lives on Caliban are always about struggle. In comparison, Terra must be like a paradise.’
‘If it even exists,’ said Nemiel. ‘There are people who say it’s only a myth, made up by our ancestors. Caliban is where our culture was born, and Caliban is where it will die. There are no starships, or lost brothers on other planets. It’s all a lie. A well-meant one, created to give us comfort when times are bad, but a lie, nonetheless.’
‘Do you believe that?’ asked Zahariel. ‘Do you really think Terra is a lie?’
‘Yes, maybe… I don’t know,’ said Nemiel with a shrug. ‘We can look up at the stars in the sky, but it’s hard to believe anybody lives there. Just like it’s hard to believe a world could be so perfect that you’d never want it to change. You were right, cousin. Our lives are struggle. It’s all we can ever expect of things, on Caliban, anyway.’
Further discussions were prevented by Master Ramiel’s booming voice coming from the archway at the far end of the chamber.
‘Get a move on, you two!’ bellowed their tutor. ‘It’s an extra turn on the sentry towers for you two tonight. Don’t you know you’ve kept Brother Amadis waiting?’
Both boys shared an excited glance, but it was Nemiel who recovered his wits first.
‘Brother Amadis has returned?’
‘Aye,’ nodded Ramiel. ‘By rights, I should send you to the kitchens for your tardiness, but it will reflect badly on your fellows if you do not hear him speak.’
Zahariel sprinted alongside Nemiel as he ran for the archway, excitement flooding his young body with fresh vigour and anticipation.
Brother Amadis, the Hero of Maponis…
His
hero.
T
HE
C
IRCLE
C
HAMBER
of Aldurukh was well named, thought Zahariel as he and Nemiel skidded through its arched entrance. Flickering torches hung at the entrance, sending a fragrant aroma of scented smoke into the enormous chamber. The hall was already packed, hundreds of novices, knights and supplicants filling the many stone benches that rose in tiers from the raised marble plinth at the chamber’s centre.
Mighty pillars rose at the chamber’s cardinal points, curving inwards in great, gothic arches to form the mighty roof of the dome, a green and gold ceiling from which hung a wide, circular candle holder filled with winking points of light.
The walls of the chamber were composed almost entirely of tall lengths of stained glass, each one telling of the heroic actions of one of the Order’s knights. Many of these glorious panels depicted the actions of the Lion and Luther, but many more pre-dated them joining the order, and several of these depicted the warrior known as the Hero of Maponis, Brother Amadis.
One of the most senior knights of the Order who still participated in the Lion’s great quest to rid the forests of Caliban, Brother Amadis was known throughout the world as a dashing and heroic warrior, who embodied everything it meant to be a knight: not just a knight of the Order, but a knight of Caliban.
His deeds were epic tales of heroism and nobility, adventures every child on Caliban grew up hearing from the mouths of their fathers.
Amadis had personally slain the Great Beast of Kulkos and had led the knights in battle against the predations of the Blood Knights of the Endriago Vaults. Before the coming of Jonson, it had been assumed by many that Brother Amadis would eventually rise to become the Grand Master of the Order.
Such had not been the case, however. Though all believed that the position would be Jonson’s upon the successful conclusion of the beast hunt, Amadis had borne the Lion no ill-will, and had simply returned to the great forests to slay monsters and bear the honour of the Order to places near and far.
The number of youngsters presenting themselves before the mighty gates of Aldurukh had as much to do with his renown as it did the presence of the Lion. Zahariel remembered hearing the tales of him vanquishing the Blood Knights at the hearthfire on many a stormy evening. His father would always choose the darkest, most haunted nights to tell the tale, weaving a grisly tapestry of the horrors and debauched blood feasts of the knights to terrify his sons, before bringing the story to its heroic conclusion when Amadis defeated their leader in single combat.
‘It looks like everyone who’s anyone is here,’ said Nemiel, as they jostled for position among the stragglers in the topmost tier of the Circle Chamber. They elbowed past newly accepted novices and supplicants who had not served as long as they had. Grumbles followed them, but none dared gainsay a boy who had been part of the Order for longer. An unspoken, but wholly understood hierarchy operated within the Order, and its structure could not, ever, be broken.
At last they found their proper place, further forward than the inferior supplicants and behind or beside those of a similar rank and stature. Though the centre of the Circle Chamber was some distance away, the view afforded from the upper tiers was second to none in terms of its panorama.
The centre was empty, with a single throne-like chair set in the middle of the floor.
‘It looks like we made it in time,’ Zahariel noted, and Nemiel nodded.
Banners hung from the chamber’s roof, and Zahariel felt a familiar wonder envelop him as he stared at them, reading the history of the Order in their pictorial representations of honour, valour and battle. Gold stitching crossed ceremonial standards of green and blue, and red-edged war banners outnumbered the ceremonial ones by quite some margin. The entire roof was hung with banners: so many that it seemed as though a great blanket had been spread across it, and then slashed into hanging squares.
A hush fell upon the assembled novices, supplicants and knights at some unspoken signal, and Zahariel heard the creak of a wooden door opening, the metallic walk of a man in armour and the harsh rapping footsteps of metal on marble.
He strained for a better look, finally seeing the man who had made him want to become a knight. One man marched to the centre of the chamber in the burnished plate armour of the Order.
Zahariel tried not to feel disappointed at the warrior before him, but where he had expected a towering hero of legend, the equal of the Lion, he now saw that Brother Amadis was simply a man.
He knew he should have expected no more, but to see the warrior who had lived in his heroic dreams for as long as he could remember as just a man of flesh and blood, who did not tower over them like some mighty leviathan of legend, was somehow less than he had hoped for.
Yet, even as he tried to come to terms with the reality of seeing that his hero was, after all, just a man, he saw there was something indefinable to him. There was something in the way Amadis walked to the centre of the chamber, as though he owned it, the confidence he wore like a cloak, as though he understood that this gathering was just for him, and that it was his right and due.
Despite what might have been perceived as monstrous arrogance, Zahariel could see a wry cast to Amadis’s features, as though he expected such a gathering, but found it faintly absurd that he should be held in such high regard.
The more Zahariel looked at the figure in the centre of the chamber, the more he saw the easy confidence, the surety of purpose and the quiet courage in his every movement. Amadis held tight to the hilt of his sword as he walked, every inch a warrior, and Zahariel began to feel his admiration for this heroic knight grow with every passing second.
Surrounded by knights of such stature and courage that it was an honour simply to be in the same room as them, Zahariel had assumed that such warriors knew no fear, but looking at the weathered, handsome face of Brother Amadis, he realised that such an idea was preposterous.
As a boy in the forests of Caliban, he had certainly felt fear often enough, but he had assumed that once he became a knight the emotion would be utterly unknown to him. Brother Amadis had faced terrible foes and triumphed
despite
fear. To know fear, real fear, and to gain a great victory in spite of it seemed a more noble achievement than any triumph where fear was absent.
Brother Amadis looked around, and nodded in quiet satisfaction, apparently satisfied at the quality of the men and boys around him.