The Door Within (14 page)
D
id you see that?” asked Matthias, one of the oldest Knights of the Elder Guard. He leaned on a post and stared at two knights sparring in the center combat ring of the training compound.
“Aye, I saw it,” answered Tal, another member of the Elder Guard. He shook his head and smacked Matthias on the back. “I saw it, but I don’t believe it.”
“A true-as-life
moulinet
? He’s been at this three days, and he threw a moulinet. It took me three
years
to learn that.”
“Three days,” echoed Tal. He whistled. “What kind of swordsman learns a combination like that in three days?”
Tal’s question fell unanswered but, with the rest of the crowd, he watched in rapt silence as the two knights in the ring dueled. Kaliam was one of the combatants. And he wielded a broadsword so naturally it seemed an extension of his arms. Again and again he slashed forward, attempting to throw his smaller foe off balance. But his opponent, the Twelfth Knight, dodged each attack and deftly countered with a creative battery of blows that drew gasps from those gathered there.
Captain Valithor coached from behind a short fence on the other side of the ring. “Don’t just stand there, you vexing slow-coach lump!” he yelled at Aidan. “Do as I showed you. Guard, now quick snap! Get that basket in tighter.”
Abruptly, Aidan held up his small round shield. “Stop!” he said. “My back is sore, my legs feel like rubber, and every time you hit me, my whole arm aches. Kaliam, you’ve worn me out. Man, it’s a good thing you weren’t going at full speed, or you’d have killed me.”
Kaliam glanced sideways at Captain Valithor. “Rrright . . . well, of course, Aidan. I uh . . . just wanted to be sporting, you know.” Kaliam bowed and walked over to Captain Valithor. They whispered briefly through the palisade as Aidan removed his breastplate and began wriggling free from his shirt of mail. Free of the armor’s weight, he sighed, leaned back against a post, and smiled.
“You do not assume you are finished for today, do you?” asked Captain Valithor, tromping around the palisade toward Aidan. “Thou hasty-witted pigeon-egg, it is just time now for your wrestling lesson!”
Aidan’s shoulders sagged. He exhaled audibly and trudged away with Captain Valithor.
The next three days toiled by just as the first three had. Aidan was up every morning before the sun’s first rays painted the kingdom’s tallest turrets pink. After a hearty but brief breakfast, he went to the castle’s inner courtyard for stretching and a course of acrobatics.
Then off to the armory, where Kindle instructed Aidan in the art of “putting the stone.”
A torture,
Aidan thought.
Heaving large rocks until your shoulder felt ready to explode!
Next came the Sylvan Fields behind the rows of cottages lining the main avenue of Alleble. There Aidan learned to throw a long, fluted spear called a
javelin
. After lunch, again brief, Aidan went to the training compound to practice dueling with a seven-foot wooden pole called a
quarterstaff
.
Captain Valithor took over from there, tutoring Aidan in fencing and the other sword arts. After the sword, Aidan wrestled until sundown. Aidan had always hated wrestling in gym class. It seemed like the P.E. teacher always paired him with some big slobbering goon intent on smearing an underclassman across the gymnasium floor. Wrestling in gym meant pins, bruises, and severe mat burns.
The sort of wrestling taught in Alleble was far worse. There were no mats or pads, and there were no rules. You simply grappled until your opponent was unconscious or could no longer continue.
Aidan, by his own admission, was a horrible wrestler. He did learn quite a bit about holds and pressure points, places on the body where a well-placed finger or elbow could cause an opponent excruciating pain, but that knowledge came at a high cost.
His instructor, a short, thick fireplug of a Glimpse named Zander, tossed Aidan around like a pizza. Zander seemed to think that by slamming Aidan into the ground often enough, he might somehow learn how to grapple better. It didn’t work.
And by Aidan’s calculations, he had inadvertently eaten over a cup of woodchips and several quarts of sand and dirt! It was a bittersweet relief when the sun went down at the end of the day. That was the cue to end his training, but it also signaled that it was time for Aidan to begin his chores.
He had to wash his own clothes, polish his armor, and scrub his sword. At least he had a real sword now, though it was dull, heavily notched, and not much bigger than the wooden dagger with which he began.
But the worst duty of all was what Kaliam called “refreshing the dragon pens.” This foul practice consisted of filling the dragons’ troughs with the
second
most awful-smelling slop Aidan had ever had the displeasure of inhaling through his nostrils. Then, while the winged beasts ate, Aidan had to shovel and scrape the dragon pens clean of the
first
most awful-smelling slop he’d ever whiffed. Aidan wished many times that dragons could be more like cats and bury their business.
After lining each dragon pen with straw, Aidan could return to his chambers in the castle to bathe and sup. He spent each evening with Gwenne, studying The Scrolls of Alleble and learning the lore of a very ancient and wonderful realm.
With the exception of spending time with Gwenne, it was a grueling week. Aidan reflected on it all as he lay in bed, the very bed in which he awoke six days earlier. Every night, he went to sleep thinking he would awake and find it had all been a dream. Every morning, he awoke to rediscover that it was real.
Aidan turned on his side and rumpled his pillow. The curtains were now parted and shutters thrown open, so Aidan stared out of the chamber window at the bright full moon. Its pale light gilded the parapets, turrets, and rooftops of Alleble at rest. Here and there Aidan saw a cottage light blink out, and he imagined a Glimpse mother and father kissing their child good-night upon the brow. He thought of his own parents then. But he did not wish for them to be there to comfort
him
, to kiss him on the brow and say everything would be okay. No, he wished with all his heart that he could be home to comfort
them
. They would be terrified, frantic with visions of kidnappings and violent abductions. He wished he could be with them, just for a moment, to tell them their son was okay. He rubbed the new calluses on his hands and drifted to sleep.
“Congratulations, Sir Aidan!” announced Kaliam the next evening to the group assembled in the Great Banquet Hall of the Castle of Alleble. Gwenne, Kindle, Captain Valithor, and a large gathering of Glimpses raised their goblets to Aidan. Nock and Bolt were there as well, flanking Mallik at the table. Aidan saw that Mallik had a goblet the size of a fishbowl. He took a quick swig and winked.
Aidan was not used to all the attention and wished for the moment that he could crawl under the enormous oval dining table in front of him.
“Again I say . . . congratulations! You have survived the training that is required to be considered a Knight of Alleble!” Kaliam’s words were met with a chorus of cheers and many solid slaps on the back, paining Aidan greatly as he had accumulated quite a collection of bumps and bruises over the last couple of days.
Aidan turned to Gwenne to say something, but the words vanished when he saw a tall, prominent-looking Glimpse enter the back of the banquet hall. The Glimpse wore a dark blue cape and carried a small burlap-wrapped bundle. A hush fell over the gathering. Yet the Glimpse said nothing, but he bowed low, handing the bundle to Captain Valithor.
A few of the younger Glimpses whispered excitedly and pointed at the mysterious caped Glimpse. He seemed to be someone of importance, though he bowed to Captain Valithor—an act that again reminded Aidan of his commander’s rank and stature.
The stranger left just as Captain Valithor bellowed, “Just one moment, thou artless assembly of fly-bitten flapdragons! It would seem that you have declared this minnow a knight too soon!”
At that, Aidan’s heart fell. All the work, the beatings, the cuts and bruises—had it all been for nothing? He looked to Gwenne who, oddly enough, wore that wry, crooked smile of hers. Aidan scanned the hall from Glimpse to Glimpse. Some whispered. Others smiled and stared at Aidan, waiting. Waiting for what? Mallik was laughing uproariously in spite of the twins’ efforts to shush him. Aidan wondered if he was the only one terrified about what the Captain would say next?!
The Captain waited for what seemed like several eternities before finally speaking. “I am astonished! Even you, the weedy, idle-headed giglets I have taught so well, noticed not that Aidan is missing something. Something of great importance to a knight!”
There were smiles around the room as Glimpses laughed and pointed at Aidan. What was so funny here? Aidan felt as if he must have dressed in some comically incorrect way. The Captain cleared his throat gruffly, instantly silencing the crowd.
“For as any knight with half a brain knows, a worthy servant of Alleble must have a sword—a real sword!”
The room erupted in cheers of “Here! Here! Give the knight a blade!” The Captain picked up the bundle from the table and then, untying the black twine that bound the package, walked over to Aidan who stood flabbergasted.
The Captain dropped the cord near Aidan and handed him the now loosely wrapped bundle. “Here, lad, open it, for herein lies a token, a sign of your knighthood.”
Aidan took the bundle and, for a moment, simply stared down at it. The shape was right, and he recognized the weight—it must, of course, be a sword. He peeled back the last layer of cloth and gasped, his breath stolen. There, shining out from the cloth like the sun rising behind the mountains, the very emblem on its haft, was the sword known as Fury!
Yet, it was not Fury. Aidan grasped the handle and held up the gleaming short sword, for that is what it was, a short sword, about a foot shorter than Fury but in every other way identical to the incredible blade Aidan had coveted at the armory.
“But how?” Aidan blurted out, dumbfounded. “I thought—”
“You thought correctly!” interrupted Captain Valithor. “Indeed, there is only one blade called Fury. And it already has an owner!”
The Captain threw back his dark green cloak and unleashed a blade from its scabbard. He held the gleaming sword aloft, and to Aidan’s continuing bewilderment, it was the real Fury!
Just as quickly, the Captain sheathed his sword. He turned back to Aidan and stared directly into his eyes.
“Now, good lad, hand me your blade and kneel before me.”
Aidan, remembering the correct way to deliver a sword, took both hands and carefully grasped the blade near the point and again just above the hilt. He gave the blade to the Captain grip-first and then fell quickly to his knees. The Captain took Aidan’s sword and placed the blade upon Aidan’s right shoulder. Then, he began to speak.
“You have been called by the King to serve the Kingdom of Alleble in truth and honor. You responded in faith and have chosen the narrow path.”
As the Captain spoke, Gwenne and the rest of the gathering silently surrounded Aidan and the Captain.
“Lad,” the Captain continued, “you have shown great skill at arms, and though truly your training has only just begun, you have been found worthy of the title Knight of Alleble! It is my duty and honor as Captain of the Guard to require of you the good confession. Do you, Aidan, confess allegiance and absolute loyalty to the one true King, the provider of all that is just and good? Even were the hordes of darkness to assail you in hopeless demand of your life—even then do you swear devotion forever to the King?”
The Captain lowered his voice so that only Aidan could hear.
“Aidan, think hard on this, lad. From your reply there is no turning back. If you speak nay, you shall be returned safely and speedily to your realm, and this—all this—can become for you the fairy tale most in your world believe it is. Only reply aye if your heart, your very soul, cries out to do so.”
Aidan felt as if time had stopped. Everyone in the room except the Captain and himself had vanished, and he was alone with his decision. At home, his decisions seemed so meaningless . . . without consequence. What should he wear to school? What should he pack in his lunch? What should he spend his allowance on? This decision, however, weighed in his heart as if everything in the world depended on it. There was a sense of phenomenal joy in Aidan’s heart that did indeed cry out for Aidan to accept.
But there too, lurking from a shadowy corner of his mind, a dark voice whispered, “Mis-s-s-stake.”
It chilled Aidan, and he felt a dangerous presence willing him not to confess. It hovered above him like a ghostly hand.
This is serious. This isn’t the kind of promise where I can cross my fingers behind my back. To make the confession could lead to war . . . could lead to death—my death! Going home would be safe.
Aidan blinked.
Aidan looked up through a haze of fears, but the eyes of his Captain, like beacons for a lost ship, penetrated deep into Aidan’s heart. In Alleble, there was meaning and purpose. Things happened for a reason. To leave, to turn his back on it all, would be to abandon everything he ever wanted. It would mean throwing away his dreams forever.