Chapter 22: Exploring

Chapter 22: Exploring

Ber, Day 16 of Melia

Winking Moons

Year 602

I have been hurt so often that I no longer know how to forgive.

I have wept so many tears that my heart is cold. I never desired this.

When another person torments me until I am ill with it, what recourse do I have?

Leave, yes. Flee. The problem is not what to do.

It is what awaits me after I take that step. Will my next life be better? Or worse?

—From the private journal of an unknown woman in Daitak Capital

It took him a few moments this time to understand that he dreamed. The colours were so stark, the images so very clear.

Fourteen-year-old dream Beynon rose stiffly, slowly, from the table where he’d been dozing.

His head pulled away from the wooden surface with a disgustingly sticky sound, and he braced himself on his hands while he waited for his throbbing head to cease spinning.

Bryn recalled having been restrained, but the cuffs and ties that had held him in place had been loosened and rested in soft piles around him and on the floor below. He supposed that if he’d been drugged into a stupor, his captor would have no eventual reason to keep him bound.

His captor.

Where was his mother?

There was a deafening thudding noise emanating from the door to Calqua’s bedroom.

Still feeling a sickly sort of heat in his extremities, Beynon glanced over to the cauldron his mother had been tending—only to find it still and tepid in appearance. Good.

He was disoriented. His thoughts were utterly disjointed. What had she given him?

The thudding continued.

“Break it down!” someone screamed from the other side.

Bryn got up slowly and approached the door. His eyes kept threatening to close, and the world appeared to him as through through the narrow end of a spyglass. The side of his head positively burned. It would be such a relief to flee the pain once more.

The handle was locked. She’d fastened it from the outside with her key and then left him inside. So he’d be able to get out—but no one else would be able to enter without destroying the door.

“Bryn!” called a muffled, hysterical-sounding voice.

“Are you there, Imperial Highness?” someone else shouted. “We’re coming through!”

He swayed a little, then steadied himself. He undid the lock and pushed the door open.

Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next. His cousin’s white face stared in horror at him, at his ear.

Then he remembered. Beynon’s shaking hand found its way to the side of his head and felt about.

It simply wasn’t there. The searching fingers found only desiccated skin. His stomach turned and his eyes filled.  

He swallowed back the nausea and looked past Trey.

A dozen or so of Daitak’s counsillors were clustered about in the parlor, muttering to each other, wringing their hands, or simply waiting.

“Imperial Highness!” one of them shouted, and they all knelt to him.

Trey, too.

A moment passed this way, and then Beynon found his tongue. “What has happened?” he asked. His voice sounded thick and far away.

“The empress is gone, Imperial Highness,” young Captain Reese told him. “None can find her. She fled the capital a few hours ago…”

Beynon placed both hands to either side of his head, hoping that if he pressed down hard enough, everything would stop spinning. “What do you mean, she’s gone?” he asked.

Longren stood up carefully. The new royal secretary, dream Beynon reminded himself. Real Beynon smirked a little at the way the man had lost his hair over the years. “It’s true, Imperial Majesty,” Longren said. “Empress Beynon left the Capital. She wrote a note… she…”

“She’s lost her senses,” Beynon suggested.

“Well—”

As the man moved to hand him a crumpled piece of parchment, a healer came urgently forward. “Imperial Highness,” the woman said worriedly. “Your ear. You should not be walking. You’ve lost too much blood.” She produced a clean cloth and thrust it before him imploringly.

He took it and applied it to his head. It stung, and he winced away from it.

“I—”

It was Trey. He was still kneeling, looking up at Beynon from a tearstained face.

“I didn’t know. Cousin, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“My mother was unwell,” Beynon said coldly. “Or—presumably—she still is.We all knew it. ”

He took the parchment from Longren and scanned it quickly. There was more nonsense in the letter about a conspiracy with Eral and evacuating the capital. She called them all fools for not listening to her, and explained how she’d given the ultimate sacrifice; marring her son’s perfect body in order to brew a potion of Protection as detailed in the primer she’d been reading. The contents had been collected and buried around the keep perimeter—

Enough. There was no need to keep reading this trench fodder. It would only continue to hurt.

Beynon let the hand holding the thin piece of paper fall. It was over.

“Cousin—” began Trey once more. The young man was weeping.

Suddenly, a hot rage flooded Beynon. “You,” he said acidly. “You.”

His cousin seemed to sense what was coming. Trey scrambled to his feet and took a few stumbling steps backward. It looked like he was panicking. “Long life to Emperor Bryn Beynon the Fox!” he cried.

“Long life to Emperor Bryn Beynon the Fox!” echoed everyone in the room.

Brynn was unphased. He moved toward Trey. “Seize that man,” he said calmly to the many guards who’d flooded the room.

It was done in a matter of moments; the captain and his men—rather unnecessarily, as Trey was only sixteen—detained his young cousin, subduing him with a gentle punch to the stomach and a length of thin cord. He looked ill.

The room stilled, and Trey looked up at Beynon with brokenness in his blue eyes. “Please,” he said simply. “Bryn. I didn’t know.”

Bryn’s chest rose and fell once, twice. A vacant, almost bemused look blossomed on his face as he considered. This kind of power was heady. He could get used to this.

“Dungeons,” he said, utterly detached. Then he amended, “Life.”

The screams were terrible, but they hurt his ear, made his head throb—so Beynon stalked away from them all, away from the chaos, toward his own chambers. Everything about his life had changed in a matter of a few mad hours, and there was necessarily plenty of time to sort it out. For now, he needed peace.

Damn Trey.

Damn Calqua.

He needed quiet and order for a time. Then he would teach himself how to breathe once more, and he would figure this out on his own.

* * *

“What do you mean, I can’t move there?”

Tadyath laughed at her.

He and Evin were peering down at a littered gameboard, the former amused, the latter consternated.

After turning in her aptitude test, Evin and her temporary guardians had returned to the Red Dove, where she’d fallen instantly into bed. Upon awakening, she’d demanded to know if she’d passed, only to be told it took a day or two for the university officials to go through the applicants’ materials.

The sky had become heavy as the day wore on. The early evening brought a steady fall of soaking rain.

Sensing her unease, Tadyath had suggested she learn a game with him.

“You keep confusing the rivers and the roads,” he said, still chuckling. “Your man can’t go into the river—he’ll drown!”

She sighed. “Very well. I’ll go… there.” The token that represented her traveller had reached a city and was headed back home. Tadyath’s man hadn’t even made it to his city yet.

Rivers and Roads was a devilishly complicated yet maddeningly simple little two-person game comprised of twenty-six little tiles painted to look like—well, like rivers and roads.

Random tiles held images of large piles of gold ore, and others were painted to look like cities. There were little tokens shaped like travelers and ships which were meant to travel to these special sites and back before one’s competitor could. Once during each game, each player could move the others’ token—either the traveller or the ship—to any spot on the board they wished.

It was a popular game.

People had even begun to supplement it with their own coins and bits of wood, stockpiling ‘resources.’ That way, they could play first to two or three and make the game last longer.

“When do you think I’ll hear?” Evin asked for what had to be the hundredth time.

“Soon,” he answered with a grin. His shoulder itched a little and he scratched it. “Believe me, little one; I’ll be as glad as you to know the results. Sleeping in inns and eating these fine foods is growing tiresome.”

Evin pushed a few stray pieces of hair back from her face and regarded him with serious grey eyes. “What do you do normally?” she asked him suddenly. “I mean, when you’re not doing this? Do you often recruit people for Craestor, rescue them, put them up in inns?”

He looked up at her in surprise, and a peal of thunder sounded in the distance through the sheets of rain.

“My life fell apart, as you know,” she added, “and it’s been difficult for me to focus on anything but my own suffering. You and Craix and Himes—how do you know each other? Why are you really helping me? And who in Calumn are you all?”

Tadyath moved his ship farther down the river path. He was getting close to one of the piles of gold. And she was getting a little too close to the truth. “You really want to know, do you?” he asked.

“Of course I do. If it wasn’t for you, I might have starved to death in my bed in the boarding house.”

He breathed out heavily through his nose—almost a laugh.

A server came to the table to set down another mug of cold, foamy ale for the South Urdan. Evin’s fragrant cup of tea was still steaming, half-drunk, before her. The serving woman was probably middle-aged but looked much older.

When she left, Tadyath leaned in close to her. Carefully, now. “Firstly,” he said. “I do not work for the university.”

“Then who—”

“Shhh,” he said, laughing. “Let me finish. Secondly, Craix and Himes and I all met a long time ago. We were colleagues before we were friends. And thirdly, I cannot tell you who we are or exactly what we do. You know our names. That will have to be enough.”

This was not at all what she wanted to hear. “That isn’t fair!”

He only shrugged and took another sip of ale.

“Why are you helping me, then?”

He set his mug down and regarded her. “While I don’t work for Craestor, I do have friends there. I happen to know they need talented students. I found someone I thought would make a talented student, so I brought you here.”

“But why? Are you being paid to do this?”

He grinned at her. “Sort of.”

Evin was mystified. “You’re just being difficult, now,” she huffed. “I should have known better than to ask.”

And he laughed. “I suppose I am being difficult.” Then he stilled, considering. “Just know—I am a friend. I take an interest in your receiving a good—no, an excellent—education. I have friends at the university. Craix and Himes are also invested in your future, and in the future of others who may follow after you.”

That would have to be good enough for her. It was already too much information, and he’d have to be careful. He hoped to the Divine Pantheon that she wouldn’t tell anyone. Of course, if she decided to, they had protective measures. He just hoped not to need them.

Evin moved her game piece, then laughed in surprise. “Ha! There’s my traveller back home!”

His brows lifted. “I’m impressed,” he said. “But your ship is lagging behind…”

They played for a little longer. She beat him, and then he beat her. The evening drew on, and the sounds of rain softened to a quiet drizzle.

A bard came in and set up by the fireplace to entertain the room with his lute and his sweet tenor. He sang a floaty, lyrical song about the Beauty Goddess Ko that utterly charmed Evin.

“A fragile thing, Ko the Comely;

Young and lovely, careful and cunning,

But cold and alone!

God-like suitors and gods themselves

Sought her company, gentle and kind—

But her heart was stone!

Animals sickened under her care,

Plants wilted and seeds shriveled—

Ere they were sown!

A strange little thing, respected, loved,

But never cherished, Ko the Comley;

Destined to live alone!”

Soon, Evin’s eyelids were drooping. She sought her bed, and Tadyath stayed up long after, staring into the flames and thinking about the future.

* * *

The next day dawned sunny, breezy, and gorgeous. The scent of the rain lingered, drawing out the perfume of green, growing things. The staff at the inn had thrown open the front door to invite the morning in.

At breakfast, Evin gnawed gratefully on mushrooms cooked in butter, hard brown bread, and salt potatoes. The tavern maid gave her a mug of steaming chocolate gratis—a treat. She peered outside and sipped the hot liquid slowly, trying to make it last.

She found herself wondering about Craestor proper and if they might go out and explore.

Tadyath had slept late.

She scratched out a little note on a piece of parchment and slipped it under his door to let him know she was venturing out on her own and that he could expect her to return by eleven bells.

Then she returned briefly to her rented room and combed out her hair with her fingers. Standing before the window, she looked down on the street and braided her hair into a thick plait. She secured it with a piece of leather and smoothed the flyaways back from her petite face.

While looking appraisingly down at her borrowed eborel trousers and shirt, she noticed that her injuries from the explosion had faded to little scabs and the bruises were yellowed and faint now. She lifted an arm to inspect it more closely. A cold little sliver of unease tapped at her mind, and she considered how she must look to someone who didn’t know her. Perhaps going out to explore on her own was risky. Even if it wasn’t dangerous, how could she be sure strangers would accept her, understand her?

Many won’t, she reminded herself.

Half of her wanted to give it up, to stay in and wait for the test results. The other half of her knew staying shut up here on such a beautiful day was an unhealthy choice. Perhaps it was time to stop worrying so much about how she seemed to others and start learning how to enjoy herself again. She had not the time nor money to change a single thing about her appearance. And going out could be the distraction she needed. So that was that.

Resolved, she hurried down the stairs, taking two steps each in rapid succession. She was going to have fun today.

Outside, a fresh breeze instantly lifted and played with the hair around her face. Evin found herself confronting a tidy row of house upon exiting the Red Dove. There was a tea shop down the lane and to her right, and then the village sprawl seemed to peter out a little, so she turned left instead and walked until the street forked. The cobbles underfoot were damp from the rain the night before, but mostly clean.

She paused for a moment at a small bridge, hoping something visually would point her way toward the center of town—and she wasn’t disappointed. The village square was visible from her vantage point. Vendors and performers alike lifted their voices in cacophony, and a series of stalls and tents stood in stacks next to each other like colourful sentinels.

Evin jumped suddenly at a motion beside her and looked up into the face of a young man on stilts.

“Hullo,” he said cheerfully. “Headed to market?”

Too shocked to speak, she simply nodded.

“Race you there,” he said challengingly, and then laughed at her expression.

His skin was tanned, ostensibly from time spent in the sun. He wore a colourful tunic and leggings, and kept the arms of his stilts tucked behind each armpit. His feet were perched on little wooden hold and strapped down with ties made of leather. As he loped away from her, Evin tried to judge just how high his feet were from the ground.

Slowly, she followed him, moving in the direction of the music and chaos.

The square was well-appointed, with a carefully-tended green and gardens flanking most of the corners. A temple to the Divines was set up as close to the center of town as possible, and worshippers moved in and out of the entrance in long, leisurely lines. Large, established trees shaded parts of the square from the scalding sun and moved deliciously in the cooling breeze.

Near a brilliantwort bush, a metalworker had set up to sell  his sparkling treasures. Neat rows of flatware had been laid out on pieces of eborel cloth and shining cups and drinking mugs hung from the joists on his tent. But Evin’s eyes went straight to the glimmering chains and pendants. Wishing she were not a pauper, she passed the vendor with a regretful smile.

Evin encountered a baker next, her stall nearly overflowing with flaky pies, dense muffins, and lusciously tempting cakes of all sizes and flavours. The scent alone was overpowering. The woman had cut up a few scones to pass out as samples, and Evin tasted a piece of one—sharp cheese and spicy greens had been baked into it, and she made an involuntary appreciative sound as she chewed. The baker laughed and thanked her.

There were booths selling candles and incense, smoked meats, clay pottery, even live animals!

She was feeling a little miffed that Liminey had never offered a market such as this to inhabitants when Evin noticed an alchemist a few gerds away. Overcome with curiosity, she approached the booth.

It was a young couple, and the woman balanced a chubby baby on one hip. They’d lined up stacks of vials in shallow little wooden containers by their type and strength. She noted a cluster of Alertness, Calm, Blood Loss Aid, and Reduce Inflammation. The man smiled warmly and greeted her.

She nodded by way of reply.

A little disappointed, Evin noticed that the couple hadn’t brought their own burners or equipment, which meant they couldn’t brew specific potions on the spot. Glamours, if they sold them, would be general. But, she reasoned, they couldn’t be expected to bring their whole shop.  She only knew what she would do if selling out at a market.

The smell of cooked meat made her turn her head and she realized it was emanating from the temple.

Before Evin knew what she was doing, she found her feet moving toward the gargantuan building. She barely gave it a thought until she’d reached the entrance. She’d not visited the Divines since before the accident. Slowly, she allowed her hand to come to rest on the bannister that framed the great stairway and came to a standstill. Other people scuffed past her up the stairs and into the darkened doorway, but Evin stood frozen. She felt—nothing. Cold. Numb. There was a desire to go inside and commune somehow, but an equally great desire to squat right down and piss on the steps.

“Can’t decide, eh? I feel like that some days,” said an affable voice behind her, and Evin spun to face the speaker.