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THE DOOR OPENED QUIETLY, and Arell slipped into his son’s room. The moon well overhead, shone rays onto the tiled walls above the bed where Maurice sat with his head in his hands, his clothes dirty, his arms and legs scratched.
“Maurice?” he said softly.
Maurice refused to look up, so Arell sat on the bed next to him and gently rubbed his back. He said not a word. Erika had told him how angry the boy had made her, how rebellious his talk, and that she was sorry for how their son felt but it was no excuse for being disrespectful. Arell remembered being that age and how neither of his parents understood the struggles of becoming a man. Maybe his father did at one time, but he’d forgotten. Arell had sworn he would never forget.
Of course, Maurice was troubled and him asking why would be superfluous. Hadn’t Maurice already told him? Arell would rather just shoulder the pain with him.
Eventually Maurice took a deep breath, shuddered, and wiped his eyes.
“I can’t stand it,” he said.
“You’re troubled about the magic,” Arell asked.
Maurice looked up at him. “Yes. And I’m troubled because no one is doing anything.”
“But we are,” Arell said.
“What? Are the ships ready to sail?”
Arell sighed. So, this is what Erika had to put up with.
“Where were you today?” Arell asked.
“Big Rock.”
“Did you climb to the top?”
Maurice nodded.
“Maurice, you’re not an ordinary boy. You were sickly when you were little. You remember, don’t you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Maurice asked.
“It’s significant. You’ve overcome a great deal. Men who suffer when they’re young often become leaders of men. Life’s trials make them strong and wise, just as it’s made you strong.” Arell said. Maurice’s eyes popped open.
“So, what are you saying? That I’m a leader of men?”
“I’m saying I realize what you’re going through. However, your time to lead hasn’t come yet.”
Maurice scoffed and looked away. “And yours has come and gone.”
“Not exactly,” Arell replied cautiously.
“Then you’re taking the throne back?”
“I didn’t say that. You don’t need a throne to be a great leader, or even a good man.”
“Of course, you would say something like that.” Maurice turned away.
“I felt like that about my father once.” Arell said. It wasn’t easy to have his son so angry at him and he saw himself as Maurice, cursing the man who had sired him.
“I didn’t think my father cared about me. Maybe he didn’t. As I grew older, I knew him less and less. He and my mother never lived together. Did you know that?”
Maurice looked at him, his brown eyes curious and the hostilities fading.
“Why?”
“I was an illegitimate child until the elders demanded he marry my mother. If he hadn’t, the Cho Nisi would have declared war with the Moatons. My father was king, but he wasn’t a great man. He was a leader, but not all his deeds were good.”
Arell brushed Maurice’s hair back from his face. “Some of his deeds were evil.”
“Is that why you gave up the throne?”
“No. I gave it up so that I could be a good father to you, to share my life with you. Teach you the Cho Nisi ways. If I were king, I’d have no time for you. I wouldn’t be sitting here right now talking to you.”
“Maybe you’d be finding our magic instead,” Maurice said.
“I’m working with the elders.”
“Talking. Someone must do something.”
“I agree. We’re making plans to do something.”
They hadn’t gotten very far with their plans, but Arell didn’t want to tell Maurice that.
“Whatever is decided, it’s not for you to climb the most treacherous bluff on the island to find answers to a problem even the elders are having difficulty with.”
“The elders aren’t asking for help from the Keeper,” Maurice complained. “Or from the goddess.”
Arell sighed at the mention of the goddess. Of course, the conversation would come around to her.
“The goddess came to the island many, many years ago. No one knows if she even remembers us.”
Maurice held his head in his hands again and returned to the position in which Arell had first found him.
“Do you know about the warrior who fell in love with her?”
Maurice didn’t look up.
“Before your grandfather and the Moatons ever came to the island, the only people who lived here were your mother’s people. This is the story they tell.”
Arell took a breath and made himself comfortable next to Maurice. There were lessons in the Cho Nisi story that Maurice might be ready to hear. Tradition lay not only in the magic of Cho Nisi, but in their history.
“I know how the goddess came to earth. On a shooting star. Serena told me the story. What does that have to do with our magic?” Maurice asked.
“She’s the one who gave the magic to Cho Nisi.”
“Why? If she was going to let it be stolen from us, why did she bother? Why did she even come here.” Maurice asked.
“No one knows for sure. Some say it was to bless us. Others believe she was lost and merely steered the comet away from her planet so they wouldn’t collide, and that she didn’t know where she would land.”
“What do you believe?”
Arell contemplated the question for a moment. What did he believe? If the goddess came to Cho Nisi purposefully, it would mean that all that had happened had been planned, and if it had been planned, then perhaps losing the magic to thieves had also been planned. If that were so, were they justified in pursuing the thieves?
If she came here by accident, then nothing about the magic was predestined at all.
“As a boy, I believed she might have been lost but by the time she left our world, she had fallen in love with our people and had chosen to leave a blessing for us.”
“What is the good of her blessing if it can be so easily stolen?” Maurice asked.
“Anything we hold dear to our hearts can be stolen. That’s why we need to watch ourselves, and cling only to what is important. Our family, our homeland, our dreams.”
Maurice wiped his nose with his sleeve and looked at his father. Arell saw nothing but courage in the boy and wondered if he had indeed lost his own fearlessness.
“Why did the warrior fall in love with her? He knew she was a goddess. I didn’t think people were supposed to fall in love with goddesses.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because they’re larger than life. No one should be so bold to think a goddess could love them back.”
“On the contrary, I believe Symphony wooed the warrior. She could sing. Her voice floated on the wind. She could sing so sweetly that she often put the dragons to sleep.”
Maurice breathed a laugh.
“She wandered the beaches, the olive groves, and often climbed the highest mountain. She wandered all over the island. Maybe she was looking for a way to go home. The people would follow her just to absorb her splendor. But it was Pen Abbiah who realized that Symphony was not singing simply because she liked to. Her song was a lament. She wanted to go back to her home, wherever that was, but she didn’t know how.”
“Oh. So, the warrior felt bad for her.”
“That’s right, and he wanted to help her. Pen Abbiah was a leader of men, maybe he was a king if they had kings in those days, I don’t know. He came to her rescue and fell in love with her. He knew what she needed, and he wanted to fulfill her wish. He relinquished his role as chief, or king, or whatever he was in order to be with her.”
“So...,” Maurice stared at Arell. “Like you gave up the throne for mother.”
Maurice spoke so softly that a lump formed in Arell’s throat.
“Yes,” Arell said.
“Pen Abbiah died. He was killed by a boar,” Maurice said, sitting up on the bed.
“Pen Abbiah knew what his fate would be, and he gladly sacrificed his life so that she could return to her home. When she found his body, she mourned so intensely that when the sun rose that morning, the dew from her tears formed a rainbow and, on that rainbow, she crossed back to the heavens.”
Arell put his hand gently on Maurice’s shoulder. “The story does not leave us hopeless. There was a dragon nearby who pined for a purpose in life, and who had wished the goddess had asked him to take her home. And so, when the dragon heard of Pen Abbiah’s death, he did something no dragon had ever done before. He found Pen Abbiah’s spirit and flew him to the lands beyond. It must have been a heartwarming reunion, for Pen Abbiah met the goddess there.”
“It’s a good ending. Pen Abbiah was lucky to ride a dragon,” Maurice said.
“That dragon that Pen Abbiah rode was the Keeper’s father.”
Their eyes met; Maurice’s filled with wonder.
“Symphony gave the Cho Nisi people her songs, her chants, and her magic because she knew she couldn’t take those things with her, and she didn’t need them where she was going. She left them for us. Pen Abbiah gave up his life as a servant of love, and the Keeper’s father fulfilled his Bon Liga by uniting the two. You see, everyone played a part somehow.”
“Everyone will play a part to get it back, too. Don’t you think?” Maurice asked. “Maybe the dragon’s son has a purpose also—to find the stolen magic and return it. Maybe he, too, has a Bon Liga yet to fulfill.”
“We don’t know,” Arell answered, studying the boy. Could Maurice have more insight than what Arell gave him credit for? It’s hard to see a boy turn into a man, and Arell wasn’t so sure he was ready to have his son grow up. But Maurice displayed a passion Arell had no way of containing and it frightened him. He took Maurice’s arm and held him tightly.
“Don’t do anything foolish, Maurice,” he said. “The world is crueler than you know. It would be better that you don’t interfere. In fact, I’m forbidding you from climbing Big Rock unless I’m with you. And you will be escorted to Nico from now on until you gain our trust again.”
“Father!”