Kingdom of Traead
Ad Eniddia
١٤ Kamieńsykli: ١٠ years prior to the Red Storm at Westsong
Methias stands at one corner of Ad Eniddia’s massive central belfry. He’s looking out over the large, rather clean streets of this walled border town, willing himself not to cry. He has a belly full of mixed misery to contend with. The misery is justified, given recent events. And it’s flavored with—though he doesn’t himself realize it—a dash of quite typical adolescent angst. He will, after all, be thirteen in less than a fortnight.
The wind is good up here. It sings and strains… whispers and moans. It provides a surfeit of perfect, melancholy underscores and counterpoints to his moiling emotions.
That same wind now tugs at the heavy cloak he wears, ruffling his unruly auburn curls as if it were trying to comfort him … or coax him. For now, he pays it little mind. The constant weight of his haversack holds only a touch more of his attention… just enough to ensure it’s still hung over his shoulders, and no more.
It’ll be tonight. It has to be. Otherwise I’ll just keep finding excuses to stay.
The sun is setting. He can’t see it behind the iron-colored clouds, but he can hear it. It’s in the subtle changes to the birdsong below.
Not that any of the others would mark it. His thoughts are sour. Before long, they’ll boil over into anger… he hopes. He’ll need anger if he means to leave the comforts of the last few days. That, or the weight of all that’s happened will finally be too much.
I’ll just wait here. Then, when the sun’s down and everyone’s headed to the hall for supper, I’ll make for the postern gate. If I’m quick and quiet, I can get out of the city before I’m missed. If not… If not, I’ll climb back up here and… and I’ll—
His mind freezes, as does his blood. Voices on the stair below cause his breath to hitch, then halt as their speech becomes clear. With a collapsing sensation, he realizes there’s nowhere to hide up here.
Maybe I… If I crawl up into the bell and wrap myself around the clapper…
His mind conjures an image of someone pulling the rope to ring the bell. The vibration alone might kill him. Certainly, he’d be hard pressed to cover his ears without falling the few dozen feet to the base of the tower.
“…stairs, my lord. He’s been up there for oh, ’bout half a bell, I think.” The man sounds aged, with a queerly high, almost reedy timbre.
“That’s fine, Alwyn. Thank you.” That’s the velvet voice of Lord Jannon. It occasionally squeaks, but only on certain sounds. Laughter is a common culprit. At fifteen or sixteen, young Lord Jannon Saysh laughs easily and often. He’s two, perhaps as many as three years older than Methias, but he carries himself in a way that makes him seem much older. “If you’d be good enough to keep—”
“Aye, young master. No fear. I sh’ll see that no one disturbs your talk with the boy.”
Methias vacillates between rage, relief, and shame. He doesn’t want Jannon here, because Jannon will try to stop his plans. He desperately wants Jannon here to do exactly that—to make him stay. Then there’s the shame. Shame of spurning the gifts and good fortune that Jannon has lavished upon him these past few days. Shame that he didn’t leave sooner, one way or another. Shame that he’s been too much a coward to do what he knows he ought to have done from the first—either go back to Nausha and turn himself in, or… or…
The wind whispers once more, adding to his sense of panic. It isn’t the soft sound of voices carried up from the walled town below. It’s at once more urgent and more ethereal than that. He knows he isn’t hearing whispers from some unseen entity, but there’s a sort of cathartic attraction to the idea. It isn’t impossible, of course. The world is full of what fools call the supernatural. And it would be such a relief if something—if someone was calling him. He knows it’s only wishful, childish thinking. He deserves every drop of fear and pain the world sees fit to throw at him. But oh, how blessed a thing it would be if someone would step in to tell him what to do—tell him how to properly pay for his part in… in Emil’s…
Footsteps on the stairs behind him. They pause before they reach the top. He can hear their muted echo bounce against the stairwell’s near-claustrophobic walls. Perhaps Jannon is looking around. Perhaps he’s collecting his thoughts?
It doesn’t matter. Methias draws a breath and forces his spine to straighten, not turning to look at the handsome youth.
“You look as if you’re ready for it.” The voice is easy—cautious, but playful.
“For what, Lord?” Methias doesn’t mean to speak. Hells, why had he spoken?
Jannon’s voice takes on a slightly exaggerated formality. “Let this be the last blow you ever receive unanswered…” He pauses for a beat before continuing in his earlier timbre. “The final moment of a knighting ceremony—the last moment you stand unbelted.”
“Un…”
“…Belted. It’s what we call those who haven’t been recognized as knights. They’re fighting men, of course… or fighting women, though they’re rare enough. In either case, being able to fight isn’t the same as being called to serve as a knight. Such aspiring folk are unbelted fighters.”
Methias feels his mind opening, as if trying to eat the young lord’s words like a meal. New knowledge has always been an easy lure for him. He resists the impulse to begin asking questions.
No more excuses. No more … distractions.
“I’m neither of those.” His voice comes out flat—almost monotone.
Jannon laughs at this. The sound is gentle, and while it is at Methias’s less-than-astounding observation, it isn’t at his expense.
Still chuckling, Jannon takes the final steps up onto the belfry’s alure and begins walking toward him. Methias stiffens.
“What is it?” The older boy sounds as if he’s stopped mid step. His easy laugh’s been replaced by a note of clear concern that’s hard to hear.
“Nothing. I just want to…”
“Want toooo…?”
“Be alone, my lord. I wish to be left alone.”
“You’ve been left alone for half a bell—ever since you and Caden had your little tussle. Surely that’s enough time to brood.”
Still stood with his back to the new arrival, Methias runs his tongue out over his lower lip. It’s swollen from where the shorter boy—Caden—punched him nearly a full bell back up the hourglass. He tastes the metallic flavor of blood and feels a bitter little smile crawling into position. He’d let his mask slip and mocked Caden for not knowing how to read. Most children his age are illiterate, unless their apprenticeship requires the skill, but Methias’s derision had been relentless. He’d courted this pain—bought and paid for it. Even now he finds himself pleased in a dour way he doesn’t himself fully understand.
“I’ll be down soon, my lord. Please. Just leave me be.”
“No… No, I think you’d best come down with me. We’ll go to the hall together.” His voice is closer now—just behind. How Jannon’s moved so silently is a mystery Methias refuses to focus on. He shakes his head in equal parts confusion and negation.
Jannon lets the silence spin out for a moment—or at least what he no doubt thinks of as silence. Methias hears the ghostly, breathy sound of a piper, a bird he’s always loved. The song is mixed with that of other birds and the shrill, somehow plaintive sound of the wind over the angles of tiled roofs, stone walls, wooden fences. He even hears the massive rope that holds the great bell begin to creak and sway behind him.
A hand falls on his shoulder, causing him to jolt as he recoils. He teeters, falling forward. Feeling every nerve scream against Skolf’s pull as it rushes up to meet him, he has a single, shining thought.
Good. Good, it’s over.
As Methias’s fall forward reaches the point of no return, he can feel Jannon’s hand slide from his shoulder. The young lord does manage to grab a fist full of both his cloak and the haversack beneath it, though. An instant later, Methias feels himself yanked backward. The motion isn’t physically painful, though it does force his feet back onto the heavy wooden floorboards. The sense of loss, of yet one more failure to add to his seemingly endless list, is another matter entirely.
“No! No, let me go! Let me! Let…” Is he weeping? It doesn’t matter. “It was over! Let it be over! Jannon please! I just want it to be over!”
The space of a single step separates him from his prize—an end to the empty feeling of loss to his shame at having fled his master’s house when he should’ve stayed to fight, to his rage at his powerlessness… his own cowardice.
He’s disoriented as Jannon spins him around, crushing him to his chest. Jannon makes no noise—offers no words. For a moment of frozen time, Methias is simply held. The embrace has a somehow implacable gentility to it that he knows… he knows he’s unworthy of.
He moves to shove himself free. When that fails, he stomps on the young lord’s booted feet, kicks him, tries to punch his ribs—anything to make him let go. He screams, but the sound is muffled against Jannon’s chest. Finally, he has no fight left in him. Sobbing, his body shaking with days of pent-up guilt, grief, and—he will later reflect—gratitude for the kindness he’s been shown, Methias breaks. He throws his arms around his silent savior, and at last begins to grieve for Emil’s death.
When he quiets, no longer clinging to Jannon quite so desperately, he becomes aware of fingers combing through his hair. He has no words for it, but he’s more grateful for the kindness—for the contact—than any words could convey.
“Will you tell me your tale now, Lamlith?”
Unwilling to let go, Methias turns his face up to regard him. His eyes are wide with both fear and incomprehension. He’s terrified at having to relive it—at the thought of how Jannon will react when he learns the truth. The incomprehension is simpler. He doesn’t know the word Jannon used to address him.
He must be wearing his confusion, for Jannon smiles down, leaning back in order to look him in the face. “It means little fire.”
“Oh.” That’s all Methias can say.
“Would it help if I told you I already know some of it? That nobody will find you here… well, nobody with any authority, at any rate?”
“I… My…” Methias starts to struggle again, trying to free himself, but stops almost instantly. He shakes his head, then bows it. “What will you do to me?”
“To you?” Jannon laughs in that easy way he has—the way that makes it hard not to laugh along. “I’m going to torture you with food and a safe place to sleep, warm clothes and a warm bed, and time.”
“Time?”
“Time, Lamlith.” He nods, looking for and finally meeting Methias’s eyes. “I can’t unmake whatever’s really happened to you, but I can give you time to make peace with it… to learn whatever you can from it. There’s a price, mind you, but I can give you that”.
“What… what price?” He can feel his heartbeat. He’s exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally, but he hasn’t lost his ability to feel fear.
Jannon’s laugh is brief, soft, and gentle. “Honesty, Lamlith. You have to be honest with me and with yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to tell me all of it. It just means you mustn’t lie about anything.” He smooths Methias’s hair back. “Can you? Will you pay that price?”
Methias doesn’t answer. He can’t. He’s too overwhelmed. Instead, he swallows hard, eyes brimming over. Laying his head against Jannon’s chest once more, he shudders in the wake of a new sensation… relief.