Wing & Nien

by Shytei Corellian

  Wing and Reean stood in silence, searching for something to say, for some kind of resolution.

  “Nien, I’m so sorry. I...” Reean paused. “There must be something we can do.”

  “There’s nothing.” Nien’s knuckles turned white. “They won’t listen. Even if they did, they’re immune to reason. They’re immune to anything that’s not in that sech’nya book over there!” His eyes lit upon the suddenly despicable book where it sat atop the mantelpiece. The next instant, he found himself lifting the chair into the air, filled with the sudden and irrational need to crush the book with it.

  “Whoa!” Joash barked, coming down from the bedroom upstairs.

  Nien managed to maintain his hold on the chair and slammed its legs back down to the floor.

  “Uh, something happen?” Joash asked, obviously grateful to have avoided a cracked skull.

  “The Council closed Nien’s school,” Reean said.

  “Ah,” Joash said. He came down the rest of the stairs and looked at Nien. “I could try and talk to them, son.”

  Though Joash had withdrawn his honorary membership from the Council, he was still the Mesko Tender and that carried weight.

  But Nien shook his head. “It won’t work, Fa. For them, it’s the way it’s always been and no other way at all. I’m alone in this.” He sat down in the chair he had been about to throw.

  “Nien,” Wing said quietly. “I'll go into the Village with you — talk to them.”

  Nien stared. For a flash, he found himself tempted to accept Wing’s offer. The next instant, he threw off the idea.

  Wing was offering as a favour, one that would cost him, probably greatly. No matter how much the school meant to him, Nien could not accept Wing’s offer any more than he had Grek’s.

  “No, Wing,” he finally said. “But thanks.”

  Joash said, “It’s not their school to close.”

  “Still,” Nien said, “they kept their children from coming and the kids are, well, kind of the point.”

  “Perhaps then, you should invite the children’s parents to sit in on the classes as well.”

  It was a good idea but too late and Nien couldn’t tell Joash that the school would be closed, regardless, unless Wing stepped up as Merehr.

  “It’ll be all right,” Nien said, almost choking on the words. “I’ll be able to focus on the Cant, help you and Wing out more around here, as well as with the Vanc home.”

  It was clear no one in the room believed him, the feeling of gloom impossibly dour.

  “Come,” Joash said at last. “Let’s eat.”

  As the family gathered around the table, Nien thought that, even though he’d lost the school, he should feel some sort of relief over having stayed true to himself and to Wing.

  But rather than relief, a strange dread filled his mind. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but he knew it was tied to something beyond the closing of the school.

  Maybe it’ll just take time, he told himself as he sat down with the family. Be patient.

  But it didn’t feel like time would make it better. It felt like the end of a belief.

  It felt like the end of an era.

  Chapter 14

  Impetus

  “N ien,” Lant said as Nien ducked into the small Cant hut the following day.

  Nien didn’t look well. Lant turned and, grabbing up a port from a short shelf behind his desk, poured Nien a cup and shoved it across the desk at him.

  “I look that bad?” Nien asked.

  “Yes.”

  Nien took a drink.

  “I heard,” Lant said. “I know what they asked you to do. I’ve tried to talk with them.”

  Nien took another drink. “Thanks for trying.” He set the cup down. “The thing is, Commander...” Nien paused. “The problem is me. As angry as I am at everyone, at the whole mess, I can’t blame Wing. I can’t even blame the prophecy or the Council. Grek Occoju said it. He was right. Even if they’d let the school be, who am I to teach...anyone?”

  Lant could not remember seeing Nien so dejected.

  “The truth is,” Nien continued, “I am different, I guess. Maybe I’m more Preak than I thought. Do they, as a race, long to learn, to explore? Are they hungry for it all the time? Do they want to know everything and how everything works, and do they want to discover things that no one else ever has?” Lant waited, listening. “Maybe,” Nien continued, “that’s the problem — I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to. How could they be uninterested in such pursuits?” Nien raised his head. “But I’m wrong in that, aren’t I? The Council, they really don’t want to learn. They’re satisfied with what they know. With what they believe. It’s probably a good thing I was forced to close the school. I need to let it go. It’s just that the children aren’t satisfied. They have so many questions. They’re so curious!”

  Lant caught himself smiling. “Like you.”

  Nien drew a long breath. “E’te.”

  Lant chuckled.

  “What?” Nien said.

  “You,” Lant said.

  “Me?”

  “A great many treasures lay hidden in Castle Viyer, and yet you were the first in over one hundred and seventy revolutions to look for them. And as for letting it go — you could no more let go that part of your character than you could release yourself from the burden of sunlight.” Lant watched him a moment. “You wonder if you’re like the race of your body. I think the Preak are people. I think some of them feel as you do, others, not. I don’t think it’s the Preak in you, I think it’s just you.” Lant could see that Nien wasn’t exactly relieved by this answer. He tried again. “Still, I’d say of all the Valleys, you share the openness and the passion of the Quienans the most.”

  This initiated a spark of life in Nien’s eyes. “Do they study geography, races, religions, the stars? Do they explore works of art and poetry?”

  “They write — whatever they like. They paint or sculpt or build whatever they like. They have universities of learning. They hold meetings where the only purpose of the meeting is to ask questions — about religion, philosophy, history.”

  Lant could see the effect of his words, that Nien was slowly crawling out of from under the heavy gloom he’d been under. He and Nien were kin souls, something Lant had recognized early on. None of their people were immune to Nien — the indefinable quality in him that would come across in a smile, a laugh, or simply a glance. But Lant had seen beyond Nien’s irresistible good-naturedness. He’d seen in him a noble sense of self and an innate curiosity that drove him into new experiences and ideas. Lant had been the only one who had not shunned Nien’s questions about the world outside of Rieeve.

  But now, Lant felt a warning as he often had before, wondering if telling Nien were the best thing. In their long acquaintance he had held off from divulging too much, a thing that, given Nien’s nature and level of passion, had been difficult. The fact that it had taken him two turns to decide to tell Nien about Master Monteray’s visit and the news he had to deliver was proof that he tried to protect Nien as carefully as he tried to protect Rieeve.

  Perhaps he had been wrong on both counts. He’d managed, without revealing too much, to build the fighting force of the Cant. And that was something, a rather big something, given Rieeve’s history of isolation and aversion to violence. Rieeve’s defenses consisted of the Ti and Uki Mountains Ranges in conjunction with hundreds of revolutions of secrecy and isolation.

  “So if I really want to do what I want to do, find what I want to find, Quieness would be the place?”

  Lant felt something sharp and cold shift inside of him. What had he just done…?

  “Answers far more important than any you could find in Quieness are inside you, Nien. They’re inside all of us. Sometimes we only need pointers, clues to unlock their memory.”

  Nien’s earnestness made his gaze hard. “Give me a pointer then.”

  Withholding information from Nien would only make him more insistent. He acquiesced.

/>   “All right, to the practicalities, then.” Pulling a large sheet of Mesko paper from the shelf behind his chair, he laid it across the table. “Here we have us, right?” Lant drew a small oblong circle in the center of the page. Nien nodded. “And here we have Legran, and here, Preak.” Lant drew out the other valleys.

  “Yes.” Nien nodded, no longer slouched in his chair.

  “Good then.” Lant drew one more circle. “And this is Quieness — the largest of all the valleys in our hemisphere. It could encompass every other valley in our corner of the world and still have space to spare.”

  “I knew it was big, but…” Nien said, staring at the emerging map.

  “Now, look at it in comparison to the bodies of water at Leer’s poles: Opf, Fou.” Lant sectioned off the top and bottom of the paper with large half circles. “From the edges of the great bodies of water at both poles rise three continents,” Lant said, continuing to draw as he explained. “Each connected by a small series of islands forming one large ring of land circling the planet.” Lant appraised his work. “As you already know, our continent’s countries, our races, are separated and distinguished by our mountain ranges. They form our boundaries on every side, which is helpful in one sense, for as a continent we know nothing of border disputes. But for the adventurous the mountains are endless regions where anyone may go and live. We Rieevans stay because going into the mountains means going into the unknown. Fear is our border.”

  Nien studied the map and the big circle to the right of Rieeve.

  “Tell me about Quieness,” he said.

  Lant closed his eyes as if relaxing into a warm bath. “It is a valley so large one side can be seen from the other only on the clearest of days, and even then, the massive peaks to the south-sunset are small, almost insignificant. And it’s beautiful — dirty, but beautiful. Being from an architectural family as yours is, you can appreciate what I tell you. There are buildings, palaces, of such unique and elegant construction it boggles the senses. And libraries.”

  Nien’s eyes widened. “Libraries?”

  Lant grinned. “There is a library in Cao with books filling shelves over seventy steps high. To reach many of these shelves, you will climb ladders that are higher than the ones your father uses to access rooftops.”

  Nien’s lips parted.

  “Ahh, and the monarchal palace...I could never describe it justly. Great domed buildings, gardens filled with vine and fruit and every kind of tropical plant — no small feat, as Quieness is predominantly arid.”

  “I swear, is there anywhere you haven’t been? Anything you haven’t seen?”

  Lant chuckled. “Adventure is in the heart, Nien. Just because the scenery changes doesn’t mean the traveler will.”

  “I know, but…”

  “I understand,” Lant said with a knowing smile. “And I have visited much of our own hemisphere, yes. Of the others, I have seen very little.”

  “So…?” Nien urged.

  “That would take all night,” Lant said.

  “Anything,” Nien said.

  Lant sat back in his chair. “Though I didn’t realize it at the time,” he said, “the place my heart was in was more important than where my feet stood.” He circled a finger absent-mindedly upon the rough map he’d just sketched out for Nien. “From the bellies of merchant ships so dark you could smell the night, to beaches of golden sand that stretched beyond the eye. From slave’s quarters to palace halls, the campfire of a friend to the hovel of a stranger, I found only what I had brought with me — and that was this place.”

  Lant felt the part of himself that had been that young man surface again brightly, before his face had become creased with lines of care and worry, before the blazes of white had shot through his hair, before his hands had ached with stiffness and old scars.

  Reaching out, he folded the map and pushed it toward Nien to take.

  “Home,” he said softly, “is just a word until you don’t have one anymore. After that, it becomes a very big word.”

  Chapter 15

  Hell Arrives

  T he heavens had collapsed and hell itself unleashed from the depths of earth and water. Smoke and fire competed against shrieks and wails for breathable air.

  A man lay beneath a heavy wooden desk — it was the only item in the structure still standing.

  Struggling for breath, Tedahn began to crawl on his belly like a half-gutted snake. He’d thought the ships were from Quieness. They’d had the right markings. They’d had the right schedule. But there had been no merchants aboard, no foodstuffs or clothing, and the only livestock on board had been horses, heavily armoured horses a good three hands taller than any horse his Valley of Tou had ever seen. Explosions had rocked the bay. All their ships had been destroyed. Ships that had been under his charge —

  None of that mattered now.

  Crawling through a canyon of debris, Tedahn fought every step as if it were a furlong. His wife and son lived only a few blocks away. Tears spilled from his eyes washing out the dirt and smoky film as his mind fixated on the image of the small cottage that sat just at the end of the docks…

  They would still be there. His wife and baby son would be all right.

  Glancing up, he spotted a pale stream of sunlight.

  A way out.

  Climbing to his feet, Tedahn fought through the wreckage of the dock house, his big shoulders pressing up against fallen beams, his fists hammering at the rubble, blood running down his arms and legs and into his boots.

  Tedahn exploded from the devastation and fell out onto the surface. Staggering to his feet he turned in the direction of his home…

  But he had clawed his way up into another world. Nothing was recognizable. His brain could not even comprehend what he saw.

  In acrid fumes, smoke billowed into the sky. Even the sun at the height of its ascent was dimmed and grey. Bodies lay about in the ruins: some hacked, some burned, some crying for help while others pleaded for death. To his left he saw a long line of his people. They were tied together with cords of thick, twisted rope and led by dark-robed men on horseback.

  Tedahn gasped and gagged, finally scrambling off the ruin that used to be home-away-from-home for generations of his family. As he moved down into the streets, his eyes focused on the near distance where a row of similar cottages sat — all damaged, but some still standing. He did not hear galloping hooves behind him until it was too late.

  Clad in a dark robe, the hood pulled low, the rider was upon Tedahn before he could react. A blow to his head sent him to the ground in a heap. Briefly, Tedahn heard the charger’s hooves upon the rock-strewn street as the rider wheeled the horse about. By the time Tedahn’s hands were bound behind him all had faded to black.

  Chapter 16

  Sight

  H is back against the divan in the large main room, Nien continued to read by the light of the last lantern as the rest of the family slept. They’d all long since retired, and strangely, Wing the earliest of all.

  The lantern flickered and its light dimmed another step. Nien glanced up at the oil, estimating the time he had left to either refuel it or blow it out and go to bed when the dance of flame caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment, delving trancelike into the blue at the flame’s heart —

  “Wing.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard Wing’s name whispered to his mind.

  Setting his book aside, Nien got to his feet and went into the back room. His own bed sat empty to the left of the door. Stepping to Wing’s bed near the small back window, he cracked the shutter for light and located the side of his brother’s face beneath the quilt.

  Wing looked to be quietly sleeping.

  I must be crazy, Nien thought. Still, he could not take his eyes away.

  And then Wing convulsed, pitching about like a man suffocating to death.

  “Wing — oh! Yosha.” Nien grabbed Wing’s face to see if he were choking on something. “Wing! Wake up! Breathe!”

  But W
ing was neither choking nor asleep.

  Having set the Ancient Writings down after dinner, he’d retired to the back room. Pulling off his shirt, he’d climbed face first into bed and curled his fingers into his pillow — small protection to keep himself from clawing his eyes out of his skull.

  Not that it would have helped.

  There was no escaping the vision that had fallen in upon him during his nightly reading of the Ancient Writings, blinding his eyes and enveloping his senses in the actualization of the words, showing to him with perfect clarity what they meant to flesh and blood, to living, breathing beings.

  Sech’nya, Wing had sworn in the back of his mind, not again.

  The last time he’d had this vision-dream they’d found out the Valley of Lou had fallen.

  For moments that stretched into moonsteps, Wing had tried to fight the ‘Seeing’ off: the black curling smoke, the long lines of human beings in chains of rope, great ships heaving about in a small bay like so many drowning parts of dismembered giants. But the vision gave no ground, rising up and swallowing him like a slippery-black snake, coiling around him, its grip closing tighter and tighter.

  Back in the present world, Nien held Wing’s head between his hands and said his brother’s name.

  Twisting, struggling to breathe, Wing’s mouth opened, but only silence followed by a miserable gulping sound issued from him into the dark of the room.

  “Wing,” Nien said again, and this time his voice was firm not afraid. He was calling Wing back.

  Wing’s struggle took a brief pause, and then his eyes sprang open and then his hand shot out and locked on Nien’s shoulder as if Nien had pulled him from a raging river. Panting and coughing, he took Nien in slowly, as if trying to understand where he was. When comprehension dawned in his eyes, Wing shuddered and slumped back to the bed.

  Heart pounding, Nien swallowed, and swore silently to himself. Wing had just scared him to death. Again.