The sun slipped behind the jagged tops of the mountains, the brilliant lavender sunset sliding with it, smoothing its colour across the ripples in the water.
Wing slapped Nien’s leg and together they stood and returned to the cabin, Lucin coming in behind them.
Chapter 64
Call
W ork on Monteray’s home the following day was warm and relaxing beneath the silvery-blue light of Leer’s sun.
Nien and Wing joined Monteray and Kate for lunch before Nien headed back to do some prep-work for tomorrow and Wing left for town to find Call for some talk and some drink. Even though the townsfolk were now accustomed to Wing’s visits, their curiosity persisted as to why the tall stranger would come into town just to meet up with Monteray’s strange young nephew in the Hiona.
“Hey there,” Wing said to Call, returning from the bar with their drinks in hand.
Hiona wine, from which the pub got its name, was famous, often the reason travelers from other valleys would stop over in Legran even if they had nothing to trade. It was also the beverage of choice for the odd companionship. Wing had had it a time or two at Commander Lant’s house, still finding it rather unreal for it to be so easy now to walk into town, into the pub for which the drink was known, and order a mug.
Call looked up at him plaintively; something was wrong. Wing sat down and slid Call’s drink to him. “What is it?”
“I want to go back to Rieeve with you.”
Wing almost tipped the glass over. “What?”
“I just...I thought you were. Isn’t that why you’re here? Why you brought Lant’s Plan to Uncle Monteray?”
Wing could hardly touch the idea with his mind. What seemed so obvious to young Call had never even occurred to him.
“I, uh...” Wing tried to find something to say. He couldn’t. “I don’t understand why you’re asking,” he said at last.
“I’m not doing anything here, Wing.”
“What about your writing there?” Wing said, gesturing to the journal that sat beneath Call’s left elbow, the same one Call had been holding the first time Wing had seen him — leaning against the wall beneath the Hiona sign.
Call glanced down at it. “Observations and details,” he said with a grumble. “I’m tired of recording Legran goings-on.” He looked back up at Wing. “I want to help you fight the Ka’ull.”
Every word out of the boy’s mouth felt like a punch to Wing’s gut. With difficulty, he asked, “Where did all this come from?”
“It’s not something I just thought of,” Call said, his reply sharp, defensive.
Wing figured he must have looked rejoined for Call quickly reassembled his approach.
“My brother died fighting them, and I thought that’s what you’ve been working on with Uncle Monteray — a plan to go back and fight them. I’ve wanted this for a long time. It’s all I can think about, but I can’t tell anybody; except you.”
“Why not?” Wing asked, trying to understand Call’s perspective even as his own mind utterly rejected the idea.
“Because no one hears me. I know how people see me; I know they think I’m weird. I know they think I’m wasting my time. That I probably won’t amount to anything useful. It’s so frustrating, and I can’t tell you how angry it makes me.”
Such was evident on the boy’s face, but as he waited for some kind of response from him, Wing could find nothing to say. Still, he could see his silence was crushing to his young friend.
As Wing struggled, a high-pitched ringing brought his head back up.
Across from him, Call had dipped his finger into his drink and was running it along the rim of the glass. Wing was sure the glass would shatter at any moment.
“Call, I’m sorry. I simply don’t know what to say.”
Thankfully, Wing’s confession brought Call’s fingertip away from his glass. He licked the hiona from his finger and said, “You can say you’ll let me go back with you.”
“Your request,” Wing said with as much strength as he could muster, “has caught me completely off guard. The truth is, I have not thought about returning to Rieeve — ever. And I didn’t come here to help Monteray with the Plan, I came here, only, to deliver it.”
Now it was Call’s turn to be discomposed. His eyes were wide, his expression something similar to flabbergasted. “I guess I should apologize,” he said. “I just assumed you would be going back.” He grabbed his glass of hiona and slid it into the curl of his arms. “I shouldn’t have thrown it all on you. It’s just…”
“It’s just?” Wing asked.
Call clenched his glass between his hands.
“Well,” he said, hesitating. “The thing is — you.”
“Me?”
“You’re special, Wing. Mysterious. You walk into a room and the whole place notices.” Call ground his teeth. “And you’re so free.”
“Free?” Wing found the statement curious.
“Free to be a man! Just because you choose not to talk to any of the towners, if you did, I know they would hang on your every word. I know they’re all wondering what I could possibly have to say that would interest you. Whereas, I’m here, and I’m not taken seriously at all — and I don’t fool around! It’s only because I’m young. I’m trapped because everybody around here sees me as just a strange boy.”
Another long silence passed as Wing looked down into the deep purple liquid of the hiona, feeling the coolness of the glass between his hands.
“You’re not insignificant, Call, and I am no more mysterious than anyone. Your people see me that way because they don’t know me.”
“Well, they don’t know me either,” Call replied.
Without raising his eyes, Wing said, “True.”
As the chatter around them continued, Wing studied his young friend. He knew how the townspeople saw Call — as an eccentric youth who hung out in town all day, writing in that odd little book of his. Call was different, but that Wing understood. Though he did not share Call’s curiosity, he understood it, why he loitered around the pubs and marketplace, why he wrote. Wing understood the attraction, the need, the paths Call’s curious mind traveled.
From the other side of the table, Wing could feel Call’s eyes searching him hungrily, waiting for him to say more.
“Strength and beauty will always be readily admired,” Wing said uneasily — his strength and his beauty had been not else but a curse his whole life. But as he looked at Call, he realized the other side of that wasn’t any more pleasant. “Be patient. Don’t despair that who they see right now is not who you really are. One day they will see you. I promise.” Wing motioned at the book beneath Call’s elbow.
Call’s strained expression softened, and his hand patted the stout little book absently.
“All my life” — his voice cracked with emotion — “I’ve wanted to know with just a look that I was understood. Jason came close; at least more than anyone else. When he died...”
“He left you without a way to connect the world of your inner life with that of the outer,” Wing knew he’d found the right thing to say his young friend as Call’s blue eyes met his, their perfectly clear depths touched with emotion as he nodded.
Wing sat back from the table then, and even though he noticed Call trying to hide his smile by taking a quick sip of his drink, as Wing raised his own drink to his lips a graveness fell over his features as he thought of Rieeve, of his lost people, wondering at the great disparity between how people see themselves and how they are seen by others and if there might be a way to bridge that gap here, with Call, before it was too late for him as it had been for Wing.
Was there a way for Call to be seen for the gifts he embodied rather than those he did not?
What would this young man’s legacy be?
Chapter 65
There’s Me, Now
H is conversation with Call was still on Wing’s mind that night as he stayed after dinner to help with the dishes before heading out to look for Nien. He found
him inside the cabin, lying on the floor, scribbling on some flattened bits of parchment.
“What are you up to?” Wing asked. Upon seeing a thin stack of creamy white pages, he said, “Paper?”
Nien glanced at the sheets lying next to the parchment. “Monteray,” he said.
Wing bent down and took up a piece. He ran it through his fingers. “It’s Mesko paper,” he said carefully.
“Yes.”
“Do you think — ?”
“That it might have come from Lant?”
Wing nodded.
“How else?”
The brothers shared a look.
Nien held up something in his hand. “This, too.”
Wing recognized the fine-tipped writing brush of Rieevan make.
“Though terribly generous of him,” Nien said, “I gratefully accepted. Parchment is not so much fun to write on. And quills? Never did get a good feel for one.”
“So, what are you writing?”
“I’m trying to put down the high points I remember from Lant’s Plan. You carried it for a long time. Did you ever read it?”
“A bit,” Wing said.
“Good, help me.”
“Not unless you give me the pillow.”
A pillow hit Wing in the chest. He threw it on the floor in front of him and got down on his belly beside Nien.
“Lant wrote a brief biography of each person he planned on sending a copy to. Here’s what I’ve written down so far: ‘Monteray’,” Nien said, reading over his lines of notes. “ ‘Born in Legran, traveled early on in his life. Lived in Jayak. Obtained most of his warrior skills there. Traveled into the sunrising after that. Returned in his later revolutions to Legran. Has family there: a sister, two nephews, and one daughter of his own with his wife, Kate. I met him in Jayak when we were both young. He is a wise and a kind man. My dearest friend.’ ”
“They met in Jayak?”
“That’s what Lant wrote.”
The brothers glanced at one another.
“Lant said he was going to tell me about the time when he was gone,” Nien said. And then, without saying it, Wing understood what Nien wanted to say: Now he’ll never get the chance. Now, only Master Monteray knows what happened during that time.
Wing returned his chin to the pillow, and Nien read on.
“ ‘SiQQiy, a woman with a vast spirit. Of a Preak mother and Quienan father. She came to the ruling seat of Quieness after the death of her father two revolutions past. She has proven to be a prudent ruler and very capable. Her connection to Monteray is of primary importance in our endeavor.’ ”
Nien finished up with Impreo Takayo. “ ‘Impreo Takayo is a man of good virtue. However, his people have an intolerance toward Rieevans. They see us as a narrow and thus unintelligent race. I have hope that these plans may reveal our desire, or at least a reaffirmation of my own desire, for change. The word of Monteray in this thing may make all the difference. In addition, both the Quienans and the Preak are admired by Takayo’s people. If SiQQiy or the Preak agree, it will bode very well for us.’ ”
Nien stopped reading.
Wing was quiet, his chin resting on his arms, eyes open but focused far off.
“What are you thinking?” Nien said.
Wing glanced sideways at him. “Worried?”
“Should I be?”
Wing rolled over onto his back and, staring up at the ceiling, said, “Today, when I went into town to find Call, he told me something. He said he wants to go back to Rieeve with us. He wants to fight the Ka’ull.”
There was a big, heavy silence.
“Boys,” Nien said.
“E’te? And what are you doing there?” Wing said, indicating the Mesko paper with Nien’s writing on it.
“Exercising demons.”
“So, it’s never crossed your mind.”
“There’s no crossing. I fought them, Wing. We lost.”
“But the Plan...”
“The Plan?”
“Well, Lant...”
Nien looked at Wing as if he were crazy. “What does the Plan have to do with us anymore? Lant’s Plan was about protecting Rieeve and the other valleys, not what to do once they’d fallen.”
“I understand that, and I was as shocked by Call’s statement as you are. But he said it, and then I come back and here you are, wasting Mesko paper writing out bits of Lant’s Plan when Monteray has the whole thing up at the house.” Nien sighed unhappily. Wing laughed. “We’re such fools,” he said.
“Yes, we are,” Nien said, agreeing.
“So,” Wing said, “it’s just us. We never have to admit we had this conversation to anyone.”
Nien pushed the pages away so that he had room to stretch out. “It hadn’t crossed my mind either — until you showed up.” Nien paused and Wing knew he was organizing his thoughts. “The thing is, we don’t know what the other valleys have in mind. We don’t know what plans they have made. The only thing we can be sure of is they will be putting all of their efforts into protecting their own valleys. So, what has that to do with us?”
“Maybe,” Wing said carefully, “because they would be helping themselves. If the other valleys can trap the Ka’ull in Rieeve, they would save their own valleys from ever suffering what Lou and Tou have suffered. What Rieeve suffered.”
Nien was silent a moment; no doubt he’d already thought of that. He nodded. “With the Plan, Lant had hoped for the valleys to work together to drive the Ka’ull out. I don’t know what Impreo Takayo thinks about it. Or Empress SiQQiy of Quieness. But, so far as we know, neither of them knows what’s happened in Rieeve. No one knows what is quietly gathering in the heart of our world.”
What had not been accomplished during Lant’s life may now be accomplished after his death. The bitterness of it made Wing feel sick. Accomplished, yes, by the loss, the murder, the annihilation of their entire race.
The knowledge, Wing could see, was sitting heavily with Nien as well.
“So,” Wing said weakly, “we tell them.”
Nien looked at him. “I should not have hidden as I have, Wing. Rieeve is lost, but what we know, what it could mean to the other valleys…”
There was despair in Nien’s eyes. Shame.
“Monteray knew who you were, Nien. Clearly, he suspected enough to visit Rhusta. And Rhusta knew who I was. They know…”
“They suspected,” Nien replied, looking at the floor. “I failed our people. Perhaps I failed our world as well, in hiding, in keeping silent.”
“There’s no guarantee the other valleys will believe us anyway,” Wing said. “Our refusal to trade with them, open travel routes…”
Nien was nodding, but Wing could see his words did little to dispel his brother’s gloom.
“I will tell Monteray,” Nien said after a moment, “that I will do whatever I need to, go with him, or tell my story, if it will help the other valleys know and believe how much danger they’re in.”
“No more hiding for me either. I’ll be with you.”
Nien raised his face and looked at Wing, hazel eyes flaked with gold meeting eyes like brilliant emeralds, reading in one another a hundred thoughts, a thousand words, a myriad of unspeakable emotions.
And then an even worse thought occurred to Wing.
His expression must have changed because Nien asked, “What is it?”
“Assuming,” Wing said heavily, “the valleys come together. And assuming they manage to trap and push the Ka’ull out of Rieeve. Still, what would there be for us to go back to?”
“The land?” Nien offered hopefully. “It is our home.”
Wing felt the truth of Nien’s words like stones in his heart.
“Is it?” Wing asked. “There’s nothing left there, Nien. And, after it all, I don’t think I could go back. Could you?”
His brother looked at him and what Wing saw there felt sure to break his heart all over again.
After a protracted moment, Nien shook his head, “No. You’re right. I do
n’t think I could either.”
They laid on the floor in silence for a time.
“Well,” Wing said. “Neither of us thought we survived to retake Rieeve for ourselves anyway. Maybe the point was the Plan. Maybe the point was to be the proof of what happened, to help the other valleys.” Wing gazed at the floor. “Before I got here, that had been my only goal — to get the Plan to Master Monteray and then…”
Nien looked at him. “And then what?”
“Nothing,” Wing said. “The only thing I could think of was to return to the mountains.”
“To die?” Nien asked, his eyes unreadable.
Wing glanced at him. “Yes. Or, at least it was until I learned how to survive in the mountains. After that, I thought I might go back into the mountains and live there, like Rhusta.”
“But there’s me, now,” Nien said, looking at Wing searchingly.
As his brother hunted his eyes to understand why Wing still wanted to run away or die now that they’d been reunited, Wing resisted the urge to confess his own failure to Nien — that he’d lied about the visions he’d had back in Rieeve, that they had shown him what was coming.
But that was his burden to bear, not Nien’s.
So, Wing said instead, “But what good am I, Nien? Other than tell them what I saw that night, what else can I do? I am not a warrior. I have no great mind for military strategy. You, at least, understand all of these…things. I am of no more help to you, to the other valleys, or to Monteray than I was to our people.”
A shift happened in Nien’s face as he replied, “Nor am I.” It pained Wing to see it. Rolling over, Nien threw an arm up over his face. “You’re right. With Monteray’s help, we’ll warn the other valleys, then we’ll be done with it.”
With sadness in his heart, Wing said, “After that, we could go away. You’ve always wanted to travel. We could go to one of the coast valleys, even one of the other continents! Start over. Bleekla, I’d fit in anywhere better than I did in Rieeve. So would you.”
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