An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  “The town square,” Camden said. “They’ve been busy with something the past couple days.”

  “A fair?”

  “I’m thinking so. No, wait. Listen.”

  Kefier strained his ears. It seemed as if another instrument had been added to strings and violin. He saw Camden nodding his head appreciatively and realized it was a song, now—a voice, as pure and glorious as if it were part of the melody itself.

  “The Ballad of Aenith,” Camden murmured. He started humming the words to himself. “Keeping await over that threshold of love like a sin, hmm hmm hmmm…you’re not knowing this song?”

  Kefier shook his head.

  “I’m thinking that’s a shame. I’ll teach you, seems we’ll have enough time for that. Mother of mine, but she has the voice of angels!” He grinned. “Maira and I, we were singing this together back then in the pastures and the sheep. You know sheep can appreciate music?”

  They listened to the song, and the songs that came after that. The very last song made Camden stop. The music was slow and soft now—Kefier had to stand beside Camden in order to hear it.

  “It’s the love-tale between the Kag hero Agartes and his lady Myrn of two hundred years ago,” Camden said. “Mother of mine! Listen, listen to this.”

  The voice rose to a crescendo, above the accompaniment. Kefier glanced at Camden blankly. Camden looked near-tears when he turned to him, and his mouth dropped open. “This is beautiful! I’ve been wanting to hear it like this my whole life!” He reached out to slap Kefier on the back. As soon as his hand touched Kefier’s shoulder, Kefier slammed his whole body into him. He was smaller than Camden, but the force sent both of them flying to the wall.

  “Sorry!” Camden cried, lifting his hands up. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to.”

  Kefier stepped back, feeling a little dizzy. “No, it’s just that—”

  “You’re touchy. I get it.” Camden shrugged and returned to his bench. The music had died down. “I’m wondering who she is,” he whispered, glancing up.

  Kefier didn’t say anything. He sat on the opposite side of the cell, placed his hands over his head, and wished his pounding heart into silence.

  Chapter Nine

  Her name was Lillah Artek. They heard snippets of the name in the streets throughout the next couple of days. They called her Cael’s Nightingale, and she had taken time off from her regular performances in the city of Cael (known for its theatres as well as its temples) in order to visit the duke of Vildar. The performance in the town square had been a rare treat, open to the public. Camden found this news evidently pleasing.

  “All the culture in Cael. What more in Hafod? Oh, if only she had gone with me instead of him, we would have—” But whatever he meant by that, he said no more on the subject.

  On Kefier’s third day of imprisonment, they heard a commotion on the street outside their cell. Camden rose from the bench and stepped up into the sunlight, his face eager. “It’s her.”

  “Oh?” Kefier asked noncommittally. He didn’t care for the singer one way or another, but she was all Camden talked about for days.

  He peered through the window leading out to the street. “I think I see her. What is she doing? I’m thinking she shouldn’t be here, this isn’t a good place for—”

  There was a shrill cry. Kefier cringed.

  “Listen, Lillah. It’s not my fault you went gallivanting into the countryside on your own. I was worried.”

  “On my own? I had to take three servants with me before you would let me go!”

  “I did not let you go, you escaped, you damn woman!” The cry came again, and then a hard snap. The male voice started screaming. “You bitch! My riding stick! That hurt!”

  “I am not going back with you! Leave me here for Atur to pick up!”

  “Oh, so you like them old now, you dirty cheating wench…”

  “I’m begging your pardon,” Camden broke in, where he stood. “A bored person like me is wanting all the entertainment he can get, but I’m thinking it’s best if you kept your hands off the lady and your words light on her, yeah?”

  “What's that?” The man entered in view. Kefier saw him bend over and spit near the bars. Camden drew back. “The last time I let scum talk to me...”

  “Come in, then,” Camden said, grinning. “I’m thinking my friend and I are obliging enough for you. Though I’ll have to be warning you, he’s rather vicious.”

  Kefier laughed. It sounded more menacing than he intended and he clamped his hand over his mouth. The man swore, cursing Camden’s seed and the generations after him. He returned to Lillah and wrenched her away from the street. They disappeared from view, but Kefier could hear her screaming and fighting him every digit of the way.

  “Your rendition of Ranochi’s was the sweetest of its kind, Lillah!” Camden called after them. “May the mother and her consort bless you!”

  They were left alone, in the darkness.

  “Maira,” Camden whispered. “All of this—” He indicated the cell and the solitude it brought them. “It makes a man want to be remembering memories, don’t it? As if they’re all you have, in the end.” He slumped down against his seat.

  “There’s an apple tree back home,” he said. “It’s sticking its branches into my room through the window. Pap would sit on the bench below it and take his guitar and he’d just be strumming away while we all listen. He’d be singing like that when I wake up in the mornings, loud and clear. I’ve never learned to sing like him.”

  His words turned into a low drone. The only way they could pass the time here. But Kefier heard everything, while in his head his own memories unfolded. A quiet sea. The sea, there, all the time. With Sume. With Oji. With Enosh. As part of him as his heart and soul and blood, as ceaseless as his every breath.

  Later that afternoon, the door to the small room opened, and a figure walked calmly, demurely, inside. It was a woman—dark-haired, pale-skinned, and clad in a simple white dress. Kefier thought of a gull he once saw diving into the sea and emerging in a shower of rainbow and pearl, and likened her to the image. She was frighteningly beautiful. He snapped from his revelry long enough to notice Camden in the same shocked state. The Baidhan managed to stammer an introduction.

  “From Baidh?” she mused. Her eyes wandered the cell, and she smirked. “What else does a criminal know of Ranochi?”

  “I’m thinking enough to sing half of his songs by heart,” Camden grinned. “Though badly.” He paused. “And I’m not a criminal, if you please. We were taken for being foreigners.”

  “Because of the troubles. I heard.” She nodded, turning to Kefier. “You?”

  “I thought Ranochi was some kind of cheese.”

  She covered her mouth, as if hiding a laugh. “You’re not criminals, then. But stupid foreigners, no question about it. They’ve been on the lookout for anyone to blame for the past few weeks—you should have known to bring the proper papers.” She pulled a stool from the end of the room and sat on it, smoothing her dress under and over her lap as if she was in a king’s dining room. An invitation.

  They spoke through the long afternoon, discussing ballads and tales and songs and acting as if Kefier wasn’t there. He didn’t mind, anyway. He preferred to sit against the wall, letting their voices drone against his ear. He observed how Lillah often traced one finger around an ear, as if tucking behind a lock of hair that wasn’t there, and that there were bruises around her delicate wrist.

  After sunset, guard arrived to escort her out. She was reluctant to leave.

  “Must be boring in that duke’s house,” Kefier commented when she was gone.

  “Atur apn Cuinn is half-deaf,” Camden murmured. “I’m guessing she’d prefer a prison-cell with that Garril there.”

  “Birds in a cage.” Kefier thought of Lisa and the women back in Cairntown, which drifted towards Oji’s sister, Sume. His face hardened.

  “She’s not coming back, I’m thinking,” Camden said. His face was straight. He r
ubbed his head and grinned weakly at Kefier.

  But she returned the next day. She shoved fresh pieces of bread through the bars, to Kefier’s delight, and then proceeded to discuss modern compositions with Camden and why she thought they were a waste of time. Camden retaliated, though his voice never rose. Their debate turned into a discussion about the retellings of Agartes’ stories. Kefier lifted his head in interest.

  “Can you tell me anything about the demons?” he asked. “When it comes to Cael, it was all the other men could talk about. They told me once when they were near the woods that Rok—a friend of mine—pretended not to be scared but then he made people walk with him just to piss.”

  Lillah stopped in mid-sentence and stared at him. “Well,” she said, after a moment. “That’s an interesting question.”

  “Folk tales they were scaring children with for a long, long time,” Camden said, his eyes flaring. “Nothing worth singing about?”

  “Nothing worth singing about,” Lillah agreed. “It’s a depressing subject, really. Can you believe some people are thinking the attacks came from these—things? Someone claimed to have seen walking horses trampling the fields.” She smirked. “There is one. One short song. Not really very famous—I don’t even know why I bothered to remember it. The writer jumped off a cliff, from what I recall. Here.” She cleared her throat and began to sing in a low voice.

  She told the story of Naijwa the Fair, daughter of Gaspar, and famous necromancer—a mage who could made dead things move, breathing spells into them until it seemed as if they had a life of their own. She fell in love with a native Dageian, another mage, Raggnar rog-Bannal. The affair didn’t last long; both Gaspar and the empire of Dageis declared war on each other after, and Naijwa rushed home. Somehow, she was separated from Raggnar and was forced to trek through the Kag wilderness alone.

  No one knows what happened to her in those months. She must’ve heard the news from some small village, of how her country burned and her people starved. People were convinced she had died in the wilderness. But somehow, she lived on.

  “And behind her she left a trail of damned souls,

  Left soulless creatures

  Left creatures.

  Left monsters.

  Her sorrow for the whole world to know.”

  When she stopped, Camden stirred from his seat and uncrossed his arms. There was a bemused expression on his face. “I’m thinking I’ve never heard of that story before. Why?”

  Lillah smiled. “Not perhaps in Baidh. Here in Cael, so close to the shadows of the Kag, it is a story that has frightened us since we were children in our mothers' beds. Mind you, there's a bit more to that story, though I won't bore you with the details. An account I read mentioned how Naijwa was particularly interested in the dead. She was skilled in a sort of taxidermy, except her work was animated.” She giggled nervously.

  Camden recoiled. “You're saying, she made dead squirrels alive again? That kind of thing?”

  “Oh, she would've found that boring. More a dead squirrel with a rat's tail and a crow's wings. And no, they weren't alive, though from what it sounded like she was trying—rather unsuccessfully—to make certain mythical creatures.” She rubbed her jaw thoughtfully. “I remember it said that the creatures fell apart rather quickly. She was really only using a bit of her learned Dageian skill to accomplish it. The real art was in the glass beads she would use for the eyes.” She tittered. “There was also this bit about her throwing a tantrum when she returned to her home in Hilal, finding her whole family dead. She killed her family’s murderers, only during the process somehow caused the destruction of the village, too. Erased it from the map forever.”

  “Mother of mine,” Camden, all too-invested in her story, murmured.

  She smiled. “Our elders' insisting aside, many texts have denied the validity of the story. There are no records of a village in Gaspar so close to Cael's borders, nor of a Naijwa the Fair in the Dageian Plateau’s school. Which is a pity, because it makes for a much better history for Cael and Kiel than say, Molla the Enchanted Cow.”

  Camden laughed. Lillah scolded him with a click of her tongue. “Why, the nerve! It’s much better than the Hafed version of how Agartes came to Kag shores. On a giant sea turtle, indeed. These stories…”

  “Some people would call them heroes,” Kefier broke in.

  “Not Naijwa. Heroes wouldn’t cause such wanton death.”

  “She brought justice to her family, didn’t she? Despite what she’d done.”

  Lillah gave him the sort of smile Oji would’ve given him had he been there, the sort that told him he was too entirely too naïve for his own good.

  “Did you hear? Lillah Artek is having another performance later, in the Twisted Drake.”

  Kefier heard. The two men that entered the room were talking loudly between themselves. The one that had spoken went straight for the padlock holding the cell door together and pulled against it experimentally.

  “You’re planning to just leave them?” the other asked.

  “I missed the first one. You’d think the others would let us hear the end of it when they find out we didn’t see the Nightingale?” He glanced at the prisoners. “They’ll be fine. Unless they can magick themselves out or pick a lock.”

  Camden grinned as soon as they were gone. “I’m thinking you don’t have a hairpin on you?”

  “Sadly, no,” Kefier said. “Perhaps I should buy one later.”

  “Pity. The one night they’re gone, and we’re not figuring how to get the hell out here.”

  “Pathetic, I know.”

  The door creaked open. Kefier’s muscles tensed.

  “Lillah,” Camden gasped.

  “Camden,” she said politely. She nodded and motioned for them to come closer. “I don’t have much time. I scheduled a performance for today. Vildar really shouldn’t have prisons, you know? The guard was a volunteer. Besides, everyone always goes to my performances…”

  Kefier growled grasped a cell bar in one hand. “You can get us out?”

  “No, I can’t. I thought I could pinch their keys when they were walking out, but alas—my fingers aren’t as nimble as a thief’s. So here…” She reached her hand into the space between the bars.

  Kefier reached out, and relief surged into his heart. It was Oji’s sword. The leather handle was warm to his touch, familiar. He pulled it into the cell and noticed that someone had wrapped a thin blanket around the scabbard. It was the same one the man had offered him, back in the woods.

  “What are we needing to do with these?” Camden asked.

  “I don’t know. Will you try something?”

  “Of course,” Kefier said. He was holding the sword against his heart. “Thank you.”

  “Garril is forcing me to leave tomorrow,” she said. She touched Camden’s hands briefly through the bars, and then reached out to pat Kefier’s shoulder. “If you manage tonight, north of town there’s a farmer I’ve asked to wait a while. He’ll be carrying goods to Cael. If you get there, it won’t be difficult to find my house. If I’m not there, my servants will accommodate you.”

  “You keep saying if. It worries me,” Camden said.

  She smiled. “It suits your face to be worried. May you always be blessed. Now I must go. Be careful, please.”

  They settled against the walls once she left. Kefier dozed lightly, his eyes flickering open once in a while. It seemed hours had gone by before he heard footsteps flood the room. He saw the guard enter and immediately lunged at Camden, roaring.

  Camden swung out at him in panic. The guard jumped towards them, waving a heavy stick. “Stop it! You two!” He grabbed the bars with both hands, rattling them. At that instant Kefier ducked Camden’s next blow and grabbed the guard’s arm. The man gasped. In the moonlight, the sword’s blade glinted against his throat.

  “The keys!” Kefier hissed. “The keys or your neck right here, right now!”

  The guard started to shake. Kefier pressed the sword tigh
t against him. “The keys, damn you!”

  “Hold on. Be gentle, please,” the man stammered. He inserted a key through the bars, dropping it inside the cell. Kefier jerked his head back at Camden, who picked it up. He reached through the bars and unlocked the door from the other side.

  The cell door swung open, and Camden walked out. He looked back at Kefier, his face white. Kefier ignored him. He wrapped his other arm around the man’s throat, removing the sword, and pulled back. A few moments later, the man began to kick before crumpling to the ground.

  “Mother of mine! Why did you kill him?” Camden cried, shielding his face with one hand.

  “We don’t know he’s dead. We have to go.”

  “We have to help him!”

  “We don’t have time for that, Camden.”

  Camden clenched his fists. He looked as if he would strike Kefier for an instant, then his eyes fell on the sword and he whirled around, unable to look at the room any longer.

  They walked into the empty streets in silence, and headed north, as Lillah instructed. Before dawn they reached the farm. A horse and a cart stood by the road. The man loading the cart with fruit looked up and regarded their appearance with detachment. “Finally,” he said, wiping a hand across his forehead. He pointed to the back of the cart. “I’ve been waiting all evening. Get inside.”

  They settled underneath the heavy canvas that covered the cart. Camden still looked shocked, as if he was playing the night’s events over in his mind. Kefier closed his eyes and tried hard not to think about the kind of man the Boarshind had taught him to be.

  Chapter Ten

  They were on the road for a few hours, exhaustion and hunger overtaking their senses. The farmer had told them that Lillah had paid enough for their travel and nothing more. Kefier expressed his feelings about this by hacking away at a watermelon the size of the farmer's head. Pieces of green watermelon skin flew around them. He managed to hew out a sizeable chunk and offered it to Camden.