Rennar was probably glad to leave, thought Azrael. He could see but a few specks on the ground from his vantage. One of those specks was Rennar and his personal guard. The others were the slaver nomads led by Khamis. That would be just about everyone he'd grown to hate in the past months.
Looked like the ruse had worked, thought Azrael.
Rennar had decided to leave him in charge as the overseer. It hadn't been easy. He had taken initiative and came up with some tough measures to get the miners back to work. Lowered provisions. He had had a couple of the defiant ones put to the whip as well. It pained him far more than he thought it would. Even physically. Azrael felt his knuckles throb as he remembered punching the granite wall of his chambers. It had succeeded in the end. Rennar thought him a changed man. One that could be trusted enough to run the affairs at this mine.
"There shouldn't be much for you to do here. Once in a while the slaves get riled up. Make an example of some of them, and the rest will get back to work. Never choose just one. And always carry out your threats. One dead slave is enough to make a dozen work twice as hard. And slaves are plenty if you ever have need of them. Your main goal would be to watch the food supply. If you think a slave consumes more food than he's able to produce iron...he's better off dead for us."
The entire conversation was a little disturbing to Azrael at first. He wasn't entirely used to dealing with slaves in such a direct manner. Like several other Aegeans, he reaped the benefits of cheap labor from Ryga without really having to look at the harsh conditions leading to those benefits.
"And if you ever have the need to relax, speak to Squard. He keeps some bed slaves for the guards. And there are other distractions available as well."
He was sure it was his behavior when they first met that Rennar was still doubtful of him. But Azrael had taken every effort to erase those doubts. Lord Doyen had given him strict instructions on what needed to be done. Rennar had required the signing of several papers regarding the shipment of iron. Azrael was to do all that as asked, but not without driving a hard bargain for his own family.
"It will give more credibility to your ruse if you act selfish," Doyen had said. "Treat the slaves as objects, just as he does. And when the time comes, try to bargain with him to give you more."
And Azrael had done as he had asked. His father, Lord Llothran, would have been proud. Azrael had never shown any interest in trade, but he knew the deals he struck were good. He had negotiated a reasonable portion of iron for his own family's interests. Some slaves for their properties in other colonies. In exchange, he had given Rennar a letter that would fetch him several barrels of exceptional Eoran wine at a tenth of the original price. Wine that was normally used very sparingly as a symbol of status, would now flow freely from Rennar's estate.
The most interesting bargain involved fur. Azrael knew his father had been trying to get into the fur trade desperately. Most Aegean families didn't have a chance in the fur trade because it was saturated by the Eorans. Desert oxen found mainly in the deep desert were the prime source of this fur. The war against Namoth took place in the tundra at freezing temperatures. The Eoran Empire had a great demand for fur. And they had no need to look to foreign trade for it. The western part of Ryga was well connected to the Eoran Empire and they had access to all the fur they needed from there. The isles themselves were warm enough to not require such clothing.
But there had been rumors some time ago about a campaign in the Thenvaii region north of the forest of Holt. It wasn't as cold as the tundra but there would definitely be an increase in demand for fur. Azrael had gotten for his father a letter of introduction to a prominent fur trader in the slaver port. One who would deal exclusively with Rennar—and now his father. His family would be immensely pleased with the contract. Rennar had also been impressed with what he thought was Azrael's shrewdness when he asked about fur.
All in all, a thoroughly boring day for Azrael, but it would keep both Rennar and his own family away from him for some time.
"You seem glad to see him go," said a voice next to him. Azrael turned and saw Olaf. The man was supporting himself with a much sturdier stick now and seemed to have gotten somewhat used to it. He seemed to have healed far too quickly for an ordinary man, thought Azrael.
He suddenly felt a tug on his shirt and turned to see Brie hanging on to it while she tried to lean over the railing to see the courtyard. She had taken a liking to him, Azrael could tell. He was relieved to see that she was more cheerful than the first time he had seen her.
"Why do you think that?" asked Azrael.
"Your face speaks volumes. It's not too hard to read your emotions. You are not a man suited for intrigue or politics."
"What would a Rhial knight know about politics? Aren't your people supposed to obey the council...how do you say it? Unquestioningly?"
Olaf's face paled visibly, confirming what Azrael had suspected.
"How did you know?" he asked, quickly regaining his composure.
"I didn't. It was merely a suspicion…until now."
"What gave it away?"
"I've seen amputations in the Deckan campaign before. It takes a few weeks at the very least to even begin walking after an amputation—one performed by a trained healer at that. Even with the herbs I fed you, the pain alone would have been unimaginable. You should be feeling far too much pain to walk, yet here you are. Priests and even some mages are capable of healing, but you look nothing like a mage. You carry a sword, and you unhorsed one of the nomads in battle before being overcome. I've never heard or seen a mage handle a blade that good...well, maybe just one. And you can't be a paladin..."
"There are other possibilities…"
"None that I know of."
"There are many warriors who imbue their weapons and armor with magic. Talismans that regenerate and heal wounds. Even severe ones."
"You...chanted something before you fell asleep. I still remember the words, but I can't form them with my mouth. After you did that I felt all my fatigue removed from me. And my hands moved quicker. I also became more...aware of my surroundings."
Olaf looked interested. He seemed to have been thinking for a while before he spoke again.
"You could hear that? The exact words?"
"I heard something. They sounded like words, yet they did not. It seemed as if the voice uttering the words was inside my head. I heard you chanting, but the voice remained and grew louder like—"
"An echo," completed Olaf.
Hearing Olaf complete his words sent a shiver through his entire body.
"How do you know it?"
"It is a… known occurrence for Rhial Knights."
Azrael's hands began trembling. All his life, he had been afraid. Unsure. Convinced that he was somehow damaged. Broken.
*
"You will not speak of such things in this house!" yelled Lord Llothran and slammed the dinner table with his fist.
His wine chalice flew and fell to the ground.
There was complete silence. Six-year-old Azrael was sitting a good distance away and shrank in his chair, wishing more than anything that he could just disappear.
His brother, Uriel, was sitting next to him and acted as if nothing had happened. He continued eating, choosing to ignore the entire incident. His mother was avoiding eye contact. He was sure he could see a tear rolling down her cheek, but he was too afraid to move. The servants stood still. None of them even dared move. Lord Llothran was not a man prone to outbursts. Being a merchant in Aegis left very little room for emotion. This was rare.
"To have the word get out that my second-born is a lunatic."
"I'm sorry," said Azrael, barely getting the words out of his mouth.
"I have tried, Azrael," said his father. His voice was strained but soft.
He had relaxed now. That was good. His mother now found the courage to speak.
"It's not really his fault. Even the physician said so."
"I'm not stupid enough to think that this is
his fault. I know he suffers. And watching him suffer is not easy for me. But he has to stop talking about this. There are already a few who suspect this. A man in my position cannot afford to be laughed at."
There was silence for some time, and the servants started moving. One of them placed a fresh goblet of wine by Lord Llothran. Azrael started picking at his food when his father spoke again.
"If you would only have listened to me, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now," he said to Azrael's mother.
"No!" screamed his mother. She got up from her seat and stood up. "I will not hear you say the words! My son does not leave these walls."
She turned and walked away. Azrael did not know what they were talking about, but he found out for himself out a few weeks later. It was his mother that had broken the news to him.
"Oz, you do know that I love you," she said. She had been crying all night, Azrael could tell.
"Yes, Mother," he said, rubbing his eyes. He liked waking up and seeing his mother. "I love you too."
"Do you remember the time you dropped the bookshelf on yourself? In the library?"
"Yes." Azrael remembered it well enough. The pain at least. "It hurt so much. It hurt even more when Orrick twisted my arm."
"Yes, Oz, you do remember that, don't you? Orrick putting your arm back the right way?"
It had hurt far more than the shelf itself. For a few moments, Azrael sincerely wished that he had been dead. It had been hurting all day, but when Orrick held him and pushed his shoulder back into the socket...
"He did it to fix my arm. It would have grown all stunted if he didn't," said Azrael, parroting his father's own words.
"Sometimes we need to do things that hurt us. For our own good," said his mother. She was sobbing at this point.
"Mother? Why are you crying? Is everything all right?"
"I can't do this!" she said, getting out of the bed and running away.
Azrael saw his father standing in the doorway. He moved aside, letting his mother run out of the room.
"You're going to take a small trip, Azrael," said his father, walking toward him. He seemed sad as well.
"Where are we going?"
"It'll just be you. Orrick will be there as well. He's going to look after you."
Azrael looked scared. His father approached the bed and for the first time in his life, he saw a tear in his father's eye.
"This is for your own good. You will return to this house. I promise you."
*
"I'm actually still surprised that you could hear them," said Olaf. "They're called Reverberations. It's hard for me to explain how they actually work since you know very little about Rhial Knights. It's only experienced by other Rhial Knights when one among them invokes a Rhial cant. This is the first time I've heard of an untrained human being able to hear and feel it."
"What exactly is a Rhial cant?"
Olaf seemed to be struggling.
"It's a little complicated. I'm not sure I can find the words to explain it to you."
He seemed to have noticed Azrael trembling.
"Are you feeling well?" asked Brie. She was still holding on to his tunic.
"I'm...fine," he replied to the little girl, trying to force a smile. He turned once more to Olaf and spoke, "But I need to know. You have to tell me what it was that I felt."
"I...it is normally forbidden by the council for me to speak of this to an outsider. But if it means that much to you..."
"Please…" said Azrael.
Olaf appeared to think for a while before speaking. "I have already endured the hypocrisy of the council. And I'm already an outcast in their eyes. Very well, then. You better sit down," he said.
Olaf put the stick on the floor and sat down, holding his stump with one hand to not let it touch the ground. He carefully laid it to rest before settling down. Azrael sat opposite him, listening intently.
"When mages cast spells, they connect to a plane. Elemental magic connects to the elemental planes of fire, water and air. There are also planes of death, plague and decay that some kinds of magic can connect to and draw power from. Paladins and priests receive their powers from a god. It is power that is granted when a mortal becomes a vessel for that god. Either through their actions as in the case of paladins. Or through sacrifice—which Summoners pay with essences to receive demonic powers. Rhial Knights also use magic. But the source of this magic is different from that of a priest or paladin or even that of a mage."
Azrael waited while Olaf seemed to gather his thoughts.
"Our cants invoke a connection to the void. It exists with us in the form of a voice known as the Transcendent. The true source of this voice is believed to be an essence or multiple essences inside the void, but it has never been proven. All that is known is that each knight hears the voice differently. The cants let us invoke the energies of the source of that voice and imbue it into our being. The healing that I invoked was meant to convert the raw essence into healing energies. There are other cants that can be used to increase speed, strength and even acuity of mind."
"Why did I hear the voices when you cast your healing spell?"
"A knight invoking a cant always hears a voice. It is in fact the Transcendent voice that speaks the actual cant. Sometimes, a knight's cant is strong enough that the voices of nearby knights can hear them as well. They respond by echoing the cant. This also requires that the listeners voices themselves are strong enough that they can be sensitive to another knight's cant. This is the source of very powerful battle tactic that Rhial Knights use. Bolstering each other's strength. It is in fact this method that binds a group of knights together as one body. We call them Reverberations."
"So the voices I heard were...real? And I heard them because you invoked a cant?"
"Sometimes. It works both ways. If your voice is connected strongly enough to you, then it can pick up on cants that are even weak. You can see how that would be useful in battle. You were able to feel the reverberations from my healing cant to heal yourself a few days ago. But for a voice to be that strong requires years of training."
"Is it possible to hear these voices even without your cants? Without Reverberation?"
Olaf's eyes grew wide but only for a fraction of a second.
"You've been hearing these voices all your life?"
"All my life...I thought there was something wrong with me. I was told by everyone around me that I was...imperfect. Flawed."
"We see many such instances in Simea. I have seen thousands of children brought to the Rhial temple by hopeful families who wish to hear that their child is not insane. That he can merely hear the Transcendent voice. But the sad truth is that there are numerous maladies of the mind that manifest in the same way."
"So the voice I hear could just be something in my own head?"
"No. You felt the Reverberation of my healing cant. You wouldn't have if it were mere insanity. There are a few rare cases where a voice is strong enough that a man can hear it without any training at all. For most knights, they don't even know they have the voice until they enter the temple of Simea."
"Rare?"
"I have seen only two so far, not counting you. One is a council member named Kladuron."
"I have heard that name during the Deckan campaign. We often came upon riders from Simea. Shared campfires with them. They loved speaking of Kladuron, the hero of Simea."
"As expected. He comes from a very long line of distinguished knights. So nobody was surprised when he showed an affinity to the voice as a child. He had been taught how to control it even before he came of age and entered the temple. We entered the temple at the same time, he and I. He already knew everything the instructors were teaching. Indeed, as a child he was stronger than some of the instructors."
"So he's something like royalty within your council, eh? Who's the other one?"
Olaf pointed to Brie, who was trying to balance a pile of stones a small distance away.
"What? Brie?"
&nb
sp; "Yes."
"I don't understand. I thought your order did not accept women."
"They don't. Invoking Rhial cants requires the strictest discipline. The order believes that women would only distract the men. Worse, they believe it an abomination that a girl can hear the voice. As I mentioned, in most cases the connection is weak enough that most people—both men and women—pass through life without even knowing that it exists. This is the first time a girl has shown such a strong affinity to the voice. The council has perpetuated this myth that only those chosen and blessed by the council in the temple have the ability to invoke cants."
"Why?"
"Some measure of control, perhaps. If it was common knowledge that there were people outside the temple that could hear the voice and invoke the cants, it could lead to...complications."
"A rival order of knights, perhaps?"
"Not just a rival order. Even now, several knights believe that the source of their power is tied to the temple. That going against it and the council would lead to being alienated from the voice. Paladins are sworn to Myria. If they go against what Myria stands for, then they are stripped of their powers. Rhial Knights are as strong as paladins, but if they were free from such scruples, free to do whatever they wanted..."
"Does this have anything to do with you leaving?"
"I...had suspected some of these things. We are taken into the temple at a very young age. It is often hard for us to question the orders of the council or the traditions of the temple. In spite of all the good that the council does, there are times when they resort to more unsavory methods to retain their power. It is written in the books of the temple that only males are blessed with a connection to the voice. When they first heard rumors that a girl possessed so strong a connection..."
Azrael was shocked. He had even met a few knights and from what he'd heard of the council, he'd never thought of them as child murderers. He turned and looked at Brie, who seemed more engrossed than before in the pile of stones she was playing with.
"There are many whom the council deems unworthy that do have a real connection to the essences. But Brie… She was the daughter of an old friend. An Aegean like yourself. The man that I once squired for. The man that knighted me. He had an illicit affair with a woman we met during one of our missions. When the woman showed up years later in Simea with this little girl in tow, he could not find it in his heart to abandon them. He told me of it and I supported his decision to take care of them. Perhaps it was because she was so near to the temple that she could hear the voices. The temple is a strong source of the connection to the voice. It must have set something off in her. It wasn't hard for him to figure out that it was not a common malady. I tried to stop him, but he started digging deeper into the history of the temple. We found many instances where the books of the temple were wrong. The council got wind of it soon enough. And then they came for him. I could not stand by idly while an innocent man and his family were murdered. I was too late to save Rufus, but I could save Brie. Her mother had succumbed to her wounds. I barely escaped Simea with my life."
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