The Keeper's Codex: Ashen Memories

by A. D. Wills

  “I'm sure their letter is on the way. Rhogar isn't exactly known for being the most organized city in the world,” Shyn remarked at how he knew well and good that Aldriss' disorganized nature made it hard on his advisers to keep any order at all. “As for Lord Aldriss' injuries, they seemed severe, but I would bet my life on him being alive, and recovering right now. I've seen him endure much worse...” Shyn stopped short of revealing a story he hadn't told Calaera before, but it was too late.

  “Oh this is news, you fought alongside my Uncle? Curious indeed, Shyn. But, if I find out that you have actually been withholding fun and interesting stories from me all these years with Aldriss, the punishment will no doubt fit the crime.”

  “I-I...” Shyn sighed out a deep breath. “I did, but only a couple of times, and not necessarily alongside him. I was just nearby to see the Starborn on their own.”

  “And here you were all this time with stories of the Starborn.” Calaera shook her head in exaggerated disappointment.

  “It really was only a couple of times,” Shyn pleaded his case.

  “Then I expect to hear in full detail one about these couple of times you were near enough one of these days. Consider that one of my very first decrees,” Calaera waved her hand in the air with dramatic flourish. “But for now, let's see if we can at least tidy this floor up a little.”

  “An early abuse of power...” Shyn muttered.

  The two proceeded to tidy up Dreymond's study in a short while of quiet peace. Both of them reminiscing to themselves, taking in the room they've both been in countless times seeing Dreymond sitting in his tall chair, usually either stressed and overworked, or trying to escape his duties with any excuse he could muster if it meant he could sit by his fire place with a nice bottle of wine. Bit by bit, they gathered everything up, and stacked them wherever they could, with Dreymond's desk still as cluttered as ever.

  “I don't think I've ever seen less than a short mountain of papers on this desk,” Calaera fondly laughed. Calaera made her way around to the large backed chair, and sat in it, taking in the room seeing it from this point of view for the first time herself. “It's at least a little more comfortable than it looks,” she said, adjusting her posture, and fiddled around the desk drawers, but one of them was locked. Calaera jostled it around, but it wouldn't unlock, and couldn't find a key on the chaos that was her desk. “Strange, this one is locked.”

  Shyn came over to check for himself, puzzled why Dreymond would even need a lock.

  “You wouldn't happen to know anything about why this is locked, would you?”

  “Even your father had some things he didn't tell me. Everyone has their own secrets they keep close,” Shyn remarked. “I can open this though, if you want me to.”

  Calaera nodded, and backed the chair out of the way to make room for Shyn to pick the lock.

  Shyn shuffled around in his garments, and pulled out a little pick to begin working on the locked drawer.

  “A good thief would be wise to have these things readily on hand."

  Shyn furrowed his brows, trying to ignore her for the time being—and listen for the tumbling of the inner lock. Soon enough, the lock clicked, and Shyn opened up the drawer, but it was empty. Not so much as a single piece of paper was inside.

  “I wonder why this was even locked in the first place,” Calaera wondered, poking around inside the drawer, and when she tapped on the bottom of the drawer, it almost felt loose, like it was resting on top of something. “Let me see that pick for a moment, please,” she politely asked, but she still took it out of Shyn's hand before he had a chance to give it to her.

  Calaera slowly dragged the pick along the edges of the drawer, and eventually, it sunk into one of them. Calaera wiggled the pick around, and showed that this was indeed a false bottom as she suspected. Finally, it popped out of place, and she gently took put the false bottom aside.

  Shyn thought it was odd Dreymond went to such cautious lengths in a keep full of those he trusted. Shyn never knew Dreymond to be a paranoid man, a careful one, but not paranoid. But now a false bottom as insurance, this didn't feel like any side Dreymond had shown him.

  “They're sealed letters...unsent ones.” Calaera picked up the stack of sealed letters, no more than a thin handful of them, but they were all neatly stacked atop one another for safekeeping. “Why would father keep these without sending them?”

  Calaera searched the desk, and found Dreymond's trusty letter opener to pry one of them open. She darted her eyes across every line of every letter that looked to have been written with great care.

  “Is there anything in them that says who they're for?” Shyn asked, moving to peer over Calaera's shoulder.

  “He never writes a name in any of these. All they seem to be are letters apologizing for something he did, and that they all seem...intimate, as though they're to someone he deeply cares about.”

  Shyn remembered many things Dreymond told him in confidence, but nothing about a secret lover, or anything of the like—nor anyone that riddled Dreymond with so much guilt he expressed in these secret letters.

  “Maybe these are letters to your mother that he kept,” Shyn offered. That was the only person that perhaps Dreymond might be so intimate with. "But, as you know, she passed when she gave birth to you. He couldn't be writing to her."

  "And these don't feel anywhere old enough to be letters from back then.” Calaera felt around the letters once more to make sure she was right. “Whoever these are for though, it feels like he poured his heart out into them. They almost feel...tragic.”

  Calaera donned a sad complexion reading through them all again. In every single letter, Dreymond expressed deep regret and sadness, but would also reflect on how much he missed this person.

  “'I can never forgive him for what happened, but worse, I can't forgive myself.' He keeps saying these things over and over.”

  Shyn was utterly perplexed. Nothing of this made any sense, but he at least had a sneaking suspicion who the 'him' was in this line, and suspected Calaera had the same idea.

  “I know Aldriss knows more about Dreymond than anyone, even myself. Even if this has nothing to do with him, perhaps he would know who it does relate to. But that's all I can think of, I honestly have no idea what these are,” Shyn suggested, but in reality, he wondered if Calaera would be best served not knowing about any of whatever this was.

  Shyn had an aching feeling in the pit of his stomach that these letters wouldn't bring anything good.

  “If these have anything to do with my mother, or anything to do with someone important my father was hiding, I want to know,” Calaera folded up the letters and put them back in the desk drawer. “Perhaps the archives might have some answers.”

  "I can't stop you from going inside now, if you want to.” Shyn dug around his neck beneath his clothes, and pulled out an old rusted looking key. “I've never been inside myself, but Dreymond tasked me with keeping the key safe so no one might find it or easily get to it. It's with that I feel I should warn you to prepare yourself for what you might find inside. There may be answers to questions you weren't asking, or even thought of before.”

  “I know he couldn't tell me everything, and I didn't need to know everything at the time either. Unfortunately, times have changed. I need to know as much as I can, and as quickly as I can absorb it as well, so as to not let what I'm ignorant of outrun me. Whether I don't like it or feel uncomfortable about it, I'll do whatever is needed to continue what my father did so well to start.”

  Shyn felt the exact same peace of mind around Calaera now, as he did when he first met Dreymond—when as a young child, he decided to grab Dreymond's steady calm hand.

  “Until then, I believe we have our fair share of work to do down below in the city. And seeing as how you seem to be so well recovered, I expect you to lend a helping hand as well,” Calaera smirked back.

  Shyn nodded, and followed Calaera out of the now tidied up study to head down and aid with all the repair
s as well as moving those in need within the keep.

  As the two of them left the room, a messenger bird flew in the windows they left open, and placed a letter on the desk bearing the seal of the Divine Judocus family.

  Chapter 31: Caden

  In the aftermath of the rebellion, Chryssa's parents Ivan, Hilda, and the rest of the people healthy enough to contribute, took everyone into the tavern to make it into a makeshift infirmary. Among them, Sappo and Zasha were incapacitated, and being tended to at all times to the point where they were finally breathing at a stable rate, but they still needed their rest from their grave, and nearly fatal injuries.

  Snillrik was without any major injuries, but their exhausted body and mind shut them down for a little while too, forcing them to sit and recover their energy. Even when resting, Snillrik hoped for the best, but the back of their mind proved to be too stubborn to silence the expectant worst.

  Chryssa walked by while helping around with either Grumli's cooking, or her parents' healing, and noticed Snillrik sitting off on his own leaning against the wall. She wanted to help brighten Snillrik's spirits, but there wasn't anything she could say. She herself wasn't sure what might happen to Caden, and couldn't convincingly lie otherwise.

  A quaking tremor interrupted everyone in the tavern that rumbled throughout the city, and hurled them all off balance for a few minutes. It was like the building was being tossed by a couple of frustrated colossi on either side of the tavern it was so violent. Once the rumbling subsided, those who could stand, all rushed outside, and saw a massive plume of dust shooting up high into the sky from the quarry.

  Snillrik and Chryssa both raced down the streets, hopping over scattered rubble, and dodging the bits that rained down from the thick cloud above to get a closer look at what was going on.

  “...Unbelievable,” Snillrik said in amazement at the edge of the quarry, watching it collapse in on itself.

  Massive jagged boulders jutted up from the quarry—roughly grinding against each other, pushed and pulled around in a sea of sandy wreckage. Everywhere underneath Workal's hit was swallowed up.

  “How though...this is impossible, right?” Chryssa said in utter disbelief.

  Snillrik and Chryssa tried to see if they could spot Caden anywhere, but when they tried getting any closer, they were blown back by the whipping winds filled with bits of rubble. Until things settled, they were forced to impatiently wait, helplessly standing by as they clung onto hope Caden had somehow already escaped.

  When the rumbling ceased, Snillrik and Chryssa approached the utterly wrecked quarry. They couldn't believe their eyes, even after having witnessed it all themselves. Giant stone chunks crammed closely together like a field of deadly spikes, leaving barely any room for either Snillrik or Chryssa to safely gain any footing.

  The two of them carefully hopped around from stone to stone, diligently searching for Caden, but no luck. They shouted out for him, but there never was any reply, or so much as a whimper. There wasn't any sign of him whatsoever.

  Near the backside of the walls, Snillrik noticed an odd gap beneath a boulder. Snillrik raced over, but didn't shout out to Chryssa in case it was nothing. Upon approaching it, they were stunned to see Caden. There he was, lying lifeless, bloodied and beaten, beneath the stone that surely would have crushed him if it wasn't somehow cut out, nearly perfectly contouring his body.

  “Chryssa, I found him, hurry!” Snillrik shouted frantically, and checked to see if Caden was breathing before she got there. “Thank goodness...I should have expected you would find a way.” Snillrik took a momentary breath of relief upon feeling the faintest and shortest of pulses.

  Chryssa sprinted over to see Caden lying there, seemingly hanging onto his life by a tearing thread already stretched thin. “Unbelievable...” Chryssa smiled at the sight. “We need to get him to the tavern right away. My parents might be able to treat him, but he's barely hanging on.”

  Snillrik and Chryssa carried him together—picking up Caden's limp body. When they did though, the stone relic rolled out of Caden's pocket.

  “Is this one of your trinkets?” Chryssa asked.

  “No, I haven't seen this before,” Snillrik's intrigue overtook them for a moment.

  “We'll figure that out later then, let's get going,” Chryssa reminded, and they hurried Caden to the tavern.

  Snillrik and Chryssa busted down the tavern door with Caden in their arms. Chryssa's parents, Hilda and Ivan, turned their sights to them, and rushed over as fast as they could on their already overworked legs.

  “We'll take this from here,” Hilda said, as she and Ivan took Caden to a nearby bed. “He's still breathing, but barely...” she looked up to Ivan who solemnly nodded.

  Ivan and Hilda wasted no time, knowing Caden could slip away at a moment's notice at this rate. They cut his clothes off to see the severity of his injuries—trying to spot some place to start to stabilize him.

  “How is he even alive right now?” Ivan stared in amazement at the gashes cutting through deep black and purple bruises all over, showing internal bleeding at a rate that should have killed him by now.

  “Please, we promise we'll take care of him,” Hilda told Snillrik, and pulled a curtain all around the area. They didn't want Snillrik, or anyone else, to see this.

  “...Of course,” Snillrik accepted with a heavy hanging head.

  “I'm sure they'll be able to help him.” Chryssa stepped over to further console a clearly worried Snillrik. “If anyone here can help, it's them.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you,” Snillrik let out a polite smile, but it didn't stick around. They were sitting here, while their friends laid unconscious, and Caden struggled holding onto whatever shred of life remained in him.

  Ivan and Hilda were forced to deal with injuries they hadn't seen before in all their years, not to this extent at least. They tried their best healing Caden, trying methods that were experimental at best, and weren't sure at all if they would work, but knew doing nothing would be worse at this point. They needed to at least try. For everything Caden and his friends had done for them, Ivan and Hilda did absolutely everything they could for him.

  After what ended up being many labor intensive hours, finally, Ivan and Hilda pulled the curtain aside, panting heavily with tired eyes, and weak arms.

  Snillrik rushed over, and immediately felt a tumbling sinking feeling when noticing their hands and clothes completely soaked in blood. They almost didn't want to ask how Caden was doing, hoping to put off any cold reality.

  “Your friend is still breathing,” Hilda notified Snillrik. She could see how nervous they were.

  “He needs to rest for a while though, and we can't be sure when, or if, he might be healed,” Ivan continued. “We've set him on the right path to recovery, but we can't be sure how his body holds up trying to recover from all of that trauma. He suffered like very few others I've seen before.”

  “Thank you. Truly, I can't begin to thank you enough...thank you both so much,” Snillrik bowed their big blue head, scrunching their eyes to hold back the tears, with Achi jumping in happiness hearing the news.

  “We're the ones who should be thanking you and your friends,” Hilda interrupted.

  “This is the very least we could do for you,” Ivan agreed. “We'll be checking on him regularly to ensure he remains stable and breathing. If anything changes, you'll be the first to know.”

  It was enough for Snillrik knowing that Caden at least had a chance. With some semblance of calm in their mind, Snillrik figured to at least try getting some sleep, but a ruckus caught their attention.

  Snillrik walked over to see what the fuss was about, and saw the healers gathering around both Sappo and Zasha.

  “I said I'm fine, leave me be and check on the others.” Zasha swatted away the healers' hands, and sat upright in her bed, her body heavily bandaged nearly head to toe.

  “Thank goodness the two of you are alright.” Snillrik slipped through the healers, and stood between
Zasha and Sappo's beds next to one another.

  Snillrik couldn't contain himself, and gave Sappo a big hug, who wore a thick brace on his right leg, and clumps of bandages all over where the spears entered him before.

  “I'm glad to see you're alright too—” Sappo said before letting out a wincing scream at Snillrik's touch.

  “Oh my, no, I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking...” Snillrik waved their worried hands, and looked over at Zasha to see how she was doing.

  “You touch me, you die,” she plainly put with sharpened glaring eyes.

  “Well, I just don't see how you're in any condition to fulfill such a threat,” Snillrik didn't think before saying that, and their eyes widened in regretting every wisecracking word.

  “You might be surprised,” Zasha glared back.

  Snillrik gulped and took a step back away from Zasha.

  “So...what happened Snillrik? How did we end up here I guess is what I want to know,” Sappo asked in a bit of a glazed over daze.

  “You don't remember anything?” Snillrik inquired.

  “The last thing I remember is standing in the middle of the street, and then it was like I fell asleep and woke up like this...no one's had a chance to tell me anything yet.”

  Snillrik told Sappo everything that happened after he made his transformation, and blacked out.

  Sappo knew exactly what it was that spurred on such a wild rage, and it terrified him. He's seen his father and the other Ursine in the same state Snillrik described just now, and the destruction they're capable of.

  “I'm just so glad I didn't hurt any of the villagers...” A relieved Sappo let out a sigh of shame.

  “If it wasn't for you, the villagers and I wouldn't have made it. None of us would have.” Snillrik saw the distraught face of Sappo, rather than the proud one Snillrik thought Sappo deserved to be wearing instead. “You saved us Sappo.”

  Sappo nodded silently with a cracking sobbing smile. For now, it was enough seeing the appreciative faces all over the tavern looking back at him, Zasha, and Snillrik. But he remembered, they all weren't there together.