by Erik A Otto
Whether he liked the answers of the two other naustics was hard to say. The first naustic was uninterested, offering mostly only yes or no answers. The second naustic was much more eager, openly offering that she didn’t believe in Matteo.
Is this what the Fringe were looking for? If so, she wasn’t interested.
Finally he came to Nala. He looked her up and down and began his questioning. “You have eighty days left in the pens, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you live before here?”
She hesitated, unsure of what answer would properly sully his view of her. “I grew up south of Pyros, near the Albondo woodlands. My family owned a farm and fruit orchard. I went to school in Pyros and wanted to become a Sandalier, so I came to the keep to do my level-three apprentice exams.”
“Have you been into Albondo often?”
“My family and I used to go when I was a child.” She decided not to brag about her knowledge, or anything else for that matter. She didn’t want to be bought by this heathen. “But it was only a few times,” she added.
“I doubt that,” he said, looking down at his notes.
She only frowned at him in disdain. Perhaps her answer had been too revealing.
“Tell me, Nala, what is the Canon of Belief, and why is it written that it changed the course of the First Jawhari War?”
What was this? Why did this Fringe man care about such things? She tried to remember from her teachings. She’d never been good at her studies, and the answer was proving elusive. “There’s no point in telling a heathen like you,” she said, trying to deflect the question.
“I disagree, Nala. Acccording to the Canon of Proliferation, the faithful are to advocate Matteo’s divinity to nonbelievers. So why not indulge me?”
He might have been right about that, but she couldn’t remember. She decided she needed to make something up. She couldn’t have this heathen upstaging her on knowledge of the Canons. “The Canon of Belief changed the course of the First Jawhari War because Jawhari prisoners were made to change allegiances after being educated by the Sandaliers.” She knew there was some change of allegiance with Jawhari or Cenarans or Valderans somewhere in the Book, and it sounded plausible, so she was happy with her answer.
“I see,” he said, nodding. Then he turned to Malthus and said, “I will take this one for the agreed price. Please have her ready within the hour.” And he turned to leave.
Nala cried out, “No! No, you don’t want me. I’m no naustic. I am a devout follower of Matteo. Take someone else!” The naustic woman in the paddock beside Nala nodded her head eagerly.
The Fringe man stopped, paused for a moment, and turned back to Nala. He said, “you live in a pen, having been judged as a naustic by all of Matteo’s vassals. Moreover, you know little of the Book of Canons you studied only recently. No, Nala, you most certainly aren’t pious. In fact, I doubt you believe in Matteo at all.”
And he turned to walk away.
Chapter 4
The Good Son
Baldric had been up the Shepherd’s Road several times in his league training, or during business trips with Father. It should’ve been familiar, but it wasn’t. Houses, farms, and signposts had been uprooted, leveled, or misshapen, and the local people looked sullen and paranoid rather than cheery and encouraging.
When they passed Marsaya from a distance, it also looked foreign to him. The cityscape had been dramatically altered by the leveling of buildings and by tornadoes of dust and smoke.
Leftenant Henly assured them Marsaya would be retaken soon; only a small stronghold of Sambayans remained. He also told them, somewhat surprisingly to Baldric, that the siege of Marsaya wasn’t their intended destination. Rather, the squadron would be tasked with ridding the northern reaches of Thelonia of the remaining bands of Sambayans.
It wasn’t until they hit the meandering Quigly River, a tributary of the Prosana, that the landscape became less unsettling. Baldric wondered if the Day would have dried out the river or changed its course, but the locals told them the land and water had frozen over, immutable, then returned to its present state only minutes after the world turned.
Did Matteo believe the water of a river to be of greater import than the works of men? Or men themselves?
Such strange times they lived in.
The regiment made camp close to the river. Clyve helped Baldric set up the tent while Darian foraged. The forage would serve a dual purpose: fuel for the fire and greenery for camouflage.
When they were finished making camp, Baldric sat by the fire with his brothers for a bite to eat, and then they began setting up the tent. It was slow to put in stakes for the tent. Everywhere they went the ground was as tough as Matar bone. He enjoyed the task, though. It helped him stave off boredom, and kept his brothers occupied.
It was the idle time he dreaded most. A well of regret would plague him whenever he paused to reflect on the Day. He should have been more vigilant. Radley didn’t deserve to be extinguished by Matteo’s wrath. In fact, he was the least deserving.
If anyone deserved it, it was Clyve.
Clyve was as belligerent as always, at least on the surface. He argued it away as too improbable for him to be responsible. If there was anything that could have humbled Clyve, it should’ve been what had happened on the Day, but it hadn’t, at least not yet. Perhaps what Father had told Baldric was true. Perhaps Clyve was a lost cause.
But Baldric heard Clyve in the night. He cried. Baldric had never heard him cry before, not since he was a toddler. In fact, Baldric had thought him incapable of exhibiting any kind of sympathy or introspection. The guilt must be eating him up, whether or not he showed it. Maybe someday he would find a way to come to terms with what he’d done. Maybe he would even develop a proper conscience.
To Baldric’s surprise, Father had forgiven Clyve, or at least not completely disowned him. It was something that Baldric found hard to reconcile. In truth, Father probably hadn’t expected the world to turn either. For that reason he might have been willing to shoulder some of the guilt. He might have also heard Clyve those nights and felt some compassion for him.
His parents tried to mend the wound that had cut deep into the family. Mother had said before they left to “remember you are brothers,” as if they had forgotten. Father had said, “Remember you are Brontés,” more in warning than in a prideful way, and with his eyes drilling into Baldric just as much as his brothers.
Despite Mother and Father’s words, it hadn’t been a pleasant journey thus far. It certainly didn’t feel like brothers in arms heading out to fight the scourge of the Sambayans. To Baldric it felt more like babysitting.
There was Clyve to deal with, of course, but Darian might also be lost to them for different reasons. His mimicry seemed to increase with each step northward. And when they marched Baldric noticed that Darian walked with an odd gait, akin to some of the rangers who rode their horses too often. Baldric wondered if he was emulating one of these rangers, or maybe some maimed soldier he’d come across in his travels. On account of Darian’s embarrassing outbursts, Baldric purposely tried to keep him close by for fear the other soldiers would take notice. He would be an easy target for young men who were brimming with hormones and heading off to war.
When Baldric tried to talk to Darian, it only made things worse. He would ask Darian careful questions about his experience in the league, and Darian would only lapse into louder fits of mimicry. He would spout inane phrases about truth and the Canons that sounded like they might have come from Radley, but they were said with different mannerisms and what sounded like a Belidoran accent.
Baldric couldn’t make any sense of it.
It was possible that Darian had been belittled so traumatically in the north that it caused a worsening of his disorder. In hindsight, it might not have been wise to send him north at all, at least not without one of the brothers to protect him.
Baldric would keep trying. It was Father’s will to mold Darian into a
proper Bronté, and after the tragic events of the Day, he became even more adamant on the subject. When Baldric asked about Clyve, Father just shook his head. He also said, “And if Clyve dies in the north, so be it.”
Perhaps Father didn’t have compassion for Clyve, after all. Perhaps he forgave him just to be rid of him, so he could cut him loose without conflict. Father would often explain how it was important to avoid conflict, to stay hiding in plain sight. It would certainly have caused a stir if Clyve had been disowned completely.
They had only finished pounding in two stakes when the leftenant came around to their site. “Ahh, the Bronté boys,” he said.
Leftenant Henly was a plain-looking man with a dry wit. He spoke little except for the occasional sarcastic barb. He leveled these quips even though he showed little enjoyment in it, as if it was a tedious requirement of his command.
Baldric stood erect and answered before the others could, “Yes, sir.”
“You are the eldest, yes? The one named Baldric? Why doesn’t your brother answer for you? He’s of higher rank, isn’t he?”
There was no easy answer to Henly’s question, so he said, “Force of habit, sir, as the elder brother. Apologies.” Darian was indeed higher rank than Baldric. It was a matter of some frustration for Baldric. Even though Baldric had been in the league for two years and Darian only eight months, Darian received a rapidfire promotion up north to enable him to be an active soldier.
Henly seemed to care little about the infraction. “And where are the other two brothers, then?”
“Myron stays to tend to the estate with Father, and Radley was…lost on the Day.”
The leftenant didn’t offer condolences, but Baldric didn’t take offense. Too many were lost to worry about such things. Who knew how many family members the leftenant had lost?
Henly continued, “And you, Darian, you must be the one who was up north when then Sambayans attacked. I’ve heard something about you.” He peered into Darian’s eyes.
What did Henly hear, Baldric wondered? Baldric looked to Darian, wary of what response he might give—wary that he might lapse into a fit of mimicry.
Thankfully, Darian answered without any strange affect. “What are your orders, sir?” was all he said.
The leftenant looked vaguely disappointed by Darian’s response. He sighed and answered, “The two of you are to come with me. There’s something I wish you to see.”
Darian and Baldric mounted their horses and followed the leftenant. Baldric glanced back to give Clyve a look of warning, but he was too preoccupied carving something in the dirt with a stick.
They meandered up a path, away from the river. After a few minutes they reached a clearing where the leftenant pulled the reins of his horse and looked back at them, gauging their reaction. Just ahead was a huge gash in the earth, almost half the size of the Bronté estate. It was as if a giant had cut a slice into the earth with a huge axe. Something overlapped the earth on each side of the gash, like the lips on a toothless mouth. A foul odor reached his nose.
“Well?” the leftenant said.
Baldric responded for them. “I’m sorry, sir?”
“What is it?” he asked.
Baldric had no idea, and clearly, the leftenant had no idea either. Baldric could only think Henly had brought them to this strange anomaly because of their family’s mining experience.
Baldric looked at Darian. He only shrugged, so Baldric responded for them, “We don’t know, sir. Honestly, I’ve seen nothing like it at my father’s mining operations.”
The leftenant looked disappointed again. “Fine,” he said. “That’s all, then. Let’s go back to camp.”
On their way back, Baldric couldn’t help but ask, “Has this…hole been here long?”
“Since just after the Day. Or at least that’s what the locals say. They say the stench has diminished since then. Hard to believe.”
“Has anyone gone inside?”
A rare laugh escaped the leftenant. “Who would enter that heinous thing? No, we aren’t about to explore. I wanted to know if this might be something caused by the Day, and if there may be more of them. It’s a curiosity, but this is wartime, and we have no time to dwell on it unless it’s of military significance.”
They made their way back down to the campsite in silence. Before the leftenant left them, he said, “One more thing, lest I forget. We have been assigned to the joint Thelonian-Belidoran army that’s pushing back the Sambayans through the border and beyond. The Belidoran general named Vanaden Granth is leading the effort. We should connect with them in the next few days.”
Darian suddenly pulled tightly on the reins of his horse. It reared up off the ground and kicked out its front legs in protest. He eventually managed to establish control, but his face had taken on a ghostly pallor. His lips started to move in a way that Baldric had seen too many times. Darian began eking out a “Matteo save—” before Baldric spoke over him.
“Great news, Commander!” Baldric said. “We’re eager to serve.”
“Good to hear,” Henly responded, then he frowned at Darian and said, “You know, Darian, now’s your chance to order your brother around. I would take advantage while it lasts. That is, after you learn how to ride a horse.” Henly smirked at his dig, then turned his own steed around and headed to the next squad’s campsite.
Darian had lapsed into whispers, quiet enough not to concern the departing leftenant. Baldric let out a sigh of relief and tried to ignore the annoying whispers until they reached their tent.
When they arrived back at the campsite, Clyve had wandered off without finishing the tent setup. There were stick marks on the ground, enough that there could have been a tussle. The marks led away, into the forest, with two of them forming one-inch divots into the surface, as if a man had been dragged along the ground. Baldric drew his sword and followed the marks. They led to a large belay of stone by a clearing in the forest. Here there were white marks on the rock. They conveyed the image of a face with its tongue stuck out next to two horses fornicating.
The childish drawing was clearly Clyve’s handiwork, but there was no sign of Clyve’s whereabouts.
Baldric sighed again and returned to finish setting up the tent.
Drills and discipline increased with every step of the way north, making Baldric’s work with his brothers all the more difficult.
Clyve had already received one lash from the commander for laughing during formation drills. He was out of control and careless. There was only one thing that seemed to set him straight. Clyve would be mouthing off, and Baldric would ask him if he “wanted to be a half brother forever.” Clyve’s eyes would go dark, and he would finally shut up and walk away.
Darian was even more trouble.
On a routine patrol near Thelos, Darian abruptly spurred his horse to the west, away from the squad. When Henly asked Baldric where Darian was going, Baldric could only say, “He may have spotted something. I will follow and report back, sir.”
Baldric chased after Darian. He yelled out to him, but there was no response. Baldric had to gallop his horse at a feverish pace to try to catch him. He veered around the sporadic brush while Darian kept on.
Baldric had always been the better rider. Eventually he caught up to Darian. “Will you stop, you fool! What in blazes are you doing?” he said, pulling up beside him and grabbing the reins from him.
Darian’s horse eventually slowed and came to a stop. He sat still for a moment, then met Baldric’s eyes. “I will stop…for you,” he said, as if he was making a great exception.
Baldric saddled up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Is that you, or somebody else talking? You’re possessed, Darian! You have to get rid of all these people floating around in your head.”
“Not all of us are tools,” Darian said. Baldric had noticed a pattern to his personalities, and this one tended to manifest often. More than that, though, his body language would change when he emulated this person. Darian would sit more erect
in his saddle or puff out his chest like he was in some kind of Sandalier mural depicting the Shepherd.
Baldric kept his hands firmly placed on his shoulders and locked Darian’s eyes. “Who is that? Is that the one you call Sebastian…or is it someone else?”
“Reniger.” Darian responded, drooping in the saddle again. He was replying in his own voice now.
Baldric seemed to have worked him out of the trance, so he pressed on. “Why do you mimic him so much? Who is this man Reniger?”
“He saved me. He’s a good man. He’s…the only good man. He…I wanted to go to Thelos to see his family.”
“You aren’t Reniger, do you understand me? You’re Darian Bronté, also a good man, and you’re bound to serve in the Thelonian army and to bring honor to our house—to defend against heathens like the Sambayans.”
Darian pondered his words. “I’m not a good man. I’m…” Darian said meekly, then felt at…his crotch?
Baldric felt like he was making progress, making a breakthrough even, and then this. Was it some adolescent inferiority complex or part of the same disorder? Baldric wanted to support his brother, but Matteo help him, he didn’t want to know how Darian’s groin had anything to do with this.
He grabbed Darian’s hand away from his crotch and pulled him even closer. “You’re a Bronté, and Brontés aren’t weak. You will defeat this disorder, we will vanquish the Sambayans together, and we will come back heroes. Do you understand?”
Darian looked down. “I will come, but only because he says it’s the right thing to do. The right thing for you.”
“Who says this?”
“Reniger.”
This time it was Baldric’s shoulders that slumped. He really had no grasp of what was going on in his brother’s warped mind. But if his current emulation helped him avoid a court-martial, then he could live with it. Baldric only replied, “Fine, I guess Reniger is a good man.”