by R. R. King
That was when I caught the first glimpse of ego in his soul. If you kill me. The words painted faint smirk on his lips. A suggestion of mockery. Sinful vanity.
A warrior’s greatest weaknesses had always been his pride, vanity, and his ego. Those were glimpsed when he underestimated his enemy. Those little moments, if taken advantage of, would prove more than fruitful in killing him.
“Your death is a price I will pay for your brother,” I said, imitating the same confidence he had exuded a few moments ago.
Rodmordt said nothing. His powerful and calm posture didn’t change. But Ellianna’s hands betrayed her. A faint note on the Harp rang feebly against the rain. A high note, one that would send shivers to a weakened soul and alert a stronger one.
I turned my head towards her. She had her blind eyes open now.
“Why would you want to assist a ruthless man like my brother, Lurker?”
I imbued his message. He called me Lurker to humiliate me. Or to remind me that I should have better favored him over his ruthless brother king. Where I came from, King Thorn was our greatest enemy. It made sense.
“I have to,” I said. “And I have no choice.”
Rodmordt said nothing. He was the first man to teach me the art of silence without knowing it.
“We need salt and bread and shelter for the next seven years,” I said. “A great evil is said to attack our land.”
“What kind of evil? Will your land be raided as mine has been?”
“In my land, we fear no man. So if it were an army I would not have come to kill you in exchange for food.”
“Then what kind of evil?”
“An evil that can’t be fought back.”
“A demon?”
“Demons can be exorcised. A greater evil. It has no face. Has no army. Has no place. It crushes you to pieces and you will never be able to avenge.”
Rodmordt thought about it. I wondered if he knew what it was. I wished he didn’t. It would have made him a smart man. A wise one. I kept admiring men like these. It compromised with my efficiency to kill them sometimes.
“Ah,” he said with a nod. “Nature.”
I nodded. Hated him, and hated myself. “An evil of nature; a plague that will damage all of our crops and most of our men. We need someone to take care of us. Your death, and the death of the rest of the the Six Giants, is the price I will offer him.”
Rodmordt seemed to sympathize. Something in his eyes suggested that. I didn’t know what it was.
“I wish I could offer your land something,” he said. “But we’re barely surviving on our own.”
Now, I said nothing. Only our eyes met as the rain poured heavier. Warrior to warrior. Killer to killer in a world that sometimes made no sense. I came to kill a man I respected in favor of a man I detested, only to save my people from a curse made by gods whom both men worshipped. There was no right or wrong in this matter. There was no good and evil. There were only survival needs and selfish motives.
This was life in the Seven Seasons.
“I will ask you to draw your sword first,” he said. “I will not raise my sword against a man who kills to save his people.”
He who draws first loses. He who attacks first is impulsive. He who starts a fire will eventually burn because he’ll be the nearest to it. So had my mother taught me.
“I won’t,” I said, understanding the paradox of the situation.
“You come and ask for a Feud and don’t have the courage to draw first?”
“Not courage,” I said. “I respect you greatly, so…”
“Don’t lie to me, Lurker,” Rodmordt said. “You know that he who draws first loses. You have been raised well. You have been taught.”
I nodded, my eyes staring at the blurry floor by my legs.
“Ellianna,” Rodmordt said.
Ellianna began playing. Short notes, low and smooth. I knew what she was doing. She wasn’t playing the Obsolete Song yet, but a Song of Urges. The kind of melody that triggered a warrior’s need to draw his sword. The one warrior who weakens first, will draw.
I had never practiced against such a song. I was vulnerable to the melody.
11
Song of Urges
The music from the Harp of Hallows touched me like a ghost’s hand, transparently spiraling and weaving through the falling rain. Its melodies sunk into my existence and possessed my mind and altered my memory. I wasted a lot of strength resisting the temptation of pulling out my sword and waving my suppressed anger across the place.
Such a great deal of strength.
Every painful memory, every saddened feeling, and every suppressed emotion rose to the surface of my soul. So high I could feel them choking me. All of my hidden demons were about to reveal themselves.
A warrior’s demons are both his pain and pleasure, his bliss and blood, his sin and sensibility from Poems of Dead Poets by the Sad Saint of the Season of Sacrifice.
For a man who usually said nothing, I was almost out of control. I wanted to tell of one-thousand-and-one stories I had never confessed to anyone. I wanted to scream my childhood’s memories, spitting out words onto the tears falling from the sky. I wanted to slaughter someone to silence my pain. I wanted to indulge in sin and filth and injustice to suppress the real man hiding behind my eyes. My childhood memories swirled before my eyes, only blurred by a curtain of falling rain. Every bad thing that happened to me as a child showed through the spiky hair growing on the back of my neck.
What kind of song was that? What kind of enchantment urged a man to expose his lust for destroying the world? Did songs like these drive a warrior to his dismay?
Ellianna poked a few more notes, and it became harder to resist the Urge. It hurt inside my head. It hurt inside my heart. It hurt to be alive.
I was about to give in and lose before the Feud had even begun.
Looking at Rodmordt, he seemed saddened by my weakness. I tried not to show it, but my swelling veins and stiffened limbs gave it away. He seemed utterly disappointed with the warrior who asked to challenge him.
Later in the years, I understood why. A great warrior, no matter how many he had killed, always wished to meet his match… his rival… and then kill him too. A sacred need for those who have triumphed with their powers. A need for more. Powers were an addiction greater than O’peh’eye, a devilish plant known in the Seasons. An addiction greater than a man’s lust for beautiful women.
All I could do now, my only weapon against Ellianna’s notes, was to keep my hands off my sword and say nothing.
He who draws his sword first loses. He who draws first is angry. He who draws first means harm and doesn't deserve to live in the Season of Rain.
That was the whole point. Ellianna and Rodmordt knew it. Once I gave in, I would have lost my will against a man who was almost invincible. I needed to find a way out. I needed to keep my calm and mysterious warrior manner. I needed to stop them from seeing through me.
But I realized how weak I was that day. I realized why Rodmordt was one of the greatest warriors, and I was nothing but a Shadow.
12
Wrath of Rodmordt
“What happened then?” King Thorn asks.
Though I prefer not to answer, I am obliged to reply. “I bowed my head to Rodmordt’s power and walked away with all the shame in the world stuffed in my throat.”
“I knew it,” King Thorn gulps from what looks like a heavy cup that glitters in gold from this far. I think it’s shaped after a boot — a tribute to the boots he collected of the men he once killed. “I knew you couldn’t kill Rodmordt,” he lowers his cup and loses his sudden enthusiasm. “Sadly, no one can,” his strong voice frays like a thread of false hopes.
Next to me, Dragan sympathizes with the King. He seems to want to say something but holds back. As much as he hates me, deep inside he wishes I have truly killed Rodmordt so his King would live longer and the prophecy would be proven false.
People’s minds change so fast. One moment
they love you, the next they hate you. A man only seeks satisfaction from the misery of others.
“Shall I order the Lurker hanged, my King?” Dragan offers with bitter joy.
“Not before he explains why he lied to me,” King Thorn demands.
Again, I am obliged to answer and explain myself. Not because I am afraid, but because the story doesn’t end here. Far from it.
“I didn’t lie,” I say. “I only told you that I walked away that day, defeated without a wound or a sword waved at me.”
“And what kind of warrior gives in so easily?” King Thorn says.
“A warrior who understands his limits,” I say. “I knew if I had been forced to draw my sword first I would have eventually lost.”
“You keep repeating that,” Dragan spits out. “Who in the name of the Seven Seasons and the Seven Seas told you that he who draws first loses?”
“My mother,” I turn to face Dragan. I want him to see it in my eyes, how much I respect my stepmother whom I only refer to as my mother. “Everything she ever told me always ended being true.”
“Nonsense,” Dragan protests. “I have drawn my sword first so many times, and I have always won.”
“You don’t know that, Dragan,” I say.
“What do you mean by that?” Insult flushes out in red hues on his pale face.
“A man starts a war and kills many, sits on the throne of the land he conquers, thinking he won and triumphed over his enemy, only to realize years later that he had just lost when his enemy’s returning grandson stabs him in the back,” I say in one breath, but with little effort. I have learned the Art of Breathing the right way a long time ago. “He who draws first, eventually loses.”
Dragan doesn’t swallow my saying, but my words worry him.
“Are you suggesting you withdrew from the Feud to find a way to force Rodmordt to draw first later?” King Thorn asks. His voice brightens up.
“Yes,” I turn to face him.
The King leans forward in his throne, as if wanting to study my face from afar, as if wanting to authenticate my claim. “How do you force a calm and confident man like Rodmordt to draw first?”
My answer is manipulative, not straight, but will lead to conclusion later, “The Seven Seasons.”
“What about them?” The King shows signs of surprise. The talking deviated to a subject he suspects has no relation to what he wants to know.
“It’s said that the Seven Seasons have been inspired by the Seven Sins.”
“Nonsense!” Dragan says.
“Hold it, Dragan,” the King says, still gazing my way. “It’s an ancient myth. Tremendously debated though.”
“I would like to believe it’s true,” I say.
“Even so,” the King is impatient. “How does that answer my question. How do you force a man as calm as Rodmordt to draw first?”
“The Season of Rain is said to have been cursed with perpetual water from the sky for a reason—” I say.
“How does this answer my question—” King Thorn raises his voice.
“The Seven Creators are said to have wanted to cleanse this Season from its eternal sin—” I continue.
“This is not answering my question—” King Thorn’s voice is wrapped in anger.
“The eternal sin was—”
“Answer my question, Lurker,” the King stands up, annoyed by my challenge.
“The sin was—”
“Answer or I will order you killed…”
“Wrath,” I say with a slight hint of a smirk on my face.
King Thorn freezes. The fist he was about to clench loosens. The tense shoulders flatten. His face takes a journey from wrinkled anger to slow, reluctant, and unexpected appreciation of a smile. “What did you say, Shadow?”
“Wrath. Anger. One of the Seven Sins,” I say. “The sin which used to label the Season of Rain, long before you or Rodmordt have been born. The sin the Creators wanted to cleanse, once and for all. Thus they cursed the Season with perpetual rain. Rain that continuously washed wrath from people’s heart. And the Creators were successful, so much that Rodmordt failed to raise a strong army of people soaked into the delicacy of water for years.”
“Wrath.” The King sits down, leans back, slowly closing his eyes. “You’re a devil in disguise, Shadow.”
I say nothing, but it’s not hard to imagine the devil ever being a shadow. Every man’s shadow. I remember my mother but then close my eyes briefly to avert from remembering my childhood.
“Wrath,” I say. “Only wrath drives a man mad.” I open my eyes.
Even that far, I saw King Thorn smile after opening his eyes. “Tell me,” he said. “How did you provoke my brother when I never succeeded at it?”
“I am not proud of what I did,” I say. “It was a necessity. War is a grey spot in the heart of man. A black wound in mine.”
“Tell me,” the King is curious. “Tell me about the grey lines you crossed to anger Rodmordt.”
13
Mile of Melodies
I felt defeated and ashamed…
The first thing I did after leaving the Terrace of Teardrops was to travel to Meroothamaria, a realm near the Season of Words. Realms in the Seven Seasons were places where people lived without a sovereign or a king. Scattered between the Seasons, they lived on their own, devoid of politics or the need for others, though they usually were loyal to one of the Seasons in secret — in that case, their loyalty went for the Season of Words.
In Meroothamaria men and women wrote music and books and poetry, day and night. Their realm was divided into neighborhoods, the Mile of Melodies, the Way of Words, and Pain of Poets.
My destination was to the Mile of Melodies, where men didn’t talk with words but with melodies of a flute. Peaceful people who liked to laugh and dance to the rhythms of uncertainty, and detested the Words of Certainty.
It took me a few days before they trusted me, as they didn’t welcome Lurkers. I offered good intentions with a gift I had brought for them on the way. A Singing Bone, which I had bought from an old merchant on the shores of the Land Beyond the Light.
This specific Singing Bone was said to possess the ability to expose a killer’s identity if buried next to the victim’s corpse for seven days. People in Meroothamaria had experienced a recent death they could not explain. So they accepted my present and buried it next to the dead woman’s grave.
Seven days later they dug the grave up. A Man of Wisdom played the flute then submerged it in a bowl of milk on a full moon’s night, then pulled it out again.
They set the Singing Bone on the table, and it began to sing by itself.
To me, it was only melody I heard. But to them, the melodies meant words, just the same way they talked to each other each day. The melody told them who the killer was.
Now that they trusted me, they talked to me in words I could finally understand and asked me what I wanted.
I asked them about Ellianna’s Song of Urges, and if there was a way to defeat or manipulate it. They said no man could hide his demons from such a song. They said that I was weaker, so I was destined to lose. That I could never kill Rodmordt.
That night I slept in their Realm, watching their seven moons shining next to each other. I listened to the Meroothamarians talk to their moons with their flutes, wondering if I should spend my life with them.
I imagined forgetting about my people and surrendering to the peaceful nature of such a land. I contemplated this thought all night, but, like dreams, it didn’t last long enough.
The next morning, I knew what I needed to do. I needed them to teach me how to play the Harp. Not just that. I asked them to teach me to play an Obsolete Song, one that no man outside Meroothamaria had ever heard before.
And they did.
It took me two years to learn it.
14
Only Child
King Thorn waves his hand. I obey and stop my narration. It’s not quite clear to me, but I think he isn’t even staring my way
. He has abruptly demanded my sudden silence. Not a good sign.
I shrug briefly then collect myself, saying nothing of course. I am curious. I am worried. I need to know. But he who…
“Your narration troubles me, Shadow,” the King announces.
“Why so?”
“Many issues. For one, you use expressions I have never heard anyone say before — and I’ve met many people in my time.”
“Expressions?”
“Like when you say giving in.”
I struggle not to shrug again.
“Not a common expression in the Seven Seasons, though it does clarify a state of surrendering to a circumstance. Where did you learn it?”
“I do not remember,” I should have claimed I learned it from my stepmother, but I missed the opportunity, wanting to answer right away.
“How so?”
“Not all books are remembered,” I say.
“So you claim your unusual phrases were influenced by books you read?”
“A possible suggestion. One does not always remember the origin of the quote in their head.”
“And you don’t recall which book?”
“Most books leave an impression. Sometimes they carve a precious quote on the inner walls of our memories, like ancient messages on the inside of a cave. Even though we don’t always remember their titles or author’s name.”
The King is silent. He is suspicious. Our mutual quietness is a battle of wills. It’s like a game of stones or cards. Neither of us wants to show his true nature until the final confrontation. Until the moment of truth. He knows I seek ascendance of the Steps of Days. I know he is dying to affirm his enemies have been killed.
“Understandable,” he finally says, though I do feel he doesn’t understand. He isn’t persuaded, but he is possessed by the need to know. A man, or woman, who is legs-deep into the muddled pages of a book, can hardly look up, think about something else, and would overlook storylines he does not understand. They would even overlook misspellings and grammatical issues. That’s when a storyteller realizes they’re under his spell. That’s the preferred moment to tell the perfect lie. “Though it’s hard to believe a well-read warrior like you, forgets.”