by ML Spencer
She untied it from her neck and handed the twine necklace to him across the table. Aram held it up, admiring the artistry of the knot his father had tied. A small shiver went through him as the knowledge sank in that his father had also been a knotter. He’d never suspected it.
“It’s an eternal heart knot,” his mother told him.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s an old Aulden tradition. It’s a token their warriors used to give to their beloveds when they left for battle. If the man survived, the couple would burn the knot together as an offering of thanks. If he never returned, the woman would wear the knot around her neck as a reminder of his love.”
Leaning forward, she took his hand in hers, closing his fingers around the heart-shaped knot. “I’m not sure why your father left us that night. But wherever he went, I think he knew he wouldn’t be coming back. He left this for us. He wanted us to remember how much he loved us.”
Lips trembling, Aram asked, “So it wasn’t my fault?”
“Your fault?” His mother looked tormented by emotion. “How could you say such a thing? How could you ever think it was your fault?”
“I thought maybe he couldn’t love me,” Aram said. “Because of the way I am.”
His mother scooted back her chair and hurried around the table, coming to kneel at his side. “No. Oh, gods, no.” She took him into her arms, rocking him slowly as her tears mingled with his own. “Your father loved you more than anything in the world.”
Hearing that made Aram cry harder. He clung to her with all the strength and conviction of a son’s love for his mother. It was several minutes before she let him go, but even then, it was much too soon. His mother drew back and kissed him on the cheek. When he tried to return the necklace to her, she put up her hand.
“Take it,” she whispered. Removing the necklace from his hand, she tied it around his neck. “Take it to remind you of your father’s love. And mine, too.”
Aram rose from the chair and picked up the sack with his things she had packed for him. Halfway out the door, he paused and turned back. “Goodbye Mama. I love you. I promise I’ll be back.”
His mother’s smile was the most beautiful, saddest thing he had ever seen.
“I know you will,” she said. “I love you too.”
Chapter Six
Aram stared fixedly ahead as he walked, unable to collect the darting thoughts that plagued his mind like a swarm of gnats. The emotions flitting around inside his head made him dizzy, and he didn’t know whether to weep or laugh at the day’s revelations. All his life, he’d thought that his father had abandoned them. Abandoned him.
But he hadn’t.
Darand Raythe had left a token of love behind. As he walked, Aram clutched the twine necklace his ma had given him, squeezing the eternal heart knot with all his might. His father’s blood had been brown, just like his. Old Blood. Auld Blood. The bard’s words came back to haunt him like a condemning refrain: Only Auld Savants have that eye color.
Had his father, then, been some kind of ancient warrior?
The questions raged in his mind, each one spawning a dozen others. As Aram pondered them, he walked in a daze through the village without care for his destination and was surprised when he found that his feet had carried him all the way to the tide pools near the mouth of his cave.
Wishing to see it one, last time, he climbed across the rocks as the waves broke around him, raining him with spray. Inside the cave, he took up position atop the mound of rubble, where he always sat, and started knotting a thin cord while he contemplated the cave and his years of hard work amassed there. He sat there for hours, his mind slowly calming, taking comfort in the feel of the cord in his hands.
At length, he drew in a deep breath and snapped fully awake. He stood and gazed upon the stronghold he had built. In this cave, he had always felt safe. It was his domain, a place that he could make and mold into a shape that fit him, even when the rest of the world didn’t. It was a place of refuge, of security, of escape.
Only, he no longer had a use for those things. What he needed now was answers, and he needed them before he left the village.
He took with him his favorite length of cord and then left the cave without looking back, knowing he’d outgrown it. As he walked, he fidgeted with the cord, bending and working it between his fingers as his mind chewed on the problem of where and why his father might have gone. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that Ebra of Starn knew something, or at least had a suspicion.
Why, out of all the children in the village, had the bard spoken to him first? Why had Master Ebra come to this village, out of all the villages on the North Coast? And why didn’t he want to speak of the Old Blood?
Too many questions; Aram’s mind ached with them. He didn’t want to wait until he was older to find out the answers. He wanted to find out now.
What was it, that Master Ebra had said? He’d be making one last performance tonight—and at that performance, he would be reminding the elders of who they were.
He would be talking about the Auld.
Auld Blood. Old Blood. His blood—and his father’s blood too. Perhaps if he could somehow listen in on the bard’s teachings, he would learn what Master Ebra didn’t want him to hear. Perhaps he could even learn why his father had left a wife who loved him and a son who needed him more than anything in the world.
A tingling thrill traced over his skin, and his face lit up, his mood elevated by resolve. By the time he got back to the village gate, the sun had already set. The sky was black, the last glow of twilight already fleeing, a sky full of stars shimmering above him. How had the day gone by so fast?
He didn’t have a lot of time.
Aram turned and walked as quickly as he could to the beach. In his hurry, he cut his feet more than once on sharp fragments of shells poking out of the sand. The tide was coming in. He made his way over the mudflats and up onto the sandy dunes, at last reaching the huts on the outskirts of the village. Few people were about, and no one noticed him as he skirted the village wall around to the south side, as far away from Flanters’ Inn as one could get. There, he stopped, for on the other side of the wall was the longhouse where the adults gathered for special occasions, the place where Master Ebra would be performing.
Aram had no idea how he would get inside. He’d never been in the longhouse—only adults were allowed there. It was where the village elders met. Where adults liked to hold discussions without fear of children hearing.
Well, tonight, he needed to hear.
The windows were all too high to reach, so they wouldn’t do him any good. And there were no doors except for the large one in front, so he couldn’t steal in from the back or sides either. That left just one option.
Backing away from the wall, Aram gazed upward at the roof. The eaves weren’t that far from the top of the wall, and there was a beam protruding from the gable above it. If he could get a rope over the beam…
A feverish excitement ignited in his veins, and he sprinted toward the docks. Cordage wasn’t hard to find in a fishing village, after all, and it didn’t take him long to secure himself a good length of rope. Carrying the heavy coil over his shoulder, he returned to the wall and there dropped the rope and squatted to make a throwing bundle to give the end of the rope some weight, so it would pass more easily over the beam. He made four arm-length loops then passed the rope around the loops a couple of times before pulling it through, giving the throwing bundle a nice handle.
Glancing around quickly to make sure no one was watching, he tossed the bundle up and over the gable beam, the bundle making him successful on the first try. Feeding more rope upward, Aram caught the end with the bundle as it came back down then quickly tied a running knot into it. This, he hoisted aloft, securing the rope to the beam. He gave it two good yanks, making sure it was snug.
That was the easy part.
The hard part was climbing.
He was strong enough. The
days he’d spent hauling fish and freight off ships in exchange for a new knot or two had given him some muscles. But even with a decent amount of strength, there was still a certain technique to climbing a rope that Aram didn’t know—he’d never tried it before.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Aram flinched at the voice and nearly fell off the wall. If it hadn’t been for his grip on the rope, he probably would have. Heart in his throat, he glanced down to see Markus staring up at him with a look that was either disbelief, anger, fear, or all three.
“I’m going up,” Aram answered, though it sounded a lot more like a question.
Markus brought his hands up to cover his face, slowly shaking his head. Then, with a huge sigh, he climbed the wall himself. When he reached the top, Aram handed him the rope.
“What are you doing?” Markus whispered.
Aram wondered why he was asking him the same question when he’d already answered it. “I’m going up.”
“That’s not what I mean!” The irritation in Markus’s voice was easy to understand, for he communicated it well. “I mean, why do you want to get on the roof?”
Aram wondered why Markus hadn’t just asked that question in the first place. “I want to hear Master Ebra sing.”
The look on Markus’s face was indecipherable, so Aram elaborated, “He said he was going to remind the elders of who they were. I want to hear that.”
Markus grimaced, glancing up at the beam overhead. “I’m sure he’ll tell you, if you just wait!”
“He said he wouldn’t tell me until I was older. He said don’t ask again. I have to know, though! I need to know what it means that my blood is brown, and I want to know what happened to my father.”
Markus’s eyebrows raised in understanding. For a moment he stood with his face looking grim, staring down at the top of the wall. At length, he closed his eyes and breathed out a protracted sigh. “All right. Let me go first, then I’ll haul you up.”
At that moment, Aram felt more grateful to Markus than he’d ever been to anyone in his life. He scooted back and watched as Markus jumped onto the rope and pulled himself up. He didn’t make it look easy, but it also didn’t seem as hard as Aram thought it would be. Markus had a much harder time getting up and over the gable beam.
While he was climbing, Aram took the other end of the rope and tied a modified bowline around himself, stepping his legs through the loops. Standing on the roof, Markus hauled him up and helped him over the eaves.
“Thank you!” Aram gasped, stepping out of the rope harness onto the wood-shingled roof.
“What now?” Markus asked.
Aram pointed. About halfway down the length of the longhouse, a column of smoke was drifting up from below through a wide hole in the roof. Before Markus could react, he started toward it. When he reached the hole, he lay down on his stomach and peered down over the lip.
Three stories below, the floor of the longhouse was full of people gathered to hear the performance. The smoke pouring up through the hole came from a large hearth centered in the middle of the floor. Rows of long tables pushed together made long lines up the length of the room, where many people were seated, conversing over plates of food and cups of wine and mead. The bard wasn’t in sight, for which Aram was grateful—that meant he hadn’t missed the performance.
The smoke from the fire was making his eyes watery, and it was starting to sting his throat. Beside him, Markus gave a hacking cough. It was becoming quickly obvious that staying there on the roof wasn’t going to work. They would have to find another way of spying on the gathering.
Looking down, Aram saw that there were many large beams that held the rafters of the ceiling, and one of those beams was just below the smoke hole. All around the inside of the walls ran a short ledge that they could drop down onto from the beam. It looked like a good spot to sit and watch the performance, provided no one looked up.
“You’re not—”
Before Markus could finish, Aram swung his feet over the edge of the hole and dropped down onto the beam. It wasn’t much of a drop—more of a long step, really. A few more long steps took him to the ledge that ran the length of the wall. There, he pulled back, tucking himself against the wall, his eyes scanning the gathered people below, making sure no one had seen him.
No one had.
There was a creaking sound, then suddenly Markus was there, scrambling across the beam to sit beside him. The look on his face was unmistakable.
“You’re angry,” Aram said.
Markus’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer. Aram figured that probably meant he was very angry. He hoped his friend wasn’t too angry. He had never had a best friend, and he cherished the thought that he had one now.
“Thank you,” he whispered, to which Markus just nodded.
They sat against the wall, knees tucked against their chests, and waited.
Below, the sound of conversation echoed loudly throughout the longhouse. There had to be fifty or sixty people gathered around the tables, representing most of the important families of the village and the outlying farms. Markus’s father was seated at a table toward the front of the building, looking well into his cups. His own mother wasn’t present, but he did recognize every other face, for they belonged to people he’d known and lived with all his life: merchants and craftsmen, bakers and fishermen, farmers and farriers—every cog in the village wheel, all gathered right below his feet.
The only piece missing was the bard.
A loud bang echoed through the longhouse, making Aram jump: the sound of the double doors slamming closed. The ambient light dimmed slowly as the dozens of candles in the hall were extinguished, and as the shadows lengthened across the room, the noise of conversation degraded to silence.
Aram glanced excitedly at Markus, who met his gaze. In that moment, something subtle and significant passed between the two of them, a shivering anticipation—not just for the imminent performance below, but also for the change that was coming to their lives. And in that brief moment, Aram felt more empowered than he had at any other time in his life, a sense of being on the cusp of a new beginning, one that had the potential to bring him everything he’d longed for. But before he left Anai for good, he knew he needed to tie up the loose ends of his childhood. He needed to know, once and for all, what had become of his father.
Below, stillness enshrouded the dim, wide hall. And into that stillness rose a voice. One, single note, stretched out and held, wordless and divine, at last falling into silence.
The bard entered the room, strumming on his eleven-string instrument that had a fretless neck and a wide, gourd-like body.
It was a sad, sweet melody he played, a hypnotic refrain, his fingers flitting up and down the neck like fireflies before slowing to return to the same minor chord that spanned an octave. As he played, he strolled down the length of the room between rows of tables, his fingers lightly brushing the strings, maintaining a consistent, droning keen reminiscent of bagpipes.
When he reached the front of the room, he paused and lowered his instrument.
“Tonight, I will sing to you ‘The Ballad of Raginor’ from the Fourteenth Tablet of the Eyana Eman, so that your blood will remember the greatness of its source … and the greatness of its loss.”
With that, he threw back his head and let out a long, mournful note that quavered in the air before being joined by the haunting strains of melody that breathed from his instrument.
* * *
“In the Summer of Ages before the Sundering of yore
Before the Anchors of Heaven were wrought from ore
There were created gods to rule earth and sky;
Was there Lesya, earth-mother, whose loins begat man,
And Ahn, chaos-father, creator of theryl and wyrm
Brought forth Auld, born of aether and blessed with light,
And Man, born of mud and water, destined for death.
And over them, the fearless Raginor, beloved of Erok
Strong of countenance and full of grace was he,
Armed with argent bow only he could bend.
Long were his days, and abounding his wisdom,
Binding the earth with golden threads he had woven;
No rival had he, for within him, gods’ blood did dwell;
The world was cast asunder the day Raginor fell.
* * *
For when Absulu, with regard to the Archons, did forewarn:
‘O great Raginor, Lord of Eyries, heed my call!
The hearts of those who shelter us have turned to poison!
Swelled with pride are they, and filled with greed!
They have vipers and monsters and ravaging hounds!
No fear of the fight have they, for their anvils ring always,
Their weaponry is sharp, and their shields are strong.
Once glorious, their deeds now tarnished, their honor bespoilt.
Their way is evil, and their name is Betrayal.
The Disobedient! The Disavowed!
They did shirk the duties entrusted unto them!
They took up arms and embarked unto battle
All joined in war, furious and raging!’
* * *
Raginor clothed their armor in thunder and light
But Senestra clotted their blood and stoked their fear
And rendered their wyrms dull of fang and cold of breath.
They made war without rest, night and day unending.
Till the mighty Raginor gave the battle-call
And he led the host in glorious raiment and gathered unto him
A terrible light terrifying to behold!
Before him did fall thirteen viper-monsters
Till Draxel’s sword did pierce his breast.
All wept and rent their garments, but none so much as Erok,
Whose beloved had fallen upon the field.