by JF Smith
Gully blushed slightly. He did not respond to the patriarch’s descriptions of his actions and dodged instead, “I understand the distinction you seek to make.”
The patriarch did not press his point further. He pointed at Gully’s hands and said, “Wyael was in a frightful rush to complete his carving before you returned. To be honest, I did not expect you back in our company so soon, but events have dictated otherwise. And I’m glad that little Wyael had it to give to you as a gift.”
Gully laughed as he examined the small carved fox in his hands. He held it up to the firelight and said, “He is very talented for one so young. Except for the color, it is a good likeness of Pe’taro.”
The patriarch nodded and said, “Ah, your father’s familiar was a red fox and not a gray one, then.”
Gully’s brow knitted and he said, “Well, no. He was a gray fox, but not like the wild ones we see in the forest. To be honest, the coloring was not like any fox I’ve since seen. Gray foxes have the grizzled gray and black pelts, exactly as Wyael has taken pains to paint on this one. My Pe’taro, though, was a pure gray, save for white ears. He was quite beautiful and had very soft fur. I never thought anything of it growing up, but since then I have realized I’ve never seen another fox colored this way.” Gully smiled as he remembered his father’s fox form. “Such a beautiful coat of fur on him, though... the color of pure smoke made into solid form as a fox.”
Gully thought back fondly and did not notice the patriarch rise up out of his chair. The silence became pronounced and Gully finally glanced over at him. The patriarch, both human and ocelot, were standing now, and looking at him strangely.
Gully became confused and asked, “Are you well?”
The strange look persisted on the patriarch’s face before he replied several moments later. “Your memory must not serve you well, Gully. There is no such thing as a fox of that color,” said Aian, an odd tone in his voice. He turned and looked off into the woods, away from Gully. “‘Smoke made solid’ is huffery... the vivid imaginings of a child changed to be the truth of memory over time!”
Gully looked at the carving in his hand again and shrugged. “I know it seems strange, and I’ve never seen another fox like him, but that is the only way I can think to describe his fur.”
The patriarch refused to look at Gully and paused for a long time. “I think you are remembering wrong,” he finally said, almost sternly.
Gully became confused at the patriarch’s insistence about his poor memory. He said, “I do not wish to upset you, patriarch. I would perhaps agree that my memory is not serving me well, except I even have memories of my father talking about Pe’taro’s uniquely-colored pelt with me.” Gully laughed uncomfortably and added, “I remember a few times when he even called it a ‘bonsmoke’ fox because of its strange color.”
The patriarch wheeled around and stared at Gully, and the color faded from the old man’s face. Gully almost withered under the burning gaze the patriarch gave him. He became increasingly nervous, and then the patriarch faced away again and stroked his chin nervously in silence for several more moments.
Gully said timidly, “I do not wish to say the wrong thing, patriarch, or upset you. I will speak no more of it.”
The patriarch turned back to him and said, “You’re sure of the color?”
Gully wasn’t sure if he should answer honestly and risk agitating the patriarch further. He mumbled, “Yes.”
The patriarch took his staff and walked over to Gully, and with a pained grunt, sat down on the log next to him. His ocelot form sat down on the ground on Gully’s other side.
The patriarch’s face looked even more puzzled, and his voice grew very weak. “What you said earlier, that things are happening... it is truer than you realize, perhaps.”
Gully frowned at the patriarch in confusion.
“If what you say is true, about Pe’taro, then I take back what I said about your father being a balmor familiar,” said the old man, his eyes locked strangely onto Gully.
Gully knew not what to say in response. The patriarch had been very convinced of his father’s nature the last time they spoke, and now he chose to renounce it? Gully did not understand.
“There was, once, another kind of balmor,” began Aian. “The animal forms of this balmor were called ‘bonsmokes’ because of their unnatural coloring, and they were colored this way because these animals did not exist in nature. Whatever animal form this balmor took, it would always have the same strange soft gray color with some bit of white, just as you describe. The reason that it looked like smoke, the reason they are called bonsmokes, is because that is from where the animal form would emerge, in fact.”
Gully sat stupefied, utterly confused by what the patriarch was saying. The patriarch stared at the fire in silence for a moment or two longer before he began again.
“This balmor is called a conjure, Gully, and they are extremely powerful. When a child that will become a conjure comes into his balmor nature, he begins to have dreams. It is my understanding that the dreams are of various kinds of different animals, until they settle down onto one particular animal. And then, when it is time, the child is drawn to a fire, usually a large bonfire built outside for the occasion. The child, with family gathered around for the very happy evening of a conjure coming into his balmor nature, stares into the fire and goes into something of a trance. As he stares into the fire, the smoke rising from the fire begins to change. It gathers together and coalesces. It turns solid and becomes the animal the child has dreamed of, always the color of the smoke from whence it forms, but as real and as solid as any animal of nature. The animal leaps forth from above the fire — a living, breathing animal brought into existence by the conjure.”
Gully said, “That is remarkable! You believe my father was one of these conjures?”
“I’m not finished, Gully. The origin of the conjure’s animal form is indeed remarkable, but it is not what makes a conjure so powerful. Once the bonsmoke animal appears, it is joined with the human balmor, much like a familiar. However, the nature of the animal and the human both become entwined with the smoke from whence the animal came.”
Gully looked into the fire next to them, trying to understand what the patriarch was saying, but making no headway with it.
The patriarch took Gully’s hand and continued, “From that moment forward, the animal half or the human half of the balmor can... un-form. Either can vanish in a puff of smoke. And then, at will, reappear later.”
“I... I do not understand, patriarch,” said Gully. “Are you saying my father could go unseen?”
“No. Not just become unseeable. A conjure can un-form. As long as one half is present, the other can evaporate as smoke and then reappear later, as long as it close by the half that has stayed corporeal in the meantime. Think of what I describe means, Gully... Ollon, or Pe’taro, at any time, could vanish as smoke so that only the other one is left. And then, at will, reform later from a wisp of smoke, out of empty air.”
Gully did not know what to say. “But,” he said, “they... he... I never saw my father or Pe’taro disappear into a puff of smoke as you describe. Or appear from nowhere.”
“And your father, for whatever reason, never told you he was Balmorean, either,” said the patriarch gently.
“What you describe is impossible, patriarch,” said Gully.
“Impossible compared to what? Compared to a man and an ocelot being of one mind and soul? Compared to two twin brothers that can change instantly into twin wolves?”
“But...” said Gully, wanting to argue further, but finding it difficult if he was able to accept what he had already seen around the camp. “Are any of the Merchers these kinds of balmors? Who here is a conjure as you describe?”
“I have never seen one myself, Gully. Conjures, such your father was in my belief, are extremely rare. So rare that I have never personally known one, and only heard my grandfather tell of one he himself heard of in his childhood a very many years ago.
”
“I do not think I can believe this!” said Gully.
“You yourself said that Pe’taro’s color was not any you had seen since. You know the forest and the foxes there; you know that none have pelts the color you describe. Ollon, your own father, described it using the name of a bonsmoke. When first you described Pe’taro’s coat, I had to challenge you to make sure your memory was not misleading you. Because if your father was a conjure, then it is very significant.”
“Why? You said it was rare, but that does not make it impossible for another one to have appeared. Does it?”
The patriarch licked at his lips nervously for a moment. “Conjures tended to belong to a specific family. One long thought gone and died out.”
“What sort of family?” asked Gully. He leaned forward towards the patriarch because any possible clue about his father’s background instantly commanded his attention.
The patriarch stared into the fire for a long while without answering him. He finally took his staff and began to draw in the sand in front of them, slowly, to the point of it being a reluctant effort.
He said as he drew, “Think back very carefully and tell me, Gully... do you remember if your father had anything that resembled this symbol? Clothing? A flag or pennon, perhaps? Even an emblem or trinket of some kind, maybe made of gold or platinum. Never silver, of course.”
In the sand, the patriarch drew two circles, left and right, that mostly overlapped each other. Around them, he drew another, larger circle so that the two overlapping ones were inscribed within it.
Gully gasped, stood up and almost tripped over the log when he saw what the patriarch had drawn. He pulled the pendant out from underneath his tunic and showed it to him. Attached to the simple leather cord, the pendant was the very same symbol the patriarch had drawn. It was not made of gold or any other metal, though. It was some sort of fine crystal, flawlessly cut and fashioned into the exact symbol the patriarch had asked about. It looked and glinted in the fire almost like it was made from the limpid water of a pure stream on a brilliantly sunlit day.
“How did you know?” asked Gully, almost breathless. “What does this mean?”
The patriarch did not answer. He shook slightly at the sight of the pendant Gully held out from his neck, and his staff fell unnoticed to the sand next to him in the middle of what he had drawn.
Gully was shocked and alarmed at what happened next. The patriarch fell from the log where they were sitting onto his knees, still trembling. His head fell forward until it almost touched Gully’s boot.
Gully exclaimed, “Patriarch! What has happened? Are you ill? Shall I call someone? Help! Help me!” Gully looked around frantically for anyone that could come and help.
Several people began to run towards them, but Gully heard the patriarch speak finally. The patriarch stayed almost prostrate, but said, “I am fine. And the words you spoke, ‘things are happening,’ have almost never been truer. I have an honor I never expected to be able to have, that I expected none of us would ever have again.”
“Honor? What honor?” gasped Gully.
“Conjures almost exclusively belonged to the imperial family of Balmorea. That was my first clue. In our history, the symbol I drew is a special sigil of the old empire, for the exclusive use of the imperial family alone. So sacrosanct is it that, to this day, I feel like I have violated a taboo by even drawing it in the sand. I have heard of tales of a unique pendant that only belonged to the direct bloodline, a pendant of the imperial insignia that was more important than even the imperial crown, and made of a crystal that was indestructible. It was believed lost completely when Balmorea fell. But look at what is around your neck, given you by your father who was a conjure. It is too much to be a coincidence!”
The patriarch finally lifted his head and said out loud, as others from the camp had drawn around at Gully’s pleas for help and were listening, “Your father was the last of the imperial Balmorean bloodline, and kept it secret to keep it safe!”
Gully was utterly shocked. He could not believe what the patriarch was saying about his father.
“And you are his incontrovertible heir by blood seal. You are, by rights, king and emperor over all of Balmorea that is left!”
“What?!” exclaimed Gully in horror. He stood and spun on his heels, looking around him at the curious and expectant faces of the Mercher clan that had gathered.
Exoutur and Raybb came in a rush and pushed through the crowd to reach the patriarch. Exoutur rushed to his father’s side and tried to help him up while begging to know what had happened, but the patriarch began to pull down on Exoutur’s arm instead, pulling his son to his knees.
Gully could not speak to answer he was so flummoxed.
The patriarch grasped at Exoutur’s tunic and said, “Look at the pendant around his neck, my son. Look at the pendant! And his father was a conjure! In our lifetime, there has existed a true conjure! Kneel before him! The bloodline has not been lost!”
The patriarch shouted at all those that had gathered around, “Bow! All of you! The final heir to the empire of Balmorea has found his way home to us!”
Everyone dropped to their knees, even Exoutur, and even the big man Raybb, in the same way that the patriarch had.
Gully looked up, and through a gap in the trees overhead his eye beheld the first star of the evening, the Father Star, as it began to shine its solitary, sanguine light in the growing night. His mind cried out, what sort of lunacy is Pelaysha visiting upon these poor people?
Chapter 19 — The Last Of The Empire
Gully’s hand unconsciously grabbed at the pendant hanging exposed around his neck. He slowly spun where he stood and gaped at all of the members of the Mercher clan that were gathered, human and animal. His heart pounded in his chest and he felt as if he must be the only sane person left in the camp. All of the clan knelt with heads bowed, or whatever approximation their animal form could perform, in deference.
Adjacent to him were the patriarch, and Exoutur, and Raybb. But he also saw many others that he recognized among those assembled, including Raybb’s bear form with Maarbeth. He saw young Wyael in the front of the crowd, having now returned with his parents because of Gully’s shouts. Even Abella Jule, cloaked in a dark shawl and kilt, knelt with head bent to the ground.
Gully felt the panic rising up in him. This cannot be happening, his mind screamed. They cannot be kneeling before me!
His face blushed furiously, almost burning his skin. His voice finally erupted in his throat and he shouted, “Stop this! Stop all of this nonsense now! I am a no more than a street urchin! A thief! And you are foolish enough to kneel this way? You must stop this! This is no more than a mockery of me and an embarrassment to all of you! Stop!”
The patriarch finally looked up, but he was not angry. He was smiling at Gully and began to rise with difficulty. Gully reached out to take the patriarch’s arm and help the old man to stand.
Gully pleaded with him, his voice both quiet and desperate, “I beg you, make this stop!”
The patriarch held out his arms, staff in one hand, and addressed those still kneeling, “You may all rise. I know you are all curious as to what has happened, how we have discovered this.”
Gully glanced around nervously again to see that those who had been kneeling began to stand and craning their necks for a better look at Gully and the pendant. In the meantime, what had to be all of the remaining clan had joined the crowd gathered around to find out what was drawing so much attention and discussion.
Exoutur and Raybb stood as well, and moved out to join the surrounding crowd, leaving only Gully and Aian in the center.
“In my conversation with... Gully...” said the patriarch, making a slight sour face at the name, “I discovered by accident that his father was not a familiar as we thought. Ollon, Gully’s father by blood seal, was not a familiar, but a conjure in fact, having created a bonsmoke fox that he was one with, and he referred to it by that name. We all know the implications
of this, how only the extended family line of the imperial rulers of Balmorea produced conjures. And more, you see the crystal pendant around Gully’s neck. There is none among us that have not heard of it as synonymous with the direct line of Balmorean rulers from the earliest days of the empire all the way through the great fall, when it was thought lost, along with the bloodline of the ruling family.”
Gully watched the crowd as the patriarch spoke aloud for all to hear. Those gathered murmured amongst themselves and pointed at Gully as they caught sight of the pendant when it reflected and refracted the firelight.
“Clearly, it was not lost, even all of these so many hundreds of years later,” said Aian aloud. “Ollon was the last of the direct line of royals, and when he took in Gully and performed the blood seal with him, he produced an heir. Now that heir has found his way back to us, and you see him standing before you!”