Loyalty and War

by Devon Vesper

  “Shut it off,” Kerac croaked. “Please… shut it off!”

  Tavros raised the bell of the phonograph, removing the needle from the record with a soft hiss as the record continued to spin on the table. When silence descended, Kerac’s entire body started to shake.

  “Papa?”

  Kerac hiccupped, his breaths coming faster. “That… that…”

  “What is it, Papa?”

  “I—I can’t—”

  “He’s turning pale,” Tavros said as he crossed the room in quick strides. “Lay him down.”

  “I’ll take care of Papa. You go fetch Firil. Papa’s hungry. And he may need something for anxiety. I think he’s having a panic attack.”

  “He’s—I—I can’t—”

  Valis took care in turning Kerac around and guided his face into the curve of Valis’s neck. “Shh. It’s okay, Papa. It’ll be okay.”

  Kerac sucked in a sharp breath and whimpered. “It will never be okay. Never.”

  “Don’t you have any faith in me?” Valis nuzzled into Kerac’s hair. “Not even a little bit?”

  “I—”

  When Kerac didn’t seem like he would finish that thought, Valis nuzzled until his lips found Kerac’s ear and murmured, “I will ride to the ends of this earth until I find him, Papa. Nothing and no one will stand in my way. Do you hear me? Do you understand? I will not rest until Father is brought home to us. If he was alive when you last saw him, he’s not given up. He’s still alive, and I will bring him home.”

  He squeezed Kerac to him and rocked as his papa wept. “Just have faith in me. I’m not leaving until I know you’re truly on the mend, and I still have many things I must do before Tavros and I can leave.”

  Kerac’s hands clawed, clutching Valis’s tunic. “I don’t want… You can’t leave me. Please. Not you, too.”

  Valis pulled Kerac back just enough to look deep into his golden eyes. “Trust in me, Papa. Trust in me, and I can do anything.”

  Chapter Four

  It took at least an hour to calm Kerac down. Once he was calm, Firil fed him, again using the tube to make sure he ate enough with as little discomfort as possible. Seza and Zhasina came to take up watch so Valis and Tavros could go on and do other things, but it took all of them ganging up on him before Valis allowed Tavros to lead him out of Kerac’s suite.

  Now, he stood in his own suite’s bedroom at the side table, his scrying bowl before him. He needed to clear his mind, but every time he thought he could scry, Kerac’s voice whispered through his mind, “You can’t leave me. Please. Not you, too.”

  Every time those words floated through his mind, it broke Valis’s heart all over again. It left him gasping, trying anything in his power to get that broken whisper out of his mind so he could concentrate enough to solve the problem that had broken Kerac in the first place.

  He needed to find Darolen. And the sooner the better, so he could start planning his rescue mission, because no matter what, no matter who tried to stand in his way, he was going after his father.

  You are so very determined, my son, Roba said, and Valis didn’t even hear a bit of sarcasm in his tone. Give yourself some slack. You have had a tumultuous and emotional few days between your joining night and finding one of your adopted fathers. You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to have a muddled mind.

  Thanks, Dad. Valis blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose before rubbing his finger and thumb into his tired eyes. I just really want to scry after Father so that I can at least settle one of our main fears. If he’s alive, that will help both of our mental states.

  Then get away from that bowl for a moment and calm down. Drop and give me one-hundred pushups, then you can return and try again.

  Valis smirked but backed away from the table and his scrying bowl and dropped to the floor. It was true though. After the first twenty-five pushups Valis’s mind started to calm. After fifty, he found a bit of clarity. After seventy-five, his mind felt almost numb. And after one-hundred, he felt calm enough to scry.

  Sometimes Roba did have good ideas. They were just usually laden with snark and sass.

  I will show you snark and sass, you little whelp!

  Laughing, Valis disrobed, dropping his sweaty uniform into the hamper, took a cool cloth to his heated skin, and redressed. When he stood in front of the scrying bowl again, he came to it with a blissfully blank mind and a fair amount of hope.

  As he stared into the still water, Valis focused his mind, remembering Darolen’s voice, his scent, the ever-patient expression on his face, and commanded the water to show him his father.

  Images swirled in the water, fast and cloudy. With the intent on showing him where Darolen was now, the images all turned to darkness. Valis sucked in a breath but waited for long moments until the darkness became overwhelming.

  If only he could have sound. Was this darkness where Darolen was, or was it a representation that Darolen was dead?

  Wait.

  Could he get sound through a scry?

  Thyran had never said if it was possible or not. It was worth a try. At least, Valis thought it was. If it failed, at least he’d know, or could ask more pointed questions when he next saw Thyran.

  Valis took a deep breath in through his nose and blew it out through his mouth. He could do this. He’d proven many times over that what others thought was impossible was very much possible. He just had to believe in himself and use his intent to get the job done.

  So as he stood there, staring down into inky blackness, he tweaked his iron-held intent to include the demand for sound. And what he heard made his heart stutter.

  Gagging came through the bowl. When the wet splashes and retching stopped, Valis heard the soft, wheezing voice. “Phaerith, please let him be okay. Please… Kerac must be okay. He must. Phaerith… please… I—”

  Hard, hacking coughs echoed up from the bowl, cutting Darolen’s prayer off. But as soon as he had his breath again, he resumed, still in that quiet wheeze. “Give me a sign. Please, give me a sign that my husband and son are alive…”

  Valis gasped and scratched at a tickle on his cheek only to realize that he was crying. He sniffled and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his tunic as he strained to hear anything else.

  Keys rattled in the distance. Darolen’s voice cut off abruptly as soon as he heard them, and the resulting silence seemed so tense that Valis could almost feel his father’s dread increase with each jostle of those distant keys as they neared until they jangled right outside the room. Lamplight flickered from under a doorway, lighting filthy, trembling feet in a dim orange glow. Valis swallowed hard when he saw that each ankle was encased in heavy iron shackles anchored to the floor.

  Memories of his vision when he had fallen off the back of a wagon in Lyvea rushed back to him. He had been on a rescue mission, intent on getting the Kalutakeni caravan back to the safety of Cadoras. During a moment of respite, Valis had been speaking of his worry over his fathers with Tavros and fell to a vision. He remembered being in what he believed to be Kerac’s body, sitting in his own filth, retching and cold and sick while Darolen, just as sick, tried to comfort him, apologizing for getting sick.

  Now he wished he hadn’t had that vision, so he could block the memory of those wretched smells from his nose as he watched the scene. He knew that shiny liquid surrounding Darolen’s legs was vomit, urine and diarrhea. He knew that Darolen had sores from sitting in his own filth. He knew those sores were getting infected. How long had he been in such a horrid state?

  Valis mentally urged the vision around so he could see his father’s face. But the moment he got a glimpse, he wished he hadn’t. Darolen’s hair was long now, scraggly and matted with filth. The collar around his throat was too small, digging into his flesh to create ugly sores that trailed blood and puss down his naked chest. His wrists were also bound, held high up on the wall so that he couldn’t relax without the iron biting into the raw, tender skin.

  The worst thing, though, was
how thin Darolen had become. Just like Kerac, he was mostly just loose skin over bone. His muscle mass had melted away as his body absorbed everything possible to keep him alive. Did his captors feed him at all?

  When that door swung open, Valis saw his father’s eyes for the first time. The dark brown depths didn’t hold the anger and defiance he knew his father would hold in the face of the enemy. Instead, he looked grim and defeated, almost lifeless as if he knew he would die in that cell.

  As if he wished for death.

  Valis dismissed the scry as he recoiled from that look. Darolen would never have wanted Valis to see him looking so hopeless. And Valis had to shake himself free from the horror. He had to believe that Darolen would pull through. He wouldn’t give up. Darolen wasn’t one to give up on anything.

  But, still… that defeated look in those beloved eyes broke Valis’s heart, and he stumbled away from the scrying bowl, his hand clutching at his tunic over his heart. He tried to get his breaths to come even and deep, but each breath came as tortured gasps that barely filled his lungs. The sensation of drowning nearly sent him to the floor, but Valis staggered to the door and threw it open.

  “Tav…”

  He could barely croak the word, but somehow Tavros heard him and came running from the sitting room. He caught Valis on his way down as he sank to his knees. Tavros took one look at Valis’s face and his own expression crumbled. “Oh, Valis…”

  “I saw him,” Valis said between gasps. “I saw him…”

  “Let’s go see Thyran. Come on.”

  He helped Valis stand and once he had Valis stable on his feet, guided him from their suite and up through the monastery to the temple and into the reliquary where Thyran was normally found.

  By the time they got into the reliquary, Valis had his breathing mostly under control save for the odd sob that escaped him. And just like when Tavros had first seen him, Thyran turned from the book he was reading, took one look at him and frowned. “Valis… what is it, my boy?”

  It took every ounce of Valis’s strength not to break down into a sobbing mess. He let Tavros lead him to the table and push him into a chair. And as Tavros massaged Valis’s shoulders, he relayed to Thyran everything he’d learned from his scry, and what little Kerac had been able to tell him.

  By the end, tears streamed down his cheeks and neck and he wanted to bury his face in Tavros’s throat to sob out all his grief, but he took a deep breath, blew his nose on the kerchief Thyran handed him and shrugged. “It matches my vision pretty well. Only in my vision, Kerac was with him.”

  “You say you were able to get sound in your scry?” Thyran asked.

  Valis nodded. “Yeah. It took a bit, but I did manage.”

  “Well done!” Thyran grinned at him so hard that dimples pitted his cheeks. His blue eyes shone with his pride, making him seem younger than his salt and pepper hair let on. “Getting sound with a scry is advanced training, Valis. You did extremely well. Congratulations.”

  Valis shuddered and leaned his elbows on his knees so his open palms could support his face as he sagged in his chair. “It was horrible and horrifying, Thyran. The whole time he wheezed prayers to Phaerith, and all I wanted to do was comfort him. But, I can’t, and I think that’s what hurts the most. I couldn’t give him any hope. I couldn’t answer his prayers to tell him that Kerac made it here alive and that he’s safe. I couldn’t tell him that I’m safe and that I’m progressing well.”

  His throat clogged and Valis coughed into his shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to swallow down his heart. “I couldn’t tell him anything.”

  “Are there any shiny surfaces where he is being held?”

  Valis looked up at the historian with a pained grimace. “The pools of filth all around him, but there are no sources of light unless someone comes into his cell, or wherever it is they’re holding him.”

  “That may be enough for him to hear you,” Thyran mused. “Though, you would have to learn how to communicate through scry. It is very tricky because normally in training the one you are contacting is awaiting your scry. In this case, you will need to push through the barrier to force a scry, to project yourself in such a way that your intended recipient can see and/or hear you when they are not expecting your call.”

  Sitting up straighter, Valis looked his friend in the eye and squared his shoulders. “I’m ready to learn. If I can give him hope, if I can do anything to give him a fighting chance, a reason to stay alive at all cost, I’ll master it.”

  Thyran’s grin widened, and he nodded. “I had a feeling you might say that. You know where to go.”

  “What must I do?”

  The historian tilted his head. “Just open a scry, and I will interfere with it. You will feel my interference due to the concentration and focus you put into the scry. Once you have a good handle on that feeling, use it to try to interfere with my scry. That is the basis for two-way scrying. Once you have mastered that, we will focus on how to force a scry, even for someone who has no experience in the art.”

  Valis took in a long, deep breath and rolled his shoulders to try to get some of the tension out. “Right. The faster I get it, the faster I can—”

  “Do not go down that road, Valis.” Thyran’s grin dimmed down to a paternal smile, and he reached out to grab Valis’s hand. Somehow that firm touch grounded Valis, cleared his mind. “If you go down that road, your mind will fill up with doubts, insecurities, and myriad other things that do not belong. Focus on one thing at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed like you tend to do. Can you do this?”

  Valis swallowed down his arguments and nodded. “Yeah. I can.”

  Thyran smirked, giving his hand another squeeze before letting go. “Do not think you are fooling me, young man. I can almost hear your arguments.”

  Shoulders drooping, Valis groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Impatience. Sorry.”

  “I am aware. But at least you are, too. Now, get your backside in the scrying alcove.”

  Like he was headed to the gallows, Valis stalked off to the dreaded alcove where he’d spent so many agonizing hours with headaches and gritty eyes while trying to learn how to scry, dragging his feet the whole way. The last thing he wanted right now was to stand in that dusty space between two tall shelving units full of ancient, moldering books and scrolls while staring at a bowl of water. But if he wanted to give Darolen any hope, he had to get it done. With that in mind, he forced himself between the stacks and stared down into the bowl with a desperate plea to Sovras ringing in his mind that he get it as soon as possible so he could move through the lessons at a steady pace.

  The first scry, Valis only sought to check on Kerac. It was easy, because he knew exactly where Kerac was, what his environment looked like, and other prominent things to help guide him. Only five minutes into the scry, he felt something strange, as if someone was tugging at his mind—at his focus—and redirecting it. Fighting it became painful, and the moment he stopped fighting, Thyran’s face appeared, his fierce blue eyes shining with pride.

  “Excellent work, Valis. Do you think you can pick apart how I accomplished this?”

  Valis bit his lip and sighed. “My mind is mush, Thyran. Can you just tell me? I know you tugged on my focus somehow. As to how you did it… I’m not sure.”

  Thyran gave him the wickedest grin Valis had seen on his face yet. “What have you been teaching your students?”

  Sighing, Valis rubbed his eyes. “Cast by intent alone. Never use prayer because it’s costing you valuable time.”

  “In this case, prayer has little to do with it as much as it is mental mechanics. But, I believe, with your skill set, you should be able to accomplish your task with simple intent. If you have trouble, we will go over the complex mechanics.”

  “Keeping it simple would be best,” Valis muttered on a groan. “I really don’t have the mental capacity for anything complicated.”

  “Just as well,” Thyran said with a wink. “Give it a go and we�
�ll see how you do.”

  With that, Thyran’s face disappeared from the scrying bowl, and Valis had the sudden urge to throw the damned thing at the wall. If he didn’t know for a fact that the frustration came from his own impatience and his need to see Darolen again and comfort him, he might have followed through with that impulse. Instead, he took a steadying breath and peered back into that dreaded bowl with the intent to see Thyran’s face.

  A moment later, clouds formed in the water like they sometimes did during a scry. Valis could hear Thyran’s soft breathing as if it came from the bowl, and with a nudge of his focus, he mentally reached into the bowl and latched onto those sounds. When he tried to jerk them back, he heard Thyran’s surprised shout from across the reliquary a moment before Thyran’s wide eyes appeared in the bowl followed by the historian clearing his throat.

  “That—” He cleared his throat and tried again, “Perhaps, Valis, in the future… you try not to be so violent, yes? But, well done.”

  Valis rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. I never did have a good grasp of subtlety.”

  Thyran snorted. “Liar. But you succeeded. Now, come back and let us work on something easy for a bit so I can regain the wits you scrambled for me.”

  For the next hour, Thyran taught him how to scry using different kinds of reflective surfaces, which to Valis’s surprise, wasn’t as intuitive as he thought. After using a fluid medium for his scrying since he began, anything less flexible gave him a strange echo, as if the surface of the objects he used reflected his visions back at him, instead of just showing him images. He had to totally retrain his focus in order to keep the images straight and the sound from warbling.

  But, as they wrapped up the lesson, Valis rubbed his chest with one hand and gripped his golden pocket watch in the other. He had managed, and Thyran said the skill would only strengthen with time and practice. And until Kerac was healed and he could get things organized for a rescue mission to save Darolen, Valis had nothing but time to train and practice.