by Hal Emerson
Their Aides followed after them in a flurry of gray robes as the scribe packed up his equipment. Goldwyn motioned to the two Aides that remained, one man and one woman, and they left with the others.
Goldwyn stood and came around the side of the desk. Leah went to him and gave him a hug, and he smiled at her. It was still strange to see the Exile girl be affectionate toward anyone – it was like watching a river flow uphill.
“I had hoped we’d have time to speak,” Goldwyn said to them, “but unfortunately I have some business to which I must attend. Tomaz, it is an honor, as always, to see you.”
He turned his gaze on Raven, and suddenly the gray eyes went cold.
“I offered to make you a student of mine, and you never came to me,” he said, quietly. Both Leah and Tomaz tensed, and Raven found himself rooted to the spot, unable to look away. “I do not take on students lightly, and your lack of courtesy in ignoring my offer was both insulting and disgraceful. You will be here tomorrow morning, and we will begin. If you are not, the next time you are caught breaking a law, I will not make it go away quietly at the urging of my son.”
Raven swallowed hard as he felt a wave of shame crash over him.
“Davydd told you about what happened?” Leah asked.
“He did,” Goldwyn confirmed, “and if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to arrange this informal hearing. I have to go, Crane and Dawn need me.”
He turned back to Raven, speaking with a calm certainty that lent incredible weight to his words.
“You will be here tomorrow morning at dawn,” he said, “or you will not come to this house again. I don’t wish to hear excuses – I know this wasn’t your fault. But if you had come to me, if you had taken the time to learn about the Kindred and our laws, this would not have happened. I will see you tomorrow, or I will not see you again.”
He strode past them and left.
Chapter Twelve: Conversations with an Elder
The next morning did indeed find Raven outside Goldwyn’s manor at dawn, mostly at the behest of Tomaz and Leah, both of whom had refused to talk to him until he’d promised to be there. He’d resented it at first, but knew they both had his best interests in mind. Still, he had insisted he didn’t need to be taught anything more – he wasn’t anyone’s student, he’d learned all he wanted to know.
But they were adamant. And so here he was, shivering in the cold despite his heavy cloak and drawn hood. The air was misty and the sky clouded – it had rained again during the night and everything had a hazy glow to it now, as if it had been washed cleaned.
When Goldwyn came to the door to greet him, the carefully controlled anger present the day before was gone, melted away. The man smiled, and invited him inside. They made their way to the courtyard, not speaking, and Raven found himself dreading what was to come. Lessons with the Children and the Imperial Scholars had been highly unpleasant events, and he saw no reason why this should be any different.
“Please,” Goldwyn said, indicating a seat across from him. It looked as if the firepit been cleaned the night before – the iron grating was spotless, and the pit itself was free of ash. Raven wished it had been lit – he was freezing.
There was the sound of a cup rattling against something from behind him, and he turned to look back toward the door. A short, bald man was coming to them out of the mist that clung to the walls of the courtyard, bearing a tray with two black porcelain mugs and a matching pot. The man was dressed in heavy gray robes – it was one of Goldwyn’s Aides.
“Ah,” Goldwyn said, “thank you Lemvinch.”
“You’re welcome Elder,” the man replied in a quiet voice before leaving. Goldwyn poured the contents of the pot – the same dark black liquid as before – into the two cups. He stood and rounded the pit, and handed one of the mugs to Raven.
“Be careful,” he said, “it’s very hot. Don’t wait too long though, it’s not very good when it’s cold.”
Raven took the cup and held it between his hands. The mug was thick, and the heat radiated through it. Steam came off the black liquid – kaf? – and he found that the smell was oddly seductive, strong and full.
Goldwyn sipped his, and so Raven did the same. It was indeed very hot – but it did warm him, and also seemed to wake him somewhat. Interesting. He took another sip, and though it was bitter, he could see how one could come to like it.
“Why is it, do you think,” Goldwyn said “that Henri Perci drugged you?”
Raven looked up sharply.
“You begin conversations rather abruptly,” he said.
This elicited a smile from Goldwyn, but he remained silent, waiting for an answer.
“I think he did it because he wanted me to look like a fool in front of the other Kindred,” Raven said, speaking easily. After having a night to think it through, it wasn’t something truly worrying – the forces of the entire Empire were still hunting him. A jealous, spoiled general, spiking his water didn’t even get measured on the same scale.
“I think so too,” Goldwyn said. “But I didn’t ask what he wanted the outcome to be. I asked why you think he did it. What was his motivation?”
“He doesn’t like a former Prince of the Realm living among the Kindred,” Raven said with a shrug. It seemed pretty self-evident to him.
“I think there may be something more,” Goldwyn said, looking off into the mists that masked the courtyard walls, making the space look much bigger than it was. “He is a good man, at heart, but there is something in him that has been growing lately, something that has turned deadly. I do not understand it.”
They lapsed into a silence that stretched for an uncomfortable length of time.
“I don’t understand the purpose of me being here,” Raven said abruptly, trying to speak candidly. He knew the man enjoyed honesty, and there was no harm in giving it to him now. “What is the purpose of these … conversations?”
Goldwyn smiled at him before sipping more of his kaf.
“What do you think the purpose might be?” Goldwyn asked him.
“If I knew I wouldn’t have asked,” Raven said dryly before he could stop himself. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he wished he could have them back – he shouldn’t be mocking the man, he was only trying to help.
But strangely, Goldwyn didn’t seem the least bit bothered.
“I’ll let that go, the question was a little unfair of me,” the Elder said with a grin. “My purpose is two-fold. The first part is that both my daughter and my son have now spoken on your behalf; that’s of interest to me. I wish to see what there is in you that has so convinced them of your worth.”
“And the second part?”
“The second is to keep an eye on you,” Goldwyn said, “and to keep you out of trouble; both trouble involving other Kindred and trouble you may cause yourself.”
“I do not need help staying out of trouble,” Raven said, watching the Elder carefully. He was not a child, and he would not be treated as such.
“As soon as you can prove it to me, I will believe you. So far you’ve managed to get into a shouting match with an Elder, offend half the population by refusing Autmaran’s nomination, and end up drugged by the most popular general in the officer corps on the off chance you might go crazy and kill everyone.”
Goldwyn arched an eyebrow.
“Have I missed anything?”
Raven glowered at him in silence. He was not enjoying this lesson.
“Good,” Goldwyn said. “Now, you pick the next topic of conversation.”
“Why do the Kindred insist on fighting a hopeless war against the Empire?”
The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it, but once the words were spoken, he was glad they’d slipped out. Goldwyn’s eyes widened in surprise, and then quickly seemed to re-evaluate him.
“What other choice do we have?” Goldwyn asked.
“That’s not an answer,” Raven insisted. He felt quite energized now, and his mind was working quickly. He
realized he’d finished half the mug of the hot kaf and now understood why Goldwyn liked to serve it – it promoted good conversation.
“It isn’t an answer per se,” Goldwyn said, “but it is the reason. We fight because we must – we fight because it is who we are, we have no other choice. We are a rejection of what the Empire stands for. It is why we were Exiled, and why we have created a land of our own.”
“But you cannot hope to win,” Raven said, baffled.
“What is winning?” Goldwyn asked. “You fought Ramael without expecting to defeat him, correct?”
“Yes,” Raven conceded. “I didn’t think I’d win. All the pieces came together at just the right time in just the right place. It was luck – that’s all. But Ramael is the least of the Children, he always has been. He was the club Mother held over the heads of the rebels, the kind of instrument meant to look big and scary but not to be very functional. He was disposable, to say the least.”
Raven thought back to the memories he’d gained from his brother’s mind.
“And he knew it,” he finished sadly. He didn’t love his brother, he never had. But having been inside the man’s head, having truly come to know him, all his faults, all his hopes and dreams, made it impossible not to pity him.
“Why do people do what they do?” Goldwyn asked, seeming to change the subject. However, Raven was beginning to suspect the Elder never truly changed the subject, he simply attacked it from a different angle.
“People do what they do because they have a reason to,” Raven said.
“Interesting,” said Goldwyn. “So you eat an apple because you are hungry?”
“Yes,” Raven said warily.
“And you sleep because you’re tired?” Goldwyn continued.
“Yes.”
“So then you can stay awake because you want to? Or eat an apple later if you have other, more important things to do?”
“Yes.”
“So then you can put off sleep and food for a week?”
“Possibly.”
“A month then?”
“Well, no.”
“But maybe, as you said, you have a reason to, so you consciously choose to stay awake. Wouldn’t that mean you could forgo sleep forever?”
“You’re twisting my words,” said Raven. “You can’t do the impossible. I can’t fly, but that doesn’t mean I can’t jump.”
“True,” said Goldwyn, though the look on his face very clearly said that he was being generous.
“Just say what you mean,” Raven said, exasperated.
Goldwyn’s gray eyes were growing large and excited.
“What I mean is that there is a part of us that we cannot control. It is the part of us that reminds us to breathe, the part of us that blinks, that laughs, that twitches a finger, that pulls back an instant before an arrow flies through where our heart should have been. There is a part underneath your mind that no one controls, not consciously. It is a part that believes.”
“You’re not going to give me religious doggerel now are you?” Raven asked. As one of the Children he’d been both worshiped and feared as the son of a god, and he of all people knew how false such dogma could be when it pertained to anyone but the Empress Herself.
“No, no,” Goldwyn said dismissively. “Let us take this from another angle … there are three components to any person. For example, take a man – a blacksmith let’s say. There is a what – he works as a blacksmith. He beats and shapes metal, forges swords, what have you. There is also a how – he does this by heating the metal, by using his mind to envision what a sword should look like and molding the metal to that shape. He purchases a shop and tools; he marries a woman who will help bring up the sons he doesn’t have time to raise completely on his own. Do these levels, the what and the how, make sense to you?”
Raven nodded, following this example easily enough. Goldwyn nodded in return, and quickly continued, growing more and more excited, his deep voice ringing from his whole body now.
“The third level, the deepest circle and the center of it all, is the why. The least successful blacksmith does what he does because he wants to make money. Not a bad thing – certainly useful in society, and useful to his family who need to eat. He lives mostly in the first two circles – he does the job of a blacksmith, and he performs the actions of a blacksmith, but he does it for the money. But his neighbor, also a blacksmith, is different, more successful. People come from far and wide to buy from him, and commission swords that last for a hundred years. This is not because he forges the metal in a fundamentally different way, nor because he is stronger or more intelligent. The neighbor is more successful because he derives joy from being a blacksmith, because his hopes and his dreams revolve around making the perfect sword. He elevates his work to an art, not for the money, for the what, not for the skill of it or the how, but for the love of it, the why. He does it for the joy of the self, and the echo of his soul’s voice in every perfect hammer stroke, in every hiss of cooling metal.”
Goldwyn smiled, his eyes like light shining through breaking clouds.
“It is belief that moves this man. It is a why, a state of being that he must move toward. It is not a reason, it is not rational thought. Such things are important, but they are of the outer circles, the what and the how.”
“I tell you this, because the Kindred do not fight the Empire because it is logically evil. If such were the case, we would have perished long ago. We fight because there is joy in our lives and the Empire would take that from us. The Empire stands diametrically opposed to the why of our existence. The Kindred are what the Empire will never be – we are free to rule our own lives. The why is everything, it is what connects us, what drives us. When I stand before a crowd to speak, or to rally the men before a battle, I do not give them reasons. I do not tell them which battle formations they need to remember, or remind them how to use their swords. These things are important, but they are secondary. No, when I stand before them, I tell them what I believe.”
He thrust out a hand here, and pointed to Raven’s heart.
“I tell them what is in there, hidden away though it may be at all other times. I tell them of the vision I see, of a free nation of men and women that all decide their own reasons for being. Men and women who, every one, get to decide their own why. That is the Kindred. That is being an Exile. That is why we fight.”
Raven opened his mouth to speak but found he did not have the words. Something about what Goldwyn had said, something about the fierce light in the man’s eyes, made his chest feel light and his soul feel proud simply for being there, present in a world with such a man who could feel such passion. The words had struck a chord inside him, one that echoed over and over.
But still he resisted it. He shook his head, and tore his eyes away. Belief or not, if they fought the Empire they would all die. Belief did not win wars, it did not topple nations. Belief did not make the Empress any less of a God.
Raven felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up in shock to see Goldwyn sitting next to him – he had moved around the firepit to be by his side.
“It is this belief that makes you one of us, in your heart of hearts,” said Goldwyn. “It is this why that brought you here instead of back to the Empress, and it is what I see in you that gives me hope, and makes me glad that you are here with me, enjoying life while we still have it.”
Emotion welled up inside him, completely unexpected and utterly unstoppable, and then Goldwyn pulled back, and Raven looked away.
“I greatly look forward to out next conversation,” said Goldwyn, his youthful face and twinkling eyes soft and empathetic. Raven fled, unable even to say a proper goodbye or excuse himself with dignity. No, he simply stood and left, moving through the doors, making his way through the house. The last thing he heard was Goldwyn intoning his customary farewell:
“I will see you when you wake.”
Raven left the house, wandering aimlessly. In the end, he found himself back at his cabin, and h
e stayed there for the rest of the day. Night fell, and still he sat there, looking out into the distance, seeing nothing. When the morning dawned he did not leave. The next day passed, and then the next. He spoke barely a word to anyone, even when Leah and Tomaz came to see him. When they saw him, they did not press him, but left him to his silence, no doubt guessing what had happened. And so he sat, alone, looking out over the city of Vale, trying to understand what had so affected him.