Both sides were at fault. Good intentions the Alliance or the Retainers may have – both were at grave fault, rife with corruption and power lust. The mere idea of a mammal like Alexia the Sage, the complete antithesis to the peaceful gospel of the Zuut, proved this.
But the Zuut also had an army of trained weaponslords.
Mammals were dying on both sides, and in between. Innocent mammals. Destruction. The loss of purity. The loss of all that is worth living for. No amount of hope for a perfect future could blossom from anything like that.
Astral felt ill to his stomach. He took another sip of tea to wash away the nausea that tried to bubble up his throat, and watched the children work away in the garden as children do best.
They’re mine now.
So young. Helpless.
No. They are the kin of terrorists, birthed and raised within a bubble of radical indoctrination. They’re fugitives. And by harbouring them, you have become a traitor to the Alliance.
They are criminals by rite of birth. You cannot salvage them.
The only cure to their suffering is eradication.
“They’re children,” Astral chided himself. “And in any case – I have no true proof they are children of Retainers.”
Do not dare to delude yourself, Astral Ages.
Death will come for them both at a moment’s notice. They’re not safe out there in the world. Not in Keeto Town, not anywhere in Galheist. Not even here, under your protection. Not anywhere in the world. So long as their history marks them, danger will rear its maddened eyes upon their broken little souls.
Anguish panged Astral’s frail heart. He closed his eyes, took a long, deep, breath. He set down his cup, still half-filled with room temperature tea, and turned away from the window. He crossed the kitchen towards the pantry with thoughts of lunch preparation to try and supersede the thoughts of war and implication.
How long will it will it take before the ruins of Altus are discovered? How long before the Alliance comes sniffing around? How long before they discover the Hollow, home to a hermit and his adopted children, so close to the wreckage?
Don’t delude yourself, Astral Ages.
You know the ruins have already been discovered. You saw them. You saw them in their mind’s eyes. An indirect discovery, yes – but – the ruins of wanted criminals does will not sleep forgotten, so long as you yourself breathe, old boy.
“Stop,” Astral begged under-breath.
You saw how the boy glared death into your eyes. You saw how he buttered his bread, plotting for a chance to stab you in the heart.
Do not delude yourself, Astral Ages.
You are now a liability.
Astral slowed before the pantry door and let out a sigh of resignation. He understood this predicament completely, and dreaded the responsibility he now faced.
Just then, the front door crashed open. The sound of little footpads pattering across the hardwood echoed in Astral’s ears. He shook free the thoughts and grabbed a loaf of bread and small baskets of fresh-picked button mushrooms and tomatoes from inside the pantry. The hint of skunk-smell dared to tickle his nostrils as he trekked to the table to prepare sandwiches for their departure to Keeto Town.
“Regina,” Astral gently called out. When she didn’t answer, he glanced out the kitchen window in search of Dwain, but instead caught sight of a silhouette of migrating birds heading south over the Hollow, cast against the sheen of the father sun. “Regina, my dear, did you cut all of the onion like I asked you to?”
“Yes, Mister Ages. And the turnips, and the carrots. We tied the bundles all up, and piled them just outside the door. Dwain’s bringing another along, now, I think.” Her voice sounded weak and tired from all that morning’s work.
“Mm. Very good. What of the potatoes?”
Regina hesitated. “Dwain’s bringing those. There weren’t many good ones.”
Astral found his forgotten tin cup and finished off his tea in a long gulp. He turned towards the study and found Regina standing on her tippy toes over the armrest of the wicker rocker, home to a pile of historical tomes by the fireplace. She was preoccupied with the topmost book, left wide open and forgotten after one Astral’s previous night of deep research. A soft smile spread across his snout as he shuffled into the study.
He peered over her and saw a wondrous replica of Antonia’s Battle for Bridge Town – an epic piece of art that spanned both pages. The painting was an interpretation by the artist Antonia Rovichi, of a monumental skirmish from the final days of the Canine Empire. As The History of the Canine Empire read, the historical fight took place in a settlement called Bridge Town, built directly over the Gabriel Sea to link the gap between Lylia Province and Mecia Province. The battle for control over Bridge Town waged for weeks. And in the end, despite their great numbers over the wheda, the canines who raided the settlement were driven out and across Throat Cutter Bay, never to be seen again. It was a monumental victory for the disciples of Mother Azna – and likely a revered story told by the Retainers of today.
Astral smiled. “Here child. Drink up.”
Regina took the cup into both paws and gulped the whole thing down without stopping to take a breath.
“The famous Battle for Bridge Town.” Astral picked the book up and sighed contentedly, gazing upon the image with deep admiration. The vertical painting depicted a great and bloody street fight between the wheda who lived there and the canines who ruled over them – retold beautifully in lavish oils on what would have been a sixty-by-thirty canvas. In the painting, a lone badger stood amidst a backdrop of city-wide carnage, inviting a trio of hungry wolves to fight him. The badger brandished just a meagre dagger, bloodied right down to the hilt as friend and foe lay slain or in siege at every inch of sight. Beyond the skirmish, in the far distance of the backdrop, a wicked blaze of reds, yellows, and oranges blended against a smoky night sky.
The copy seen here in A History of the Canine Empire didn’t compliment the original painting by any justice. Granted, Astral had never seen the original himself – It was more than likely stored away in some Mecian museum, like a shameful blight on Vida’s violent and feral history before the rise of the Alliance. But as much as he loved the painting, Astral couldn’t dispute the replica was by and large a poor mammal’s rendition. The unsightly crease between pages, down the painting’s very centre, didn’t do the damned thing any favours, either.
Even so, he loved it all the same.
“It’s like Altus,” said Regina.
“Hmm?” Astral drew his attention away from the painting, down at Regina who gazed off idly into his filthy navy blue robes.
“It’s like Altus,” Regina said again. A sad look befell her.
A stab of pain went through Astral’s heart. How insensitive of me. “Here, child. Don’t look at it. I’ll put the thing away, all right? It’s just make believe.” He reached high up above Regina to set the tome nice and safely out of eyesight on the fireplace mantel, when she suddenly tugged on his robes, to stop him.
“Mister Ages, what is that?”
Astral blinked down at her. Regina was looking up at him with a perplexed expression, cheeks puffed like any hoarding chipmunk and eyebrows furrowed to the bone. He smiled, hesitated, and brought the tome back down to show off in better detail. “Why, it’s history, my dear.”
“History?” Regina looked even more confused than before. “That whole thing is history?”
Astral laughed, amused by this inquiry. “Why, yes!”
She plucked up another book that had been beneath the one of canine empires and wheda revolutions, and started to flip through the pages. She paused, staring deeply into whatever page she’d landed on. She flipped ahead a few more pages, then flipped backwards a few – then to the end of the book, then right to the very beginning. “There aren’t any histories in this one.”
“What?” Astral, who was a proud hoarder of all things related to the workings and evolution of Vidian ecology, culture, religion, and
race, tilted the offending cover open to where the tome’s title runes should have been.
Grenmuire’s Discovery
A Novel Based on True Events
by Jasper L. Finch
And there they were, plain and honest, without typographical error, like any good publication. Astral blinked. “Regina my dear, I don’t underst—” But she was already off on the other side of the study. He watched her rummage about in another pile of books, taking hold of one at random and yanking it free, causing all the others to topple around her ankles. She paid no mind, too focused on the task at hand, flipping through the pages.
Her face then brightened, and she scampered back towards Astral.
“Like this!” Regina declared, presenting the open book to him. “Histories like this!”
Astral lifted the book out of her little paws and had a look for himself to find detailed illustrations of various near-extinct flora: Antiginus Dhrova, Techtite Molewood, Iifin Lylac and their respective descriptions, to name a few. Astral read the book’s cover:
Avalon Husk
The Rarest and Most Potent of Plant-Based Medicines
by Minerva Dench
With files from
Nimble Alchemy House
“Regina, my dear, this isn’t history, this is botany.”
“Botany?”
“Yes, the study of herbal ecology and medicinal practice.” He handed the book back to her. “Here, this would do you nicely, I imagine, as an expert gardener, yes.”
Regina furrowed her brow again and had another look at all the images. “But – but you said these are histories.”
“Not every book is a history book—”
Regina pointed firmly at an illustration of Iilif Lylac.
It was Astral’s turn to be confused. “You mean … pictures? Illustrations? That’s what those are, my dear. Those are pictures of flowers. The painting I showed you – in that other book there – that’s a picture, too.”
“Then what’s a history?”
Astral paused for a long time, simply regarding Regina where she stood. And then he started to laugh. He laughed so much in fact, that his frail knees dared to give out. He drew Regina into his arms and gave her a great big hug. “History … history is life, Regina Lepue. History is the mammal experience. History is what’s come before today, sometimes before us. In fact, many mammals write books to preserve history, so that we don’t ever forget it.”
Regina wrinkled her nose at him. She then averted her gaze and wriggled out of his arms. “Why? I don’t want to remember history. History is bad if it means Mama and Papa die every time. I don’t like it. I don’t want to remember it.”
“But Regina … history lends us great lessons, if we are willing to learn. I’m sure your parents would have agreed. Did they tell you many tales of when they were your age? Yes? That is also a form of history. It is your duty to uphold their memory – to make sure the good things they did are never, ever, forgotten. To be forgotten is to truly die.”
Regina looked to Astral with quivering eyes. She didn’t seem all that convinced. Nor could the old wizard blame her.
Astral stared deeply into her. After a time, he opened his arms wide. Regina drew back into his embrace in an instant. He sighed, kissed and nuzzled the top of her head. “It will be all right, Regina Lepue. Everything will be just all right…”
“I know,” she said, words muffled against his robes. “But it all just hurts a lot.”
Astral nodded, and started to rock her in his arms, gently, like an ocean’s current. After a while he chuckled and asked, “My dear – have you never seen a picture before?”
Regina sniffed, looked up at him with glassy eyes. She shook her head no. “They’re really pretty though. Even the bad one. The flowers are my favourite.”
Tears started to brim beneath Astral’s own eyes. He choked them back and smiled down at her. “See? Not all reading is so boring. There is something for everybody. That is the magic of knowledge, my dear.”
Regina didn’t reply.
“Regina? Promise me something.” Astral drew away to look deep into her eyes. He brushed some hair out of her face and said, “Promise me something.”
“What’s that, Mister Ages?”
“Promise me … promise me you’ll never stop asking questions. Never stop being curious. Do you understand?”
Regina nodded. ”Okay.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
They held onto each other for a little while longer. Astral hummed her a tune from an age long before, and after a while, wondered if Regina had fallen asleep in his arms. He kissed the top of her head again, and that’s when the greatest revelation of all the world revealed itself to his rapid thoughts:
Children can be taught.
Children can be realigned.
A heavy thump startled the both of them. Astral followed the smell of hedgehog to the open door out onto the porch, where Dwain peered in at the both of them with dark and wary eyes, a large burlap sack laying at his ankles. His gaze flicked to Regina, yawning and rubbing her eyes, before meeting Astral eye-to-eye, man-to-man.
“Here are those potatoes ye wanted, yeah, Mister Ages. Most the others went bad.”
Astral nodded. “Thank you, Dwain. Go and fit Phalanx for the journey, will you? Ride him up here, and start loading everything into the cart.”
Dwain hesitated. A dark, hateful, glower pierced from his little black eyes.
“Go on, lad,” Astral gently urged him. “Regina will be out to help you shortly.”
Dwain said nothing else. He left the sack of potatoes beside the other bundles of garden vegetables they had prepared for the journey, and hopped down to the grass, stomping away out of sight.
Astral sighed.
Children can be taught. Children can be realigned.
11. Vandal-Hearts
“…Mm, I wouldn’t necessarily describe it that way, but you’ve got the right idea, my dear.” Astral’s voice echoed in the treetops over the sound of rickety cart wheels fighting to remain stable in the stony forest path. He sat up front on the bench, Phalanx’s reins in-hoof, with Regina at his side. “Let’s take the example of – ahh – something tangible, something we can see and touch and smell and taste – an expert cook, perhaps. You like to cook, helping about in the kitchen?”
“…Not really, no,” said Regina. She scrunched up her face at the thought of being stuck inside her mother’s kitchen, being ordered around, and always getting herself scolded over improper measurements. She shook her head with defiance.
Astral raked a hoof over his cheek, surprised by Regina’s response. He caressed his beard with slow methodical strokes until the most obvious answer came to him. “Oh? … Oh. Oh, of course! What is this old porcine thinking? I am in the presence of an expert gardener! How embarrassing!”
Regina giggled behind rosy cheeks.
“Well, all right then – when you garden, and when you garden well enough—”
“I do!” Regina said, tail wagging. “Mrs. Jacobi once told me that I will make a fine young bloomer some day!”
Astral paused, blinked. “Oh, bother. Well … well perhaps you, uh, you may one day. But – but – but in any case – when you cook a meal or produce a fruitful garden … that is the by-product of the powerful Energies that flow all around us.”
This confused Regina. “But good crops grow because of the wind and sun and rain. And Mother Azna’s blessing, of course.”
“…Let me rephrase, child. All right – when you … make something, say, our potatoes. The good potatoes which you and Dwain picked this morning were able to grow strong and healthy because of…” He blinked. “Well, stupid luck, really. But … but know that things driven by creation and activity are the pools of which Mana Energy overflows.”
“Mana … Energy?” Regina asked.
“Ain’t nothin’ ye should be all concerned about,” Dwain said from behind. He lay among the vegetables i
n the cart, reclined against the sack of potatoes with one leg crossed over the other, and paws folded behind his ears. He spied Astral with a wary eye. “Ain’t nothin’ ter do wit’ Keeto Town, ain’t nothing ter do wit’ us.”
“Oh, but of course it has everything to do with you, my boy!” said Astral without looking back. He chomped on the end of his pipe with an audible click, snapped Phalanx’s reins to make the mule tread the uneven road just a mite faster. “Has everything to do with all of us. The trees we ride past, the birds that flock overhead … As Life Energy flows within our veins and makes our hearts beat fierce, Mana Energy flows all around us: in the air we breathe, in the food and drink we ingest, to the rest our tired bodies embrace. While Life gives us vitality, Mana runs deep, like a cleft in the river. Everything we do is a by-product of Mana Energy. From the baking of cakes, to the keeping of crops, to the construction of great cities – to even the focus of our innate arcane abilities—” Astral winked at a terribly confused Regina and continued, “—A base utilization of Mana is what helped our potatoes, and carrots, and turnips along. But an expert gardener, like our little Regina here, would have no problem, I surmise, using Mana’s essence to produce a truly fruitful garden, in time.”
“My head hurts…” Regina sighed, folded her elbows over the narrow armrest of the wooden bench, and let her mind wander from such complicated nonsense, taking in the lush sights of the Keeton Woods that crawled past them at a snail’s pace. The rich smell of fir needles started to make her eyes feel heavy.
She heard Dwain snort. “Good crops ain’t got nothing t’do wit’ no wizardy tricks, then. Aye, that’s just the luck of the harvest, that is. On toppa everything, ye either know what yer doin’ in the field, or ye don’t. Simple as that. Just ‘cause ye wanna grow some corn don’t mean ye actually can grow some corn without any know-how.”
The Book of Wind: (The Quest for the Crystals #1) Page 8