The Fire and the Fog

by David Alloggia

  ‘I,’ he started, frowning deeply in thought, ‘well, I haven’t decided yet.’ He looked up over his bowl, and gave a wry smile, ‘Can’t I just take them both?’ he asked, still poking desultorily at his stew, all evidence of hunger banished by his new train of thought.

  His mother laughed as she cleared away the remnants of dinner, her laugh a silver peal of light in the encroaching dusk. And Gel sat and thought, and the evening ground on.

  ***

  Later that night, after dinner had been cleared away and homework had been done, after Gel had played his new song for his parents, his father looking over ledgers, his mother knitting another pair of too-small socks; after washing and bathing for the night, Gel lay deep inside his small bed, covered in hills of covers and quilts, surrounded by mountains of pillows. Gel had always found it comforting to be weighed down while he slept, but at the moment his mother and her stories were all the comfort he needed.

  She sat, perched on the edge of the bed, waiting for Gel to decide what story he wanted that night. For Gel it always seemed that no matter how many books he read, no matter how many stories of knights and magic, of powerful swords and secret rings, of damsels in distress, his mother’s bedtime stories were by far the best.

  Every night, after Gel had washed, and cleaned his room, and finished his lessons, and lay curled up, safe and warm in bed, his mother would walk in, sit beside him, and wait for him to tell her what story he wanted to hear.

  Gel lay in his fortress of blankets thinking. Running over all of his favourite stories, over all the stories his mother told best, until at last he decided.

  ‘I want to hear about the princess and the mirror’ Gel said, snuggling further into his covers and closing his eyes, waiting for his mother to begin. Maybe he was getting too old for these stories; certainly the other kids in the village had stopped hearing bedtime stories years ago. But he didn’t care. The stories were comforting, and his mother seemed just as happy to tell them as he was to listen.

  She smiled first, bending over to kiss his forehead and run her hands through his light blonde hair. ‘Very well, little one’ she said softly, and Gel felt safe.

  ‘Not too long ago, and not so very far away, there lived a princess in a castle’ Maerge began, only to be swiftly interrupted by Gel.

  ‘Was she pretty?’ Gel asked his eyes now open and questioning.

  ‘Of course she was,’ his mother replied, reaching over to stroke his hair again, ‘now shush’.

  ‘It was a lovely castle, and its king, the princess’s father, ruled over many happy subjects. The princess lived in the castle with her sisters, and she had many friends among the servants and the townspeople, but she would often go off on her own to explore.

  It was not that she had no love for her family or friends, it was just that the old castle was so large, so empty, that it seemed lonely. The princess hated to see people sad and lonely, so she would often go and explore the large castle, to make it feel happy, and lived in.

  So, when the princess was not riding in the country with her friends, or learning to be a princess with her sisters, she would wander the castle, finding new rooms, new places; old places.

  And so it was that one day, as she turned the corner in an ancient, unexplored part of the castle, trailing her hand through the dust coating the beautiful tapestries that lined the hallways to mark her path, she came across a door.

  It was a large wooden door, banded and studded with iron, with a rusty old handle on one side. It looked the sort of door she would never be able to open, even if she had an axe, but she tried the handle anyway and, to her surprise, the handle crumbled under her fingertips, and the door swung ponderously open.

  Behind the door was a tall, circular staircase that wound its way up into the sky, and as she began to climb it, she knew it must be one of the large towers that dotted the castle’s silhouette.

  The princess climbed for a long while, and when she finally reached the top, she was tired. But she was also excited, for before her once more stood another door.

  This door was much different from the door below. In fact, it was much different from any door the princess had ever seen. It was a large, stone door, intricately carved with rosebushes, the thorns clearly evident. Stranger still, the door had no hinges, and no handle, only a large, silver plated keyhole where a handle should be.

  The princess knew at once that the door must be magical, and as she knelt to see the keyhole better, she noticed that she could see right through to the room on the other side.

  On the other side of the door was a large, circular room which must have been the top of the tower. It was completely empty, but for a large, plain wooden mirror that stood alone in the center of the room. As she looked at the mirror, expecting to see the inside of the door reflected back at her, she instead saw the reflection of a boy.

  He was a pretty boy; tall, with flowing golden hair, and he was dressed in a fine doublet. He looked at her as she stared at him, and he waved and banged on the glass, the look in his eyes clearly wanting escape from his glass prison.’

  Gel’s mother stopped there as she noticed the slow, quiet whisper of Gel’s breath.

  ‘Sleep, my little prince’ she whispered softly as she kissed her son’s sleeping head.

  She stood, smiling as she put her hands warmly over her lower belly, caressing her stomach and humming softly as she left to room to go help her husband with the town’s ledgers.

  Closing the door to Gel’s room, she left him to his dreams of knights and swords, princesses and dragons, soldiers and battle, guns and glory.

  III

  The next day dawned early. Roosters crowed the start of a new day, as excited for this new day as they were for every new day, and birds chirped and warbled through the air. Gel, though, slept through the cacophony of the early morning avian concerto, and instead woke several hours after sunrise to voices drifting in through his bedroom window. He heard his father’s rumbling baritone, and while he missed his father’s words, something told him he should listen. He lay still, making sure not to make any noise for fear of drowning out the conversation happening outside.

  ‘Look, mayor, we isn’t told much. Alls I know’s the Fog’s still coming, an there’ve been more bandits ’round than normal.’ said a young voice, seemingly trying to sound gruff by spitting in the grass outside. At least Gel hoped it was in the grass, otherwise his father would be angry.

  ‘Well, Sergeant, where is the fog now then? And the bandits? Have the bandits hit any villages near here?’ Othwaithe’s voice rumbled, and Gel lay still to hear more.

  ‘Lessee, the fog’s still creepin’ its way down through Rege, last I heard. Han’t hit the border yet, but it’ll do that soon. Most half of Rege’s covered now. Halgar’s been gone a few weeks, ‘an Vhindyar. Holfar got hit last week. I got a brother what’s out by the border, last I heard church’s starting to clear out soma the border towns.’ The soldier replied, spitting again as he mentioned the fog. ‘As fer the bandits, could be anywheres. Impossible to keep track of ‘em really, what with all the refugees coming out down from Rege.’ The soldier paused momentarily, and when he spoke again, he no longer seemed gruff; just nervous and afraid.

  ‘The bandits, well, they ah, they hit Jeyce last week. By the time the patrols got there, well, Jeyce was gone, burnt to th’ ground. Still ‘aint figured out how many dead.’

  Gel thought he heard a sob escape the Sergeant as his father cut in.

  ‘I am sorry, Sergeant, that is sad news. Sad news indeed. But what about protection for us, and Clom and the rest of the towns up north?’ Gel could tell that his father sounded worried.

  You could tell from the Sergeant’s voice that he stood up straighter, shaking off his momentary weakness from before. ‘Th Maeter’ll be sendin’ the Church troops in, t’control the refugees an’ th’ bandits. Should be ‘ere in a week, I’ve been told.’

  ‘Good news, good news. And where will you men be till then?’ Gel�
�s father asked, not sounding very much like he believed himself when he said the news was good. It sounded to Gel more like Othwaithe was still worried, and had not heard nearly the promises he had hoped for.

  ‘Well, we gotta hit Drey an’ Clom today, then get back to th’ city for more orders. We’ll prolly be back ‘round here to check in in five days ‘r so.’ The soldier spat again before continuing. ‘Speakin ‘o which, we gotta hit the road if we wanna reach Drey ‘fore nightfall.’

  As the soldier finished talking, Gel heard the sounds of soldiers mounting up. Throwing off his covers and jumping out of bed to rush to the window, Gel missed hearing any response his father might have had.

  As he reached the window and leaned to look out, still wearing his nightshirt, he saw the soldiers as they wheeled around to ride out of town.

  It was a group of seven men; each mounted, and dressed in bright red military coats, brown pants, and long brown boots. The coats they wore were pretty; the tassels on the shoulders, the way they buttoned up all the way to the chin, just the red and gold motif everywhere. The coats were nice; they looked almost like real church soldiers. The men wearing the coats, however, were young; none of them were much older than Gel.

  Gel’s father had explained it to him before. The men were a glorified sort of town watch. Outfitted and ordered by the church, the majority of their work was to bring news from town to town, and to escort any lawbreakers to a city for trial. It was an important system, but the boys were paid poorly, and were on the road all the time.

  It was not that Gel’s father held any animosity towards the young soldiers, certainly not through fear of losing Gel to the church army. Gel made it clear many times he had no interest. But the young boys came from villages somewhere, and a village with no young men to work the fields always had trouble. Gel did not recognize any of the soldiers below as being from Feyen, but he knew of at least one young man from the village who had left to join the church’s army. Othwaithe had said many a time that soldiering was no life for a good honest boy to lead, and he would likely say it again before the day was through.

  As for Gel, he knew why he didn’t want to be a soldier. It was not the travelling, or the mediocre pay, bad meals, or chance of death. It was that he loved music. He loved music too much to give his life to anything else. Not to mention he found most of the boys that wanted to join the army were dumb or mean, or both.

  No, all that really interested Gel about the soldiers was the weapons they carried. Long, shining flintlock muskets’, made from polished wood and burnished metal, plain but gleaming in the sun, were slung over the shoulder of each of the soldiers, and a fine rapier was strapped to each of their hips. The finely wrought thin blades and the elegantly designed hilts shone gently in the sun, sitting openly for all to see in the half-scabbards that the soldiers wore.

  The muskets were a new invention, Gel knew. Black powder weapons; the muskets and pistols, the cannons and mortars, they had only been discovered in the last fifty years. They had only been used in one war, when the Church had taken back the last of Riin’s mainland holdings. But the stories Gel had heard: the smoke and fire that were said to spit from the mouths of the muskets when fired; the death and destruction that followed in their wake. They were at the same time frightening, for the destruction caused, and wonderful, for the beauty and technological marvel held within each firearm. The guns, and the boys who carried them, they were progress. They showed the steady advance of civilization, Othwaithe would say, though he would never say what the advance would lead to.

  In reality however, the guns and swords the departing soldiers wore were cheaply made. Mass produced in order to supply an ever-growing church army. The soldiers’ vests too were stained from food, drink and travel. But Gel did not to notice as the group rode quickly down the main road and out of town, horses’ hooves clapping loudly against the cobblestone streets.

  The soldiers gone, Gel got dressed and bounded down the stairs for breakfast: leftover bread and stew from the night before. But conversation at the table was subdued, the atmosphere grim. Othwaithe sat, lost in thought, not touching his food, and Maerge spent the morning casting worried glances in her husband’s direction.

  ‘I may be late tonight.’ Othwaithe said as he stood, his chair dragging noisily along the wooden floor as he rose. ‘I have to speak to the Council. They need to hear about Jeyce, and the Fog.’ He looked sad as he spoke, and he glanced quickly at Maerge before he turned to leave.

  Gel jumped to his feet quickly, almost knocking over his chair in the process. ‘Will there be fighting?’ he asked, at once excited and scared. He had never seen a real fight, the closest he ever got was when he and Mae whacked at each other with sticks and pot lids, but a battle seemed so exciting.

  ‘Everything will be fine.’ Othwaithe said as he put a large hand on Gel’s excited shoulder. ‘We will arm some of the lads, and send out a patrol or two, and everything will be fine.’ He turned to leave again, but Gel caught his shirtsleeve before he had a chance to go.

  ‘Can I have a gun?’ he pleaded, whining slightly, ‘or a sword?’ If some of the other boys were going to get weapons, Gel didn’t see why he couldn’t. He was almost old enough to work, which should mean he was almost old enough to fight.

  Gel had already forgotten his earlier disdain of soldiers; the prospect of a battle, the noise and the excitement, had wiped his mind of the truths behind the life of a soldier.

  Othwaithe turned and knelt, coming face to face with Gel. ‘No, son, you cannot. You can have your lessons, and your friends.’ He patted Gel once on the shoulder, then turned and left.

  ‘Speaking of lessons, should you not be off?’ Maerge spoke right behind Gel, and Gel jumped slightly. Gel grumbled slightly, and muttered that he wanted a gun, but his heart was not really into it. His mother handed him his lute and his box of sheet music, and patted his head, and that was that.

  And so it was that, with a slightly heavy heart, and a light rain cloud above his head, Gel left the house. Lute in hand, he was angry at the prospect of spending another day practicing with Lady Vaen. He knew that he needed a tutor. Tutors got you noticed. It was Lady Vaen that had set up his concerto for the Duke after all. Gel knew that you needed a tutor to get anywhere in music. He just hated it.

  Gel wondered why the world was so unfair as he walked down the streets to Lady Vaen’s house, kicking angrily at unoffending pebbles as he went.

  ***

  The trip to Lady Vaen’s was uneventful. Gel played the songs she wanted, the way she wanted them played, and he didn’t get distracted. Somehow, everything went well. Long, boring, and completely useless, but well.

  Not that the dragon didn’t have any criticisms. ‘Back straight’, ‘Chin up, eyes forward’ she would interject at seemingly random intervals, interrupting the flow of Gel’s performance, ‘Bend your wrists more’ she’d shout, as if Gel were not already playing the music flawlessly. She gave detailed instructions on how he absolutely must dress appropriately, so as not to shame her, and on exactly how he must address the Duke and Duchess, again, so as not to shame her. It was almost as if she were more worried about how he looked than how he played. It was maddening. It was with a great bit of relief that he left that day, later than usual. She had kept him longer than normal, pacing back and forth as she spouted off instructions haphazardly, slowly wringing her hands as she walked. She was clearly more nervous than he would ever be.

  ***

  As he gloomily marched the same path as the day before, down the road and out of the town towards the old oak tree, Gel wondered how much worse the day would get. He would be meeting Sheane and Mae at the tree again, and not only did he not have a new song for them, he would once again be confronted with the thing he dreaded most. Gel did not want to have to choose which sister to ask to the festival.

  The problem was, as far as he could see, that he liked them both. Mae was fiery, exciting, and full of energy, while Sheane was absolutely beautiful; quiet,
serene, a true lady. Really they were both beautiful, he knew, but Sheane was so demure, so much like a princess, that it was a different, special sort of beauty.

  Gel was so wrapped up once again in his reverie that it wasn’t until he sat down in the grass beside Mae, setting his lute down to on the other side of him, that he noticed there was no Sheane. No Sheane, no blanket, no goodies. No safety.

  It wasn’t that Gel was afraid of Mae, not really.

  It was just that he was very much afraid of Mae.

  She was grinning from ear to gorgeous ear when he looked at her, and she leaned over and rapped him on the head with her knuckles. Hard.

  ‘Got something on your mind dummy?’ she asked with mock innocence, still grinning widely.

  ‘Cut it out Mae, that hurts’ Gel replied, rubbing his head annoyedly.

  ‘Aww, poor baby’ Mae laughed lightly as she threw a slow punch at his ribs.

  Gel caught her arm and held it, quickly trying to think of a way to change subjects.

  ‘So, where’s Sheane?’

  ‘She got a cold’ Mae replied, still grinning like a madman. ‘She’s sneezing her pretty little head off. She’s been doing it all morning too.’ Gel thought he could hear the sound of triumph in her voice. ‘They’re really tiny sneezes too. Little quiet “Choo’s”, and she jumps up a bit, it’s super cute. But her nose is all red and runny, so she couldn’t come’

  ‘So I guess that means no snacks today?’ Gel asked, more disappointed for the lack of Sheane than for the lack of goodies. ‘No tea either?’ He was genuinely sorry about the lack of tea though. He really liked tea.