The Tale of Onora: The Boy and the Peddler of Death

by Dylan Saccoccio

  “What are those?” the boy asked.

  “They came from Qu’ellar del lil Elghinyrr,” the man said.

  The boy had studied geography relentlessly in preparation to become king. He knew every location in Caliphweald as though it were a part of his anatomy. He had never heard that name before. It wasn’t a major city or even a small town for that matter.

  “I’m not familiar,” the boy responded. “What is it?”

  The man’s expression flashed a brief glimpse into the unadulterated darkness of his soul. “Do not seek the sanctuary of evil, for I have tread in the heart of it.”

  There was a stillness that drained the life out of the aether. The man’s eyes glistened ever brighter in lament as they showed signs of being human again.

  “There are things in this world,” he continued. “Old things… that for reasons beyond my understanding have been allowed to prey upon us.”

  The boy felt the tingly sensation of the hair on his body rising, but he could not resist the inquiry. “Such as?”

  “Until you see them with your own eyes,” the man responded. “You cannot begin to understand, nay, you cannot begin to imagine that they exist. But they do. They flourish blamelessly and commit unutterable atrocities upon unsuspecting populations, especially upon defenseless children like you.”

  Fear gripped the boy’s heart. “Like me?”

  The man shot the boy a sideways look, his face wrought with warning. “Aye.”

  The boy’s throat was so dry that he could barely swallow. “Why don’t people stop them?”

  The man let out a cynical laugh. “Because people are the problem.”

  The boy looked offended. “What?”

  “Evil’s ability to survive is cultivated by the rapacious yearning within the minds of men. It drives them to avoid that which does not immediately affect them,” the man replied. “Show me a person willing to confront the truth and I’ll show you a person whose entire life has become a prolonged, lonely misadventure.”

  The boy wondered if the man was referring to himself. It appeared that he fit the mold. He seemed incapable of being happy or of being kind. He came across as someone who rested comfortably on his laurels, completely content to proclaim everything wrong about the world and yet all the while doing nothing to change it. The boy didn’t associate with people like that. He refused. It made him lose interest in the boots along with their place of origin.

  The man found the boy to be a snarky little shit, but that’s the whole reason for why he brought the boy to this room. When the boy arrived at the man’s estate by himself, it earned nothing but respect. Visitors were rare now, less there be some problem that needed solving. Most men couldn’t make that trek by themselves, let alone a boy. But after the respect, a deep pit of hatred burned in the man’s stomach. The boy looked too much like him. He looked too much like the woman from whence he came. Worst of all, the boy looked too much like the man who stole the world.

  The challenge the boy faced was that the room was filled with trinkets and the sort of items that young men dream of possessing. Each new curio that he discovered peaked his curiosity even more than the previous.

  Next to the boots was a device that attached to the forearm and to which a man’s hand fit into. It was made of silver and steel. It was decorated in plates of Nabian blue and it bore hieroglyphs of an ancient race. A barbed spike protected where the fist rested. At its base, a chain coiled itself. The spike could be fired as a projectile that would hook into the surface of its desired target.

  “You may have that if you’d like,” the man offered. “It’s of no use to me anymore, just as it is of no use to you now.”

  “Blackguard,” the boy muttered under his breath.

  “What did you just say to me?” the man replied.

  “You heard me,” the boy challenged. “Offering something useless to someone. What kind of miscreant does such a thing?”

  “I like that,” the man said. “Miscreant. What do you know of miscreants?”

  “More than you think, loafer,” the boy replied. “Have you any idea what it’s like to grow up a prince? Do you know what kind of people are attracted to me?”

  The man gave a slow nod. “They’re all watching, you know. But none of them dare interfere. The ones that do are the good ones, for they have no idea who you are. Perhaps your mother raised you properly after all.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” the boy responded.

  The man smirked. “I respect and love those who put their foot down and stand up to me, for they are principled. It’s the ones who remain silent; the ones who won’t dare confront you that you must guard most suspiciously. They are the ones who know. They are the ones who understand that regardless of what you do to them in this life, it is much more preferable that you remain trapped here in your flesh than to be set free in your true form.”

  The boy felt like he was listening to the rant of a lunatic. “Why?”

  “They know that everything comes back to you in death,” the man answered. “And that’s when you remember. And then that’s when you destroy.”

  “Who are they?” the boy asked.

  “The Keepers of Silence?” the man asked.

  He held the clawheave up and examined it. The device was retractable. The sight of it invoked memories of what it was like to fire it into enemies. The man’s mind saved, through all these years, the images of having his sword drawn while the device hooked into the flesh of his foes and pulled their bodies towards him to be impaled by his blade.

  “The Keepers of Silence are the ones who know what I really am,” the man continued. “And they had better keep me alive for as long as they can, because once I die, the game is over for them, just as I ended their game in this realm.”

  The boy watched the man admire the device.

  “This clawheave wasn’t a weapon,” the man said. “It was a tool. I used it to travel as much as I used it to kill.”

  He reminisced about climbing the tallest trees with it. It elicited the wild freedom he felt while using it to pull himself from rooftop to rooftop over impossible distances.

  “I outran authorities in every city,” the man continued. “I scaled heights that most people can only fantasize about. That’s the only way to deal with a world that breeds servility.”

  “To become a ruffian?” the boy asked.

  “To become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion,” the man replied. “I made every person in Caliphweald a roving garrison of freedom.”

  The boy was more interested in the secrets of how the man manipulated the population’s perception rather than his bullshit fairytales. “How did you do it? How did you overthrow the government? How did you destroy the root of evil?”

  The man saw right through the boy’s intentions, but it mattered not. He knew that with enough time he could influence the boy’s perception.

  “The greatest way I destroyed evil was by showing everyone that it was there,” the man replied. “They called me mad when I warned them what was being done to them. They said I was a fool.”

  “What changed?” the boy asked.

  “The consequences of ignoring reality finally caught up with them,” the man responded. “It was the right major crisis. And then I was gone. For nearly a decade the people who knew me believed I was dead. Their loss healed to the point where the mention of my name barely stirred an emotion. When I returned, everything was different. The places I grew up in were destroyed, my favorite shops gone and replaced by a collective band of merchants whose only goal was to steal the wealth of a nation. Those that survived had fought to the point of complete spiritual, economic, and physical exhaustion. Nearly a decade of savagery and bloody turmoil left them with nothing. Never had I seen a populace so vacant, so entranced, so enslaved. I remember, as a child, reading about revolutions, studying them, as though I’d never be a part of one. How terribly wrong I was.”

  “Is that why you’re
so apathetic?” the boy asked.

  The words stabbed the man to his very core. Not because of the content, but because of the sincerity and innocence in which they were spoken.

  “There are a lot of things you cannot begin to understand about me,” the man replied. “But I want you to know them. It’s just that I don’t know how to explain myself to you.”

  Progress. Finally. The boy knew he was on the right path, but he had to tread lightly so as not to raise the man’s defenses. Leaning against the wall was an ebony bow fused with shards of gold. The boy was an expert marksman already. His mother had trained him well. This was the perfect opportunity to allow the man to relate to him.

  “That bow is beautiful,” he said.

  A tear fell down the man’s cheek as his mind summoned the event in which it was acquired.

  “It belonged to the best man I ever knew,” he quietly responded. “He taught me everything that mattered.”

  The boy tried to look sympathetic. “I’m quite good with those.”

  The man had no doubt that his son was even better than he was in his prime, given that the boy’s mother was the best marksman in all of Caliphweald and helped the man achieve greatness in the craft of archery.

  “It’s strung with the web of Queen Ennael,” he replied.

  Disbelief crept over the boy’s face. “The fabled arachnid monster? How?”

  The man winced in pain as though someone had just punctured his stomach. He gritted his teeth as he fought back his emotions and breathed heavily through his nose. The boy didn’t know the story behind it, but he knew full well what the tears of loss looked like, for it was loss that he learned everything through. It was something that he now believed he inherited from his father.

  “I’m sorry”, the man muttered.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” the boy replied. He pointed to a large quiver of arrows that was encrusted with symbols of the moon. “But I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth about that.”

  The man’s eyes followed the boy’s gesture and looked at the quiver. The boy recognized it and knew it well. Even though he had never seen this particular one, he knew that it once belonged to his mother. The symbols were from his homeland and scribed in the language of his race. It was adorned in her handcrafted designs.

  The man had to accomplish great deeds to be given such a gift. The only other explanation was that he had to have been a better thief than those who dedicated their lives to the profession of piracy. The boy stared at the man and tried to figure out which it was.

  “Are you a thief?” he asked. “Did you steal that from my mum?”

  The man looked down as if to seek the answer from within. His eyes made their way back to the boy’s. “Had I done such a thing, would I be alive to speak of it?”

  The boy gently shook his head. The tension in his shoulders relaxed. It was the first time he knew that the man spoke the truth.

  “May I tell you something?” the man asked earnestly.

  The boy looked on in anticipation, nodding eagerly.

  “Your mother was the first woman I kissed in the new world,” He smiled bashfully. “Years later, I met her again… I’ll never forget my first time in your homeland. I wasn’t in the country more than an hour before my head was on a chopping block. It was your mother who saved me.”

  “She saved your life?” the boy asked.

  “At the eleventh hour,” the man replied.

  He took time to recall the deeds of his complicated past.

  “I’ve stolen everything,” he continued. “Hearts and lives alike. But that quiver… That I did not steal. No, that I earned.”

  “Perfection,” the boy said. “On horseback.”

  “Indeed,” the man responded.

  Of all the things the man had done, this was the most impressive in the boy’s eyes. The man savored the newfound respect that it earned him.

  “She doesn’t speak of you,” the boy said.

  The man raised an eyebrow. “No?”

  “Won’t speak of you,” the boy corrected. “That’s the better choice of words.”

  “You must be gentle with her in that regard,” the man responded. “Your mother is one of the most beautiful beings that I have ever laid my eyes upon.”

  The boy let slip a grin. “Obviously they weren’t the only things you laid upon her.” He wanted to connect with his father and to hear him laugh. This might be his only chance.

  The man’s tough exterior crumbled. His mouth winced in an effort to hold in a chuckle. “Well, your good looks didn’t come from me.”

  The boy’s confidence grew. “What happened between the two of you?”

  “Your mother could have had any man she desired,” the man replied. “I imagine even now her features are the sort that young maidens dream of. I don’t know why she chose me. Had she not saved me when I was a boy, I wouldn’t have even made it to Maebelfry.”

  “She saved your life twice?” the boy asked.

  “Nothing is simple or straightforward between your mother and me,” the man responded. “The first time, absolutely. She unequivocally saved my hide. But the second time, not so much.”

  “How so?” the boy asked.

  The man thought about the dark secret that he harbored. He discerned what facts to omit from his son, what facts to protect him from.

  “The second time, I was a man,” he said. “She saved me from something that she was responsible for orchestrating. But that’s an entirely different tale. It’s not pertinent to your question.”

  “Orchestrated?” the boy asked.

  “I don’t want to hide the truth,” the man said. “But you must learn that tale from her.”

  “No,” the boy pleaded. “Please. She is my mum. I love her eternally. But I must know from someone outside of our family, someone from outside the reach of her retribution.”

  “I understand,” the man replied.

  “Was she a good person?” the boy asked.

  “As good as they come,” the man said.

  The boy grew more childlike, as though he were about to cry. “Then how could she do that to you? Why did the two of you part? Why couldn’t you stay?”

  The man pressed his lips together in compassion. His eyebrows lifted with sensitivity towards the situation. He tried to speak, but he didn’t like what he was about to say. He took a moment to rethink his words. “Son, I don’t know how to explain to you… the way…” He looked lost. “There are…”

  The boy grew incensed. “Explain what?”

  The man’s frustration with himself and the way his life had played out caused him to pause. His breathing stopped. He exhaled loudly through his nose. “There are no words I know for me to explain to you how cruel life can be.”

  “Try!” the boy said.

  The man did not appreciate the boy’s tone, but he understood what it felt like to need to know the truth. He was a faithful companion to the hell that was created by trying to guess the meanings of the things that go unsaid.

  “You may desire something so passionately that it feels right in every molecule of your body. It may feel like destiny, or that nature designed you for that specific reason.” The man quivered in antipathy. “But something terrible may happen to you, something that I cannot protect you from. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  The man paused. He waited for some sort of confirmation from the boy to continue. The boy stared intently and gave an unconscious nod.

  The man proceeded. “Sometimes, that which you want most in life does not return a similar desire for you. Sometimes dreams get destroyed. The pain instills restlessness into your heart that refuses to let you sleep. Ghosts of your mind’s projections haunt you. You’ll think of the smiles you’ll never see, the moments you’ll never share, and a future that existed in thought but not in reality. If they arrive, they’ll keep you up at night. A day may come when you cannot recognize the vacant eyes that stare back at you in your reflection. And
you lose yourself. You could spend the rest of your life wondering why God let you die but refused to bury you. You might wonder why you were forced to wake up each day, why you couldn’t just pass away peacefully in your sleep. You might wonder how it was ever possible for you to be made to want something you could never have.”

  The boy was so dumbfounded that he completely lost track of the questions he wanted to ask. Strategically guiding the conversation to attain the truth from his father would prove to be difficult.

  “Did this happen to you or to my mum?” he asked.

  “I think it was both, perhaps,” the man replied. His expression appeared as a physical riddle. “Without the amity of timing, a person who would have loved you more than anything, forever, may sail right past you and into the ocean of what could have been, and you are left wondering while you drown in the void of your solitude.”

  The boy felt his stomach churn. He clasped his knees tightly together, as though it would somehow give him the courage to face what he dreaded. An ache arose in the back of his throat. He felt jealous that his father at least encountered someone he could have loved. The boy had nothing. He was born in a void of solitude and to this day he hadn’t been able to escape it.

  “Will you tell me why the two of you parted?” he quietly asked.

  The man watched his son’s complexion grow pale as the boy drifted into a fragile state. The man felt that one wrong choice of words could have a devastating effect, and so he thought carefully before he spoke.

  “They say that the flow of time cleanses the past, that it heals all wounds of the heart,” he replied. “But I know firsthand that it doesn’t. Wounds I cannot speak of still exist. They never heal.”

  The boy didn’t understand. There had to have been a possibility for his parents to be together. His mother didn’t speak of it and his father only spoke in metaphors and whatever the hell else he was trying to say. It left him more confused than before.

  “You look like you need a drink,” the man said. There was no response. “Right. Tell you what, pick a chalice from the mantle.”