Remembered

by E. D. Brady

  Markum rolled his eyes.

  Annie walked into the formal dining room with Tol’s arm firmly around her shoulders. He pulled out one of the twelve chairs that surrounded the large mahogany table, gestured for her to sit, and took the seat to her right.

  Cora and Zifini set the table, Max poured wine and water into glasses, and Sara and Markum carried in trays of food.

  When everyone was seated, Tol lifted his glass into the air. “To Annella,” he said.

  “To Annella,” four people replied with overwhelming emotion. Markum, however, made a disgusted sound with the back of his throat. Annie’s eyes flashed to him. What was his problem?

  “Mind your manners, Markum,” Sara scolded.

  Markum pursed his lips and said nothing.

  Annie knew she should keep her mouth shut—she was in his house, after all—but after all she’d been through, she was eager to get to the bottom of his hostility. “Have I offended you somehow?” she asked.

  “No, you haven’t offended me,” he replied. “But I’m curious as to where you’ve been all this time.” His glare would have cut glass easily.

  “What are you implying, exactly?” she questioned, feeling anger flare up inside.

  “I am implying nothing,” he answered. “I merely asked you a question. It’s quite simple; where have you been, dear sister-in-law?” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice.

  “What is it to you where I’ve been?” she replied curtly.

  “What is it to me?” he spat, rage flaring in his eyes. “How dare you ask me that?”

  “Markum, leave her alone,” Max threatened, standing up from the table.

  “Sit down, Max,” Cora scolded.

  “That’s enough,” Tol piped in. “All of you.”

  He spoke with authority, but Annie was not about to let this go. “Please, forgive me, Tol, but I would appreciate it if Markum would enlighten me of my offense.” She turned back to her brother-in-law. “What have I done to you?”

  He put both hands on the table and leaned forward. “You have done nothing to me. It’s what you’ve done to my brother that I take offence at,” he said with obvious contempt.

  “Don’t be a fool, Markum,” Zifini warned.

  “Stay out of this, Zifini,” Markum snapped. “It was for your benefit, also, that I had to haul him to the stables and tie him up like a beast.”

  “What?” Annie asked, sure she must have misheard him. “What did you say?”

  “Please stop this, Markum,” Sara begged.

  “It’s not important anymore, it’s in the past,” Tol addressed Annie.

  “Tell me, Markum,” she said, ignoring Tol.

  “He spent two days tied in the stables with the animals,” Markum said between clenched teeth, leering at her. “When you left, he went insane. His mad ranting’s upset mother and frightened Zifini. And he couldn’t be trusted not to hurt himself.”

  “Markum, please stop,” Zifini begged.

  “Again, stay out of this,” he said louder. “It was me, not you, that held his arms behind his back when he tore at his own flesh.”

  “What?” Annie gasped in horror.

  “Yes, you heard me right,” Markum seethed. “He tore at his chest with his nails, for what, I don’t know, maybe in an attempt to rip out his heart. This was after I hid all the weapons in the house.” Markum’s anger seemed to dissipate slightly, to be replaced by profound sadness. “Then, when it became obvious to me that I wouldn’t be able to reason with him, we had to go to the Citadom for help, to the very bastards that threatened to arrest us not a month before, or so we thought at the time, at least. So, tell me, Annella, what was it all for?”

  She broke down in tears yet again. The thought of Kellus in so much pain was too much to bear. “I didn’t leave him,” she said. “I could never leave him. I was taken from him, from my family. How could you think that I would just walk away from him…from them?” she added, nodding towards Max and Cora.

  Cora slid out of her seat and walked to Annie. She placed her arms around Annie’s shoulders from behind.

  “I don’t know you, woman,” Markum answered. “I don’t know what you’re capable of.”

  “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Tol yelled. His hand smacked down on the table, causing everyone to jump. “You know your brother is no fool. Trust his judgment.”

  Sara was beside Annie, handing her a handkerchief, dabbing at her own eyes with another. “Perhaps it’s time for you to tell us what happened, if you can, that is,” she said.

  “Let’s have dinner first,” Tol suggested. “Then we can hear Annie’s story.” He looked at his son. “Is this alright with you?”

  Markum took a deep, calming breath and nodded.

  When dinner was finished, Annie began to tell them all she could remember. “I sent Max and Cora to town for supplies on the afternoon it happened. Kellus and I were excited to have some time alone. Foolishly, I asked him to go out back to feed a stray cat, and decided to change my clothing before he returned.”

  “Why?” Zifini asked.

  Annie looked down, embarrassed to admit the truth. “I wanted to look pretty for Kellus when he returned.”

  Sara put her hand over her heart and threw Annie a pitying smile.

  “I had just stepped out of my clothes and into a dress he liked, when I heard the front door open. I vaguely registered that the footsteps sounded different, but was engrossed in fixing my hair. And then a hand was over my mouth and nose, with a cloth soaked in some kind of poison or sedative. I passed out.”

  “Your clothes! Oh, poor Kellus,” Zifini cried, putting her hand over her mouth.

  “What, Zifini?’ Annie demanded.

  “When Kellus returned to find the clothes you wore that day discarded on the ground…well, you can imagine what he concluded. What we all concluded.”

  Poor Kellus, indeed. This was getting worse by the moment.

  “I wasn’t violated,” Annie replied quietly.

  Max threw back his head and let out a loud sigh of relief.

  “Who was it? Where did they take you?” Cora asked.

  “I didn’t see their faces. My eyes had been blindfolded when I came around. I know there were two of them, a man and a woman. The woman wanted to kill me, I don’t know why, but the man had another plan. He said he had learned a spell or something that would banish me far from here. He began pushing something heavy onto my chest, chanting a spell. The only thing he accomplished was to make my clothes bigger.” Then she realized the truth. “No…wait… he wasn’t making my clothes bigger, he was making me smaller. I was becoming younger. Maybe the spell was supposed to return me to a time before birth. Maybe his spell was working. At any rate, I thought I was going to die, so I focused with all my attention, and somehow, managed to escape to a place called New York. I don’t know how to explain this, but I know now it was me, and not the spell, that caused me to cross over.” She looked around the table and was very grateful that no one looked suspiciously at her. Even Markum showed only interest. “I appeared in a place called New York, as a six-year-old girl, with no memory of anything here, not Cora, Max, or Kellus—nothing. I lived almost a whole life there. And then, a few weeks ago, I started dreaming of Kellus, though I still didn’t remember him at the time.”

  “Why do you think the dreams only started then?” Zifini asked.

  Annie shrugged. “I don’t know for sure, but they began when I turned the same age there that I would have been here. It’s like I caught up with my real self, perhaps.”

  “How did you get back?” Sara questioned.

  “I took a trip with a friend today, to a place that’s ironically considered very magical in the other world. I heard a desperate voice calling my name and saw a strange swirled pattern in a field, like a doorway, so I walked through it…” Something else occurred to her. “I think that it was me that created that doorway, somehow.” She felt sure this was the truth as she spoke it. “My subconscious had overridden
my conscious mind. I was determined to get home.”

  “Kellus always believed that you would come back. He was the only one among us that did not believe you were dead. We thought it wishful thinking on his part, but he insisted that he could feel you,” Max said.

  “Kellus knew I was alive?” she asked.

  “After the searches were called off, you went down on record as dead. This brought on a terrible four or five days for him, as Markum so politely informed you,” Tol explained. “But as time went on, he told us that he was sure you were alive. He said that if you were dead, he would know it at once, that he would feel it.”

  They sat in silence, pondering.

  Finally, Sara spoke. “So we have no idea who took her.” She addressed on one in particular.

  “Only that the man was named Lionel,” Annie offered quietly.

  Gasps erupted around the table. “What?”, “Are you sure?”, “Why did you not tell us sooner?”

  Markum’s voice was the loudest. “Bastards!” he yelled. “They swore to us that they were not involved with that incident. It has to be connected.”

  “I agree,” Tol responded. “It’s too much of a coincidence not to be connected.”

  “What are you talking about?” Annie asked.

  “The incident that occurred while you and Kellus were on your honeymoon, when a peaceman came here and threatened to arrest us, arrest Kellus if he did not denounce you,” Tol replied.

  “I remember…what about it?” Annie questioned, confused.

  “When Kellus had his bad spell, we were left with no choice but to send Zifini to the Citadom for help. We thought that Kellus should be sedated. Nordorum accompanied Zifini back,” Tol explained. “He said that he was neither surprised nor upset to hear that the two of you had eloped, although he seemed sincerely grieved by your disappearance. He assured us that he was aware of the way you and Kellus felt for one another for some time, even before Kellus had failed to return to the Citadom. He all but swore to us that no one from the Citadom was given authority to come here in search of Kellus, and most certainly not to threaten to arrest innocent people.”

  Cora interrupted. “Nordorum told us that he sent Kellus to our house, to care for me, after my surgery, intentionally. He hoped that if you and Kellus spent three days together, you may be compelled to give in to your feelings for one another, which you did. Noticing the change in Kellus’s mood after the assignment, Nordorum expected Kellus to come to him and ask for permission to leave the Citadom. When Kellus didn’t, Nordorum was going to relieve him of his vows upon his return from his two-week leave.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Annie said flatly. “What does this person, Lionel, have to do with the Citadom?”

  “Lionel is the Under Master, the next in command to Nordorum,” Tol explained. “Did you not know that?”

  “He is?” she gasped. “No, I don’t believe I ever heard his name before. Maybe Mr. Wellum mentioned it, but if he did, I had forgotten. So, the Under Master is a criminal?”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t trust Nordorum either, not for a moment,” Markum butted in. “They could be working together.”

  “I disagree, Markum,” Tol said. “Nordorum has always been a righteous man in my eyes.”

  Markum shook his head. “We don’t really know him, though, do we? He came here to check on Kellus, and within three hours, had convinced him to return to the Citadom, filling his head with nonsense about how training would take his mind off the pain.”

  “I believe Nordorum spoke the truth,” Tol replied, “Kellus has fared much better there than he did here.”

  “That was merely time, father,” Markum argued.

  “How is he now?” Annie asked timidly.

  “Kellus?” Markum questioned, raising his eyebrows. “Completely broken,” he said bluntly, giving Annie a dry look.

  “That’s not true, Markum,” Zifini interjected. “He’s much better,” she said, turning to address Annie.

  “He’s suffered much, unfortunately,” Tol said. “He has good days and bad, which is to be expected.”

  “I don’t understand,” Max said, changing the subject. “Why would Lionel want Kellus and Annie apart?”

  “Nor do I,” Markum agreed. “First he arranges a fake peaceman to harass us, and then he kidnaps Annie to have her banished to another world.”

  “I think I know why,” Sara said in a flat voice.

  Six pairs of eyes darted to her.

  “Tol…that prophecy…” she said, looking at her husband.

  “Do you think that could be it?” Tol asked.

  “What are the two of you talking about?” Zifini asked, looking back and forth between her parents suspiciously.

  “There is a prophecy about Kellus,” Sara announced.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Markum asked incredulously.

  “Why weren’t we told of this sooner?” Zifini demanded.

  “We didn’t believe it, did we?” Sara said, looking to Tol for back-up.

  “What was it?” Cora asked.

  “Years ago,” Sara began, “before any of you were born, there was a master at the Citadom named Nephlus. Nordorum was Under Master at the time. Nephlus was a direct descendant of Contitus, the great one. He was the last of the line of Tur, to be exact—”

  “The children of Tur…they were the descendants of Contitus,” Zifini interrupted.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Max added. “Tur was Contitus’s surname.”

  Sara nodded. “One day, for no reason at all, Nephlus decided to leave the Citadom. He wandered into the mountains and became a hermit. They say he went slightly mad, eccentric.

  “Two days after I gave birth to Kellus, Nephlus came to visit me,” she continued. “You can imagine how surprised I was; I had never been acquainted with the man before. He explained that he had something of great importance to tell me. However, when he entered town on his way to see me, he met Lionel—who was just a regular peaceman at the time, but one that was enthusiastic. Lionel, I’m sure, was curious as to where the old mad peaceman was going and asked to escort him.

  “After they’d spent a good deal of time here, Nephlus told Lionel that he needed to speak to me privately. Lionel left, or so we thought. Your father, Tol, found Lionel kneeling outside the backdoor, eavesdropping on what Nephlus told me.”

  “What did he tell you?” Zifini asked.

  “Nephlus explained to me that he had prophetic dreams. His ancestors would appear to him and relay messages, most of which were petty, minor stuff. However, the one regarding Kellus was of great importance. Nephlus’s great grandmother had appeared to him in a dream the night before. She said: ‘The love between Kellus and another, their bodies joined as one, will create the Great One’. Nephlus interpreted that to mean that Kellus will someday father a great peaceman or hero, someone like Contitus, another Great One.

  “It would seem that perhaps Lionel believes this to be true,” Tol cut in.

  “I think that Nephlus was the name of the person that Lionel received the spell from,” Annie said, remembering her ordeal in Dr. Lewis’s office.

  “Then he must have stolen it from somewhere,” Sara said. “Nephlus has been dead for some years, and I doubt he would have left anything of importance to Lionel.”

  “Do you think that Lionel was afraid that I would conceive Kellus’s child?” Annie asked.

  “That’s exactly what I think,” Sara agreed. “When Kellus turned seventeen, Lionel came to tell us that he had reserved a position for Kellus to join the next apprenticeship, in two years’ time. I found it odd as Kellus had never displayed any of the talents that the Citadom find preferable when recruiting. I know they’re taught many different skills, but they have a gauge, a sort of ideal, since they only have ten positions every five years.”

  “At first, Kellus showed no interest in a life at the Citadom, but Lionel was persistent. He visited many times and in the end, succeeded in convincing Kellus that h
e would enjoy that life,” Tol added.

  Sara nodded. “I was uneasy with his decision at first. I felt he’d been persuaded at an impressionable age, but he was a man at that point, so I had to take his word that he knew what was best for himself,” Sara said.

  “So, Lionel wanted Kellus to take a vow of celibacy upon becoming a man,” Cora said.

  “And then when he became a full-fledged peaceman, he would be unable to have children,” Zifini added.

  “But why would Lionel want to prevent this, if it was true?” Max questioned.

  “Because a great peaceman would see him as the fraud he is, and throw him from the Citadom before he got a chance at the top position,” Markum concluded.

  “Perhaps,” Tol replied. “Who knows what his reasons are?”

  “And why would he involve a woman?’ Cora asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tol answered. “But I do know this: he may have been generous enough to spare Annie’s life before, but if he finds out that she’s back, and able to bear witness against him, he’ll kill her this time.”

  Annie swallowed a lump in her throat.

  “Annie, you must not leave this house at all. Do you understand?” Tol said.

  She nodded slowly.

  “I want someone with her at all times,” he continued. “Markum, I’d like you to stay close to her, and please teach Max how to use a blade. We have to take every precaution until we can figure out what to do about this.”

  “What about Kellus?” Markum asked. “Shall I go fetch him from the Citadom?” He stood as if to leave immediately.

  “No!” Tol said firmly.

  “Why not?” Markum questioned.

  “He can’t know Annie’s back yet,” Tol answered.

  “What?” Markum asked incredulously. “How can we be so cruel to him? He’s still yearning for her. His heart’s still breaking.”

  “Can we not give him some peace?” Zifini added.

  “He’ll have no peace, whatsoever, if his wife has returned only to be murdered,” Tol responded. “Think about it; whatever Lionel is up to, we can assume he’s keeping an eye fixed on Kellus. Any changes in Kellus’s behavior may cause Lionel to grow suspicious. As cruel as it seems, it’s in Kellus’s best interest at the moment.”