by Ijaz, Usman
Alexis wasn’t smiling now, and looking at him Connor found it hard to believe he had ever seen the man smile.
Chapter 4
Revelations
1
“Seems like a capable man to me,” said Tarrak from his post beside the main entrance “I’m glad he was with you two.”
“So am I,” Adrian said. “But it ... it was surprising to see him change so quickly. To see him smiling one moment and ....” The Festival had been two days past and yet the memory of Alexis’s grim face still left him bewildered. It was almost as if he was two men then, he thought.
“I know,” Tarrak said, and it seemed to Adrian that he did understand. “Sometimes a man has to go to a dark place in order to do what needs to be done.”
“Well, at least Quinn’s been dealt with,” Connor remarked.
Tarrak frowned. “Don’t be so quick to think that. People like Quinn have a habit of turning up and making trouble just when you think you’re done with them. And Jic as well; I don’t think he expected to be let go so soon, but I think your father did the right thing in being rid of them both.”
Adrian nodded as he scanned the common room. It was nearly deserted in the afternoon, only a few patrons sitting at a few tables and conversing over drinks. His eyes returned to Tarrak and Connor.
“Have you two spoken with any of them since the day of the festival?” Tarrak asked.
“No, not really,” Adrian said. “Only a few words in passing but nothing more. Even Alexis has been acting distant towards us.”
“Hmm. Well, best not to think too much on it. They will be leaving soon anyway; no one stays for long.”
“That’s true,” said Adrian. He glanced around the common room and his eyes came to rest on the stairway as Hamar, Owain, and Alexis descended together. They were dressed as plainly as ever, but there seemed to be a resolute air to them, a determination in their step as they headed towards his uncle.
Adrian nudged Connor and guided his attention towards the three men conversing with his father. Hamar talked quietly with Jon Moor, and then the four of them headed for the private dining room, Uncle Jon looking like a cornered deer among three wolves. The door closed behind the four of them.
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Connor asked, his voice on the edge of worry.
“Likely nothing,” Tarrak said, and Adrian could tell he was trying to alleviate their apprehension. “Like I was saying, they’re probably leaving and want to settle their bill.”
Adrian nodded absently. But if they wanted to settle their bill, why not do it in the open, as many others did. Then again, it wasn’t that odd for them to do their business in private, was it? But why the look of worry on his uncle’s face then? Thoughts ran rampant through his mind, , trying to make sense of all this. Deep down he felt certain that the three men meant no good to his uncle. Are they trying to blackmail him? Cheat him in some way? He didn’t know, but the certainty in him only firmed. He pulled Connor out of the inn, not hearing Tarrak’s words behind them, telling them not to worry and that he was there if anything should happen. Outside, the despondent sky hung low, heavy with gray clouds that promised rain.
Adrian led Connor to the side of the inn. “What do you think they want with your father?”
“I don’t know. I ... I don’t like it, though.”
“Neither do I,” Adrian said. “They said something to your father; whatever it was it really worried him.”
“I didn’t like the looks on their faces, either,” Connor said, his mouth tight.
The private room where Alexis and his companions had taken Jon Moor was near the back of the common room, beside the stairs that led to the upper floors of the inn. Adrian and Connor walked around the building and into the alley at the back. Cut into the wall at the approximate height of a man was a glass window meant to air out the room and let some light in. The window was open, held up by a wooden rod. Adrian and Connor looked up at it, but neither was tall enough to reach it.
“What--” Adrian began, but Connor turned away and began to pull some empty crates from across the alley.
They aligned the small crates beneath the window. Adrian, the lighter of the two, stepped onto the boxes. The crates began to creak, warning him that they could collapse at any moment.
“Would you hurry up?” Connor hissed. “I don’t want to be caught sneaking into my own father’s inn.”
Adrian waved at Connor to be quiet, and then peeked into the dim light of the room. His blood was racing. He fully expected them to get caught at any moment.. Silently, he gestured Connor onto the crates beside him. Connor joined him, seemingly ignorant of the creaks and squeaks of their wooden platforms. Adrian motioned him to silence as they crouched beneath the window.
Adrian turned to whisper into his cousin’s ear. “I think this is far enough. We can make out what they are saying.” Connor nodded absently. From the other side of the wall came the voices.
2
“What is this all about?” Jon asked again. He sat on one side of a table, while the three men were seated across from him, watching him closely.
“My name is Hamar Ronan,” said the blunt man sitting in the middle. “These are my companions, Owain Lannit and Alexis Marshall. We are here on orders of King Aeiron.”
“King Aeiron?” Jon asked, baffled. “Why?”
“You will learn soon enough ,” said the man with the flame-orange hair who Hamar had introduced as Owain.
Questions whirled in Jon’s head, but these men only gave him bits of information at a time, and then watched to see how he digested those bits. A surging anger began to well inside him. He didn’t want to be the center of these men’s games. “You are going to have to be clearer. I still don’t know what this is all about.”
“Very well,” said Hamar. He began to strip his left glove. “We are men of the Legion --”
“Legionnaires?” asked Jon, bewildered. He wondered why he should be so surprised; who else would the King send but men of his Legion. If the King had indeed sent them.
“Yes--”
“Even him?” asked Jon, nodding towards the youth.
“Even him,” answered Hamar tightly, holding up the back of his left hand so that Jon could clearly see the mark of the Legion tattooed there, a maroon eagle in a the middle of a complicated ring of vines. “As to why we are here; we were sent here to find an Ascillian child.”
A silence filled the room as Hamar’s words settled. Jon gaped at the three men across from him. His breathing stilled, though his heart beat faster, and he sat motionless. Darkness crept along the edges of his vision, and he welcomed the possibility of losing consciousness, if only to escape this conversation. But the faintness passed and he was forced to confront the men before him. This had started as good a day as any other, but he was suddenly certain that it would end being one of the worst of his life. “There ... there is no Ascillian child here.”
“We believe otherwise,” said Owain.
Jon’s eyes darted to each man. The young one kept his gaze averted, as if he didn’t particularly like doing this, but the other two might as well have been made of stone. For Jon the rest of the world ceased to exist; he no longer heard the sounds from the common room or the outside world. He was not even sure anymore what time of day it was outside. For him there were only the three men across from him, and a dire need to convince them that what they sought was not to be found here. He spoke in the voice of a man whose pride has been severely wounded. “Where does King Aeiron get the gall to say such a thing? I’m an honest, loyal citizen! I pay my taxes and have committed no crime!”
The faces watching him remained impassive, stone eyes trained onto his, as though picking apart his thoughts. “I think he has known for a long time, him and his seer,” Hamar answered. “But only now, when the need is the greatest, did he trust the information unto others.”
“That’s preposterous!” Jon bellowed. “The Ascillians, they’re all dead! Everyone k
nows that!”
“Perhaps,” Owain said in an even tone that infuriated Jon. “But there is one here.”
Silence descended upon the room once more. Jon’s eyes searched the faces of all three men helplessly. After all that, this is what it comes down to? “There are no Ascillians here,” he said, but it was an empty statement, for his voice had lost all its earlier conviction.
Hamar stared back with dark eyes. Jon knew that those eyes had been witness to more than he would ever see. “The boy, how long has he been in your care for?”
Jon looked to the closed door, but in his heart he knew there was no escape from these men. He took a deep breath, and when he let it out all his resolve went with it, replaced with an odd sense that this was all inevitable. “Adrian? He’s been with us since he was a babe.”
“What of his birth parents?” Owain asked.
“They’re dead, suffered the same fate as all Ascillians,” Jon whispered. He stared at his cradled hands in his lap, feeling helpless. This cannot be happening.
“We need him,” Hamar said after a time. “That is, I believe we may all need him.”
“What do you mean?” Jon asked. He was barely able to hold his tears back and fought to suppress the hopelessness he felt. After all that, Jared, this is what it comes to?
3
Connor stared at his cousin as if seeing him for the first time. Adrian stared up at the window. When at last he turned to look at Connor his eyes were wide and stunned. And filled with something else, as well. Understanding, thought Connor.
Connor’s mouth hung open and felt as dry as sand as he tried to get out words, but the frightening realization of what they had just heard proved to be more than he could handle. Thoughts coalesced and broke in his mind, and he suddenly felt nervous. He can’t be an Ascillian. I’ve ... I’ve known him all my life. We’ve grown up together. It ... it’s not true. He can’t be one!
The look in Adrian’s eyes told him that the same thoughts were racing through his mind. Connor opened his mouth to say something, to perhaps ask him if he was truly a filthy Ascillian, but Adrian turned his face away. Connor could only look at him, already seeing him as someone other than the boy he had grown up with.
“You ... you ....” You’re an Ascillian? He wanted to ask, to demand it, but found his voice choked and heavy.
In miserable silence they listened as the voices continued in the other room.
4
“Why?” Jon asked. “Why would the King want him? He’s a good boy, he’s never done anybody any harm. Not once!”
Hamar met his gaze, and Jon thought he caught a hint of sympathy in the other man’s face. “It is odd,” said Hamar with a sigh, “how a few people can decide the fate of an entire people. The Ascillians, as you may know, were a race of odd wonders. No one quite knows what the extent of their powers was, but all deemed it unnatural. Perhaps that is why it was so easy for the Mad Emperor to gain numbers to his cause.
“The Mad Emperor Nero’s war on the Ascillians began the massacre that would result in the near extinction of an entire people. By the end of it, when the free countries rose against Nero and overthrew him and put an end to his war, a great number of Ascillians had already died.
“Even after the Mad Emperor was overthrown, and his empire disbanded into the countries we now know, the persecution and fear against the Ascillians remained. The race of the Old People was reduced to a rabble people scattered throughout the land, hunted and killed sometimes for no more reason than that their neighbors thought they meant them harm. Throughout the years their numbers dwindled, until it was believed that their existence was at an end.
"It is now believed that a small group of Ascillians living in a backwater village killed some dozen years ago were the last alive. From what started during the Mad Emperor’s reign only forty-three years ago, a reign that destroyed much of an entire race and changed the lands of Cahrad as we know it, we can only be sure of one that escaped alive, into a world that fears and distrusts his kind. That lone child is your nephew.”
“I know what happened,” Jon said fiercely, and wiped tears away from his eyes. “I experienced too much loss not to know!”
“Yes, but the boy is only half Ascillian is he not?” Hamar asked. “Who were his parents?”
“What does it matter?” Jon demanded. Oh, Jared, look what you’ve put me in now. The memories of his brother were heart-wrenching on their own, but added to the fact that he now stood loosing Jared’s only son, the whole of it threatened to rip him apart inside. The memories brought on a fresh inception of tears.
Hamar frowned. “I don’t suppose it does. But the tale of the Ascillians is not yet done. Not for our purpose. There was a druid once, named Cathanin, who spent several years among the Ascillians, learning their religions and their myths and their histories. In one of his commentaries he talks of something called the Source of Light, and mentions how the Ascillians believed they were in charge of maintaining it. Cathanin wrote that the Ascillians believed the Source is what represents the light of the world, almost as a single heart beating for all life. Without it, the world as we know it would shrivel and be swallowed in darkness.”
“What do these stories have to do with Adrian?” Jon demanded.
“Stories,” mused Hamar. “Cathanin believed them to be stories as well, never realizing that it could be the very truth. I spoke earlier about the King and his seer. The King has in his possession in Grandal a Krillen, a device that allows him glimpses into what may be. His seer, Nemar Bahnin, claims to have seen the fate of this world in the Krillen. The King believes him, which tells me that he must have seen part of it as well. The seer says that he witnessed our world beneath an everlasting darkness, as though the Ruins had consumed and tainted everything. And within the Ruins he saw a single glow of pulsating light, growing smaller with every pulse. He said it was dying.”
Jon shook his head, snagged on his painful memories and unable to follow the other man’s words. He didn‘t know what to believe at that moment. “Can’t the King send men to recover it for him? Why must he need Adrian?”
“Only an Ascillian can touch the Source. Any other who tries will be killed, as was discovered by King Aeiron’s seer when searching through Cathanin’s books. And there is also the matter of reaching the Source, which no man will have an easy time doing. It lies in the heart of the Ruins. I take it you have heard of the Ruins. Let me tell you that whatever you have heard is likely true.” Hamar sighed then, as though all this talk had wearied him. “Thus, for the hope of the world, we come searching for one mere boy.”
Jon looked up, his eyes swollen red and accusing. “You truly mean to take him away from us?”
“Only because it has to be done,” Hamar answered.
“And if I object?”
“Do you really believe that you have a choice in the matter?” Hamar asked plainly.
And Jon realized that he didn’t have a choice, and he didn’t have a say. It didn’t matter what he wanted, these men would take Adrian away one way or another. But I can try and protect him, at least. Tarak would help defend the boy.
But he could not shake the feeling that he had already lost.
“It would be safer for everyone if we left here in peace,” Hamar said, as if reading his thoughts.
“But he is just a boy,” Jon pleaded. In some depth of him he knew that such words were lost on such men. They only obeyed their duty.
Owain answered. “True, but he is a crucial part to the future.”
“It doesn’t matter what I say,” Jon admitted painfully to himself.
“Perhaps not, but he will --”
A wooden crash, muffled by the thick walls, erupted from the rear of the room. The three men sprang to their feet and rushed to the small window. Jon slumped in his seat and stared blankly at the wall. He knows. God, help me, he knows.
5
Adrian fought free of the mess of collapsed wooden crates, unmindful of the scratches he took.
He pushed himself to his feet and looked at Connor’s worried and nervous gaze. He shook his head. He wanted to tell his cousin he wasn’t an Ascillian, but found that he couldn’t get the words out. Infuriated, he turned and bolted from the alley.
He ran down the street, silently cursing all that turned to regard him with suspicion and curiosity. I’m not one of them! They lie! They lie! He ran down the street screaming the mantra in his head and crying helplessly.
And before he knew it he was at the docks and there was no where left to run. The ships lay swaying gently against a gray sky. On some men still moved about doing repairs or some still trading, but for the most part the ships had a calm air about them. Adrian stared at the ships and the sailors, feeling a strong loathing for everything and everyone around him. Some of the sailors turned to regard him curiously as he stood there watching them. Adrian walked to the small wall to his right on legs that felt stilted and huddled down.
He wiped his nose on his sleeve and wiped the tears from his eyes and stared out into the swaying waters of the harbor in a hollow daze. It was not long before the tears started again.
6
“There you are.”
Adrian’s head jerked to the left to see Alexis walking towards him.
“Leave me alone,” he warned the other man, returning his gaze to the water. He didn’t know how long he had sat there, only that the sun was dipping behind the horizon and the sky was cast blood-red. His tears had dried on his cheeks. He no longer felt any of the anger he had felt before, only a deep sense of emptiness and loss and weariness.
“You know I can’t do that,” Alexis said as he sat down beside him.
Adrian refused to look at the other man; instead he stared at the sinking sun with impassive interest. At last he said, “The others sent you, didn’t they? Was that the only reason they brought you along, so you could get close to us and find out as much as you could?” At this Alexis remained quiet. “How did you find me?”