Age of Azmoq_The Valantian Imperium

by Rajamayyoor Sharma

  As he heard my rant, Grim’s expression turned from one of anger to one of shock.

  “Why did you assume I wanted to kill myself? I was just going to catch a Grand River Salmon.” Grim said. Even with me screaming for an explanation, all I got out of him were two sentences.

  “What?! What is a Grand River Salmon? A fish?! Salmon? Are you saying that you were going to kill yourself over a fish? Do you think I am insane to believe that?! Where is this salmon if you dove for it?”

  “I had to rescue you before I could catch some. You don’t have to believe me. I’ll show you. I walked away because I was too angry to think. Seems like you are safe… and sane. I can go back to what I was doing. Come with me.”

  Saying that, he turned around and started walking back. I followed him, still in disbelief.

  “Why would you risk your life for a salmon?”

  He seemed slow to answer. “I wasn’t risking anything. I have done it at least a hundred times.”

  This hour was getting weirder and weirder. I see a man jump off a vertical cliff, seemingly to his death, into a river aptly named the White Destroyer. I jump after him to rescue him. Instead I get rescued by him. I then realize that the man is my master, Forresgrim. And then he says he didn’t jump into the deadly river to kill himself, but to catch fish, with his bare hands. And that he has jumped into this death trap hundreds of times… to catch… fish. The whole sequence of events was surreal.

  We walked back in silence as we came across Olmot, who seemed pretty winded. My master completely ignored him and I signaled him to join us. This situation must have seemed even weirder to him—a man jumping to his death, then rescuing his rescuer, walking away and then walking back towards the cliff again, with the rescuer turned rescuee just walking behind him.

  As Olmot walked up, I jerked my head forward. “Just follow him. All is well. I’ll explain later.” I didn’t know how else to explain everything to him. He would have thought I was mad, irrespective of what explanation I gave him.

  We reached the cliff again, where my master took off his shirt again, reached the edge and jumped. Olmot screamed, but I patted him and signaled him to calm down. I was a nervous wreck myself, but I tried to keep him calm.

  “Have I just bought the weakest excuse ever created and let a man I admired, my mentor, to jump to his death?” I wondered.

  I rushed to the edge to see what was happening. I saw the same thing again—master was emerging every couple of seconds to catch his breath. Then he stopped appearing. I waited for a few minutes and then started to mentally prepare myself to jump in again. Only this time, I assured myself, I would do it right and not get knocked out.

  Just as I was about to jump, Olmot stopped me and asked me to see down the hill. And there it was. My master was climbing up the hill with a large salmon tied to his back. It seemed like he wasn’t lying. I was relieved that he was alive, although still confused as to why he would do this.

  It was an aspect of Grim I had never known. If I had to guess, before that day, I would have said my master was a man who would actively avoid all dangerous situations as he was too lazy to do anything in such a situation. I was obviously very wrong. His definition of relaxation seemed to be doing near fatal activities like cliff diving into rapids for fishing with his bare hands. I shuddered to think what situation he considered “dangerous.”

  As he reached back up, without acknowledging us, he put the fish down and put his shirt back on. Then, picking up the fish, he started walking downhill again. We silently followed him, waiting for us to gain some distance before we could talk to him.

  I told Olmot as we reached a place where the noise was lower, “That, by the way, is Forresgrim, my master.”

  His expression, which started as one of shock soon changed into one of complete sadness. It was easy enough to guess his thoughts. He was in the company of a man who was older than him. A man who had just jumped into a deadly, city destroying river, just to catch fish. And Olmot was wheezing from having to walk fast. Was there a starker contrast possible in the physical ability of men of a similar age?

  After telling Olmot about my master, I tried to stop my master to have a proper introduction. He, however, without breaking his stride, said, “Later. Let’s reach the bottom quickly first.”

  As we reached the bottom of the hill, Grim found a nice little opening of grass. He quickly asked us to gather some wood, which we did. He then set up the fish to cook after filleting it expertly with a knife and seasoning it with some herbs he had in his shirt pocket. It was evening by the time we were sitting around a nice fire, watching some fish meat cooking, trying to figure out what to say or ask. We were actually waiting for my master to speak, as he was still busy cooking the fish.

  He finally did. He addressed Olmot.

  “Olmot, I apologize for not talking so far, and walking downhill this fast. After catching this salmon it is actually dangerous to linger for too long in the forest, as the Forest cats get attracted to the smell of the fish, and I didn’t want to face a Forest cat here. Now, as a token of my apology, please enjoy this delicious fish.”

  Olmot nodded, “I understand completely. Thank you for preparing this delicious looking meal for us. Before I start, let me introduce myself again to you. I am, as you know, the recently christened Olmot, from Travers Town. I have held many jobs in the world outside and as I got disillusioned with those jobs, I left it all behind to travel. My travels have recently brought me to this place, Villasboro, where I have stayed comfortably for the last year and a half.”

  There was something about Grim that made people comfortable around him. Although Olmot did not reveal his real name, he did tell Grim the name of the town he hailed from, something that, I was sure, was connected to the painful past that he did not wish to talk about.

  My master replied, “Thank you for introducing yourself, Olmot of Travers Town. I am Forresgrim Evigsmed of Villasboro. I am the village’s blacksmith.”

  Olmot smiled. “You seem much more than that. No ordinary blacksmith could do what you did. An activity, whose objective and need, I still don’t understand.”

  My master smiled as well. “You embarrass me. There is little that is extraordinary here. Why don’t we start to eat as I share a little bit more about what happened? The fish might also tell you a little bit of the reason for my actions.”

  There wasn’t much I could do for food, due to the hour. So I decided to eat meat for the first time. As soon as I ate it, I realized why people hunted and ate animals. The fish was delicious! It was better than anything else I had eaten till that point in my life.

  Olmot seemed to agree. “This fish is better than anything I have eaten in my life. And I have traveled across Valantia multiple times, sometimes eating in the best of taverns. I can’t believe people would call what we eat, meat. This is meat!”

  His response immediately made me question the reason for people eating meat. If this was better than any other meat that he had eaten, then perhaps taste wasn’t the reason people ate meat.

  “Thank you for your generous words. I assume your first experience with meat wasn’t a bad one kid?” he asked me.

  “Not at all, this is delicious, but no meal can be delicious enough to risk your life over.”

  My master smiled. “Some would disagree.” After a pause he continued. “On a serious note, I never risked my life. This is something that I have known how to do, all my life, and have done for a long time. I have never seen it to be a difficult thing, just something I enjoy doing from time to time.”

  “But Grim, you have to see that it is dangerous. I mean come on, I jumped in and almost lost my life immediately.”

  Grim sighed. It was like I wasn’t able to grasp a simple concept he was trying to explain to me. “As I said, I have had a lot of practice. I usually spend a good hour or two, relaxing in the Grand River before I dive to catch the salmon. But I do see that it is difficult for others. The reason I don’t tell anyone is precisely that
. I don’t want anyone to start trying. It is a difficult skill to perfect. And I appreciate your concern young one, but stop worrying. Just in the time since you came to be my apprentice, I have done this fifty-odd times.”

  There was no point arguing further. He had a point. He seemed to have done this multiple times before. His absolute mastery over swimming in the rapids was apparent, so was his skill in climbing up the hill.

  Olmot seemed to think so too. “I saw your skill at, well, what I can only describe as White Water Rapid fishing. After what I saw, I can’t really doubt your words. But I have to ask, and this is something the kid and I were discussing as well… How do you do it at your age?”

  Grim looked a bit nonplussed. “My age? Why were the two of you discussing my age?”

  Olmot started to reply, but I cut in. “Well, not your age exactly. Let me give you a bit of background. I was trying to understand the world outside a bit better, and during the discussion Olmot’s age just came up. He said he was sixty-five years old, which is younger than you. And I was confused as to why he looks a lot older than that. So when I checked with him, I realized that in the world outside, the average lifespan is about 70. Which is so different from the age people live till in Villasboro! And so we have been trying to figure out the reason for this difference.”

  Olmot continued. “My apologies for springing this question so suddenly. It’s just that this question has been eating away at me all day and after I saw someone older than me perform such a feat with ease, it just burst out of my chest.”

  Grim replied, looking noticeably calmer. “Now I understand. That is an interesting question to search an answer for. What thoughts have you guys had so far?”

  It seemed to me that Grim was not surprised by this revelation. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t. I mean only people almost twice his age looked like Olmot. Could he already know of this difference from the time he spent outside the village? I was sure no one in the village had recorded this knowledge anywhere. But then, this was Grim, the most unflappable man in Villasboro. Maybe nothing surprised him. If I sprouted long metallic claws from my fists at that moment, he would probably look at them and tell me calmly to use those claws to keep his house’s hedges in better shape.

  Olmot replied, “I don’t really have any theories yet and I have been thinking about it ever since I came to know of the difference. The young one has a theory about the type of food consumed here, which is different from the world outside. He says that the diet here being primarily vegetarian, includes a plethora of herbs, some of which could be rare and indigenous only to this area. It could be one or many of these herbs that hold the secret to longer lives. We looked at a few herbs while coming here. Seems that there are a few unique herbs here. So there might be something to what the kid says… What do you think?”

  Grim had a smile on his face. “Well, that is an interesting theory for sure. Who knows what the whole truth is. By the way, I hope you enjoyed the fish?”

  It was clear to me that Grim knew more than he let on. But he spoke in a tone that made it clear that he did not want to discuss the topic any more. I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to bring up this topic for some time to come. I knew the man well.

  Olmot and I both reiterated the fish was great. Olmot added. “It was one of the best meals I have had. Thank you. I hope to have many more such meals for the rest of my life in the village. I hope I am not being too forward in asking you for an invite to any future expedition for the Grand River salmon.”

  Grim replied in a monotone. “You are being forward. But it’s completely alright. I would love to have some company occasionally. Although most times I would still come alone.”

  Olmot nodded. “I completely understand. Please invite me only when you want some good, talkative company. I have many tales from the outside world I can entertain you with.”

  Grim laughed. “Hahaha! I am sure you’ll be great company.” He paused for some time. He then said

  “I am sorry, but I must have given the impression that I did not want to talk about this topic of age difference. That is not a completely incorrect impression. I did not want to talk about longer lifespans of people of Villasboro. It is not something that I want people to know, including the villagers. But as I see it, you two will continue to think about it, especially you Olmot, given the impact it might have on your life.”

  This was an interesting turn of events. The Grim I knew, would never open up like this. I didn’t know the man too well after all.

  Grimm continued. “And as you carry on thinking about it, you might involve others in your search for answers. And as I said, I would prefer others not knowing about this difference. The reason is simple. I don’t want people from outside Villasboro realizing there is something unique about this place and in their curiosity, do something that would destroy the place. So I’ll share what I know, if you both promise that you will not bring this up with any other villager.”

  We both nodded.

  “Well, I first realized the difference sometime back, when I met some travelers from outside. I started to research as to why there is a difference. With time I have come to realize the source of this age difference.

  The young one got it partly right. It is because of the food. More specifically, while many of the unique herbs are good for the body, one plant is specifically responsible for our longevity.”

  “Which is it?” Olmot asked eagerly.

  “That is something I am still not comfortable sharing with you. You are still an outsider who might take this secret outside the village boundaries.”

  Olmot was crestfallen. Seeing his reaction, Grim frowned. “But the sense I get from you is that you have quit the world and come here for good. So what I will do is suggest some potions that contain the herb. You’ll get its benefits without getting to know what it is. Sounds good?”

  Olmot was instantly in tears. “You are a stranger to me. I am a complete stranger to you—you don’t even know my real name. In all my years, no stranger has treated me with such kindness. I honestly do not need this potion. I am happy with my age, my body and the age that the almighty wants me to live till. So you don’t need to take any trouble. But I am indebted to you forever, Forresgrim, for this kindness. Let me know what I can do for you, and I will.”

  Grim grinned. “Happy to know your intentions with this knowledge were not selfish. I will not offer again, but feel free to ask.”

  I interrupted. “But Grim, you said it was part of the reason.”

  Grim sighed again. He got up and started to pace. “Good catch, kid. The second reason might be confusing for you, although it might not come as a shock to you Olmot. Villasboro… is sitting on a large ore of… the metal.”

  Olmot was silent.

  The metal? I was confused. “What metal? Iron? Or copper? Or something else?”

  Grim replied, “No, my young friend. Olmot, I would be surprised if you didn’t know as well.”

  Olmot said, “Of course I know of… the metal. But this is impossible. Morgenia has no known reserves!”

  “Of course not. There are no known reserves.”

  “Of what metal?!” I repeated, in a slightly exasperated tone.

  “There is only one in the world which is referred to as the metal. And that is Azmoq.”

  Little did I know then, that Azmoq was soon to change my life.

  “Azmoq is the most coveted metal in the world. Many wars have been fought and are being fought over it. If anyone realizes that there is such a large ore of Azmoq under the village, rest assured, the village would be annihilated to extract the metal.”

  Olmot said, “How are you sure that there is a large Azmoq ore available here? And that it helps increase the length of one’s life? Azmoqshthaal is known to have the largest Azmoq reserves and the people there don’t have a higher lifespan.”

  Grim said, “Well, the complete answer would need a lot of time to explain and I would need my notes, which I have written over man
y years. We can discuss the long version later. I have not seen the world a lot and would not want to venture a guess as to why some places do not feel this effect of Azmoq.

  “My understanding is that in Villasboro, due to the density of its availability, the metal is available even in the top soil, which we use to grow our vegetation. So the plants which grow there, inevitably get tiny amounts of the metal in it. And we end up eating these tiny quantities of Azmoq. This leads to the increased span of life, in conjunction with the herb I was talking about.”

  I was still confused about why this metal was so important. “Grim, what is so special about this metal?”

  Olmot stood up. “Well, let me explain. When you leave a piece of iron in the open sun, what happens?”

  “It heats up, of course.”

  “Yes, it absorbs energy and becomes hot. Now, irrespective of how large it is or what sort of impurities it has, it will always heat up. Correct?”

  “Correct. But if iron is really impure, then it’ll get hot more slowly.”

  “True, but it doesn’t get cold. Or start moving on its own. That is what Azmoq can do. The effect of transferring energy to Azmoq varies a lot, depending on what is done with it. It can be shaped, mixed with other metals to create many powerful, sometimes inexplicable effects. Some of its powers have reached mythical proportions. And while it is not known if those myths are true, but there definitely are a lot of demonstrable powers of Azmoq, which have been used by the Valantian military.

  Although the effects of the metal are not completely understood, one thing is clear. It is the most powerful element in the world. Anyone who controls it, controls the world. Every country in the world is trying to harness the power of this metal. If anyone realizes that there is an Azmoq reserve here, this whole area will become a war zone. I guarantee it. Hence, no one must ever come to know of it.”

  I was amazed. There existed some metal with unexplainable properties, and the world was fighting over it?