Neripha - Part 1

by Olivia Ratcliff

  If the suggestion was signed by more than a half of the Half Council, then it had to be presented at the regular Council regardless of Culbert’s opinion. Such a case was seldom and this one as well didn’t come close to getting the approval rate. However, Culbert had been receiving this proposal for quite a while. He didn’t give it much consideration at first because the number of proposals was small but it had grown ever since. If he was against the proposed matter, he could reject it every time he received the proposal until it earned more than a half of the votes, if it ever did. The Sages considered it as a dishonor to be overridden by nobles that way and they tried not to let it go that far.

  Culbert read all of the reports for the day and wrote all the responses to be sent out via Cory except for the Osa’s induction to the Council.

  “Don’t send them out until I tell you to do so,” Culbert said to Cory as he walked out of his study.

  “Yes, Master,” Cory replied.

  He walked down the aisle whose one side was open to the courtyard in his house.

  The Sarumese dedicated a great portion of their land to gardens and the Culbert property also boasted a beautiful garden. His house had been built around a Blue Maroa found in the Sarumese archipelago in its eastern sea. The Blue Maroas had blue leaves with white rims which made them look very exotic. They grew denser with a lot more twigs and also weren’t as tall as the other Maroas. This house had been designed by his grandfather, Nathaniel, when he had become a Sage. He had added some uncommon elements to his property, to which Dean Culbert was headed now.

  On one side of the wall surrounding the courtyard, a water cave stood like a large recessed fountain. The water was flowing away from the courtyard, into the pitch black pit of the cave. Culbert took off his nightgown without any hesitation and dipped in the water. The temperature was comfortable even for a body that woke up not too long ago. Cory waited by the cave, and watched Culbert get carried away by the current.

  This was the irrigation system for the Culbert property’s garden. The irrigation pipes went around the Culbert property like a spider web, which spanned a massive piece of land. Nathaniel Culbert had liked to collect trees as a hobby and as a result, the Culbert property was filled with unique trees, most of which required climate control. Trees outside were those that could grow in the climate of Central City, the capital of Sarum and home to the Culbert property, and those that came from different climates grew in his conservatory. The trees’ water supply was from the irrigation pipes, which provided a continuous source of water. Being the creative mind he was, Nathaniel Culbert decided to make the main pipe accessible from the courtyard, expanding the main pipe to fit people. He also made some exits throughout the main pipe but only Dean knew their locations, as no one other than the head of the family was allowed to use the main pipe.

  Dean Culbert loved the way the water felt on his skin. The water cave started from the house but soon it went underneath the ground. At the very beginning there was no light. It was black everywhere and opening eyes didn’t make any difference to his perception of the surroundings, which naturally drew his instinctive fear. However, that was the reason that it was Culbert’s favorite part of the whole route. Not seeing seemed to amplify his other senses; the sounds of sloshing water, the currents tickling his submerged skin, and the damp smell of water all made him keen and sharp. It somehow cleared his mind.

  Soon, something soft brushed against Culbert’s floating hand. Then another one of the same kind started caressing his feet. Culbert opened his eyes and gently patted the water creatures that came to see him. These large fish, much bigger than Culbert, were a couple of Minons that lived at the bottom of a river where light hardly reached. These gentle herbivores lived in the Kshandyan waters down south. Their high intelligence and curiosity made them good friends of humans. Bringing them from Kshandya, a tribal nation of jungle must have been no easy work, because the Kshandyans would not have any foreign relation with Sarum or other countries whatsoever. Culbert didn’t know how his family had managed to get them. As long as Culbert could remember, the Minons were always there to greet him in this waterway.

  Minons’ tail fins fanned out gracefully and their dorsal fins stood up vertically, waving as part of the water all in their suppleness. The female Minon was silver with reflective dots on her sides and the male Minon was bright coral with much larger fins that had translucent stripes. Males were known to produce light from their bodies but Culbert had noticed that the male Minon got dimmer over days. They were mere fish but they were always together in the water tracks. Whenever Culbert came down for his daily meditation, they would visit him, sometimes begging to play. They were encircling him, occasionally touching him with their fins. Culbert reached out and ran his palms over their bodies.

  Up ahead, a cluster of tiny lights loomed. Culbert turned over on his back and looked up to the ceiling; photocalyx of different sizes, colors, and intensity of light studded the top half of the water track, looking like the night sky. Minons now swam to the bottom of the water track, knowing Culbert wasn’t going to pay attention to them once he began floating on his back. The ombre green planet, the blue star, the golden moon and the moon of the eye were all depicted with different colors of photocalyx. Gazing at them, Culbert’s mind started to wander. The request to promote Osa as a member of the Council bothered him.

  Terry Osa had been born in Rogath, Sarum’s long-time foe. Osa’s mother had been in political exile from Rogath and had found her refuge in Sarum, so Osa had spent most of his time that he could remember in Sarum, as a Sarumese citizen, but Culbert felt that Rogath always lingered in Osa. That’s something Culbert couldn’t understand about him. If it was true that his relatives were slaughtered in the aftermath of failed coup d’état, and that the rest of his family just barely escaped the unforgiving blade of death in the nick of time, why would he still retain Rogath in himself? Osa undoubtedly was a clever man. Osa revamped the Moongrave district to an unprecedented level. He strengthened the district’s security level, promoted education by building schools, created many jobs, and undertook a grand project of making roads that connected Moongrave City to many other cities, which reenergized the market, bringing huge profits to the district, just to name a few. He seemed well-loved by his citizens.

  ‘Why would a smart man like him display his heritage that could be used against him? Why would he retain Rogath that killed his family and drove him out? Why would he have a house that uses Rogathian architecture as he should know it’s such a symbolic sign of who he is?…. If he wanted to climb to the top of Sarum, he should know his Rogathian heritage is going to be in his way,’ Culbert pondered as he floated along the current.

  Culbert saw a desperate need to reform; Sarum needed to get rid of the old ideas that prevented it from stepping forward to a leading power. Sarum had been stalling at one place while all the other nations had moved forward. However, accepting a foreign-born noble to the Council was not part of his reformation. ‘With that tattooed neck, how could one see him as a Sarumese?’ Culbert thought. To him, everything about Osa was too contrived, out of place.

  Osa was remotely related to a Rogathian noble of high status, perhaps at the same level of the Council here in Sarum. His family had been involved with the revolutionary forces against the Rogathian king and after the horrible failure of the coup d’état, all those involved in it got executed. Osa’s father was killed but he and his mother escaped and sought refuge in Sarum.

  There was a strange custom of tattooing the faces of recognizable officials in Rogath, and the Osas weren’t an exception. The tattooing ceremony took place when the noble babies turned one year old. The tattoos were very abstract, but their tattooing technique was outstanding, which made the tattoos appear natural and seamless. Luckily, Osa only received the first phase of the tattooing ceremony, for the tattooing had various phases depending on one’s rank. It started from the neck. Then as the noble baby grew to become a higher ranking official, another pa
ttern of tattoo would be given to his cheeks, then his nose bridge, and then his eyes, making a seamless transition from his neck to his eyes as if wearing a mask. The patterns differed for each rank, and the only one with the forehead tattoos was the empress.

  Culbert scorned this strange custom of Rogath. There were plenty other ways to manifest one’s rank without resorting to a permanent mark on one’s face. Osa had those strips of tattoos under his ears on his neck and Culbert couldn’t bear to look at him.

  Culbert tried to be objective. There had been several attempts from Rogath to assassinate Osa and his family and that alone should tell Culbert that Osa no longer belonged to Rogath; but the Rogathian king who had wiped out the revolutionary forces was in the end overthrown by Agrippa, the current Rogathian empress. In a way, Osa and Agrippa were both against the same foe, the only difference being that Osa’s family failed and Agrippa succeeded. There was no reason for Osa and Agrippa to be enemies; that alone was too dangerous.

  On the other hand, Osa now had a lot to lose if he betrayed Sarum. His Moongrave district was flourishing and Osa wouldn’t risk losing it… unless he had a more lucrative prize in Rogath for betraying Sarum.

  While Culbert was pondering, the water had taken him throughout the loop. Now all the photocalyx on the ceiling disappeared and darkness came again. The current was getting a lot faster and stronger. Culbert held his breath. The water dragged him in a ferocious eddy and pushed him up, out to the water cave in his courtyard. Culbert got up, with his bare front facing the courtyard out into the open. Having been waiting there all along, Cory handed plush towels to Culbert. Right then and there, Culbert dried his naked body with the towels and put on his garments.

  He went straight back to his study and took out the proposal that suggested Osa’s promotion. Declined, Culbert signed and gave it with all the rest to Cory.

  “You can send them now.”

  “Yes, Master,” Cory complied and left to give them to the mail deliverer of the house.

  Culbert leaned back in his seat. His wet gray hair was dripping water on his shoulders but he didn’t even notice. He was too engrossed in his trail of thoughts.

  When Sarum and Rogath were founded, Rogath was a small nation consisting of unruly, wild tribes of the north. Sarum was then located along the coast and was more thin and vertical in its shape. It was also much larger than Rogath. At the time, the three nations to the west of Sarum –Decarta, Gatimore and Vandice— had been one nation under Decarta before Gatimore and Vandice proclaimed themselves as independent nations. It used to be a race among Sarum, Rogath and Decarta, although Rogath was too small and weak, Sarum wasn’t really interested in conquests, and Decarta had constant internal disintegration in its government.

  Compared to Decarta and Sarum, Rogath had no culture or history to talk about. Decarta, being the oldest of the three, had a long history and Sarum valued beauty and legacy. Rogath didn’t even bother to create its own language. Rogath took Sarumese language and tweaked it to differ and called it Rogathian. Unlike Decarta and Sarum, Rogath was void of all things that enriched their culture, or so it seemed to the Sarumese.

  However, Rogath had one goal and it never failed to run toward its goal: to conquer. Its laser focus stimulated the growth of war science and after many years it became Rogathian culture itself. Rogath accepted and embraced all the good things they saw in whom they had conquered. Whether it was food, people, weapons, or art, Rogath absorbed it all. The Sarumese said it was crude and barbaric that the Rogathians didn’t know how to make their own and knew only to take others, as originality was one of the praised values of Sarum.

  Nevertheless, what won was clearly Rogath’s indiscriminant desire for power. This made Culbert bitter. As a member of the historical family that served the Sarumese kingdom for generations, Culbert was proud of Sarum’s rich culture in which people valued originality and hard work. The Rogathian attitude to replace the old as fast as possible and get everything new and better appeared only as a quick fall to demise.

  ‘But it wins. It produces greater outcome. It conquers. The new conquers the old….’ Culbert thought to himself. ‘Why did I decline promoting Osa then? He’s done an excellent job. The only thing that bothers me about him is his origin, which doesn’t affect his performance as a councilman…’ He inhaled and exhaled deeply. Sometimes, there were things that lay between his yes and no, black and white. Whenever tested with this gray zone, he would spend hours and hours, trying to weigh which was better, which one pointed to his ideals.

  Culbert shook his head and got up from the seat. “Cory,” he called out. “We’re going to the palace. Get ready.” Perhaps his king could talk some ideas with him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Everyone rushes to the bunker.’ Ash’s saying echoed in Chase’s ears. ‘If I can’t find you, I will make you come to me,’ Chase thought. Swimming across the moat and climbing the walls of the Osa house wasn’t much of a task to Chase. He had dealt with many cases in which he had to climb mountains, hold his breath in the water for a painfully long time, and lie motionlessly for hours even when he had a cramp in his legs and a bee sting on his nose. Avoiding the guards would be just like ambushing his target. The core principle of hiding his presence was the same. The moat wasn’t nearly as bad as some other waters he’d been in before. At least it didn’t have a whirlpool or man-eating fish. The problem was, however, the consequence of hoaxing a fake alarm.

  For him to ring the bells, he would have to cross the Osa property without permission, and faking the alarm was another crime. The combination of the two could have his hands severed, if he got caught. The thought scared him a little. He couldn’t imagine losing his hands in such a humiliating manner. He had only one solution: not to get caught.

  “Let’s go,” Chase muttered as he hid behind the shadow of the winery. He opened his bag of gears. He brought two climbing gears, a set of hooks that wrapped around his knuckles and spikes on his feet, and a pulley rope that could pull him up at a slow speed. The former was the fast gear normally used for a relatively soft surface and the latter was more suitable for a hard surface that could provide a secure grip for the rope. The brick walls would be hard for the hooks and spikes to penetrate but it would be faster for him, while the pulley rope would be relatively easy but would expose him in action a bit longer. He grabbed the hooks and put them on his hands. He decided time was the most important factor; he wanted to get over the wall as fast as he could.

  Chase put the triangular spikes on his shoes. He couldn’t walk normally with the gears on, so he had to walk flat-footedly. Chase carefully tightened his backpack around his shoulders and waist, and snuck in behind the building closest to the Osa house. The main entrance connected to the ground over the moat had several guards keeping careful watch on the area.

  Chase watched the surroundings for a little bit to find the perfect moment. The area lost its crowd now and there was hardly anyone to be seen. It was dark enough.

  ‘Now,’ Chase spoke inwardly as he flat-footedly darted toward the moat. The backpack and his climbing gears were tightened to his body so nothing made any noise to give out his location. He got on his stomach on the ground immediately when he came to the water. At this point, no one was going to spot him.

  ‘Calm down.’ Chase tried not to get excited. The water was thick with slimy algae but Chase didn’t mind. He’d done much worse. He didn’t feel the need to stay underwater. He minimized his motion and took his time to cross the moat. The more excited he got, the slower he needed to move because that was often when he made blunders. All of a sudden, ringing the bells seemed like a mission of its own. Finding the pickpocket and getting his belongings back didn’t occupy any part of his brain now. All he could think about was how to get to the bells without getting noticed.

  ‘Here we go.’ Chase began climbing. Each strike he made with his hooks and spikes was noisy. Normally, a wall like this wouldn’t have posed any difficulty for him but he had to be a
little more careful to find the right place to latch on and keep quiet and swift at the same time.

  “Do you hear that?” One of the guards at the entrance asked another.

  “What, that clinking sound?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Eh, it’s probably nothing,” Another guard said without much interest.

  “Well, if you heard it too then we need to check it out. Call two more guards up front so we can leave.”

  “Okay, but I bet ya it’s nothing.”

  When Chase was three quarters of his way up the wall, he could hear some movement on the other side of the Osa property. He stopped moving and listened on.

  “I’ve gotta take a piss.”

  “Don’t do it here. If the lord found out, he’d have your head.” The two guards were carelessly having their conversation.

  From their voices, Chase could roughly measure their distance away from spotting him. They weren’t very far. They could turn around the corner at any second. He looked down at the ground. He wouldn’t have enough time to dive in the moat and hide without making ripples. Chase pulled out one of his spikes and pushed it up deep inside the mortar. He let go of the rest of his limbs and then stepped on just that one spike with all of his weight on it. It was a risky move. He then reached as high as he could with his hook and kicked himself up. With such momentum, he pivoted around the top of the wall and swung over it, landing on the other side of the wall. It was done immaculately, though a thump was inevitable. Chase froze in action after the landing and listened.