by Jeff Wilson
“Not directly, no,” Uleth said, “but if you mean what happened in the battle’s aftermath, then yes. Of those who had fought with Beodred, and surrendered after his defeat, some several hundred were summarily deposited on our shores courtesy of the Ossian League. Added to that were the thousands of Rendish men and women who were later expelled from Nar Edor. The results were predictable.”
“What do you mean?” Edryd asked.
“What do you think happens when a settlement of less than four hundred suddenly expands to between three and four thousand in a matter of months? People began to starve, to kill each other, and to die from exposure.”
Edryd was subdued by shame in that moment, listening quietly to Uleth’s recounting of the events of the Concursion. Edryd’s own father had set every one of these events in motion. Aedan Elduryn had killed Beodred in combat, destroying the alliance of raiders who had attacked Nar Edor twenty years ago. In the years that followed, on the orders of his grandfather, Edryd’s father had also overseen the expulsion of Rendish foreigners, all of whom were forced from Nar Edor and transported here.
“The Ossians, they sent in aid, but by then things had already broken down,” Uleth continued. “Strongmen, remnants of Beodred’s forces mainly, took control of the food and provisions. They used it to empower themselves. By the time the Ossians understood the mistake they had made, the league did not have the will to commission a force capable of restoring order, so they stopped trying to help and walked away. The shame of Ossia, it has come to be called.”
“That is how the harbormasters took control An Innis,” Edryd said, beginning to understand the history of this place.
“Yes, but they were not calling themselves harbormasters, not back then. And there were about forty of them, not the four we have in power now.”
“I don’t think I would estimate that An Innis supports more than a thousand people now,” Edryd pointed out. “That would suggest that in twenty years your population has declined by something close to three thousand.”
“Some,” Uleth said, “those not entirely deprived of means, were able to leave by ships that could take them back to a homeland that would accept them.” Uleth paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts, recalling dark memories from the past. “The rest were stuck here, with too little food, inadequate shelter, and no means of escape. Plagues and diseases took the lives of hundreds of them.”
Fresh shame confronted Edryd. He had felt sorry for himself from the moment he had arrived in An Innis, but these few months of troubles were nothing in comparison to what others had been subjected to.
“I understand the reasons behind the fear of contagion now,” Edryd said, his voice solemn and tired.
“It wasn’t any one disease,” Uleth continued. “There were at least three or four different afflictions spreading through the settlement. I made it my work to save as many as I could. You could say I did what Irial does now, only most people have forgotten it.”
“Irial learned from you,” Edryd said, realizing it for the first time.
“She did,” Uleth confirmed. “I did what I could for the people, including her family, but Irial was the only one of the Rohvarin line who survived. In the end all I could do was to see that she was cared for after they were gone.”
“What about her sister?” Edryd asked.
“You mean Eithne?” Uleth asked. When Edryd nodded in confirmation, Uleth continued. “Eithne is not Irial’s sister. None of Irial’s family lived through the events of the Concursion. Irial had no surviving siblings.”
This had happened nearly twenty years ago, long before Eithne would have been born. That all seemed obvious enough now, Edryd just hadn’t connected the information together.
“She isn’t her mother either,” Edryd concluded, trying to determine how the two were related. Edryd understood now why the two sisters had such little familial resemblance.
“No, Eithne is an orphan,” Uleth replied. “Irial took care of her after Eithne’s mother died. By that time she was already on her own out there at the cottage.”
Edryd wondered who Eithne’s mother might have been, but realized Uleth might not know and decided it didn’t matter. Eithne probably didn’t know she was not Irial’s sister.
“So it’s you and Irial who keep the supernatural contagion at bay,” Edryd commented.
“There is no supernatural element to any of it,” Uleth declaimed, a little anger in his voice. “There was none of this Ash Men nonsense until Seoras returned.”
Edryd wanted to know more. How could he not? But Uleth was no longer so willing. He had become angry and reluctant to go on, and a moment later, Irial’s return ended Edryd’s chance to pry more information from him.
“Why are you both so quiet?” Irial asked, noticing the silence her appearance had seemingly prompted. Concerned that Uleth had been sharing embarrassing stories from her past, she sought to see if her fears were correct. “What did he say about me?” she asked.
“I didn’t know that Uleth was your childhood patron,” Edryd answered. That comment seemed to confirm for Irial that something had passed between the two of them, and she looked even more uncomfortable.
“It isn’t a secret,” Irial replied. “Why else do you think he trusts me with his books? He gives his pupil the run of the library.”
Irial produced one of the two books she had carried in, and held it up for inspection.
“On Matters of Interest Regarding the Ossian Oligarchs,” she said, reading the title aloud. “I picked that one out for you Edryd, if it’s all right with Uleth.” Uleth assured her with a simple smile that it was. Privately, Edryd thought that the title of the tome suggested a very heavy and labored accounting of dated political theories for which he had little use.
“And the other one?” Edryd asked, trying to get a look at the second book which was largely hidden behind the skirts of Irial’s dress. He could see only the corners on one end of the white cloth-covered boards that protected the bound pages.
“That one is for me,” she said, declining to give any description of the work she had selected for herself.
Irial grabbed the empty bread basket, and they both thanked Uleth for the books as they left. The sun was behind their backs and already beginning its slow sinking approach with the open sea as the two of them began the trip home.
The streets were active at this hour, but in the diminishing light fewer people recognized them. It made travelling on the streets more comfortable, if a little more crowded. Edryd watched Irial exhale in relief once they passed through the outer edges of the town. He had never heard her complain, but he knew An Innis was an unpleasant place for Irial.
As they travelled along the roadway, Irial glanced once or twice at the hillsides to the north.
“I wish there was more daylight left,” she said.
Edryd knew what she was thinking. As was her frequent habit on their way home, she wanted to harvest some useful part of a plant of one kind or another growing wild in the overgrowth that clung to the rising slopes.
“Wild blackberries are ready to be picked, and we have an empty basked to collect them in,” Irial lamented. “A shame it’s too late to pick them without risking our necks tripping on the undergrowth while trying to get at them in the dark.”
“It is a shame,” Edryd agreed.
“They will still be there tomorrow,” she sighed, “we will just need to make sure we get away early enough.”
There would have been time if not for the trip to see Uleth, Edryd thought to himself, but he didn’t regret that diversion. He was glad that the visit had been a revealing one. He had learned more about Irial’s past today than he had in all the rest of the time that he had known her, but he still knew very little.
“What was the book you borrowed for yourself?” he asked, hoping both to satisfy a nagging bit of curiosity, and to see if he could ease his way into the subject of her connection to Uleth.
“Just something with instructio
ns on food preparation,” Irial answered, as her face flushed with embarrassment. “It isn’t that I need it myself, but I want to show Eithne. She’s wrong when she complains that I don’t know how to cook.”
Edryd laughed without meaning to, causing Irial more embarrassment. “I wonder if there will be more dumplings tonight,” Edryd wondered aloud, trying to make it seem like he had been laughing at Eithne rather than Irial.
“Oh, I hope not,” Irial said, in complete sympathy with her protector’s own feelings on the subject. Edryd’s joke the day he first met Eithne had produced a long lasting consequence. Every alternate day, Eithne insisted on preparing one of two varieties of dumplings that she had learned to make. It wasn’t that they hadn’t been appetizing in the beginning, but both Edryd and Irial were beginning to give up hope that Eithne would ever lose her enthusiasm for making them.
“I’m sure the book will have something useful in it. Whatever you find, when you prepare it, I will be sure to give it some excessive praise. If we motivate Eithne to master something new, perhaps it will be dumplings only every third day. I might even begin to enjoy them again.”
Irial laughed. “That should work. She doesn’t like to be outdone.”
“You knew Uleth while you were growing up?” Edryd said, ungracefully steering the direction of the conversation. They were nearing the cottage and he wanted to learn what he could in the little time that remained.
“He did it, didn’t he? He told you about….”
“Told me about what?” Edryd asked when she stopped.
“This isn’t fair,” she complained, “I wish I knew someone who could tell me embarrassing stories about you when you were growing up.”
They were at that moment just a dozen yards away from the cottage and Edryd stopped dead in his tracks. Irial stopped as well. Beside the door on the large tree stump that served as a chopping block, sat a tall man in a grey coat. Not young, and not yet old, the man had a handsome face and light rust colored hair that seemed brightly burnished in the faint moonlight.
“Ruach!” Edryd exclaimed softly, at a loss for any other response. The man was a friend of more than fifteen years, appearing before them almost as if in response to the summons of Irial’s wish.
“Captain Aisen,” Ruach called out, with unsuppressed joy in his greeting.
The man stood and eagerly rushed to his captain, spontaneously wrapping him in a brief hug that was quickly retracted.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” Ruach said, grabbing Edryd’s shoulders as if to reassure himself that he really had found his friend. “You look different. You’re thinner, and I think more intimidating than what I remember.”
“What are you doing here?” Edryd demanded. It wasn’t that it did not feel good to see a trusted friend, but Edryd feared what Ruach’s arrival meant, and what it was he would ask. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised, Logaeir had told him about Oren and Ruach nearly a month ago, but it was still a shock to see him. Irial, he noticed, had only briefly reacted. She was now behaving as if this had all been expected.
“I would have come sooner, but no one would tell us where you were,” Ruach apologized. “Then, this morning, one of the men from Krin’s crew tells me you are at this safe house on the island, and he offers to smuggle me over.”
“I’m not going back to Nar Edor,” Edryd declared.
“Oren will be happy to hear that,” Ruach responded. “He has bought into Logaeir’s grand vision of things.”
Edryd was surprised. It was a strange thing to hear that his friends had been willingly cooperating with Logaeir, but it confused him even more to learn that they were not trying to immediately return him to Nar Edor to face off against the king’s armies.
“I’m not of the same mind myself of course,” Ruach clarified. “I want you to return. But it isn’t my place to give orders to a captain. I am here to receive your instructions. Tell me what you need us to do.”
Edryd was about to tell Ruach that he was not a captain in the Sigil Corps, not any longer, when someone else spoke up. “Can you tell Oren that his captain has instructed you both to stop providing aid to the Ascomanni?” Irial asked.
Both Edryd and Ruach turned to Irial in surprise. Realizing she had overstepped, Irial looked down at her feet instead of meeting their stares.
“If you are in agreement of course,” she clarified to Edryd.
“That will cause some problems I think,” cautioned Ruach.
“I think that is the whole point,” Edryd explained, beginning to understand a little of what Irial intended.
“Logaeir will know that I came here and met with you if I tell him that I am acting on your orders,” Ruach argued.
“You don’t need to tell him how you received the orders, only that they came from me and that you have been instructed to stop assisting the Ascomanni,” Edryd reasoned.
Ruach smiled. “This is going to give you some serious leverage,” he said, recognizing the strategy behind his orders, but not their ultimate purpose. Ruach didn’t know what Edryd’s plans were, but he didn’t need to. He was enthusiastic about doing anything that would aid his captain.
For that matter, Edryd had no idea what his plans were either, since he had none. Doubtless, Irial knew a few things, and possibly she had arranged this whole thing. At some point, he was going to need her to share with him what it was he was trying to do here, assuming she did have some plan.
“You had better get back before you are missed,” Edryd suggested. Ruach pointed out that his absence had almost certainly already been noted, but on the chance he could get back to the Ascomanni encampments on the mainland before morning, he agreed and reluctantly took his leave.
“We will meet again soon,” Edryd said, reassuring his officer as they parted. He didn’t know if that would be true, but he suspected it would be.
As Ruach’s long form faded into the darkness, Edryd turned to face Irial. “You sent for him,” he accused.
“You remember that there was something I needed you to do for me?” she reminded him.
“Time you told me what that was,” Edryd said. He was beginning to feel uneasy. She was broaching the subject so carefully.
“I need you to send a message to the Ossian First Fleet Navarch,” she explained. Seeing a blank stare from Edryd, she expanded her explanation. “His name is Aelsian. He pulled you off of that burning ship and helped you get here. He commands an entire fleet of ships, and as a friend of your father, he is the Steward of House Elduryn.”
These were more revelations than Edryd could properly absorb all at once. He had Aelsian’s image fixed in his mind. He could remember the noble man’s aging features, with hair graying around the edges. Edryd had not known the man well, had known nothing of Aelsian’s connection with Aedan Elduryn, and had not thought of him as anything more important than the captain of the Interdiction. Edryd was about to say that he had no way to send such a message when he made the connection. There was a reason why Logaeir had known who he was—someone had told him. Logaeir and Aelsian were allies. Edryd had no means to contact Aelsian, but Logaeir would.
“More than you may have realized, you have some powerful friends,” Irial said. Edryd was not sure he really agreed, but the way Irial said it, she made it seem like she had understated the obvious.
“What will be in this message?” Edryd asked.
“Just that you need to meet with him as soon as he can get here,” she said, getting right to the point but going no further.
“There is more to this,” Edryd said, urging her to elaborate on what it was she really wanted.
“Nothing I could safely entrust to a messenger and nothing that you need to know about just yet either,” she replied. The promise was there that he would learn soon enough, but that she had no intention of saying anything more right now.
He was deeply dissatisfied with the situation. He trusted Irial, and wanted to help her, but it was troubling to be used in this way while being kept
in the dark. He almost began to press for a more complete explanation, but he was afraid of what she would think of him if he did. Instead, Edryd contented himself with the knowledge that he would soon be getting a visit from Logaeir. From that man, he would happily demand all of the answers he wanted.
Chapter 12
Focus of the Dark
Eithne sat with her bare feet planted on the floor and her back against her door, barricading her room against anyone who might try to enter. It seemed like so much had suddenly changed. Why had they both kept something so important from her? Mostly, it hurt to know that neither of them saw her as old enough or strong enough to trust with their secrets.
Feeling the unfairness of the world, and her total lack of a prominent place in it, Eithne ignored Irial when she knocked on the door to ask whether she was alright. Later, Eithne similarly remained silent when Edryd tried to speak to her through the door. She didn’t know how to explain how she felt, and didn’t believe anyone would understand, and so she had decided that she wouldn’t try. They could go on keeping their secrets, she told herself bitterly.
Eventually, Irial’s patience with her sister’s behavior was exhausted, and she ordered Eithne to come out and eat. Eithne complied, but she made certain that they could both feel just how unhappy she was, even if she wasn’t about to tell anyone why.
In response to specifically directed questions, Irial compelled an occasional nod or grunt out of Eithne, but nothing more than that, and they all shared the evening under a miserable pallor. Eithne was so consumed with her own hurt feelings, that she barely noticed the unease between the two adults. Her sister’s conversations with Edryd had grown awkward.
In other circumstances, Edryd might have tried to gently tease Eithne, in an effort to liven the mood. Provoking her had a way of infusing careless fun into a moment like this one, but with Eithne pouting like she was doing now, working so hard to punish him for some offense he couldn’t quite divine, Edryd could do little more than sit and mull Irial’s refusal to share the plans in which she had involved him. Long before he was tired, Edryd went to his room feeling deeply discontented, unable to solve even the simplest of his more immediate problems.