The Auburn Prince

by Adam Zmarzlinski

  The fox nodded and with one long stretch, he sprang up, ready to go. The journey ahead was less grueling than he expected. The steppe inched upwards at a steady pace and the stones, lacking the irregular and jagged contours found in most mountain ranges, became polished and smooth as if they were designed that way. “It’s odd to see organized and geometrically aligned crags like this,” he said and the others nodded.

  Soon the steppe was all but gone, replaced with tall polished peaks.

  Storm clouds caught up to them, bringing along a light drizzle. The climb seemed straightforward at first, but soon, when the fox slipped and nearly slid off the cliffside, the danger of the wet polished stone became evident. “Be careful,” Mika scolded the fox. “What if you fell? Do you know how far that is?” Clementine and Nir smiled.

  They eventually came to a fork in the road: four paths leading in four different directions.

  “What now?” the fox asked. Clementine examined each path but their route disappeared behind bends in the great slabs of stone.

  “I think we need to go that way,” Clementine pointed left.

  “Why?” the fox asked. “It looks just like all the others. Any ideas, Nir?”

  The gecko looked from path to path and said, “I’m as stumped as you are.” Mika sniffed the air coming off all the paths, returning to and stopping at the third one from the right.

  “I think this is the way,” she said.

  “Why?” the fox asked.

  “It smells different. It smells clean,” she said.

  Oblivious to Mika’s words, Clementine continued staring down the left path.

  “Follow us,” she heard a familiar whisper and an intense feeling of purpose overtook her. “Clementine,” she heard her father’s voice. “Come here.”

  “We need to go this way,” she said.

  “I think we should follow Mika’s nose,” the fox said.

  “Clementine,” Mika began. “All of those paths smell rotten and stale, like moldy bread. This one is different, it smells fresh—

  “I think we need to go this way,” Clementine said. “I know it.” She gazed down the path. Her eyes grew still and glazed over as if she saw something in the distance.

  “Are you sure, Clementine?” Nir asked. She remained silent. The fox and the beagle exchanged an anxious glance.

  “Follow us,” came a whisper and for a moment, Clementine thought that she saw her father disappearing behind the stone. Entranced, she ignored her friends and marched down the path.

  “I guess we’re going that way,” the fox said, stopping to let Nir climb down off the stone wall and onto his back.

  “I don’t think that’s right,” Mika said and quickly ran past the fox to walk along with Clementine. The path took a sharp turn so that it led along the mountainside leaving nothing to its left but open air and distant stones below.

  “Don’t run, Mika,” the fox said. “It’s slippery.”

  “Clementine,” the beagle said, running up beside her. “Clementine.” A horse neighed in the near distance. Clementine, focused on the turn in the road, hopeful at the prospect of seeing her father, ignored it.

  “Follow us,” she heard. “We are here, my Dear. Come!”

  “Mom,” Clementine said. “Dad.”

  “Clementine, this doesn’t feel right,” Mika said. As they turned the corner of the path, they saw a four-meter-tall büho, a black feathery thing with red owlish eyes, walking towards them.

  A horse neighed again. “Did you hear that?” Nir asked the fox.

  Clementine and Mika stopped. They looked up at the büho and it looked down at them.

  “Hear what?” the fox asked, who, had yet to turn the corner.

  From out of its blackness, the büho gave off a loud screech.

  “That I heard!” the fox exclaimed. He sprinted ahead and turned the corner to see the winged creature, with Clementine and Mika standing before it, tower over him. “Run!” the fox yelled.

  The büho swung its arm. Clementine stood frozen, lost, and Mika pulled her back. “Clementine!” the beagle yelled. “Snap out of it.” The büho swung again, this time Clementine dodged. She grabbed Mika under the arm and sidestepped another büho strike, keeping as close to the mountain wall as she could.

  After letting Nir off, the fox quickly sprang forward and bit into the creature’s shoulder. The beast gave off a great shriek cueing the fox to let go and strike elsewhere. Light shined out from its wounds. Swiftly, the fox bit into the büho in three different spots before the creature seized and threw him against the mountain wall, knocking him unconscious.

  The büho was about to finish the fox when Mika bit into its leg. The creature shrieked, flapped its wings and rose into the air. It hovered for a moment before kicking its leg and shaking Mika off. The beagle fell, struck the path, rolled sideways and slid down the side of the cliff’s steep edge. The verge seemed to beckon and welcome her. She attempted to run upwards but due to the slick stone, her paws held no grip, and she slid backwards. The edge of the mountain drew near and tears welled up in her eyes. Clementine swiftly stretched out her arm, grabbed Mika by the paw and yanked her up. Landing on solid ground, the hound gave off a painful yelp.

  Clementine stood up and for the first time, noticed the Seeing Man and his chestnut horse standing a yard away, its eyes watching them.

  “You,” Nir said.

  The büho shrieked and dove at the Seeing Man, who reared his horse. Its hooves struck the creature on the chest and sent him flying over the edge. The büho spiraled out of control before stabilizing and—knowing his better—flew off nursing its wounds.

  The Seeing Man did not waste any time. He rode up to Mika and bent down to grab her. “No!” Nir yelled, standing before the horse and the rider. The Seeing Man glanced back at the tiny gecko, its raven beak sliding out from the cluster of eyes.

  “You knew this was going to happen,” the Seeing Man said. “You knew I’d come for your memories, for her memories. You knew that the Raven King’s reach is infinite.” The beak retracted and Nir, the miniscule lizard, opened its mouth, and a boundless fire—like that of the greatest dragons of Orbheim—burst forth from within him. While his horse was engulfed and bore unimaginable pain, the Seeing Man was unfazed by the inferno. Nir’s fire changed colors from red to blue to purple and due to the suicidal madness of the pain of his horse, The Seeing Man went over the edge of the cliff and disappeared into the sweeping fog below.

  Colorless, Nir collapsed.

  Clementine lay on the ground, breathing heavily. Mika whimpered beside her.

  “Are you all right?” Clementine asked.

  “My paw,” said Mika. “It hurts.”

  “Nir?” Clementine said.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I just need to lay here for a moment longer.”

  Even after a few minutes, the horse’s screams still echoed off the mountain walls.

  Clementine sat up, looked over at Mika and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “How’s the fox?” the dog asked, looking over at the still orange heap of fur. Clementine walked up to him and gently patted his fur. “Mr. Fox,” she said. He shot up, bared his teeth, looked past Clementine at Mika and without another word, ran past the girl and up to the hound.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “My paw hurts,” she said.

  The fox looked back at Clementine, anger boiling in his eyes.

  “What were you thinking?” he yelled. “She said this wasn’t the way. She could have died and you would’ve been responsible! Why didn’t you listen, Clementine?”

  Its color returning, the gecko stood up but before he could voice his opinion the fox went on, “That was irresponsible and now Mika’s injured because of your stubbornness!”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Clementine said.

  “You need to listen. We are traveling together and not on your behalf,” the fox said.

  “It’s just that I heard my parents,”
Clementine said, tears flowing. Silently the fox stared at her. Nir and Mika observed the girl’s face as it fluctuated between different emotions, unable to settle on just one. The drizzle returned. The horse’s screams continued humming through the fog.

  “Why did they leave me?” Clementine began. “Why did they just go and not tell me where they were going? Why didn’t they give me a reason? Am I not important enough? Why did they just leave? Was it because of me? Am I some sort of creature they wanted nothing to do with? Tell me, how come one day someone loves you and the next day they don’t? How can they hold your hand in the park, kiss you on the forehead when you’re sad, how can they smile with you, laugh with you, joke with you, say this is fun, how can they lie like that to you, only to disappear, walk out on you?

  “I miss them every day. I miss the people they were, the emotions they made me feel. I miss the person I was when they were around. I miss the boring moments the most. I miss watching TV with them; I miss just lying there, falling asleep to the sound of the laugh track on the nightly shows. I miss their arms around me. I miss going grocery shopping, bickering over the cookies we should buy. I miss the walks around the block, through the park. I miss vacuuming and cleaning and washing up after myself with them there. I miss just sitting on the couch on rainy days feeling bored out of my mind. At least they were there to be bored with me.

  “I miss the way my mom got when she got on planes. She loved to travel but was afraid to fly. Her legs shook and she kept playing with her nails. My father would always hold her hand or pat her knee. To strangers it all looked weird and corny, like it didn’t help at all, but I knew it did. I miss knowing that it did. I miss the small things, Mr. Fox! The morning sleepies in their eyes, my dad’s cold feet, my mom’s warm hands. I miss the good mornings and good nights. I really miss them.

  “Why did they leave? Why couldn’t they stay? I loved them. I really did. I even told them and they still left. What’s the point of loving someone if they make you feel like trash? Trash, is that all I am?

  “Do you know how that feels Mr. Fox? To wake up every morning and wonder why someone you loved abandoned you? Do you know how it feels to know that the people you care about the most don’t care back? Do you know how much pain, agony and self-doubt that brings? Do you know how it feels to look at a picture in which all three of us are smiling? The knowledge that at one time everything was fine. Do you know what it means to wake up in the morning and know that you’re completely alone!

  “I may not have always listened, but I always meant well. Always. Why didn’t they stay? Why didn’t they give me a second chance? Why did they leave, Mr. Fox? It’s horrid. Loneliness. That’s the hardest part of it all. To know that I am not important enough…You know, I don’t ask for everyone to love me, to care for me, but two people, is that asking too much? Is wishing to be in somebody’s heart asking too much?

  “And that heavy weight around my neck. To know that they left. To know that I’m worthless. To know that I’ve brought no substance to someone’s life. To know that all I’ve ever done for them, all they’ve ever done for me, was for nothing. To love and not really be loved back, that is the most painful feeling in the world. To look in the eyes of those you love, to love them and have them walk out on you when you need them the most. That shatters a person. It took the feelings, the trust, the loyalty, the kindness and care that I once had and turned me cold and hard and mean.

  “I used to be a different person before they left. I used to dream and hope for the best, I used to be optimistic. I used to believe in goodness and kindness and always saw gentleness in people. Now, I don’t care about any of that. I wonder if I was just a part of their life that they just pretended to care about, out of guilt…Am I an animal? Why did they leave me? Why didn’t they tell me? Why am I in so much pain? Why am I crying all the time? Why do I still care?”

  “Because you love,” the fox explained calmly. “Because through all the pain, through all the anguish and heartache, you still believe that, no matter how cold you grow, those embers of love you have for them will never die out. You know deep down that that is all you have left, for now at least until you find more, not in others but in yourself.”

  Clementine gazed at each one of them. The silence between them hung for a long time. The horse stopped its horrible screaming. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Remember what Marcus Aurelius wrote in book two,” the fox began. “That no one loses any life other than the one he lives, and lives any life other than the one he lives. The present moment is equal for all, and what is passing is equal also, and no one can lose either the past or the future—how can anyone be deprived of that what he does not possess? You’ve been through a lot, Clementine. We all have. And because of it, we’ve all changed, all of us have grown. Grapes unripen, ripened, raisined: all change, not into non-existence but into not yet existence.”

  Clementine knelt beside him.

  “They didn’t leave you. They wouldn’t do that,” the fox said. “Family is our only homeland. It’s all that matters. I promise you that I will help you find out what happened, but you must listen when someone else is speaking. Listen first, react second. Through pain and good things, you are always you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Love and don’t let others tear you down, not even yourself. It is said that just as a punctured teakettle can’t hold water a shattered heart can’t hold love. I think that whoever said that wasn’t an imaginative, crafty sort; they lacked perseverance, courage and hope. I think a shattered pot can be mended, and the cracks left behind from the fall make it prettier still than before; a shattered heart can hold love, I know it because I’ve seen yours do it.”

  Clementine smiled and hugged the fox, and a hundred hyssops bloomed around them.

  “It is her,” the turquoise thing told itself, watching them from afar. “It is time.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bertrand Cosigneon and the Soundsmith

  With Mika comfortably slung over Clementine’s neck, the group ventured up the third path. The climb was arduous and the stones slippery. The footpath forked several more times and in each case, they followed the beagle’s nose. Upon reaching the end, they arrived at a flat plane, a stone pasture of a sorts, with an entrance into a valley nestled on the opposite side between the surrounding peaks. An intense downpour of gray rain suddenly arrived.

  “There,” the fox said and they sprinted for an area where the stone arched, creating an inlet shelter from the rain.

  “We’ll wait here,” Nir said. “No need to get wet and ill.”

  Clementine set Mika down and tended to her paw. “How does it feel?” she asked.

  “It still aches,” Mika said. “But the stabbing pain is gone.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Clementine began. “It’s my fault. If I wasn’t so stubborn—

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mika said. The fox walked up to them and glanced at her paw.

  “A good sleep will do you good,” he said. “We all should get some shut eye after that climb anyway.” A great cry, like that of a banshee, pierced the air.

  “I suggest one of us stays awake and keeps watch,” the gecko said. “I volunteer. Get some sleep, especially you, Clementine.”

  Clementine nodded and made herself comfortable beside Mika, where the fox lay as well, covering the beagle with his bushy tail.

  “Warm?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mika answered and the two of them smiled.

  “What is that?” Nir said pointing at the rain where a distant silhouette grew larger and larger. The fox sprang up and barred its teeth. Out of the rain and into the shelter walked in a large white striped turquoise creature with a tiger’s body, large eyes with star shaped pupils, a great dog’s snout with four nostrils, four tails and large candle flame ears.

  “There is no need for me to see your teeth, fox,” the creature said. “To be frank, I’d crush you with my paw and there is no need for that either.”

  “You’r
e from the maze,” Clementine said. “You saved me from that spider and you’ve been—

  “—following you ever since you entered Mundialis,” the creature concluded. “My name is Auden Bertrand Cosigneon, but you can call me Auden. I am the Custos Canis assigned to these cursed lands.”

  “A what?” the fox asked.

  “A Custos Canis is a holy guard dog,” Nir said. “The Great Creators, the Windcallers, assigned them to cursed places, such as Mundialis, until the dog fulfills its duty either by cleansing it himself or finding someone that can. Sometimes that takes hundreds, even thousands of years. They uphold truth, protect innocent travelers and overall, make sure that goodness is obeyed in the land. Their duty is aid. Isn’t that true?”

  “It is,” Auden said. “But it is also to keep outsiders, good or vile, from entering the land and cursing it further. And you, lizard, seem to have a very vile thing following you, so before I say anything else, explain to me what the Seeing Man, one of three of the Raven King’s blades, is doing here.”

  “That man,” Nir began. “The Raven King believes that my daughter and I hold memories that he deems important. I wish I could tell you more, but to be honest, I don’t remember more. Since my daughter and I’ve been cursed, we’re becoming more like animals with each passing day. We, all of us, journey to the Soundsmith so that he may free us from these beastly prisons.”

  “I believe you,” Auden said. “I can smell the scent of curse off you. And you, fox, what is your purpose here?”

  “He’s traveling with me,” Clementine said. “He’s my guide on a journey to see the Soundsmith and he doesn’t need to explain himself to anyone.”

  “Clementine Aurelius,” Auden said with a smile. “It is my pleasure to finally be able to meet you. Your parents, whom you’ve come to seek, I know very well. When the Other is in a good mood, I speak with them and you are often mentioned.”

  “You know my parents,” Clementine said. “You’ve seen, spoken to them. They live?”