The Forging of Dawn

by Jacob Peppers

  And then he was gone, walking down the path and into the darkness. Torrik wanted to call to him, to ask him what he’d meant about Alesh, to stop him, to tell him to stay. For he had not liked the look—desperate and resigned—he’d seen on his old friend’s face. But the words would not come, lay sleeping but restless in his throat, and so he only watched the priest travel into the night until the only part of him to be seen was the light he carried. Then, even that was gone and there was nothing. Nothing save the darkness itself. A darkness to match the one growing in his heart as he turned away from his old friend and back to the door. It had seemed so firm at first, a door built to protect, but it did not seem so now. Now, it felt a flimsy, weak shield against the darkness and what hid within it, as did the lights scattered about the yard.

  3

  In the early morning, the streets of Entin came alive. Men and women bustled about their daily tasks, and most of those Torrik passed were smiling and laughing. And if that laughter seemed a bit forced, well, the sun had risen only an hour ago, and though its light had scattered the darkness, it was not so effective at banishing the memory of it. Still, perhaps their laughter, their smiles, were genuine. After all, in the daylight, a man or a woman could almost believe everything was normal, and sooner or later, they would forget—never completely, but enough—the cold terror of the night before.

  Torrik himself had gotten little sleep. He and his wife had stayed up late into the night discussing the priest’s words, turning them over again and again, as if the truth might be found beneath them on one of the turnings like a coin hidden under the mattress or in the back of a drawer. In the end, they had settled not on the truth they sought, but on the one they had always known. What mattered most, now, was Alesh. They could not become the people they had once been, not any more. Even were they capable of it—Torrik himself was unsure, for his mind, once sharp and ready to reveal that which the shadows hid, had now become one of numbers, of goods bought and goods sold—there was their son to think of, to worry over.

  Thinking of Alesh brought back a memory of the way the priest had spoken, before he left, and Torrik promised himself he would ask the man what he’d meant once they’d finished discussing his proposal. A proposal which, in the end, Torrik would refuse. For his son, he would refuse his old friend, and he struggled within himself to make it feel like anything but betrayal as he remembered the grief and pain—and more than a little fear—he’d seen on the priest’s face in his unguarded moments.

  He had asked himself, once he and Elayna had settled on their course, if he was using Alesh as an excuse, for there was no denying that he did not miss the life he had once led, did not miss its inherent uncertainties, its attendant pains. In the end, he had decided it didn’t matter—Alesh was their son, and he must be protected, no matter what else came. Had not even Ulem told him to do just that? And if doing so meant abandoning an old friend…well, perhaps it was not an easy choice, but the choices the world offered rarely were.

  He’d roused earlier than he intended, his sleep troubled and restless, wanting, almost needing to be doing something. So he had dressed and left his house to wander the streets of the small town, passing the time until he was able to meet with Ulem. He made his way past those few merchants who had set up early, selling meat pies and sweets in the town square. His merchant’s mind examined the square, calculating without conscious effort the best spot for his own stall, gauging the amount of foot traffic and how much profit he might make.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he had stopped at a candlemaker’s stall, studying the wicks on the offered products. The stall owner, a thin, sallow-faced man, hurried over, eager to make a sale. “Hello, stranger,” the man said, “what can I do for you? A light to keep by the bed, perhaps? Or one for a child’s room, to burn during the night, ensuring their safety? My candles are safe enough that you could walk abroad at night without fear.”

  Torrik frowned, glancing over the man’s offered wares. “Why are the candles so many different colors?”

  The merchant smiled, clearly pleased. “Ah, yes, they are beautiful, are they not? I myself make them, and I use pigmented dyes—I won’t bore you with the details—to give them these fine, colorful shades.”

  Torrik nodded thoughtfully. “And have you done so? Have you used one of your own candles to walk in the darkness?”

  The man laughed, but it did not touch his eyes, and a small crack appeared in the mask of obsequious servitude he wore. “Well, sir, although I certainly could, I myself prefer to remain safely indoors when the night comes.”

  “Just as well you do,” Torrik answered, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The dyes you use might be pretty enough, but they will also clog the wick, putting the flame out unexpectedly. As for the wicks themselves…they are too short or too long. A too short wick will be buried in wax and put out, a too thick one—such as this here—” he said, motioning to one of the candles, “will burn too hot.”

  The shop owner glanced around the square, making sure there were no other potential customers nearby, then leaned forward, all traces of his smile gone. “Think you know something of candle-making, is that it?”

  Torrik shrugged. “I know something of light, merchant, and these you offer are of poor quality. A man must already fear the dark—he should not have to mistrust the light as well.”

  The man sneered. “Are you buying? If not, then why don’t you move on?”

  Before he did, Torrik asked the man where he could find the church. The merchant was gruff and rude, but clearly eager to be rid of this bothersome customer, and soon Torrik was on his way. He wasn’t sure why he’d asked, or what he’d thought to see, but the question had been out of his mouth before he realized it, and Torrik had learned long ago to trust his instincts. So he followed the route the merchant had described and soon made it to the church.

  There were several smaller places of worship within the town, these dedicated to the minor gods, sons and daughters of Amedan, the God of Fire and Light, and his wife, Shira, the Goddess of the Wilds. But those Torrik passed were little more than homes in which those of particular professions worshipped. The only evidence they were anything except places of residence was found in the brands carved on the doors, ones Torrik had seen on hundreds of other doors, in hundreds of other towns. Scholars marked their churches, dedicating them to Pembrose, the God of Knowledge and Learning; brothels were inscribed with the mark of Seralina, the Goddess of Temptation and Lust; other buildings for Javen, the God of Chance, and Deitra, the Goddess of Art and Music. Dozens of different gods, each with their own sect of followers, but each subservient to Amedan, the Bringer of the Flame.

  The Father God’s church was a massive building, almost ludicrously so when compared to the shops and homes on either side of it. Torrik studied it, and despite his own worries about no longer being the man he’d once been, his senses, trained over years where missing something could mean his death, noted several oddities. First, there was no steady flow of parishioners into the church, as he would have expected early in the morning with the memory of the night past so fresh in people’s minds. The grounds before the church had been landscaped into a garden that must have been beautiful once, but weeds sprouted up among the flowers, and the bushes were overgrown—not terribly so, but enough to show no one had seen to their care for a few weeks or more.

  Yet these things were only small, obvious oddities, ones his mind picked up on in his first cursory glance of the grounds. What he found stranger as he stood in the street, his back propped up against the wall of a tavern not yet opened for business, was the lack of activity. Often, the priests of Amedan would hold their services in the morning light, blessing the God of Fire even as they basked in the sun’s warmth, but there were no such priests present, not now.

  Those few robed figures he witnessed going into the church walked with purposeful, almost grim steps, disappearing inside before the door shut behind them.

  And th
at was a strange thing, for normally a church’s doors remained open in the daylight, a simple testament that all were welcome to the Light, to the protection the god offered. Ulem, it seemed, had been right—the church and its priests were acting strangely.

  It doesn’t matter, Torrik told himself, you know that. Even if Ulem is right, you cannot help him. Not this time. There are others who can, others he might reach out to.

  All true, and Torrik had plenty of reasons not to get involved, to leave the matter to those who still worked for the church. Reasons such as his wife and son, reasons such as the life he wanted them to have, the one he wanted to give them. So it was with some surprise that he found himself walking across the street toward the large gates of the church. These, at least, were open, and Torrik stepped onto the cobblestone path, making his way to the doors of the church, noting the cracks in several of the stones and the twigs—more signs of disrepair and inattention—scattered in his path.

  As he drew closer to the church, a feeling of being unwelcome, of being an intruder, came over him, growing with each step he took. He wanted to tell himself that the feeling was no more than a reflection of his own worry at the priest’s words, but Torrik had stayed alive while so many of his counterparts died because he made it a point never to lie to himself, and so he did not now. He did feel unwelcome, there was no denying it. It was as if some malevolent, invisible entity sneered at his passage, growing angrier and angrier the further he dared enter into the church’s grounds. And there was the feeling—irrational, perhaps, but undeniable—of being watched, that someone or something was marking his progress.

  He had been gifted—or cursed—with such feelings (premonitions, the priest who had recruited him had called them) before, in his younger years. It was, after all, why he had been chosen to be an agent of the Light. But since he had left his old life behind, becoming a merchant in truth, the feelings had left him, and the gift—if gift it had been, for despite the priest’s assurances, he had never been convinced of that—had seemed to vanish. That it chose to come back now gave him little comfort.

  By the time he reached the tall, oak doors of the church, the oppressive feeling had grown greater still, and he had begun to sweat despite the coolness of the morning air. Years ago, Torrik’s counterparts, as well as his various handlers, had joked that he was magic in some way, able to feel the wrongness of something, to know, without knowing how he knew, when a man was lying or telling the truth, to see a pit gaping before him in the darkness when no light illuminated it. Torrik had laughed along at such jokes, knowing, as their tellers did, they were not just jokes—not really—that the men who said them believed them, at least in part. Torrik did not believe he was some diviner of the future, some man gifted with insight others did not share, but he had learned to trust his feelings just the same.

  Feelings that, just now, were telling him to run away, to flee this place, this building which was meant to be a temple to the God of Fire and Light, yet felt somehow desecrated, somehow profane. But he would refuse Ulem when they spoke, and this, at least, he could do for the man, could lend whatever weight his words carried to the priest’s own thoughts and, in that way, perhaps banish some of his own guilt.

  So instead of leaving, he raised his hand and knocked. The door swung open with such speed that the man who opened it must have already been standing in front of it. A troubling thought, for the door was solid oak and had no windows through which the man might have seen him approach. Yet Torrik could not imagine what would have brought the man to stand before it, save for Torrik himself.

  The man’s face was largely hidden by the hood he wore, and Torrik could see little of his features, shadowed as they were by the cowl, but what he could see did not seem friendly. “Good evening,” the robed man said, bowing his head in a greeting that never touched his dark eyes. “How can I help you?”

  Torrik had once been a man capable of donning a thousand different personas, depending on the need, but he had not done so in years, and he was surprised by how natural it felt. “Hello,” he said, smiling affably as if there was nothing untoward about the man’s being there so suddenly, or his flat eyes that sparkled like dark gems in the hood of his robe, betraying no surprise that the man had said “evening” despite the fact that the sun had risen at least two hours ago now. “I wish you a good morning, Priest. I have only just arrived in town—I am a traveling merchant considering moving to Entin—and thought that I might make the proper offerings to Amedan, might pray to see if he will guide me to the wisest course.”

  “I see,” the robed man said, and then there was only silence.

  Torrik smiled, looking around. “It is a lovely town you have here, and a lovely church. I myself am a lightmaker—serving the Bringer of the Flame in my small way. Nothing, of course, so incredible as your own service.”

  “Well,” the man said, “you are…right. It is a nice place, Entin. A nice…town.” The words were spoken strangely, haltingly, as if the man were carefully examining everything he said.

  Torrik nodded, his unsuspicious smile still in place. “Then might I come in, Priest? I would very much like to take my prayer here, at this fine church.”

  The man considered then shook his head slowly. “Unfortunately, the church is under repairs just now—some of the ceiling has broken through in the recent storms, and there is stone dust everywhere. You would, doubtless, be unable even to draw enough breath to say your prayers.”

  Torrik put on his best disappointed expression, adding in a bit of stupidity because, as far as he could tell, a man would have to be a complete idiot to believe the man’s story. “Aw, but that’s too bad. Gosh, but I’d really like to do it here, if I could, but I understand. My wife tells me I’ve the world’s worst constitution anyway, so it probably wouldn’t be wise to be inhaling a bunch of dust.” He nodded. “Very well. Thank you, sir. May the Fire keep you warm and the Light safe.”

  He waited, expectantly, for the man’s reply, but the priest only stared at him for a moment, bowing his head again before shutting the door in his face. Torrik frowned inwardly, making sure not to let any of his thoughts touch his expression. He was not a priest, but he had spent many years around them, had spent many late nights and early mornings speaking with Ulem and others about the priesthood, listening to their talks. And one of the things that had stuck with him was how much the priests had to remember—not just the history of Amedan himself and his wife and children, but also of holy rites, in what order to perform this action or that. And, among those things of which the priests had spoken—complained might have been closer to the truth—were the many phrases and answers to those phrases which they were forced to memorize. Among them—among one of the earliest taught to the priests, at least as Torrik understood it—was the one he had uttered, may the Fire keep you warm and the Light safe.

  The answer, if he recalled correctly, was something along the lines of Light gives life and Fire protects it. Not word for word, perhaps, for it had been many years since he’d heard it, but he knew without a doubt that the proper answer was not a door slamming shut. He turned and started back down the path, schooling his walk so it communicated who he wanted to be—a man who was disappointed, but determined, a merchant of middling wealth who spent his days making lights and worshipping Amedan. A man, in fact, not so unlike himself, but one who did not share Torrik’s dark, sordid past.

  It’s nothing, he told himself, as he ambled into the street. The man was probably just a new acolyte, that’s all, one who has yet to reach the point in his education where he knows the words. Feasible, if unlikely. But rationalizations could not explain away the fact that he had just been denied entry into the church—a thing in itself unheard of. Nor could they justify the state of the church grounds, or the feeling—still there, but fading along with the distance he put between him and the church—of malevolence which had seemed to surround him in a thick, suffocating cloud.

  You will tell Ulem what you saw, what you felt,
and that will be the end of your part in it, he promised himself. Whatever was going on in the church—he realized, even as he thought of it, that in his mind the question was no longer if but what—there were others who could deal with it, others who hadn’t spent the better part of a decade being a merchant who sometimes carried messages. Others without wives and sons to pay for their mistakes.

  He walked through the streets at a steady pace, refusing the sudden urge to break into a run—the guilty ran, everyone knew that—but it was some time before the feeling of being watched, of being measured, left him. He considered going back to his home and telling Elayna what he’d seen but eventually dismissed the idea. He would tell Ulem, and then it would be over for them, at least. He glanced at the sun in the sky, decided enough time had passed, and started toward the priest’s home. Slowly, unhurried, just an average, moderately successful merchant, pausing from time to time to gaze, interested, at the trinkets and wares on sale.

  In truth, he used those stops to check behind him in case the feeling of being followed was more than just his own building dread. But there was nothing. No one. Though whether that was because they weren’t there, or because his senses, once trained to miss nothing, had grown weaker than he realized during his time as a merchant—you’re still a merchant damnit. A merchant still—he could not have said for sure.

  But he took his time doing the right things—the smart things—the way he had been taught so long ago by his own master and was surprised by how easily the knowledge and the mindset returned. He stopped at the stall of a merchant peddling pottery in various shapes and sizes, to marvel at the craftsmanship of a particularly fine vase, one polished so brightly he could see his reflection in it. Gazing into it, making appreciative sounds, he used the reflection to confirm that no one in the crowd watched him with undue attention. Fumbling a bit of cotton at another stall, apologizing profusely to the owner, retrieving it from the ground, eyeing the crowd as he did so and still finding nothing.