An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  Kefier licked his lips. “So you've just been sitting here all this time, keeping this beast inside your body.”

  “I don’t know much but the agan, the ebb of life in me, was strong, and fought to keep it sealed. For all these years, I kept it from hurting anyone. The hope is that when I die, naturally, that part of the creature in me would die. I will know, soon.” He coughed and grinned again. “I have at least kept this knowledge from him.”

  “For Ab's sake,” Kefier grunted. “You're rambling again.”

  Faci gazed up at the sky. “It was—Jaeth's fault. He wrote to me. All those long years ago, telling me he wished to meet with me about what he’d done with his part. This was not my master's wish. We were not supposed to know what the others had done. But I met him and he told me. Jaeth was always so naive, and I—I was, too, for agreeing.

  “This man, this other man whose name I do not know, only that he is old, and a Kag rank with the agan—” He grimaced, his tongue testing his worn fangs. “He found a copy of the letter. I don't know how that came to be.

  “What I know is that he finds us here. Eleven, twelve years ago. He made me tell him. Ingyomanrr marrir arranti…he took Xyl. I could not help it. You know Xyl, don’t you? Blessed child. She is all I have, I am old, my only descendant left. He made me tell him where Jaeth kept his piece of Sarohkitram. He'd kept it inside a box, sealed in a temple on Sagun Isle, across the village of Agantuan where Jaeth was chief in his time. He didn't know I had one myself, or he would have made me tell him that too.

  “But what he did to me broke the seal. I hadn't known. Not until you came, and it saw you near the rune, and it reacted, for some reason.”

  He rambled on about something else, but Kefier had stopped listening by this point. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own heart pounding against his ears. Sagun Isle. Agantuan.

  Faci reached out, patted his hand. He looked like a dry leaf at the end of a branch. “All your fault, Jaeth,” he said, his eyes on Kefier. His eyelids drooped halfway and then he was gone.

  Some memories come at you like a wave. You're not quite sure when the swell starts, but you know before it hits how it all ends; that after the rise and fall you will still be engulfed by the sea.

  Kefier spent the night after Faci's death watching the kusyan girl Xyl prepare a marmot for cooking over a fire. She had ceased to talk to him since her grandfather's death. Kefier found the silence difficult to deal with, but he wasn't sure how to break it. That was another thing about a wave—that as soon as it does start, you are powerless. He lost track of the girl carefully peeling the hide and saw his brother skinning a mouse-deer carcass.

  “You've got to come home sometime, you know?” his brother said, his hands and his blade streaked with blood. “For Ab's sake, you're starting to stink.”

  “I think I take more baths than you do.”

  Enosh glanced up at him and grimaced. He was more handsome and could get away with certain expressions that would look grotesque on Kefier's plainer features. “I know you've got this whole war going on with the elders, but this just won't do. I won't have it said that my brother is a hermit. It's ridiculous.”

  “I don't know.” Kefier watched him hack off the lungs and throw it at the waiting dogs behind them. “It might give you a bit of an edge. The only chief in Gorent related to a hermit. That would get them talking.”

  “I'm serious, Kefier. My reputation—”

  “As your brother, I think you should kiss that goodbye.” Kefier threw his hands up in disgust. “Is that all you think about? All right. If you want me back so badly, tell them to give me my dog back.”

  “Hilkiah owns Wing, you know that.”

  “That piss-pot priest didn't even know he existed until last week!” He kicked a spray of dirt towards the dogs, who wilted into the distance. “I raised him since he was a pup. I taught him to track half as well as he does. Hilkiah's boy himself said he was useless until that hunt. And then suddenly he's their dog? Enosh, what kind of a bloody chief can't even tell his people to let his brother keep a stupid dog?”

  Enosh's face darkened. “The kind who is serious about his responsibilities,” he said. “What will it look like if I go around letting my brother get away with defying the laws? Do you know what that will do to my—”

  “Reputation, yes,” Kefier hissed. “It's amazing the number of new words you learn every day you're in that seat.”

  “You're angry. I understand that,” Enosh said calmly. “Don't lay it out on me. Come home, Kefier. We'll talk with them. Perhaps they'll do a trade.”

  “The dog is worthless to them.” Kefier glanced out to the sea. “They just want to make me miserable.”

  “You're impossible.” Enosh sighed and laid out the pieces of meat on the hide beside him. “I don't have time for this. Come home or don't come home. I don't care.”

  “You do that,” Kefier grunted, not looking at him. But he heard the footsteps fade behind him and felt that overwhelming sense of loneliness he had tried to contain for so long. He struggled with the desire to chase after Enosh and beg him to stay a little longer. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his knees and spent the remainder of that night thinking up ways to make Enosh's life more difficult. Emptying his ink pots, or hiding his good tunic so he’d have to meet with the other chiefs in frayed clothing. That sort of thing.

  His next visitor, the next morning, was more unexpected. Ailat, the weaver's daughter, had never been a close friend of his, and in all the other times he had left the village she had never shown the least sign of caring. So as soon as he saw her, having just come back from a swim, his eyes grew wide open.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling. She glanced at the shore. “The sun is nice today. Is the water warm?”

  “Not really.” He ran his hands over his face, squeezing water from his eyes. “Did you know I would be here?”

  She nodded. She placed a basket on top of a rock, smoothed her skirt, and sat down on the sand. “Is this where you always go when you disappear? The others were wondering.”

  “Please don't tell them,” he blurted out.

  She looked up at the terror on his face and laughed. “As if I would!” she exclaimed. “Did you think I would be so cruel?” She smiled and pointed at the basket. “I brought you some cakes. And bread. I figured after days of eating nothing but meat you'd like them. My mother baked a whole lot yesterday. You missed quite a feast, you know.”

  Kefier put his shirt back on and approached her warily. She continued chattering. “Mata Hilkiah gave this wonderful telling of the making of the moon. He did all the voices too. It was grand. And somebody from Fegu, who had spent a few years in Hafod, he sang a song. In Kagosh. I had no idea it was such a beautiful language.”

  “It's all right.” He took the basket from her and started digging through. The cakes were wrapped in oiled banana leaves. They were cold, but the scent made his mouth water before he could even unwrap them.

  “Enosh told me you both know how to speak in Kagosh,” she continued. “Your mother taught you?”

  He swallowed. “My father thought it would be important. They’ve got books, you know, in the library at Sen’senal.” He paused, cake still in his hand. “Maybe my mother taught Enosh. She never taught me. I was too young.”

  “Oh,” Ailat quickly said. “I didn't know. I guess when we moved here she was already dead.” She shrugged. “It's been so long. But anyway, let me hear some of that Kagosh you know.”

  “Really?” he asked. “Now?”

  “Of course now.”

  Kefier glanced at the cake and then back at her. “The cake is delicious,” he said, haltingly. The language grated his tongue; he had never been particularly good at it.

  “Oh,” Ailat murmured, eyes half closed. “How romantic.”

  “I only said—” he began.

  “Show me your cave,” she said, rising and grabbing his hand. “Enosh said you sometimes sleep in a cave. I can't believe I didn
't know this shore existed. Can you believe how beautiful it is? Don't we live in such a wonderful place, Ke-if?”

  “Did Enosh send you to bother me? I’ve had enough of this. I’m done bending over so he could look good. You tell him that. Tell him he’s an arrogant, self-centered son of a—tell him he’s an ass.”

  Her face darkened. “Maybe you should tell him yourself.” And then she huffed and left him on his own.

  “There,” Xyl said, standing on a rock at the edge of the mountain. Kefier glanced up from his thoughts and saw the silhouette in the distance. It looked like nothing more than dark lake framed by black trees at first glance. Peering closer, though, he saw ashes, rock and the remains of burnt buildings strewn across the desert sand. He could see nothing else for miles across the horizon.

  “What is it?” he asked, approaching her. “I thought you were just taking me to the nearest town.”

  She bit her lip. “This is. Nearest.” She glanced back down, her ears folded flat against her head. “Sadness. There is sadness there. Grandfather saw. Knew.”

  Kefier looked again and swallowed. It was off the side of the trail and no one was making him go.

  Tell him yourself, she'd said. He should've. He didn't know if that would have changed anything, made Enosh understand, perhaps, half the things he needed to say. Because it was too late to know now and for so many other reasons, he ventured towards that direction. Xyl followed him, her silence as heavy as his heart.

  Dust stirred behind him with every step.

  He remembered Jerisi's eyes when he told her his intentions. “Hilal?” she had exclaimed, recoiling from him. “Are you mad? Even were it true, it is an unholy place, a birthplace of demons!” She made several signs of Yohak in quick succession.

  “I don't want to go there, child,” he said, exasperated. “But your mistress said it stands right against the mountains that separate this land from Gaspar. Do you know what that means?”

  She goggled at him.

  He shook his head. “That means there's a way through these mountains.” He jabbed his finger at the map.

  “There's a way through these mountains,” she suggested, pointing at the range to the north. “A tunnel. A caravan route. If Gaspar is where you want to go...”

  “I don't want to go to Gaspar. I just need to get out of here.” Kefier sighed again, pulling the map closer to him. “Maybe I can make it to Aret-ni. Grab a ship. Maybe. But if I'm followed, it's easy enough to ambush me on the road.”

  “You're being followed?” she gasped. “By whom?”

  “Men who want to kill me.”

  She made that sign again. “Then call the guards. They'll deal with that easily enough. My mistress will help you.”

  He gave her a look. “I don't think they'll want to help me.”

  “Why not?”

  He'd killed a guard. An innocent man, coming back from listening to a singer he admired. He chose not to scare her with that knowledge and glanced back at the map. “Kago is off limits. They'll know me by sight.”

  “I told you. North. I heard there's cities here, and...” She pressed her lips into a knowing smile. “You can pass for Gasparian.”

  “Too bad I can't speak the language,” Kefier snorted. “Anyway, it's too far north and that's supposing I get on the road before they see me. But if that pass exists here, I just need to make my way to the mountains.”

  She glanced at where he had been pointing and made a face. “You keep wanting to head south-east,” she said. “Where do you really want to go?”

  “Jin-Sayeng.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why?” Kefier repeated. He looked at her. “Where else could I go?” When she didn't answer him, he smiled. “I know the language. I like the food. The people, they can be downright asses but...” He glanced down at the hefty purse and the letters. A trap, he thought, rolling his shoulders. Probably. A stupid one, though. Like trying to kill a prisoner by throwing the key in his eye.

  “My grandmother told me about Hilal,” Jerisi said. “It's where the witch came from. She went back there, you know. After she gifted the Kag with her demons. Went straight back there to murder everyone for her own blood-rituals. They said she used parts of the people she butchered to make more demons, but they took her with them.” She gave an involuntary shudder. “When the king's men came later, wondering what became of the village folk, all they saw were the streets running red with blood and ghosts. So many ghosts, wailing for their limbs.”

  Kefier struggled to contain his laughter. He glanced at the horrified girl. “I'm going to try going through these mountains,” he said. “I think I can do it. It'll be harder to follow me. They'd have to be mad. And no, I have no intention of going into that place, if that's what you're thinking.”

  “What about the demons?” Jerisi asked, wide-eyed.

  “It's off the Kag Forest,” Kefier said. He tried to smile away the memory of the man’s head flapping carelessly in the dark. “I'll take my chances. As long as I stay away from this Hilal...”

  Yet now he was here, walking with his hand on his sword and his eyes searching the streets for blood. There was no hint of red amongst the grey. It didn’t even look like much of a village anymore; just the barest scattering of rubble and decayed wood. Xyl crouched beside him, her fur standing on end.

  “This is it?” Kefier asked, his voice cracking the silence.

  “You feel nothing?” Xyl asked, shivering. “Look.”

  He turned to where she pointed. “I don't know,” he said, breathing deeply. The rubble reminded him of an abandoned settlement he'd seen with Oji once. The mines in the area had stopped yielding useable ore, so people upped and left. Nothing dramatic, at least on the surface; just empty houses and barns, quiet streets and a broken pot or two.

  He closed his eyes and heard Xyl's soft voice. “They standing there. One moment and then.” She glanced into one of the empty houses. What used to be a house. “A father. Two children sleep. Not his. His mate says they are but he knew. He took axe. Kill them before it took him.” She gave a small shudder. “Saved them, that way.”

  “Your grandfather told you this?”

  “Grandfather saw.” She looked at him. “Xyl feels. The soul remembers.”

  They were deeper into the village now. Kefier stopped in his tracks and here saw walls covered in a black substance that felt like soot. Parts of the street were cracked. The fissures were deep and circular, as if something heavy had stood there once.

  “Your grandfather said she made a thing,” he said, his mouth feeling dry all of a sudden. “The last thing she ever made.” The men, back in the forest in Cael, didn't even have time to scream. “But I killed it,” he continued, uncertainly. “I killed the one inside your grandfather and another in the Kag. So why didn't they?”

  Xyl looked at him curiously. “Kill?” she asked. “Grandfather dying.” She shook her head. “He kill it. Was trying to. So many years. You didn’t do anything. Couldn’t have.” And then she suddenly stopped, her eyes widening. Kefier glanced behind him in the same moment she scampered behind a house.

  A woman stood in the middle of street. She looked Jin, but that ended with her features. She wore an oversized blue tunic, with various ornaments and dull jewels strewn into the fabric, and had a strange blue hat on her head. She gestured and tested him with a guttural language. When he didn't respond, she hesitated and lifted her arms half-way.

  Xyl hissed from her hiding place. Kefier took one step back, his hand reaching for the sword. The woman saw the movement and smiled. “You're Jin, then?” she asked. He blinked, and she pointed at Oji's sword. “That.”

  “No,” he said. “You are?”

  “Here and there.” She gave a half-shrug. “Are you a bandit or a scavenger?”

  “I'm supposed to tell you if I am?”

  “That's the idea, yes.” She pushed her spectacles higher up her nose.

  “I'm a traveller,” he said. “Passing by.”

>   “Not wise to lie.” Her lips remained mirthless. “Only one reason you'd be here. I'd like to know what you did with her journals.”

  “What journals?”

  She drew closer to him. “Naijwa's journals. You've stolen them. Else why would you be here?”

  “I told you, I'm passing by. Me and my friend.”

  “The kusyan, yes. I saw. And I told you, it's not wise to lie.” She lifted her arms again, revealing a golden rope wound around her left elbow. Kefier opened his mouth and felt a pulse, followed by the sensation of being pelted over the head with a club. He fell flat on his back.

  The woman approached him slowly. “I won't ask again,” she said.

  “Sapphire!” a voice called out. A younger woman appeared behind the rubble. She was wearing similar clothes to the first, but in a lighter shade of blue. She glanced at Kefier uncertainly for a moment. “I found this,” she mumbled, holding up a silver chain with a pendant dangling on the end.

  A flush of added irritation crept along Sapphire's forehead. “Let me take a look at that, Moon,” she snapped. “A Yohak talisman? It can't be. That miserable maggot figured it out!” She started swearing in what sounded like at least three different languages.

  The woman she called Moon turned back to Kefier. “Who's this?” she asked.

  “Nobody,” Sapphire grumbled. “After Bannal said there was no way he could do it, here he is, with the audacity to throw this in our faces! How long has this been there, Moon? Did you scan the area?”