An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  “It was last handled years ago,” Moon said. “At least five, likely longer. Umm, Sapphire, if Bannal thought for certain he couldn't open it, why did he send us to fetch them?”

  They seemed to puzzle over this for a few moments. Kefier finally dared to place a hand on the ground to push himself up, and they turned to him like startled deer. “Of course,” Sapphire mumbled to herself. “Then you were probably telling the truth,” she told him, sounding like she wasn't too happy about it.

  “I told you,” Kefier replied. “I'm just a traveller. Xyl?” He glanced to his left and saw the kusyan staring at him wide-eyed. She approached when he gestured, casting a wary eye on the two women.

  “A kusyan!” Moon exclaimed, dropping into a half-crouch. “Oh! I've heard they occupy the mountains here but I didn't think I'd actually see one! Come here and be petted,” she crooned.

  “She's not an animal,” Kefier mumbled. He turned to Sapphire. “I can't help but overhear.”

  “Oh?” Sapphire sounded bored.

  “This one's grandfather just died. He mentioned a man, a Kag. I think a mage, like you.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you know who he is?”

  “We do,” Sapphire said. “But we're not likely about to tell you now, are we? Moon, get your things.”

  “Sapphie,” Moon began. “Wait a minute, won't you?” She pointed at the sword on Kefier's belt. “Do you know how to use that? Have you used it before?”

  “On varying occasions,” Kefier mumbled. “Why?”

  Moon cast a quick glance at Sapphire before she continued. “Our guide left us a few days ago, while we were staying in Kalthekar. There were rumours going on. Something about Barun being uneasy, starting to press their luck against the border. He was Jinsein and perhaps thought it meant war and was afraid for his family. Who knows? The Jinseins have always been afraid of the Gasparian warrior-mages, the mandraagars.”

  “Tell the man our whole life story, Moon, I think he has time,” Sapphire drawled.

  Moon gave her an uneasy smile. “He took our horses. We need to get home to Lake Enji to report this to our lord, but I doubt our chances to get very far on foot. If you could take the place of our last man, it would be great.”

  “You two look like you can handle yourselves,” Kefier observed.

  Moon giggled. “Oh, we can. If Sapphire caught our guide early on she'd have taken his head off. Wouldn’t you have, Sapphie, dear? But it would be nice to have someone used to traipsing about in the wilderness, get us food, deal with the locals. You look like the type. You'll do.” She placed a hand on Sapphire's shoulder. “My sister will pay handsomely if we get to Lake Enji in one piece.”

  “Lake Enji. That sounds like it's in Jin-Sayeng.”

  “It's on the border. Gaspar, Jin-Sayeng? Who knows. Lord Bannal owns the land and he’s not the sort that would let anyone make him bow his knee. It's been years since anyone's tried.” She gestured at the kusyan. “You don't have to decide right away. We've camped near that ridge, a little bit away from the village. Near that lone gum tree, you see? Join us for supper later if you want.” Sapphire pressed her lips, declining to add to the comment.

  Kefier looked at the direction she pointed at and could make out a tent and the remnants of a campfire. “Why so far away?” Kefier asked.

  Moon smirked, shadows dancing on her round face. “I wouldn't want to sleep beside the ghosts of Hilal. Do you?”

  Sapphire and Moon were sisters, raised under the tutelage of mages who lived on an island in Lake Enji. Kefier knew such places, where students of the skilled arts trained in seclusion to prevent the kind of disasters that make great storytelling down the road, existed in Dageis, but to hear of one so close to Jin-Sayeng came as a surprise to him. Even in the Kag, where so-called witches—if not socially acceptable—weren’t given to the temples or fed to the seas, a place that purposely invited magery was unheard of.

  Without even the slightest bit of urging, Moon prattled on as if he was a student himself, giving him an overview of the kind of arts they learned down in Enji. It all had to do with the manipulation of natural forces: wind, water, earth, or fire. The methods were Dageian in nature, but they had adapted it to respond to their surroundings. Farmers from both kingdoms frequently hired their mages for predictions on the weather, which was honest enough income, if a little droll.

  “So what are you doing here?” he asked, gazing across at them over a fire. Moon gave Sapphire a glance before shrugging.

  “Umm, well, we were just trying to supplement our studies.”

  But her distracting talk was wearing his patience thin. He turned to the darkness, towards the direction of the village. “I didn't know Hilal was a popular place for a stroll,” he said dryly. At the sound of the name, Xyl shivered. The nearness still affected her, but she had refused to leave his side, despite his urging.

  Sapphire gave Moon a sharp glance. “You see?” she asked. “Less chatter from you and perhaps he would've left it alone.” Moon turned red and looked down.

  “It wasn't fooling anyone,” Kefier said kindly. He turned to Sapphire. “So tell me.”

  “There is nothing to tell. We are students of our craft, as she said. Naijwa, for you must know Naijwa, else you would not be here, had many skills worth studying. She had left journals here, journals that were sealed under a powerful spell. Even the most skilled mages I know would have had a difficult time breaking the seal. But they are gone. So now this whole trip, which we had prepared many months for, is wasted.” She pressed her lips together. “Now it is your turn to tell us why you are here.”

  “So now you care?” Kefier patted Xyl's arm. “I told you. This one's grandfather passed on. Before he died, he mentioned a man who had forced some information out of him. A Kag with great power in the skilled arts.” He noted the expression on Sapphire's face and his smile faded. “Is this the same man you think stole those journals?”

  “Why do you care?” Sapphire asked, watching his face carefully.

  He swallowed. Sagun Isle. Agantuan. “This…Kag,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “He has a Baidhan accent, doesn’t he?”

  Sapphire pursed her lips. “This man struck a rivalry with our master many years ago. They were racing to recover Naijwa's journals and other memoirs surrounding her work. Yes,” she said, sighing. “He does have the Baidh accent.”

  “White hair. Heavy brows.” Kefier closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recall. “A distinct walk. Like a man who used to be very strong but now can't face the idea that he is getting old. Big frame. Expensive-looking clothes.”

  Sapphire's face remained expressionless. “Perhaps it fits the description of our man. Perhaps not. Continue your story.”

  “I was born in Agantuan village,” he said, looking into the fire. “In Gorent.”

  “All the way to the north,” Moon breathed, not quite believing it.

  He smiled. “Yes. It was the year my half-brother became chief after my father's death. The Kag came. Kags, you understand, don't come to our islands very often. The last one was my mother—who was Gorent in blood, although she was raised in Baidh years and years ago.

  “The Kag came. I never learned his name. Didn't care. Enosh made friends with him, though, wanting to better speak the language. The man entertained him. Found him amusing, I guess. It seemed like he had money, and it was surprising to our villagers when he started asking for Enosh's guidance, if he wanted to take a boat to the other islands to speak with the other chiefs, and so on. For the weeks he was there they were inseparable.

  “I was suspicious, so I followed them one day, after they started making preparations for a hunting trip. They took a boat to the island across ours. Sagun Isle. Nobody lives there. All we have is an old temple to Ab, which our forefathers had closed.” He stopped. Sapphire and Moon bent closer, waiting to hear what he had to say, but he had run out of words.

  How do you tell a story you had denied yourself so many years?

  He faltered. H
e was a coward at heart, exactly the kind Oji wouldn't believe he was. “He used my brother to steal something,” he said. “An artefact of some sort.” He turned back to Xyl, took a deep breath. “Xyl's grandfather told me that a man called Jaeth had hidden something there. I didn't quite understand that part of his story. Maybe you both do.”

  “Maybe,” Sapphire agreed. “Maybe you will take us to Enji first, before I entrust you with your answers. If it is true that you have met this man, Lord Bannal will want to speak with you.”

  Kefier nodded. It was enough that she didn't ask. He gestured towards the village. “Are there really ghosts there?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

  It was Moon who answered. “You know that Naijwa's creatures take in souls?”

  “So the Kags say.”

  “When that creature is opened up, maybe killed, the souls are thrown back into this plane. Some pass over, going wherever it is that souls go. Others linger in their sorrow. I have never seen them. But I've heard enough stories and I have no desire to find out.”

  He tried to think about that. “They are free, then?”

  “Strange choice of words, that,” she said. “Maybe you should go up there and ask them. If your life is taken forever by such things—ended, then and there, for reasons beyond your understanding—are you ever truly free?”

  Interlude

  His mother would be upset. No, more than that—Dai has seen her upset before, and he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that if she catches up to him now she would not know what to do with him. Strike him, maybe. Hang him upside down from the rafters. And of course, it goes without saying that she would never, ever forgive him.

  So he tries not to think about her. But it is hard, because he is surrounded by the sound of other small voices, all clamouring for their own mothers. These ones, as far as he knows, have done nothing wrong. They were simply where they were expected to be before they were taken, snatched away from the comfort of their lives to Sakku knows where. They have a reason to cry.

  Him? “Ah, Dai, Dai,” his grandfather used to say, outcasts the both of them. “You will be your mother’s death someday.” And so it is better, he thinks, that she does not know. That she cannot see where his follies have led him. Never mind that they had already taken his aunt from them—Sister Sume, whom he loved with all his heart. She is gone and it is all his fault. So he deserves whatever waits for him. He deserves it, and his mother will never know and she doesn’t have to know because—

  The wagon grinds to a halt. Hands reach under the tarp and begin dragging the children out, one by one. Some scream; they are beaten by the ends of daggers and swords. Dai clambers out willingly.

  They are at the edge of wilderness he does not recognize. He has lost count of the weeks in transit, and so even the tall, black mountains and granite cliffs seem a welcome relief to the shadows and the stench of human waste. “Where are we?” he asks one of the men, a half-Jin.

  “Never you mind,” the man says. He does not seem as cruel now as he was in the days past. He orders them to march in a line and makes them follow him along the sandy ground. Dai looks up, his forehead drenched with sweat, to the sound of an eagle in the distance.

  They walk; some of the children fall, and the men set on them, beating them until they get up. One doesn’t. Dai watches as they cut him loose and kick the body to the side of the road. “What a waste,” he overhears one of the men snort. “Can’t we still use him? Won’t it touch carrion?”

  “No carrion. Has to be alive.” The man notices Dai’s attention and he frowns. “Yohak forgive us.”

  “May all the gods forgive us,” the other man agrees. “But my own would starve to death if I back out now.”

  They bark at them to keep moving. Dai tries, but his feet become leaden as they draw closer to the cliffs. Soon they are traversing a narrow path. The smell of death is stronger, now, and Dai begins to hear things. He thinks, at some point, that the child beside him is whispering in a heavy voice, and that behind them there is the scratching sound of something sharpening its claws on rock.

  He stops. The other children do not. One does a curious roll where he stands, so that he faces them for an instant. His eyes have gone to the back of his head and his face is blue. He utters something—a name, maybe—and throws himself down the ledge at the end of the path. Another follows. In the distance, there is a deep, slurping sound, and Dai sees an enormous eye rising from the shadows in the chasm.

  Dai screams. Clearly, this is not something he should have been able to do, because the men turn to him in surprise. A child tumbles next to him and he avoids the falling body and begins to run. One of the men reaches out for him, but his movement is too slow. Unfettered, Dai dashes under him and sprints for the light.

  They yell. “Get him!” some are crying; others are saying, “Leave him be! We don’t know—” But those are all behind him now. All he can see is the clear sunlight beyond the tears in his eyes.

  He runs until he can run no more. The men do not chase after him. By the time he realizes this, it is too late—he has exhausted himself too much, and he falls to the ground. As he slips into unconsciousness, he dreams of the father he has never seen, and cries out for him in the dark.

  “Halt!” The voice of the border guard is strained beyond the storm. “The gates are closed. You need to come back in the morning.”

  “I need to get through now,” Ing Vahn says. His sedge hat isn’t doing much to keep the rain off him; he is soaked through. His horses, a chestnut and a dapple grey, look just as uncomfortable.

  “What's that?” the guard calls.

  “I said I need to get through. Now.” He gestures at the gate. “Open them.”

  The two guards on the tower look at each other. One gesticulates and the other swears. “Don't you have any place to stay for the night?” one of them finally asks, swinging down the ladder. He is a good head taller than the young man and glowers at him. “I told you, the gates are closed. Come back in the morning with your papers. Are you in a rush?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” the young man says, hardly intimidated. He is on horseback, anyway, and can see past the guard's helmet. “I need to get to Shirrokaru as soon as I can. Official business. Now if you would be so kind as to step aside.”

  “What official business? From the Dragonthrone?” the guard at the top of the tower calls out. “Ask him if he has a permit.”

  “You've got a permit?” the guard next to him demands. “We'll let you through if you have anything official-looking. A letter, piece of paper, a carving with the regent's face on it.”

  “I don't need a permit,” the young man says patiently. “This is urgent. You're Jinsein, aren't you? Then this concerns you. They're going to be attacking us soon.”

  “Who?”

  “Barun.”

  “The Gasparians?” the guard asks. “Are you barking mad? Nothing like that has happened for a long time. Did you wake up from a bad dream or something?”

  “I'm telling you, I need to bring this news to the palace. The regent needs to know.”

  “Regent needs his beauty sleep,” the guard sneers. “What did Lord Ryabei ever care about gossip? Barun won't be attacking us, boy. Nobody told us anything and they usually tell us first. Didn't you know the Gasparians are afraid of Jin-Sayeng? Of our dragons?”

  The young man's breath is white on his lips. “Dragons,” he says calmly. And then he gives a smile, the rain streaming past his cheeks. “We have no dragons in Jin-Sayeng. Everyone knows that. No dragons, no organized army, no king. We've been on the verge of getting trampled by anyone who would dare for a very long time now, and Barun is taking the initiative. If you value your family and your homeland, you will let me through.”

  The guard at the tower hears everything and laughs. The other guard lifts his torch close to his face, to take a closer look at him. He sees, for the first time perhaps, that he is very young, not even old enough to have proper hair on his lip, and t
hat his eyes are very frightened.

  “Go home, son,” the guard says gently. “You had a bad dream. You...”

  The arrow takes him through the eye before he can finish speaking.

  There is an anguished scream from the tower, followed by a horn blaring in the distance. “Open the gates!” the young man screams, his horses panicking. The one with the pack tears the reins loose from his grasp and thunders back down the road. “Barun is attacking us! Open your bloody gates!”

  He doesn’t realize it then, but he was beginning to expect to die with the guard, his brains smashed by a Gasparian war hammer against the heavy wooden gates while still on his horse. But somebody in their panic must have listened to him, because the gates swing inward, just before a volley of arrows is set loose in the distance. He coaxes his horse into the crack and hears the arrows sinking into the gate as it closes once more behind him.

  “We don't have enough men for this!” a guard tells him, grabbing his horse. “What are we to do?”

  He looks into the man's horrified eyes. “Did you not join the army to serve your land and your king?”

  The man closes his mouth, rain plastering his black hair against his forehead.

  “Loose your own arrows. They might not charge until there is enough daylight to see. Wake all your men. I will send word from the nearest encampment to get help. Pray to all the deities and gods that my horse does not fall before I get there.”

  “And then?” The man has never seen war in his life. He is not much older than him.

  The young man places his hand on the other's shoulder. “You draw your sword and defend this border to your death.” He jerks at the reins, sinks his boots into his horse, and tears down the road. Amidst that freezing rain and the sound of hooves striking the ground, a distant memory flares.

  One king to another, Enosh. How do you give your whole life knowing they will never know what you've done for them?

  Chapter Six