An Elegy of Heroes

by K. S. Villoso

  He didn’t really know how to answer that. They had reached one of the side buildings behind the keep and his mind leapt elsewhere when he noticed that the door was open. Bannal looked up from the armchair in a corner, his lips turning upwards in the semblance of a smile.

  Kefier frowned in response. “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting, as you are.” Bannal glanced at where Xyl sat on one of the cushions. “She had been telling me about her grandfather. Stories that won’t interest you, I imagine.”

  “The hell it won’t. Haven’t you pestered her enough about this? She doesn’t belong here, Bannal.” His voice rose, and he felt Moon’s arms on his.

  “Kefier, don’t,” she whispered.

  Bannal looked bored. “We’ve gone through this before. Do you know how illusive these creatures are? Unless you’re willing to accompany me back to where you found her—”

  “Which I already told you I won’t.”

  “Then we have nothing to talk about.” He got up and brushed his robes. “You may proceed with your visit, if you wish. I am done here for now.”

  Kefier didn’t step away from the door. “She doesn’t belong here, Bannal, and neither do I.”

  “You’ve been welcome to leave since the moment you got here.”

  “Not without Xyl. And not without telling me who Yn Garr really is. You know more than you let on, Bannal. The man got my brother killed.”

  “I really don’t care about what happened to your brother. You’ve given me fragments of information, nothing more. Perhaps if you had remembered more of what Yn Garr came to your village for, I’d have more answers for you. As it is, I believe we’re at a stalemate.”

  He swallowed. Bannal glanced at him and that faint smile of his grew wider. “Maybe it’s you who knows more than you let on, hmm?”

  He flushed and stepped aside. “Get out of here.”

  Bannal drew his robes around him and left. “You shouldn’t push him like that,” Moon murmured.

  “He reminds me of Yn Garr,” Kefier said, snorting. “Presumptuous. Arrogant. Only cares if he thinks he’s getting something out of you. I hate men like that.” He sat next to Xyl and offered her the statue. She gingerly plucked it from his fingers. “The old man wasn’t bothering you too much, was he?”

  “He was all right,” Dai answered for her, appearing from the curtained-off area that served as a kitchen of sorts. “Didn’t press much like he used to. I told him she gets upset. He was asking about the rituals her grandfather used to do.” He pressed his lips and paused for a second. “He said we could go, any time.”

  “Not without Xyl. I’m not leaving her here.”

  Dai glanced at her. “They treat her right.”

  Kefier took a deep breath. “I took her grandfather’s life, but she never left me. I would have never gotten out of those mountains alive if she hadn’t come with me. I’d have starved to death, or wandered into some animal’s lair.”

  “Maybe you’ll change your mind when you hear what you want about this Yn Garr character.” Dai hesitated, looking like he had more to say, but he was interrupted by screams from across the yard. Kefier shut the door behind him and strode out of the apartment. A mage hurried past, muttering about an attack. As soon as he said it, an explosion shattered in the distance and thick, black smoke began to billow across the sky.

  Kefier returned to the apartment. “Gather your things,” he told Dai as calmly as he could. “We may have to get out of here early after all.”

  Moon stirred from her seat. “You’re not thinking of trying to escape, are you?”

  He turned to her. “Are you going to stop me?”

  “Kefier, the wards out there will tear you apart! Whatever that is outside, the spells will take care of it. I’m sure—” Before she had the chance to finish her sentence, the door flew open. Kefier saw Sapphire standing there, staff in hand. Her face was deathly still.

  “You don’t look like you came for a friendly visit,” Kefier said.

  “No,” she replied. “Lord Bannal requires your presence in the main tower.”

  “And if I don’t want to go?”

  Her eyes flickered towards Moon. Moon bit her lip and shook her head. “No,” she mouthed, sitting down.

  “Then you both will leave me no choice. I’ll have to drag you up there myself.” She started to lift her staff.

  Kefier knew it was no place for a fight—not with Dai and Xyl standing close by. He wasn’t even sure if he could count on Moon to stay out of it, let alone provide barriers for the others. He lifted his hands, showing they were empty. “I’ll come,” he said. “Bannal better explain himself this time around.”

  “I’m sure he will,” she said flatly. She led him outside. Overhead, the sky was turning a deep red.

  A large mirror adorned the far side of Bannal’s office. Kefier noted the unnatural shimmer of his reflection as Sapphire pulled a seat out for him. When he refused to take it, she pushed against his shoulders until he complied. “Now your sword,” she said.

  He looked up at her. “You took it when I first came in. You haven’t given it back since.”

  “You’re hiding one inside your shirt.”

  Kefier hesitated. Eventually, he pulled it out from the sheath under his arm and muttered, “It’s a dagger.”

  “And one Teamu should have never sold you if he knew any better.”

  “Knew any better. Why, because I’m a criminal of sorts?” He started laughing and gazed down the hall at Bannal, who had been silent by the mirror the whole time. “Come on, Bannal. Get on with it. I’ve got nothing to do with whatever’s happening out there, but if it’ll please your majesty, you may get into my head, now.”

  “I’ve got no such plans,” Bannal replied. His lips were a thin line. He gestured at a pile of books on his desk. “You wanted to know more about Yn Garr. These—and others on the shelves—are various memoirs on the undoing of the efforts of Naijwa the Fair. What survived of them after all these long years.”

  It took him a moment to process that. “You’re telling me this now.” He swallowed. “Sapphire mentioned the reason they were in Hilal was to extract Naijwa’s journals.”

  “A thing we did not know existed until recently, for she had put strong wards to protect the knowledge and we had missed it in all our years of searching the area. Somehow, Yn Garr managed to beat us to it. Possession of this knowledge makes him a very dangerous man—even more than before.” Bannal shrugged and picked up one of the books. Leather-bound, it was very thin and looked like it had been retrieved from the ashes of a fire. “He’s after these, now.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “These memoirs. He has several, himself, else he would have never found your kusyan’s grandfather. I don’t know what he learned from the kusyani, but from Xyl’s stories I can say with confidence that he went to Gorent after. Immediately after. He commissioned a boat, which was wrecked, as your memory showed correctly. It didn’t matter. He got to his destination.”

  “What did he come out there for?”

  Bannal smiled and sat down. “I think you know.”

  He leaned forward. “Listen, if you think you got me up here just to play games with me—”

  “No, no, boy, you’re too hasty. Control that temper before it consumes you. You know—you just don’t know exactly what it is you’ve seen. I’ll supply the pieces of the puzzle if you can tell me what happened the last time you saw this man.”

  Kefier wiped his lips. A moment later, Bannal pulled his chair closer. He lifted one hand. “If you can’t explain, allow me to see.” There was another moment of silence. Bannal smiled. “You know you want to tell me. You’ve been dying to tell someone for years.”

  He finally gave in. He closed his eyes and felt the sting of salt-breeze on his lips.

  They were standing on top of a broad, sandstone rock overlooking the ocean. The dense forest loomed behind them in the distance. Kefier sat down, allowing his legs to dangle acro
ss the rock. “If I fall here,” he asked. “Would I die?”

  “You might,” Bannal said grimly. He glanced at the mountaintops across the horizon. “Where are we?”

  “Sagun Island. That’s Agantuan, right there. Nobody lives here now. In the old days, they said, there was a village, but the spirits wouldn’t allow it to stay. After that they came here to worship, but we never did that in our lifetime, nor our grandfathers in theirs.” Kefier took a deep breath and forced himself to glance behind him. The forest was empty, but he could feel the hairs on the back of his arms rise.

  Bannal gave a quick snort. “I don’t know why we’re here. We don’t have a lot of time, boy—of what importance is this memory?”

  “And you call me impatient. I hid out here when I was a kid—when I needed to avoid the elders, or I just tired of being the good-for-nothing younger brother.”

  “I feel for you,” Bannal said, in a voice that said he was anything but sympathetic. “Now can we just get on with this?”

  “There was a girl,” he continued.

  “There always is.”

  “You were young once, weren’t you, Bannal? Hard as it might be to believe now.” He gave a short bark of laughter. “We married. I was only a boy, but in Gorent, you were allowed to, and I was lonely, and she wanted—I don’t know what she wanted. But one evening I saw my brother talking to her, saw her place her hand on his. I was angry, wanted to confront him. I knew he’d gone out here with that man to hunt—even though he wasn’t allowed to—so I followed him.” He got up and dropped down the rock, hitting the beach with his bare feet. “Follow me.”

  They walked the length of the shore, clambering over rocks where they could. Everything seemed exactly where he remembered it, or maybe he just thought that because he was there. But he knew where to place his feet and hands, even told Bannal where to find the places where the rocks jutted just so, or a tree branch sat conveniently in the way. Eventually, there was a break in the landscape and Bannal gave a quick gasp at the sight of the crumbling temple at the edge of the cliff.

  “Our ancestors had a glorious history,” Kefier explained on the way. “But then you could say that for so many places before the Dageians came. In our time, we worship under the sun now, for we’ve come to learn—so the elders say—that glorious things attract attention. We were not allowed to set foot here, let alone on the island.” He stopped talking when they reached the edge of the precipice. Here, the climb was slower, and Bannal, despite himself, was beginning to pant with exertion.

  Eventually, they reached flatter ground. Bannal glanced at the setting sun, his face streaked with sweat. “I see Yn Garr,” he said after a moment, his teeth grinding at the name.

  The man was walking out of the temple, blood streaked across his forehead. He glanced at the distance for a moment and then disappeared down a path to the left. Bannal moved to follow, but he stopped when he saw the boy Enosh struggle to open the door. He was carrying a container of some sort—a box made of cast iron with carvings along the front. It was small, but he seemed to be having difficulty carrying it.

  The boy Ke-if appeared from where he had been hiding among the rocks. Kefier sat down and looked away, but that didn’t stop the memory from unfolding. “You’re not allowed to be here,” he heard the boy call out, the uncertainty thick in his voice. That wasn’t really what he wanted to say. The words at the tip of his tongue had been, you would betray your own brother. And then he had only felt like crying.

  “You’re not allowed here, either.” Enosh’s voice was flat, like he was talking to a wall.

  Ke-if’s attention drifted to the box. “Are you stealing from the temple?” He hadn’t meant for it to sound as harsh as it did, but by the time he’d realized it, it was too late. A dark shadow crossed Enosh’s face as he carefully placed the box by his feet. He had a temper, their father used to say. He needed to control it. But never, in Ke-if’s life, had he seen it directed towards him, and it frightened him.

  He stepped back. Enosh’s hand reached for his collar. “Who are you to tell me what I can or can’t do?”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “I’m chief. I own the village and the islands. This island. This place is my birthright. You don’t steal what’s yours.”

  He grabbed Enosh’s hand with both of his and tried to shake him off. “Wake up, Enosh! This is that man Gorrhen’s doing! He’s filled your head with this dog crap!”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m father’s son, too! Are you too dumb—”

  Enosh screamed, drawing him close for a moment and then flinging him to the ground. Sharp rocks cut into his face. “Father’s son?” Enosh asked, approaching him, palms out. “You mean, father’s son on that Kag whore.”

  “Don’t say that. She was the only mother you knew.”

  “My blood is pure Gorent. My mother is the sea.”

  He spat, tasting blood in his mouth, and struggled to get up. “Listen to yourself talk. Someone offers you a bucket of bile, you slurp it up like soup. No matter how he puts it, Enosh, we know the truth. This village is falling apart and by the next time the Dageians decide to invade—”

  Enosh slapped him with the back of his palm. His senses whirled, but that didn’t stop him. He stood his ground and faced the taller boy. “Chief of nothing, I’ll tell you what’s not yours. Ailat married me, not you, so why do you go off with her like you don’t care?”

  “I don’t. What do you know about women, anyway? I had her first, you bastard.”

  He lunged, trying to block the ringing in his ears from those words. Enosh met him with the sort of blows you didn’t give a brother you loved. Somewhere between a sharp pain, the smell of turpentine, and the breathless feeling in the pit of his stomach, Ke-if saw the sea and realized that Enosh was trying to kill him. His brother’s knee was on his chest and his shoulders were scraping the edge of the cliff.

  Ke-if panicked. With a strength he didn’t know he had, he reached out, trying to force themselves back on flat ground. His elbow connected with Enosh’s jaw. Enosh fell back. Ke-if felt the box at his foot; he picked it up and threw it. It shattered against a rock. Something dark and lumpy rolled out and blinked up at them.

  The memory began to break up. Bannal shook Kefier. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t—” He covered his head with his hands.

  “Try!” Bannal roared.

  Kefier looked up. Blank blotches, like shards of broken glass, littered the memory, but it began to play again. The boy, Ke-if, was holding a dagger. He approached the blob and struck it.

  Someone screamed. The memory began breaking again and they were suddenly plunged into darkness. He knew, when he saw, exactly where they were—fifty feet from the mouth of a cave in Hartmur. Oji was there, too, looking at him with an odd expression.

  Bannal grabbed him by the neck and swore. “You’re losing your grip! What exactly happened? Take us back to Gorent!”

  “I don’t know how!” he screamed. Bannal lifted his staff, but just before he could utter any spells, they saw the same creature at the end of the tunnel. It was larger now, the size of a man, and it spotted Kefier before he—in the memory—was aware of it. The single pupil rolled back and with a guttural scream, it sent tendrils flying over the tunnels and straight at them. At the other end of the tunnel, Oji whispered, his voice like a thin echo, “We have to get out, Kefier. I have to go home!”

  They were suddenly back at the edge of the cliff. Kefier dropped to his knee, struggling to contain the images. In the distance, the cliff edge was starting to crumble. “Leave it alone! You’ll undo all we’ve accomplished!” Enosh’s voice was shrill. His own knife found its way into Ke-if’s arm.

  Ke-if was struggling to free himself from his brother’s grasp. “It’s an abomination. You have to kill it! There must be a reason our ancestors locked it away!”

  “It’s my birthright! Stay out of it!” At that moment, the rock underneath them gave way. Ke-if jumped
and managed to land on a ledge, but when he turned to grab Enosh, he saw Enosh’s body disappear into the sea.

  Darkness surrounded them.

  “What happened next?” Bannal asked impatiently.

  “What do you mean?” Kefier snapped. “I ran to the shore. Tried to find his body. There was blood, but I couldn’t see anything. I spent the whole night. The whole night and much of the morning.”

  “And Yn Garr, who called himself Gorrhen?”

  “Didn’t see him again. What did I care about that stupid old man for? My brother was gone.” He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were back in the room and his hands were wet. He grimaced and turned to Bannal. “That’s it. That’s all I can offer you.”

  Bannal flipped the chair around and leaned over him. “No, Ke-if. Look at the mirror.”

  He looked. It shimmered and images began to form. A man was standing by the lake shore, talking to a group of soldiers. Boarshind soldiers, he realized with a start. And the man, no doubt about it, was Ylir. “The Boarshind are behind your attack,” he said, after a moment.

  Bannal nodded. “That. You do not recognize their leader?”

  “Ylir yn Garr. He’s one of the Boarshind’s more prominent clients. What are you getting at, Bannal?”

  Bannal smiled. “You really are an idiot. You haven’t figured it out by now? The man Gorrhen, whom you’ve wanted to know so much about—your brother’s mentor, and Yn Garr, who you say hired your company’s services for a time, are one and the same.”

  “Well, yes, I figured as much.”

  “And this man, Ylir. His protégé. You do not recognize him at all?” Kefier sat up. “Your brother didn’t die, Ke-if. Yn Garr just took him away.”

  And then he was breathless, like in the memory, because even though he had every reason in the world to distrust Bannal, it was the easiest thing to believe him. He looked at the image on the mirror. Of course it was Enosh. He was a man now, but he still had his deep brown eyes and those really ugly ears. There’s a nice grave I have to tear down when I get back home. If I ever get back home.