Kingdomturn

by Matthew Williams

  Without warning, the older man stepped forward and gripped both sides of Wyand’s head. Wyand instantly thought to struggle, but one look at the shorter man’s scowling expression convinced him to stand still. The grey-haired man’s face moved closer and closer to Wyand’s own, until it was impossible not to meet his unwavering gaze. Wyand breathed in sharply from surprise after discovering the unexpected color of the stranger’s eyes—a ring of bright green faded seamlessly into a glowing inner ring of blue around the center of each eye. It was more than just the color of those eyes that stunned Wyand, though, it was the certainty that shone behind them. This man knew exactly what he was looking for as he studied Wyand, and it suddenly seemed that he had found it. His eyes grew large and an intrigued frown wrinkled the old man’s brow.

  “You carry the burden of a great truth,” his deep, rasping voice declared slowly. “Yet you are afraid to allow others to share its weight.”

  Wyand’s eyes shifted after the proclamation as he recalled the Venerates’ lies. He can’t know that! he thought, terrified that this man could actually see what he was thinking. The sudden fear only made Wyand’s mind race faster with new worries. What if these people still worship the Venerates? Will they punish me for blasphemy? It was a far-fetched concept, considering the incredible level of violence Wyand had already witnessed from the Cynmeren in such a short time, but it remained a possibility nonetheless.

  As the list of fears grew, one stood out beyond the rest. What if this man is some sort of Venerate? It seemed ridiculous when it first crept into Wyand’s mind, but the Venerates were known for hearing workers’ thoughts before they were spoken. Wyand prayed that the stone in his pocket didn’t begin to glow as it had in the presence of the Venerate the night he fell from Aldhagen.

  “You must be cleansed before you can learn to trust,” the man continued. “And you must be proven before we can learn to trust you.” The man then released Wyand’s head and at last broke the penetrating stare. As he moved back, the bearded man stepped forward without a word and struck Wyand in the stomach. Confused and gasping for air through the cloth, Wyand folded to the ground before being yanked sharply upright again. The short man regarded him with a look of pure apathy, then took ahold of Wyand’s left arm and twisted it up painfully against his back.

  They walked away from the small building and into the dense forest surrounding the lake. At first, Wyand could see other buildings and people in the distance, but the farther he walked the less he saw of both. The sounds of people diminished along with the roar of the wall of water until all that remained was the creaking of branches in the breeze. Deeper and deeper into the forest they walked, until a small clearing appeared at the end of the narrow path. Wyand shook his head violently as he studied the clearing, begging through the cloth for release, because in the mottled sunlight he found another cage waiting for him.

  “Struggle all you want,” the man said indifferently. “It doesn’t change what’s going to happen next.” Tears welled in Wyand’s eyes from frustration, from hunger, from exhaustion, but he did not struggle any further. The bearded man released Wyand’s arm when they reached the opening of the cage and spun Wyand around to face him. “I control your freedom now,” the man said. “Would you fight me to stay out of that cage?” He raised his arms slowly to his chest and waited for Wyand’s response.

  Wyand shook his head sadly; though he knew the Venerates to be liars and murderers, he still believed in their teaching that violence was a sin. Clearly this man did not adhere to the same belief, however, because as soon as Wyand cast his eyes down in shame, the bearded man struck him on the left side of the head with enough force to knock him to the ground. “In the cage, then,” the man said, and Wyand crawled helplessly into the all-too-familiar confines of the weave of branches.

  After closing the cage and lashing it shut, the man took the long heavy ropes that held the door closed, wove them through the top of the cage, and flung them over a stout tree branch high above. Wyand watched with dismay as the short man then pulled on the rope and lifted the cage slowly off the ground. His pace was constant, as though he barely felt the weight on the other end of the rope, until the top of the cage struck the branch overhead. Satisfied that Wyand was in place, the man then tied the end of the rope to the trunk of a neighboring tree and turned to leave.

  “I’ll be back later if you decide you want to prove you’re worth something,” he called over his shoulder, and with that he was gone.

  Wyand sighed and searched for the sun’s location in the sky. It was difficult to tell with the thick canopy, but he guessed it was nearing Third Calling in Aldhagen. Who knows if these people even practice Callings? he thought, realizing how little he truly knew about the Cynmeren even after spending nearly a week in their presence. They don’t mind violence, his sore head and stomach reminded him. Wyand breathed in sharply after touching his bruised head and received another mouthful of coarse fibers. In a moment of explosive frustration, he tore the maddening cloth out of his mouth and flung it through the slats of the cage.

  The cloth fluttered to the forest floor and came to rest in the middle of the path that led back to the lake. Wyand stared at the infuriating scrap of fabric in disbelief, contemplating all of the horrible things that were going to happen when it was discovered. Then he started laughing. The horrible things are going happen either way! he realized, and his hopeless laughter grew stronger. He was trapped, starving, and beaten, but at least now he could breathe.

  ---

  Dusk colored the clouds a deep red before the bearded man returned to the clearing. As expected, he found the cloth instantly, but offered no response other than an incredulous glance up as he lowered the cage. As it neared the ground, Wyand smelled an earthy, spiced aroma that hinted at food, although he did not recognize it. His thoughts were so consumed by the wonderful smell that he felt the urge to search the man until discovering and devouring whatever this food was. He knew, of course, that an action like that would carry painful consequences, but the pain in his empty stomach nearly outweighed any beating he might receive for stealing some of this man’s food.

  “Who said you could remove this?” the man asked as he held the scrap of cloth up to the slats of the cage. His expression still offered no clue of any underlying emotion—all Wyand could see was boredom.

  He’s harder to read than Edan, Wyand thought incredulously as the short man pulled the last bit of rope free of the cage door. “It was an accident,” Wyand said as he was pulled roughly out into the clearing. The man grunted once in reply, but strangely didn’t ask about the cloth any further. Instead, he tucked it into one of the pockets in his field pants and removed a small bundle from another. Instantly, Wyand knew it contained the food he smelled earlier. As the man unwrapped some sort of bread, Wyand’s fingers subconsciously flexed and extended towards it, then curled back. The bearded man watched him, but said nothing as he ate. Wyand felt hunger gnawing at his core until it was replaced by sadness as he watched the last bit of the bread disappear.

  After brushing his hands together to clean off any residual crumbs, the man turned his attention back to Wyand. It was almost impossible to detect, but Wyand thought he saw a glimmer of sadness in the man’s eyes during the silent moments that followed. The expression vanished in an instant, though, as his fist found the side of Wyand’s head that wasn’t already bruised. Breathing heavily from the pain, Wyand knelt in the dirt and waited for further punishment, but none came.

  “Back in the cage,” the bearded man said tiredly, and once again Wyand complied. A strange thought stirred in Wyand’s mind as the door was lashed shut and the cage lifted back into the air. Before Wyand could stop himself, he opened his mouth to speak.

  “Why?” Wyand asked, just loud enough for the man to hear. The cage stopped moving.

  “What was that?”

  “Why?” Wyand repeated, louder this time, as he stared indignantly at his attacker. What am I doing? Wyand’s mind shouted. Th
e man looked briefly surprised before tugging the cage into place and securing the rope again.

  “You’ll learn,” he said as he walked away.

  ---

  After another full day of the same harsh treatment from the bearded man, Wyand was no closer to food or freedom than he had been when he first arrived. Now he was alone again, with the cold night wind rocking his cage each time it swept through the isolated clearing. He struggled with fitful sleep thanks to the biting chill as well as the creaking of the cage and the branches overhead, but at least sleep offered an escape from the constant pain and hunger. A new feeling tugged at Wyand’s senses—the cage seemed to be rocking at times when the wind was still. He pried his heavy eyelids open and searched the moonlit clearing during his brief periods of consciousness, but nothing caught his attention. Then he realized the ground seemed much closer than it had earlier, and his eyes darted toward the ends of the long ropes. A hooded figure lowered the cage, taking great care to maintain a steady speed and avoid tugging on the ropes. Then the cage abruptly stopped and a pair of faint blue-green eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight peered at Wyand from the shadows of the hood.

  “You’re awake,” a familiar, rasping voice said with a hint of surprise; it was the older man from the group of eight.

  “I am,” Wyand replied.

  “And you removed the gag,” the man said with an impressed nod.

  “I did,” Wyand admitted slowly, fearing that punishment was imminent.

  “Do you know why you took it off?”

  “It was irritating,” Wyand confessed a moment later.

  “It’s more than that,” the older man insisted. “You removed the gag because you believed that was what needed to happen, at that exact instant, and so you took action.” He continued lowering the cage until it came to rest on the ground. After removing the ropes and opening the door, he walked over to Wyand with an outstretched arm. “Here.” Wyand looked down to find a small container in the man’s hand identical to the one Eyrie had used when she offered him water. He accepted the container, removed the lid with a pop, and took a tentative sip. This was immediately followed by a series of lengthy gulps as clean, cool water rushed down Wyand’s parched throat.

  “You earned that,” the older man said, smiling as he watched Wyand quench his agonizing thirst, “and you can earn much more.”

  Wyand emptied the last few drops. “How?” he asked cautiously. The man reclaimed the empty water container and produced another from his robe, which Wyand gladly seized as he stepped out of the cage.

  “Simply put, this is a violent world, and you must be willing to fight in order to survive,” the old man explained.

  Wyand lowered the water container and shook his head. “I won’t do that,” he said.

  “You already have,” the man countered. “Eyrie told me of your journey here, and of the moment you first met the women from your group. You risked everything—in your mind, even your life—to warn a group of helpless strangers about people you considered to be dangerous. That was fighting back against your captors; that was seeing what you believed needed to happen and taking action.”

  “I didn’t intend any violence,” Wyand responded hastily.

  “Of course not,” the man said. “And that’s because you still adhere to the strictest interpretation of ‘peace and honor’. But it’s clear that you were willing to preserve the greater peace and reinforce your own honor by choosing to try to save those women, albeit from an imaginary threat. That kind of action takes a level of courage and clarity not usually found in someone so recently cast out.”

  “Thank you,” Wyand said softly, staggered by the compliment and still trying to think through everything else that had just been said. Then he suddenly realized he was starting to agree with this man. “Wait, no. I didn’t fight anyone, I just shouted.”

  The old man nodded. “To fight, to resist, doesn’t always require the use of violence. It means doing what you know is right, no matter the risk, simply because it is right. That’s what you did. Violence is only used when all other forms of resistance fail.”

  Wyand had no response. I fought back, he admitted, though not aloud. A silent struggle between pride and disgust in his own actions tore at Wyand’s emotions until a new question forced him to speak. “If you believe violence should only be used when absolutely necessary, then why have I been beaten almost constantly for the last four days?” Wyand demanded. “Do the other men from Eyrie’s group not adhere to the same beliefs about violence as you? And what about the man that put me in this cage?”

  “They all share in my beliefs,” the old man replied calmly. “But remember what I explained to you—this is a violent world. It’s not that the people of Cynmere enjoy punishing you undeservingly; they are trying to prepare you for the moments of conflict that find us all eventually.” His eyes grew wide then as they searched Wyand’s. “You already know conflict,” he said, clearly astonished, then he frowned. “Why were you cast out?”

  Wyand’s heart raced; this man knew details that no one but a Venerate could know. Fearing further questions and what hidden truths they might reveal, Wyand closed his eyes and replied quickly with a highly-abbreviated version of the truth. “There was no Casting,” he said. “I fell into the Great River by accident and passed through the Exile Door.” When he opened his eyes, the man still stared at him, but the feeling of being studied was gone.

  “There is more to your departure than an accident. I am certain of that,” the man said. “It’s all right, though. You don’t trust me yet, but you will.” He gestured for Wyand to enter the cage.

  “I don’t understand,” Wyand said as he walked forward slowly. “If you’re not going to release me, then why are you here?”

  “Your freedom must be earned, and that is not something I control. My task is to be guided and to guide others, so if you’re wise you’ll heed my direction. Remember this, above anything else—when the time arrives to prove yourself, trust that you will know what to do.” With that, he waited in silence for Wyand to return to the dreaded cage before hoisting it into place. Then the old man began the walk back to the lake without a word.

  Wyand’s thoughts were a twisted mass of confusion and questions as he tried to make sense of the “guidance” he just received. One question pushed its way to the forefront of Wyand’s mind just as the man reached the edge of the clearing. “Who are you?” Wyand shouted at his back.

  “Fadian,” he called back without slowing. “And you?”

  “Wyand.”

  Fadian froze mid-stride when he heard the name and spun to face the cage. A faint smile deepened the creases in his weathered face, and Wyand was certain he saw a glow in the man’s eyes now.

  “The Visions reveal their truth once again,” Fadian said quietly as he looked up at Wyand, then he was gone.

  ---

  Sleep found Wyand again not long after the visit from Fadian, but his dreams offered no rest. They were filled with images of strangers crowding around the tiny cage, all with glowing eyes that flowed from blue to green and back. They nudged Wyand with unseen hands, pushing him from one side of the cage to the other until he was compelled to swat their hands away. Each time he tried, though, these people would laugh, their eyes flaring brightly, and the next push would be harder than the last.

  In desperation, Wyand thrust his finger at one of the eyes and hit it with far more force than he intended. He recoiled from a sudden sensation of warm wetness, but his finger remained fixed where it was. The owner of the ruined eye laughed harder with each attempt Wyand made to free his finger from the socket. To Wyand’s horror, a strange liquid crept slowly up his finger; it was the same swirling mixture of green and blue as the eye had been.

  Wyand screamed as each pulse of color sent the liquid farther up his arm, until it was suddenly no longer on his arm at all, but inside of it. The rhythm of the shifting colors matched his own racing pulse until the liquid shone through the skin on every p
art of his body. He couldn’t see them, but Wyand knew his eyes now looked exactly like Fadian’s.

  At some signal, the glowing eyes disappeared from around the cage as each laughing person stepped back into the darkness. When Wyand was alone, he stared at the veins on the backs of his hands with absolute terror as he watched the waves of green and blue surge to his fingertips. He pressed his palms against the slats of the sealed cage door, and to his surprise it swung open without any effort. Not waiting to question the unexpected freedom, Wyand leapt through the door and suddenly felt himself falling. He looked down to find the familiar layout of Aldhagen hundreds of strides below but rushing up towards him quickly. Wyand screamed as he sped past the upper levels of the Hall until the familiar ground at the Calling entrance abruptly ended his fall.

  Wyand jolted awake to the dim light of morning as he felt the cage contact the ground. A cool mist coated the forest floor and swirled away from him as the cage came to rest. He didn’t have time to look to the ropes before the bearded man arrived at the door.

  “Out,” he said flatly, and Wyand obeyed. It was clear from the strong aroma that another loaf of spiced bread waited within the man’s field clothes. Before it could be consumed, Wyand mustered up the courage to ask for a piece of it.

  “Could I have some of your bread?” he asked uncertainly. The man pulled a wrapped loaf from his pocket and held it close to Wyand’s face.

  “Take it,” the man said. Wyand’s hand darted towards the bread, but just as it did, the bearded man shifted to the side. Wyand lurched forward awkwardly, and in that instant of imbalance the bearded man slammed his elbow down against Wyand’s back. Spitting bits of dirt and spineleaf needle out of his mouth, Wyand stood before he could be struck down again.