The Chellion Days

by A.S. Morrison

through the wrong door.”

  “Quite a few of those here.”

  Mr. Jett quickly put Ackerley to work mopping the kitchens. He found it funny that just a few hours ago he was making the mess, and now he was cleaning it up. It took a full hour to mop it all. He hoped he did it correctly, he’d never mopped before.

  Mr. Jett then showed him how to handle a carpet cleaner. It was a little device on a stick that picked up whatever was on the floor when he pushed it around. After going at it for a while, and evidently not succeeding, Mr. Jett took it away and did it himself.

  “Not so bad for your first day, huh? That boy Yarn got five hours cleaning his first day.” He leaned in close. “Got caught trying to leave.”

  “How come?” Ackerley asked.

  Old Mr. Jett shrugged, “Guess he didn’t like the rules. Some of these kids come from kinda unruly places,” he gave a quick guilty glance toward Ackerley, “but that don’t make ‘m bad. It depends, I came from the worst kinda unruly place and I love the rules here. It’s the rules that make the place. They also make the kid. There are two kinds of kids here, Achey, the kind that likes ‘m, and the kind that don’t. Keep an eye out an watch ‘m bump heads a bit and you’ll see which you prefer.”

  Ackerley nodded, not sure what to say.

  Mr. Jett laughed softly. “It’s alright, Aches, when the nobles’s in bed we say whatever comes to mind. Don’t worry about it, this time is safe time. Provided of course we don’t go up in a Welgo attack, but there’s a lot of good kids out fightin’.” He paused and stared mysteriously at the wall. “I wonder what it feels like to take a spear to the body.” He snapped back to sweeping and chuckled. “It’s the late night, makes me say all sorts o’ things. But I sure do wonder, though.”

  Ackerley wasn’t sure if it was the talk or the late hour, but at that moment he wanted to be in bed more than he had in his entire life. At around three in the morning Mr. Jett finally let Ackerley go. He barely made it over the fence when he got back to his room and went straight to sleep upon hitting his bed.

  The next day Ackerley felt bitterly homesick, which was weird because at home he felt bitterly I-want-to-be-anywhere-but-here sick. Something about getting in trouble did that to him. It didn’t help that when he woke up he suddenly felt that there was never going to be an end to the war and he would have to live in that place until he died or the Welgo’s destroyed it. As the day wore on he managed to convince himself that he was in a better place and nothing bad was going to happen. The feeling subsided.

  He hung out with Jarn as much as possible and dreaded doing the tasks. Wednesday consisted of more meditating, this time first thing in the morning, and then library time. The library was a very big room with two levels. Both had bookcases that stretched to the ceiling. He wondered how Jarn had ended up reading the same book five times when there were thousands in the library for Craith to have chosen from.

  He was taken aside when everybody else started to transcribe those old worn pages onto new ones. A very old man, possibly twice the age of Mr. Jett if that was possible, feebly went over the rules.

  “You’re going to. . .” He paused to rest. “. . . Write down what is on this paper,” another pause, “on this new paper.”

  Ackerley nodded, picking up his pen.

  “Now wait a minute.” The old man did indeed wait a minute before continuing. “This is a nib pen, have you ever used a nib pen before?”

  Ackerley figured it was like any other pen. “Yeah.”

  “It has a reservoir inside it.” He nodded continuously until Ackerley nodded back. “It has ink inside the pen. It is in fact a fountain pen.”

  “Alright. And I just write what’s on this page on the new page.” Ackerley recounted, wanting to make sure the old man understood that he understood.

  “Your writing needs to be perfect. Is your handwriting perfect?” The old man drawled on.

  Ackerley shrugged. “I don’t write much. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect.”

  The ancient man snatched the old paper away. “Instead of that.” He began. “You will do something else.” He hobbled away and didn’t come back for almost ten minutes. “Instead you will do this.” He carefully put an even older looking paper on the desk. “Our eyes are worn and we can’t make out much on these pages.” He lumbered around the desk until he was directly in front of Ackerley. “We can’t read these anymore. You are much younger,” another pause, “much better eyes. Write down what you can read from here onto the new page. Someone else will do the final copy that goes in our records.” He stared creepily at the boy for a time. “Calligraphy is tomorrow for your group I think. Make sure to pay attention.” He patted Ackerley awkwardly on the head and shuffled off.

  Ackerley got to it. The pen was indeed unlike any he had ever used. At home he would often have to scrounge around for ink that hadn’t gone dry before finally going over to Mrs. Tandry’s next door to borrow a little every time he wanted to write a letter. The ink in the fountain pen came out so well that he accidentally made a few pools of it when he left the pen on the paper too long.

  Reading the old page proved to be extremely difficult. There were holes in it and cracks all over—most finding their way perfectly through words to make them difficult to read. He strained to find meaning in the seemingly random collection of lines that might have looked like letters to more trained eyes. The new paper was soon filled not only with pools of ink but scribbles and scratches as he deciphered or realized he had deciphered incorrectly. He wished greatly that whoever wrote whatever it was he was reading had attempted a little more carefully to make the meaning intelligible.

  The only good part, and it certainly was a good part, was that before he knew it the two hours were up. The old man took a look at what Ackerley had accomplished and gasped.

  “Oh my dear, what has happened?” He looked about to collapse.

  “I think it’s about a really pretty tree.” Ackerley theorized. “I think this part,” he pointed at one of the only string of words on the new paper that didn’t have a scribble through it, “is about bark and how beautiful it is.”

  The old man seized the pen away from Ackerley as if it might be a deadly weapon. “Calligraphy. Tomorrow. Pay attention.”

  Lunch once again took place outside. The food was alright; actually it was great considering he’d been living off of stale bread and whatever the neighbors felt like leaving at the doorstep. After lunch they had a history lesson. Every Wednesday was history class. Ackerley found it very interesting. He didn’t know much about history, and hadn’t had much of an education before. It took place in that first classroom Craith had shown him on the tour. The one on the second floor with all the desks. He took a seat in the back next to Jarn.

  The history teacher was a squat middle aged woman with a powerful gaze and very long brown and silver hair. She greeted everyone individually, stopping at Ackerley. She already knew his name and asked if he knew who Vloraisha was. He said no as he’d never heard the name in his life. Apparently it wasn’t a person but a place—a sunny and beautiful country to the south past the Vastlands.

  “Your previous education can’t be helped.” She told him gloomily. “But that does not mean that you are behind. Keep up with what we go over today and if you want I can see you separately sometime.”

  She then went straight into the lesson. The first hour went by rather slowly as Mrs. Rapsire talked about places and names Ackerley had no knowledge of. A little over an hour in she finally said a name that sounded familiar.

  “Chell was his son.”

  Ackerley sat up and finally paid attention.

  “Chell grew up in a Honias Empire that was falling apart. The current emperor had no power. He was only the ruler of the state while Chell’s father was the head of the military. When his father was killed in action fighting to reclaim the Vastlands, which as we remember from last time fell t
o local warlords, it was time for Chell to become the great king we know him as now.” Mrs. Rapsire was very expressive with her hands. As the topic turned to Chell she grew even more animated. She didn’t once look at the class. She paced the front of the room and stared at the walls, forgetting that there were fourteen pairs of eyes fixated on her. “He claimed his father’s status as general through armed combat with his father’s lieutenants and corralled the fleeing army before they went too far. He spoke words forever etched in the majesty of Chellios. Fight with me or against me, I care not. But if you choose against, today is your final day.” Mrs. Rapsire covered her mouth as if she couldn’t believe what she said. “And the army said as one: We shall fight with you! And they marched back to the Vastlands, and in one of the greatest surprises in history—they killed all three of those warlords and decimated their armies. The great battle of Chell will live on forever!”

  Ackerley wanted to cheer. Never had he heard such a great storyteller.

  “You would expect that they came home as heroes, and they did to the people, but the emperor was not as impressed. You see the emperor would always be emperor, even if Chell had all the power. That is because the emperor had the legitimacy. He would be counted as emperor and seen as emperor by those who mattered until he was dead or