by T. A. Miles
“I see you also keep the hours of an old man,” Sethaniel said directly.
“No,” Korsten said, perhaps too reflexively, though it wasn’t usual of him to not sleep through the darker hours, given the opportunity. “I can’t sleep.”
Sethaniel looked at him, seeming to simultaneously question and assess his son’s health in the moments it took him to eye his unaging child up and down. Whatever the verdict, he kept it to himself and Korsten saw himself to a chair. Instinct or habit had him at first select one several seats from his father, but he changed his decision before he’d drawn the article from the table. Sethaniel was once again eyeing him while he very consciously took a different seat, the one adjacent to the head of the table and its occupant.
Under such scrutiny, pulling the chair out and sitting down became a far more awkward affair than was required. Memories of defiance and dramatic behavior darted from memory with the haste of rabbits from the baying of hounds on their scent. One not as old as the others made itself especially apparent; the night he and Merran had arrived in the village of Bersiene. Under the mistrusting eyes of emotionally beleaguered strangers, he’d resorted easily and immediately to an eccentric performance. It was meant to hide truth behind farce. It seemed to have worked well then. It had probably worked too well throughout his young years … or perhaps not at all. Either way, Korsten realized now that he didn’t want anything more to do with performance of that nature.
His focus had incidentally become the thick, scored edge of the dining room table. He made it his father instead, and spoke in a quiet, level tone. “The ladies and I have decided that it would be best to go to Indhovan.”
Sethaniel nodded, as if he’d known or as if he’d reasoned their options out himself already and arrived at the same conclusion.
“I wish that we had more time,” Korsten said next, and hoped that the sincerity behind the words rang through. He was a tad disarmed by the way Sethaniel continued to nod.
“I’m going with you,” Sethaniel said, completing the disarming. The elder folded his hands beneath his bearded chin while leaning upon the table and continued, “We’ll have the duration of the journey, at least.”
Korsten remained at a loss for words. Indhovan had been a city on the verge of invasion, the last he knew. A man Sethaniel’s age placing himself in a situation of such likely risk seemed ludicrous. What reason could he possibly have for wanting to go there? Nostalgic whims were not adequate for such endangerment, especially not where the Vadryn were concerned.
Sethaniel must have read Korsten’s thoughts in his expression; pride charted a brief, but distinct course across his heavily lined features. In spite of that, his words were very sober, and final. “I have political acquaintances in Indhovan whom I’ve been meeting with regularly over the years. I will admit that it has not been quite so frequent in recent years, but, as you know, the situation grows increasingly more dire. Distance is our only excuse for ignorance in Cenily, and it’s not so great an excuse as some might deem it.”
Korsten digested that with a helpless dose of bitterness and shame for the distance that had been cultivated between them, by each of them, and that Sethaniel may have been subtly referencing. He was stumbling over that distance in his mind getting to his misgivings regarding the current circumstances. “There were many Vadryn present in Indhovan,” he reminded his father. Simultaneously, he reminded himself … of the horde within the caves, of the crone, and of Serawe. The sea’s cold touch traced a path through his blood.
“There are many men in Indhovan.” Sethaniel did the reminding now. “Many more there than there are here. If Indhovan falls, Cenily will fall afterward. At my age, I fail to see what it matters where I finally come to rest.”
It was clear in that moment that Sethaniel’s body had betrayed the determination of his mind, and that—in the tradition of the Brierly family—he intended to remain active in this world until he literally could not. Korsten could only respect his father for that, and if any amount of such a trait had passed to him, he was both grateful and ashamed. Grateful, because it may have helped him to survive this long and ashamed for the moments he’d acted in defiance of it.
Korsten decided to accept his father’s decision, for it was certainly not his place to challenge now. He had not witnessed his father aging, but was only witness to his age. The year Sethaniel had come to mattered little against how he’d come to it. The elder appeared strong of mind and his body managed better for that strength. In the event of Indhovan’s attack, Sethaniel would be as protected as any of the city’s other inhabitants, by the mages present as well as the soldiers and what other defenses Indhovan had. If Indhovan had been taken at some point between their arrival and Korsten’s leaving the city, then Sethaniel would be protected by the mages in his company and if the danger became too insistent, one or all of them could escort him to a safer location. Korsten justified it all very neatly and topped it off with the fact that they could now depart for Indhovan as soon as the journey had been arranged. He and his father could establish the closure Korsten hoped for in the time it would take to travel.
A ship was not difficult to arrange. Korsten would have believed that it might be somewhat complicated, given the circumstances in the north, but as it turned out, there existed a stalwart coalition of merchants assigning themselves to Edrinor’s eastern coast who prided themselves supporters to the Old Kingdom and the war effort. They were well aware of the conditions further up the coast, more aware than officials in Indhovan had taken any interest in being at the time of Korsten and Merran’s arrival there. It was disarming and impressive simultaneously.
Though supplies and manpower had been steadily depleting, the coastal merchants frequently transported individuals with political interest in the war as far north as Vynndoran. More recently, Indhovan had been the destination of choice and the captain of a trading vessel, ironically dubbed The Song of the Coast, dutifully accepted the proposition put forward by Sethaniel. It was in evidence that the elder and the merchant were reasonably familiar with one another and though the merchant captain seemed not to have been from Cenily originally, he spent some time during the meeting with Sethaniel and his mage company drawing a persistent visual line between Korsten and Sethaniel. Possibly, he descried some resemblance, though Sethaniel did not introduce Korsten as any familial relation. Korsten had also settled himself to addressing his father by his given name since departing from the house that morning. It was not uncomfortable, though Korsten couldn’t say whether or not he was in any way comforted by the ease of their public manner; to behave as associates over blood relations. He decided it was for the better not to dwell on it. The ship had been secured for that afternoon, but there was still much to do before departure.
Tasks for the following few hours included a visit to the governor of Cenily. Korsten contemplated the appointment while he and Sethaniel were carried to the manor by way of a semi-enclosed carriage. The cart was small and ornate, painted white and canopied with a soft, pale gold canvas. The material was treated to beat back the sun’s rays, as well as rain, should any fall. In Cenily, storms approached suddenly and tended to depart in a similar hurry. It benefited the city’s residents to always be prepared.
As to the governor….
In age, the man was Korsten’s peer. In experience, Korsten imagined they could not be more set apart had they deliberately planned to be so. Korsten’s life had taken such a drastic and different turn than most in Edrinor. He could only wonder how this man who he may well have been raised with during his early years had matured. What was his point of view on the Seminary and the Old Kingdom? Would he be recalcitrant to assistance or advice from mages? Morenne was so distant from these shores. What did he believe about their enemy? How well might he take word of demons unifying against them?
On a personal note, would this man have been one of the boys Korsten attempted to make a fool of when they were
children? His intuition told him that he would be without question recognized, but in what light was making him somewhat nervous.
Drawing in a breath of Cenily’s warm, ever-damp air, Korsten looked across the carriage at his father. The fact that Sethaniel was dozing drew at first a slight shock from Korsten, but the ‘oh’ of surprise that had come to his lips settled very easily into a quiet smile. Somehow, the vision of the very old man asleep in the shade of a canopy, his form lolling gently with the gait of the carriage and its single horse, and the driver perched ahead of them oblivious, was all very calming. It was endearing, in fact.
Korsten transferred his gaze out of the carriage and didn’t think about the past any further for the time being. He was in Cenily, a city that sprawled along its gentle shore, like jewels spilled across silk. There were pockets of architecture stitched among stands of tall, narrow trees, with stretches of golden-green grass and shrubs folded delicately between. Small, narrow bodies of water populated the area further inland, many of them adorned with sparse yet attractive manmade structures, as if Cenily’s founders had simply wanted to put an artistic label onto the natural pools without offending the fact that they were natural. The architects in many instances had elected to put up simple pillars or abbreviated rows of columns, which encouraged the resident plants to climb toward Cenily’s frequently blue skies. The structure of the city itself was equally careful; buildings were no more than three stories and erected wide with minimal adornment. What décor had been desired limited itself to relief work, some tasteful gilding—especially in entryways—and natural growth, much of which bloomed in the spring season. Korsten recalled that much with ease. So much of Cenily had been taken for granted as a youngster, and in Haddowyn he had convinced himself or been quickly convinced that he didn’t miss it. He knew now that he always had, and in a way he always would. This was where he began.
It occurred to him, not morbidly, that this was where Adrea had ended. There was a significance to that. He believed Lerissa was right. He wondered, though, if it had to do with the Ascendant. He wondered whether or not someone of the line had truly been born in this region, or if it were simply that Korsten’s birth was the one to matter in Adrea’s location at the time of her death, that she had passed her quest onto him and that the Ascendant may have been born anywhere and at any time. Would the individual then cross Korsten’s path, one time or several … perhaps because whatever internal compass he’d inherited from his predecessor continued to guide him in the correct direction. But how would he recognize that such a thing was occurring at all? What if he simply did not recognize it? What if he had in some way and not read the signs, or even his instincts correctly?
But it was not only for him to do the recognizing, was it? Ashwin would know, surely, and Korsten wanted to believe that through any accounts or experiences Korsten had related to him that Ashwin would recognize the Ascendant, had the individual come about at any relevant point in Korsten’s recent history. Or would he? Had Adrea been cast in her seeking role because of her talent regarding blood, which was the sole deciding factor on the legitimacy of an heir to the Old Kingdom. Was it that she would recognize the heir by the feel of their blood? But Korsten couldn’t even begin to imagine what Rottherlen blood would feel like. He was still learning to discern the subtle differences among men and would still not regard himself an expert even in detecting the differences between men and demons. He’d not been able to define what was different about Dacia upon meeting her, only that she was different. Bael’s possession was also not immediately recognized for what it had been, nor had he detected a Mage-Adept among ordinary soldiers.
Still, if he thought about it now, he could recognize the uniqueness of each situation after the fact. He could draw comparisons and isolate differences. Since his experience with Serawe, it may have been especially easy now for him to know a Master of the Vadryn from one weaker. Serawe marked two of the stronger and more ancient of demons whom Korsten had become entangled with. There was something primal in the presence of a Master, something essential and irrepressible in their darkness … something elemental. The notion returned him to his dream of the spirits of the sea and once again he received a glimpse of the true scope of the war. Morenne and Edrinor, as peoples, were only another layer to this fight; the newest brand of soldier, the most recent type of weapon, one more fragile perhaps, but vast in number and easily accessible. Accessible for the Vadryn … and to become mages?
Korsten felt on the brink of yet another revelation with that thought, but he was forced to set it aside when Sethaniel stirred to wakefulness in the seat across from him. The elder blinked, looked around, and let out a few mild huffs of air as he collected himself. Though Korsten happened to have looked directly at him, Sethaniel did a masterful job of disregarding that and convincing himself that he had not actually nodded off for more than a moment, if at all. Brierly pride was indeed remarkable.
Sethaniel raised an eyebrow just then as if he found it ironic that he and Korsten were thinking the same thing in that moment, and perhaps they were.
Korsten decided to leave him to his dignity. Though a past version of himself might have sought to deliberately tear that aspect of Sethaniel down, he had no such desire now. Even if their history were in actuality precisely as he remembered it, bringing down a tyrant in his late days would only satisfy spite, and spite had always settled ill with Korsten when digesting it afterward. But, regardless, he no longer trusted his memories of the distant past, and he did not believe Sethaniel to be a tyrant in the culpable sense. Perhaps all fathers were tyrants to their children in one way or another, but he could not rekindle the feelings of hurt and distrust he had managed when so far way and under the influence of a demon and his own childish pride. At worst, he and Sethaniel had been unfair to each other. That meant they were both equally to blame. They both deserved precisely what they had, which was to be faced with one another in a carriage beneath the Cenily sun about to meet in conference with a man that may have rendered both of them in positions of awkwardness for entirely different reasons.
The carriage passed through a gated archway to which the gates were open to receive guests who had been announced prior. There was a small guardhouse beside the entrance, manned by two who were playing a lazy game involving woven cards and stone markers. One of them raised his attention from the game long enough to assure himself that the carriage and its passengers were as benign in nature as he’d evidently been expecting that morning. It illustrated the lax manner Cenily had grown accustomed to in regards to its own sense of security. Even knowing the situation up north, there was evidently no detectable or felt threat here, at least not in the immediate sense.
The path from the gates was lined with trees, a tall, single row to either side, through which one could view an expansive, walled yard. The manor was also not small, but in the style of Cenily’s architecture, it was wider than tall. A shallowly sloped roof was held aloft by pillars which surrounded the core structure. Korsten only loosely recalled the house from memory. It was a place Sethaniel had gone to often in his day, but Korsten had only accompanied during specific social occasions, and he’d been too spoiled to consider this building any more or less special than his own home. He could see now, as an adult, that it was much larger and held a much more stately air than Sethaniel’s house. Like most governor’s manors throughout Edrinor, it was the single most important structure in the city and it had clearly been built to suit that role. It was large enough not only to house the governor and his family, however extended he chose, but also to house and host officials and soldiers. Korsten imagined the barracks were located somewhere near the gates and the guardhouse, though he hadn’t made a point to look for them.
The path to the house was smooth and direct. The carriage drew to an easy halt before a raised line of columns standing in front of a whitewashed wall rimmed at top and bottom with relief work. The entryway was twice as tall, and perhaps half aga
in, as tall as a man and accessible by way of two wrought iron doors standing open. Korsten and his father left their driver with a modest fee for his services and took the shallow steps up to the open gates. Sethaniel entered with the air of one who frequented the place, and Korsten followed along, into an open courtyard, replete with lush green growth. The garden framed a tiled floor, across which lay a loggia of three floors. The sounds of birds both inside and outside of the space underscored the quiet conversations and footsteps of the few bodies passing through; members of the governor’s family or office, without doubt.
A group of three men emerged from beneath one of the shadowed archways ahead of Korsten and Sethaniel, drawing to a stop when one of them took notice of the Brierlys, which caught the attention of his two fellows as well. Sethaniel walked directly over, his gait not quite the ardent stride of his younger years. Korsten made an effort of staying with him, without making it seem as if he were attending the elder.
The men they approached were easily middle-aged, two of them having lost most of the color from their hair. The third still retained some darkness to his crown, though it was being invaded from the temples with silver. His features were strong, but his expression relaxed … placid, perhaps. There was an aquiline quality to them, a sharpness that could have stirred self-consciousness in many and Korsten wondered if it had done so in him decades ago. At the moment, oddly enough, as the man’s gaze passed over Sethaniel with routine recognition and was settling on Korsten, it instilled a sense of pride. It was pride in knowing that the look he was receiving was also recognition on the man’s part; recognition of beauty.
Fortuitous parenting, yes. Allurance, most definitely. Korsten had grown accustomed to such gazes and since adapting to magehood, managed to take it less personally than when he was young. That aside, he did note to himself that his tone of response felt a little less neutral just in this instance.
