by Hal Emerson
“My Mother would disagree with you,” Raven said, discomfited.
“There is no Empire inside these walls,” Goldwyn said quietly.
“The Empire is everywhere. Someday it will be here. It is inevitable.”
“Ah,” Goldwyn said, making a sound like a sigh, the sound of built up pressure suddenly released. “There is the word that troubles you. Inevitable.”
“It’s just a word,” Raven said, dismissively, not understanding what the man saying.
“Well yes,” Goldwyn said with a wry smile, “so is “back,” and “hippo,” but I don’t think those two bother you.”
“What’s ‘hippo’?”
“Short for hippopotamus. A large, water-dwelling creature of common mythology made almost entirely of fat.”
“Sounds like it could be worrying if it sat on you.”
Goldwyn laughed, a rich, rolling baritone just like Davydd’s, but shot through with something deeper and more mature, like a vein of gold in a mountain stream.
“In that case, I suppose it would be. What I meant to say is that it needn’t worry us now. Lies however, those seem to be worrying you quite a lot.”
“Why are we talking about lies?”
“You brought them up, I thought you wanted to talk about them.”
“No, you brought them up.”
“I asked about your Mother,” Goldwyn said, arching an eyebrow, his eyes twinkling. “You diverted the conversation to lies.”
Raven realized he was right, but decided not to give the man the satisfaction of admitting it out loud.
“Why do you think you connected your Mother to lies?” Goldwyn asked, watching him carefully.
“Probably because my Mother lies,” Raven said frankly. “She has to – she’s the ruler of an entire Empire, lies are necessary, as I said.”
“So your brothers and sisters lie as well.”
“Yes, to the Commons.”
“But they didn’t just lie to those they rule – they lied to you.”
“Yes. Of course. I’ve lied to them.”
“Who told you the lies that trouble you the most? Which of the Children?”
“I was told lies by all of them,” Raven said quietly, remembering.
“And what lies were these?”
“The first and worst was that my life had meaning.”
As soon as he realized what he’d said he shut his mouth with a snap and clenched his jaw. He looked away and out into the soft autumn night. This man was good – he’d made Raven angry and fooled him into revealing something he hadn’t intended.
“What do you mean by that?” Goldwyn asked quietly. His voice was so calm and it pulled, making him want to speak.
“They told me I was a Prince and that I had a purpose in this world,” he said, almost spitting the words at the man. “They told me I had things to do that were destined by prophecy. My Mother, the Empress, told me that. Told me that I was chosen, that I was special, that I was above all others because I was closer to Her, because I was her Son.”
He stopped and breathed heavily, remembering Rikard beating these words into him throughout his early childhood.
“That was the worst lie, the one that took the most time to get over.”
“Your life has as much meaning as you wish to give it,” said Goldwyn, looking at him with a mix of disapproval and pity. It made him angry – who was this man to judge him?
“You sound like Tomaz,” he growled out, “next you’ll be telling me all about the choices I have.”
“Singing my praises are you?”
Raven jumped at the deep rumbling voice and turned to see Tomaz coming from the house with a large metal kettle and two porcelain cups.
“Tomaz!” Goldwyn called, looking pleased. “Thank you for remembering the kaf. Life would be quite unendurable without it.”
“It’s nice and hot too, so drink it quick,” said the giant, quite hospitably. He was a man of two extremes - unequivocally savage to his enemies and unendingly kind to his friends. After laying down his burden, he left, giving Raven a small smile of encouragement as he did. A smile that said the giant knew what was he was going through.
Not only has he gone through this, Raven realized, he told me about it.
He thought back to when the giant had told him he’d spent his first years of Exile lost in the bottom of a bottle. And then Goldwyn had come to him, despite threats of violence, and somehow taken the hulking mess of a BladeMaster and turned him into Tomaz. The details of what Goldwyn had said had never become known to Raven – the details, for once, had seemed unimportant.
Who is this man?
He looked up once more at Goldwyn, feeling again his calm, effortless life. The man sat across the fire, gazing into the flames, not looking at Raven, giving him a moment of privacy it seemed. The chill night air was quickly going from bracing to biting as true night began to settle and clouds began to roll in over the looming silhouettes of the surrounding mountain tops. The cold didn’t bother Raven as much as it might have once; he had become accustom to living rough and had spent many nights trying to find sleep in worse conditions than this. Still, he was glad of the fire.
It was Goldwyn who broke the silence, sipping his steaming cup of black kaf as he slid the second toward Raven.
“Why are you here?” he asked. Raven hesitated and then answered with the only thing that came to mind.
“I am here because you invited me to stay,” he said.
The Elder smiled and nodded his head.
“That’s a good place to start I suppose. Why did you accept my invitation?”
“Where I come from it is customary to remain behind if the host requests it. It usually means that the host has … delicate, matters he wishes to discuss.”
“Ah yes,” he responded, “Imperial manners, of course. Do you still do a lot of things the way you were taught to by the Visigony?”
“They are to be called Imperial Scholars,” Raven said, suddenly petulant, and not knowing why. Why was he defending the Visigony? He’d never held any affection for them whatsoever.
“As you wish,” Goldwyn said, bowing his head in acquiescence. “Do you still do most things the way the Imperial Scholars taught you?”
“They were not primarily in charge of my lessons in manners,” Raven responded, evading the question.
“So your family taught you.”
“The other Children, yes.”
“The other Children – who are your family. Correct?”
“Yes,” Raven said. He realized he was holding tension throughout his entire body; his shoulders were tight and his hands were gripping the cup of kaf so hard he felt like he might break it.
“So the Children, your brothers and sisters, they taught you manners?”
“Among other things.”
“You are now part of the Exiled Kindred though, or so I have been told. Why not give them up? We are much less formal here.”
“Lessons taught by the Children are not easily forgotten,” Raven said harshly, so viciously in fact that he found himself once more snarling at the man. He could feel his upper lip twitching in contempt. What did this man know about it? What did he know about anything?
“Why is that?”
“Because they make you fear forgetting the lesson!”
“And why did you love them even as you feared them?”
“Because I had to,” Raven said, anger and frustration pushing his voice lower into a growl as the shameful admission was pulled out of him. And then, to get the conversation off of him, he retorted angrily: “Why do you love your family? They aren’t even your blood!”
“I love them because they’re good and noble,” Goldwyn responded without hesitation, softly, kindly. “And because I know that someday either they or I will die. I know that every moment here may be my last, every moment here may be your last, or my daughter’s last or my son’s last. Every moment is a little death. And so, I love them, as hard and as much as I can,
in the brief time we have together. Why do you love your Mother?”
“It’s impossible not to love the Empress,” Raven said, telling himself the man’s answer hadn’t touched him, trying hard to make himself as unfeeling as a stone. “You’ve never been near her … never been her Child. You can’t help but believe in Her divinity when you stand next to Her. She’s been alive for a thousand years, and in all that time has gained power and beauty … She is the embodiment of perfection.”
“I decided long ago not to believe in gods,” Goldwyn said abruptly, looking away as if the conversation had suddenly become less interesting.
“You only say that because you have never seen Her. She has such power as you cannot imagine – She is terrifying beyond belief, and can reweave the very fabric of reality.”
“No, that’s not why I say it,” Goldwyn said, completely unimpressed. “I say it because I have two very clear choices before me: I can believe that this Immortal Empress, this strange being clothed in terrible might and power, this Mother that uses men and women for her own ends, is sent by the Gods to rule over me and my children, or, I can believe that a misguided woman, granted terrible might and power long ago, has been driven insane by a world that, for all her effort, she cannot truly control. Which seems more likely to you?”
What seemed most likely to Raven at that moment was that the two of them would be struck dead on the spot. Having lived so long with men and women that revered the name of the Empress and glorified everything and everyone She touched, he felt certain that the very sky above them would come crashing down at the utterance of such blasphemy, at the idea that the Empress might just be a woman.
But, nothing happened. The night stayed quiet, and the air stayed cold. They were outside of Her influence here, hidden behind the illusions that protected the Kindred, and guarded by the strength of the Elders, the strength of this man who dared to ask aloud the question every Imperial child was trained to ignore.
“What do you mean, a world she cannot truly control?” Raven asked, fascinated despite himself.
“A good question,” said Goldwyn, his eyes far away. “I had the same discussion with your father as a matter of fact, before he left for Lucien.”
Raven felt a cold chill slide down his spine, his hands clutching the warm mug convulsively.
My father wasn’t just an Exile; he was one of Goldwyn’s students.
“I have often wondered,” the Elder continued, “if once he met her, he truly fell in love with her. You see, it’s been my feeling for a long time now that we don’t fall in love with perfection. Poets would have us believe we do, but I don’t think it’s true. I think we fall in love with flaws. Your father, Relkin, he was always one of those men who fell in love with things that needed help – always the last to abandon a man or woman in serious need, always the one to see a light of hope in the deepest, darkest night. I have often wondered if that is what kept him by your Mother’s side, often wondered if that strange mix of love and yearning on both their parts, is what gave rise to you, the Seventh Child.”
Goldwyn looked at him then, and as he did Raven realized that those gray eyes knew things about him that he had never guessed.
“What is it you want Raven?”
“What?”
“What is it that you want?” Goldwyn repeated, watching him carefully. His face was blank, but his gray eyes were terrible and wonderful, spearing him, pulling him.
“I don’t know,” he replied. It was true – he hadn’t known for quite some time. What could he want? What hope for a life did he have?
Goldwyn nodded slowly.
“Crane was right about you,” he said, “there is much of both worlds in you – both lives.”
“What do you mean by that? What do you mean both lives?”
“I mean that you may be one of the very few people in this world who are given a chance to stand at the center of things. One of the very few people who are given a choice of two truly distinct paths, two truly distinct lives.”
Raven waited in silence, barely breathing, drawn in and held captive.
“Many people have no choice at all,” Goldwyn continued. “They choose the red shirt or the white shirt, the long walk or the short walk, but these choices mean little, and really could mean nothing. A good number of people may even get the chance to choose bigger things, like what they truly wish to do with their lives, or whom they truly wish to marry. But only a small number, a very few, will stand at the center of the world and shape it as life flows around and through them. I think that you are one them. And I think that you will have a chance to make a choice, a true choice, one that will change everything or nothing.”
The Elder fell silent, and Raven realized his mouth had gone slack. He snapped his jaw shut and shook his head. No – he couldn’t be drawn in by talk like this. He wasn’t grand, he didn’t want to be. His time as a Prince had passed.
“There is only one choice I’d like to make,” he said earnestly, “and it’s to stop making choices.”
“Do not say that,” said Goldwyn suddenly, fiercely.
Raven recoiled in surprise. The gray eyes were now the color of a gathering storm, and the air between them was heavy with the weight of unspoken emotion.
“You must not choose that path – for down that path lies destruction,” said the Elder, eyes boring into him. “Down the path of apathy lies death, and hopelessness. You must care. Find something to care about – anything. Everything. Someone – something. It matters little – but you must care about life!”
Raven found he couldn’t break away from Goldwyn’s stare, even when the moment had passed and the Elder had stopped speaking.
“You may berate me for it,” Raven said, his voice heavy with uncaring resignation, “but I’ve been chastised by much worse than you. I wish to be something different than what I am. I wish that I could just get up and leave, and go somewhere no one knows me and start all over.”
“There is no choice like that Raven,” said Goldwyn quietly, still watching him with a marked intensity. “How could you choose to be something different than who you are at this moment? How is it possible to do something you can’t do? Something you don’t want to do?”
“I don’t understand,” Raven said. “If I wanted to, I could … I don’t know … break this cup. Throw it against the wall. Spill it on the ground.”
“Could you though?”
Goldwyn watched him for a long time.
“You just got through telling me the manners of the Empire have been so finely ingrained in you that you cannot let them go, even if you wanted to. Correct? Along those lines, it would make sense to say that there is no difference between could and would, can’t and won’t in the present moment. In the here, in the now, there is nothing that hasn’t already been decided.”
“How can you say that? Free will –”
“But you said there is no such thing as free will. You can’t even choose to ignore the manners your family taught you. And if that is true, then all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever shall be, is already decided.”
“I have a brother who would very much disagree,” Raven said, thinking of Geofred, who could see into the future.
“Ah yes, the Eagle!” Goldwyn said. “And yet isn’t he the best example of this? How else could he see into the future if it wasn’t already written?”
“He sees multiple futures,” said Raven, troubled in spite of himself. He wasn’t sure what Goldwyn was getting at, but he was starting to think he very much disagreed with it. “He’s often told me about how the Eagle Talisman presents him with multiple futures, and then he chooses the one that he wishes to set the Empire toward.”
“And why would he chose the choice he chooses?” Asked Goldwyn. “Why would he move toward one direction and not another? Why does my daughter fight with daggers instead of swords?”
“Wh-what?” Raven asked, completely thrown off balance by the subject change.
Goldwyn smiled
and shrugged, as if to say he was sorry for taking an unexpected step in an otherwise finely choreographed dance. There was silence for a long moment, and then Raven began to think harder about what the Elder was saying, and slowly he came to realize the point the man was headed toward.
“You’re saying that no one has any choice,” Raven said. “You’re trying to say that everything is already set in motion the way it will turn out. And in all of that, you’re trying to say that when all is said and done no one can truly change.”
“You,” said Goldwyn, smiling with his eyes, “are quite intelligent. That is indeed where I was going with this argument. At least, that’s what I’m saying you are trying to tell me. You’re saying you can’t change your manners because of your upbringing. You can’t stop lying because others always lied to you. You can’t change, you have no choice but to be who you are. This is what you have just said. I, however … I think this explanation is too simple. It is inelegant, it is ugly. Too few variables, too much predictability in a world that nearly no one can truly predict without, as you rightly noted, the power of a Talisman.”
