“You don’t want me to wear the crown,” the boy replied. “You don’t want me to wield a sword. You don’t want me to handle money. Shall I not be a man?”
“A real man recognizes when the power structure of his country is merely one group of people suppressing the progress of others. They sprinkle this faelen dust of lies upon you, or patriotism, or whatever other illusion is necessary to get you to sacrifice what's good and best for yourself to their agenda. But ultimately the illusion empowers only the ones who create it. A real man becomes aware when a parasitical hex has been cast upon him, and that all power is derived off that hex.”
“But the power in itself is not held by the caster?” the boy asked.
“No,” the man replied. “It has to be siphoned from the real man, because all the power comes from within him. He doesn’t need to fight against the magi or overthrow one high-ranked group to merely replace it with another.”
“What does he do then?” the boy asked.
“All he has to do is walk away,” the man replied. “All he has to do is withdraw his consent, his capital, his ideas, his energy, his mana, his time, and his attention. Without his support, evil collapses. Starve the beast, and it cannot survive.”
The boy stared at the floor and pieced the puzzle together. “That’s why you did it?”
“Son,” the man said. “Look at me. I beg you.”
The boy’s eyes met the man’s.
“You will become a great man, but right now you are still a child. Children learn from what they see, and so I set forth for you an example of truth and action.”
“The only truth I see is a father who was never there for me,” the boy replied.
This did not faze the man, for he kindly extended his hand to the boy. “Come here.”
The boy didn’t move.
“Please,” the man begged. He beckoned the boy to come to him. “I shall not request anything so great of you again.”
The boy jutted his jaw and pressed his lips together. His brow furrowed. He let out a deep exhale through his nostrils and swallowed his pride. He stared at the man’s open palm.
The man curled his fingers back and forth, inviting the boy to take his hand. His wistful eyes were sincere.
The boy’s anger towards his father melted away. He reluctantly approached the man and took his hand. He was not embarrassed to cry in front of his father. “It doesn’t matter what the circumstances were. You never should have left me in a den of thieves and murderers.”
“I know,” the man replied. “There are no words to describe the loss of time I feel, or the burden of knowing my son is the last descendant of the man who took everything from me. I was selfish. Now that I’ve met you, I realize that you do not deserve to be punished for the past.” The man pulled the boy close and hugged him tight.
“I prayed to the gods to get me out of there,” the boy said. “That they would lead me to you.”
“I cannot ask you to forgive me,” the man replied. “I can only ask you to hold onto what is good. You are not like them. Hold on to what you must do in life, even if it is a long way from here, even if it is easier to let go of me. You have to look deep within yourself, far beneath your anger towards me and the hurt that I caused. You have to look deeper than the hatred in your heart, the jealousy you feel, and the self-pity you imprison yourself with. And then you must look even beyond that. That is where the dreams live, son. You must find yours. It’s the pursuit of that dream that shall heal you, just as the pursuit of my dream healed me.”
“What was your dream?” the boy asked.
“Onora,” the man said. “My dream was Onora.”
Silence stole all sound yet again. The man had never been more proud of a statement in all his life. He looked at his son. Love flooded his heart and gratitude altered the frequency of his energetic vibration.
“It’s never easy to reach for your dreams,” the man continued. “Strength and courage were lonely friends of mine. If you find what you love, never give up on it. Don’t sit idly by allowing things to merely happen. Have the strength to make a stand. Have the courage to do what’s right when everyone else just runs away, for the distance between you and your dreams is merely action. Never hope. Hope will lead you nowhere. The greatest lesson I learned was that those who reach for their dreams walk in stardust. Trust me on this, for I have danced on the aether.”
The boy looked at the boots with the golden-winged soles. The unnatural glitter on them twinkled in the darkness. He looked back at his father to face the man’s toothy grin. It brightened the room. He winked at his son. The boy felt the love for his father creeping into his heart at long last. In an instant, all was forgiven. The two stared out at the snowstorm.
“Did you call this blizzard to prevent me from leaving?” the boy asked.
“No,” the man replied softly. “I called it to keep you long enough so that I could muster the courage to tell you I love you.”
The boy assessed his father.
The man was nothing but sincere. “You’d be foolish to surmise that there won’t be an envoy searching for your whereabouts. I can keep them away with this weather for as long as you’d like, but the longer it lasts, the more serious its repercussions shall be.”
“What do you think I should do?” the boy asked.
“Well,” the man replied. “You could wait for your ship to come in, or, you could remove the garments of fate and swim out to it.”
The boy grew determined. “What’s the name of the silver chalice?”
“T’puuli Shanaal,” the man replied.
The boy raised his hand towards the chalice. “T’puuli Shanaal. Doer ulu ussa.”
The silver chalice rose into the air and gently glided into the boy’s grasp. He raised his cup to the man. “To the truth… Even if confronting it is to confront my death.”
“Truth is the only safe ground one can stand on,” the man replied. “But the truth that frees people is also that which they fear to know.”
“To hell with it,” the boy responded. “I may never come this way again.”
He drank all the liquid in his chalice. The prickly sensation of the concoction flowing through his veins returned. The faceless, dark purple entities returned from the other side and observed him. His eyes ignited with shadowlight and stared elsewhere as he drifted away into another world.
CHAPTER 4
A Light from the Forest
DAYBREAK BROUGHT AN UNEXPECTED flier tacked upon Ellia’s house. She noticed it as she was watering her plants. She set her watering can down and carefully approached the flier before ripping the metal stud out of the wood. The hole it left behind made her grimace. She shook her head at the disrespect someone could exude, to deface her home for the sake of a notice. The parchment was wet with the morning’s dew and felt slippery in between the tips of her fingers. The inscription read:
Regulations Against Armament
11 Morroway, 4th Era TC
All Amori are hereby prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying swords as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons from this day forward. Those in possession of such are at once summoned to turn them over to the local authority.
Swords and truncheons found in an Amori’s possession shall be forfeited without compensation. Whoever willfully or negligently violates this provision shall be punished with imprisonment and a fine. In especially severe cases of deliberate violations, the penalty is banishment.
For the implementation of this regulation, the Minister of the Interior waives the necessary legal and administrative provisions. This regulation is valid in Amori Village and all districts within the Eidolon Territory.
Minister of the Interior
Chako
Ellia felt sick to her stomach. She had no use for swords, but she certainly recognized their historical significance in maintaining freedom. The founding Amori would recognize this weapons confiscation for what it was because they had seen it before in parts of Caliphwea
ld. They witnessed the only thing that prevented standing armies from ruling this region of the world, after it was left ruined by war. The right of every person to bear arms was a simple but effective freedom. The founding Amori had centuries of experience to see how criminals throughout every era used the same ploys to exact their will upon the people. The cycle was broken when the populace decided to arm themselves to the teeth and never be victims again.
Ellia’s real concern was how a weapons confiscation could be possible under the protection of a faelen tree. It was an unnatural event for the Book of Dro to be misconstrued to take freedom away, and Ellia knew it.
There were so many Amori that had come to this world in recent times with no perspective to help them understand the true nature of what was occurring. They would eagerly give up their swords in exchange for the promise of safety. They weren’t aware that there was no such thing as safety, that there was no truth in the idea of protecting people by taking their weapons away. While Ellia embraced these newcomers, she also knew that they didn’t appreciate the values here, and that was the most dangerous threat of all.
Banning weapons under the guise of security was a tyrannical ploy, nothing else. There was no such thing as weapons control. There was only people control. Logic dictates that inanimate objects do not do anything on their own, much less kill people. It is an irrefutable law of nature. Ellia frowned at the thought of it. She knew that killing was the trade of men, and that having an unarmed population would lead to a mountain of atrocities.
For the Minister of Interior to waive the provisions so that he and his thugs could wield swords to enforce a sword ban was sheer hypocrisy. Amori Village was descending into tyranny subtly but ever so steadily. It was as clear as day.
______________________________
“IN THE VAST WILDERNESS of the Eidolon Woods, long have I cultivated this Shadean climate as the guardian essence of Caliphweald. I am the Great Faelen Tree,” he said.
“Your summons honors me,” Dani replied. She emitted her brilliant glow in a beautiful display of affection as she fluttered her wings, floating in the Faelen Tree’s Meadow like a hummingbird. The surrounding forest grew as high as she could see. Their branches obstructed her ability to grasp her bearings. Light split through the foliage from above, but Dani did not know from whence it came. The faelen magic that blanketed the Eidolon Woods always kept time a secret beyond knowing whether it was night or day.
It was astonishing for Dani to see a faelen tree in another world. Faelen trees were enormous living temples that contained the astral records of whichever region they were planted in from the moment of their inception. They possessed hominoid facial characteristics and spoke to those who sought their wisdom.
The Great Faelen Tree marveled at the tiny fairy. “I watched thee flourish in the Shade, my child. Thy wisdom astonishes me. Thy selflessness is most admirable. There is one here worthy of thy companionship.”
“I trust my life would not have been risked were he not,” Dani replied.
The Great Faelen Tree studied her. “Thy courage to pass through The Great Barrier honors us eternally. How dost thou feel?”
Dani didn’t know how to respond. She felt well enough, but Caliphweald was an entirely different realm than the Shade. Everything felt different.
The Great Faelen Tree sensed her insecurity. “Ye may go anywhere, Dani. Ye may survive in the outer limits of this physical realm.”
It was the embarking of an uncharted adventure for Dani, an entirely new beginning. She fought to conceal her excitement, but there was a grave concern that churned her heart.
“It dost not serve thee to harbor such emotions, child,” the Great Faelen Tree warned. He thought about what he could reveal to her. He did not wish to spoil the experience this new quest would gift her. “He shall take thee to inconceivable places. He shall help the world reveal itself anew.”
“Who is he, Great Faelen Tree?” she asked.
“Ah. That is a question not even he could answer, child,” the Great Faelen Tree replied. He gave serious thought before speaking again. “It is a question whose answer evades even me. Perhaps ye shall be the one to find it.”
Dani didn’t want to overstep her bounds or grow comfortable in this realm. “I look forward to this task, Great Faelen Tree.”
“Very well,” the Great Faelen Tree responded. “Each of the Amori has a guardian fairy. However, there is one child here who lives without one. ‘Tis a truly remarkable thing. He is Shadean, though he crossed no barriers to get here. He endures loneliness and ridicule most days.
“How could he be lonely here?” Dani asked.
“To be without a fairy is to be without a god,” the Great Faelen Tree lamented. “As ye shall discover, Dani, Caliphians hath different customs and beliefs than the Amori. They do not look favorably upon children born without family or raised without religion. This matters not to the Amori but it matters a great deal to those whose unfounded beliefs make them mortal and erect the prisons of their minds.”
“The Caliphians shun their own kind?” Dani asked.
“Are the Amori so different?” the Faelen Tree asked. “Loneliness is the most terrible poverty, Dani. Imagine a burden so great the world’s fate depended upon thee. Imagine that burden remaining unknown, yet binding itself to thee all the same.”
Dani wondered if perhaps the Faelen Tree was alluding to this unknown burden now attaching itself to her.
“It was the reason for which ye were chosen,” he said. “However, the weight of the world is not the greatest burden one may know.”
Dani tried to imagine what the weight of the world felt like. Her words were cautious. “What is the greatest burden?”
There was heartbreak within The Great Faelen Tree as he spoke. “Imagine not knowing thyself, Dani. Imagine not knowing ye are of the Shade. Imagine losing what ye loved most and not being able to remember it. The loneliness that accompanies the search to find thy own self is the greatest burden.”
Dani knew the dangers of those who become lost. The Shade was not paradise. The greatest atrocities all had one thing in common. People who became lost were the ones who orchestrated them.
“It hath been over a decade since the Great War of the Fourth Era,” the Great Faelen Tree continued. “Much was taken from the boy who is worthy of thee. Much was lost. He is a child of destiny, Dani. Bring him to me.”
______________________________
THUNDER CRASHED BETWEEN THE dark clouds that blanketed the sky. It was deafening to Aithein, who looked to be around twelve years old. His woodland colored tunic was soaked through and heavy. Lightning broke the heavens and blinded his vision. Multicolored spots covered everything he tried to focus on.
The air was as hot as day but as black as night. Rain clapped like the applause of evil as it ferociously struck the ground. Aithein looked down at the little rivers that fled past his feet. Wet cinder mixed with the rain, causing each drop to sting his skin. The smell of hot ash escaped the city walls.
Water dripped from Aithein’s brow. The wind chilled his wet skin when it blew past him. He stood alone in the field, watching, waiting, but he knew not what for. A familiar feeling overcame his senses. He had been here before, but he couldn’t find the memories. He faced the city walls that guarded the entrance to Maebelfry. The crevasse in the ground ahead of him harbored a giant moat that prevented him from further passage. The entrance’s torches gave off a cloudy burn through the fog. He didn’t remember what brought him here or how he journeyed this far outside of the forest.
The only other travelers on the cobblestone roads were dead. Disintegrated carriages and maimed horses littered the field. Aithein was overcome by the fear that he was the only one to survive the end of the world.
Giant metallic objects clashed with each other. The sound jolted Aithein from his state of horror. Man-sized chain links descended from tunnels in the kingdom’s walls. The massive drawbridge opened. The sound of carnage grew louder and l
ouder with each foot of space that the opening gate created. Oak and steel collided with stone. The drawbridge landed with a thunderous sound that echoed across the Steppe.
Aithein focused on what was to come. He couldn’t see amidst the chaos. He took a step forward, but then froze at the sound of hooves clapping against the cobblestones.
______________________________
DANI SOARED THROUGH THE thicket that separated The Great Faelen Tree’s meadow from the rest of the forest. She descended into a natural-grown tunnel. There was a male Amori figure with his fairy up ahead. She had to decide between being polite or completing her task. She chose the task.
Dani arched her wings back and let the wind skyrocket her upwards. She soared above the figure en route to the end the tunnel. Something about his features bothered her. It was a subtle irritation that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
The figure’s shaggy, pumpkin-colored hair jutted out from his Phrygian cap. His big teal eyes ignited from the carrot-colored freckles that covered his pale skin. His cheeks were droopy and his jaw was small. His buckteeth protruded over his bottom lip.
As Dani glided over the figure, his fairy communicated with her through thought. “Stay clear of him. He is nothing but trouble. A wolf.”
“What is his name?” Dani thought.
The Amori boy’s suspicious stare pulled Dani’s focus toward him. The command of his presence was magnetic. Something within him was hungry for recognition.
“Chako,” Dani heard as she flew over them. “Don’t forget. Not everyone with a fairy is Amori. Not everything that crossed The Great Barrier is from the Shade.”
The words haunted Dani. Her flight pattern dipped into a plummet as she lost her focus. Her heart sank into her stomach. The feeling awoke her like cold water on a sleepy face. She collected herself and flapped her wings twice as hard to make up her lost altitude.
She reached her previous elevation and reclaimed her composure. As she exited the tunnel, she flew up high and hovered in awe. She beheld the beauty of Amori Village for the first time. The luminous aqua glow of the water was the first thing to capture her attention. It cascaded down a waterfall from the Eidolon Woods in the northern part of the village. It was just like the Shade.
The Tale of Onora: The Boy and the Peddler of Death Page 9
