Malcolm and Icelyn's Story

by Ruth Anne Scott

  Malcolm shook his head.

  “That’s not necessary,” he said. “I can do them.”

  “I was going to be washing my own clothes tomorrow anyway, so it won’t be any trouble,” she said. “Besides, it would be far too dangerous for you to go down to the creek by yourself. It’s much safer if you just let me do it.” He agreed, and she gave a resolute nod. “Fine. Come on. I know that you’re hungry.”

  “I am,” Malcolm said, suddenly aware of the gnawing hunger in his belly.

  They settled into the chairs at the small table tucked to one side of the kitchen and Icelyn handed him a plate. Malcolm took it and filled it with the food from several dishes placed on the table. They fell into a silent pattern of eating and sipping from the cups in front of them for several minutes before he spoke.

  “Tell me more about yourself,” he said.

  “What do you want to know?” Icelyn asked, seeming slightly taken aback by the question.

  “About your family,” he said. “Did you grow up in this house?”

  Icelyn looked down at her plate and then back at him.

  “No,” she said. “I came to live here when my parents died. That was all that was left of my family.”

  Malcolm took another bite of the food as he thought about her answer. It was another layer to how unusual she was, and it only made him want to know more. As he pondered a woman living alone and without any family, however, he knew that he couldn’t delve as far as he would want to, to know more about her. Even though it seemed as though they were getting more familiar and comfortable with each other, he could still feel that she was closed off in a way. She hadn’t offered any information about herself or her situation, even after he asked about her family, so he knew that there were things about her that she wasn’t ready for him to know. He couldn’t pry and risk isolating himself completely away from her again.

  “I like it,” he said, trying to smooth over the uncomfortable moment in the conversation and get them back on track. “It’s definitely quieter than where I lived.”

  “How did the training go today?” she asked, moving past his question.

  “Difficult,” Malcolm admitted. “Theia is a phenomenal trainer, but definitely expects nothing short of excellence. There isn’t much room for learning. She shows us something and then expects us to be able to do it.”

  “Maybe that’s why you got hurt,” she said.

  Malcolm shrugged.

  “I was doing what I was supposed to do,” he said. “Good thing, because I think that if I was doing something wrong that he might have gotten me right across the head.”

  Icelyn paused again, but he could sense that there was something that she wanted to ask him about. Finally, she spoke.

  “What do you think about all of this?” she asked.

  “All of what?” he asked.

  “This situation. The Nyx 23 team. Ryan’s experiments. The hybrid army. It must be enough that you were willing to rebel against the Order.”

  “It was,” he agreed, somewhat surprised that she would ask him that question. “I didn’t know about everything that the Order was doing. I hope that you know that.”

  “What has the Order been doing?” Icelyn asked.

  There was a slight hint in her tone that told him that she knew more than she was pretending to know and that she was just checking with him to gauge how much he really knew.

  “There’s corruption in the Order,” he said, deciding that the defensiveness that was his initial reaction to her question wouldn’t help either of them and that he would tell her as much as he could without going beyond what he thought was safe. “Some of them have been going against the true mission and aiding the enemies. I’m not sure how, but I know that they are involved with Ryan and his hybrid army. They are or have assisted them in some way and I believe that they will continue to if they have the opportunity.”

  Icelyn nodded slowly, looking at him as though she were still evaluating him.

  “I meant what I said, you know.”

  “About what?” he asked.

  “When I said that you were so brave for what you’ve done. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to make the type of decision that you did, especially when you didn’t know if you truly had a friendly ally waiting on the outside for you. If Athan had turned his back on you, you would have had nowhere to run.”

  “I know,” Malcolm said. He thought about something that she had said about the Order the night before. “You said something about the Order killing those who they didn’t feel that they could punish effectively. What did you mean by that?”

  “There was a time when murder wasn’t the way of the Order. Of course, sometimes death is the only option when doing work as important as that of the Order, but the corruption that Aegeus taught about was just that…corruption. It’s not what the Order stands for or what they are meant to do.”

  Malcolm was shocked to hear Icelyn talking about Aegeus. It had been so long since his death that he didn’t think that anyone not linked to the Order or in his family would think of him.

  “You know of Aegeus?” he asked.

  “I do,” Icelyn said. “What do you know about him?”

  “He was my brother-in-law,” Malcolm said. “I had followed my father into the Order not long before Aegeus died. I was very young, so I made the choice to distance myself from my sister and her family. To distance myself from Aegeus. I remember them saying that he was dangerous. That he was doing things that weren’t approved by the Order and that he was threatening work that they had laid in place. I don’t think that I was meant to hear any of that. I asked my father about it and he seemed angry that I would ask, but he also knew that there was nothing that he could do. I had already been selected into the Order and was commanded to know everything that I could. He wasn’t permitted not to answer me if I had a question about something that I saw or heard.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He said that Aegeus had strange thoughts about the Order and the Panel. That he had lost sight of the true mission and was pulling away from the rest of the group. He left it at that and I didn’t think much of it again. When he died, I remember that my father didn’t mourn. Not at home anyway. He went to the funeral, of course, and he did everything in public that he should do to seem as though he was grieving for Aegeus, but when he was home, there wasn’t even the hint of sadness. I don’t remember him even visiting Ellora or her children after that. It was like they died too. I’ve been thinking a lot about that in the last few days.”

  “Where is your father now?” Icelyn asked.

  “Still in,” Malcolm said. “I don’t see him very often anymore. He’s on the Panel now.” He knew that that made his decision even more pressing and dangerous. His father knew him well and would be more likely to be able to find him than anyone else. “The official word in the Order is that his death marked the end of the war and restored the core strength and honor of the Order. Officially, there were no more questions about the Order or any form of corruption. I hadn’t thought any more about that until I saw my sister Ellora down in the tunnels.”

  “Aegeus knew something that they were doing,” Icelyn said. “He knew what the rogue members had done and what they were planning.”

  “How do you know all of this?” he asked. “You seem to know more than me. I’m not even fully informed on the workings of the Order yet. That comes with time.”

  “There are plenty of men who are high in the Order who don’t know everything about it. That’s the way that it has always been. The Order is not just one thing. There are layers and levels within it that act both to make sure that the hierarchy accomplishes everything that it is supposed to, but also to ensure that the core of the Order is protected. These guards the most important ancient function of the Order, the reason that it was started to begin with and why it will persist, why it must persist.”

  “What is that function?” Malcolm asked. “Do you know why the Order began
?”

  It was a question that he had asked himself countless times before. He had been brought in to serve when he was only a child and yet, he had never been told the full story of why the Order had begun. They were told only that the Order came from a need within the Universe to protect and preserve all that was valuable and precious. He had been told no more, but had always longed to know.

  “I don’t,” Icelyn said. “No one knows how many people within the Order actually know that information, and who among them have all of the details. That is part of what makes the corruption so incredibly dangerous. Corruption is pervasive in many different ways. It challenges what is being done and threatens the function of those who don’t know everything. How are they to know what is real if they don’t know all of what they are doing or what the other people around them know?”

  Malcolm drew in a breath, trying to force down the hard ball of emotion that had tightened in his throat. What Icelyn said had sunk deeply into him. He knew all too well what it meant to stand among the ranks without knowing what it was that he was truly serving. This thought and the new information and insights that Icelyn had given him created a new wash of emotion. He felt confused and overwhelmed, but he also felt both angry and sad thinking of all that he has been through and all that lay ahead.

  Chapter Six

  Icelyn could see the pain in Malcolm’s eyes and etched on his face. She felt terrible for all that he had gone through already and what he was trying to work his way through now. She knew that he deserved to know more, if even only a small amount. She stood and walked over to the coffee machine as she tried to formulate the words in her mind. What she had to tell him could change everything, and it could also put them all at greater risk. Taking two mugs of coffee, she placed them on a tray along with a plate of cookies and carried them into the living room. She placed the tray on the table in the center of the seating arrangement and settled onto the chair where she had sat the night before. Malcolm came into the living room and took his place on the couch. It felt like it was becoming a pattern, something more familiar and predictable than perhaps it should have felt in only the short time that they had known each other.

  “You asked me about my family,” she started.

  Malcolm nodded as he picked up one of the mugs of coffee and took a sip.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “My grandfather was a man named Casimir. He was in the Order. I know so much about it because I found his journals and read them.”

  Malcolm looked like he was struggling to swallow the sip of the hot, strong beverage and he reached forward to put the mug back down on the table.

  “He kept journals?” he asked.

  “Yes. They detailed his time in the Order and what he was doing. There were a few of them from his early years when he was first selected, but the closer he got to the end of his life, the more he wrote.”

  “We are forbidden from making any records of the Order or what we have done,” Malcolm said.

  “I know,” Icelyn said. “Have you ever seen Aegeus’s mark?”

  “No.”

  “It is a symbol that represents him. His father had one as well. So, did mine. They were designed for the purpose of communicating to others that would seem anonymous to those who weren’t familiar with the marks. It ensured that they could send communications, send messages, or just establish that they were in a certain place without writing out their names.”

  Malcolm looked as though he were reeling from the information that she had just given him.

  “He risked everything, including his life, by writing those journals.”

  “I know,” Icelyn said again. “But that’s why I know what I do and why I was able to be here to help you.”

  She debated telling him more. What she had told him already was true, but it wasn’t everything. There was so much more that part of her felt he should know, but there was another part of her that was still wary, still wanted to keep it close to her. She wasn’t entirely sure why. In only the brief time that they had known each other she had developed a sense of closeness with Malcolm that she had never experienced. Even if she wasn’t able to express it or didn’t even know what it meant herself, she knew that she wanted to trust him and to be able to open up to him, especially about things that she knew impacted him so seriously. She couldn’t understand what it was that was in her that stopped her from telling him more. It was almost as though she had stayed quiet about it for so long that she didn’t know how to open up to him or even if it would be safe for either of them if she did.

  Malcolm was staring at her and she took a sip of her coffee, partly to break the intensity of his gaze.

  “What are you thinking about?” she finally asked after several long moments of silence.

  “Just how thankful I am that it was you who Athan chose to help me. If I need to be protected, I am just glad that it is you who I ended up with.”

  Icelyn felt pleasure move through her at the words. She tried to hold back the smile that was trying to come to her lips. When her eyes met his, however, the smile melted away as an unexpected rush of emotion came over her. She felt the urge to be closer to him and felt herself ease to the edge of the chair. She wasn’t sure what was behind the compulsion, but she reached up and touched her fingertips to his cheekbone, running them down the side of his face. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt as though she couldn’t get all of the breath into her lungs. Malcolm looked as though he were feeling the same thing and she noticed him drawing closer to her, his eyes not moving from hers.

  Taking her hand away from his face, Icelyn stood sharply and reached down for the mug of coffee.

  “It’s late,” she said. “You should really get some sleep. Training tomorrow will probably be even harder than it was today.”

  She headed for the kitchen and could hear him coming up behind her.

  “Icelyn,” he said.

  She put the mug in the sink and turned.

  “Is there anything else that you might need before bed?” she asked. “I’ll find your clothes and wash them tomorrow. When you get up, I’ll have a shirt waiting for you.”

  She didn’t pause long enough for Malcolm to say anything else. She needed to get away from him. She felt as though she were losing herself, the control that she had always had slipping slightly away a little more with each moment. Tucking herself into bed, Icelyn squeezed her eyes closed and refused to let herself dwell on the image of Malcolm that was trying to take over her mind.

  Icelyn prepared breakfast for Malcolm and laid out a new, larger shirt for him before he woke up, then remained in her bedroom until she heard him leave to meet Athan for training. When he was gone, she gathered the clothing that he had worn the day before along with her own clothes and headed down to the creek. She was kneeling by the basket at the edge of the water trying to grind enough of a cleansing stone into one of the stains on his shirt as she could to remove the discoloration when she heard someone approaching. Icelyn glanced over her shoulder and felt her heart constrict at the sight of Weyland coming closer. He was also carrying a basket of clothes, but the look on his face told Icelyn that there was another purpose behind his trip to the creek.

  “Hello,” she said, looking directly into the man’s face to keep his attention focused on her. “It’s a beautiful day today.”

  “It is,” Weyland agreed. “Clothes will dry fast today.”

  His eyes flickered over her shoulder as if he wanted to see what she was holding and Icelyn shifted her body slightly, trying to subtly block his view. As she continued to smile at him, she balled his shirt up in her hand and shoved it down in between two of the boulders protruding from the bank. Once it was hidden, she grasped one of her dresses that she had already washed and relaxed her posture so that Weyland could clearly see the soft blue garment draped across the boulder. She ground the stone into the fabric arbitrarily, occasionally glancing down at it as if checking the progress of a stain.

  “It seem
s like I’m always down here washing,” she said, trying to add levity to her voice.

  The Order member came to her side and stared at her dress. She couldn’t tell if he was fooled by it or if he was trying to figure out what it was that she was trying to hide.

  “I suppose in that way it’s a blessing to be alone,” Weyland said. Icelyn felt herself go still. “If only your grandfather was still here. I remember how much Casimir appreciated fresh shirts.”

  A chill ran through her, but Icelyn refused to allow herself to show it. She dipped her dress down in the rushing water and forced herself to nod in agreement.

  “It is much easier to handle it just for myself. I can’t imagine these women who wash for their entire families.”

  Weyland made a strange sound in his throat and she looked over her shoulder at him again. He was staring down into the basket in his hands.

  “You know,” he said. “I think that these are clean. I’m going to go home and put on a fresh shirt. Have a nice afternoon.”

  Icelyn could feel herself shaking when the man walked away. She didn’t think that he had seen the clothing that she had hid, but that didn’t change the look of smug suspicion on his face. It was as if he wanted her to know that he knew something, but was purposely not telling her so that he could simply trail her along, tormenting her. She stayed by the side of the creek for several more minutes, trembling as she forced herself to finish washing the clothing. Once it was clean, she piled it back into the basket and headed back toward her house to hang them to dry. She brought Malcolm’s clothing inside the house and hung them in front of the heater, turning the warm air on so that it could quickly dry out his clothes without anyone seeing it. Though it was effective, the heater immediately brought the temperature inside the home up to an uncomfortable level. She went to the back door and opened it, propping it open so that the hot air from inside the house could escape. Though the temperature outside was barely cooler than that inside, if at all, the movement of the breeze helped to stir up the air, easing the oppressive feeling.