The Other One

by Amanda Jay

  Tom’s heart, which was pounding so hard that his chest hurt, seemed to stop at this. What had he done? This supposed father of mine? Tom knew that it must concern him, but he didn’t have time to think as Felix went on.

  "Day 633. I have been working day and night about fixing this, but alas it has been to no avail. I am getting increasingly worried about the well-being of my sons. If Onyx realises what I have come to understand, both their lives will be in danger. She has already guessed a lot of it, I feel. I am so torn. I cannot let my family down. Not more than I already have.

  "Day 895. For perhaps the first time in my life, I feel the true weight of what love can be. My heart aches, my soul (I didn’t even realise that I had one) aches. But now I have to be strong. It is only for a little while that we must part. Just so that I can have him be safe while I find a solution. I must find a solution. I must. He is not the Other One to me anymore. He is my son. My own. Just as much as Felix. This is truly breaking my heart.

  "That’s where it ends," Felix said, laying the papers back on the floor. "I mean, there were many pages of code in between and after, but those were all the thing he had written. At least, what we managed to get."

  All three of them sat silently for a while. Tom realised his fists were clenched, and was about to unclench them when he accidentally glanced at Skii. It was like looking into the eyes of a stranger. Suddenly, everything he knew to be true had disappeared. Tom held her gaze, but it was she who spoke.

  "Looks like we need to find a disguise good enough to get you into the City Guard office, huh?"

  EZRA

  Ezra shivered under his umbrella as he waited for Kaelyn to finish locking up. The slight drizzle from earlier in the evening had developed into a steady patter of heavy droplets and the steely clouds that hung low in the sky only promised more rain. He hoped Onyx wouldn’t be late.

  After the alcohol and nerve-induced fog of the previous evening had lifted, Ezra found himself quite curious about what lay ahead.

  "So, are we still meeting Onyx tonight?" he had asked Kaelyn as they rushed to get dressed in the morning.

  "I suppose we are, I just pray to the Twin Gods she hasn't gone and done something too ridiculous," Kaelyn had replied, struggling to fish her ill-fated petticoat from behind the bed again.

  And so Ezra had ducked into the university library during his lunch break, determined not to look uninformed about Chyrania again. There were around three shelves of books that he could find and all of them were covered in a soft layer of dust.

  Unsure of where to start, he haphazardly pulled a few of them off the shelves and thumbed through the yellowed pages. They mostly discussed, in minute detail, Chyranian customs and traditions. Prints of deep-skinned men and women with strange markings on their faces and shoulders stared back at him from the pages.

  They were interesting, he supposed, at least in an exotic sort of way, but Ezra had trouble understanding their relevance to Onyx. He banged the book shut a little more loudly than he intended to, but no one looked up, except a mousy looking girl sitting across from him.

  "Chyrania huh?" she whispered, eyeing the book he shut. "Me too, although I haven’t been able to find anything particularly recent that would help me. Just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about their superstitions. Did you know that Chyranians never lie. Yes, never, the book says. Apparently they believed that their God wouldn't look on the face of liars. I can think of a few gentlemen in Mliss who would benefit from that." She eyed Ezra knowingly.

  "Well, what are you looking for?" he asked, perturbed a little by her sudden speech, and trying to sidestep her last comment. "Maybe I’ve seen something in these?" Ezra pointed to the stack of books he had discarded.

  "I’m actually looking for some decent images of Chyranians," she replied. She pulled out a sketchbook and passed it over to Ezra, who handed the book he had been leafing through over to her.

  "They’ve asked me to do this mosaic-- The history of Mliss through the ages," she said, emphasising her subject waving her arms theatrically from right to left.

  "There’s been a bit of debate about whether or not I should include the Chyranians, but it hardly seems fair to mention Bearoux the Builder without at least a nod towards them."

  "What did the King have to do with it?" Ezra asked.

  "Oh dear, looks like you know less about the Chyranians than even I do. Let’s see..." the girl switched chairs so she was right across from him. Ezra noticed the charcoal smudges on her face and under her fingernails.

  "So, you do know that Bearoux the Builder was responsible for Mliss as we know it today, right? I mean, he built the roads, the aqueducts, this very building."

  Ezra nodded. Every school child knew that. Bearoux the Builder was, quite befittingly, a visionary of his time.

  "Well, what they often fail to mention in the history books, is that in order to stick to his rigorous building plans, Bearoux had to ship in labourers from the Savage Isles. They were stronger, you see and less likely to complain about the ridiculous amounts of work and not to mention the horrendous working conditions. He had promised them citizenship, and a new life, and all sorts of wonderful things."

  "Shhh!" someone said from behind them.

  "Well," the girl leaned forward and dropped her voice further, so that Ezra had to lean forward too, "surprise, surprise, guess who didn’t keep his end of the deal? Those poor Chyranians were cast aside as soon as the construction was finished. Everyone treated them like rubbish, didn’t give them regular jobs, didn’t let their children go to school with ours, even had them all live in a special district. Pitiful, really. It’s no wonder that they got so angry and started picking fights with our lot. But you have to admit, setting off that explosion at the school was kind of a low blow, even by our standards. The builder-king was long gone by then, of course, and even his son, Bearoux the Brains had died. It was the Boy King who took over then. It's funny how a name sticks, doesn't it? He wasn't really a boy by the time the explosion happened, but that was what everyone liked to call him."

  "So what happened after the school? Where are the Chyranians now?" Ezra hated acknowledging his own ignorance, but he had been far too submerged in his own worries to pay attention at the time.

  "Dead, mostly, or back in Chyrania. Though how many of them even survived the trip back we’ll never know. It was easy to round them all up, of course, and the rest, well... The penalty for a Chyranian to set foot in Mliss is death," the girl shrugged.

  "They say that's how he got his name. You can't really be called a Boy King after something like that."

  "Bearoux the Black," Ezra whispered, more to himself than to her.

  While he was grateful to have filled in the blanks of his sparse historical knowledge, something about the story left him deeply unsettled. He had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was that Onyx had planned on sharing tonight. A part of him didn't even want to meet Onyx anymore and he had played with the idea of telling Kay that he wouldn't be able to make it but he changed his mind at the last moment and decided to go.

  He was glad when Onyx did show up though as the cold was starting to creep into his bones.

  "Shall we go?" Onyx asked Kaelyn, businesslike. She didn’t seem to be cold at all, even though she didn’t have an umbrella. The evening’s rain glided off her black hair and ran smoothly down the black overcoat that reached her ankles. She carried a basket of sorts, that jutted out awkwardly on her arm.

  "Here, take my umbrella. I’ll take your basket," he offered, gallantly, even though his fingers were already numb.

  Onyx raised an eyebrow.

  "I’m really not that delicate, you know."

  "Oh, be nice, will you?" Kaelyn scolded. "I’ve found myself a nice man. Try not to scare him off."

  Onyx laughed tightly.

  "I’m sorry." She looked like she meant it. "Force of habit, that’s all. I’ll tell you what, let’s share, shall we?"

  She ducked under Ezra’s umbrella a
nd started walking. Ezra hurried to keep up, glancing back at Kaelyn who was following under her own umbrella.

  "Where are we going, anyway?" he asked.

  "The docks," she said simply. Making small talk was not one of Ezra’s strong points and Onyx didn’t look too interested either.

  "This way," she said grabbing his hand to steer him to the left after a few minutes of walking. Her fingers were icy, as always, but Ezra didn’t dare mention it.

  They reached a small tavern next to the docks. The sign was faded, and the place looked like it had definitely seen better days.

  "Not through there," Onyx chided as Ezra made to open the door. "Over to the side, here."

  She led the way down a narrow alley adjoining the building, and knocked assertively on a dirty side door.

  "It’s me, Hans. How is he today?" she asked when the door opened a crack.

  Hans just grunted and swung the door open.

  "You need to move him, and soon. It’s not good for business, having a fella like that here."

  "No one knows he’s here, Hans, how could it be bad for business?" Onyx led the way in through the dingy back entrance and up a rickety old staircase.

  Hans just grunted again. He didn’t look like the type of person that Ezra would usually like to butt heads with, he thought as he eyed the large man’s muscled arms in his stained white undershirt. But Onyx didn’t look perturbed in the least. He snuck a glance back at Kaelyn, who didn’t seem particularly uncomfortable either.

  There was a small room at the top of the staircase, which Hans unlocked.

  "Keep it down. These fishermen gossip like women," he grunted.

  Onyx and Kaelyn both narrowed their eyes at that but Ezra was pleased to see that they let it slide. He didn’t think Hans would take too kindly to a lecture on sexism right then.

  ***

  As the three of them stepped into the room, Ezra’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark.

  The room wasn't much in itself. Just a simple, square box, with a small cot in the corner, and what looked like a wooden crate holding a small lantern flickering miserably. The cot was empty, and Ezra had to peer hard over the weak, dancing shadows to see whatever it was that they came here to see.

  When his eyes finally picked out another pair of eyes, blinking from the far corner of the room, he had to force himself not to gasp. A small man was huddled against the wall, cocooned in a frayed blanket.

  "Xuntak?" Onyx had noticed the man as well, and walked over to him with her usual confidence.

  "It's me, Onyx. How are you feeling today?"

  The man blinked, but other than that he gave no indication that he had heard her.

  More out of curiosity than bravery, Ezra moved closer to the man as well. He noticed that Kaelyn remained standing near the door. Her arms were crossed and her jaw was set firmly.

  "Xuntak, I've brought you some food," Onyx tried again.

  Ezra had crossed over to the side of the room that Onyx was on, and finally got a clearer view of the man Onyx was talking to.

  That's when he realised that he was meeting a Chyranian for the first time. The black markings that snaked over his face were barely visible but seemed all the more menacing in the dim light. If he wasn't wrapped so tightly in the blanket, Ezra bet he would see the same markings continue down the man's shoulders, arms, and chest.

  "Here, let me," Ezra said, taking the basket from Onyx, and pulling out a sandwich.

  "Would you like to eat something?" he asked, grateful that his voice did not shake. Something about seeing this man, huddled in a corner on the floor while the cot lay empty resonated within him.

  Xuntak looked over at Ezra, and Ezra held his gaze.

  Finally, the Chyranian reached out a trembling, marked hand and took the roll of bread that Ezra held out.

  "Is he okay?" he asked Onyx quietly.

  "The journey wasn't easy on him. He didn't want to leave, but they attacked him. I had no choice but to bring him along."

  "You had no choice? Twin Gods be damned, Onyx, have you lost your mind?" Kaelyn hissed from the doorway.

  If Onyx felt any animosity towards her friend, she was very good at not showing it.

  "I'll explain everything. Don't worry," she replied without missing a beat.

  "Don't worry? Do you have any idea what kind of trouble we will be in if this gets out?"

  "Not as much trouble as I will be in, ay?" Xuntak's voice was softer than Ezra would have supposed, given his weathered appearance, and caught them all off guard.

  "The sandwich is good. Thank you," he continued. He shifted to a cross-legged position, and the portion of the blanket that he had wrapped around his head like a hood fell to his shoulders. With his closely cropped hair, narrow, slanting eyes, and of course, his tattooed skin, he was probably the most interesting person that Ezra had ever laid eyes on.

  He must have noticed that Ezra was staring at him, because he smiled at him embarrassedly.

  "I'm sorry for putting you all in danger." This was addressed directly to Kaelyn. "But I promise you will want to hear what I have to say. Everyone in Mliss would."

  "You know they will execute you, don't you?" Kaelyn's voice has lost its edge. "None of your people are allowed to set foot in Mliss. If the City Guard caught wind of this..."

  "Ah, but what is my life? When the lives of thousands of my people have already been thrown away."

  For possibly the first time since Ezra had known her, Kaelyn didn't have a reply. Onyx had seated herself on the floor across from Xuntak and Ezra moved to do the same. There was a little voice inside his head that begged him to leave. To take Kaelyn and get as far away from this man who couldn't mean anything but danger.

  But he sat down, and waited.

  "I know my being here is ill-advised," Xuntak explained. He sounded apologetic. "But what choice do I have? When my brothers and sisters lay dying because of the sins of my father?"

  "The sins of your father?" Ezra didn't like the sound of that.

  "Yes, my father. His name was..." The Chyranian hesitated for a moment, his eyes downcast.

  "His name was Yatook Timmon."

  Kaelyn gasped, her hands over her mouth, and even Onyx refused to meet anyone's eyes, staring resolutely at the flickering lamp in front of them.

  Yatook Timmon was the Chyranian responsible for the explosion at the school. Even Ezra knew that. How could he forget? How could anyone forget the name of the man who murdered so many innocent children?

  "I know what you are thinking," Xuntak's voice grew defensive. "My father was a monster. The lowest of the low. Scum of the earth."

  No one said anything, but Xuntak wasn't looking for reassurance.

  "But there's more to it than that. There's more... to his story."

  "Xuntak, why don't you start from the beginning?" Onyx said impassively. "Tell them what you told me?"

  "Yes. The beginning. Well, you have heard, I'm sure, how things were before? How we were shipped over here from our homes with a promise of a better life, only to be cast aside, like rubbish, when your king was done with us?" the words were harsh, but spoken matter-of-factly, without any bitterness in the foreigner's voice.

  "Times were bad for us Chyranians. We couldn't find work after the city was built, and well, you all know what happened with that. I don't remember too much of those times, of course. I was still a child. I just remember being very, very hungry. Every day, I was hungry.

  "My father was, well... What could you expect a man in his position to feel? My sister died of starvation. My older brother was executed for trying to steal some bread. He was angry. We were all angry.

  "But all those children... It doesn't make it okay, you know." Ezra couldn't help himself.

  "Let him speak," Onyx interrupted.

  "I remember that night because of the rain," Xuntak continued. "It never rains like that anymore. The lightning was scaring me. My mother was holding me close, trying to console me, when they came."

>   "Who came?"

  "The City Guard. I was afraid. I knew my father was a leader amongst our people. I knew he had been talking, making plans about saving our kind. My mother had kept warning him to stay quiet, but he wouldn't listen. He was trying to make a change, he kept saying. Trying to make a better world for her, for me. So when they came, I thought they had come to kill him.

  "But what they wanted was much, much worse. They held a knife up to my throat while he spoke to my father, telling him exactly what he wanted him to do. They took my mother with them, when they left, so they could be sure, they said, that he will follow through."

  "Follow through with what?" Ezra asked, confused.

  "The attack on the school."

  "You don't mean to say...?" Kaelyn's voice rang out from the other end of the room.

  "He blackmailed him into doing it. The explosion at the school was not my father's idea."

  "Who's he? Who blackmailed him?" There was a note of panic in Kaelyn's voice. Ezra almost didn't want Xuntak to answer.

  "The Boy King. Of course, he was known as the Black King shortly after. I saw him with my own eyes. He was younger then, of course. The evil hadn't yet disfigured his face, but it was him."

  It felt like the all the air had been sucked out of the room.

  "I can't believe it," Ezra muttered. It was too much for him to wrap his head around.

  "I mean, this is huge. To even think, for a moment, that our King organised the bloodiest attack in our history. On our own people, nonetheless. That he blackmailed your father into carrying out these attacks."

  "My father didn't carry out the attacks." The Chyranian's next words were spoken carefully.