A/N: As a heads up, this chapter is largely made up of one long rant/story by Alroy but IT IS IMPORTANT. All of it. I hope it makes sense and I hope it reads well/isn't boring. Carry on~
PART III | Chapter XXXIIV
3:33 | A Tale of Men and Monsters
“Humans and the immortal races have not always been at peace,” Alroy said. “Even without an educated history of our world, there isn’t yet a major culture that has forgotten the time of the first Purge or the Mage Wars…when kings turned upon their most powerful shamans. Even simple, paltry level healers were shunned. Trials were had against anyone even suspected of having magical heritage…”
“I am aware of that history,” Kedean conceded.
“It began,” Alroy continued, “…with several key members of the Black Dragon council striking alliances with the most power hungry of mortal kings’ mages. A trickle of cases of deceit and corruption struck a match in a metaphorical room of volatile explosives and suddenly no one with an ounce of magic was to be trusted…I was but a fledgling at this time. It quickly became an age where having a unicorn horn tacked to your wall was mark of honor…a time of witch burnings, vampire hunts, and dragon slaying…but humans were a poor match against any able bodied magic user. For all their hype, even the most hardened of knights found himself all but a thorn in the side of a grown dragon, and almost as soon as it developed, it was clearly a losing war for the mortal races…
“Until,” He tilted his head with a wry smile, “human kings, desperate for a miracle, came upon a people with a peculiar resistance to dark magic. They called themselves the Kuhamani…and they were warrior culture. Their territories spanned great lengths of land south of the Eastern kingdoms, with massive cities that reached limits which put many of greater empires at the time to shame…but to that point, they had kept to themselves, and due to their reclusive nature, many of their neighbors chose wisely to leave them to their own devices. It was only once backed into a corner…hopelessly outmatched by their immortal opponents…that the human rulers of that age sent pleading envoys to these people…swearing their allegiance and begging for their aid.
“It was after months of receiving streaming pleas from these outlying kingdoms…that they eventually agreed to step in and aid them in their war. At that point…the Kuhamani became dragon slayers…witch hunters – trackers and fighters, soldiers of the most lethal variety. Without hiring them to fight in your army…the battle was good as lost.
“It was only then,” Alroy said, “…that the tides began to turn. Humans finally had a weapon against magic. What they didn’t know, was that this resistance to spell power was not racial or inherited…but a practice of self-defense rooted into the Kuhamani culture. It was a tradition of…what could most easily be compared to the creation of dream catchers, but instead of harmful dreams or spirits, the patterns they wove caught harmful magics. They would thread them into their clothes under the stitching and out of sight, paint them onto their shields with invisible inks that sank into the framework or wear tiny ornaments of jewelry with these protection spells thinly engraved in them, and eventually, as their trust was earned, they would teach these methods to their allies…though naturally it had to be closely guarded lest the information fall into the wrong hands.
“By the time I was coming of age to prove myself…defend my right as the first son of my father of ascension to the throne…the Council of Dragons was already rightly worried. By some trick of fate they were losing and could not understand why, as they did not know of or understand this new type of spellwork…” There, Alroy paused, a distant frown flickering into place over his features. “It became my assignment…to infiltrate one of the Kuhamani cities. I was to take on the guise of a human soldier…gain their trust, live among them…and eventually divulge the secrets they guarded so closely…”
“But instead you betrayed your own people,” Kedean guessed, and Alroy gave a wry, strained smile.
“Not immediately, no,” he answered. “I was…something of the equivalent of a prince at that time, I suppose you might say. My loyalty to my father was strong. I wanted to please him. I was young, and…I set out with a very adamant goal. It…never occurred to me that my perspectives might change so drastically as they did…” After a moment of trailing off, as though caught, briefly, in nostalgia, he shook his head sharply and continued. “I did as asked. I enmeshed myself in one of their larger cities, drank in the culture,
became the soldier I was pretending to be…and…for some time, that worked.
“I reported everything I saw, was never suspected…beyond the sort of suspicion that was necessarily directed at all outsiders, of course. Until…I made a crucial mistake.” He tilted his head, and then smiled almost genuinely this time. “Well,” he amended, “…I suppose ‘mistake’ isn’t a very good word for it, since I have yet to regret it, but…it was what landed me where I am now…”
Kedean waited, patient, and Alroy chuckled.
“I fell in love.” He graced Kedean with a wink. “With your grandmother, believe it or not.”
Kedean gave a startled, choked sound. “With-”
“Oh, she was beautiful, don’t get me wrong. And we never
were anything, I’ll tell you that now. Nothing you could put a name on, anyway. She was engaged before I ever met her and a dutiful woman at that, but…” His words slowed, going wistful for a moment before he smiled distantly and shook his head again, “…there were no words to describe her. The first day I laid eyes on her…my first day in that city…she was fighting. Pure, fluid energy, it was like…watching water dance in the middle of an open plaza. Amazing, truly. I only befriended her later, and it was some time after that before I realized I was wholly crazy about the woman, but…you know, as I said, it never was anything but a friendship…”
“What happened?” Kedean asked, and Alroy shrugged.
“I became very close with her, I made friends in the community, I earned their trust as I was sent to do – though, I will say, I don’t believe I ever fully gained hers until afterwards. She would always joke that she was still certain I were a spy, or that I had something under my belt which I wouldn’t let her in on…” Alroy cleared his throat. “But that…was not what got me. I didn’t go in alone. Or…I did, but very quickly after they sent another to accompany me…another young dragon at the time, about my age, by the name of Valen. He was, eventually, to be my brother…arranged to mate my sister, that is.”
“He caused trouble.”
“Valen…” Alroy chose his words carefully, “…had always wanted power. I don’t mean this to sound moral and upright because often I’m not, but…power never was appealing to me. I never
wanted a throne…I wanted to please my family, but that was as far as it went for me. Valen was…ecstatic about the mission and…as soon as he saw I was gaining ground he would pry, every night. ‘What did you learn?’ ‘What did she say to you?’ ‘Have you found anything important yet?’ ‘We must report everything, you remember that, right?’ And…I began to feel…torn.
“Treason was a powerful word and I can’t say I had even considered yet, at that point, ‘betraying’ my family, but…I felt there were things going on that weren’t right. Misunderstandings that oughtn’t be happening and…I began to hold little things back…not mention small bits of things I felt or did, particularly when it came to Zytana – your grandmother – and my dealings with her. And Valen began to distrust me.
“It was Zyta’s sister,” Alroy recalled, “…who, after a particularly harsh attack from the outside, went against her sister and father and shared with me the trick to their resistance. She went so far as to show me in detail several of their more intricate negation patterns…threaded them into a patch and integrated them into my uniform for my own protection. When Zyta found out she was furious and…I’m not sure what possessed me at the time, but…I couldn’t lie to her anymore. I took her aside the next night, and I told her everything…my identity, my mission, my fears…I told her I wanted to protect her and her family, but that I didn’t know how anymore…that I felt helpless.”
He frowned, a long, unbroken silence filling the gap before he finally continued.
“I was very foolish. Young, and foolish…Valen found me out. He discovered I’d gotten crucial information. I tried to tell him I wanted to wait and find out more before pulling out, but he no longer trusted me – for good reason, I suppose – and left without warning. He branded me a traitor in front of the entire council while I was still in the city…he unveiled everything and as quickly as that there was an attack planned on us…
“It was then, already branded, that I decided to truly fulfill the namesake they had already given me. I was furious with Valen, furious that my own family would believe him so quickly – regardless of most of his words being true – and I was furious for being made to feel so powerless…so I warned Zytana, her people, the entire city…and when Valen brought an army, I fought my own kind. It was…a miserable battle.
“Valen and I had learned the city by heart, and many of the surrounding ones, so of course, it was an open book to them. In addition, thanks to the information he’d brought in, several of the council’s mages had already concocted counters to many of the negation and protection barriers the city had up…and it was a slaughter. It became more than that though…I think now, looking back, that…the Kuhamani were the first of the mortal races to ever pose a real threat to any of the immortal races, but dragons in particular took it as…an insult to their pride.
“Over the course of a year, every city they could find was incinerated. Vast swaths of the population absolutely wiped out…it was near the beginning of that period that I convinced Zytana and a number of the members of that city to withdraw – though, mind you, ‘retreat’ was barely a word in their vocabulary and it was a rough task to be sure…in the end it was barely a village’s worth of people that disappeared with me, pulling back into the deepest of the southern wilds…I have to believe some other groups must have done the same, though we never heard from them.
“I spent…the first few decades of my exile precisely like that. Helping them rebuild, tucked away into an area of nothingness, hiding from the outside world…starting from scratch. It happened over the years though. I watched her marry, build a family, and watched that family grow up. I never appeared to age, of course, and I don’t believe I ever fully regained the trust of any of the villagers…except for her. Zyta trusted me absolutely after that point, and I watched her grow old…” Alroy gave a weary twitch of a smile, his eyes flicking towards Kedean. “I saw her grandchildren…” He shook his head. “I never thought once, during those years, of returning ‘home’…it
became my home there. Until…” He tilted his head in deference to history, “…my sister, Melsinna…sought me out, in exile.”
“She led others there,” Kedean guessed flatly.
“Again, not immediately, no,” Alroy said. “Her intentions were genuine at first. She was coming of age and frightened, about to be mated to Valen. She wanted a way out, and we’d always had a…bond of sorts, between us, though technically we are only half-siblings by blood ties. She found me easily, asking me how to escape her engagement…it wasn’t until later, after she discovered what precisely I was
doing in the middle of the southern wilds…that things went out of control.
“Her father…our father…threatened to banish her as well, entirely, when he found her heavy with a human’s child. She offered to reveal the location of a hidden cloister of surviving Kuhamani in exchange for holding her position on the council. Our village, of course. He consented, and…it was a surprise attack, no warning. Melsinna personally lead the force that burned the village to the ground in its sleep.”
Alroy watched, calculating, as this information sunk in. After a heavy pause, Kedean said, “Melsinna…Baisyl’s mother.”
“Yes.”
Kedean took another moment, cleared his throat, swallowed, and then nodded, not quite meeting Alroy’s gaze. “Alright.”
“You were seven years old,” Alroy said. “We tried to evacuate. I tried to get Zytana out, but by the time I found her she’d been severely injured, and she was old by then…she didn’t care about herself, she only wanted to see that her family lived. She made me promise…made me swear to her that for as long as I drew breath, I would do as much to protect her family as I had her…and I promised her that.”
He drew a breath. “Your mother…died before we ever made it out of the village. She fought for your sister’s life and lost-”
“I had a sister?”
Alroy nodded. “She was three years older than you. Only you, your father, and I made it out as far as I know…I don’t think your father has ever forgiven me for not being able to save the two of them.” Sighing, he pressed on. “I took you both to the only place I knew I had left…a place where Melsinna wouldn’t dare start trouble for she had her own investments there. I took you to the place where her own infant son was to grow up…the island of Ire, a colony, all but monopolized by her human lover, Lord Darion Merseille.”
“And the story ends there?”
“Not quite,” Alroy said, lips pursing briefly before he went on. “You weren’t the same after that. At first it was to be expected, you were but seven summers, how could you adjust quickly? But it was more than that. You asked every day were your mother was, where your sister was, where
nainai was…when we would be going home. Your father tried to explain, and I lived separately from you then, but caring for you was an immense strain on him and I spent large portions of every day stopping by to aid him. After just having lost his wife and daughter…your questioning only pained him…”
Kedean looked away, his expression blank, but jaw wrought with tension.
“Immediately after being told that they wouldn’t be coming back, you would go silent, and you wouldn’t say a word for the rest of the day, but then the next day…it was as if you had been put on reset, and you would ask again. Gradually, this pattern wore down…you began to speak less and less…by time you were nearly nine summers, you rarely spoke a word. You began to have nightmares. Reoccurring nightmares, where you would wake up screaming, wailing out for your mother…”
Kedean swallowed hard, his eyes now intently focused on the far horizon.
“You became ill…small hot flashes and fevers at first, but it got worse, like a slow progression, by the time you were ten you almost never left your bedside, constantly weak, ashen, and fitful, always crying…it drove your father nearly to madness himself and I sought out a healer. After some searching, I came upon a young, ex-priestess who felt she found her calling more in medicines and healing magics than the church of Mele…her name was Emalisse Trevahri.
“She came to see you every day…her visits became progressively longer, and her presence alone seemed to calm your father as much as it did you. They grew close, as I’m sure you know…and she helped him even though you seemed, despite her best efforts, to be getting only weaker by the day. Eventually we became…absolutely convinced…that it was only a matter of time before we lost you to the spirit world. On the night you didn’t cry out for the first time in nearly two years…they went to your bedroom in the morning expecting to find that you had passed in the night.”
Alroy’s eyes flicked up to meet Kedean’s, and he found Kedean watching him now, intent. “Your cot was empty. They didn’t know what to make of it…thought you might have been kidnapped, searched everywhere, and then…they found you. Out in the grass in back of the house, proudly proclaiming that you were on a search for the frog you’d heard calling to you since the sun rose. You were smiling…healthy…energetic. It was as though in a night, whatever was ailing you had lifted away and given up at the last instant.”
Alroy shifted his weight, rolling his shoulders. “It became obvious reasonably quickly, of course, that something was a little off…and eventually it became clear…” He shook his head. “You remembered nothing. It even took you some time to grow accustomed to your own name…like you had to re-learn it. Still, at the time, a ten year old’s memory seemed like a small price to pay for your life, and your father was the happiest he’d been since before losing everything…from there, you know the story.”
“Father married Emalisse…Zyric was born…” Kedean’s voice was distant – distracted, even in his response. “Those are my first memories…they were the happiest times I remember…until Ema passed, and father was…” The last words were quiet, barely audible, “…never the same.”
“He’s lost two women he loved dearly, a growing daughter and the promise of another child with Emalisse…as well as all the kin he ever knew. That weighs on a man,” Alroy said, and Kedean didn’t respond for some time.
Eventually, he asked, “So father and I…are we…all that’s left of these…?”
“I would assume not,” Alroy answered. “As I mentioned earlier, after the first major assault on their cities, once it became obvious that it was a hopeless battle I can’t imagine that ours was the
only group to eventually resort to retreating…and I would think that Natara is evidence enough that somewhere, fragments remain.”
“All of the Kuhamani people…they were dark?” Kedean asked, and Alroy nodded.
“Their skin tones ranged from as light as Zyric to…very nearly black. They were all tall. Their women were tall and their men were taller. You would have been about average.”
“Average,” Kedean repeated, with a brittle, cough of a laugh accompanying the word as though the thought alone couldn’t be anything but a joke. But he nodded after, taking the information in stride. “Average…”
“Dean-”
“I need,” Kedean cut in, “…time to…” He trailed off as quickly as that, though, searching for words and then apparently turning up empty. “Time,” he repeated instead at length. “I need time.” And with that, he turned from Alroy, stepping around the corner to make his way back in when-
He stopped short, attention landing on Baisyl. “Baisyl.”
“Kedean-”
“How long have you been there?”
“Ah…” Baisyl fumbled. “I’ve…not that…I mean…long enou-”
“Forget it,” Kedean cut him off. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
And Baisyl watched, at a loss as Kedean turned from him in turn, retreating again, and as his lover disappeared from view, Baisyl sagged against the wall at his back, feeling suddenly weak and mildly sick to his stomach. The quiet clip of footsteps alerted him to Alroy’s approach, unhurried and cautious, and Baisyl’s attention flicked up, meeting his uncle’s gaze.
“Twenty years?” Baisyl said.
“Nearly.”
“That’s a long time to keep a history like that from someone, don’t you think?”
Alroy shrugged. “Ten, twenty, thirty years, half a century…what is it in the grand scheme of things but a teardrop in the ocean?”
“In a mortal man’s
life,” Baisyl emphasized, cross, “…twenty years might be half or a third of all the time allotted to him.
Then it’s substantial, don’t you agree?”
“And do you think he’s better off,” Alroy countered, “with that knowledge? Happier? Free to live an improved life?”
“That’s not…” Baisyl scowled, turning a pensive, sharp look to the cobbled dirt at his feet. “It was his right to know.”
“It was his own body, his own mind that took the memories from him in the first place,” Alroy pointed out. “A defense mechanism. It happens. When trauma is severe enough, we forget things. Memory is a fluid thing, Lucerik, a volatile, changing thing…fickle…subject to influence and experience. We lose things we would rather not remember, emphasize things that help us go on. It’s natural…unavoidable.”
Baisyl swallowed, refusing to look up.
“And what about you?” Alroy asked after a moment.
“What
about me…”
“You mustn’t blame yourself…surely you know that.”
“I just learned,” Baisyl growled, finally lifting his head to meet his uncle’s eyes, “…that my mother lead a
slaughter against everything he ever called family. That the event traumatized him so deeply, that it drove him to the brink of death before he rejected the event from his memory entirely. If it weren’t for me-”
“You had nothing to do with it.”
“Mother lead that attack in order to clear her record
because of me. If she hadn’t gotten herself pregnant-”
“By her choice, not yours.”
Baisyl grit his teeth. “It…just…”
“Give him more credit than that,
bashala…” Alroy advised, his tone uncharacteristically gentle. “He is an intelligent man. He realizes her actions are not yours, and you genuinely care for each other…you should go to him.”
Silence. A yearning, stretched silence. Then: “What do I say?”
“That,” Alroy admitted, “is up to you and you alone.”
“Uncle-”
“Kedean Akuwa,” Alroy said, “…has been running for a long time. Without forming attachments – consciously or not – he has avoided making himself vulnerable to loss. I’d very much guess this has been an almost pre-programmed instinct of his…another coping mechanism that he was not even fully aware of…but regardless, you are treading into metaphorical territory that hasn’t been touched by outsiders in so far as he can remember. I advise you exhibit patience…and caution.”
“Patience, caution…” Baisyl nodded. “I can…yes, splendid. Never heard of anything simpler.” He frowned as Alroy made to leave. “Where are you headed?”
“To see Zyric, speak with him if he’s awake,” Alroy answered.
“About what you just—?”
“Obviously not. Trifling things, you know,” Alroy said. “Just to see that the boy is well…”
“Ah.” With that, Baisyl watched, still frowning, as Alroy departed, and then sighed once left alone. “Patience, caution…slow, careful,” he repeated in a quiet mantra to himself, and then after a moment he pursed his lips. “Right,” he repeated aloud to no one but himself, “because those are clearly my strong suits.”
He went to seek out Kedean.
*Bashala - little one or dragonling; a semi-affectionate, genderless term for someone younger than you and usually related to you
A/N: Fast upload to make up for the huge wait you had to go through last time? Also I'm incredibly stressed by school and hoping writing will work me out of it. Please tell me what you think! I know this was a long rant via Alroy, but it's a ton of information about Kedean all at once and I want to know if it made sense, if it felt rushed, if it all fit in well or felt sloppy from the reader's perspective...
I've been waiting for a very long time to tell this part of Kedean's (and Alroy's) history, and I'm hoping you guys like it.
Oh, and, for anyone interested, I finally did a sketch of Baisyl which I kind of like:
http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums/dd430/AnihyrMoonstar/TcattBaisylSketchPaintplustextcopy.png . The quote is something he hasn't said yet in anything I've written, but it's been part of several dialogs of his that ghost around in my head.
