Chapter 4 - part the second

 

 

Veon and Amos, meanwhile, watched Leni as he withdrew a dark glass bottle with a dropper, and administered three drops of some unmarked tincture directly into the Chief Commander's half-imbibed brandy glass. With his finger, he flicked the glass slightly, making a faint clink, and within the glass, the brandy gave off a little wisp of blue vapour, then was still.

Leni and Veon exchanged a quick look, but that was all. Leni winked, and Veon wondered what it was that the magician had just done. There was no time for any questions.

Colm turned back toward his inquest and the growing number of character witnesses he now had to handle. He marched back to his seat, leaving a trail of wet footprints; upon the desk he placed the dripping, decapitated mermaid, and the dislodged doorknob.

Amos stared at the unfortunate figurine with much curiosity.

The Commander spoke then to Veon, saying, “Sirrah, I would like very much to speak with you about today's incident. I am very interested in what you have to say! But as you see, you have interrupted my debriefing of your sister and her fiance, in their rather alarming account which somewhat defies disbelief. Will you be pleased to wait in the anteroom until such time as I call you in? It shan't take overly long.”

Veon was like a big dog that would bark if strangers come to the door, but once they see – or smell, rather – that the visitor is a friend, becomes an adoring darling. His winsome smile broke out beneath his mustache – a grin that was part of his fame as a fighter, and was rumoured to be an instant success with the womenfolk of all classes, concubine or contessa. He nodded bashfully, and headed for the door, which swung open on a gentle draft of air before he even arrived.

“Your brother is a champion,” Colm commented. He poured himself more brandy, and Leni watched the Commander's actions very carefully.

“You watch the gladiators?” the magician asked, with interest.

“I have no time for such luxuries,” the Commander replied. “I merely assumed with a bulk like his that he must win many rounds. He was able to overpower my high guard, and they are stout men.”

Amos spoke up in her brother's defense. “His passions are never more stirred than when he needs to succor my safety.” Then she added, with true family pride, “And yes – he is quite the fighter. There are few who can resist him.”

“Did he select this role for himself?” Colm asked. “An Espalite – even one who is in hiding – will never need to enter the arenas, unless they seek fame.”

“Veon has been fighting for our survival ever since that day we fled up the Hike Wall. I know that if it weren't for him, they would have thwarted me and despatched all my kin years ago. He is famous because he fights well; but he goes to the arena only to keep up his habits of fortitude. He believes that one day there will be a reckoning with the Harzia, and he prepares his strength and hones his martial skills for when that day comes.”

“A man on a mission,” Colm said, with a slight nod. He pictured again the bear of a man bursting through his doors. “I admire that.”

He no longer begrudged the man the broken doors, nor the fractured fish tank.

In fact, there was a clear affinity between the two men – protector and gladiator. Colm looked forward to what the big, burly man would be able to tell him, especially about the magician that intended to wed his sister, for whom/which he obviously held little love.

For now, however, he had to deal with the magician himself.

The Chief Commander resumed his seat, took a swig of his brandy, and then took a moment to savour it, for it seemed to be particularly flavourful today. Maybe his own passions had been stirred up, too.

“Your story, Miss, is very interesting – but I asked to know how you met our friend the magician here, not a mysterious Wizard lurking about in forgotten places. Will you now tell me what the connection is between the two?”

Amos smiled. “I know it is not yet evident to you, Commander; but the truth is that they are one and the same. The man sitting before you is my savior today, as well as on that day my brother and I visited the Azot.”

Colm choked on his brandy.

“You expect me to believe this? I've heard some tall tales in my day, but this is preposterious!”

Leni cut in:“It's preposterous, my brave red-coat. There is no 'i'.” Leni wondered if pointing this out was unwise, for Colm was now furious – with an i, and a capital F. Still, the magician pushed on: “Is it so hard to believe? I have known her as an adult for only two years, but I am obviously more than twice her age; I could easily have met her when she was a child of six.”

“She said that the Wizard was a man in his forties, and you look barely past thirty!”

“I take good care of myself, as my unusual diet proves. But do not be deceived, Commander – I am not as young as I appear to be, and the number of days between the day of my birth and today would certainly surprise you to learn. It would astound most.”

“Your arrogance is the only thing that astounds me, sirrah!” Colm declared huffily.

“That alone, you say?” Leni's eyebrow arched. “Wait awhile and we'll see if we can't increase your acumen. It is a state I find myself to be in constantly. It is most enlightening.” Here he looked at Amos meaningfully, and yet again the Commander felt as though he were missing the true meaning of all the magician said and did.

“So you were in the cave? You caught the children?”

“Do you doubt what my bride tells you?”

“And the line that you fed her – the orange sands and all that? What does that mean?”

“The sands are black,” Leni corrected.

Amos added, “If you recall, Commander, it is the fire that is ochre. If you allow me to explain, it will all become clear in the final part of our tale.”

The house built on the high bluffs overlooking the tumultuous, surly seas was called Agnastrio, but it also had a darker appellation: the Tusk. Constructed atop the cliffs standing a hundred feet high along the Solemn Cape, the house had three great wings, and a single spire that lifted up from the western annex, whose highest chamber was reached by an inner stair that mounted the tower in a long, twisting spiral.

It was upon the high-flying pennant twenty years ago that a man named Sebb fell to his death, impaled on the solitary turret. Sebb had been a criminal who had escaped from Caza in a hot air balloon. He was shot down by the lord of Agnastrio, who at the time was a strict old count named Hene, a hard-eyed hunter of the skies. He got into his bi-plane, which he'd had equipped with spooling guns and bomb-lobbers during the Requisition Wars – as well as some ordnance of his own design, and as the balloon floated past, Sebb fired with his musket in a wild blitz defensive. He got in one fateful hit, but Hene perforated the balloon with many rounds.

Deflating, the balloon headed out toward the cliffs, drifting low over the house. Sebb then saw his fate down in the turbulent sea, and so he lunged for safety. He might very well have survived his great leap onto the high turret if he had aimed a bit better; but as it was, his belly was skewered by the three-foot spike from which the coloured banners snapped.

His aim with his blunderbuss however was a bit more fortuitous: the shot went into the fuel tank of Hene's bi-plane, and sent him into a tailspin. The plane went over the side of the cliffs, and down into the sea. The old man survived, but lost the use of his legs for the remainder of his life.

Now the lord of Agnastrio was a manic musician, a sot, and a virtuoso – no relation to Hene through blood, as he'd married the old man's grand-daughter. He was hard man to love, a genius with his bow when he set it to the strings, whom some of his closer relations thought quite mad. He sometimes spoke aloud when seeming all alone, carrying on conversations with spirits; whenever he was asked, he always said that he was talking to the “man on the pole.”

Sebb's remains of course had long ago been removed, and none in the House on the Cape knew where his rotten old bones were buried. His ghost perhaps remained tethered to the flagstaff which had been his demise; but if this were so, no one else in Agnastrio communed with it. More than hurt his reputation, this rumour made the madman a celebrity of sorts, and his concertos were always sold out; but the House took on a cursed air and was seldom visited.

This was quite naturally the uncle Zudo that Amos and Veon were raised by, once they made the long trek out along the Solemn Road to the Cape. Once the children had been installed into the House, they found their guardian and benefactor was rarely seen, but often heard. His wife, Meer, had the opposite habit: she seemed to be everyone at once, and knew at all times what her niece and nephew – as well as her own five children – were up to.

Two of their cousins alone were near-about the same age as Amos and her brother; the other three were quite mature, and no longer had time for playing the games of childhood. The oldest boy, Aelo, was studying to become a doctor, while the other two – girls both – were enjoying their long and prosperous engagements to young, noble soldiers who were off fighting for the expansion of the empire in Naxa.

This was the sort of world that Amos and Veon had been born into; but since that night when the Lathe was set aflame, everything had changed for them. There was no more innocence, and seemingly no sense to anything anymore.

Veon entered a dark depression that lasted for years. He dwelt on ideas of revenge, and plotted every night to discover who had sent those men to kill their family.

Amos however was inspired and everyone was amazed at her resilience, and her radiance. It was as though the fires she had fled that night, which had burned down her house and consecrated the bodies of her fallen family members, had also burned away whatever fears she might have had about the future. She was purified, and any who met her noticed this quality in her, although none could rightly name nor explain it. One thing alone was clear: Amos grew into her beauty, even as a little sapling turns its green, naked shoots into hale, high boughs that blossom with a hundred thousand fragrant blooms.

By the time she was eighteen, she was among the most sought-after of all the girls in Caza, Moza, or Sezo. Suitors she had aplenty, and it was when she was in the capital with a primping, pompous count called Opho that Amos learned the meaning of those mysterious verses she'd learned in the dark so many years before.