Chapter 45

They arrived back at Aris’ estate as the sun sank beneath the horizon. The heavy late winter clouds nearly blotted out the sinking sun and were, for a brief moment, a stunning array of pinks and reds. Any other day the sunset would have been dazzling, but today it was sickening. The pinks were of the same hue as the flayed open hands of Zebulon and the red that dyed the skies was a fresh reminder of the blood that had puddled and mixed with Zebulon’s urine and feces.

Kestrel had nearly thrown up again when the sky had brought such vivid pictures of the coroner’s maimed form back to his mind. He would talk more about this to Aris, but they would wait until they were in the safety of his own home. Away from any hidden ears. Wrapped in the late winter embrace of the night. Only then would they speak. To do so now would do dishonor to Zebulon’s sacrifice. Now they walked in a silence that each felt honored the fallen man who had lost his life after saving Cillia’s.

Kestrel’s stomach churned in a mixture of hatred and reverence for the pale fallen coroner. He’d found signs of life in Cillia, and where any else would have let her died and be done with it, he had nursed her back to health at his own expense. He had taken her in and nurtured her broken body back to a semblance of health. He couldn’t despise Zebulon for that.

But still he had broke. Zebulon had broken under the weight of the Inquisitor’s torture. He’d given Cillia to the monsters.

Kestrel never would have broken, he lied to himself.

How was it one could both love and loathe someone so much? Kestrel didn’t know. He didn’t care to know. He just wanted to find Cillia. He wanted to rescue her. He wanted to redeem himself. He needed to prove to himself he wasn’t a failure. If he could just save her, he would be restored.

He would be whole again.

Wouldn’t he?

“No,” a tiny voice inside told him.

He quieted the voice. He killed it.

Saving Cillia would save him. It had too.

Before Kestrel realized it. They arrived at Aris’ estate. The sun had fallen and the shadows of the Kearn Mountains had morphed into night. They hadn’t taken horses and had walked back. Kestrel had been glad for that. He would never admit it, but he was still terrified of the animals. They were gigantic creatures. It was pure arrogance to believe that one could truly tame such a beast. They were certain to kill him if they ever got the chance, no matter what Wallace or anyone else said to the contrary.

Kestrel, upon making it through the gates, turned to make his way to the barracks. All he wished for was a hot bath to wash away the lingering feel of blood that surrounded him and cleanse him of the pungent smells that seemed to soak through his clothes and into his very bones.

He needed to be near the other recruits. He wanted to hear their ribald jokes to cleanse his mind from the memory of Zebulon’s maimed and disfigured body. Nothing could ever truly banish that memory, and Kestrel knew he would later latch onto it and use it as a defense against other memory mages, but for now, he just wanted to forget.

Aris though, had other plans. He needed to know what memories Kestrel held. He grabbed Kestrel by the arm and led him to the stables.

Great. He had avoided horses all day and now he was following the General to the stables. He grimaced but padded along after Aris. What was he going to say? After seeing such brutality, such horror at the hands of an Inquisitor that he was terrified of something as trivial as a horse?

His pride would never let him do that.

“Are you still afraid of horses?” Aris asked out of nowhere.

Kestrel’s head whipped towards the man. “How’d you know!?” he asked in shock.

“You really think it’s a secret? All of the recruits laugh about it. You may try to hide it, but we can all see the terror in your eyes when you’re around the creatures.”

Kestrel hung his head.

So much for his pride.

“So can we go somewhere else?” he asked.

Aris looked like he was going to say ‘no’ but changed his mind right before the word came out. “That might be a good idea. I don’t want any stable boy overhearing what we’re going to talk about,” he said. “Follow me.”

The General led him to the northwestern edge of the twelve foot tall wall that enclosed his estate. They walked up a small staircase embedded in the wall to a small alcove where a guard would take watch for the night. Kestrel himself had recently joined in the rotation. He was almost a city guard now.

When had that happened? Would they truly take one such as him? It seems they already had.

“Sir!” a young blonde guard saluted when Aris arrived with Kestrel in tow behind him.

Aris nodded at the young man. “You are relieved for now,” he told him. “I will send Kestrel to you once we are finished and upon his call you are to return to your post. Do you understand?”

The thin blonde man saluted and looked from Aris to Kestrel before turning crisply and departing for the barracks. Was that wonder Kestrel saw in his eyes? Why did the guard look at him like that?

Aris looked out over Fiell’s glistening star-field of lanterns lighting the night until the soft crunch of boots on the rough ground faded away. “Good. Now that we’re alone. Tell me everything. Tell me any and all of the visions you can recall of Dren,” he said.

Kestrel saluted. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt right.

He launched into the story.

“I recall his childhood. He was older than he looked. Near as old as Wallace. He was born just after the great disaster that destroyed the coast. His mother bore him during their sojourn to the new capital of Fiell here,” Kestrel said. “There’s no clear memory of that, but his mother told him the story so many times and how it was only due to his father’s quick thinking that he had been revived after his being choked with the umbilical cord during his difficult birth.”

Aris nodded. He remembered vague pieces of the story. Just what had happened? Why had they received the rebel leader’s memories? How had they received them? Could they trust the visions?

Yes they could, Aris decided, surprising himself. When had he come to believe the same as the now dead rebels? When had he decided to turn on the man who had given him this estate? The man who had raised him to be one of the most powerful men in the Empire?

Aris was stunned to realize that there had always been that doubt in his mind. He’d just never known it. It had been suppressed.

Why?

Kestrel reached Dren’s early childhood. Aris listened, stopping him when he needed clarification, or interjecting with information that Kestrel lacked.

“Wait, stop. Say that again,” Aris said. “Tell me one more time.”

“I said, Dren first learned he was a Giver as a youth. He was barely eleven when he learned of his ability. A friend of his, whom he hadn’t seen for a week, perfectly recalled a vivid memory of Dren’s that he couldn’t possibly had seen,” Kestrel explained. “I don’t know what happened next though.”

“I can fill you in there,” Aris said. The memory was very dim, but it was there. “His parents must have known of the existence of Memory Mages, because they found him a mentor and developed his skill, and by the next year, they commissioned him to a local Lord and he came into service as one of the man’s three Memory Mages,” Aris explained.

Kestrel nodded. It seemed as if Aris’ words cleared the clouds that hovered over the memory. He could see it now, like a half forgotten dream.

“His skill in manipulating Memory Magic was truly great. Like Wallace has said, it’s easier to tell when you receive the memories of others than anything else. They feel different. Alien. But Dren, such was his skill that one could barely feel the touch of his magic. He’d form ideas in his mind and then share the memory of those ideas with those whom his Lord wished. They never knew his manipulating touch,” Aris said.

Even now, having been trained in the magic arts, the idea of someone being able to place a memory in ones mind was terrifying. An idea, of foreign origination, even worse. How much more terrifying was the idea that someone could place themselves into the memories of others?

“Wait. Placing yourself in the memories of others…” Aris thought. “Oh Hell!!!”

Was that it? It had to be.

How had he not seen it before?

It had been right in front of his face the whole time. Why hadn’t he seen it? Emperor Evrain was a Memory Mage. One of great power. That had to be it. That was what connected everything! He was a cursed fool for not seeing it earlier. He had been blinded by looking too closely. He had assumed Evrain’s corruption ever since he had found out about the Inquisitors and their connection to the kidnappings that plagued the city ever few years, but he’d never thought to question if the Emperor himself was a Memory Mage.

Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why hadn’t he asked Wallace? Why hadn’t he dived deeper into Dren’s memories of Evrain? The dead rebel leader had always referred to him as The Imposter, but he had only assumed Dren thought the Emperor’s reign illicit. He never thought that the rebel leader was referring to Evrain being a Manipulater.

“I’m a monumental idiot,” Aris said with a long sigh.

Kestrel quirked his eyebrows questioningly in response.

“Emperor Evrain is a Memory Mage. He’s one of the Manipulators. That’s why Dren always referred to him as The Imposter. That’s what he was fighting for. To dethrone the man who gained our nation by invading the minds of our people.”

“Manipulators really is a terrible name. We need to call them something else,” Kestrel responded. “Maybe something like ‘Invaders.’ That sounds way better.”

Aris turned to Kestrel, eyebrows knit in confusion.

“What?” the sandy haired young man responded. “I thought it was obvious he was one of us.”

Aris shook his head and laughed a deep resounding chuckle. Was he really the only one who hadn’t seen it?

“Why is it such a big deal?” Kestrel asked.

“Because this changes everything,” Aris said.

End of Part II