Chapter 9 -Absolution

Orid-narr was a small town compared to the harbor city of Navitrag. My eyebrows had squished together, and I pursed my lips when I heard the name. Two snakes? I then pulled at my mother’s dress and asked, but my father answered. It meant “intersection of the two rives.” Later I learned it was apt a name as any. It was over two month’s journey south east, carting out belongings on the back of a few horses that we had bought after selling the tavern.

Leaving Navitrag behind, I did not look back once. My eyes were glued on the company prancing about alongside us. Assortments of spices, fabrics, metalcrafts and all sorts of nick-nacks decorated the caravan we accompanied. Guards flanked the countless goods, and my mother helped me read the words carved into the smooth wooden finish of the carts. The Fair Merchants.

Despite the dozens of wagons that made up the caravan, we made good time traveling alongside them. Watching the sharply dressed men in uniform scour the surroundings and the strong horses plowing along, I had some clue as to why.

-

When my mother had put out a notice that she was going to sell her tavern, she was contacted by father’s previous employers. A beautiful woman with a brilliant white dress had stopped by the Steel Maiden. Not stopped by, she had barged in and the stone-faced men around her drew out a chair -dead center of the room. Fresh lavender hit our noses and washed out the smell of drunken sailors. Mother narrowed her eyes and pulled out a dusty bottle from under the bar. As she approached the table, the guards pulled out a chair for her as well, and the two studied each other over their drinks. Mother was the first to speak.

“What can I help you with?”

“I would like to buy your tavern.”

A hush descended over the other customers as my mother pulled at her hair. She glanced at the now quiet sailors and gestured towards the door, “Out. Gelas will call you in later.”

All nine of them nodded simultaneously and marched out. The well-dressed lady raised her eyebrows but did not comment. Mother threw back her drink, and when the cup was drained, they began negotiations.

-

That night, mother told us it had been a good deal, that my father could work for them in Orid-narr under easier conditions, and they offered a decent sum to my mother as well, so that she may open a sister tavern there. Apparently, there were other clauses to the contract that they had signed, but that did not involve us. Given my penchant for finding trouble in Navitrag, I think they were ready to accept any offer that put me in a safer place.

The town was close to the Queendom’s borders and as we crossed countless hills and passed all sizes of village, I saw fewer church spires. Father said that so far south, few worshipped Evelilas. Instead of offering thanks to the All-Mother, the tanned Uthians worshipped the Sleeping Deity, Sharcissra. Why anyone would worship a sleeping god was beyond me. But it was only proof that the All-Mother stands above all her offspring. The Uthians were generally a quiet people who kept to themselves and had only recently began to cultivate the southern end of the Queendom.

They had settled in Orid-narr after fleeing the eastern plains. At the time I thought it was just to get away from their god -who they described as harsh and vengeful when woken. They said Sharcissra would steal the sky and hide the earth for weeks if not months. But they were never stupid. If the sky was stolen, running from the eastern plains would not help, and none of them ever claimed their god had been roused. I suppose I should have known they were running from something else. Now I finally know why they fled, yet I would have traded my left hand to never find out. But let us return to my history. No point mixing the past with the present. We will get to today, when we get to today.

With the merchant caravan and hired guards, the journey was mostly uneventful. I remember bits and pieces of little towns that we stopped by. At each stop the merchants sold a few goods and bought a few more. One place had particularly nice quilts while another had stacks of paper ready for collection. The villagers and townspeople had celebrated when we arrived and sent us on our way when they ran out of money to spend. Faces became a blur and I stopped bothering to learn names. After the first three stops, the novelty had worn away, but it was not much longer until we arrived.

Riding into the open town of Orid-narr, my heart sank, as did my hopes and dreams. The town (it could hardly be called that) was disappointing to the extreme, especially when I compared it to the city that had been my home. Navitrag was a bustling city with people at every turn and ships regularly stopping by. The buildings were tall and made of stone, shops were open long hours and even when night fell, bright lanterns would be lit and flicker like countless stars. But Orid-narr? The place was nothing special. Even father could tell. He rubbed the back of his neck and spoke up, “At least the streets are paved… in places and some of the houses are taller than one floor.” For its touted central location, it was smaller and poorer than the family had expected.

But the town was still young. Almost as young as I was, and it was growing fast. Looking back, that is probably why the Fair Merchants offered my parents the relocation deal. They got their hands involved in the town’s affairs early on. My father would still be working for the company as a sailor, albeit managing rivers instead of open oceans, and my mother would be selling their mead when her tavern was built. The Steel Bride. It was a play off the name of her tavern in Navitrag. Not that there was a need for such an imposing title. Unlike the sailors that frequented The Steel Maiden, the clientele of The Steel Bride was immeasurably more well-behaved. Most of the time. We still had our incidents. Especially after Aryel was born.

You were nine at the time and had been living peacefully in Orid-narr for over a year. Do you remember crying and stomping your feet after they chose her name? You had wanted her to be named Lily, after your favorite flower, I do not recall if I knew the name of any other flowers at the time, but I was being a pig-headed child. They say it is the age, but I have not spent enough time around younger children to have seen for myself. Maybe one day you will have kids of your own to contend with, just pray they are not as much trouble as you were.

Eleven years of age and you were wrestling with dogs when no one else wanted to fight, trying to steal things without being caught, for no reason other than the thrill. I now realize how much havoc I was causing. Can you imagine sitting down at the loom, only to find that the shuttle was missing? Then your neighbor comes by and says they found it among their pots? At the time it was a challenge, and a fun one at that. Nowadays I have got bigger challenges to deal with, but I realize it follows a similar mode of thought.

I had picked on Uthians the most. Evelilas forgive me, but I would mock their sleeping god and try to goad them into fights. I do not know why I was so ruthless and immature, perhaps I just missed my father. The man was out most of the time, working on barges, shipping goods from one place to the next. It was like he did not live with us, his home was on the water and we were only a brief stop on the journey. I found myself missing our time spent traveling. There was no water for him to escape to, so we saw his face.

Like my father’s absence had not been enough, mother also had her hands full. Baby Aryel was needy and we still did not know anyone else well enough to leave her in their care while mother ran the tavern. In hindsight, I should have been there. I should have been the one to run the tavern or take care of my sister, anything to lighten the burden on mother’s shoulders. Instead, I was out fighting, and Garent was the one behind me, trying to clean up my mess or soothe ruffled feathers with silken words whenever I agitated people. He infuriated me.

The ideal child. He was quiet, respectful, responsible, capable, and so much more. I was supposed to be the older one, but people told me I should act like my brother. It was worse because constantly witnessed how he loved me. He silently repaired the bridges that I burned and made no mention of it to me.

But he was not the only person I hated. I had hated the Uthians and their pacifistic nature. I hated the rivers and the shipwrights. I grew to hate Orid-narr for everything it was. But the town itself grew. More people moved in, year after year. Proper roads were constructed seemingly overnight. The Queen’s Guard created a city watch to keep the peace. Houses were built taller and began to crowd together. Alleyways came into existence where there used the be open gardens. More Uthians migrated from the east and Tell’s citizens from the west. The dark-skinned Suruud came in from some place in the north-east I later learned to be the desert of Wuraq at the eastern border of where the Felian Empire and Queendom of Tell met. And with all of these newcomers, I found other boys like me.

Together we terrorized everyone else. A band of hot-headed youth taken from their previous homes, left to their own devices without anything else to do. Jealous of others and angry at the world for no discernable reason. We would fight among ourselves if there was no one else to fight. Admittedly, that is what happened most of the time, for after the first few thrashings, no other boys wanted to fight with us. They either joined us or left us alone. Adults would give us a stern talking-to or a beating if we deserved it, not that it did anything in the way of getting us to stop our reign of madness.

While I growled at Uthians for their pacifist approach to life, I loved the Suruud. Any time I picked a fight with one, they would fight back. I never tried fighting people smaller than me, thank Evelilas I never stooped that low… It started with people my age, but one too many easy fights, it got boring. So I tried picking fights with older boys and within a few minutes left them bruised and battered -but only if it was a fair fight. As one does, they decided to fight unfairly. On a cool spring night, four of them had ganged up on me, but I brushed them off. Even when they shoved me into an alley, and with hushed shouts coordinated with each other, I had already planned out my escape. But when I saw how much older they were, and the thick wooden cane each of them carried, that was when the penny dropped. I’m still glad that they made such a racket while beating me black and blue. It woke the nearby residents and I had to be carried back home. I was bruised for over a week and a half and I am still missing a tooth. That was the first of two periods of my absence that delivered peace to the town. I have no doubt that many rejoiced in my bed-ridden state.

But it was short lived. Barely two weeks later I prowled with a cold vengeance. I knew who the older boys were, and I picked them off one by one. I snuck into their houses while they were gone and ruffled things around to put them on edge, I would make it look like their friends stole from them. Anything and everything for revenge. That’s not to say I did not have my favorite moments. I still relish the time when one found his sister’s hairbrush in his friends’ bed. It brought a tear to my eye watching them tear each other apart.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. Eventually they figured it out and came after me again, however I was no fool. I could taste my gums where I was now missing tooth and the dull smack of wood on skin as they broke their canes against my naked back still resonated in my eardrums. So I darted away from their hands like a fleeing hummingbird. They could not catch me, and while they chased, they found misfortune along the way. A well-placed bucket, a neatly tied string at just the right height, a pack of dogs angry at me but willing to take it out on anyone.

The city watch knew me well and hated me. More than once I was brought back to the tavern where they had conversations with my parents, telling them that something needed to be done. People in the tavern complained about me to my mother. But there was never a change in my attitude. At least, until Aryel began to lose her hair…

I should have spent more time with her… played with her, and been some sort of an older brother…

I cursed myself for not acting like Garent, but I was an ass. I had avoided her from the very beginning.

While I loved the joy I saw on my parent’s face’s when she took her first steps or spoke her first words, it was only a reminder that I was less and less involved. I feared that one day I would be replaced. They already had perfect Garent and now they had Aryel. Why would they have any need for me? I was their first try, their mistake. Now I wish I had thought differently, perhaps I would have changed the way I acted.

My poor sister, she was seven years younger than me. At fifteen I should have been there for her. But seeing her sick terrified me. Her hair had begun to fall out in clumps. She lost more and more weight, withering until she was a sliver of her former self. Her beautiful black hair, gone. Her full cheeks and her bright joyous grin, gone. Every once in a while she would be able to muster a soft smile, naught more than a quirk of the lips. It was not long before she could no longer move.

She called out for help when she was alone in her room one day, and no one else was around. Garent was busy, father was out, and mother was tending to customers. I was the only person who heard, so I walked in and sat in a chair next to her bed. We did not talk much before then, my envy had kept me distant, but at that moment I only looked at her and prayed she would recover. Her eyes were closed and she called out, “ma?”

“Ma is busy, its just me, Gelas.”

“Rosi?” she asked, using the honorific term for older brother.

“Yes, it’s me, what do you need?”

“Gelas rosi?”

“Yes Aryel, it’s me, what do you need?”

“Sorry” she apologized “I don’t want to bother you.”

She lay there, sick, a pitiful twig unable to move, and she said she did not want to bother me. It was then I realized how badly I had messed up. I had wanted to curl up into a ball, or to run away so that they may be rid of me, but as I was getting up, she began to lightly cough. There was no substance to it, and it was not loud, but her entire body shook with each one, and her face twisted in agony.

“Aryel, what do you need?”

“Water” she choked out.

I heard her faintly say please while I ran into the common room and filled a glass with the coolest water we had. I brought it back and picked her head up, trying to help her drink. She was so light. She was so fucking light.

--

Gregor saw the ink stains on the page and the splotches from where tears distorted the letters. He raised his head from where he was looking down, lest his own tears ruin the pages below. After wiping his cheeks, he resumed.

--

Her head had patches of hair growing, but they were sparse and made her look like a leper. Her cheekbones stood out, sharp as knives and her eyes stayed closed through it all.

“You only had two sips, can you have one more?” I had asked as gently as I could. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly, and I let her back down.

Birds chirped and sang, oblivious to her pain. I wanted to kill them. Clenching then relaxing fists, I breathed in and out for a moment before I asked her, “do you need anything else?”

She shook her head again. I stayed standing, with one foot out the door. I was desperate to leave, to be away from my failing. Some rosi I was. When I got up to go, she shook her head once more, and I stopped.

“Please don’t leave me alone.”

Hearing those words, my legs locked up and my heart fell. Like barbed wire through wool, she pulled a piece of myself I had long since forgotten. “I’m here for you…” I whispered, and my voice constricted in my throat. But she heard me, and she nodded.

She was grateful for my presence, and I was devastated. Seven years I had spent ignoring her to the best of my ability, and she was still grateful I was there. How could I have been so selfish? My brother came and went, as did my parents. They would stay by her side, and only then would I leave to use the bathroom. But that was the only reason I left her room until the sun rose the next day. Then the next, and the day after that too.

Thus, the second period of peace descended upon Orid-narr.

My sister was just barely hanging on to the thin thread of life that kept her breathing. For two and a third weeks, I stayed in her room. I ate there and I slept there, but I would not leave her alone. As the days went by, she asked me for less and less. Each request of hers was a diamond from the heavens. I cherished them more than anything else, for it meant that she was still alive, and she was still fighting to live. But her health only deteriorated.

She could not rise to relieve herself. When she first needed cleaning, my mother took care of her. The second time I requested that my mother watch me and make sure I wash her correctly. Each of her limbs were stripped down to bone, not a shred of fat or muscle could be scene. How I worried that my rough hands would break her. How I worried that she would fall apart. I delicately lifted her arms and softly sponged her dry skin, moving slowly all the while. I never used more than two fingers to hold her up, and I would keep glancing at her eyebrows for the slightest wince of pain. I do not think I have ever been as gentle in my life. From then on, we alternated cleaning her, mother one day, me the next.

I wanted to talk to Aryel when it was only us in the room, to tell her things and remedy her boredom, but I only knew stories of fighting other boys my age. My face colored and ears burned when I realized that I had nothing pleasant I would be able to say, so my lips remained sealed. For two and a third weeks, I was her silent company, her guardian. A physician had come to see her but said nothing of value. Apparently, he had seen this illness twice before. Vaadeb, they called it, meaning clumps, after the first symptom. There was no cure. In both cases the patients had lasted no longer than two months.

When I overheard those words whispered to my mother, I tensed up and my mind raced -at the time, I had spent a week and a half with my sister. I did not know when she had developed the illness, so I had no reference as to when her time might be up. But I was willing to stay with her for however long it took. Now as I recall her suffering, I feel it may have been selfish to want her to hold on in agony.

For two and a third weeks, I acted like the older brother I should have been. I did not leave her alone once. Not a single time was she alone in that room! Not Once!!

I only hope that it made a difference to her in her last days…

May she find comfort in the Baths of Evelilas.

--

Gregor sucked in a breath as he skimmed the last lines on the page. What would he have done if it were Lania? If Lania had not recovered? What then? He fought his twitching leg and groaned as he lay down on his bed. If he stood up, he would rush out of the room to spend time with his sister, but it was late, and she would be sleeping.

Gregor was not sure what unsettled him more, the fact that he recognized his own budding admiration for the man, or that he seemed human and not demonic. This was the Tyrant of Tell? This was his father’s uncle? This was the man who razed the land from Katentin to Letalona? But his questions did not end there. Who was the All-Mother Evelilas? Evidently, she was the god that they worshipped, but he knew little about the religion of the matriarch. He knew even less about the people of Tell. Perhaps the journal would tell him more. If not, he would have to ask his grandmother.

Reluctantly, he got back up and hid the journal before he extinguished the candle. In the familiar dark of his room, he walked over to his bed and pulled back his covers before slowly easing into them. He did not cover himself completely, instead he debated whether or not he should continue reading and get to the end of the damn thing, but eventually he yawned and took it as a sign. He pulled the blanket up, and traced the hexagons hidden in the shadow of the ceiling until he fell asleep.