(no subject)
Just what I needed, another livejournal.
This is good, I've cluttered up my regular journal long enough with writing rants.
So, I'm supposed to post something I've written, eh..? Hmm...
'kay, here's the first chapter to Game Over, my nano novel. I would post explanations or disclaimers, but it really isn't needed in this case, is it. Plus, I've always thought that anything that needed explaining should be thrown in the trash. I mean the recycle bin.
1. Salena
I am here.
Pale wash of foaming water against curving body of yellow sand, gray cliffs holding patient watch above. The forest that swooped almost to the water was dark and dense, full of secrets.
I have always been.
The footsteps of the boy who followed the line of water were soft and light, fading after only a moment. He looked over his shoulder, past the heavy blade that dragged in the sand behind from one listless hand, and thought that it was unfair, the way the world forgot a person so quickly.
I will always be.
In a city of ghostly spires and trees twisted as love, the lights of a small room were harsh on the faces of the figures that lay on twin tables, a shadowed silhouette hovering over both, checking dials and gauges with old familiarity. Glow of silver shimmered above one, molten gold over the other; fingers of both twined to meet above, and the man between watched with mouth open wide, and laughed.
I am as real as you, but your eyes do not see me.
A seagull swooped over a tangle of nets and fish, taunting, its raucous calls filling the dockyards. All save one head remained fixed at their tasks; the girl who glanced upward with curious, wondering eyes smiled and shook her head at the bird. Her hair was vibrant with a life of its own, a thing of sunlight and laughter flying in the wind as though it, too, would like to run away from the scent of rot and tar, to where clean breezes of heather raced across the plains of Fujita.
The time of prophecy draws near; the one who will speak for the people of the Nairne steps forward.
Braids of black banded by gold, oiled skin gleaming in the midday light that reflected off brightly painted walls, stark columns of pearl. A scream rang out from the rooms within and the man turned, narrow eyes dark with alarm, and more strangely, hate. Hands clenched as he shook his head and again faced the daylight. Sometimes the impotence he felt was worse than death.
Life for one, or life for none? Solve the riddle, then you’ve won.
A deep-sea sailing ship, cherished child of the Amayan fleet, tossed in the cyclone of anger that had boiled from the depths at the moment that the Captain had decided to take a risky shortcut and cross open sea, uncharted and free, to the mainland. Like a seabird in a gale, a tall girl clung to the mast and stared into the whirling waters and winds which seemed to have a voice of their own. She pulled her glasses from her nose and wiped them dry, but they were drenched again in seconds. In frantic, fear filled tones, a sailor called incomprehensible orders, but the dark haired girl smiled and shook her head. If this was her death, she was going to meet it and know its name.
In your hands, we rest.
Crags of aquamarine and coral spiraled to where light danced in the primordial soup of kelp and weed, fish darting between. In the shadows of rocks, a voice--deep and sonorous, musical with a terrible finality--ordered, and a narrow form darted forth, arrowing for the seductive glitters of the overworld. It had never wanted to visit that land of unforgiving heat, but one couldn’t remain in the womb of the mother ocean for all time.
Carry us well, my friend.
Under the leaves of a broad-armed oak tree, a man wept into his hands as silent shadows made their placid way around his circle of sorrow. They never listened, and they never believed. He was tired of trying, but how could he live with himself if he let the world flow to its doom without even extending a hand to attempt to alter its pattern? An amber leaf fell beside his knee, and he stared at it as though it held the promises of the fates. If it was true--what they said--and the future was written, wasn’t it also true that one could discover the book in which the words were stored?
And so we begin. And so, we end?
***
The player smiled and leaned back as the game began. It was a new one, and he had been anticipating it for months; searching the gaming websites and magazines for information, speculating with friends about where the series would be headed next. Now the waiting was at an end, and he was content to end his conjectures and simply let the story unfold. With his prodding, of course, his customizations, his own personal stamp on world, character, and ability.
He let out a pleased sigh as a fluidly dramatic opening movie unfurled across his 36 inch plasma-screened television and mournful, spine-tingling violin and voice echoed from the speakers. There was nothing quite like a new game, he reflected. This was one of those days when one was glad to be alive.
***
“Ciro?”
The boy who lay in the long, narrow bed continued to stare at the ceiling, to where flecks of golden light played through the haziness of curtains. His hair, tousled and as brilliant as the sun that fought its way into the room, was the only cheerful thing about him.
“Ciro! I’m coming in.”
When Tala Isoke walked into a room, the world not only watched, it stood to attention. It gawked, it drooled. It searched for a pick-up line slightly more intelligent than its neighbor’s. Tala was used to this, and she expected it.
She had long since stopped expecting any such treatment from Ciro Stormsoul. A Soranese noble lost before he could receive his tattoos of rank, some whispered, or fairy boy, wandered from the forests of Aran Naal. Whatever the orphan’s origins, one thing was for sure; he was strong and as surly as a man worn ragged from a long Fujitan harvest, even as a child. The villagers had taken him in and smiled to do so, for the fostering of a foundling invited the luck of the gods. If he was a little strange and walked away without comment from proffered jobs of fish gutting and net repair, he also had a well-muscled arm and sharp blade ready for any villager’s protection.
Tala smiled and cocked her head to the side, surveying the prone form of her young charge. Or was he her charge? Not any longer, she reflected, and was surprised to feel a slight tickle of sadness lodge somewhere in the region of her throat. Eighteen and a full adult. No longer would the village chief call the boy a child and feed him out of charity. No, he had said, not unkindly, the boy would have to do something to earn his keep.
She coughed, and Ciro turned his emotionless face to hers. “The Chief wants you, Ciro,” she explained, and turned away in instant defeat. His eyes bore into her with their dispassionate gray lethargy, and she was never able to hold that gaze for long.
Ciro swung his black-booted feet over the bed and dropped to the floor, ran a careless hand through his wiry hair. “What if I don’t want to see him,” he stated, his voice flat and monotone.
Tala shivered. “Do what you want, I can’t tell you how to live anymore. I’ll see you later.”
Ciro watched, his eyebrows drawn together in what might have been anger or anxiety as the woman’s slim figure receded into the distance. She had seemed upset, but he couldn’t imagine why. His foot tapped nervously for a moment; Tala had cared for him for years, since his first foster family had been taken in the violent toshi storms that sprang up as soon as one sailed too far from the mainland. He could go after her and tell her that, explain that he did care about her, that he was grateful, that the only reason he seemed so unfeeling now was because it was as though his insides were gnawed by the questions in his mind, the uncertainties that lay at the root of his being.
He stepped forward once, then stopped. Why should he explain any of that? I can’t tell you how to live anymore. She was done with him; there was no reason for Ciro to reopen that book. Always move forward; that was his motto. Only fools looked back.
The village chief was waiting, and despite what he said, Ciro would never dishonor the old man enough to ignore a request for a meeting. He had been the one to tell the villagers that the starved child washed up on their shores was more than another mouth to feed, a wounded animal in need of healing; that he was an omen from the gods, one that they could hardly afford to cast away.
He stood straighter, tightened his belt, and hurried out of the small room that he had called home for the past five years. He didn’t like his life much, but it was all he had, and he had sense enough to be grateful to the man who had reached out a hand on that hazy day so many years before, and stated in a serious voice, We will help you, do not be afraid.
Ciro paused before the door of the largest house in town, and his mind was flooded by the memories that were his earliest, and so his strongest. He should have been able to see beyond that beach, that hand, the remembered flavor of seawater in his throat and nostrils, but it was as far as he could go. Beyond that, his mind closed and whispered No, pushing him away. Ciro supposed it was for the better. Again he was looking back, in a world where such introspection was useless and counterproductive.
The door pushed open under his waiting hand and Ciro jumped back, surprised; he hadn’t yet knocked. He nodded to the girl who stood there, trying to push his features into a mask of absolute nonchalance, but inside he was annoyed. Nika, the chief’s youngest daughter, seemed to have a seventh sense for the times when he was upset or nervous, and she was one of those people who picked up that anxiety and shook it like a dog does a bone. Slowly, she grinned at him, her wide mouth expressive with what he felt sure was amusement.
“Ciro! I was just coming to look for you!” Nika shook her head and her short, spiraling curls shuddered with excitement. “Papa has been waiting, and he really needs to talk to you. It’s important.”
“Well, I’m here,” Ciro muttered. “Are you going to let me in or do you always interrogate your guests first?”
She flushed and stepped back, and her mouth drew into the same thin line that Tala’s had worn earlier. Ciro felt a twinge of guilt, but he pushed it away. For the daughter of a village chief, Nika was abysmal at the traditions of proper hosting. She had a thing or two to learn if she wasn’t going to shame her father.
“Come in, Ciro.” The old man’s voice was soft in the gloom of the dimly lit house. Ciro stepped past Nika, who shut the door behind him and disappeared somewhere into the hallway beyond. He hoped that she had some task at hand and wasn’t planning on listening to their conversation.
“Greetings, fair weather to you,” he whispered, and sat uneasily on the edge of the bench that sat before the man. The village chief looked the same as he always had in Ciro’s memory; silver beard and hair trimmed bluntly if at all, simple fishing clothes, deep-set eyes that caught one’s gaze and held it as a minnow on a line.
“You were eighteen two days ago.” The man stared at Ciro heavily, and his expression was strangely sad. “Or you were to the best of our knowledge. Nine years ago that day you washed up on our shore, and you told us that you had seen nine winters, and that you were named for the god that watches over us all, the sun that gives us light and love. And here you are, my boy, grown and as silent as ever. Have you nothing to say?”
The clock behind the shoulder of the chief chimed the hour, the nooning hour, when women hurried in the kitchen with lunches for the men still on land, and children ran to the village school. Ciro sighed. “What is it you would like me to say? You took care of me, and I thank you for that; I know you didn’t have to do it. I can move on now, and be a burden no longer. May I go?”
The old man sat up and his eyes were like coals under the ash of his eyebrows. “No, you may not. You are a good person, Ciro, but you hurt everyone that you talk to. My daughter, at the door--she was trying to be friendly. She likes you, Ciro. But what did you do? Remind her of her failings so that she would stop bothering you about your own. You are no more an adult than you were nine years ago, boy. But I can’t keep you forever.”
Ciro blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I suppose you have more to say?”
“Oh, yes. If you do not wish to remain in our village, there is nothing I can do to stop you. Despite what you say, you know we would keep you most gladly. There are always jobs for the willing. But we have no room for the unwilling, Ciro.”
“Then I will go. I have no wish to be a fisherman.”
“It’s not that easy.” Ciro watched the chief uneasily as he leaned forward and smiled, a wry smile. “We have fed and cared for you for half of your life. You owe us something. No, not money, not work--” he had seen Ciro’s expression of outrage. “But there is something we need done desperately, and with the tides as good as they are now, we can hardly afford to send any of our folk away. And this is a job for someone who can protect himself, not a fresh woman or child who trusts the ways of strangers. I can’t think of anyone but you, Ciro. Do this and your debts will have been repaid, and you can leave with a clean conscience. I know you don’t like to feel as though you owe anyone anything.”
Ciro nodded slowly, hating the way the old man knew him so well. Try as he might to hide himself, some people simply always found the chinks of the wall and looked between. “I’m not agreeing to anything until you give me the information,” he stated flatly. “What is it that you need done?”
“You know of Saville.”
Ciro did; it was the river town of the forest people, the only place an outsider could go to meet those of their kind. He hadn’t been there, but every child in Salena heard whispered stories of the strange folk who made their homes in the great forest of the south. He would like to go there, he thought. He would like to see how many of those old stories had been true.
“I would prefer to keep these worries from you, but if you are going to do this work you must know, Ciro. I have a letter which I need delivered to the hands of Saville’s chief, and time is of the utmost importance. I have heard things, things about the Soranese, their troops...” The old man shook himself and turned suddenly vulnerable eyes to the strong figure before him. “Their pride grows too large for their boundaries, and the occasional raid doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. I am afraid, Ciro. I am worried for us, and for all the small, peaceful towns of this land. We are not fighters, we are simple folk. But we do not wish to be ruled!”
“The Soranese!” Ciro didn’t understand. Their neighbors to the north had everything that they could desire; complicated machines and magics, beautiful cities, slaves and comforts that were legendary in the rough countryside of the coastal lands. What did they think they could get from simple Salena, hard-working Lachlan? “Are you sure, chief? What is it you want me to bring to Saville?” For he would do it, he knew that already. He owed these people that much.
“I’m not sure of anything, but the folk of Aran Naal need to be warned, and there is the chance that they will send help, just...in the chance that we need it. You will go?”
“I...will go. Alone. And I will return to tell you their answer,” Ciro promised, despite the fact that he would have liked to continue his travels south, worm his way into the forest that denied most strangers. There was always another day for that, after all.
“Thank you, my boy.” The chief bowed low, and Ciro was torn between embarrassment and pleasure. “This means more to me than you know. Please remember that there will always be a place for you; this is you home.” Stiffly, he rose to his feet and shuffled to a desk that stood against the rear wall of the room. “I had the letter ready, hoping that you would say yes. Just let me sign and seal it, and find a map so you will know how to get to Saville--”
Ciro finally allowed his body to slouch, his mind to relax as his eyes closed and he considered the promise which he had made. He was going to the river town, the willow town, the place of joining between forest and plain folk. It should be interesting.
“You’re going to Saville?”
He raised an eyebrow and turned around slowly, not so much as tempted to act surprised. He had expected Nika to show up long ago. “I’m doing a job for your father, and then I’m out of this town.”
She sniffed and stepped out of the shadows of the coat closet. “Papa is right, you know, you’re nothing more than a big, mean child. But I like you anyway.”
“Really? At least I’m not a sniveling baby, Nika,” he stated, and smiled cruelly at her small form. “At least I don’t eavesdrop on conversations that are meant to be private.”
She moved smoothly forward and slid onto the bench next to him. He noted that she kept one wary eye on her father’s back, and that her voice was hushed. “Sometimes a woman has to listen in, to survive in a man’s world,” she giggled, and punched him in the arm in a manner that Ciro thought was altogether too companionable for the realities of their relationship. “I’m coming with you, just you see. I’m not going to ruin my hands gutting fish and mending nets!”
Ciro smiled, and this time it was a real one. “You’re not going anywhere with me, although I agree that it’s best to get away from this place. I sometimes forget that the entire world doesn’t smell like fish.”
“Here you go, Ciro, and may you carry it well.” The Chief turned about, letter clutched in his hands, and Ciro watched in amazement as Nika slipped into the shadows with the skill of an eel in the rocks. “Was that my daughter I heard?”
“Ah, she offered me tea,” Ciro lied, and wondered why he was doing so. He didn’t have any reason to cover for the girl, but he also didn’t have any reason not to.
“And a map as well,” the old man offered two parchments, one tightly rolled, the other wide and creased as though it had been folded and unfolded countless times. “Tell Tala to pack you a traveler’s rations and give you a money pouch from the stores. Make sure you are well armed, but don’t make yourself a target. This is a dangerous world we live in, and only growing more uncertain.”
Ciro tucked both into an inside pocket, stood, and bowed. “I’ll be on the road before the sun has reached its high point,” he promised, and the old man smiled, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Best of luck, my son,” he whispered as Ciro stalked from the room without a glance back. “You’re more important than you know.”
***
The player hurried Ciro to Tala’s house and saved his game at one of the glowing sky colored orbs which dotted each town and city. So far, so good, he thought as he hit the switch on the game unit and turned off the television. He was enjoying the hero’s taciturnity and playing it up to the maximum. He always did that; what was the use of some sweet, feeling character, one that wouldn’t have the guts to kill in real life? Heroes should be serious and strong, not prey to those emotions that made life so uncomfortable, so distasteful.
And so real.
***
If anyone has feedback, opinions, hate mail, I love it all. I really don't expect it with this, I don't see this as very serious. But I do love any feedback, good or bad. ^___^
Wow, is html annoying.
This is good, I've cluttered up my regular journal long enough with writing rants.
So, I'm supposed to post something I've written, eh..? Hmm...
'kay, here's the first chapter to Game Over, my nano novel. I would post explanations or disclaimers, but it really isn't needed in this case, is it. Plus, I've always thought that anything that needed explaining should be thrown in the trash. I mean the recycle bin.
1. Salena
I am here.
Pale wash of foaming water against curving body of yellow sand, gray cliffs holding patient watch above. The forest that swooped almost to the water was dark and dense, full of secrets.
I have always been.
The footsteps of the boy who followed the line of water were soft and light, fading after only a moment. He looked over his shoulder, past the heavy blade that dragged in the sand behind from one listless hand, and thought that it was unfair, the way the world forgot a person so quickly.
I will always be.
In a city of ghostly spires and trees twisted as love, the lights of a small room were harsh on the faces of the figures that lay on twin tables, a shadowed silhouette hovering over both, checking dials and gauges with old familiarity. Glow of silver shimmered above one, molten gold over the other; fingers of both twined to meet above, and the man between watched with mouth open wide, and laughed.
I am as real as you, but your eyes do not see me.
A seagull swooped over a tangle of nets and fish, taunting, its raucous calls filling the dockyards. All save one head remained fixed at their tasks; the girl who glanced upward with curious, wondering eyes smiled and shook her head at the bird. Her hair was vibrant with a life of its own, a thing of sunlight and laughter flying in the wind as though it, too, would like to run away from the scent of rot and tar, to where clean breezes of heather raced across the plains of Fujita.
The time of prophecy draws near; the one who will speak for the people of the Nairne steps forward.
Braids of black banded by gold, oiled skin gleaming in the midday light that reflected off brightly painted walls, stark columns of pearl. A scream rang out from the rooms within and the man turned, narrow eyes dark with alarm, and more strangely, hate. Hands clenched as he shook his head and again faced the daylight. Sometimes the impotence he felt was worse than death.
Life for one, or life for none? Solve the riddle, then you’ve won.
A deep-sea sailing ship, cherished child of the Amayan fleet, tossed in the cyclone of anger that had boiled from the depths at the moment that the Captain had decided to take a risky shortcut and cross open sea, uncharted and free, to the mainland. Like a seabird in a gale, a tall girl clung to the mast and stared into the whirling waters and winds which seemed to have a voice of their own. She pulled her glasses from her nose and wiped them dry, but they were drenched again in seconds. In frantic, fear filled tones, a sailor called incomprehensible orders, but the dark haired girl smiled and shook her head. If this was her death, she was going to meet it and know its name.
In your hands, we rest.
Crags of aquamarine and coral spiraled to where light danced in the primordial soup of kelp and weed, fish darting between. In the shadows of rocks, a voice--deep and sonorous, musical with a terrible finality--ordered, and a narrow form darted forth, arrowing for the seductive glitters of the overworld. It had never wanted to visit that land of unforgiving heat, but one couldn’t remain in the womb of the mother ocean for all time.
Carry us well, my friend.
Under the leaves of a broad-armed oak tree, a man wept into his hands as silent shadows made their placid way around his circle of sorrow. They never listened, and they never believed. He was tired of trying, but how could he live with himself if he let the world flow to its doom without even extending a hand to attempt to alter its pattern? An amber leaf fell beside his knee, and he stared at it as though it held the promises of the fates. If it was true--what they said--and the future was written, wasn’t it also true that one could discover the book in which the words were stored?
And so we begin. And so, we end?
***
The player smiled and leaned back as the game began. It was a new one, and he had been anticipating it for months; searching the gaming websites and magazines for information, speculating with friends about where the series would be headed next. Now the waiting was at an end, and he was content to end his conjectures and simply let the story unfold. With his prodding, of course, his customizations, his own personal stamp on world, character, and ability.
He let out a pleased sigh as a fluidly dramatic opening movie unfurled across his 36 inch plasma-screened television and mournful, spine-tingling violin and voice echoed from the speakers. There was nothing quite like a new game, he reflected. This was one of those days when one was glad to be alive.
***
“Ciro?”
The boy who lay in the long, narrow bed continued to stare at the ceiling, to where flecks of golden light played through the haziness of curtains. His hair, tousled and as brilliant as the sun that fought its way into the room, was the only cheerful thing about him.
“Ciro! I’m coming in.”
When Tala Isoke walked into a room, the world not only watched, it stood to attention. It gawked, it drooled. It searched for a pick-up line slightly more intelligent than its neighbor’s. Tala was used to this, and she expected it.
She had long since stopped expecting any such treatment from Ciro Stormsoul. A Soranese noble lost before he could receive his tattoos of rank, some whispered, or fairy boy, wandered from the forests of Aran Naal. Whatever the orphan’s origins, one thing was for sure; he was strong and as surly as a man worn ragged from a long Fujitan harvest, even as a child. The villagers had taken him in and smiled to do so, for the fostering of a foundling invited the luck of the gods. If he was a little strange and walked away without comment from proffered jobs of fish gutting and net repair, he also had a well-muscled arm and sharp blade ready for any villager’s protection.
Tala smiled and cocked her head to the side, surveying the prone form of her young charge. Or was he her charge? Not any longer, she reflected, and was surprised to feel a slight tickle of sadness lodge somewhere in the region of her throat. Eighteen and a full adult. No longer would the village chief call the boy a child and feed him out of charity. No, he had said, not unkindly, the boy would have to do something to earn his keep.
She coughed, and Ciro turned his emotionless face to hers. “The Chief wants you, Ciro,” she explained, and turned away in instant defeat. His eyes bore into her with their dispassionate gray lethargy, and she was never able to hold that gaze for long.
Ciro swung his black-booted feet over the bed and dropped to the floor, ran a careless hand through his wiry hair. “What if I don’t want to see him,” he stated, his voice flat and monotone.
Tala shivered. “Do what you want, I can’t tell you how to live anymore. I’ll see you later.”
Ciro watched, his eyebrows drawn together in what might have been anger or anxiety as the woman’s slim figure receded into the distance. She had seemed upset, but he couldn’t imagine why. His foot tapped nervously for a moment; Tala had cared for him for years, since his first foster family had been taken in the violent toshi storms that sprang up as soon as one sailed too far from the mainland. He could go after her and tell her that, explain that he did care about her, that he was grateful, that the only reason he seemed so unfeeling now was because it was as though his insides were gnawed by the questions in his mind, the uncertainties that lay at the root of his being.
He stepped forward once, then stopped. Why should he explain any of that? I can’t tell you how to live anymore. She was done with him; there was no reason for Ciro to reopen that book. Always move forward; that was his motto. Only fools looked back.
The village chief was waiting, and despite what he said, Ciro would never dishonor the old man enough to ignore a request for a meeting. He had been the one to tell the villagers that the starved child washed up on their shores was more than another mouth to feed, a wounded animal in need of healing; that he was an omen from the gods, one that they could hardly afford to cast away.
He stood straighter, tightened his belt, and hurried out of the small room that he had called home for the past five years. He didn’t like his life much, but it was all he had, and he had sense enough to be grateful to the man who had reached out a hand on that hazy day so many years before, and stated in a serious voice, We will help you, do not be afraid.
Ciro paused before the door of the largest house in town, and his mind was flooded by the memories that were his earliest, and so his strongest. He should have been able to see beyond that beach, that hand, the remembered flavor of seawater in his throat and nostrils, but it was as far as he could go. Beyond that, his mind closed and whispered No, pushing him away. Ciro supposed it was for the better. Again he was looking back, in a world where such introspection was useless and counterproductive.
The door pushed open under his waiting hand and Ciro jumped back, surprised; he hadn’t yet knocked. He nodded to the girl who stood there, trying to push his features into a mask of absolute nonchalance, but inside he was annoyed. Nika, the chief’s youngest daughter, seemed to have a seventh sense for the times when he was upset or nervous, and she was one of those people who picked up that anxiety and shook it like a dog does a bone. Slowly, she grinned at him, her wide mouth expressive with what he felt sure was amusement.
“Ciro! I was just coming to look for you!” Nika shook her head and her short, spiraling curls shuddered with excitement. “Papa has been waiting, and he really needs to talk to you. It’s important.”
“Well, I’m here,” Ciro muttered. “Are you going to let me in or do you always interrogate your guests first?”
She flushed and stepped back, and her mouth drew into the same thin line that Tala’s had worn earlier. Ciro felt a twinge of guilt, but he pushed it away. For the daughter of a village chief, Nika was abysmal at the traditions of proper hosting. She had a thing or two to learn if she wasn’t going to shame her father.
“Come in, Ciro.” The old man’s voice was soft in the gloom of the dimly lit house. Ciro stepped past Nika, who shut the door behind him and disappeared somewhere into the hallway beyond. He hoped that she had some task at hand and wasn’t planning on listening to their conversation.
“Greetings, fair weather to you,” he whispered, and sat uneasily on the edge of the bench that sat before the man. The village chief looked the same as he always had in Ciro’s memory; silver beard and hair trimmed bluntly if at all, simple fishing clothes, deep-set eyes that caught one’s gaze and held it as a minnow on a line.
“You were eighteen two days ago.” The man stared at Ciro heavily, and his expression was strangely sad. “Or you were to the best of our knowledge. Nine years ago that day you washed up on our shore, and you told us that you had seen nine winters, and that you were named for the god that watches over us all, the sun that gives us light and love. And here you are, my boy, grown and as silent as ever. Have you nothing to say?”
The clock behind the shoulder of the chief chimed the hour, the nooning hour, when women hurried in the kitchen with lunches for the men still on land, and children ran to the village school. Ciro sighed. “What is it you would like me to say? You took care of me, and I thank you for that; I know you didn’t have to do it. I can move on now, and be a burden no longer. May I go?”
The old man sat up and his eyes were like coals under the ash of his eyebrows. “No, you may not. You are a good person, Ciro, but you hurt everyone that you talk to. My daughter, at the door--she was trying to be friendly. She likes you, Ciro. But what did you do? Remind her of her failings so that she would stop bothering you about your own. You are no more an adult than you were nine years ago, boy. But I can’t keep you forever.”
Ciro blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I suppose you have more to say?”
“Oh, yes. If you do not wish to remain in our village, there is nothing I can do to stop you. Despite what you say, you know we would keep you most gladly. There are always jobs for the willing. But we have no room for the unwilling, Ciro.”
“Then I will go. I have no wish to be a fisherman.”
“It’s not that easy.” Ciro watched the chief uneasily as he leaned forward and smiled, a wry smile. “We have fed and cared for you for half of your life. You owe us something. No, not money, not work--” he had seen Ciro’s expression of outrage. “But there is something we need done desperately, and with the tides as good as they are now, we can hardly afford to send any of our folk away. And this is a job for someone who can protect himself, not a fresh woman or child who trusts the ways of strangers. I can’t think of anyone but you, Ciro. Do this and your debts will have been repaid, and you can leave with a clean conscience. I know you don’t like to feel as though you owe anyone anything.”
Ciro nodded slowly, hating the way the old man knew him so well. Try as he might to hide himself, some people simply always found the chinks of the wall and looked between. “I’m not agreeing to anything until you give me the information,” he stated flatly. “What is it that you need done?”
“You know of Saville.”
Ciro did; it was the river town of the forest people, the only place an outsider could go to meet those of their kind. He hadn’t been there, but every child in Salena heard whispered stories of the strange folk who made their homes in the great forest of the south. He would like to go there, he thought. He would like to see how many of those old stories had been true.
“I would prefer to keep these worries from you, but if you are going to do this work you must know, Ciro. I have a letter which I need delivered to the hands of Saville’s chief, and time is of the utmost importance. I have heard things, things about the Soranese, their troops...” The old man shook himself and turned suddenly vulnerable eyes to the strong figure before him. “Their pride grows too large for their boundaries, and the occasional raid doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. I am afraid, Ciro. I am worried for us, and for all the small, peaceful towns of this land. We are not fighters, we are simple folk. But we do not wish to be ruled!”
“The Soranese!” Ciro didn’t understand. Their neighbors to the north had everything that they could desire; complicated machines and magics, beautiful cities, slaves and comforts that were legendary in the rough countryside of the coastal lands. What did they think they could get from simple Salena, hard-working Lachlan? “Are you sure, chief? What is it you want me to bring to Saville?” For he would do it, he knew that already. He owed these people that much.
“I’m not sure of anything, but the folk of Aran Naal need to be warned, and there is the chance that they will send help, just...in the chance that we need it. You will go?”
“I...will go. Alone. And I will return to tell you their answer,” Ciro promised, despite the fact that he would have liked to continue his travels south, worm his way into the forest that denied most strangers. There was always another day for that, after all.
“Thank you, my boy.” The chief bowed low, and Ciro was torn between embarrassment and pleasure. “This means more to me than you know. Please remember that there will always be a place for you; this is you home.” Stiffly, he rose to his feet and shuffled to a desk that stood against the rear wall of the room. “I had the letter ready, hoping that you would say yes. Just let me sign and seal it, and find a map so you will know how to get to Saville--”
Ciro finally allowed his body to slouch, his mind to relax as his eyes closed and he considered the promise which he had made. He was going to the river town, the willow town, the place of joining between forest and plain folk. It should be interesting.
“You’re going to Saville?”
He raised an eyebrow and turned around slowly, not so much as tempted to act surprised. He had expected Nika to show up long ago. “I’m doing a job for your father, and then I’m out of this town.”
She sniffed and stepped out of the shadows of the coat closet. “Papa is right, you know, you’re nothing more than a big, mean child. But I like you anyway.”
“Really? At least I’m not a sniveling baby, Nika,” he stated, and smiled cruelly at her small form. “At least I don’t eavesdrop on conversations that are meant to be private.”
She moved smoothly forward and slid onto the bench next to him. He noted that she kept one wary eye on her father’s back, and that her voice was hushed. “Sometimes a woman has to listen in, to survive in a man’s world,” she giggled, and punched him in the arm in a manner that Ciro thought was altogether too companionable for the realities of their relationship. “I’m coming with you, just you see. I’m not going to ruin my hands gutting fish and mending nets!”
Ciro smiled, and this time it was a real one. “You’re not going anywhere with me, although I agree that it’s best to get away from this place. I sometimes forget that the entire world doesn’t smell like fish.”
“Here you go, Ciro, and may you carry it well.” The Chief turned about, letter clutched in his hands, and Ciro watched in amazement as Nika slipped into the shadows with the skill of an eel in the rocks. “Was that my daughter I heard?”
“Ah, she offered me tea,” Ciro lied, and wondered why he was doing so. He didn’t have any reason to cover for the girl, but he also didn’t have any reason not to.
“And a map as well,” the old man offered two parchments, one tightly rolled, the other wide and creased as though it had been folded and unfolded countless times. “Tell Tala to pack you a traveler’s rations and give you a money pouch from the stores. Make sure you are well armed, but don’t make yourself a target. This is a dangerous world we live in, and only growing more uncertain.”
Ciro tucked both into an inside pocket, stood, and bowed. “I’ll be on the road before the sun has reached its high point,” he promised, and the old man smiled, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Best of luck, my son,” he whispered as Ciro stalked from the room without a glance back. “You’re more important than you know.”
***
The player hurried Ciro to Tala’s house and saved his game at one of the glowing sky colored orbs which dotted each town and city. So far, so good, he thought as he hit the switch on the game unit and turned off the television. He was enjoying the hero’s taciturnity and playing it up to the maximum. He always did that; what was the use of some sweet, feeling character, one that wouldn’t have the guts to kill in real life? Heroes should be serious and strong, not prey to those emotions that made life so uncomfortable, so distasteful.
And so real.
***
If anyone has feedback, opinions, hate mail, I love it all. I really don't expect it with this, I don't see this as very serious. But I do love any feedback, good or bad. ^___^
Wow, is html annoying.