Page 15

AN UNEXPECTED TURN

WREN

U nexpectedly, the teacher’s tale diverges from the history I know in my marrow to be true. The change is a difference without being a difference, unsaid words rather than lies, and it sits uneasily on my skin.

“When the Sword was old, older than anyone else in the two Kingdoms, when his skin was so thin it would tear if he moved too quickly, he called together his most faithful followers. The Sword was as wrinkled as a blood moth cocoon, that’s how ancient he was.

” The woman drops her voice, making it spooky but teasing, and the children groan in disgust.

“Ew! Miss! Ew!”

“Well, he was. From the Southern Kingdom he called his old Protector, who had long since left his side to rule below in his stead. And from the Traders’ Kingdom he called his Justice, who had acted for the Sword there.

These men — his vultures, hooded and bent with age — were almost as bad as him.

A trio of evil — bloodthirsty, power hungry, and vicious.

Supposed friends, or allies, they had waited and waited for the Sword to be old enough to overcome, to seize his Kingdoms and continue his terror.

And finally they saw their chance. But!”

The sound of squeaking chairs tells me children are rocking forward to hear what’s coming, and I unintentionally mimic their unseen movements.

“Buuuut…there were twelve men in the village at the time, twelve brave and selfless men, who met late at night in the caverns in the mountains, far from the watchful eyes of the Sword’s army.”

“Weren’t they scared of the blood moths?” a little voice calls, and I can picture the teacher’s shaking head.

“There were no blood moths, not quite yet. Our miners hadn’t gone deep enough into the rock at that time, hadn’t dug to the Everfire and opened the caves where the chrysalis were waiting.

The men plotted and planned, waited and watched, and then, at great risk to themselves, and for the good of the Upper Kingdom, finally acted.

The Sword, approaching death, had made a devil’s bargain with the Ender—” A sharp intake of breath from the children around her, and she smooths her voice to soothing, “I know, I know. But it must be said. He went around the Gods above and below to barter for returned youth. The trade was easy and clean — a sacrifice of five thousand — quiet now, please. Five thousand children. And with every ten lives given, he would gain a month back to himself. That was the bargain.”

“He wouldn’t…he couldn’t have…”

“He did. The plan was in motion before the brave men who were going to act against him had time to move. It was a dark and desperate time for the families in our village. We lost almost an entire generation — he did not take any infants from the inner walls, so all sacrifice came from the second and third rings. Two years—” the teacher’s voice chokes to a halt, then pushes on.

“For two years the innocent were slaughtered to buy him youth, and strength, the Unknown drained and then thrown from the cliffs, the water receding further every time a lost child’s body sunk into its depths.

And every time the people had to gather and watch.

With every drop of blood spilled, the mountains growled and shook.

There were more and more mine collapses, lives lost in the darkest caverns.

Cracks in the sides began to show the Everfire hidden within.

And the years drained from his face like the fresh water draining from our land.

His followers got greedy, and demanded the same bargain for themselves, hovering behind him like carrion birds as the atrocity occurred, watching with hungry eyes and the age melted off the Sword’s face every time he anointed his skin with fresh blood.

All seemed lost. But then, in the second year, when a full 2,500 children had been lost, the men saw their chance and struck, stealing the knife from the Sword’s very hands whilst his eyes were still blinded with blood! Why, Trina, what’s wrong?”

A quiet crying voice replies. “The poor children, Miss...”

“The poor children. But the brave men, Trina! Who stopped what we thought was unstoppable! And when the man who struck the killing blow had his hair go white with the blade strike, we were gifted the first BoneKeeper by the Gods for our reward.”

The words are true, in a way. But she neglects to mention that, at the same time, the Earth cracked open like a giant’s mouth to masticate flesh from bone, peeling away tendon and sinew, leaving only bleached, hollow remnants behind.

And the Sun faded in the sky from a warm glow to a cold, freezing light that would flare to life indiscriminately and singe exposed skin to ash in a single afternoon.

Nature itself turned on the people in violent, unpredictable ways.

Even water…well. If you are thirsty enough, poison tastes as sweet as wine.

“But the children…”

“Ah. Maybe that’s enough for today about that, hmm? There’s still so much to cover, we don’t need to stay on such dark things for the entire lesson. What would you like to hear about? When the first Traders came and their birds escaped into the mountains? I know that’s a favorite story.”

There is some reluctant giggling from the class.

“Will the Traders ever come again, do you think, Miss?”

I don’t hear the answer, lost in my own thoughts. Will the Traders ever come again? The idea is paralyzing, intoxicating.

There have not been Traders here in my lifetime.

But in my father’s time they came from the northwest, from a thin slice of pale dirt that runs along the cliff face.

It was a dangerous journey that hasn’t been traversed in more than two decades — in my 23 years the path hasn’t been traveled.

The women who remember the last visit, all mothers with children grown from bellies made heavy by nights with foreign men, speak of it in wistful whispers around the salty ponds.

I’m never invited into the chatter, but, like a ghost, hear the words on the wind.

And from the bones. The bones never keep secrets from me.

They reminisce of the visits during their childhoods, the way they watched the Traders come year after year until the girls were women and could participate.

It happened the same way every time. Only a small group came, perhaps a hundred men, no more.

They always arrived slowly, wagons loaded with seeds, strange fruits, caged animals, and jugs of crystalline water, and were welcomed with barred gates and Keepers’ spears.

The Twelve, the Protectors, the Justice, and the Father would go to speak with them outside the walls, carrying bags spilling over with shining gems mined from deep within the mountain.

An agreement was struck, a yearly renewal of the previous year’s accord in a handshake between the Father and their leader, and then smiles and laughter spilled forth.

And here were the rules. The Traders were welcome for three days, no more.

They were given housing and what little food we had to spare, treated as honored guests.

They were allowed within the central Keep but not the Council House, and nowhere south of the Second Gates.

They were free to consort with any woman who would entertain them from any Ring, taken or not, as long as they were of age and the woman consented.

They could sing, or dance, or drink, or feast til bursting, but no words were ever to be spoken of life outside the village, upon penalty of death.

And when they left, they left alone — none from the village were permitted to accompany them.

From what I’ve heard, the Traders looked forward to their visits like a kind of holiday — who would turn down three days of feasting and fires, of free food, free beer, and free women?

And the only price silence? An easy game to play.

On the third day, the wagons were emptied, and refilled with minerals and stones and ore, and with one last cheerful farewell, they would leave along the same sliver of gold upon the cliff edge.

It was rare to have a Trader return more than once; the temptation was too great to break the rules, I think.

Or perhaps the trip was a reward or punishment in their culture?

I do not know. All I know is that their last visit was as every before.

The year before I was born, they came, stayed the allotted three days, feasted and sang to the stars above our home in a strange language, more liquid and lilting than the Common Tongue, then left, and none have been seen since.

Our storehouses, now filled to bursting with silver ore, obsidian, and clear, glass like gemstones, have grown dusty.

No miners burrow into the mountains anymore to collect the useless, bright rock.

At first the Council thought the Traders had been delayed a year by weather or disease.

Two, then three years passed, and when the Hunters found the path overgrown by weeds and thick vines and blocked by a massive rockfall, they realized that perhaps the last Xenium had been given, and we had finally been lost to the dusty corners of history.