The Tale of Onora: The Boy and the Peddler of Death (10 page)

           
The woman gritted her teeth as she thought of harm coming to her children. “Make your point.”

           
“The wicked ones we speak of all had one thing in common,” the man replied. “They were all fatherless.”

           
“I want him gone,” the woman said.

“Please,” the man begged. “He deserves to know the truth. Please allow him to stay long enough that I may show him, that I may alleviate his hatred towards me for abandoning him, for choosing you above all else.”

           
The woman tenderly stroked her husband’s face and gazed deep into his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder how much easier my life would have been, if the fabric of my soul wasn’t sewn by the thread of my love for you.”

CHAPTER 3

Heroes and Murderers

T
HE FOG OF THE past slowly dissipated and the boy returned to consciousness. The first thing that came into focus was his father’s face. The boy could sense the feeling in his limbs returning. There was no prickly sensation anywhere in his body. He moved his arms and took hold of his father.

            The man hoisted the boy up and propped him onto the stool.

“So you see?” the man said. “War does not decide who is right. Only who is left.”

            The boy was traumatized. He looked around the room and didn’t see any orbs of ether, static or excited, and there were no manifestations of spectral entities. He searched the floor for his chalice.

            The man pointed to the side table. “It’s over there. Take some time to get your bearings.”

            “The man from the desert,” the boy said. “He looked like me.”

            “He did,” the man solemnly replied.

            “Were you able to behold what I saw?” the boy asked.

            The man nodded. “Over and over I have.”

            “I didn’t see how the war ended,” the boy said. “I only saw the first day.”

            “The way that war ended is not relevant to what you wish to know about your mother and me,” the man responded. “The way it began is much more important.”

            The boy hoped he didn’t have to witness more horrors. It was too unbearable of an experience. He could already feel himself changing. It wasn’t romantic like he had been led to believe. War was misery. War was a dungeon for the spiritually condemned.

“If it’s still the truth you seek,” the man said. “Then have another drink.”

The boy was unsure if he could relive that ordeal and still survive. His heart pounded at a dangerous speed. He looked around the room to buy himself time. He needed to distract the man with a conversation to avoid appearing as a coward.

There were tunics of different colors and designs strewn about the decorated walls. Some were light and designed for hunting or commerce. Others were covered in chainmail and armor, designed for battle. Entwined in one of them was a famous artifact, a lens known to decipher illusion magic.

“I know what that is,” the boy said. “Is it not foolhardy for it to be left unguarded?”

The man looked at the artifact in disgust. “Many men perished trying to obtain that. But it is foolhardy to presume that anything in my life is left unguarded.”

“Why did you need it?” the boy asked.

“My blood is not pure,” the man replied. “My father crafted that lens to awaken my senses, that I would use it until I could see through his illusions with my own eyes. When the time comes, each of my children shall do the same. Never again shall humanity be trapped by such a spell.”

The boy’s eyes shot back to the corner of the room, where a slingshot and a shield made from faelen wood rested amongst other odds and ends. Next to them was a gold bracelet with the symbol of the Dregon race etched into it, skewered by a jewel-encrusted ivory boomerang. The four items were small. Adults could not equip them.

            “Those are for someone like me,” the boy said.

            “Aye,” the man responded. “I was your age when they were given to me.”

            “By whom?” the boy asked.

            The man choked up. He wanted to find the words. He was proud of the gifts he had been given throughout the course of his life and honored to have met such wonderful people. His bottom lip quivered uncontrollably. His nose stung. His face was a dam that could no longer stop the raging rapids of his heart. And so it broke, spilling tears down his cheeks.

The boy started to get up, but the man raised his hand as if to tell him that everything’s fine. The man wiped his eyes, but the tears would not be denied.

The boy knew some of the tales from his father’s epic journey. He knew how tough and strong and courageous his father was. He knew how dangerous his father had to be in order to wield the power that he did. It was a deeply humbling experience to behold such a legendary man in such a vulnerable state.

            The boy’s face showed sympathy. He could not pretend to know his father’s pain. He only had his own, but that’s what made each of them the same. He opened the breast of his tunic and withdrew a handkerchief. He offered it to his father.

            The man withdrew his trembling hands from his face and stared at the boy’s offering. “Do you think of me as a coward?”

            “No,” the boy said calmly. “I too have wept for the past. I too have lost what I loved.”

            Life tormented the man’s son just as it had tormented him. In this moment the man knew that fate had chosen them. He did not know whether it was making a game of them or if it needed them to correct all the mistakes of the past, but he knew fate had decided that it was the boy from the desert who would pick up where the boy from the forest left off.

            “Sometimes,” the man responded. “When things fall apart, they may actually be falling into place. Accept and honor that which the present moment gifts you.”

            The boy tried to think of all the bad things that happened in his life, that they could somehow be constructing the bridge to his future in a positive way.

“I may not,” he started, but his trembling voiced caused him to pause. “I don’t know that I can.”

The man empathized with his son. “Parts of you may die, never to be seen again.” He leaned in. “But have faith that new parts of you may be born, that you may evolve into the man you wish to be.”

“Did you become the man you wished to be?” the boy asked.

The man was quick to shake his head. “No, I couldn’t be further from it.” A pleasant expression overturned the sorrow in the man’s face. “But that has made all the difference.”

The boy felt at ease with the way the man carried himself. He admired his humility. The man didn’t seem to care about his pride or what others thought of him. Perhaps it was just a way of disarming those around him. Regardless of motive, it worked, and the boy’s eyes were drawn upon two wind instruments mounted on the wall above the fireplace. He had never seen anything like them before, but they looked like the same type of instrument that Taliesin used during the Great War. One of them was wooden and earthy in appearance, as though crafted from the forest. The other was glossy-blue and pristine, like porcelain that was crafted from the sky. The boy found it strange to speak of someone he had no way of knowing had it not been for his father’s potion.

“Did those belong to Taliesin?” he asked.

The man looked up at the xuns. His eyes were crestfallen yet they brimmed with gratitude. “It was difficult for me to understand through the brume of pain and suffering,” he replied. “But I am most grateful that those items cause me such pain now. Were it not for the pain of my yesteryears, I would not have attained the love I am graced with today.”

The boy didn’t get an answer but he hid his frustration. The man remained silent in order to allow him to discover one artifact in particular that would distract the boy and prevent him from discovering the power of the xuns. Sure enough, the object caught the boy’s eye and revealed itself near the bottom of the heap in the corner. Its allure drew the boy up from his seat. He walked over to the dark corner and knelt down. The man returned to gazing at the fire.

A wave of shock washed over the boy as he picked up the most symbolic and powerful relic in all the land. He could not believe it was buried in an old pile of junk, barely making its presence known. Were it not for the glints of silver and gold mixed with the faint reflection of light from its jewels, this item would be unnoticeable. Yet, for lifetimes it was the most recognizable regalia in all of Caliphweald. It was the King’s Crown.

“There are only two ways to enslave a nation,” the man said. He didn’t bother looking away from the hearth fire.

The silence gnawed at the boy’s soul until he couldn’t take it. “Will you tell me?”

The man was weary of answering, given boy’s bloodline’s lust for conquest, but at the same time to understand these tactics is paramount to preventing them. “One is by the sword.” He reached into his pocket and took out a silver round. He tossed the precious metal to the boy.

The boy caught the coin and examined it. Its luster reflected the hearth fire’s glow. “What’s the other way?”

The man pointed to the coin. “Debt. If you control the money supply, you control the people.”

The boy held the crown dearly. He knew that he was one untimely death from becoming the rightful heir.

“If you decide to wear that,” the man continued. “You shall spread nothing but debt and death upon your people.”

“I would make a good king,” the boy replied.

“Do not be fooled by its illusions,” the man said. “It is merely a tool for enslavement.”

“I would never enslave my people,” the boy replied.

“Your subjects are not mine,” the man said.

The boy’s fingers moved across his forehead as he chose his words. “I meant those under my rule.”

“Your decision to talk to me about being king over all other matters is disappointing,” the man responded.

“Not as disappointing as the Shadean secrets you keep to yourself,” the boy said. “You just sent me into the middle of a war. I don’t know what I’m seeing. I have questions yet you won’t answer them.”

The man could sense the silent tantrum being thrown within the boy’s mind. “A good teacher tells you where to look, be he does not tell you what to see. He lets you decide for yourself.”

“I have,” the boy responded. “Not one man you’ve shown me was fit to rule anything, including yourself.”

“Right you are,” the man replied. “You shall never find a man that is fit to rule another. There are only those who seek to.”

“I’ve found a man fit to rule,” the boy said.

“Where is he?” the man asked.

“You’re looking at him,” the boy replied.

This provoked the man to awaken from his disimpassioned posture and face the boy sternly. He took a moment to allow the boy to stare into the abyss of his gaze.

The man’s irises appeared as though they swallowed dusk. It was so intense that the boy feared the man’s glare would swallow him next. The confidence that had grown inside the boy instantly fled from him. If he had guardian angels, they too fled the room. Nothing dared be present for such scrutiny.

An awful smile broke across the man’s face. It churned the boy’s innards. “Celebrated men lay dead at my feet for that type of ambition. It gave my life a great sense of purpose to kill them.”

The boy’s palms were clammy. They were so cold that the metal in his hand felt warm. He carefully placed the crown back where it belonged. In a subtle whimper, the words fell from his mouth. “Do you know what they call you?”

His question was met by silence.

“They call you The Peddler of Death,” the boy continued. “They say the only reason you didn’t wipe out my people was because of me.”

“They’re not wrong,” the man responded. “Caliphians may be obsessed with your nation’s beauty, but I know better. Beauty promises everything yet delivers nothing. It’d be no shame to me if a race of desert fowl disappeared off the map.”

The boy’s tone grew indignant. “How dare you! Have you any idea what it’s like for me to have my people refer to me as The Son of The Peddler of Death? It’s a disgrace!”

“Tell me something… what does a hero look like to you?” His question was met by the boy’s concerned stare.

“I don’t know,” the boy replied.

“What about a murderer?” the man asked. “Do you know what a murderer looks like?”

The boy stared hard into the man’s eyes.

The man waited patiently for the response he was looking for. Finally, it came.

“You,” the boy said.

The man cast an awful smirk. “Good lad.” He turned his head back towards the window and stared in silence.

“My grandfather had that type of ambition,” the boy said.

The man’s posture sank back into apathy. “Aye.”

“And so you slew him?” the boy asked.

The man could not have been more at peace with himself.

“I rather enjoyed it,” he said. “I grew up parentless in a foreign land because of your grandfather.”

The boy was confused. It was a simple truth. Nevertheless, confronting it handicapped his ability to reason. “That was him in the desert, wasn’t it?”

“I woke you up before you would witness your grandfathers murdering each other,” the man said. His eyes burned with hatred.

The truth stole the boy’s breath. He felt suffocated by its weight.

The man’s stare grew distant, his tone sarcastic. “You are the fruit of a family tree that chops itself down.”

There was a long silence. The boy waited patiently. His stare eventually drew the man to look at him. The man tilted his head and assessed what the boy was thinking about. “And so you see me as a murderer.”

The boy looked down with uncertainty. In his heart, he longed to have a single reason to be proud of his father. “My mum said you did it to save our lives.”

“Ah,” the man replied. “And so she sees me as a hero.”

The boy nodded.

“So I am both,” the man continued. “Neither of which I wanted to be.”