INTERLUDE 7D: THE TRUTH
“The Arch-Wizard represents true expression. Action for its own sake. The inner state instantiated outwards. Reversed, he represents the bottleneck of unexpected energies. The crumbling of the idea when practical application fails.”
– from ‘Tarot for Beginners’
19th Lynara, 997 NE
“Follow your brothers! Don’t let them get lost! If they get lost, it’s on your head, young lady!”
Papa always said it in a joking tone, but she always took her task seriously. They were three and four years younger than her, and her very earliest memory was Mama letting her help out with swaddling the first of her brothers, not long after he was born. She took protecting them to heart. More than once she’d gotten herself involved in their arguments with the kids from the village, and one time when her brothers got surrounded she’d even broken a twelve-year-old’s nose with a single wallop. It’d been satisfying, seeing the insolent little bully turn into a whinging mess of tears and blood, and, that night, after Papa sorted everything out with the boy’s parents, he rewarded her with an extra helping of sweet apple. He told her she was brave, and a good sister, and his favourite… but that she’d have to let the boys throw their own punches from time to time or they’d never get the hang of it.
She’d felt brave, and she’d felt like a good big sister. She even felt like his favourite – of course, the future of the family name depended on the boys, into one of whose hands the house would inevitably pass one day. She knew that the boys were more important. However, that didn’t mean Papa liked them more; if anything he seemed to find them a constant source of irritation, especially when put next to his mature, responsible daughter…
But when it came down to letting them fight – there was no way she was going to stand by if they were about to take a beating. It just wasn’t in her nature. She would start swinging, and let their opponents strike at her instead – not that they ever did. Whether it was the confidence with which she stepped up, her sternest expression on her face, or just the fear of getting slapped around by a girl – most of them decided to leave it once she got involved.
It didn’t look like she was going to need her sternest expression today. When she threw on her cloak and stepped out into the scrub-covered wheat fields she saw to her surprise that the boys weren’t heading down to the river, where the rest of their peers would be gathering under the tree-cover on a cool, rainy afternoon like this one. No, they were heading for the actual wood itself, for their secret dens and hidey-holes scattered throughout the dense bushes under the eaves. The nearside of the wood itself was basically a big playground to her brothers; Papa said there were no wolves to fear these days, and it’d been two years since they saw the bear that lived on the far side of the wood. The boys spent their day climbing trees and building a swing; she spent her morning shouting at them when they climbed too high, shouting at them when they nearly choked in the rope’s loops. When she got a minute, she’d retrieve her carefully-hidden treasure and read a few pages of the raunchy Mundic romance novel she’d bought for two pennies at the market – without her parents’ knowlege.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
By the time the boys started to show signs they were running out of energy, her throat was hoarse from all the yelling, but her eyes weren’t tired.
It was only as the shadows were lengthening and she gave thought to the notion of shouting some more, getting them to come down and follow her back home, that she realised what she was hearing.
Right behind her, she recognised the sound of dragging footsteps, boots scraping leaves through the top layer of dry soil – whoever was sneaking up on her, they were trying to be quiet.
She wasn’t frightened – not here, within sprinting distance of the house – but she was surprised by the sudden, slow approach of a stranger. When she turned, she had it in her head that it was going to be one of the local kids playing a prank on her – she was already raising her hand to give them a good whack across the nose.
Her hand fell, dangling limp from a shaking wrist, when she saw the three men approaching. These weren’t kids – the one in the lead was older than Papa, his beard matted and head bald, and the two behind him weren’t much younger.
They were almost upon her.
Her shriek came dry from her throat, a fruitless attempt at warning. A croak escaped her instead.
“Quiet down now, pretty,” said the vile man in front. She could see that his beard was matted with something that looked rancid and, now he was so close to her, smelt even worse. “Nice and quiet…”
She’d been backing away, operating on pure instinct, but it was far too little and far too late – he extended his arm, his filthy fingers reaching out for her –
“Em!” yelled Dolin, crashing through the undergrowth towards her – before she could do anything he barged into the space between them, knocking the man’s arm aside. “You leave my sister alone!” he insisted, with all the innocence only youth could muster.
Yibben was on his heels, stumbling out of the same patch of bushes with a little less grace than his older brother. “Yeah!” he cried defiantly, heading to stand at Dolin’s side –
She watched all this, immobilised by her terror, the weirdness of this feeling. She knew she and her brothers were at the dubious mercy of these strangers. She knew they had to be away from here, but she was more rooted to the spot than the very trees.
“No,” she croaked – but it was too late.
Before she could tell what was happening, what she had to do, all her options had been closed off to her – except one, the worst one…
The man in the lead grabbed Dolin by the white-blond locks, while one of his two followers clawed his fingers into Yibben’s, pulling at the little boy’s scalp until he screeched.
She was fast. She ran towards home, screaming for Papa, for Mama, for Dovans the Just to descend from Celestium to save them. At first, as she ran through the trees, she heard footfalls pounding along behind her – the third of the three men must’ve been giving chase – but by the time she could see the edge of the wood and the slope of the field beyond, she realised the hammering sound following her whichever route she chose was just her heartbeat, a figment of her terror.
She didn’t slow, though, and her yells brought Papa tearing out of the house to meet her halfway across the weed-choked meadow.
Her incoherent rambling sufficed to give him a general idea of what had happened, and, two minutes after he’d passed her by, plunging into the wood with nothing but a hunting knife, she’d recovered her breath enough to follow.
Mama went to fetch their relatives, and they went to fetch the sheriff; they didn’t call off the search for almost three days.
Yibben and Dolin Reyd were never found alive, nor whole.
After the service was held, blessing their remains in absentia, cursing those who took them from their loved ones – after it was over, Linnard Reyd never, ever mentioned them again.
And Emrelet Reyd would have to live with it, her decision, her failure, the last memories of her brothers in their defiance, protecting her… she would have to live with it for the rest of her life.
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