21 - Castle Levant

Byron’s father sat alone. He still wore the mud-crusted traveling clothes he'd donned the previous night. He was tired- exhausted both mentally and physically after the trials he and Lynt had endured in their quest to hunt down his son. He sat at the head of a dining room table, a relic of spruce that ran the relative length of the long hall on the ground floor of Levant Castle, folded his hands in front of him and stared ahead at a candelabra and empty porcelain bowl. His primary fear at that particular moment in time was that he would become known forevermore only as the father of Byron Levant, a warlock and murderer.

He didn’t regret turning his son in, but he hadn’t expected the Towers to keep him in the dark about what was happening with him. They’d captured Byron at the gates of Hundred Trees as he’d arranged. Oxsar had only wanted to speak with the boy. He knew there would be no hiding him from the justice of the Towers, but he hoped to somehow keep him from execution. Apparently, it had not been an issue to begin with. Oxsar received a message that morning, a common form letter used by scholars the academy over that requested an audience with his son at Levant Castle, as if nothing had happened, though Byron had never bothered with such formalities before.

Oxsar had been under the impression that he was to be punished, which in a rational world would have been understandable, but deep down Oxsar knew otherwise. Distressingly, the rational world he had once lived in already seemed gone, as if a page of history had already been turned. He stared ahead with his hands on the table and he fidgeted, something he didn’t normally do, or hadn’t since he’d been young. He was always telling Byron to stop. His whole life he'd been telling him.

At some point the long and violent night had become a gray morning and a gray day. In the dining room he could not see the unnatural rainfall, but still he heard it pelting the courtyard as he waited on a visit from his son. Every theory of the events around Byron had only brought new, unanswerable questions, and when all of his rumination was done the only conclusion he’d come to was that he did not particularly like, and was even somewhat afraid of Byron, who had supposedly been to and returned from some outlandish, magical place. He was different now, brazen, and entirely too sure of himself.

The truth was that he didn’t want Byron killed or jailed, but he yearned, unashamed, for some sort of punishment for the boy, to let him know that the chain of command was there for a reason, and that to behave like a rogue, even with good intention, could have disastrous results Authority existed to have all available knowledge. It was for the good of the people and how the best societies functioned. Or had been, he thought. The body count of last night had still not been tallied, but many lives had been lost. Granted, most of them had been lowborn, but there had been a few who had come from formerly noble families. For those lives at Hundred Trees- all of them- Byron’s disregard would have to be punished. He could not continue to act however he wished without consequence.

From what Oxsar had gleaned about the uprisings from his servants, colleagues, and neighbors in the early morning hours, the governors had truly had nothing to fear last night. Neither seizure of the towers nor their assassinations had seemed to be a thought in the rebel's minds, but it had still been a premeditated attack on the Yarthanguard, on their rule of law. Martial law was declared, and the many gangs of the city became their targets of war. The line between citizen and thief among the lowborn had always been a blurry one to him, but he had never considered any sizable amount of them to be insurgents. Last night had proved him wrong. Add it to the list of things I thought I knew, he thought with contempt.

In a harsh retaliation for the uprisings, the Yarthanguard arrested, beat, or killed any lowborn unlucky enough to be in their way. Just before dawn they had let loose their packs of attack dogs for the first time since the license revolts twenty years prior, and they swept the city in a night that was to be forever remembered, in large part for the role his own son had played in it all, however unrelated. Was it? he thought. Oxsar did not particularly care for the lowborn, but he was tired of violence, and neither did he, in his later years at least, believe that they deserved to be starved.

It was a veritable storm outside, and the sound of the wind whistled through the castle parapets. The noise matched his mood of loneliness and solitude. He truly felt his age. Each drop of the somehow magical rain was a defiance of all he held true- the rules he believed to hold not just the city, but the universe, the consensus of reality- all of it- together. His scientific methods could not make sense of Byron’s story or their seemingly real outcomes- the rain, and certainly not the strange, serpent-like creature he’d glimpsed for only a moment atop the hill in the parklands. First he thought he’d imagined or embellished it, that Lynt’s hushed description of it could not be real, but others had since corroborated its existance; colleagues whose judgment and intellect he held in high esteem had described its eyeless head, like an onyx venus fly-trap, its long slender neck with spotting of deep blue. Does the upper echelon know of this other realm my son spoke of? How it could remain a secret he did not know.

In the distance he heard the front gates creak open and the front doors of the small castle thrown wide. From his place at the table he had a straight line of sight from the dining room to the foyer, and soon enough Byron entered from far away, flanked by two fully armored Yarthanguard. Lightning flashed in the open doorway before it was closed by a guard, and Byron removed a cloak and set it on a peg by the door. Oxsar heard Byron muttering, laughing, and moments later he came into the light with the guards close behind.

He was soaked, and droplets collected on the stubble of his bald head. He had only a suggestion of eyebrows. He wore a cream-colored doublet with gold trim on the sleeves and breast, teal trousers with a thin gold belt, and white polished shoes. Ridiculous clothes fit for a jester. “Father, the gates are wide open,” he said. “Where is Lynt?”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“I sent him home to be with his family,” Oxsar said.

“Rather dangerous to leave your front gates and doors opened with these ruffians out and about, don’t you think? If I were you I would hire a new man, father. Lynt is traitorous.”

“He isn’t traitorous. He’s exceedingly loyal, all things considered. In fact, according to what he’s told me, you would be dead without him. I have been too hard on him and the rest of the staff, of late. Byron. Perhaps on you, as well. I hope I have not made an enemy of my son, but do not regret my decision. You must face consequences.”

“I will consider your apology, and should also give you a piece of advice. Stay away from Glass Avenue, Fiddlewood and Tabby Square for the rest of this morning, the entire lower-west side. Our brave men and women of the Yarthanguard have determined that the insurgents are operating from those areas, and they will be rounding up the rest of them. I imagine it will be quite dangerous.”

“I had not for even a moment considered going there this morning, and neither was that an apology,” Oxsar said, voice rising. He nodded to the guards. “Privacy, please,” he said.

Byron began to walk toward him, his hand running the length of the table. He smiled as he did so, a sickening, smug grin that most boys in Yartha would have had beaten out of them by the time they were twelve. “Oh, dear father,” he said. “You don’t understand. They must stay by my side. In this time of city-wide crisis I am afraid they outrank you, father. Even in your own home. They are to stay by my side and protect me at all costs. Governor Wyse has called me a treasure. A hero to the city. Nothing should befall me. I am the future of Yartha, as Governor Spyre has said.”

He turned to the Yarthanguard behind him. Two tall, chisel-jawed men. Their steel armor sleaked with rain. Their eyes were turned down. They don’t respect him, Oxsar thought.

“At ease, men,” Byron said. The guards briefly looked at one another with uncertainty, but held their positions.

“Have you just come to gloat, Byron?” Oxsar asked him, fingers at his temples. “Get on with it, then.”

"I have not come to gloat, but to fetch my meager belongings,” he said. “Though I must tell you that I have new belongings, new lodgings, furnishings and the like. There is not much here that I should take, naught but perhaps some objects of sentimental value. They've made me a high scholar, father. Your dream for me.”

Oxsar stared at him, and his hands balled into fists at the sides of his chair. “Just like that, eh?” he said, and finally stood. The chair screeched against the floor. He placed his palms at the edge of the table, towering over it, and stared at Byron. He could still see the awkward child there. “You’ve taken everything from me,” Oxsar said. “My legacy, my thoughts. You have been handed everything you’ve ever wanted your entire life, and you would gloat over this to my face? You have blood on your hands. How did you become so strange? So selfish?”

“Selfish? The bringer of rain?” Byron scoffed. “I must admit, that is quite an observation from a man who lives alone in an empty castle. Maybe I can get you a higher rate of pay, father. Would that be nice? I’ll see what I can do.” He laughed, but it was forced. When Oxsar didn’t react, Byron continued. “There is no blood on my hands. Quite the opposite, in fact. Martial law will end soon, once they find the traitors. Know that when it does, it was my words to the governors that brought about its end. I am a champion of the lowborn. Nothing has changed in that regard.”

The guardsmen exchanged uneasy glances. Oxsar scoffed, still processing. “Grand scholar? Of what? Mathematics? You are far from attaining-”

“Nothing so dull as mathematics,” Byron said with a passive indifference that almost caused Oxsar to rush him, bodyguards be damned. “It is a new field they have opened specifically for me; the study of magic in practice, advisor to Albranth Wyse on all topics of such. I am henceforth to be known as the Protector of the White Flame.”

Oxsar laughed. “Who bestowed that title? You, I suppose?”

Byron didn’t answer him, but a slight turn of his son’s mouth betrayed him. “We have grand plans for Yartha, father. My expertise in this field will propel the city to a beautiful new age. It is interesting to me,” he said, slowly pacing back and forth along the table. “It is interesting to me that the very thing which you discouraged me from for my entire life has now propelled me to a status that you shall never attain. How does it feel to be wrong, father? How does it feel to know that the gods you have spat upon are real? To know that they could crush you like an ant? That they chose me to wield their mag-””

Oxsar came towards him with his fists at his sides, his face contorted, very aware that the next moment would decide what was left of his future in Yartha. The hands of the guards went to their curved blades at their sides, but Oxsar’s face was full of sorrow. He gave Byron a shaky, awkward embrace. He was tall and long-limbed like his son, and the two had rarely embraced before. Byron didn’t expect it, and half-heartedly returned the gesture.

“I am proud of you, Byron,” Oxsar said in a strange, broken voice, and patted his back. “Perhaps I needed to say that more.” He retreated a step, eyes downturned, leaving his hand on his son’s shoulder. “You must understand that this is a lot to take in for a man of tradition like me, for an old man. I simply need time to contemplate these things. Of course you are right; this discovery, or rather this reclamation, will change all manner of the sciences… cultures, trade. Its implications are incalculable. An entirely new frontier will need an entirely new approach. Your appointment was wise, Byron.” He nodded his head and stared off into space, and hoped that Byron thought that the tears welling in his eyes were those of pride for his son, and not from relinquishment of his own.

Byron gave him a long appraising look. Finally he nodded. “It takes a brave man to admit that they are wrong, father,” he said. He smiled, put his own hand on his father’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Splendid work. Perhaps I can put in a good word with the governors.”

Oxsar hung his head. “That would be fine, Byron,” he said. He closed his eyes, repressing a grimace. “That would be fine.”

*End of Part Three*