“Promise me this… Heror.”
Heror lifted his tear-blotted eyes and stared at the statuesque figure ahead. When Ucankacei turned, it was not his face. It was the face of Oranthei, warped with hate.
“Promise me you won’t forget,” the siekangh hissed.
With a menacing stomp, Oranthei surged to his feet, his tattered blue cloak flourishing and flowing behind him. He turned and ripped his longsword from his sheath. Heror cowered in the corner of the boat. The waters glowed red.
With each heavy step, the boat rocked. Oranthei sneered a sinister smile.
“Look at you.”
His gilded boots rattled against the wood.
“Rabid dog.”
His strides grew longer. He came ever closer; he was almost at arm’s reach now. He pulled back his sword.
“Even Nihlukei wouldn’t stand the sight of y–”
And then he stopped. Heror froze, and then he realized that a sword now filled his hand. His arm was fully extended. He’d stabbed the sword through Oranthei’s neck. The siekangh gaped and coughed and gurgled, but his sinister smile soon returned.
“Good,” he rasped, blood melting from his mouth. “Very gooooood…”
Heror retracted his sword in shock and horror, and the siekangh’s body fell at Heror’s feet. Just as the siekangh slumped, blood began to pour into the hull. Heror scraped and skittered his feet against the planks, knuckles gnawing at the railing, but the blood did not slow. It pooled and pooled and filled above his legs, and then his stomach, and then his chest, and then close to his chin – threatening to drown him – until he lurched and tipped over the canoe in a desperate escape.
With the blood, Heror spilled into the river, and he submerged below the crimson tides. As if weighted by his ankles, he sank. He thrashed and kicked. His throat palpitated. His lungs burned. He twisted and swirled, as the current pulled him deeper. And then he landed forcefully, and his chest compressed again.
The blood flushed away and the shores dried up. Heror coughed and took in gasps of air, hair dripping cerise. He dug his knees and fingers into the sand.
Sand…
He strained to his feet, and beheld the endless slopes of Sparhha, as the fearful winds fled past him. The shadowy sky churned with reddened smoke. In the distance, a storm brewed. Lightning growled and branched above it and stewed at its roots, in crackling, wrathful ellipses. It hurried across the scape. It grew near.
He went to flee with the wind but stumbled. The dunes collapsed under his weight, undermining his escape. He sank to his ankles and then to his knees, until he could do nothing but wait and crane his head in terror, at the bane of his absolution.
Herded along in the clouds of the storm – forming the black walls of the storm itself – he saw them, millions and millions of them, flocking like locusts. Moths. Moths, feverishly threshing and culling peace – their manic, misaligning cries a premonition of the judgment to come.
Heror tried to trudge in the sand, but the ground had hardened. He tried to tear his eyes away, but he could not. As the moths shepherded along the apocalyptic tempest, the undaunted hum grew into a furor, and from a furor to a roar, and the storm neared and neared until the wind swept all the air beyond him, and all the sight he had was filled to the very edges with piercing red and smoldering black. He turned his head and closed his eyes – in one last futile attempt to hide – and the vengeful gales overtook him.
He felt the vortex drive him deeper into the sand, and his breath left him. He lifted his neck and gasped, but the suffocation steeled. There was no oxygen to breathe, let alone beg for answers. His ears stung at the deafening sound. His skin scalded and flayed at the hot rush. The force drew his arms back behind him, carving and scraping his wrists through the clayed matrix. He let out a silent wail…
And then it was silent, save for the menaced, hypnotized drumbeat of his heart – the underworld’s metronome. He was on his knees. He bowed his head, brown curls hanging limp. His hands were bound. He heaved his chest and wheezed and tried to calm. His heart chanted still.
A hushed hiss of a breath raked against his ears. His eyes lifted. Seven siephalls stood before him – emotionless faces darkened by the enraptured shadows of the torchlight, red cloaks whispering in the breeze of the night. They stepped to the side and parted, and a siekarum approached in the path between, pulling a cape of faded green: Nihlukei.
Heror’s eyes screamed. He hopelessly tugged at his wrists and leaned forward. His knees struggled weakly in the dirt.
“Nihlukei!” Heror cried; it had been so long.
The siekarum approached with mournful footsteps, the buckles of his boots ushering a cold, unforgiving echo. His face was blank, save for the slight downward turn of his lips. Heror tried to read his eyes – to see what the siekarum felt – but the shadows betrayed him.
Nihlukei passed the siephalls. His steps slowed.
“Nihlukei!” Heror pleaded through trembles. “I heard you! I heard your voice! What did it mean? Tell me, please! What did it mean??”
Nihlukei circled him. Heror bowed his head again, tears biting at his cheeks. He began to lose his words.
“I’m s-so lost, Nihlukei…” he shivered. “Please… I need… I n-need…”
He began to sob, quietly.
For a moment, it felt as if he was all alone.
Then he sensed Nihlukei to his left. He heard the metal pull of a longsword. Horror captured Heror’s face. His eyes swerved to Nihlukei, who held his blade over Heror’s neck, nose curled. The siekarum made a declaration – voice devoid of color.
“You have committed high crimes against the Kingdom of Ardys.”
“No!! Nihlukei!!”
“You will pay with your life.”
“Nihlukei!!”
The siekarum raised his blade. The siephalls stood witness.
Heror’s shrills went unanswered.
The blade came down.
And Heror tore away from his slumber.
He sat up in the straw bed and tried to catch his breath. His heart frenzied. His head throbbed. His skin was drenched with sweat. He forced himself to inhale and exhale – slower and slower – when he heard a girl’s dry voice below, echoing at the loft’s ceiling.
“Wow. I can see why the cows don’t like you.”
Heror winced and got to his feet. As he went to the railing and looked down, he saw Xirre standing by the stalls, peering up at him. Behind her, the light of morning flowed through the open doorway.
“Sorry,” Heror grumbled. “How loud was I?”
“Can’t say for certain, I just got here,” Xirre replied. “Loud enough for me to notice when I walked in.”
Heror glowered and expunged a heavy sigh. He turned away from the railing and went to grab his boots. He tried to banish his headache with a press of his hand. Then he climbed down the ladder to the ground floor. When he reached the bottom, Xirre was tending to the cattle, giving them water. She sent him a suspicious look as he passed.
“What were you dreaming about?”
“Nothing,” Heror said dismissively.
He started for the door, intent on heading straight to the shed – when Xirre’s voice stopped him again.
“Can I ask you something?”
Heror offered her half a glance as proof of his attention. The girl stood up straight, bucket still in hand.
“What happened to your parents?”
“What?”
“When you first arrived, my father was asking about your parents, and you didn’t answer… what happened to them?”
“I never met them.”
“You were an orphan?”
Heror nodded.
The girl eyed him with an uncertain emotion. Heror started back toward the door, when the girl spoke once more.
“You’re lucky.”
Heror almost scoffed. He turned to face her: “Lucky?”
Xirre frowned: “You never got tricked into thinking they’d always be there.”
Heror’s harsh expression faded. Xirre returned to her duties. He gave her one last sad glance, before leaving the barn and meeting the morning air.
It was another clear morning at the farm; the bombardment of color was less welcome on this day. Heror walked to the shed and retrieved the scythe and the pitchfork. Then he started the trek to the barley field at the edge of the plot.
On the way, he came across Ylar at the edge of the path, facing east toward the painted sunrise. He stood idle, silent – his worn hands limp at his sides. He didn’t hear Heror approach; perhaps the wind muffled Heror’s steps.
“Morning, Ylar.”
Still, the man did not hear him. He stared ahead in a daze.
“Ylar,” Heror repeated, more firmly.
Startled, Ylar turned and saw Heror. He cleared his throat and dropped his eyes. Weakly, he glanced up again, trying his best to muster a smile.
“Heror… good morning. How are you?”
“I’m…” Heror trailed off. “Are you alright?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Ylar replied with a casual wave. “Never better. Just… taking in the crisp air. Always freshens the mind.”
Heror knew all too well the voice of a man hiding his emotions. He decided not to pry.
“I’m off to the barley field,” Heror said, as softly as he could.
“Yes! Good!” Ylar exclaimed, snapping himself out of his state. “I’ve got things to attend to today, so I’ll have Cedor bring you food and water.”
Heror silently stewed. He left Ylar and walked to the barley field. There, he carried on his work from the previous three days.
He cut. He stabbed. He stacked.
He cut. He stabbed. He stacked.
To his mind’s bracing silence.
He cut. He stabbed. The sun lifted as it always did. He stacked.
By midday, the barley field was halfway harvested. Heror placed one more clump of barley atop a stake, and then he retreated to the path to survey his progress. One side of the field was still flush with its tall, golden frills. The other was chopped and matted and dull – the absence of grain a sign of a duty fulfilled.
Heror set the pitchfork into the ground by its prongs and leaned against it – finally catching his breath, letting his sweat roll.
He listened to the wind. The birds. The murmur of the trees and the long grasses.
He heard the storm. He clenched his eyes. His heart squirmed.
He was almost thankful when the sound of a child’s hastened footsteps interrupted the haunting ambience. As Heror glanced down the path, he saw the young boy Cedor approaching with a sack of food and a waterskin.
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“Mister Heror!” Cedor called over the breeze as he grew close.
Heror fashioned a forced smile at the sound. The boy waved the hand which clasped around the waterskin, spilling water on the ground. Heror’s forced smile flattened. The boy looked clumsily at his mess.
“Oh…” Cedor fumbled. “I… I can go get more!”
“No, it’s fine,” Heror muttered, turning away.
“Y’sure? Hot day today!”
“It’s fine, Cedor.”
The harsh tone of Heror’s words caused Cedor to pause. He weighed the waterskin in his hand; a small amount of water still sloshed at the bottom.
“Least I didn’t lose all of it!” Cedor chimed, his tenor returning.
“That’s great. Now bring it here before you spill the rest.”
Cedor did as Heror asked, quickening his steps to close the gap between them. He presented the quarter-full waterskin with yet-unshaken pride, and Heror accepted it, quickly taking a swig. He emptied the skin soon after receiving it, then eyed Cedor as the boy still held the food bag.
“You didn’t drop any food on the way here, did you?”
“Nope!” Cedor said cheerfully.
The boy’s unflappable positivity somewhat annoyed Heror. It also wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
“You didn’t eat some of it?” Heror pried, allowing a small smirk.
“N…”
The boy started to answer, then decided against lying, glancing at the ground.
“Well… I did… help myself to… one piece of bread…”
Heror grinned: “A-ha.”
“It’s a long walk, and it’s lunchtime!” Cedor rationalized.
Heror grinned wider: “Keep making excuses.”
“Th’way I see it, it’s payment for my serv’ce here.”
Heror sighed: “Yes, the injustice of a twenty-minute walk.”
“And you’re not countin’ the trip back!”
“Alright, here…”
Heror took the bag and took out the last two portions of stale bread. He gave one to Cedor.
“… you take half.”
Cedor blinked, surprised at the generosity.
“Y’sure?”
“I’m sure. I’m not very hungry.”
They sat beside one another in the browned, down-trodden grass and dirt. Heror chewed slowly, while Cedor scarfed down his meal and let his eyes drift afterward. The day was still clear. Only cumulus tufts roamed in from the west, and nothing more – migrating along the currents of the wind.
Heror didn’t mind the company; it was closer to a distraction than being alone. But it wasn’t long before Cedor asked what Heror feared he would.
“What was it like in the army? Were you part of the Caitaruu?”
Heror let out a silent breath. He gave Cedor only half a glance.
“I’ll make a deal with you. We can talk… but we can’t talk about that.”
“Why?”
Heror sighed again, more heavily this time. With but a string, he kept the thoughts at bay.
“Trust the one who’s been there.”
“Why, though?”
Appealing to reason wasn’t enough for the curious boy who always sought more.
“Cedor… I shared my food with you. Can you do me this favor?”
Cedor pondered a moment, then seemed to reluctantly acquiesce. He dropped the subject; appealing to fairness did the trick.
But then it was silent. And Heror’s buried thoughts threatened to creep.
“I suppose…” Heror compromised with a weary voice. “… I could tell you one–”
Cedor’s eyes lit up. The boy drew an overly-excited breath. Heror held out a finger.
“One story… from when I was a mercenary…”
Little Cedor repositioned himself and shuffled closer, leaning forward in anticipation. Heror couldn’t help but be amused by the excitement in the boy’s eyes. He fixed his focus on a fairly recent memory – a memory that was, at least, tamer than the others.
“I was hired to help retrieve a… an artifact from the desert,” Heror began, taking care with the details. “Myself… an… an archer… and a scholar.”
“You went to Sparhha??” Cedor gasped. “The Forbidden Reach?? But… no one escapes the sands! That’s what I’ve always been told!”
“Well…” Heror offered the boy a miniscule smile. “… we did.”
And Heror told Cedor the story of the Zhai Ghi – with a few important modifications. There would be no death, no blood, no teeth or gnashing pinchers, and no names. Cedor had never heard of a manta ray before, so Heror had to improvise with his descriptive analogies. He settled on a flying carpet; that seemed to paint the proper image, even if it was a bit too docile. Nevertheless, the extraordinary scenes of evasion and triumph were enough to capture Cedor’s awe.
“So you ran out on your own and baited them with the oil jar??”
“It was the only option we had. But if the archer hadn’t hit her mark… I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.”
“It must’ve been a perfect shot!”
“It was. The best shot I’ll ever see.”
The day was a bit easier after that. At sunset, Ylar came to greet Heror, and the two returned to the homestead.
“If – Shenithide willing – it stays dry,” Ylar told him on the way, “we’ll be able to bag the barley you’ve harvested soon, and we can prepare it for the market.”
Supper featured the same stew – the same chattering and joking and bickering, and the same reddened scolding from Ebica when the twins shirked compliance – but by his fourth day, the noises had already become welcome to Heror. He would return after his work in the field to help little Runde set the table, and then all of Adan House joined for the prayer.
“‘These gifts, we hold ever dear.’”
He learned to say it after the first night. But his eyes never missed the old woman Yxia’s cold stares as he did – as if she assumed his words lacked the conviction and belief behind them. He couldn’t refute her unspoken assumptions.
These gifts yet eluded him.
~:{~}:~
“You tell stories and masquerade as a hero to a child – a child who knows no better. A child who knows not the wrath you wrought.”
“You distance yourself from your deeds. Your nature.”
“But no matter how far you run, Heror Heran…”
“You won’t forget.”
“You can’t forget.”
~:{~}:~
Three days later, Heror completed his harvest.
Clouds roamed from the west, and so Heror and Ylar rushed out to collect the barley in fear of rain. Cedor joined them.
Heror lugged out a wheeled cart, stacked with woven burlap bags. Together, he and Ylar pried the harvested barley off of the stakes with pitchforks, and filled the bags held open by Cedor. When Ylar’s pitchfork broke, the farmer returned to the homestead to try and fix it, and Heror carried on with his collection alone. Cedor held the bags open as wide as his little arms allowed.
“A little wider, Cedor.”
Cedor stretched his arms and grunted, shaking as he held the form. Heror tilted the pitchfork and let the many plumes of barley flutter into the gap. Cedor swerved at the weight; this bag was almost full.
“Let’s start a new one,” Heror said gruffly, motioning to the cart.
Cedor struggled his way to the cart and set the near-full barley bag down, substituting it for an empty one. Heror shook his head as Cedor made his way back.
“Tie it shut, Cedor.”
Cedor let out an unconscious “oh” and returned to tie the bag by its string. Then he scampered back and stood at Heror’s side, eager to help more.
Heror jostled another clump of barley free from the stake’s shaft.
“Wonder what made Shenithide start stewin’,” Cedor observed the clouds. “He’s been chipper the last few days.”
Heror dropped the barley into the bag and started anew. A gust blew by.
“It’s always fun watchin’ pa’s reactions when the clouds come,” Cedor went on. “Sometimes, when he needs the harvest to dry, he’ll be cursing at Shen to hold off. Other times, he’ll be beggin’ away for rain to pour, waving his arms and prayin’. I just like how the clouds look, myself. They always know where they’re going. But when it rains… they’re faster. More rushed. Like they know somethin’ we don’t.”
“Cedor,” Heror grumbled, tapping the bag with the fork handle.
“Oh– sorry,” Cedor said, widening the lid.
Heror made another deposit. Cedor watched him.
“Y’alright?”
Heror glanced at the boy, bags under his eyes. As soon as his gaze met the boy’s, he cast it to the ground.
“What do you mean?” Heror mumbled.
“You alright?” Cedor repeated. “Y’look… worn.”
Heror stabbed at a clump of barley with more force. He tried to train it up the stake. He heard Cedor’s voice again.
“Why do you always look away?”
Heror paused. He rolled his tongue and glanced again at the boy.
“What?”
“You never look people in th’eyes,” Cedor noted. “At least… not for long.”
Heror curbed his anger with another stab of the pitchfork. He couldn’t look anyone in the eye for too long, and risk them seeing what he saw. What everyone else had seen.
What, perhaps, Adjaash had seen.
What, perhaps, his mother and father had seen before they left him.
But this aversion was sloppy, and the curious boy had noticed.
Heror let out a frustrated, smothered sigh.
“Just tired.”
Cedor eyed him in thought.
A gentle roll of thunder drummed far in the distance.
While Heror pressed on with his task, Cedor’s focus eventually drifted about. Heror gave him little attention, until the boy suddenly dropped the current bag and crouched in the grass, drawing his hand to the soil. Heror glanced over his shoulder and paused his rhythm. He didn’t hide his budding aggravation.
“Cedor, what are you doing?”
This time, the talkative Cedor didn’t answer. After a moment, Heror sighed and set the pitchfork in the soil. Then he stepped over to the boy. The child didn’t feel Heror’s tense, prying stare, nor did he stand up. Instead, he offered the young man a fleeting, wondering smile, his light brown hair twitching in the breeze.
“Look.”
Heror begrudgingly humored the boy and crouched down with him. He followed the boy’s finger to the silty brown beneath the matted grass. There, scaling the base of a leaf stalk, was a small, fuzzed caterpillar of a glossy black obsidian.
Watching the caterpillar – as it wriggled its many legs and craned its head up to the green leaf’s stem, silently seeking its luscious venules – Heror’s mind emptied a bit. Now he finally let the hum of the wind enter his ears. He watched the caterpillar’s struggle, though the caterpillar itself did not seem aggrieved, or anxious, or afeared. It existed as it was.
As Heror looked longer, however, he began to see things all too familiar in the larval lifeform. It was black and corrupted. Stunted. It nibbled with its palpy mandibles, but it failed to grapple its food. Grasping for something it could not reach. Sustenance. Salvation.
Cedor glanced at Heror and saw the conflict on his face. The young boy leaned in closer to the bug – his soft, powder blue eyes encouraging the insect along.
The caterpillar gently latched the bottom of the leaf’s petiole with its thoracic legs. Its spiracles slinked forward and upward.
“I’ve seen them change before,” Cedor said as the caterpillar yet climbed. “He doesn’t look so special now, but… when he’s ready, he’ll find a place to curl up, and he’ll make ‘mself a ‘cocoon.’ That’s what Xirre tells me it’s call’d. He curls up and sleeps… I think. He must sleep in there, right? He’ll be in that cocoon for weeks, sometimes. He’s got to sleep. There can’t be anything else to do in there. Not ‘nough space for anything else…”
The boy seemed to catch himself rambling. He paused. He composed his thoughts. Then he went on.
“Anyway… he goes into the cocoon. And when he comes out, he’s transformed… into somethin’ better.”
Heror’s harsh expression slowly faded.
It transformed.
He watched it with the same idle wonder now.
“I wonder how he knows when he’s ready,” Cedor thought aloud.
Heror took a long, deep breath. The caterpillar lost its grip and swung upside down on the stem. Cedor held out his tiny finger and caught it before it fell. The boy looked at Heror. Heror offered him a small smile.
“Do you think he’d like barley?” Cedor asked. “We have more than enough.”
Heror chuckled warmly: “You can see, I suppose.”
Cedor stood with care, balancing the caterpillar on the flat of his finger. He walked to the cart and gently set down the young one beside a barley bag with overflowing grains. He waited until it found the golden frills.
The storms missed the farm to the south, and the only rains that fell near Eonos were the northernmost sprinkles. Eventually, the clouds began to part. By late afternoon, Heror and Cedor finished the collection without issue, and had amassed a full cart of feed.
Cedor went ahead to the homestead. Heror stayed behind for a bit.
Heror scanned the cart’s wooden fringes until he found the caterpillar, still wandering. Cedor had meant well, but the barley’s feathered strands were perhaps too feeble to support the bug. And so it ventured on, still searching for suitable food.
Heror knelt down and offered his finger. Then he took the caterpillar back to the succulent leaf at which he’d found it. He brought his finger close to the leaf blade and let the caterpillar rappel down. He watched as it made a home.
Now it would not go hungry. Now it would not be lost.
He retrieved the barley cart and pulled it up the path, with the emerging amber sun at his side.
On the way back, he held his head higher. He thought to himself. Hopeful thoughts.
Rage had consumed him in Ardys.
Separate from those lands… in a new place… he no longer felt that rage.
Whatever he was… whatever he had been… could he transform?
Was it truly that simple?
~:{~}:~
“When the larva at last consumes all that it can, and satiates its hunger, it is ready for its transformation. It retreats into a state of quiescence. It protects its chrysalis within a shell of silk and embarks on the final chapter of its holometabolous journey. And when the pupa achieves eclosion, the black reaver is encased with wings of fire.”
~:{~}:~
A week passed since Heror’s arrival. A week and a half passed. Two weeks.
And yet he stayed. And yet they kept him.
~:{~}:~
“You can’t forget…”
~:{~}:~
Heror woke to the calm, quiet light of the sun, dimly rippling through the boards. Below, he could hear the cows greeting Xirre. He heard her place the water bucket in the hay. He heard her curse, as one of the cows presumably kicked the bucket and spilled her prize.
He yawned and sat up in his bedroll. He stretched his arms and slumped his shoulders, blinking himself to lucidity. He slid his feet back and started to rise… when he saw a familiar object lying beside the bedroll, half-obscured beneath the linen blanket.
Unconsciously, Heror reached, and his fingers slid around the plush, cylindrical form, as they had so many times before. He brought it into his lap. He spread it wide.
It was an intricately-woven cloth. Stitched along the edges, blue waves rolled and rolled, and on the left side, a jagged cliff lay. On that cliff, a lone wolf stood, stray fletchings of cloth acting as fur, dangling in the calm barn air. At the center of the cloth, the name ‘Heran’ was stitched in dark gray thread.
He gazed upon it for a time. Then he rolled and set it down.
He returned to the fields without it.