Chapter Seventy-Nine
Harlan
Jack and Sidney let the door of the Conjurement close behind them and they wandered back up to the Forges to find that the blacksmiths had all gone, leaving the workshop in an eery silence. The pair of warriors wandered back toward the keep when Jack slowed to a stop, lightly scratching his jaw.
“You know, I think I’m goin’ to see Sylvia before I turn in,” he mumbled, glancing at the tavern.
Sidney looked the tired warrior over and said quietly, “It’s late, Jack.”
Jack glanced her and gruffly said, “So, go to bed, Selene. I’ll see you in morning.”
Sidney watched him turn and trudge toward the on-site tavern and gave a hard sigh. She wondered which was worse to him. The monsters or the memories.
The air felt still and cold as Jack ambled passed the bakery and pushed through the thick oak door of the tavern. A dim, fire-lit pub unfolded before him as he stepped inside, carefully avoiding the creaky floorboards as he sat down at a table in the centre of the wide chamber. On the far left of the room was a crackling fireplace, and nearby were several cusioned chairs, clearly dragged from across the room to escape the autumn chill.
In one of them sat an old, heavily tattooed, Driftiken Legacy named Nydol. She sat drinking quietly by herself, breathing meditatively with the crackling fire.
The two windows of the tavern, one on either side of the door, were curtained closed, and the barest slivers of moonlight snuck in, kissing the worn floorboards of the room.
“It’s late, Paladin. Go to bed.”
Jack turned to see Sylvia standing to his left, polishing a glass with an old rag.
Sylvia was a well-fed, short, and mole-faced woman, who spent more time telling people to leave her bar than actually serving them. Her apron was splotched with spills of ale and mead and her old worker’s hands were wrinkled but strong.
Jack huffed and mumbled, “Beds are sleeping, Sylvie. Wouldn’t get much use out of one.”
“Body still needs to rest, lad. What’s keeping you up?” she asked, wandering back toward the bar and pulling a bottle of something deeply red out from behind the counter.
Jack pushed a chair out for her and she sat down as he said, “Same shit. Just came for a drink. Not here to talk your ear off.”
Sylvia scratched her cheek in thought and pushed the bottle over to him. She watched quietly as he uncorked the drink and took a long swig.
Jack swallowed and frowned at the label, written in Crekaen. “What is this?”
Sylvia took the bottle back and squinted at the label. “Raspberry wine. It’s still in season in Cresik so I had them add it to our stock a while back. You and I are goin’ to have to knock it off, ‘cause the people who come in here won’t drink it.”
Jack gave an insincere smile and muttered, “They’re too busy pretending to like the taste of Crek Dark to actually enjoy themselves.”
Sylvia snorted at him and took a long drink. She wiped off the spillage and said bluntly, “Is that what you’re doin’? Enjoying yourself?”
Jack leaned back in his chair and his smile widened a touch before it fell away again. An image of Amekot’s face stuck in his mind. His unending grin.
Jack raked his hands through his short hair and Sylvia frowned as his fingers grazed over one of the many scars upon his face. She always knew his mind was on the war. He’d lightly caress his old wounds, trying to knit them back together.
“That was fifteen cycles ago, Jacky.”
Jack closed his eyes, trying not to hear the sounds which plagued him. He’d actually counted the days. In exactly three, it would be that day again.
He remembered the way the highlands of provincial Arcavelot looked. The green rolling hills, the wind whistling through the sharp face in his helmet. The smell of crushed grass and the vague scent of an on-coming storm. He used to think that perfume was theirs.
His mace was new in those days. And not so heavy.
Sylvia watched his young face, so riddled with scars and pain, stare blanking into the shadows of the tavern. He’d been coming to her bar most nights since he arrived at Fort Guardian. Slowly, she learned his story. Some nights she wished she’d never put it together, just because she knew there was scarcely anything anyone could do about it.
Sylvia looked over the age-old wounds across his hands and face and sighed, taking his hand. “I remember when you didn’t have most of these.”
Jack stiffly and bent the bottle to his lips again. “Sometimes I do too.”
As he sat back up straight again, Sylvia saw a small scar hooked around his jawline and frowned. “Wait, is this one new? I don’t recognise it,” she said, lightly prodding the pale line.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Jack swallowed his mouthful of wine. “You do. Siege of Adorite.”
Sylvia shook her head, leaning back stubbornly. “I know the battle, but not the scar.”
Jack squinted at her and put the bottle down, severely. “Battle… That’s generous. It’s the one Harlan gave me, after we got ambushed in the throne room. Or rather, it’s the one I got when I hit the ground.”
Sylvia’s frown eased, gesturing toward him in remembrance. She sat thinking about that old story for some time and looked fondly to Jack again. “Harlan was a good one.”
Jack picked up the bottle again and said nothing, listening to the name echo over and over in his head. Slowly the noise became louder and louder, and the whispered name became a shout. He found himself closing his eyes again.
“Say your words, love. You know it helps.”
Jack gritted his teeth. He shook his head softly at first, trying to think of anything else, but the boy’s face was still so clear to him. Harlan. “Roslynia… Eicenia… Valancia. Hilyria. Renorom. Zanssien. Äarkaam.”
As the places of his homeland passed through him, slowly they eased Harlan’s face from his mind, and he could hear himself think again. Instead of Harlan’s face, he saw his parents. Instead of his beautiful laugh, he heard the waterfalls. Instead of his excited touch, he felt the frosted grass beneath his feet. But behind it all, the silhouette of his love remained.
Jack looked up to Sylvia, his eyes light with tears.
“Oh, Jacky,” she whispered, and pulled her chair closer to the man, grabbing his hand with both of hers.
Jack’s eyes glistened with hard tears and he leaned back, rubbing his stubbly face as he felt a darkness kindled inside him. He reached for the bottle again and Sylvia pulled it away.
When Jack’s hand fell short he let out a measured breath and said, “Fort Guardian. Legacies. Monsters. Gargan. All of it. Most people get here and wonder if they’re dreaming. Waiting to wake up. But not me. Know how I knew it wasn’t a dream?”
Sylvia shook her head, aware he probably didn’t even notice, and set the bottle on the ground beside her foot.
Jack glanced slightly up at the ceiling, but his gaze cut through to the stars and heavens above and he mumbled, “Because every myth about this world said that the gods were dead, and we were on our own. And I’d known about my Arcancy for a long time before the uprising ended, but still I didn’t know, you know?” Jack took a long, shaking breath and continued, “But the true clincher, the real proof, was the day we took that throne room. I mean, I didn’t think we were going to change the world. I believed it, Sylvie. In my bones. Four thousand rebels, all armed with stolen steel and that belief. Every story I’d ever been told made me think that would be enough.”
Sylvia remembered that day too. She didn’t go with the main assault because she was a field medic, and she’d been asked to stay behind and aid the wounded. And in those days, there were always plenty. “We all thought that.”
Jack felt the old fire in his stomach glower, and he looked down at the helmet clipped onto his belt. He ran his hand along the plume of the Javen helm and continued, “The day we arrived we stormed the walls, overcame their numbers and tore a hole through their front line. I still remember what it felt like to push open the doors on the Palace of Adorite.”
Jack’s hand was raised like he was there. He let it fall.
Sylvia watched him go silent and she glanced over to the side of the room where Nydol sat. The Driftiken woman was fast asleep, snoring idly.
“I still remember being so confused when the palace was empty,” he said, unable to stop himself, feeling young again and his boots touching the polished floor of the emperor’s throne-room.
“The sound the doors of the palace made when they got slammed shut. The screams outside. I still remember the note left for us by- by… and the look... the look on Harlan’s face when he read it.”
Jack screwed up his eyes as he clamped his hands to silently to his temples, shaking. Finally, he wrenched his head up and muttered, his eyes still closed, “That’s how I knew this was real. Because if there were gods above, I’d be with Harlan, and not forced to sit across the War Council table from the bastard who as good as killed him. Only person I’ve ever loved. And I don’t even know where he’s buried.”
Sylvia watched the man sink into his bones and stare into the dark, etched wood of the table. She couldn’t be sure how long they sat for, but she knew however long, it wasn’t enough.
Finally, in the silence of uncertainty, Sylvia asked, "Does it help? Remembering it all?"
Jack blinked slowly and shook his head. "I have no idea. But the day I forget will be the day I don't recognise myself."
"Maybe... maybe you don't have to forget. But maybe its okay to be the kind of person knows there are more important things to remember."
Jack looked at her. His face was heavy with disbelief. "More important than him? Than all those people who followed me and paid for it with their fuckin' lives? What could be more important than that- they were- we were just kids, Syl."
Sylvia shrugged softly. "What about those kids. The ones sleeping out there. The ones who need you now."
Jack opened his mouth but had no idea what he wanted to say.
"I know the past is where your heart lives, Jack. But it doesn't need you there. We need you here."
The fire grew low in the corner of the room and the silence at the end of their conversation flowed on until it was all that was left.
Jack unclipped his helmet from his waist and set it down on the table before him. Much like his body and face, it was riddled with scars and patchwork, and hardly even reminded him of the noble armour of his people. Jack ran his finger down its wedge-shaped face and drew it away to see the thick layer of grime he’d let grow upon it over the cycles.
Everyone knew the Mace of Mhairia had died in the final days of the rebellion. They wore Brightsteel Javen armour, not patchwork, iron-lookalikes. The Man with No Name’s mace was long and polished, like a star pulled from heaven above and bound to a leather handle, not some dim, bent and chipped meat-tenderiser. The Merc of the North was tall and proud, and depending who you asked, he was probably pale-skinned, because he was Riniglacian. Everyone knew that.
Even so, at a glance, people still gave him sideways looks until they realised one thing, Jack McKennedy couldn’t be the Mace of Mhairia, because Jack was a lot of things, but he sure wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t sure when Sylvia had started dozing in her chair, but he quietly picked up the rag off her shoulder and walked over to the bar. He worked his way through the dirty dishes, cleaning plates, washing cups, and polishing bottles as he waited for the others to dry. The warrior worked all night, moving methodically through the bar when finally the sun replaced the moonlight through the window curtains and dawn arose again. He walked back over to the table, feeling the weight and weariness in his bones, but he didn’t much care as he picked up the bottle of raspberry wine and took it back to the bar. It was a small price to pay for some quiet in his mind. He quickly buffed the bottle and set it down with the others. Jack then quietly placed another log in the fire-pit, carefully, so as not to wake Nydol, and set a glass of water down on Syliva’s table for when she woke up.
The maceman then lightly folded the rag, put it on her table, and walked out of the tavern.