Chapter 3 - A Curse of Memories

Adam tried to relax as he and Oliver walked through the nightly streets of Gotterburg. Surrounded by the comfortable hum-buzz of people around them, Adam couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. Wary of any sign of the attackers, he talked with Oliver about the progress of the war.

Adam tensely rubbed the scars on his wrists as Oliver prattled about some promotion. Why was my damn heart acting up so much, is something wrong? Is it because Oliver is a Novaseer? Adam took deep breaths. In our investigation, we can probably gain access to locked-away knowledge of the Forbidden Arts. Maybe then I can finally find out how to prevent that slab of meat—

“I SAID.” Oliver looked attentively at Adam. “Have Catherine and Eric gotten to Gotterburg as well? I’d love to meet them.”

Adam blinked. “Ah, not yet. Cath still has some business to arrange with other higher-ups of her guild before she can travel here to start a new silver smithy. When she does, she’ll take Eric along. We both agreed Gotterburg still seemed a tad dangerous for such a young child.”

Oliver nodded. “I can imagine. Is Eric a wild one like you used to be?”

“Wild? Me?” Adam said innocently. He looked at the burial poles they passed; long wooden columns containing the ashes of Gotterburg’s former chieftains. Once, he and Caine had speared pumpkins on the crowned tops and painted smiling faces on the carved exteriors showing the chieftain’s accomplishments. The city guards hadn’t been too happy about that, for some reason. Adam grinned. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. But Eric is calmer, Cath sure hopes he stays that way.”

“Ha! I can imagine.” Oliver chuckled and rubbed his hands. “Ah, tomorrow is going to be great, I sense it! Emily is so excited we’re finally meeting up again,” Oliver said with a twinkle in his eyes.

Adam gave him a sly smile. “Ah, can’t wait to see her, eh?”

Oliver huffed indignantly. “Oh, come on, that was ages ago! I’m just happy we can cooperate in the investigation!”

“Of course, always happy to cooperate with a certain someone.” Adam wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ugh, shut up.” Oliver playfully punched Adam’s shoulder and they laughed.

Adam rubbed his beard. “Hmm, I do wonder what Caine will say when you start singing serenades to his sister though.”

Oliver sighed and rolled his eyes. “You never change, do you? Besides, if Caine would ever judge my choice of women, he’s an even bigger hypocrite than Zachalynn. Rumour has it that he stole a new lover from some poor bloke.”

Adam sighed. “Some people never change.”

Along the street, a sadly common procession passed by: moose-drawn carts and carriages that transported Tainted to medical outposts. Most of the Tainted looked normal, a young woman even complained to one of the priests that nothing was wrong with her. The symptoms differed, however. Desperately clinging to a piece of cloth, a lad squeezed his eyes shut and whispered ‘I’m sorry, dad’ over and over again. An old man whimpered incoherently, waving his arms in front of him. An elderly woman tried to comfort him, despite the endless weariness in her voice.

Oliver looked at them with pity. He whispered a small religious blessing, wishing them well.

Adam refrained from staring since most of the Tainted seemed blatantly annoyed or ashamed with the crowd’s attention. Poor souls. We’ll come back to heal you, one day. He frowned. “Say, Oliver, where are Caine and Emily since they couldn’t meet until tomorrow?”

“Oh, Emily is in the Starwing Grove for work. Caine was apparently given his parents’ old mansion—the lucky bastard—and he’s still over there.”

Adam stopped walking. “Wait, so Caine is at home, twiddling his thumbs while all of us are finally in town?”

“Uhm, I guess?”

A devilish grin appeared on Adam’s face. “Let’s sneak in and surprise him. Climb the wall and go through the window, just like old times!”

Oliver chuckled. “Yeah sure, as if such a childish act even remotely befits a man of my stature!”

Not long after, Oliver was climbing the grapevine of Caine’s mansion. “For the record,” he grumbled. “I think we’re making a mistake right now.”

“Shh! Keep quiet!” Adam said from the ground, waiting impatiently for Oliver to drag himself through the window. Five storeys high and richly decorated with religious murals and wood carvings, Caine’s mansion was one of the most beautiful buildings in town. Although Adam wasn’t really unbiased. Growing up as a ‘street rat,’ this house had always been like a palace to him. Caine’s parents had even taken him along for small trips, preparing extra food as Adam was ‘way too skinny.’

Smiling in excitement, Adam rushed up to the window. He carefully lowered himself into the old luxurious library where Caine had taught him to read once. Here, I can be myself. Here, I don’t have to hide behind a false name. Pressing a finger to his lips, Adam gestured to Oliver that they should move further. The paintings of Caine and Emily’s ancestors looked down upon them as they snuck through the wide hallway. Colourful carpets, only affordable to Dorenland’s elite, muffled their footsteps.

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Suddenly, the voices of Caine and a woman sounded downstairs.

Oh, by the night... Caine has a new lover. And why else wouldn’t he come out to greet us earlier? “Uhm, maybe we should go...”

“No! Listen!” Oliver hissed, keeping his eyes closed in concentration. Adam raised an eyebrow.

“—why so many Penduli had to hide in town while others died defending it!” the unknown woman said.

“The numbers of the Royal Army combined with the Talons of Aves were too great, we all would have died!” Caine replied. “However, informants tell us the bulk of their forces will soon leave Gotterburg and go south to conquer more of our cities. Then our troops can emerge, retake Gotterburg and cut off the supply lines of the Royal Army. The Queen of Glass will send fresh troops from Oberia to aid us. Then, finally, the Royal Army will be cut off and trapped like rats.”

“Retake!?” an unfamiliar voice shrieked. “Good people died for the Penduli while we could have helped them! People, with friends, dreams, and families!”

“And their unavoidable loss will be mourned,” Caine said with a tired voice that left no room for disagreement. “But to have thrown our own lives away as well would have been pointless. Now, we will surely be able to avenge our fallen comrades.”

Adam became aware his mouth hung open. The discussion continued down below but he barely heard it. No. This is a joke, a trick. Caine would never join the Penduli, right?

Oliver’s face was ashen pale. “That vile snake,” he whispered.

“This must be a mistake, it—”

“A mistake?!” Oliver hissed. “Oh, of course, it’s perfectly normal to plan military masterplans for the opposing side of a war by accident!”

Adam glared at him, pressed his finger to his lips and mouthed the word ‘idiot.’

A door in the hallway opened. Adam’s eyes widened and cold sweat broke out of his back when his son, Eric, walked out and looked at them. The skinny five-year-old boy wore one shoe and just a sock on his other foot, his dark hair stood out in all directions.

Eric waved. “Hi! Are you lost?”

What! How could he be... here? In a nest of Penduli? Adam swallowed. His heart pounded faster and faster although he tried to take deep breaths. He wanted nothing else than to grab Eric’s hand and run out, but Eric could make a ruckus if Adam startled him. “Eric, playtime is over,” he whispered. “Please, listen to your father. We need to be really, really, quiet and go back home.” He reached out his hand.

Eric cocked his head to the side and squinted in confusion. “Huh? Uhh… daddy is downstairs. But… uh… I’m not allowed to talk with strangers.”

Adam gaped wide-eyed as ice-cold horror washed over him. Eric frowned up at Adam, nervous and puzzled, but there was no recognition in his eyes.

What? No, this… is a game, right?

“Eric Jonathan Roosenburg!” Catherine’s voice singsonged. Sweet relief to hear his wife washed over Adam until he realised she had used Caine’s last name. A shiver ran from the base of his skull down his spine. At the end of the hallway, one of the doors opened and she stepped out. Catherine wore pearled hairpins in her long blonde curls and an unfamiliar, feathered dress of undoubtedly expensive fabrics. “How many times have I told—”

She gasped at Adam and Oliver, becoming even paler than usual.

Adam pressed a finger to his lips and quickly used sign language. “What are you and Eric doing here? Caine is a Pendulum! We need to leave, now!”

Catherine clenched her fists. “Eric, honey, could you come here, please?” she asked clearly, making her vowels just a tad longer in her eastern Dorenish accent. The blue eyes Adam knew so well bore into him with a rage he’d never seen before.

As Eric innocently walked to his mother, Adam’s hands quivered. He tried, he tried so hard to see even a glimpse of recognition, of a joke, of anything in her. Yet all he saw was a woman prepared to defend her child to the death. His breaths quickened and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

Eric looked up at his mother. “Mom, who are they?”

Catherine shook her head, took his hand and made him stand behind her. She raised her chin defiantly at Adam.

“Cath, dear, come on.” Adam laughed shakily. “This isn’t funny.”

Oliver firmly placed a hand on his shoulder. “Adam, we must go. Now.”

“Indeed,” Catherine said icily. “I don’t know how you learned our names. But if you take one step closer, you’ll bloody regret it.”

“Daaaaaad!” Eric bellowed. “There are strangers!”

Adam stood as if frozen, nailed to the ground. Strangers? Dad? His stomach turned. Vaguely, he was aware that running footsteps sounded downstairs and that Oliver yelled something at him. However, Adam’s mind had slowed down. Something inside him screamed that there must be a logical reason, that this simply couldn’t be true. “Cath, please, you’re scaring me.”

Eric grabbed Catherine’s dress with a tiny hand and hid behind her legs. She laid a comforting hand on his head, while her eyes bored into Adam’s like two searing pools of hate.

“Adam, wake up!” Oliver whispered and turned Adam’s head towards him. There were tears in the corners of his eyes. “It’s the Taint! I can only imagine what this is like for you, both Caine and your family... But he must’ve adjusted their memories, they’re not the same Catherine and Eric that you used to know! We must leave and get reinforcements from the Starwing Grove so we can save them!”

In a blur, Adam noticed the door that swung open and the people that stormed out. Flanked by warriors , Caine ran straight towards Adam’s wife and son. Oliver groaned and yelled something, but Adam’s sluggish mind didn’t follow. All his focus was fixed on Caine. The man who he had grown up with, playing with toy soldiers and pulling pranks. The man he’d supported through all the hardships of the War of the Prophet. The man Adam had been so excited to see again.

He’s older now… Caine’s long black hair hung loose in disarray and there was a stubble on his chin. There were lines of tiredness in his olive skin. His yellow eyes had lost their mischievous twinkle. A slightly slouched and tense walk had replaced the overconfident swagger.

Catherine and Eric smiled with pure relief to see him. An image that burned into Adam’s retinae. Caine laid a comforting hand on the small of her back and said something, but Adam couldn’t hear it. His mind slowed down again and his inner voice silenced. Searing heat flowed through his veins. The beats of his left heart resounded through his body, bringing a deep red fury, and the primal need to protect his family at all costs.

Adam clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. No, I can’t lose myself… Breathing deeply, he tried to push the Crimson Urges back.