Chapter 47 – A Time of Peace

Unable to believe his eyes, Adam looked at his beloved city with a broad smile. From the wooden signs with curly logos outside the shops to the town criers and the jolly market. Everything was exactly as it used to be, as it should be. It was a place where he’d become who he was, where he’d forged friendships, where he’d laughed and cried. It was a place that he’d never expected to see again.

Adam scrunched up his face as tears welled up. For a moment, the weight of all past years’ hardships was lifted from his shoulders. Even the old pain of the War, which always clung to him like a shadow, had left him somehow. Surprised at how it felt not to worry for just a moment, he breathed the free air.

Adam frowned when he opened his eyes again. Just now, The Red Nose—a bar they used to frequent during their first years at Ziecherhein—stood at the corner of the square. Yet, when Adam looked again, it was the boring shop with expensive perfumes that had replaced the bar later on. Adam sighed and his smile turned sad. The bitter reality was that times change, no matter how he wished they wouldn’t, and everything around him only existed in memories.

Hesitantly, Adam looked up at the sky. Next to the clouds and the merrily shining sun, there was the vague, shimmering shape of the aurora. A cold shiver ran down Adam’s spine from the base of his skull. No, all of this only exists in ruins.

Adam’s shoulders slumped. As sudden as it had disappeared, the weight of all that had happened rested on him again. A shadow he expected to follow him for the rest of his days. How can I feel like I’m home for the first time in so long, didn’t I do so during the time I lived with Cath and Eric? What is wrong with me?

“Schultora,” whispered his heart.

Adam grimaced and grabbed his chest. Besides the guilt, a red anger rose up within him, like an old, simmering fire that would never douse completely. Can hardly do something about it now. All I can do is keep going. He stared at the trusted cobbled streets of happier days in a bitter attempt to feel an echo of his careless days again.

Emily frowned into the distance. “Huh, guys, do you see those green things as well?”

When Adam squinted, the translucent green shapes of two people were visible on one side of the square. Despite people and market stalls that stood in between, the figures shone through and could still be seen. It was a younger Adam sitting beside Caine on the edge of a fountain. Caine cried with his face buried in his hands. Adam had a reassuring hand on Caine’s back, his mouth opened as if speaking.

Adam frowned grimly. “That was the night he heard his, I mean, your mother joined the Pure.” He’d talked to Caine for hours back then. To all others, Caine had kept on a brave face, accepting condolences. But only when he was alone with Adam, had he started to cry. You actually had the nerve to come to me for help, in the cold and rain. You vermin.

Emily’s eyes widened. “I… ahem.” She swallowed and looked away for a moment. “Why is that memory shining through? Like, isn’t all of this part of Caine’s memories?”

Oliver looked around with a concentrated frown. “It is. But I think some events that happened within Ziecherhein are more important to him than others. Look.” Oliver pointed in the distance.

Adam needed to squint to make out the shimmering shapes that shone through walls, people, and everything in between, but there were more. Many more. As the three friends walked around, they could see many indiscernible figures in the direction of the Green Hare, their favourite bar in Ziecherhein. It seemed like Caine remembered his time at The Badger fondly as well, judging by the plenitude of laughing, happy shapes there. Other green figures were visible through the decorated walls of the Starwing Grove, where Caine had studied at the Starwing Academy.

Oliver’s eyes widened. “Wait, isn’t that Caine and Abigail? Oh my…”

Adam closed his eyes for a moment at the mention of one of the people in Ziecherhein he least wanted to see again: one of his ex-girlfriends.

Emily’s eyebrows raised to her hairline as she stared at the shimmering shape of Caine and a skinny girl in some back alley. Their mouths were so intertwined it looked like they held a slobbering uvula-wrestling contest. “No! Abigail, of all people? She’s insufferable! I mean… not when you were with her, of course...”

“Oh yes, she was,” Adam sighed. “Was too in love to see it at the time, though.”

“Ah, I remember,” Oliver snapped his fingers. “Wasn’t she the one who had cheated, but who also screamed loud enough to wake half the neighbourhood when you weren’t happy about that? And then she had your face tattooed on her arm to try and make up for it, right?”

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Adam grimaced when he pictured that tattoo again. “Don’t forget her trying to burn The Badger down when I broke up with her,” Adam deadpanned. “Let’s just say I’ve had healthier relationships.”

With a hard-to-read expression, Oliver looked back and forth between Adam and the shape of Abigail clutching Caine as if she desperately tried to drink his soul. “But surely you're mad at him for… this?” He gestured vaguely at Caine.

Adam waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, judging by Caine’s stupid doublet, this happened sometime when I’d long broken up with her. Wait, look at those figures, over there at the old stable!” Adam gave an evil grin. “Isn’t that an excellent specimen to examine?”

Oliver groaned, staring reluctantly at the shapes of a laughing Adam, Emily, and Caine who carried something big in their midst. “Come on, do we have to?”

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The group got closer to the green shimmering shapes near the stable; a monument to one of their many silly, impulsive jokes in the late hours. The mirages of Caine, Adam, and Emily stood as if frozen in time, lifting a sleeping Oliver by his mattress. Grinning widely, Adam looked at how young they all looked, how Oliver held his pillow tight as a lover.

Now that he was this close, Adam noticed one of the green sprites flying near the mirages. It was different from the others he’d seen before; instead of leaving as fast as possible, this one circled around the green shapes at a calm pace. In an almost teasing way, it flew loops near the current Oliver’s nose, who blew it away with a puff of annoyance. It neared the current Adam next, coming closer and closer as if inviting Adam to touch it. Within the green light of the sprite lay hints of movement. Barely audible bits of laughter even seemed to emanate from it. Unable to resist the temptation, Adam plucked the sprite from the air.

Suddenly, it was the middle of the night and all the people who had been walking the street were gone. The sprite had disappeared. Adam sprang into a fighting stance; ready to tackle a giant like the last time they encountered an illusion. However, no enemies could be seen. Instead, the green shapes had turned into people of flesh and blood as the memory happened in front of them.

Adam felt his muscles relax and his smile widen as he watched and reminisced. It had happened at the end of one of their drinking nights. Oliver had been the first who went to sleep. So, naturally, the others decided to lift him into one of the stalls in the stable to have a good night’s rest. The young Oliver snored loudly, clutching his pillow while his curly hair stuck out in all directions. The others barely contained their laughter.

Adam and Emily watched from a safe distance, with a sulking Oliver behind them. Adam clenched his fists when he saw Caine, grinning right beside the younger version of himself. Yet somehow, beneath the rage towards the person he had become, there was a hint of yearning. Towards a simpler, happier time when he could laugh with Caine as he used to be. Before Caine became… whatever he was today.

Emily grinned at Oliver. “Oh wow, and it took you hours to wake up! I’ve no idea how many customers passed by you before when they got to their mounts!”

Adam couldn’t resist smiling at that. “I still can’t believe we convinced the owner to give us permission.”

Oliver watched with a tired expression. “Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny,” he said, an angry blue vein thumping in his forehead. “It took a month before people stopped making moose or horse noises whenever they saw me.”

That set off Emily and Adam even harder. Adam laughed loudly and wiped a tear from his eye. That felt good, happy, despite everything.

With wide grins, their young alter-egos stumbled out of the stables. The Adam amongst them tripped over a street tile and waved his arms in a not-too-elegant fashion, trying to stay upright. With clumsy, drunken steps, he bumped into the current Adam.

As soon as the young lad touched the current Adam, an unnatural ripple emanated through the air from their point of contact.

For a moment, the two Adams blinked at each other in confusion. The younger Adam’s brown eyes quickly swivelled away. “Whoops, sorry sir, didn’t see ya.” He awkwardly patted the current Adam’s shoulder. “Good day, I mean… evening. Or, err… good something.”

As the current Adam wondered if he truly was old enough to be called ‘sir,’ the lad hastily rejoined his comrades and kept on walking. “Did you see that?!” He asked as he laid his arm around Caine’s shoulders. His wobbling finger pointed around ten feet beside the current Adam. “That guy looks like me!”

Caine’s mouth curled in disgust. “By Aves, another? This city is too small for two pellet heads with a mug like yours.”

Emily giggled. “Shht! Shhhhhhht! He can hear you!” she ‘whispered’ far too loudly.

Shortly after the trio had moved away, the green shapes of the young friends returned, as did the sprite that flew around them. It was daytime again, and people of all ages walked the streets as if nothing had happened. Unliving echoes of people, as remembered by one man.

Oliver fiddled with his lips as he frowned at the green apparitions. “Hmm, seems like we can ‘activate’ specific memories by touching the sprite that flies around them. It’s odd, though…”

“That you stayed asleep for so long?” Emily asked innocently.

“No, that there weren’t any of these green shapes at Eulenschloss! And here, no one on the streets seems to see us. What’s the difference with Ziecherhein?”

Adam frowned and thought for a moment. “I think Caine’s memory of Eulenschloss was one specific event. It was the first and only time Caine was at the fortress as far as I know. So, it was a single sequence of things that happened during the siege. However, Ziecherhein is a location in which he remembers many different events that happened over the course of years. There are buildings from different time periods for example. I bet the events or memories that are most clear to him are the green apparitions. Specific memories that we can activate to see what happened.”

Emily snapped her fingers. “Oh! Remember the moment we first appeared in Eulenschloss from the Node. You also saw all our surroundings in green, translucent outlines at first, right? I think all of Eulenschloss was just another apparition for an event. We ‘activated’ it and could see what happened, just like the joke with Oliver just now.”