Chapter 7
A Man's Freedom
Eryn was tugged awake as per usual by Ideron’s mumbling, something he had become accustomed to on the journey south from Tal Eyne. It wasn’t ideal being a light sleeper and travelling with a man who talked in his sleep. Although the mumbling was a much welcomed preference to Ideron’s night terrors.
On numerous occasions, Eryn had jolted up from his bed in the middle of the night to find Ideron roaring incoherently. In one of the many outland villages they had passed through, Ideron’s screaming had been so loud that the innkeeper and her son had charged into the room with kitchen knives, thinking the pair of Magi were being attacked.
Eryn had to commend their bravery—or stupidity depending on how you looked at it.
The people in these towns thought of magi as fanciful, powerful sorcerers from stories that battled demons and giant monstrous sandworms. These things were decidedly not what a magi did, Eryn could attest to that.
In his seven years as an apprentice, Eryn had fought no demons, nor any mythical sandworms or dragons or any kind of other made up bullshit from the stories. Magi do fucking nothing he thought bitterly as he pulled himself out of bed. They study runes and discuss philosophy for hours and hours. They talk about god and his will for even more hours. The only real work they do is make sure nobody else on Vega dares to try to use magic. He soaked his chest and shoulders with a cloth from the washbasin, before donning his apprentice robes. And they murder anyone who tries.
Eryn glanced over at Ideron, he was still illegibly muttering in his sleep. He turned his gaze over to Ideron’s travelling trunk and slowly made his way toward it. Carefully, he unclasped the bindings of the trunk. Even though Ideron didn’t stir, Eryn still froze—holding his breath—waiting for a few seconds before beginning to rifle through his Master’s belongings.
The trunk held different pairs of robes and devices that were both similar in appearance to the heatsink but of wildly varying functions. None of these were what Eryn was looking for. He had first spotted it in Ideron’s trunk when they had stopped at an inn in Eard. And since then it had become a morning ritual for Eryn to rise early every morning to gape at it. His hands closed around the cloth wrapped blade. He unfurled the bindings and felt the weight of it in his hands.
Eryn had been Ideron’s apprentice for seven years, and in those seven years his master had never let him touch a magi blade. The hilt was wrapped in hard leather with a strange oversized circular cross-guard and a short, blunted blade. Runes were etched along the blade on both sides. Runes Eryn had never seen before. Something inside Eryn twisted when he held the blade, it made him feel sick but also a deep hunger and desire to use it. The blade demanded to be used. Eryn pulled his eyes from it and shot a glance over to Ideron who was still asleep albeit not soundly so, his mumbling had quieted to a small whimper.
Why had he brought this? Why did he have one? How does he have one? The magi blades were reserved only for Order Karsus—the battlemagi who fought in skirmishes along the borders of Urungeald. Ideron himself had once been a battlemagi, Eryn knew this, but his Master had moved to Order Litcus long before Eryn had met him.
Ideron began to stir.
Eryn hurriedly wrapped the blade and buried it back in the trunk although his movements had roused Ideron from his disturbed sleep, who was now rising from his bed. The first light of the day, faintly illuminating the room through the tiny window slits.
“Sorry, Master, ' Eryn began, quickly trying to find a lie for why he was sitting in front of his master’s open trunk, “I was looking for the spices you bought in Eard. I was going to go to the kitchens and have them prepare a spiced haval for breakfast”
“I do love spiced sausage meat, thank you,” Ideron replied in the grumbling tones of a person just waking up, “however, we will practice the Haga before breakfast.” He climbed out of bed and pulled on his robes. Eryn groaned and was about to protest but Ideron cut him off, “we were slack on the road. The Haga is the most—”
“—The most crucial custom of the magi, I know!”
Before long the two were both standing facing the tiny window slits moving through the motions of the Haga.
“The Haga will keep both your mind and your body strong, Eryn” Ideron said. Repeating the same lesson he had taught Eryn the very first day of his apprenticeship. The lecture was almost part of the motions themselves. Arms arc overhead.
“The warriors in the Urungeald army, they do drills of exercise to build strength.”
Lean on right leg into windstance.
“But the soldiers' bodies fatigue over time with these.”
Sweep arms out into extended windstance.
“And the soldiers do not continue doing it when off duty. Their bodies become lazy.”
Front arm raises.
“With the Haga, your body stays strong.”
Fingers twist slowly drawing out the runes of for Air.
“And your mind holds the patterns for channelling aether surges.”
Eryn’s mind wandered—as it often did when they practised the Haga. For seven years he had performed this ritualistic dance with his master.
Every. Single. Morning. His hands and arms swinging around painfully slowly, listening to the old man drone on about it. And despite what Ideron claimed, not all magi even practised the Haga. In fact, Eryn was not convinced that anyone outside of Order Karsus practised it. The magi—Eryn had discovered—were a decidedly lazy and boring organisation
… And he was part of it and Eryn was too far into his apprenticeship to quit now. There was no way out. Well there is one way. He could flee… run away from it all. He would be labelled a rogue magi, and the Order Discar would hunt him. Vindicators would hunt him. They would hunt him for the rest of his life… and when they caught him, they would execute him for abandoning the Tal and God's will.
Would Ideron report him if he ran away? His master would be obliged to by his oaths to the Tal to report him as a rogue if he did. Ideron—despite all of his disgruntled demeanour—was a good master and from what Eryn could tell, he was a good man. Would he truly force Eryn to take the oaths and become a magi, and would he sign him a death warrant if Eryn refused?
“And try not to trip here on the transition to stonestance,” Ideron instructed, moving flawlessly into stonestance, his legs set wide apart, arms reaching forwards. Smiling as he did every day, waiting for Eryn to stumble into the stonestance that his legs refused to move into. Holding the position, Eryn began to trace the varying earth runes for stone, soil and sand in a slow and meticulous pattern, writing the runes with his fingertips with both hands.
“Slower” Ideron instructed. Eryn’s legs and upper arms burned with the effort of holding the position.
“Four more incantations” Ideron said and Eryn felt as though his thighs would snap. He breathed into the flow of tracing the ruins, doing his best to ignore his straining muscles.
“Release, and back to warriorstance”.
From there the flow resumed to the more methodical practices that Eryn completed with ease and with it his focus drifted once again. For the past few days, they had established a sort of routine in Heraldforn; their mornings consisted of the two hour Haga, breakfast and study.
In the afternoon, they met with noble families, as they expressed their solemn commitment to the Tals and the monasteries. The nobles would praise the devices that the Tals leased to their family, or the battlemagi that had helped them in the wars a decade past.
In the evening, they attended the feasts with the rest of the guests, although Eryn had been warned on multiple occasions not to indulge in any of the festivities himself, lest his focus drift from their task for even a second. Their task to keep watch on the Yashai princess—a girl who had remained completely reclusive to this point, locked away in some other part of the fortress. How are we supposed to prevent her from fleeing when we can’t even watch her ourselves? Eryn wasn’t even sure what the girl even looked like.
At least they had finally had the opportunity to meet the man she was marrying at the previous night’s feast. The Torren family were your typical Tarongi high-nobility family, being that they weren’t actually from Tarong. The Torrens were from Urundal—as were most of the nobles in this desert. Appointed as the Lord of Heraldforn during the wars and the great expansion of the Urungeald kingdom. The southern desert towns of Tarong hadn’t even been conquered, they had gladly accepted Urunian rule. The King’s engineers created irrigation systems for the towns and pulled them out of famine and poverty. The former General, Lord Farho Torren, looked every inch a Urunian highlord at the feast; tall, blond and wearing his family colours, orange and red, in a militaristic style suit but made of silks and embroidered in gold. Not at all the kind of suit you wore to a battlefield… not that Eryn would have any clue what a General should wear.
Farho’s wife, Lady Elaina was equally adorned in orange silks and was insidiously making her rounds of the guests. Eryn had expected their only son—heir to Heraldforn and Urungeald’s instrument in this marriage alliance with the Yashai—to be equally as vainglorious as his parents but to his surprise, the man seemed to be unpretentious… almost modest.
“I’m sure my father is boring your associate with some grand tale of his heroism during the war” Haiden said, taking the vacant seat next to Eryn in the feast hall, “I grew up with those stories; how he fought on the frontlines alongside his men.”
“Do you believe his stories?” It was a bold question, but Eryn could never help his skepticism. Luckily Haiden smiled at the remark, “Some of them,” then pondered for a moment, “maybe not. I don’t think my father fought an entire battalion of Yashai single-handedly. But I’m sure there’s some truth in there. He trained me himself in the sword. When I was younger I would watch him spar with the swordmasters in the training yards. I was so envious of him when I was boy”
“Normal enough I think for children to idealise their parents” Eryn said, feeling a slight ache in his chest whenever he thought of his parents or his brothers back home.
“The townsfolk—even the ones from the remote villages—You should hear how they talk about him. Like he was some Seraphim dropped from the heavens to save them”
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“Only a slight exaggeration, I’m sure” Eryn snorted, starting to get the feeling that this conversation was solely for Haiden to promote his family's influence. Haiden looked at him aghast and seemed to fluster a bit, “I’m so sorry. It’s just a saying, I didn’t actually mean I think he’s a Seraphim or anything like that, I—”
“—It’s alright,” Eryn gave him a disarming grin, “I’m hardly offended. I’m not exactly the most pious magi… Not even a magi yet, being truthful.” He’ll probably lose interest now, knowing I’m not a higher rank in the Tals. Although Haiden seemed to relax a bit.
“Sorry, anyway,” Haiden said awkwardly, “I shouldn’t be throwing around godly terms flippantly like that”
“It’s not like the vindicators are going to come storming in here to execute you for saying your father is one of the Seraphim.” Haiden’s face scrunched up in confusion at the comment and Eryn waved it off. “It’s nothing.” Eryn said.
“So you are what, then, a squire or something?” Haiden asked with curiosity.
“Apprentice,” Eryn replied, “Master Ideron oversees my training.” He looking over to Ideron and Lord Heraldforn still engaged in conversation with a large swaggering Librestran noble wearing the most ostentatious cloak of fur. FUR! In the fucking desert, the man must be some form of imbecile? But there seemed to be a gaggle of other nobles hanging on the man's words. Even Ideron seemed somewhat taken in.
“Do you sometimes feel like you live in his shadow? Just trailing on with whatever he says?” Eryn wasn’t sure why asked such a personal question of Haiden but the other man didn’t seem offended. Haiden seemed about Eryn’s age, maybe a little older.
“Sometimes,” Haiden responded, also looking over at the crowd of gathered nobles, “He’s hard to compete with. He gave the people of Tarong hope, the way they see it. The villages you passed through on the way here, before he came south they were poor, famine-stricken places. The people had meagre farms, trying desperately to work these desolate lands. He gave them stability, access to clean water. His engineers taught them how to irrigate the land properly. Even this place, before the Urunians came, wasn't even marked on the map. They built the fortress and the town.”
Haiden shook his head and continued on, “I’m not sure I could achieve that much. I know that most of the other noble families see this marriage as just a means to expand our borders, to get a foothold with the Yashai. A lot of them just want to open trade routes, and knowing some of these nobles just want to exploit the Yashai tribes somehow,” Haiden paused, shaking his head again and looking over to the lonely group of Yashai.
The group was set apart on their own table; the group of thirty men and women dined with minimal to no interaction with the rest of the guests. High ranking merchants would occasionally make attempts at engaging them in conversations, but were met with flat stares and single word responses. They were garbed rough leathers, choosing not to don their customary bone and skull armours, to Eryn’s disappointment. The Yashai princess was unsurprisingly not in attendance.
“I want to help them. Their livelihood is a struggle,” Haiden continued, “My father spent most of my childhood fighting them. I was terrified of them if I’m being honest—” he said that with a smile as if surprised at his own candour, “—but the more I’ve learned, they are not so unlike the people of Tarong. Their clans move constantly in search of food and shelter. It is such a difficult life to live… I’m hoping that if they see how easy our lives are here inside the fortress, they will begin to understand that they don’t have to stand against us. I’m hoping they allow us to help them build permanent homes. I hope they will understand that we want to help them”
Ten years isn’t long enough for them to forget that your father’s men killed hundreds of their people.
“Have you considered that they enjoy their way of life?” Eryn asked.
“I must sound like some naive lordling with grand ideals but no real experience of the world, mustn’t I?” Haiden responded with a light hearted laugh, “and I suppose that it’s true. Their freedom does sound very liberating doesn’t it,” he mused, “I have thought about this before, to be free to roam the country unbound by duty… To be a free man,” his eyes turned sad, “Tell me, when you complete your apprenticeship, will you be free like them. To journey where you please like your master?”
This man is naive but at least he’s honest. “Not exactly” Eryn responded with a sigh, “we’re servants of the Tal. We all serve in our own ways to the vindicators and the Tal Prime.”
“I see, much like the Lords and Kings we serve. Are you Tal Primes chosen by all the magi?”
“Sort of,” Eryn responded as he wasn’t fully sure how the Tal Primes were chosen. The official statement was that the Primes were chosen by god. “I think they may be elected by the vindicators. But I’m not sure, they’re definitely not chosen by all the collective magi.”
“Ah, like the Bhalasi. The people of Bhalasi choose one among them to be their King every decade… to give that kind of power to your people,” Haiden seemed to be looking at some unseen incomprehensible thing. The Bhalasi people also rely heavily on slaves. “I doubt that the thousands of Bhalasi slaves have a vote in the choosing,” Eryn snorted.
“No, I would doubt they do,” Haiden replied, seemingly saddened by the thought. Yes, an honest, if foolish man. But Eryn couldn’t help but be captivated by the young lord's sincerity. In his own life he had seen such callousness from people for their subjects. His own father—a minor lord of a small town, north of Westfall—had never shown such compassion for people. This genuine desire to help people.
“So,” Eryn considered, “you admire the freedoms of the Yashai as you’ve said. And, if not for trade and expanding our influences. Why are you agreeing to this wedding?” Eryn probed.
“Beyond that my mother and father expect it of me?” He replied with a smile, “Perhaps there are things we can learn from them? Who are we to say that our way is the right way? Yes, we can teach them to build irrigation systems and permanent structures that can withstand the storms of the Yashai plains. But through this marriage, I’m hoping we can understand them, and that they can learn to work with us rather than against us”
“And what do you think of the princess herself?” Eryn decided it was time to start gaining information for his task as Ideron had instructed him to. “Amka,” Haiden smiled, “I know that she has not joined any of the feasts yet. I think it may be a Yashai custom for the bride to stay hidden until the wedding. Or maybe all of the people just frighten her, I am unsure,” Eryn started to realise how much wine Haiden had possibly had to drink, as the man started to grin widely like a fool.
“She is magnificent. The most beautiful woman I have ever seen, her hair is the lightest shade of gold I’ve ever seen. I’ve only met her twice, you know. Tis madness to think that I’m marrying a woman tomorrow that I’ve only met twice, but here we are. The first time I saw her was when she arrived at Heraldforn—she was wearing the bone armour of her people and still she was astounding. We barely spoke then… but the second time we met,” he trailed for a moment and Eryn saw now that although Haiden might have been a few years his senior, he was most certainly still a boy.
“We spoke for hours,” Haiden continued, “her command of our language is impressive, and I will try to learn theirs too. It was surprising how much she already knew of our ways. How observant her people must have been during the wars. And yet we know so little of them, she told me of creatures that move like black waves of sand in the night. Giant birds in a rainbow of colours and enormous tortoises they use to move their villages,” he spoke like a boy retelling tales of Trevelian Manaborne or some other such nonsense from children's stories.
“And her eyes, my friend, they shine like the green oasis waters of Eard”
“Is this fool still rambling on about his betrothed?” Eryn had not noticed two other men of similar age that made their way to Eryn and Haiden’s table. The speaker was another young Urunian nobleman, along with a foreign man—who looked like he came from the Eastern kingdoms. Possibly from Peronosi or maybe some Librestran city, his flowy garb reminding Eryn of the men working in some of those strange brothels on the outskirts of the town.
“Raston, my friend,” Haiden smiled broadly, clapping the Urunian noble’s shoulder, “This is my new friend, uhhm, apologies, my friend. We have had such meaningful conversations yet I have not even asked for your name” sincere bashfulness painting Haiden’s demeanour.
“Eryn Ekstrom, of Tal Eyne” Eryn said, nodding to the new arrivals.
“I am Raston Hynes and this is Ezio—just some floozy escort I picked up at the buggery,” Raston said, slurring slightly on his words.
“I am Ezio Mantoya,” the foreign man said, elbowing Raston in the stomach. “Of the Peronosi Isles,” his words heavily accented.
“Montoya as in King Montoya?” Eryn asked.
“Distant cousin to the King, yes. However, I am not emissary for my King on this trip.”
“No, he is here as my welcomed guest,” Haiden beamed, “for many years he and I have shared correspondence, and Raston is my oldest friend.”
“How can I refuse an invitation to see the desert lands for myself,” Ezio said with grandeur, “to put my eyes on the sandworms from stories. The feared skull men,” he exaggerated grandly to the Yashai in their corner, “who are sadly quiet men. Missing in passions.”
“You prefer men like him instead,” Eryn asked, pointing to the moronic man in the furs, having gathered an even larger crowd to listen to his stories. Ezio's gaze fell on the man and he seemed to sober for a moment and then said, “In my homeland, we have these great hulking beasts along our shores. Big fat monsters. Great tusks, like elephant. It waddle along shores like big fat slug, it has haram of females chasing it, they follow him because he is biggest, he is king. In my language we call it babaska—the beach master!” Ezio spoke animatedly, waving his hands to show the scale of the creature, “Many men think this beast slow and stupid, but the babaska is strong and angry beast. It eats ships and kills scores of armed men. It’s blubber thick. Tusks and spines sharp.” Ezio indicated toward the large man in the furs, “this man like babaska, with his harem around him. People might think him slow and stupid, but this man is known in my homeland, and he is very dangerous just like like babaska.”
Eryn enjoyed his conversations with the three men. They spoke with the flowing ease of friends that have known each other for a long time, but they were welcoming to him as an outsider to their group. They spoke on into the evening of a trip they had taken together the year before to Urundal and of other nobles in the social group.
Occasionally, they inquired into Eryn and his life at the Tals, seeming interested, they were curious if it was part of his training why he didn’t partake in the wine, or was it forbidden. It surprised Eryn how little they knew of the Tals, to them the magi were mysterious and reserved. Now that he thought of it, most of the magi back the Tals were not very social people.
Eryn found himself envious of the kinship these men had with each other and of their freedom to do as they pleased, despite what Haiden seemed to believe. After a while, Ideron had returned to ensure that his apprentice was not enjoying himself too much, and the three men segregated off to talk to other guests at the feast, inviting Eryn to join them after the feast for a late night poker game which he reluctantly refused under his master’s stare.
“He seems like a good man, Haiden Torren,” Eryn said as he and Ideron finished their last round of the Haga for the morning.
“The Torrens are a good Urunian family,” Ideron replied, making his way over to the still open trunk, “and the alliance with this Yashai clan will make their claim on the southern lands very strong. I believe that Farho Torren envisages himself as Highlord of all southern Urungeald if he can bring the Yashai tribes to heel.”
“Haiden seems like he genuinely wants to help them,” Eryn said.
“For most, the fruit is like the tree,” Ideron said, “but I barely spoke to the boy. Perhaps, he isn’t much like his father. Did you learn anything from him about Princess Amka?”
“They’ve only met twice, he seems completely besotted by her. Honestly, you’d think he was some amateur bard, writing shit love poems about her.” If Eryn was a decent human being he might have felt a stab of guilt at that comment as Haiden had been so friendly to him and it might be crass to insult him like that, but he didn’t feel that. Ideron seemed to appreciate the comment though with a small chuckle,
“I’ve heard from Farho and the other guests that have managed to sneak a glance at her that she is quite the beauty,” Ideron responded, “from what I’ve been able to gather, she’s guarded by her own people, a pair of skull warriors at all times and they have been permitted to be armed. Farho has a further guard of a dozen men around her rooms. I’m still uncertain how she will attempt to flee. At this stage, it seems impossible unless her own people are planning to assist her. But then why put on this show of even coming here?” Ideron said as he began taking out his dress robes for the wedding.
“Could we put a tracking binding on her somehow?” Eryn asked
“A good thought and it is my plan also,” Eryn did not miss that Ideron had tucked the magi blade into his robes as he dressed. He decided it was not the time to ask him about the blade, but why Ideron thought it necessary to arm himself for the wedding had Eryn very concerned.
“Should we worry about some kind of attack from the Yashai?”
“We should always be wary of a former enemy,” Ideron said, “but no, I do not believe the Yashai are plotting anything. They would have brought a larger armed party. Also Farho has sent scouts along the canyons to the south and there are no reports of any Yashai war parties.”
Again, Eryn felt the urge to question his master on the blade but before he spoke up, Ideron continued on.
“Farho accepted my proposal last night that we wish to speak with Princess Amka before the wedding. During the wars, he had a contingent of battlemagi in his battalion, while they were not much benefit in the wars in the south, he had certainly seen the advantage of magi on the battlefield during his time in the north. His trust in the Tals seems high, and I have promised him that we will see if we can ‘sense’ any kind of secret magic or intent she might be hiding.”
“I hadn’t heard of any runes that could detect hidden intent… Can we even do that?” Eryn snorted.
“Of course not,” Ideron snorted derisively, “but Farho doesn’t know that. You will perform the tracing incantation on her, I trust you with this task. While I try to press her to see what her intent might be here with this wedding.”