Dreams of the Quill

The Empire of Byhr

The door opened and Gyurot slouched into the room. He closed the door and stepped over to the bed, dodging the gilded miniature obelisk in the center of the room.

“I heard you were back.”

Jeuni Huros lay there, eyeing his friend but saying nothing. Gyurot moved over to Jeuni’s bedside and sat down heavily on the room’s only chair. It creaked noisily as he shifted his weight forward, leaning toward the juggler. Though the Golden Swan’s decor was more extravagant and gaudier than the Byhrate Council’s meeting halls, its furniture was not the newest. The sitting options in the rooms were like ancient tapestries—beautiful to behold, but falling apart at the seams.

“I thought I would come check up on you. I heard you were having a hard time…”

Still no response.

“Well, it seems I’m not wanted here,” said Gyurot, standing abruptly. “I won’t disturb you.”

Jeuni still said nothing but he shook his head slowly, locks of brown hair shifting minutely across his white pillow. Gyurot sat back down silently, or as silently as he could given the furniture’s condition. For a moment, the room rang with the sounds of nothing. Then,

“I guess you really fucked yourself up bad, huh?” Gyurot smiled evilly. “That’s what you get for running off with a little girl.”

Jeuni labored to reach over to the night stand, grab the tome that lay there, and heave it at his friend. Gyurot dodged the projectile with ease.

“Same old touchy Jeuni,” he smiled. “You know what this is?” He stooped down and recovered the book. “It may seem like nothing more than a fat, floppy dagger to a drunken idiot like you, Jeuni, but this is a book. As in, it’s illegal. Byhryn authorities catch you with something like this, and…” Gyurot drew a finger across his throat, illustrating.

“‘I know what a fucking book is’—what’s this?” Gyurot chuckled. “I’ve become a wizard! I can read your mind! You know, Jeuni, maybe you shouldn’t make such extreme facial expressions. It makes you easy to read.” He propped the book open and flipped over a few pages. “No good. It’s just a bunch of weird symbols.”

Jeuni rolled his eyes.

“So what were you doing with this?” the janitor asked. “You can’t read, either, right?”

“He’s learning,” came the gentle voice of a girl. The door opened and Kihara stepped in, decked in her oversized white coat as if she were about to brave the southern hills and tundras again. As she wasn’t wearing her hood, her blue hair sparkled in the light cast by the crystal chandelier.

“Miss Kihara!” exclaimed Gyurot, standing so as to vacate the chair.

“Hello, Master Gyurot.” The blue-haired girl greeted the janitor with a curt bow.

“I saw your name on the check-in list, so I asked around, and they said that Jeuni was with you. I was surprised—I thought he’d died.”

“What made you think that?” Kihara asked, slightly bemused.

“After he ran away from this hotel a month ago, he only went to work once, the time he quit. After he that, he disappeared. It was the talk of the town, you know! His show was kind of popular, and he is a bit of a hero amongst those who are more in touch with their Harnecian sides…”

“A hero? Jeuni, did you hear that?” the girl smiled down at the incapacitated juggler, who grimaced. There was the slightest hint of a laugh in Jeuni’s frown.

“Anyway, a lot of people were worried. Especially me.” Gyurot, known to both Kihara and Jeuni as a serial joker, was wearing a perfectly straight face. It looked unnatural, but it was honest. “I was… really worried.”

“Jeuni’ll be alright,” the girl assured him. “He did almost die, and more than once—but it’s a long story. He’s more fit to tell it than I. Well, he will be more fit, once he can talk again, that is. For the time being, content yourself with an abridged version: he was badly poisoned. You probably noticed the clerics coming and going. I’m the one that called for them. The poison has been successfully purged and now we need do nothing but wait a few weeks. He’ll be good as new.”

“That’s a relief,” sighed Gyurot. “You, Jeuni. You know, you look like a right idiot right now, lying there with that stupid grin on your face. It’s fitting.” Gyurot placed the book on the pillow next to Jeuni’s face. “The book works. Makes you look even more a fool.”

“See, Jeuni?” asked the girl, addressing the juggler suddenly. “You have such good friends here.”

Jeuni closed his eyes as if frustrated but he made no motions toward objecting. He knew it was true. As much as he cursed Gyurot for insensitivity or general stupidity, he knew that he had in him a real best friend. He’d met Gyurot in the Byhryn army when they’d both been eighteen and they had deserted together at the age of nineteen, hiding just behind the Harnecian lines until the government had given up on them. Then, Jeuni had come home to his family, and… Jeuni scratched his head heavily. Things were a bit hazy after that. … anyway, he and Gyurot had remained in touch. Gyurot had taken up a job at this hotel, the Golden Swan, and Jeuni had poked fun of his friend for the menial job.

Of course, it had been Gyurot’s turn to laugh when Jeuni resigned himself to juggling, gambling, and alcohol. They had fun at each other’s expense, but they mainly had fun together.

Kihara smiled as if she could tell what Jeuni was mulling over.

“Well, Miss Kihara, it’s been a pleasure seeing you again,” said Gyurot. “And you, the idiot over there. Have fun learning to read. Try not to get into trouble with Byhr. Not like they’d leave you alone if they didn’t know. For your sake, man, for your sake this town doesn’t squeal. That and we’re half Harnecian, I guess.” Jeuni nodded like he understood. “I’ll come check on you later, make sure Kihara’s feeding you. I gotta get back to work. Take care, you hear?” Jeuni nodded again and Gyurot backed out of the room.

Kihara’s smile widened as the janitor exited.

“Jeuni, how’re you feeling?”

The juggler feebly reached out and extended one thumb toward the ceiling.

“You certainly don’t look it, you know?” Kihara produced a mirror from one of her coat pockets and held it in front of Jeuni. The juggler’s face contorted into a frown as he saw the purple splotches dotting his cheeks. “Well, the clerics said the discoloration was just a side-effect of what’s a pretty extreme treatment. It’ll fade with time.”

She sighed after saying this and then seated herself on the edge of the bed, foregoing the creaky chair.

“Hopefully the swelling in your throat will go down soon, and then you can talk again.” Jeuni nodded. “We got here just in time, you know? Another few hours, and you would have been dead. You wouldn’t remember, you were unconscious. I suppose the wind’s blessing really did help. We got back in time, after all.”

Jeuni made a rough “hmph” noise and turned to face the wall.

“It’s true. Hey, Jeuni, you should really just sleep now.” Kihara reached toward the pillow and grabbed the book that lay by the juggler’s head. She leaned over him as she replaced it on the night stand, oversized coat blanketing Jeuni’s chest. The book back in its spot, Kihara sat up straight, smoothed the sheets around Jeuni’s legs, and then stood. “I’ll bring you food in a bit, and I can continue teaching you to read after you eat. For now, rest. The clerics said you need it.”

Jeuni nodded sagely. Kihara settled back onto the creaky chair and softly sung a lullaby.

—

“Good morning,” Jeuni said hoarsely after opening his eyes and blinking a few times. Kihara jumped up from the chair, knocking it over.

“Your voice is back!” she exclaimed happily, quickly bending down to right the chair.

“So it would seem,” replied the juggler. A few days had passed and the discoloration of his face had faded. He was now able to sit up in bed, and was spending less and less time sleeping, though he was still very drained.

“Oh, Jeuni,” Kihara sighed, her smile taking away energy that might have otherwise gone into more meaningful words.

“Thank you for saving me,” Jeuni said, and then paused. “I just wanted to get that out of the way before I begin asking questions. First, how did we get back so fast? And where’s the Second? And why are we in the Golden Swan? Why have we been here for days? Why—”

Kihara cut the juggler off with an annoyed look.

“Jeuni. I can only answer one thing at a time.” The juggler nodded meekly, cowed by the girl’s glare. “We got back fast because the god gave us his blessing and made us speedy. We ran with his wind at our backs and arrived here in six days.”

“The Second?” asked Jeuni immediately, his curiosity not sated.

“King’s around somewhere. He might be with some officials of the Byhryn military or something, discussing what to do about Master Ynthon’s disappearance. That caused quite a bit of uproar, you know? Harnecia made some good advances in the past weeks while Byhr scurried around like a bunch of dumb mice.” Kihara didn’t seem to care too much one way or another, judging by her inflection. If there was one thing Jeuni had learned about her feelings over the course of their journey, it had been that they weren’t very strong when it came to matters of controversy amongst humans. Whether or not the god was evil or real or not, whether or not the Empire of Byhr was good or not, and so on—none of these urgent issues seemed to interest the girl one bit.

“The hotel?”

“It seemed a safe place to hide you because that silly friend of yours works here. Also, your home doesn’t exactly exist anymore, so there wasn’t much choice in the matter.” Jeuni remembered how he’d destroyed his tiny little shack on the edge of town: one kick and it had become a pile of rubble. What a shoddy construction, he thought to himself, laughing a little inside.

“Why so long?”

“Gyurot told me you could live in this room for as long as you want. It turns out most of this establishment’s clients are your fans. There’s been a tiny price hike—no complaints—in order to pay for your quarters here.”

“Alright… but do they know I’m not performing anymore?” Jeuni could barely believe what Kihara was telling him. The clientele of the Golden Swan—the majority of the town’s male population, despite the “facts” apparent in any statistics the elder chose to release—appreciated his work? He remembered the crowd that had been present when he’d performed: drunks as bad as he, losers and stupids too lame to spend their time any better. And while they applauded when he got himself stuck full of knives, he was sure that no one in their right mind could possibly like his performances.

“Oh no, Jeuni. They’re not fans of your juggling act.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, apprehensive.

“They’re fans of you, Jeuni. You’re a hero.” Kihara’s cheeks flushed with excitement as she spoke. “You trashed your own home and fled the town in a show of enthusiasm and decision-making previously unheard of. Then you escaped Byhr entirely—incapacitating a hundred elite Byhryn soldiers, the story goes—in order to find the paradise of the South. And you came back. You’re a hero.”

“Hell, that makes me sound like Tyff!” chuckled Jeuni.

“Tyff?” Kihara asked, her eyes narrowing and all joy disappearing from her cheeks.

“Yeah, Tyff! The Harnecian hero who traveled south, oh, forty or so years ago. While he was never officially seen in these parts after leaving on his journey, it’s known that he came back to the midlands in order to help miserables flee war and poverty, and has lived in hiding since, sending people down to the Shaded Or—” and before he could finish the word, he realized that there was no way the legend could be true. He had seen the South, he had seen the so-called “Shaded Orchard” in all its glory. What a hero Tyff must have been, sending poor folk to their death in the icy wastes of the dazzling South!

Even as the juggler berated himself for not readjusting his stance on the legend of Tyff sooner, Kihara’s face grew graver and graver.

“What’s wrong?” Jeuni asked after a minute of silence. The girl looked Jeuni dead in the eyes and slowly opened her mouth.

“Tyff Noi was the First Holder of the Covenant.”

Jeuni’s jaw dropped. The name he’d always associated with freedom was instead the name of his jailer. Tyff, the First Holder—that made him the one whose task had been to found Byhr. He was the one who had, together with nomadic tribespeople of the South, created the power that had spent the last forty years terrorizing the midlands’ inhabitants. The First Holder was someone Jeuni couldn’t help but hate while the Tyff of the legend had been someone Jeuni could not help but love. The First Holder was the reason for Byhr’s existence. Tyff was supposed to be a hero opposed to evil and oppression.

“You’re lying,” Jeuni said plainly, though he knew it couldn’t be true. While Kihara had withheld information from him in the past and could not exactly be called honest, she had never lied before.

“I’m not,” Kihara responded, entirely unnecessarily.

“Must be a different Tyff,” Jeuni said uncertainly. “Must be.” His words were solid but his tone shook. The legends never mentioned the great hero’s family name, but even if they had, the legends were clearly far from the truth. Jeuni had seen the Shaded Orchard. His legends were worthless. He couldn’t continue to infuse them with hope. The juggler sighed, accepting defeat. Tyff was Tyff. Both Harnecian, both heroes, both traveled south. There was no evidence that the Tyff of the legends was not Tyff Noi. As he considered the possibility, Jeuni became more and more convinced that they must be one and the same.

“Must be,” Kihara shrugged in agreement, to Jeuni’s utter shock. “I’m not a local, I don’t know the stories. I’m from the West, after all.” So that’s where the name Kihara was from! “Anyway, do you have any other questions?”

Though Kihara had surprisingly agreed that the two Tyffs must be different, the topic was eating at Jeuni. He shook his head slowly and lay down, closing his eyes. He knew he wasn’t tired and wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but he didn’t feel like talking.

“Alright. I’ll be here, so let me know if you want to practice reading, or eat, or anything.”

–

Three months passed, and Jeuni had become fully literate. It wasn’t even close to hard—he had approached literacy once before, before joining the Byhryn army. He had even gone to a school for a few weeks once, during one of Harnecia’s longer occupations of his hometown. But after those few weeks, Byhr retook the town and burned the school to the ground. Education via oral tradition was fine, but books, letters, records of any kind, were outlawed.

Now Jeuni knew why—the history of Byhr that he’d been taught was a lie. If the entire country knew the truth, it would not stay a country for long. If they knew that the elusive Holders of the Covenant were wandering immortals wielding the powers of an evil god, and that the Byhrate Council was not comprised of Holders, the oppressed citizens of the Empire of Good might well revolt. Jeuni pondered this many times. Maybe he would try to spread the word, try to enlighten the people. No, he told himself repeatedly, that would be too good. He was not a good person—he was a deserter and a drunk.

Three months passed and Harnecia had invaded a good portion of eastern Byhr, including Jeuni’s town. There were celebrations in the street below the juggler’s window every night. Jeuni now kept an ever-growing pile of books by his bedside—Harnecia had no laws banning their existence. He spent every waking moment reading, taking in knowledge he’d never imagined existed. Kihara supplied him with books and Gyurot supplied him with a home and he didn’t need to worry about anything. Every time Kihara visited she would ask him how he was, and he would say he was doing great, and it was true. The last lingering effects of the poison had faded and he felt as healthy as he’d ever felt. He spent his days reading quietly. All was well.

“Though… I could use some alcohol, Kihara,” he said one day, out of the blue. The girl frowned and shook her head violently. Jeuni didn’t bring it up again.

—

“Jeuni!” Kihara cried, running into the juggler’s room some time in the middle of winter. Her cheeks were flushed with running through the cold and her eyes were ghostly pale. Her lips trembled as she approached his bed. In the year that he had known Kihara, Jeuni had only seen her this distressed once: right before Ynthon had killed her.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jeuni, knowing immediately that something must be terribly wrong.

“King, Jeuni. King is dead,” she breathed, and then she fell to her knees by the bed and burrowed her head into Jeuni’s side. She cried quietly.

“But he’ll come back,” Jeuni said, trying to reassure her. Of course, he knew that she knew about the regeneration of Holders, and that for her to be this upset the Second Holder must have been obliterated without a chance at coming back. Confirming this fear, Kihara shook her head. Jeuni reached out tentatively and patted her on the shoulder.

After the first month of his recovery, during which he had needed constant surveillance, Jeuni hadn’t seen Kihara that often. She had dropped by with decreasing frequency over the last ten months, and this was the first time he had seen her in weeks. He didn’t know where she had been staying or what she had been doing—he knew better than to inquire into Holder business—and he hadn’t expected her to show up. It wouldn’t have surprised him at all if he’d never seen her again, actually.

As for the Second Holder, the beastman whom Jeuni had killed almost exactly one year earlier, Jeuni hadn’t seen the slightest trace of him since their audience with the evil god. The last he’d seen of the beastman was that giant fist descending. After that had come blackness. When Jeuni had awoken, he’d been in the Golden Swan, bedridden. He didn’t care too much for the beastman, especially after taking a potent blow to the head, so he hadn’t ever asked Kihara to bring them together for a reunion. But while Jeuni did not care for the beastman, he knew that Kihara had loved the Second. He knew that they had been like family, a very loving family. He knew why she was crying—the beastman had been something like her father.

Jeuni seemed to remember crying about losing his father once, a long time ago, but it was a blurry memory and he couldn’t recall much else regarding his father.

“Jeuni.” After crying for a good half hour, Kihara finally spoke. “We need to get out of here.”

“Why?” he asked, not entirely surprised. Kihara withdrew her head and looked up into the juggler’s eyes. Her cheeks were stained with tears.

“The Byhrate Council, together with a few Holders who, like Master Ynthon, served in the military, executed King publicly for betraying the country. Killing Ynthon was one part of that betrayal, helping you escape was another… I’m wanted as an accomplice. And you… well, you’re famous with the government, it seems.”

“Oh, shit…” murmured Jeuni.

“Also, King had an order from the god,” Kihara said slowly.

“And it’s been passed on to you,” Jeuni guessed. She nodded. “Well, no helping that. I guess. I’ll go with you. Damn it, how much time do we have?”

“Byhr’s armies will descend on this town in a few hours at the most. We have to get out, now.”

“In other words, none. Shit! Okay. Let’s go.” Jeuni pushed the sheets aside and stood, his legs wobbling a bit. “I haven’t run anywhere in a long time, but I’m sure I’ll manage. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be better,” muttered the blue-haired girl, standing. “I guess I don’t need to tell you our destination.”

“We’re headed south,” Jeuni smiled. Kihara nodded, her eyes still ghostly pale, and then she wiped the tears from her face and clenched her fists. “You ready?”

She nodded again, and the two walked out of the room. Kihara guided Jeuni to the stairs and they headed down to the lobby, where they ran into Gyurot.

“Jeuni! I never expected to see you up and about,” he smiled, and then nodded a greeting to the girl. “You and Miss Kihara going to have some hot fun on the town?” Before Jeuni could reprimand Gyurot in his usual way—harsh words, or violence—the janitor saw Kihara’s expression and grew stony-faced. “What’s wrong?”

“We have to leave, Gyurot,” Jeuni said. “Byhr’s retaking the town soon, and I’m… well… you know.” He didn’t want to tell his friend the whole story and then explain to him that the Second Holder was dead and Kihara on the run.

“Deserters can always desert,” Gyurot winked, trying to use his humor to lighten the mood. It was the first joke he’d ever made that hadn’t made Jeuni want to berate him for being an ass. “I assume you need supplies?”

Jeuni nodded.

“Three weeks’ worth,” he said.

“That’ll hurt the hotel, but it’ll hurt it less than being burned down by military grunts searching for you. Hold on one moment, I’ll go grab stuff from the storage rooms.” Gyurot disappeared through a door behind the reception counter. He reemerged minutes later, carrying sacks of supplies.

“Thank you so much, Gyurot,” Jeuni said, and he meant it.

“Of course, Jeuni. What’re friends for?”

“I… Look, Gyurot. I’m sorry that I’ve been such a lame—” Jeuni was cut off.

“Don’t even go there. We left the army together and we chose our own paths through life. I enjoyed your juggling, Jeuni, and your drinking was humorous to say the least. Don’t regret how you lived in this town, okay? We’ll always be here, waiting for you to come back.”

“Thanks, Gyurot.”

“We need to get going, Jeuni,” Kihara said quietly, stepping closer to the exit.

“I’ll try to get the Harnecians here to surrender the town quietly, Jeuni,” Gyurot called out as Jeuni pushed the heavy glass door open. “You’ll always be a hero here, and this will always be your home, remember? I’ll always be here, and I’ll always be your friend.”

Jeuni stifled the emotion swelling in his chest and dashed out of the hotel without a word. Kihara followed silently. Harnecian solders stood idly all over the main roads. An air of disquiet hung over the town. Once into the back alleys and out of sight, Jeuni stuffed the sacks of supplies under his cloak and they disappeared. Kihara nodded approvingly; they would go faster with the sacks hidden away in whatever dimension it was that Jeuni stored things like spare doors and crates. They were out of the town within ten minutes of their departure from the Golden Swan. The forests immediately south of the town were inviting and nostalgic and running through them somehow comforted the juggler.

About an hour into their journey, muffled sounds of fighting echoed from behind them. Jeuni nimbly climbed a tree to see what was going on, and when he got to the top he saw that the sky was black with smoke. His hometown was burning.