Dreams of the Quill

Before Meeting God

“Dear Grandpa Snow,

“My condolences. The news of your wife’s passing is saddening. All I can say is that she was old and frail, and that it was likely better for her to leave now rather than later. She must surely be smiling with your children in the Shaded Orchard, now. She was a lovely woman, and you were both lucky to share such a long time together.

“I expect that your expedition will be slowed down for your mourning period. During this time, I will take your grandson to you. He’s still a bit young for your line of work, but he’s quiet, so he shouldn’t get in the way.

“I’m sure he’ll be happier down there with you, Grandpa Snow, than he is by himself up here. This town is no place for an orphaned child.

“All the best,
-Huun Koul”

Intra Noi folded the letter and slipped it back into his breast pocket. He removed his reading glasses and placed them on the supply crate that served as a desk in his tent. Running one hand through his mane of snow-white hair, he sighed.

“Del, you were wrong,” he said, gazing off into the warm glow of the oil lamp next to his spectacles. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. You’re gone, forever.”

Intra turned from the crate and opened the tent flap, peeking outside. His assistant Jeld, a twenty-year-old redhead whose family had been killed by Cressoan raiders three years earlier, was standing outside, skimming through a thick pile of papers. Intra blinked to adjust his eyes to the near-blinding white of the southern snow-fields, and then he stepped outside.

“What was the letter about, Grandpa Snow?” asked Jeld, looking up from the documents.

“Family business,” Intra replied with a shrug. “Looks like my boy’s boy will be joining us some time in the next couple of weeks.”

Five tents identical to Intra’s stood scattered about, workers scurrying around between them. Ten carts loaded with supplies formed a semi-circle around the southern perimeter of the encampment.

“I bet you’re excited about that,” Jeld said, smiling.

“You bet I am,” chuckled Intra. “Having li’l Tyff on a dig has been my dream since he was born.”

“Things will get lively around here again.” Jeld turned away from Intra and her papers to sneeze. “Ah, excuse me. With half the crew under the weather, we haven’t been making much progress. And to make matters worse, the longer the gap between wolf attacks, the more tense people get.”

“That’s life, down here,” responded Intra with another shrug. “How’s the manuscript looking?”

“Honestly?” asked Jeld, glancing down at the papers in her hands with consternation.

“Honesty is an archeologist’s soul.”

“To be honest, Grandpa Snow, this most recent edit makes no sense.” Jeld handed the stack of papers to Intra and crossed her arms. “It was getting better with every edit until this one. There’re heaps of technical errors in the writing, there are a number of organizational problems I noticed… it’s strange, but it happens, I guess. There’s only one major change in the last batch I would keep.”

Intra concealed his shock and raised a bushy eyebrow.

“The new foreword was riveting,” said Jeld, shivering noticeably.

“You look like you need a break,” Intra observed. “Thanks, as always, for your hard work—now, go inside and warm up.”

“Grandpa Snow!” exclaimed Jeld. “You are the one who needs a break! I don’t know why your writing deteriorated suddenly, but you need to spend some time resting, and thinking about it. You don’t have forever to write this book, you know.”

Intra didn’t say anything as Jeld turned and flounced off through the snow toward the tent she shared with the other female workers. Once she was out of earshot, he sighed deeply.

“I know, Jeld.”

Intra turned around and went back into his tent, dropping the papers—the latest revision of his book’s manuscript—on the crate next to his glasses and lamp. He wrinkled his nose as he examined the top page in the stack, the first page of his new foreword. For two years now he had been writing this book, an autobiography and documentary of his work in the South, intent on publishing it before his time was up.

Two and a half years ago, he had picked up Jeld and a couple street kids she’d been protecting. He provided them with work and food and shelter. Jeld had been more interested in Intra’s work than the other orphans, and he’d stayed up countless nights telling her stories about his long decades under the worn-out sky. After weeks like this passed, he had grown weary of talking, but he wanted to keep telling Jeld stories. She was attentive, she was bright. She had listened to Intra with a passion that his aging employees rarely displayed, and he had wanted to satisfy her curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

That was how he had begun writing this book. He had at first just been writing for Jeld, but when she discovered the manuscript—at that time, a bunch of unorganized vignettes stuffed under his deteriorating mattress—she had seen the possibilities. She had argued with Intra at great lengths, telling him that he should write a real book, that he should have it published, that his work might be recognized once and for all by the people.

Intra donned his glasses and shuffled through the papers, hastily rereading his foreword.

He knew it was pointless. He was old, having survived some eighty something years. He’d lost track. After a lifetime of enjoying the southern chill, Intra’s bones were starting to creak. After a lifetime of fending off the wild beasts of the South, Intra’s wrists could no longer bear the weight of a spear. After a lifetime of digging under the flat, white sky, Intra could no longer break through permafrost with a shovel. He had seen himself change over time: first, he had been a student. Then he had become Professor Noi, and then everyone had begun calling him Professor Snow, and then Uncle Snow, and finally, in his waning years, Grandpa Snow.

His country, his people—even if he were to publish a well-written book on his discoveries in the South, he would be taken for a fool. His people knew that the South couldn’t possibly be the frozen wasteland he knew it was. His people knew that there had never been civilization there. The South was the uninhabited paradise that righteous souls could look forward to going to after death.

Intra reread his foreword again.

All it was was the myth of the Shaded Orchard, spelled out and subsequently debunked. He couldn’t understand why Jeld liked it so much. It was an all-out attack on the religion and superstitions of his people and country. He would never have it published. He would keep his writings until the day he died, and then he would pass them on to his only living relative—his grandson.

Intra Noi, university-trained archeologist of the Kingdom of Harnecia, had only one thing he continued to hope for: that one day, his grandson would care about archeology and the South as much as Jeld did.

Two men walked slowly along a wide stone corridor, side by side. Torches lined the walls and scarlet carpets blanketed the floor. Ornate wooden shutters between the torches blocked sunlight from entering through the windows. Legend had it that these shutters had remained shut for twenty-three years.

One of the men wore white cotton robes, tied at the waist by the thick golden cord of a cleric. He was thick and short, the top of his bald pate bobbing along at the height of the other’s shoulders. The other was clad in a simple brown tunic and matching trousers, a heavy green cloak draped over one shoulder. A small golden badge on his breast indicated that he was an officer in the army of the Holy Empire of Byhr.

The officer examined the shutters as the two passed down the hallway. They were beautifully carved, depicting scenes of victory in battle. He laughed out loud when he noticed that there was no speck of dust in the shutters’ grooves.

“So even the Holders of the Covenant like a clean home?” he asked.

The white-robed man snarled.

“What insolence!” he reprimanded. “Show more respect in this place.”

“Yes, yes, Brother.” The officer glanced down at his companion, narrowing his red eyes. He considered running the pig through, but thought better of it. He only had to endure the palace for a couple hours, and then he would be free to rejoin his squad on some pleasant battlefield somewhere. And while it would be a satisfyingly ironic use of the ceremonial short sword at his hip, it wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“Honestly, Captain, it’s a wonder the god doesn’t strike you down,” muttered the cleric, sounding earnestly afraid.

“I wonder about it myself, sometimes,” offered the officer. “Still, this hallway never gets shorter, does it?”

“Captain,” began the cleric, the tone of a lecturer replacing the tone of a fearful devotee.

“‘Every step between the atrium and the Council Chamber is a step toward redemption,’” mimicked the officer. “You’ve handed me the same line three times today, Brother, but it has yet to make this hour-long walk any more pleasant.”

“Scoundrel…” muttered the cleric, glancing furtively up at the officer, who flashed a grim smile in response. The cleric shivered, and the two picked up their pace.

After fifteen more minutes of walking, the two came to the end of the hallway. Before them stood two men in clothing similar to the officer’s, standing at attention with halberds crossed in front of a massive stone door.

“May the god forever watch over us,” said the cleric, bowing deeply to the guards. The guards inclined their heads in response, keeping their eyes trained on the cleric.

“What business do you have here, Brother Goul?” one of them asked.

“I am escorting this man, who was requested to appear at the proceedings today,” the cleric, Goul, answered. “His name is—”

“They know,” cut in the officer, glaring at the guards.

“Y-Yes!” the two cried at the same time, stepping away from the door.

“What insolence!” yelled Goul.

“Ceremony is meaningless,” sighed the officer, nodding to the guards. They nodded in return, quaking in fear. “Open the door, Brother.”

Goul hurried to comply, touching his cord with his left hand and the door with his right. A line of light traced its way around the outline of the door, and then, with a deep rumbling sound, the door began sliding into the wall. Goul sighed heavily and then stepped back from the entrance.

“Very well, Captain, you may go inside.”

The officer did so, stepping for the first time into the Council Chamber, a large room lit only by the torchlight from the hall.

“Welcome to the Byhrate Council.”

The speaker, a grizzled man with a pronounced jaw and eyes set deep in their sockets, sat at the far end of a long marble table, surrounded by shadows. Ten seats lined each side of the table, about half of them occupied by aging men.

“Please, take a seat.”

The officer silently obeyed, placing himself in the nearest chair. He was the only one at the table with good posture, and sitting he towered over the slumping geezers. He couldn’t help grinning. That this hideous, foul-smelling assortment of dying men was the Byhrate Council amused him to no end. He wondered if these were really the men who had founded Byhr with their sweat and blood. From the looks of things, they’d been sitting in this chamber growing moss for half a century.

The man who had greeted the officer cleared his throat.

“Very well, now—let us begin the third and final day of the twenty-third congress. How many items do we need to take care of, today?” he asked. A couple of the councilmen began fumbling through piles of blank papers. The officer winced. This spectacle was so sorry he couldn’t even keep laughing at it.

“Excuse me, if I may,” he asked, rising, after the doddering silence had carried on for a full three minutes. The cleric outside the door muttered something about unseemliness, but the officer ignored it. “I would like to inquire as to why I am here today.”

The old men began speaking among themselves.

“This is the man, is it not?”

“I think he’s the one…”

“He’s got the skin.”

“It’s those eyes, those eyes!”

“Excuse me!” said the officer again, leaning forward over the table.

“Ah, y-yes,” responded the head of the Council. “You are the leader of the wizard unit in the northern division, yes?”

“Indeed.”

“Ah. Excellent. We’ll start with that, then. Captain Tomora… what was it again…”

“Ynthon.”

“Yes, yes, Captain Tomora Ynthon. You have served our nation well with your feats along the northern border.”

“I’d say,” replied Tomora brusquely. He was fuming inside. Our nation?

“Captain!” yelled Goul, rushing into the chamber and grabbing the officer’s sleeve. “What are you—”

“It is fine, Brother Goul,” wheezed the man sitting next to Tomora. “Men in the military must sometimes flaunt their power… we understand that well…”

“V-very well,” said Goul, drawing back from the officer and then scurrying from the room.

“Hm, well, going on, then,” said the head of the Council, “we should like to reward you for your outstanding service. You are a captain no longer, Commander Ynthon.”

“Commander?!” exclaimed Tomora.

“Yes,” responded the head councilman, “Commander.”

“Seriously?” Tomora asked. He had been in the Byhrate army for just two years; he had only ever seen a commander once, on the day he was enlisted. It had always seemed a far-off position, one he could never hope to attain. Of course, he had learned as much as he could about the structure of the military, and understood the implications of being elevated to this highest rank.

“Now, we will tell you of your new duties and powers—”

“No need,” responded Tomora. “I know them.”

“It is most gladdening to see your dedication,” praised one of the men sitting across from Tomora.

“As a commander, I am entitled to put forth any one motion each congress,” Tomora stated, still standing. He could hardly believe that this was happening, but there was no one to say it wasn’t. These geezers were the members Byhrate Council, the so-called “Holders of the Covenant,” the founders and rulers of the Holy Empire of Byhr. If they told him he was a commander in their army, he was a commander in their army. “I would like to do that right now.”

“Very well,” nodded the head of the Council.

Tomora Ynthon salivated as he considered the possibilities. He could suggest that that disgusting clown Goul be beheaded. He could ask to be freed from his slavery in the army, something he had never wanted. He could propose a peace treaty that would cease the constant conflict along the northern border. But he had bigger plans.

“Then, I would like to put forward this motion,” he said dramatically, standing tall and smiling at the councilmen. “To escalate the war against the Cresso Empire! If we double the forces along our northern border, I estimate that we could finish the enemy off once and for all before this time next year.”

Murmuring sprang up throughout the room. After a minute of discussion amongst the geezers, the head councilman nodded slowly.

“Very well, Commander Ynthon. We believe in your power, and in your plan. We will take soldiers from the eastern border and send them with you to strike Cresso.”

“Excellent,” answered Tomora, stepping back from the table. His plan was simple—he would overrun Cresso’s military with sheer numbers and lay torch to the entire empire. He would show those bastards in Cresso, and he would show these pigs in Byhr. He would destroy something with his own power, without relying on Byhr’s “god.” “I shall lay waste to the Cressoan scum.”

With that, he turned and marched from the room, leaving his captain’s badge spinning on the marble table. Brother Goul approached him in the hallway, but Tomora laid one hand on his sword hilt meaningfully, and the cleric remained silent.