“You should be glad,” Rose interrupted, somewhat tender about the subject, though not for the reasons Sara intended. “If I was any other way, there would be nothing to distract them from gossiping about how ugly you are.”
Rose, pushing her sister’s head roughly out of the way, grabbed what she knew to be Sara’s favorite ribbon and skipping back to Benson and the bucket, taunting:
“Sister Sara
in her hair a
ribbon and a posy
wants to play but
will not say it
and she’s really nosy!”
Sara, who was actually quite pretty, could never hope to understand that it is the job of an older sibling to tease one’s perceived faults without mercy. She fought to steady her voice so as to come back with a verbal assault, but she had barely uttered a word before dissolving into tears.
Sobbing pathetically, Sara ran away to hide in one of the hut’s many small spaces.
Rose rolled her eyes at Benson, who shrugged. It would not be he who commented on the unnecessarily cruel exchange. That was a thing best left between sisters.
Thus, the ribbon became part of a clever rigging system holding the bucket of entrails above the door. The twins hid and spied on it, giggling in anticipation. They speculated excitedly about who might come in first—maybe Tad or Meson, they thought, or maybe Papa! What if it was Grumbly Jon, the old man who had yelled at them the other day? Wouldn’t that be such fun!
Late morning turned into afternoon without a visitor, however, and before long the two were sweaty, itchy, and in spite of how they fought it, fast asleep.
* * * * *
Benson and Rose woke to an eerie quiet that hung above the entire village. As their groggy ears became more aware of the hush, it began to fill with unfamiliar sounds down by the waterfront—shouting, metal hitting metal, the ringing of a far-distant bell.
Benson had no idea what any of this could be, but he sensed Rose’s discomfort. In her state of half sleep, Rose feared that she was back on the sinking ship where she had first heard the clanging of swords and explosion of cannons that were now growing louder. Had their hut been picked up and placed upon those sinking decks?
Not fully awake, Rose looked down at her chest and thought she saw a red sword point protruding out. She reached for it in panic, but it was gone. Her dream now seemed far too real to have been imagined. She was paralyzed, remembering what it felt like to die.
Benson, with a bravery born of ignorance, stood and moved slowly from their hiding place. The sounds of fighting drew nearer, joined by the blasts of cannons. Blood pounded deafeningly in Rose’s ears. She could not speak, could not move, and with every moment she failed to call her brother back, he inched closer to the door.
With great force, Rose reached a pleading arm to her twin, opening her mouth in a silent scream. If she succeeded in emitting a noise, it was drowned out by the battle that had surrounded their hut. Heedless, Benson opened the door.
From her obscured hiding place, Rose saw a savage arm reach in from the blinding daylight and pull her brother through. There was screaming and a splash of red.
Rose’s world ended.
*
Chapter 3:
The Aftermath
* * * * *
A Call to Illians
The War of the Roses
Excerpt: And So We Ask The People
By Courtivon
*
To kindred men upon the land
and brethren on the sea
I call in sacred brotherhood
to beg in want of thee
I need thee now, my sisters sweet
my fathers wise and true
and mothers dear bend now thine ears
to learn what we’ve to do
To kings in hiding I implore
to slaves who secrets see
to bakers, miners, sailors all
reclaim thine unity
For think we should of brotherhood
though separate now by pride
the war ahead will see us fall
or as a kingdom bind
And so I ask all Illians
if such a thing you’ll be
if you’ve a soul where freedom grows
then lend your hearts to me
Somewhere is an ear has heard
somewhere a hand has cleaned
coins were traded, words exchanged
and thence a secret gleaned
Shout it from the highest halls
if answer me you can
the query’s thus for all to hear:
who is the Masked Man?
* * * * *
The circular throne room of the Old Palace seems, when considering the known construction techniques of the time, impossibly large. Entire towns could fit within its burnished, echoing expanse. In times of unity, the gray stone walls were hung with provincial banners from the Counsel of Twelve. Above each banner was a magnificent window, formed by pointed arches that soared unimpeded into the sky.
The age of Benson Rose saw the throne room is disrepair. The cavernous space and its empty walls were cramped, stark, and stagnant. Glass that was not broken had been left to the grime of despair. Counsel seats were piled high with dust, having been left vacant for the past ten years. One seat only had been used—the King’s throne—but the man who sat upon it was not the King.
The Kingdom of Illiamna during this period was a realm wreathed in confusion and chaos. Few facts were known and rumors were rampant. There were a handful of “truths” that every Illian agreed to share, which they would often tailor to meet their needs.
The King had been murdered, they knew, along with many of the Counsel. The King’s three children had escaped, though some gossip claimed that one or more of them had fallen to the assassin’s ax. The monster that did this was named Nicodemus Pharus, a violent and ambitious man who had worked his way into a position of power through the royal militia. He was called Nic the Usurper.
Two weeks after the raiding party had abandoned Rose’s fishing village, Nic the Usurper sat, as usual, upon his throne. Face hidden by a long beard and a straggled mane of sickly brown hair, Nic’s blood-shot golden eyes were the only part of him that could be seen. He hunched on his cushioned seat like a wary animal, his claw-like fingernails digging deeply into the throne’s now-mangled wooden arms.
He was not alone.
On the other side of the vast room stood a man who seemed to be made of ice or glass. The cut of his clothes and the way he fit into them made him appear sharp and cold. Covering his face was a similarly designed asymmetrical mask with two slots through which his icy gray gaze could be seen.
“I’ve had reports of more raids in the East,” spoke the masked man. His headgear did not muffle his voice, but rather amplified it. His bemused tone was as chilly as his eyes. “The pirates went up and down the River Kent, leaving nothing but ash.”
Nic said nothing, but bared his sharp teeth in a low growl.
The masked man gestured to his guard, a man in a navy uniform, who began marching the long aisle towards Nic Pharus. He carried a rough burlap sack.
While his minion marched, the masked man spoke: “Isn’t it strange that raiders would spend so much time attacking such insignificant villages? What do you make of these bizarre tactics? What could be their goal?”
The uniformed guard reached halfway between the two men and stopped, holding the sack in front of him.
“I hear the raiders didn’t even disembark,” the masked man chuckled, “they merely shot their cannons until the fishing boats all sank in ruins. Fish prices will soar this winter. Oh my, perhaps that was their goal.”
At a tiny gesture from the masked man, the guard turned his burlap sack upside down. A number of charred, gristled bones clattered to the floor. The guard retreated.
Nic’s hunched form bent further in on itself, his nails carving shavings from his seat.
“My gods! How callous of me to say t
hey ‘merely shot their cannons’ in the presence of our guest here,” the masked man gestured to the pile of bones. He seemed to have a second thought about his words, clutching at his covered face like an embarrassed young girl hiding a blush. “At least, I assume it’s ‘guest.’ It might be ‘guests’ and then…well, won’t my face be red?”
While the masked man chortled at this, Nic’s silence grew deeper. His gold eyes narrowed.
“The raiders did sometimes go ashore. Such terrible accounts of it too,” the masked man said, as though recalling a particularly fond memory. “There are reports of bodies being nailed to—”
With an effort that suggested he hadn’t spoken in months, Nic forced out a single, strangled word: “No.”
The masked man cocked his head, seeming happy to have elicited a response.
“My dear Nic,” said he, “how I’ve missed the salubrious sound of your voice! My life has been much the poorer without our refreshing talks. How long has it been since last I could elicit a response from you?”
“No more, please,” Nic’s unused voice crackled. His words echoed riotously on the bare stone walls, each repeat revealing more desperation than the last. “Please, don’t tell me anymore. Whatever you need, it is yours.”
It would have shocked any Illian, surely, to hear the man they believe so dangerous beg for mercy. The masked man, for one, had certainly heard something that upset him. His cold eyes warmed in fury and he lost his icy façade, shouting, “You cannot give me what I need, you pathetic puppet!”
From the distant end of the throne room, Nic was pushed back into his seat.
The masked man raised a hand to his forehead, a slight twitch of his bared neck betraying the internal battle to remain composed. After a few moments he let his bellowing laughter fill the room.
“Ah Nic, I live for our little moments together. You know that, don’t you?” he asked fondly. “For now at least what I ‘need’ is irrelevant, but you can give me what I ‘want,’ which is the next best thing. You will sign into law a new tax upon all major cities. I’d say ten percent ought to do it.”
“It can’t be done,” Nic sat up quickly, looking alive for the first time. “Most families already pay so much in taxes that they have nothing left for themselves. They depend on the churches to feed them—”
“Nic, Nic, Nic. You don’t seem to be hearing me,” the masked man chided. “I am offering to call off the black ships that ravage your Kingdom’s shores, something I know you want very much, and you would grudge me your signature? Do you not love these people at all?”
“It would do more harm—” Nic began weakly, but he was cut off.
“Do you want more bags of bones to pile up in your mighty throne room?” the masked man asked him. With every question his voice grew louder while Nic’s haggard speech became more timid.
“But the people—” Nic started.
“I’m sorry,” the masked man called across the room. “I didn’t catch that.”
“They will starve—” Nic tried again.
“These strange mumblings,” the masked man pretended not to hear him, “are they an attempt at leadership?”
“The cities cannot—” Nic tried to argue, barely audible.
“Good gods, old man, speak up!” boomed the masked man jovially.
“You can’t—” Nic whispered.
As the end to the argument, the masked man filled the vast space with an almighty roar: “Do you want me to burn them all, Nic?”
“No!” Nic screamed back, driven to his edge. As his high-pitched and jagged voice tore through the still air, he clutched at his throat, gasping as though he had just breathed fire. His call echoed unmercifully.
“No,” the masked man repeated, sounding immensely satisfied. He chuckled again, a much darker laugh than before. “I didn’t think so.”
With this, his business was done. The masked man turned to leave, and then turned back. “If I may offer some small advice,” he said, gesturing once more to the charred bones moldering in the stark stone aisle, “blood and ash stains are a tremendous misery to remove, especially from such porous materials. Don’t wait too long to clean that up. In fact, you might want to get down on your hands and knees and begin yourself.”
Nic, still clutching at his throat, said nothing.
The masked man turned to leave again, making it through the door before yelling: “And cut all funding to the churches!”
* * * * *
As in the legend, Rose’s small fishing village had become unlivable. One reason for this may have been that the raiders used poisonous chemicals in order to spread their fire more efficiently, rendering the ground barren for generations to come. Another thought is that the survivors, distraught by the deaths of so many loved ones, could not bear the idea of living above their graves. All we know for certain is this: nothing grows there, even today.
The survivors scattered to the winds—some to the north and some to the south, some to the mountains and some to the plains. Rose and what remained of her family had waited as long as they could, hoping their missing members would emerge from hiding. After a week of breathing in ash with no shelter and limited food, they could afford to wait no longer. Rose, having her own reasons to leave, led her mother and two younger sisters over footpaths and dried creek beds, and finally out onto a rough stone road. They headed south, through the rugged canyons of Central Kentshore, towards the city of Portridge, where their mother had a sister.
Rose’s eagerness seemed out of place to Sara, who felt the loss of her father and older brothers acutely. That Rose would express the wish to leave with such impatience made her appear monstrous and unfeeling. Sara tried to feel compassion, however, as she believed a lady of good breeding must, and found that she could explain Rose’s eerie calm by calling it denial.
The truth was, Rose had no reason to mourn or deny the deaths of her brothers. She knew they were still alive. Separate, but alive.
Having been made aware only recently of the swirl of magical energy that bound one twin to the other—along with the gut-wrenching sensation when that connection had been broken—Rose knew that the flow between her and Benson had shifted, but not disappeared. If it hadn’t disappeared, she reasoned, then Benson must still be out there. But where? Rose didn’t know, but she needed to get them all moving.
Of course, nothing is as simple as we’d like it to be. Rose may have felt a change in her connection with Benson, but what she couldn’t sense was the change in her connection with everyone else. Magically speaking, Rose was broken. She spent some of her time with her mother and sisters on treacherous canyon roads, but much of her days and nights were also spent in impossibly vivid daydreams. She had been an old man with a mangled leg who winced as his injuries were cleaned by a pale, black-haired boy. She had been a morose but handsome captain who brooded aboard an eagle-shaped sailing ship. She had been a masked man who laughed wickedly within a cavernous room.
There was no rest to be had in the stone-filled province of Kentshore. Instead, Rose felt constantly as though someone had just shouted her name. The sense nagged at her that—behind every craggy hill they passed—Benson was calling out for her. Every stretch of road, every glimpse of distant hills, every cloud that dotted the sky, and everything she glimpsed from the corner of her eye spoke to her in his voice.
The disappearance of her twin in combination with her untrained dream walking had left Rose’s mind somewhat addled. As a magician might explain, there is a barrier that keeps the spirit in the body, which serves many in shutting out the world completely. For Rose, this barrier had fallen. The overwhelming nature of walking through life without mental walls threatened to unhinge her mind.
In constant conflict to remain calm, Rose’s attempts to appear unworried in front of her sisters seemed a thin and unsteady disguise. The more she pretended to be unscathed, the more she succumbed to her madness.
After a long day of daydreaming while hiking with her family along the des
erted road, Rose came back to herself in time to see an outcropping of stone that would make a good shelter for the night. Without a word, Rose led them to it, set down her bag, and sat, massaging her sore feet.
Sara copied her sister, setting down her bag quickly and returning to their mother’s side. Rose watched as Sara halted their nearly comatose Mama, who would have continued her slow, shuffling walk off the face of a cliff if not redirected. Her dull green eyes remained vacant as Sara guided her to sit.
Rose had always taken her mother’s strength for granted. She couldn’t help comparing the spirited woman who raised four rowdy boys to the empty shell of a woman who only ate when fed and only walked when led. Mama showed no signs of life, no signs of awareness except for her wraithlike keening during the darkest part of the night.
Disgusted, but choosing not to dwell on it, Rose commanded Sara to make camp. Without explanation, she stumbled after the voices that no one else heard. She had resisted all day the itch to run to Benson’s call. She had lost count of her attempts to catch the echoing laughter. No matter how she ran, the sound resounded off the stone summits as though it came from behind the next hill. Always and forever, it came from behind the next hill. Frustrating as it was, she didn’t have the heart to stop trying.
Sweating in the summer heat, Rose tripped and scrambled up climb after climb. The dry canyons sprawled before her, maze-like in their complexity. The call in her mind was ever in the distance, and yet Rose shuffled on.
Licking her dry lips and considering turning back for water and shade, Rose struggled to the top of one last hill. As she reached the crest there was a crisp autumn breeze, cooling her with a chill that hinted at the winter to come. Rose closed her eyes at the refreshing coolness.
“Rose!” called a laughing voice from below. Benson’s call echoed inside the ravine. Rose opened her eyes hurriedly, seeing a stream and a towering Elder tree. The owner of the voice was not to be seen.
Scrambling down the steep canyon slope, Rose rushed to the tree, hardly daring to believe it was real. Trees could rarely gain purchase in the rocky terrain of Kentshore, so Rose had never seen anything like this in her life. Once on flat ground, she approached the tree slowly, reaching out a hand to touch the coarse bark. It felt like she always thought it ought to feel. Rose smiled.