Journey to Aviad Read online

  “I was marched away in the most frightening silence I had ever experienced, through dark, roughly carved corridors with no windows and no fresh air. We finally came to a dank, torch-lit room wherein sat a large, imposing-looking man who was introduced to me only as the Captain. Beyond him was the doorway that led to the castle prison. I swallowed hard, but stood my ground and wondered what they wanted of me. I knew that I had done nothing wrong.

  “‘This is the boy,’ the guard said.

  “The Captain stared at me for a moment, smiled and said, ‘I know who you are. You’re Thaine’s son, peace be to his soul. Your father was a good man and a credit to the Circle. Now then,’ his face became serious again, ‘I’m told that you are our only witness.’

  “‘Yes, Sir’ was all I could manage to say. I was still very much alarmed by the blood I had seen on the guard, and by the very fact that I’d been brought down to the prison for interrogation.

  “‘Please, Sir, Avery is the closest thing I have to a friend. What has happened to him?’

  “‘First you must tell me exactly what you saw.’

  “With great anxiety I relayed everything I could remember, which didn’t seem like very much to me at the time. Afterward I was told that Avery had fallen head first down the staircase and was so badly injured no one knew if he was going to live or die. I was asked if I knew where Darik had gone, but of course, I didn’t. It was Braeden who reportedly found him hours later, huddled and frightened in one of the tower cellars.

  “Whatever state he had been in when Braeden first found him, when they finally emerged together, Darik seemed cold and hardened. He claimed that his brother’s fall had been an accident, that Avery had lost his balance near the staircase, and that what I had perceived from below as a shove, was really an attempt to grab Avery and keep him from falling. Upon seeing his brother’s body after the fall, he took him for dead, was frightened, and hid. Darik stuck to this story, and was sure to repeat it over and over again to anyone who would listen with a sympathetic ear. It was my word against his, and who was I?

  “The Sovereign was heartbroken. He wandered through the halls with a pale face and darkened eyes. He clung to his son’s bed sheets and wept as only a King can without his honor being called into question. To everyone’s amazement, Avery lived. His body eventually healed, but he was never the same after that. When I was finally allowed to see him, it was like being with a stranger. His mind was muddled. There were a good many things he couldn’t remember, and he was easily confused and prone to strange mood swings that were unlike him.

  “He looked different, too. All the intelligent wit and good humor that had once shone in his eyes were gone. He would very often stare blankly into space for long periods of time, then start laughing, or shouting angrily, or sometimes even crying until the tears fairly poured down his cheeks. Then he would stop as suddenly as he’d started and stare into space again as though nothing had happened. If you asked him what he had been laughing or yelling or crying about, he would only shrug as if he wasn’t really sure himself. This state improved slightly over time, but not enough that he was ever a whole person again. There were times when I secretly thought it would have been better had he died at the bottom of that staircase, and I’m sure there were others who felt the same.

  “Darik went smugly on, with no one now to fight him on anything. He grew more spoiled and contemptible by the year, and he and Braeden were totally inseparable. Braeden, it seemed, had completely bewitched him, and the Sovereign as well. The Sovereign trusted him without question, even appointing him to serve as his chief steward, in charge of his lands and finances. No one challenged the wisdom of this. They were all too relieved to be absolved of responsibility toward Darik, who was greatly despised by the court as a whole. The Sovereign, consumed by grief over his favorite son, had no use for Darik either. The Sovereign did speak with me about the tragic event once, and only once. I was brought to his chamber, and all of his servants were told to wait outside.

  “‘Darik claims that he was trying to save Avery when he lost his balance and fell. Yet I have known Darik to be less than truthful in the past. Even so, he is now my only capable heir. It has been hard for me to reconcile myself to him as long as the question of what really happened has not been resolved in my mind, and my elder son cannot remember how he came to fall. The Captain of the Circle has told me what you saw, but I want to hear it from your own lips. Was Avery deliberately pushed?’

  “I was so fearful that I just stood there for a time, wide-eyed. What did he want to hear? Did he want to hear that his less-than-favorite son had told the truth, so that he could mend his relationship with him, or did he want to hear his suspicions confirmed in order to serve out some sort of punishment on his wayward son? I answered with the truth in the safest way I could at that moment.

  “‘My Lord and gracious Sovereign, I only know that I saw them fighting, and when Avery turned away, Darik grew angry and pushed him. I could not see well enough to tell you if he was deliberately pushed down the stairs, or if he was simply pushed near enough to them to lose his balance and accidentally fall.’

  “This answer was apparently not to his satisfaction. He walked over to the window and stared out blankly for a while before sending everything on the tabletop next to him crashing to the floor in one violent, angry motion. One of the Circle came bursting through the door when he heard the clamor, then stood silently waiting for orders.

  “‘A curse was brought upon me the day that child was born,’ he hissed under his breath, ‘A curse that took my wife, and left a devil in her place.’ To the guard, he said gruffly, ‘Einar is free to go.’

  “I was escorted back to my room and left to wonder if I had angered the Sovereign. But the incident was never again spoken of, and nothing bad befell me because of it. Soon after that my formal training to enter the Circle began in earnest, and I had no time to dwell on past events. My time was no longer my own, save for the precious few hours I spent each week alone in the northern wilds. My place in the Circle was a unique one—a lone archer among an army of swords. Those who initially laughed stopped laughing when they saw that I could shoot with consistent and deadly accuracy, whether on foot or horseback. The most difficult part of my training was not learning how to use my weapon, but learning my place within a large group of men, where each of our lives might one day be dependent on the skill and cunning of any of the others.

  “This was probably made harder by the fact that while the others went home at night to their families, I was very much alone. For a long while, I felt disconnected from everyone and everything. But this feeling did not last. For the first time I made true friends who eventually became like brothers to me. Nevon, Orrin and I became nearly inseparable, choosing to spend even our free time together. They spurred my interest in the sword and helped me to increase my skill. In turn, I taught them both to shoot with a bow. Nevon actually became quite good at it and preferred its use when he was out alone on his own business. I also became rather close to one of the older men who saw to our training, and who would later become my commander. Though by that time I was practically grown, he appointed himself as my surrogate father and kept a close watch on me.

  “The years passed, and I was eventually accepted into the full fellowship of the Circle. We were, in fact, the seventh generation of men to follow this prestigious line of work, which is traditionally passed down from father to son. It was a life different from any other that one can imagine, for part of the price of our prestige was total public anonymity. We kept company only with our own. If we were to marry at all, we must choose wives from among those already living within the castle or among its grounds, with the exception of direct descendants of the Sovereign himself should he have any daughters. All of our needs were provided for, so that there was no cause to venture into Tyroc. When as a group we did appear in public, we were always masked and in uniform, and we were never to tell anyone who we were or what we did. Our first allegiance was
not to ourselves, or our families, or the Temple, or the court, or the Council of Elders, but to the Sovereign and his family. It was our sole duty to protect them with our lives, and it was always said that no Sovereign would fall to the sword lest the entire Circle be extinguished first.

  “No better system of self-protection was ever devised. We had total security, and luxury beyond anything we could have earned on our own. As men without names in the greater world, we were beyond approach, beyond threat or bribery. We were bred and brought up to serve this one purpose, and it never entered our heads that we could, or would want to, do otherwise. When I took my vows, it was with a sense of honor and pride. My only hesitation was that I might someday be called to give my life for Darik, whom I thoroughly hated. But when I thought of the Sovereign, who had shown me great leniency and charity all my life, and when I thought of Avery, whom I felt extremely protective of, I knew that there was no other way I would choose to live, or die, except in their service. In my heart I swore my allegiance to them personally, and not to Darik.

  “I’m afraid that time did nothing to heal the relationship between the Sovereign and his younger son. With each passing year they grew more estranged, until the rumors began to circulate that the Sovereign was trying to find some legal way to disinherit him completely. Whether it was true or not, I never found out. But Darik believed that it was true, and that was enough to set him very ill at ease. He had always suffered an insatiable craving for power, and ever since his brother’s fall he had gotten quite used to the idea of being the next Sovereign of Tyroc. I started to notice strange goings on at night between Braeden and Darik … strange even for them.

  “Now, Braeden had made it quite clear from his first days at the castle that when his duties were finished, and he was in his chambers for the night, he wanted to be left alone. He would answer the door for no one, save the Sovereign himself. When it was my turn for night patrol, and I would go past his window, strange lights and sounds sometimes emerged. Once as I passed through the corridor, I heard dark laughter coming from his chamber, of the sort that made my blood run cold. I even once thought that I heard thunder, and felt a damp wind blowing from the space under his door. I wondered why he was so adamant about not wanting to be disturbed.

  “I became even more curious when from afar, I saw Darik approach his door, look about as though he did not want to be seen, and then knock in a particular rhythm. Braeden opened it just a sliver to see if it was truly Darik. He also looked about, then quickly pulled Darik in, shut the door, and bolted it. When several nights later the Sovereign was found dead in his sleeping chamber, and no obvious cause of death could be found, I had my suspicions. I dared not say anything openly, not before I had some sort of proof.

  “With the Sovereign gone, and my suspicions about the cause of his death aroused, the intense dislike and mistrust Darik and I held for each other only increased. My position was now even more precarious. I knew not from one day to the next if I would be singled out and dismissed, or dragged down to the prisons at Darik’s whim, or even if one night I would go to sleep like the Sovereign had and simply not wake up again. And so I did something that I knew was forbidden, for I felt that I had little to lose should I get caught. I slipped into Braeden’s chambers while he was away and took a good look around. What I found were a great number of books related to dark magics, all neatly disguised as Tomes of Wisdom from the Temple, and vials of strange concoctions, and a variety of other evil-looking objects that I could not identify. I knew then that Braeden was not quite the man he claimed to be, but of course I still had no proof of actual wrongdoing. And before I had the time to find it, the whole of my world came crumbling apart.

  “A great tension suddenly arose between the Circle, the Council of Elders, and Darik. By law, Darik was yet too young to become Sovereign, and it was well known that he was not at all favored by his father. The Council desired very much to have Avery, who was old enough and the clear successor, to become Sovereign in name only, and keep the actual ruling power for themselves as his ‘guardians.’ The leaders of the Circle were very much against this. Their personal feelings about Darik aside, they had no interest in seeing the sacred position of Sovereign, which they had had served faithfully for seven generations, to be completely stripped of its power. They felt there was no guarantee that even should Avery produce heirs, a highly unlikely prospect in itself, that power would ever be willingly returned to future Sovereigns.

  “On a more personal level, the leaders of the Circle felt very strongly that it was an insult to use Avery, whom they had loved and protected from infancy, as a means to power in such a shameless way. Better to allow Darik to succeed in his father’s place, and to survive through one despotic ruler’s lifetime, than to be forever captive under the control of an entire group of despots. Then the Council began to accuse the Circle of plotting to take power for themselves and produced all sorts of forged letters and documents implicating us in a conspiracy. It was all rubbish, of course, but how to prove it? No one could pinpoint where the letters had come from, or who had written them.

  “Unknown to the rest of Tyroc, behind the walls of the castle, the order of rule was slowly disintegrating, with groups forming into different factions. None could come to agreement, and the Sovereign had not made his wishes clear. Had Avery been deceased or Darik well liked, such a power struggle might never have played out. But as it was, each group had a lot to gain, or a lot to lose, and each was defended with a violent ferocity that brought Tyroc near to the brink of anarchy.

  “And then, in the dark of the night, the Circle’s fate was sealed, and Tyroc’s along with it. Armed men awoke us from our beds where we lay defenseless. We were told to leave our weapons where they lay, to dress in ordinary clothes, and to grab whatever of our personal belongings we could carry on our backs. At spear and sword point we were marched out of the castle and into the northern wilds where none from Tyroc could see what was happening. We were told only that we were now exiled from Tyroc, and given stern warning that if ever we showed our faces there, we would be killed on sight. Then we were abandoned without food, without shelter, or any means of protection. At the time, we guessed that we were either expected to die of hunger and exposure, or drift off to neighboring towns and never be seen or heard from again. We were greatly underestimated.

  “I found my commander among the confused and bewildered men, and pulled him aside in quiet. I told him that I knew these woods well, and that there was a place a good distance away where we could hide ourselves, if we were cunning and covered the evidence of our numbers as we went. He understood, and after speaking with the other commanders bade everyone to follow me single file, and to step where I told them to if they valued their lives. I wound them by ways that were not easily tracked, through water, and over stone, and finally to the only suitable shelter I knew of—the room carved into the rock that I took you to the first day we met. I know not who built it, so many ages ago, but I had discovered it as a child and knew that it had been forgotten. There we spent a dark and desperate night, trying to understand what had happened to us and why.

  “We noticed right off that there were some among us who were not from the Circle, but from the regular guard. They too had been approached in the night, and told that they were to be given a difficult mission. If they completed their appointed task, they were to be richly rewarded, and if they failed they would be severely punished. When it was apparent that their task was to force the Circle into exile, these men had laid down their arms and refused to comply.

  “In spite of the fact that we were told to dress and leave our weapons behind, some of us had managed to slip them by undetected in our clothes, or among our things. I had folded up my bow and a few arrows neatly inside a blanket while the man watching over me became distracted by a rebellious guard. There were a few of the guard who complied with their orders merely out of fear for their families, but who were sympathetic to our plight. They silently urged us to hide daggers
and knives among our things, even if swords were too large to go unnoticed by their overseers. In the end we were not completely defenseless, though we would need to find some means of fully arming ourselves later. Some of the men had stuffed their bags with money, others with food, blankets, and other provisions. By pooling everything we had together, we had enough to get by in the short term. When everyone’s stories had been told, and all the facts had been gathered (however few they might be), the only thing we really knew for certain was that the trail of our misfortune seemed to lead back to Braeden.

  “At sunrise I got up and went out alone to have a look around. At the place where we had been left, I found fresh tracks, and a good number of them, too. They spread out around the area in a search formation. Someone had been looking for us. When apparently no trace of us could be found, the group had headed back toward Tyroc … all except for one. One set of tracks headed off in the opposite direction, so I decided to cautiously follow them. Not far off I came upon a fair-haired young man sitting at the base of a great tree. His uniform was that of the regular guard of Tyroc. He had not heard my approach, and I took full advantage of my position.

  “I strung an arrow and aimed it directly at his heart, calling out, ‘You there! Stay where you are! Speak honestly to me, and you will live. But any false moves or false words, and I will let loose my arrow. You can trust me when I say it does not easily miss.’

  “He did not look alarmed, but said carefully, ‘Indeed I trust to that, for I know of you, Einar, son of Thaine. It is for your sake and the sake of the others that I find myself here alone.’

  “‘How is it that you know my name, for I swear we have never met.’

  “‘For as long as I have lived in the Sovereign’s service, there has been only one true archer among the Circle. Your name, and your reputation, are well spoken of.’

  “I lowered my weapon but remained alert to his every move. Though he did not seem threatening, I was still apprehensive and wanted to know more before I let down my guard. The man went on to introduce himself as Elias. He was a member of the regular guard who had been roused in the night and given the choice between reward or punishment. He had been in such shock over the whole affair that at first he complied, thinking perhaps the Circle had committed some crime worthy of exile, for he had long trusted the Sovereign and those who spoke on his behalf. But as the night wore on, and he began to ask questions, his trepidation grew. He felt that something was seriously amiss.