Chapter 31: Neville – In My Mind’s Attic

Soldiers followed Neville down the street. They didn’t just walk behind him, they followed him. Before Neville, Fabec was the end. The captain defeated Faust of Patire more than once, brought soldiers back from battle alive. Debur hadn’t sent reinforcements in years and yet, Fabec stood and the darkness swallowed fewer lives.

Nobody spoke of it but everyone knew that there was darkness in the Mouth of War. Death was slow in the grey valley, like chocolate melting in a child’s contented mouth. Screams were sharper, pain was deeper and lasted longer. Yes, something was alive in the Mouth of War.

Neville sometimes visited this something. It hated the black bow, but it liked Neville. He was under the impression that the thing used to be bored, like an animal in a cage, getting sporadic rations of blood and gnawing on old, stale bones. Then Neville came along, woke up Fabec and forced Beloú to raise its ears, fight with strategy, fight for victory. Routine was replaced by real war and it excited the thing.

Neville never lost, but he never won either: darkness didn’t allow it. In the beginning, he visited the darkness to try to understand why they swamped the progress of war. Now he visited it because in it he disappeared. He had come to realize that there was no hope but inside the darkness, enveloped in grey cold, hope made no difference. Neville was a pile of old bones, a walking fossil moving only by the force of bushido. Sometimes he clutched the black bow much like a drowning man holds on to a piece of wood. In the darkness he could allow himself to be just a fossil, to be buried.

Fabec was, indeed, the end. And yet Neville never let go of the bow.

The Square House of Fabec, Baynard’s Army Headquarters, was built during the First Satironese Empire. It was surrounded by smooth columns that funneled at the top, and it had a huge mosaic at the entrance. It had been worn out by four centures of military heels, but you could still see three wolves: one black, one grey, and one yellow. The main door was framed by sculpted marble with an eagle at the top, her wings spread open, and at the base were two smaller creatures: a frog on one side and a fox on the other, ready to jump over the gap and join the frog. Neville had never paid attention to them before. He knew they were there, but he had never really looked at them and noticed the fox tensing its muscles right before the jump, the wolves’ howls, which echoed in the marble; the frog that looked you in the eye.

Earlier on that day something strange happened in the Mouth of War. Neville had plunged into the darkness, giving up to oblivion, when suddenly the darkness was blown away from around him like smoke scattered by a very strong wind. The darkness made the hissing sound of a thousand snakes and Neville saw, standing on the lips of War, a black silhouette, hooded and faceless.

The sight lasted only a few seconds, but it was printed inside Neville’s eyes, like the opposite of a lightning bolt. As soon as that wraith disappeared, the darkness came back but it was restless, wounded, and didn’t touch Neville. It was too sensitive to the magic bow in his hand.

On that day, the fox’s muscles tensed, the wolves’ howls echoed in the marble veins, and the frog looked at Neville. A soldier met him in the middle of the mosaic, under what had once been a chandelier in times of sorcery. The soldier was Manó. He still had the scar on his forehead from the day that woman threw a rock at him and thirteen civilians died at the gates of the Emerald.

‘Someone is coming from the east,’ said Manó.

The two of them went up to the roof where they could see the road.

‘Maybe Henrique is asking for reinforcements,’ said Manó, twisting his lips.

Neville couldn’t tell if he was smiling or grimacing. In the streets of Fabec everyone said that, if it were up to Henrique, Baynard would already be a part of Patire. On the road, the traveler stumbled and nearly fell.

‘Give him something to eat,’ said Neville, ‘then bring him to my office.’

Three hours later, Neville opened the door to a haggard man with hair that looked like straw and a large, toothy smile.

‘Have I changed that much?’ the man asked.

In the attics of Neville’s mind, something chinked and there was the glimmer of a memory. The life he had before Fabec was drowned in darkness and it was only after a few minutes of effort that Neville remembered.

‘Robert?’ he asked. ‘Robert!’ Neville crushed his friend against his own chest.

Robert was so weak that he almost crumbled in the archer’s rocky arms. Neville led him to a chair and helped him sit. Robert blinked and quickly turned away, but Neville saw a tear.

‘Tell me,’ said Neville.

Chapter 32