Chapter 41: Neville – With Words of Death
There are as many tones of silence as there are tones of voice. Neville’s favorite silence was the one between the notes of his guitar strings when he played slowly, delaying the melody to savor the gasp between the note hanging in the air and the note still hanging on the tips of his fingers. It reminded him of bread shared between three people at the top of the hill behind his house in Debur. Thaila sitting between Robert and Neville.
Then there was the salty silence of his betrayed father; the foul smelling silence of the Mouth of War, like a predator’s breath; that of Lencon after Neville attacked it; the quiet-eyed slaves, even when they were set free; the silent death of those who died between Anuré and Lencon; Maëlle’s silent goodbye to those who stayed in Lencon when she went north with her son; the Eslarian’s sickly silence as he struggled up the road with Maëlle supporting him; the Skeleton, with eyes of bone.
None of that compared to the silence Neville found in place of Fabec. Gritty dust stuck to skin and blocked every pore; it burnt the nose and reddened the eyes with Robert’s fiery death. Neville walked alone to where his room used to be. There was nothing there to guide him, just the memory of mow many steps it took him to cross the city. The mosaic, the columns, the streets: all ash.
‘Captain.’ A soldier came after Neville, his mouth and nose covered with a cloth.
Neville had sent a few men in search of answers.
‘We found a farmer, sir, half dead and half crazy.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Completely dead now, Captain, though not half as mad. The ash killed many beyond the fire.’
‘Did he say what caused this devastation?’
The soldier’s neck disappeared between his shoulders. Neville wondered what the soldier was more ashamed of: his answer or the fact that he believed that answer.
‘A dragon, sir.’
Neville nodded. ‘Take the men back to Debur. Tell Henrique that we lost Fabec.’
A dragon made sense. Normal fire doesn’t vaporize stone. The soldier went away to follow his orders and Neville thought he was alone in the ash, but somebody asked:
‘Is that a Satironese bow that you carry?’
Neville tightened his grip around the black bow and turned around to face a very wrinkled face framed by a chaos of white hair and beard. The old man was short, barely reaching Neville’s shoulders.
‘You!’ said Neville.
The old man looked closer at the bow. ‘It is a Satironese bow. I haven’t seen one of these since... since... I don’t remember.’
Neville took a step and stood in front of the old man, who had to crane his neck to face the black archer.
‘What very big nostrils you have, sir.’
‘Are you dreaming again?’ asked Neville.
The old man blinked then licked a finger and raised it to the wind.
‘Why, I believe I am.’
‘Can you do something?’ asked Neville.
‘I assure you I can do many things.’
‘Can you do something about this?’
The old man’s head followed Neville’s hand like a dog following a bone.
‘I can do many things about many things,’ he said. Then he turned his ear to Neville’s chest, listening. ‘I believe I hear Yukari coming with the tea. It has been a very pleasant conversation, but I’m afraid I need to wake up.’
‘Wait.’ Neville grabbed the old man’s arm.
‘Oh.’
‘The dragon.’
‘It is red.’
‘Is there anything you can do?’
‘You keep asking me that.’
‘And you give evasive answers.’
‘Maybe I don’t have the right answer.’
‘Then who does?’ asked Neville.
‘You will never find out if you keep on asking the same person, will you?’
‘Who should I ask?’
‘Maybe yourself.’
Neville’s mouth tightened.
‘You’re avoiding it,’ said the dreaming mage.
‘Avoiding what?’
‘The story. Can’t you see how weak the eagle is? Even the winter storms are so feeble that you were able to cross half of Franária during winter. She is weak, the eagle, but not yet dead. She has summoned a story, don’t you see? We’ve been waiting for it ever since the second time I dreamt with you.’
‘So you remember that dream.’
‘No, I haven’t had it yet. I’m still here at the edge, hoping that the story will find me. You, on the other hand.’ He leaned forward and stared at Neville with small, yellow eyes. ‘You’re avoiding it.’
‘That’s not possible. I haven’t done anything.’
‘Precisely.’ As the mage spoke, he disappeared, and Neville was left alone with his silence.
How long did he stand there? Lost in the still air of dead Fabec, he too was in a way extinct. Half hero, half villain, half nothing. Robert was dead. Even the wind seemed to have drowned in the dragon’s fire.
‘Captain!’ called the same soldier from before. ‘We’re ready to march.’
Neville didn’t move.
‘Captain?’
‘Yes, soldier.’
‘Erm, we’re ready.’
‘Do as I said. March to Debur, fortify the city, prepare the Emerald for a siege.’
‘Yes, Captain, we’re only waiting for you.’
‘I’m not coming.’
‘Sir?’ he said, confused.
‘I’ll join you as soon as I can, but there is something I have to do.’
‘Sir?’ He sounded alarmed.
‘Are you scared, soldier? I, Neville of Baynard, or rather, Neville of Fabec, am not putting my king’s safety first. That might be treason. It certainly goes against bushido.’
‘Sir...’
Neville was tired of bushido. There were other, more important loyalties at stake. Thaila was more important than any king. Neville walked away from Fabec’s ashes and found Maëlle holding a glass of water to the Eslarian’s mouth.
‘You’re safe now,’ Neville told them. Then he was silent. How to tell his mother that he was about to break all rules of bushido?
Bushido is all we have left.
That wasn’t true, not for Neville. Bushido had taken away his father’s legs, it had taken Neville to Fabec. What was the use of bushido when there was a dragon on the loose?
Bushido is all we have left.
What if Maëlle, like Neville, felt like she would break apart if she let go of bushido? What if honor was what kept her sane? To tell her the truth, that he’d abandon his duty to the king and go look for Thaila instead, what if it destroyed her?
‘I’m going south,’ he said. ‘I’m going to look for the dragon and find a way to kill it.’ Thus, with words of death, he said goodbye a second time to his past life and went to the Frontier.
Nobody noticed the two creatures walking in the ashes of Fabec, there where the mage had also dreamt. One was a very thin, sick looking man, the other was a cat with a black jaw and no tail. The man took a silver hair from the ashes.
‘Looks like beard,’ he said. The cat began to play with the mage’s white beard.