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Have you ever wondered if your acts were meaningful, in good or in bad? Truth is, we never actually know before being confronted to the consequences... And when the consequences go beyound our imaginations, how are we supposed to react? The world can be hostile, and complicated. When the worst happens, we have no choice but to figure out how to fix things. However, for these two, it appears that things will be a bit more difficult to handle that it seemed...
Sorry i've been long, once again. I think I'll stop making promises on how long it will take for a next chapter, it's heavily mood dependant. This, and also that I struggle to get my ideas together. Still, I hope you'll enjoy that chapter=3
Bolner wasn’t waiting for them in his office like usual. As soon as they got passed the door, a young lady with a hard look simply told them they were waited in the maps room. This wasn’t a good sign…
First, because the young man had never heard about a ‘maps room’ anywhere in this city, and the fact that the stairs leading to it seemed to plunge into the bowels of earth itself wasn’t reassuring... And this name… ‘maps room’… it did sound like military term… Why else would the head of the city keep such a well-guarded place? Surely not for the treasure of knowledge itself.
Plus, it wasn’t hard to put things together. Exploring wasn’t quite the common hobby; the world out there could be dangerous… Other societies gathered in other cities, and not really friendly ones from what he had heard… Dragons, and other wild creatures… No one would take the risk just for the love of geography. A secret place, to which he was invited through a grim message… The young man did begin to get a bad feeling about this all.
Adding to the discomfort of the situation, two men in armor escorted them all along. Guards… But no regular guards like the one keeping the prison. These two guys had a straight look, and an attitude that betrayed a tough discipline. What’s more, the young man noticed knives at their belt. It definitely seemed a bit too official to be a casual meeting… Even Amaria showed signs of nervousness, though she might be only reacting like that because she sensed his.
When they finally reached the room a heavy atmosphere forced his respect… The rocky walls looked like they had been dug a long time ago, and polished carefully. Even the ceiling held the marks of the beings whom had worked it. Here and there, little crystals shined shyly at the light of the torches, making the whole surface look like a night sky with hundreds of stars. But if it was the point of the whole sculpture, it represented a setting he had never seen in any sky before.
In the center of the room, Bolner was turning his back to them, leaning on a huge table, made out of stone too, with reliefs on its surface. The massive warrior didn’t even look at them as the two guards announced the couple. He simply rose a hand, and the escort left them without a word, closing the door behind them. If he didn’t know better, the young man would have thought of a trap…
Only when they were alone in the room did Bolner start to speak, in a tone that would have given chills to anyone.
“Why did you visit David?”
“Who?”
“The boy who tried to kill you, and whom you visited in prison. Why did you go to him?”
So David was the name of Mr. Devon’s son… at least one thing that he would know about this kid… He didn’t bother to ask the head of the city how did he know that he was found there. To be honest, he also thought that it would have sounded like he was avoiding the question. Or maybe was he just starting to get too nervous to talk lightly. The tone of the head of the city sounded like a cold questioning.
Next to him, looking as anxious as he was, Amaria was staring at him. Despite her wisdom, she lacked knowledges about humans’ ways of speaking. But the tension in the room could be felt by anyone…
“I was trying to… fix things…” He replied with honesty.
“Fix things?” Bolner asked in return, finally turning to face him. “What were you trying to fix, exactly?”
The voice of the big warrior turned a bit more like simple curiosity. Yet, the young man didn’t feel any relief. He was beginning to think that time had come to answer for his crime…
“Well, he’s rotting in prison because he attacked me… I was thinking, maybe if I could appease him, he could be safely released. If he didn’t want to kill me, there would be no reason to keep him there…”
Bolner stared at him thoughtfully, but it wasn’t even the hardest to handle. He could feel the horrified look of Amaria, even without looking at her. She had probably not understood his full motivations for talking to the kid, and she would surely have a talk with him about that later…
“And how do you think you could achieve that? You killed his father, he will most likely always want to kill you for that…”
Such calm tone when speaking an awful truth left the young man speechless. He didn’t even know why he was surprised that the head of the city knew the story, but maybe he was surprised about something else… like… why did he seem to make so little deal about it. While a thousand questions raged into his mind, he was realizing he actually knew very little on Bolner…
And his face probably betrayed his feelings, since the big warrior added with a tough look:
“Are you surprised because you don’t remember it, or because you thought I didn’t know?”
Interrogation? Simple question? It was hard to tell… Though the crime discussed here could turn out to be his silence rather than his acts. At this point, there was probably no use to lie anymore.
“I… should have assumed you’d figure out what happened that night…” The young man replied a bit sheepishly.
“Everyone has.” Bolner sighed, turning to the table again. “On the bright side, it means you recovered your memories, this could come in handy… To be clear, I don’t care since when you recovered, that’s not the matter here. There is something I’d like to show you and your expertise could be crucial.”
This, more than the rest, took him aback. So… This wasn’t a questioning? All he wanted was his knowledge? This made no sense; how could the head of the city know so much about the events and still not care about it?
“Wait a minute, you aren’t going to confront me with… this?”
This question was rewarded by an angry look from Amaria. The dragoness still didn’t dare to speak a word, but obviously, she didn’t like hearing her human encouraging the head of the city to think about the matter with more attention.
“And what good would I get from it?” Bolner asked simply, like it didn’t actually deserve any attention.
Tricky question… Answering it honestly would be a confession of his guilt, but keeping silence would be as well. Yet, the young man decided to gather his courage and talk frankly. After all, he knew that Bolner saw him as a valuable individual of this city, maybe even as a friend… So this was a risk he was willing to take.
“Bolner, you are what I could almost call a friend. That’s why I’ll take the risk to be completely honest with you. You’re saying that you know what happened that night, and you don’t seem to even care… Maybe you’re even protecting me. And I truly don’t understand why…”
The massive warrior glanced at him from over his shoulder, but quickly turned his attention back to the table. To him, it obviously didn’t deserve a talk, but here was the question: why?
“A man tried to kill you, and you managed to reverse the roles.” He spoke naturally. “While I don’t approve every decision you made that night, you didn’t do anything I could truly reproach you. The laws of this city allows anyone to do anything against an attempt of murder, and sadly it includes what you did with the body. The only thing I still can’t get over is how you managed to fool me into believing this corpse was yours. For the rest, you did exactly what I hoped you’d do.”
The young man rose an eyebrow, deeply confused. What did it mean exactly? Even the imploring eyes of his beloved dragoness wouldn’t stop him from getting his answers:
“You… hoped that I would run away?”
“Have you ever wondered why I assigned someone with such potential as yourself to paperwork? I knew this city had was none of your interest after our friend here left it. I was kind of pushing you away…”
There was definitely a lot that he didn’t know about Bolner, and one of these things was his true motivations… Pushing him away? The young man twisted and turned these words in every possible way in his mind, but still, no explanation would occur to him. Whatever how he considered it, he still couldn’t understand what Bolner would gain from making him leave the city…
“Okay… Why would you do that?”
“Oh, I had my reasons. Who knew… maybe one day, you would have returned to share your knowledge with us… It’s a bit sad we had to wait for you to get injured to come back though…”
“You mean that you gambled on the slight chance of me coming back with valuable information? I know you can be optimistic sometimes, but you seemed highly unlikely to benefit from that, in your perspective…”
This time, Amaria did dare to hit his leg with a paw. She clearly didn’t appreciate that he dug the question in a place that didn’t allow any escape. He couldn’t blame her; he only based his questions on the faith and trust he had in Bolner, things that could blow up to his own face if his assumptions were wrong.
“And yet, you returned and Amaria willingly shared her venom as a miracle remedy. Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say; I was really glad she did so. But truth is, I’m more realistic than optimistic. I didn’t assume you’d come back, when I took the decision to push you away… The possibility of a huge gain would have just been an excuse to whomever would have asked for my motivations.”
Then why, for god’s sake?! Why willingly getting rid of an obviously valuable element of his city?! Was this man totally mad?!
“Then it doesn’t make sense to me. If you didn’t expect to gain something in return, why would you let go someone you clearly considered worth of interest, according to your own words?”
Bolner dropped an audible sigh and turned to walk toward him. His face held no misunderstanding; the matter was serious business to him. When he stopped, only a meter away from the young man, his frown clearly meant that he felt somehow offended that he couldn’t get his point. And yet, his motivations remained totally obscure!
“Do you have the slightest idea why I accepted to become the head of this city? Before me, the council was actually looking for their own interests, and it kind of disgusted me… I have a very personal conception of what a leader should be. To me, a leader is someone able to think of the people he’s ruling before thinking of himself. The problem is, this job is mostly about politics, so it very often contradicts my ideals. But I like challenges, and the reason why I put so much efforts in my role is because I want to be able to handle the politic side, without abandoning my humanity.”
“I… still don’t get it.” The young man admitted hesitantly. “You mean that you did all that… for me?”
“As I said, my everyday challenge is to find the right balance between the interests of this city and my people’s well-being… Sometimes, I have to take decisions that make me choose between them. When I was on the battlefield, I often had the feeling that my commanders willingly sacrificed my life, and the lives of my brothers in arms for the sake of this city. And it felt wrong… Nobody should be considered as a number… So when it came to you, I mostly had in mind that I didn’t want to make you feel the same way. Never forget where you come from, this is a promise I made to myself… So in your case, I asked myself a simple question: Did I want to make everyone satisfied, or did I want to care about someone who obviously simply wanted to do what’s right? You reminded me a lot of myself… not caring about yourself, only wanting what was the best… So I kind of manipulated you to not make you live the same as me and force you to choose the life that would truly make you happy. As simple as that.”
This was truly noble… In the past, the young man had often felt respect for Bolner. Like he said, unlike the previous rulers, he had shown an open mind, and a deep kindness behind his muscles. It was rare to see a strong man sincerely caring about the weaker. But today, it was more than that… The young man actually surprised himself thinking that Bolner was the kind of man he would have loved to become. And it wasn’t meaningless, from someone who never considered anyone as a model…
“I get it… And honestly, I don’t know if I would have been able to make the same decision… But when I returned, it obviously occurred to you that I had killed Mr. Devon. How could you be so sure that it was in self-defense? Everyone else must be thinking I simply killed him for my own interest…”
“Seriously, what is wrong with you?” Amaria sighed, out of patience. She immediately lowered the head, like she was ashamed of her loss of control. But neither Bolner or the young man gave it so much credit.
“What people think isn’t worth of any interest.” The head of the city replied flatly, crossing his arms like he was daring fate itself. “If they think so and didn’t mention it to me, then it means that no one cares… And as far as I’m concerned, I never doubted that you didn’t kill him in cold blood… I observed you. You’re not… conventional, but you’re surely not a killer.”
“That… seems like no real proof of my intentions that night…”
At this point, Amaria seemed to have given up. She could visibly not bear hearing her human speaking things that could have got him in deep troubles, nor did she understand why he luckily wasn’t actually in troubles for that. Confused by these weird human interactions, she simply faked interest for the ceiling.
“Do you remember Linda, your secretary? I sent her to you; she was an agent of mine.” Bolner said with a smug smile. “She appreciated your work, so when I asked her if she could spy on you, she didn’t even hesitate. Back then, your state was worrying me, and I needed someone to have a close watch on you, in case you would… make a mistake. She told me you didn’t have your sword that night. And she used to sneak into your apartment when you weren’t there. She told me she hadn’t seen this blade in there, most likely stolen… but you weren’t in state to notice its disappearance, were you? She described with a lot of details how you seemed depressed. Now, either you were an evil genius able to plan a cold murder on a person who luckily was in a place you hid your sword, either that person was waiting for you to show up there and you managed to escape. And do not take it personally, but I don’t think you fit the first scenario…”
Touché… Hearing that Bolner didn’t assumed him to be able of smart plans indeed hurt his pride somehow. It was never easy to feel that transparent to someone else. But he couldn’t reproach him to have guessed the truth; a less clever ruler would have simply put him behind the bars just like David.
“And… what about the others? Do you really think they don’t care?”
“Either that, either they are too stupid to link your presence today to the body we found. If I don’t assume people to be evil geniuses, I don’t assume they are dumb either… None of them liked Mr. Devon. He was a loud mouth, a rude guy, and to them, someone who made you struggle to make them benefit of a true miracle. If people are incredibly complex individually, they are extremely simple as a crowd. The man who made their life better is alive, the man they despised is dead. I don’t think any of them sees anything bad in this, whatever the background story.”
“None of them… except David…”
“David is a problem I have yet to figure out.” Bolner dropped with a gesture of the hand. “He’s still a citizen, and I care for him just as much as I care for you. Plus, I understand his feelings. He doesn’t care about the truth, all he chooses to see is that you killed his father and made his life… more complicated. He has always lived in the shadow of his father, obeying his wishes and orders, and he blames you because he has not figured out what to do with his life now.”
“And he’s in troubles because of me…”
“You know, however unique you think you are, you are such a stereotype… You’re kind, and you’ve been rejected from the people of this city for a long time. People like you, in such situation, either turn out to be angry and careless toward others’ lives, or to be self-ashamed, eager to blame themselves for the misfortunes of their fellows. Once again, don’t misunderstand my words, I think that the fact you’ve become the second type proves that you have a good heart. But there is a right balance between caring for others, and wearing all the burdens of the world. David’s situation might have begun with his father’s death, but the rest is only the result of his own choices. So grow up and quit your puny survivor’s guilt, please… Just consider the possibility that he’s become the first type of people I just described to you, and that whatever his future is, it’s only up to him. You simply cannot stop living because someone makes you feel guilty, we have no time for that… The countdown is ticking…”
This last sentence rang a bell in his mind. Probably because countdowns always stressed him, this expression always had an impact on the young man. And it instantly made him forget his worries about David, reminding him that Bolner had called him for a reason that seemed quite important. He had first believed that the threat on all the lives of this city had just been a little manipulation of the head of the city, but he was now starting to fear that something really big was about to fall on them.
“The countdown… to what? What exactly did you call me for?” The young man asked carefully, scared of the answer. “According to your words, many lives are at stake…”
“All of them, actually, if I’m right…” The big warrior replied with an anxious frown. “That’s why I need your expertise… Today, I received this…”
Bolner took out of his pocket a crumpled paper that he unfolded before his eyes. It looked like an official letter, but it held a seal he had never seen before; it didn’t belong to anyone in this city. The sentences written on it were strange, in the way that it seemed written by a mad man who probably saw himself as quite a big deal. But what really got his attention were the last words:
You have two days to either kneel before us, or be shot to death.
“I… I’m not sure I understand… It’s a threat?” The young man asked, hoping it wasn’t to be taken seriously.
“A declaration of war, actually.” Bolner replied flatly, like he was talking about the weather.
“From whom?”
“Alexander. The leader of another city, which has been a long time ally…” The massive warrior sighed. It sounded like the threat being sent from this particular city was worse to him than the threat itself.
“Why? If they have been our allies for a long time, what has changed?”
Bolner didn’t reply, but the young man saw him biting the insides of his cheeks as he glanced at him. This look meant anything but assertiveness… Obviously, there was something he knew, but didn’t want to tell. Had he made a mistake as a leader? Was it why he wanted him to come, in hope he could fix the situation? But he knew nothing in politics… The young man started to fear that the head of the city might want him to use Amaria as a strategic weapon. It was something he would never agree to! But the massive warrior simply avoided the question, walking back to his table with a deep sigh.
“Do you know a bit of the geography of the region?” He asked the young man.
Weird question, but knowing him, it was probably linked with the current situation, in some ways… He joined Bolner at the table, looking down at its reliefs. It was a map, and a really detailed one! The places he knew represented less than hundredth of the whole thing! Where did this table come from?
“I’ll admit I mostly know the places I’ve been… which means, not more than a few kilometers around…” He said in shame, drawing a small circle around the representation of the city with a finger as he realized the immensity of his ignorance.
“This road, here…” Bolner showed with an index. “It’s a very important one, sort of the main commercial axis with Alexander’s city. In fact, its role is important because this road is a symbol. Many other ways link his city to ours, but this one is the most direct and the least dangerous. Merchants, but also official diplomatic representatives use it, which means it also has political purposes. For these reasons, both cities keep a close watch on it. Any aggression, any misbehavior from one city on this road can easily be taken as a threat. To maintain good relations between us, both rulers do their best so nothing… annoying… happens there. We could say that the number of accidents can be an indicator of the political climate. And lately, it has become more… tensed.”
“There were some of these ‘accidents’ there, lately?” Amaria dared to ask. If she had been rather silent until now, the map seemed to revive her interests. Maybe did she see there a way to better understand humans, or maybe was she just amazed to see a geography setting she had only seen from the skies before.
“Let’s say that a few years ago, while we kept good relationships, a new ruler appeared in this city. Alexander. According to the saying, he named himself after a mythological warlord. He was someone who didn’t quite like having to be careful with us, because he saw it as a proof of weakness. I met him once, and he’s… a bit special. His words clearly meant that he found this arrangement disgusting. He kept saying that strong ones didn’t need to make friends with strangers, that his city would prove its worthiness in a better way if they didn’t have to justify everything to us. In brief, he thought of others either as enemies to be dominated, or as loyal subjects to his command. Before his rise to the power, he was quite controlled by the council of his city, which relentlessly tried to make him see the benefits of a strong collaboration that didn’t involve supremacy. But Alexander was kind of stubborn… I’ll make no mystery that I never liked him. To me, it was always clear that all he wanted from us was to submit to his authority.”
“From what you say, he seems to be the type…” The young man dropped with a frown, while Amaria nodded silently.
“And he would probably remind you of a man you had the displeasure to know… It happened that he also had a personal view on Mr. Devon, probably the only man in this city whom ideals fitted his, and whom he saw as a respectful rival. But I won’t waste more time on how their relationship disgusted me. The thing is, when things began to change in our city, he got a bit more… aggressive.”
“He became violent?” The dragoness asked naively. She had yet to understand the many ways a human could become ‘violent’…
“In his words, at least.” Bolner sighed. “Alexander had a personal interpretation of the course of events here, and he let me know through emissaries. When he learnt that the council of our city decided to give full power to a single man, he first congratulated me for such accomplishment. I sensed irony in his words, and envy too… I think that in his mind, I took over the city, quite logical for a man who doesn’t understand the values of trust, comradeship and political evolution. But a second letter was transmitted to me when he heard that we had a living dragon who seemed to live peacefully and freely inside our walls…” The big warrior said sinisterly, eyeing on Amaria. “He accused me of building a new kind of weapon, and said he considered it as a threat toward his city. I tried every polite way to tell him this had nothing to do with our military forces, and tried to make him understand that we saw them as precious allies, but he only calmed down when you both disappeared.”
The young man shivered, and by the stare he exchanged with his dragoness, he knew that they had both come to the same conclusion. Although it wasn’t a direct accusation, the situation Bolner was describing was rather clear: the tensions between the two cities had worsened because of the couple… And they had been totally unware of it. Now that he knew that, the young man kind of felt worried about the rest of his speech… After all, they had come back into the city… Could it… be the cause of this declaration of war?
“I guess there was more than my happiness in the balance when you pushed me away then…” He dared to comment, clenching his teeth.
“I’d rather say that it was a side bonus, but trust me, I wasn’t scared of his threats. I would have kept you there if that was what you wanted. I knew that as long as we didn’t show any hostility, his council wouldn’t allow an open war. They were wise men…”
The answer made the dragoness smile. She probably had only gotten the good part of the message, where Bolner assured that they were welcome whatever the situation. But the young man heard something else in Bolner’s words:
“In other circumstances, I would have probably not questioned it, but… were?”
“I learnt from my agents that there was a tragic accident of this road I mentioned…” Bolner nodded sadly. “When you came back, he started to threaten us again, so I politely invited the council to meet us, so they could see that we were not preparing any war against them. The council accepted, of course. This was the opportunity to cleanse the doubts once and for all. But they never made it to our city… Their bodies were found on this road by one of our merchants…”
Amaria seemed horrified by the news, but once again her lover wasn’t as gullible…
“And I guess I’m not being paranoid if I think their ruler is behind this tragedy?”
“This is the conclusion I came to… But there was no proof against him. I know that none of my men did that, but of course, he gladly accused us… I sent him an unharmed emissary to express our condolences and our hopes to maintain good relationship, but this time, this was our man who never reached their city…”
“Of course, you think he did this, or at least ordered his death?”
“Indeed. The fact that Alexander is behind all this is leaves no doubt to anyone, not even in his city from what I heard. I think war is inevitable, and his own men distrusting him is an advantage for us. I don’t think he could raise an army large enough to overcome ours, and until lately, I thought this gave us no reason to worry about. No one, as stupid and crazy they are, would send an army with no chance of success. But I think he found a way to reverse the tide…”
“What makes you think that way?”
“Because the body of our emissary was brought back to our city, and I think there is no mystery why we had so little trouble to find him… Come with me.”
Things were becoming worrying. A threat of impending war… The revelation that his acts had influenced the course of the event… A mad ruler from another city pulling the strings… and Bolner being nervous about all this. The last point was the most terrifying though. The massive warrior had knowledge of the battlefield, of strategy, and if he said that his army could defeat the other, then the only explanation for his concern was… that the enemy had a clear advantage. But what? Probably a weapon… What else could really reverse the tide in a war?
As they walked through tunnels with the same polished stone as in the map room, the young man’s mind was shared between his fascination for this structure, and his concerns about this situation. Glancing at Amaria, he noticed that the dragoness had a hard look, staring straight in front of her with like she was as lost in her thoughts as he was… And surely for the same reasons.
At the end of the road, a big, rusted door with four barely readable letters was awaiting them. Actually, only the first and the last, an ‘L’ and a ‘H’, could be read, the other two had been devoured by the rust… it vaguely reminded him something he had seen somewhere else… but where? It probably didn’t matter; what was on the other side was much more interesting.
The place was like an enormous room, dug into the core of the earth… a real treasure room… But instead of gold and jewels, all kinds of objects were here. And most of them were unknown to the young man. Like these wonderful things were of no interest for Bolner, the big warrior just walked toward a corpse simply laying on the ground. Though he had to admit this was a strange place to store a dead body, the young man felt far more interested by the treasures resting in this room.
“Bolner… What is this place?” He dared to ask.
“A place you’ll have to remember to forget… Only the leaders of this city have access to it, until they decide that the new generation is ready. According to legends, all these objects belonged to Adam.”
“Come on… Adam is exactly what you said, a legend…” He protested, seeing no reasonable theory behind this. He wasn’t the kind to listen to old tales. “Do you really believe in a heroic guy who cleansed this land from its demons to create a new world?”
“I do.” A voice replied to him. But to his surprise, it wasn’t Bolner’s. Next to him, Amaria was looking at him in a strange way, like his doubts were offensive to her.
“We have proofs that he truly existed.” Bolner said flatly. “And one of them is this room…”
“Okay, its content is astonishing, but it doesn’t mean there’s a supernatural explanation…”
“And yet, all this is intact… intact, and ageless. This room preserved all these unknown things exactly as they were when we first discovered them, a few centuries ago. It does this to any non-living thing. That’s why we sometimes store valuable things here too, where they seem to be protected from time itself. In the case of bodies, well… it prevents decaying…” The head of the city said, lowering his gaze on the corpse like he felt sorry for him to be considered as a ‘non-living thing’. “If you truly want to get proof of that, you could stay and observe him for as long as you want, to see by yourself that he will remain the same for as long as he stays there… But I think that you might want to put your time to better use, considering the situation…”
The young man sighed. If he wasn’t so sure that Bolner didn’t have that kind of humor, he would have thought of a bad joke. If he hadn’t been scared by a coming war, he would have surely asked the head of the city if he could be allowed to give a closer look on these treasures. Some of them did remind him some objects his parents had told him about, when he was young.
“Okay, fine… What do you want me to do?”
“I’d like you to inspect the body and tell me what you think killed him.”
What kind of game was Bolner playing, when, from his own saying, there was no time for that? It wasn’t like he was a doctor or something like that! But once again, he put his faith of the head of the city getting his priorities straight, and assumed there was actually something to notice on that body.
A simple look though wasn’t enough to answer this riddle. There was no cut on his clothes, so he wasn’t likely to be the victim of a sword or something sharp. Did this man die from poison? No, the young man couldn’t have been able to determine that. If Bolner wanted him to get a closer look, it meant that there was something to see here. And actually, something attracted his eyes, on the chest of the dead man. He hadn’t spotted it at first because of his reddish clothes, but a huge stain of blood seemed to have spread around the location of his heart. Inspecting closely, he noticed a little hole of ripped fabric, and saw that it penetrated under the skin and into the flesh…
“What is that?” He asked, and Amaria felt curious enough to come and get a closer look.
“This is why I asked your expertise for. The wound is too neat for having been caused by a spear or an arrow… I think this is a new kind of weapon we don’t know about… Maybe a big needle or something similar… I know your parents had an unconventional knowledge, so I kind of hoped you could tell me what this was. I think they left the body so we could see what they can do, but my own experts can’t tell me what it is…”
An unconventional knowledge? He couldn’t think of anything able to kill a man so neatly. Except maybe…
A chill ran through the body of the young man, like a terribly bad feeling… He hoped he was wrong; he had to be wrong! Taking out his keys, he used them to spread the deadly wound. It was deep, and he had to dig in the flesh… his improvised tools weren’t exactly the most convenient for this kind of disgusting task, but he had to be sure! Finally, after messing his hands with the blood of the dead body, he found something, something that couldn’t be a piece of bones… Using his keys to extract it, a little piece of blood cover metal popped out of the messed wound, before falling on the rocky ground with a little clinging.
“Oh no…” He dropped, his doubts confirmed.
“What is that?” Bolner and Amaria asked in a single voice.
The young man kneeled on the ground, and picked up the little blood covered piece of metal, looking at it with dread. The curved tip, the shape, the size… He tried to think of another explanation, but he found none. His worst nightmare had come true… This is why Alexander used these strange words in his letter… ‘shot to death’…
“A bullet… I have heard a lot about this, but until now, it was only an old legend my parents told me about… A long time ago, there was another civilization, people who mastered sciences at an unbelievable level, and that ended because of their arrogance… My parents used to tell me they had weapons that, according to the stories, used fire and had a destructive power equals to gods’. Their researches had allowed them to learn more about these, a knowledge they never shared for obvious reasons… This thing comes from common weapon of the olden times that people back then called ‘gun’. It basically uses some elements to produce a contained explosion, which throw a projectile at incredible speed, able to easily penetrate a body and kill. And this piece of metal I’m holding looks just like their description of a bullet.”
Bolner frowned, like he had troubles to assimilate these words. But probably also because such information wasn’t quite in their favors…
“Do you think that they discovered this too, in the other city? Maybe some researchers, like your parents, found this knowledge in the past…” The head of the city tried with a stoic face, though his voice let the sound of deep worries.
“Possible, but unlikely…” The young man replied, staring at the bullet he held, like this piece of metal was mocking him. “My parents were… specials. They were the heirs of a long lineage, that had been chosen to carry and protect the secrets of the past. Secrets that mostly died with them, since they didn’t have the time to share it with me. According to them, humans would invent these weapons sooner or later, but in order to keep a certain balance in this world, the knowledge of this old civilization had been buried deep. Buried deep…” He trailed off, looking at the treasures of the room.
What if their words had to be taken more… literally? This whole room was located deep under the ground level, where only rulers of this city could come…
“Have you ever checked the contents of this room? Have you identified what was the purpose of these objects? Maybe some of them could be weapons we could use to defend ourselves.” He suggested with hope.
“I told you we had proofs of Adam’s existence…” Bolner dropped, lowering the head. “When we discovered this room, a long time ago, there was a letter signed in his name, laying right here.” He said, pointing at his feet. “It said that this room had fulfilled its purpose, and that everything useful had been used when he cleansed the world from its demons. He advised us to leave these objects to an eternal rest, and to not try to understand them. He said that his world deserved to have a place to be forgotten in. To be sure that people wouldn’t disrespect his legacy, he’s been very specific that any weapon of any kind was long gone from here and that all we needed to make this world better than his was out there. Nobody ever disobeyed his wishes. We never touched or tried to understand these things. But we assume there’s no weapon in there.”
If this legendary man had really existed, he had been quite visionary… He knew that the human curiosity wouldn’t resist to dig in the past, especially if they thought they could find something to dominate their enemies. No wonder why this city kept this place secret. In a way, it confirmed his theory… his parents had hidden in their words that they knew about this place. But unfortunately, it meant that nothing here could help them to fight the enemies who gathered out there. And there was no time to inspect this room in hope the message was a lie…
On the other hand, assuming this message was telling the truth, it meant that the other city couldn’t have sent a spy who would have conveniently found this new weapon here. And he truly believed that his parents would have never told anyone how to craft it. Even he, their own child, wouldn’t know, since they consistently told him he was still too young to be introduced to these secrets… He was deeply bothered by the feeling that he was missing something important.
“Are you really sure they couldn’t have found it by themselves?” Amaria tried Bolner’s approach, probably with a desperate hope for a different answer. War was probably an abstract concept for a dragon, but even though, she sensed the gravity of the situation. “After all, maybe it wasn’t so complicated…”
“Maybe they got some geniuses who figured it out, but still… When I asked my parent, they kept telling me the formula of the required powder for this specific weapon was at the same time simple, and too complex for our society.”
“Why so?”
“Because apparently, the natural elements can be found on this island, but are spread here and there… My parents used to tell that the gods had done so, in order to force humans to cooperate before being able to annihilate each other. If that’s right, they were smart gods… Charcoal can be found anywhere, but sulfur is more abundant on volcanic regions, and saltpeter is a powder that forms on walls, in humid region, when the water evaporates. And even though, it would require someone who possess good chemical knowledge to get the idea to combine them in the right proportions…”
While he was staring at the treasures, lost in his thoughts, the young man could see in the corner of his eye that his dragoness and the head of the city exchanged a worried look. Maybe the most important was to figure out how to counter the threat rather than discovering how it emerged… But this ‘how’ deeply bothered him…
“I thought your parents never told you the secrets of this olden civilization… how come you know all this?” Bolner asked.
“It wasn’t them.” The young man sighed at these details. “I did some researches about these elements after I’ve been told by… by…”
Suddenly, everything became clear in his mind. Of course! How could he not understand it sooner?! He knew how their enemies had developed these weapons! Someone had already done it before, or at least the fundamentals! Struck by horror, he slowly turned his head to look at Bolner.
“I have to go… Prepare the defense, I’ll try to help you…” The young man said, sensing anger starting to boil within him. He tried to walk toward the exit, but the head of the city held him by the arm.
“Wait, what’s happening?!”
The young man looked at the massive warrior with a tough stare, and took his arm back. In other circumstances, he would have taken the time to explain it nicely, but his realization had erased the last pieces of his patience.
“What’s happening? A bunch of blood-thirsted, heavily armed guys, led by a mad man, is coming to either see us kneel in front of them, or to kill us all. And you want to know why? Because the two of us were too nice and understanding to see what was going on in the shadow! This weapon they developed was never their invention! Someone from our city stole my parents’ work, gave it to them, and we saw nothing! Now, either you decide that this city will submit, either we’re going to prepare a solid defense to handle this coming storm! But first, there’s something I need to get done, right now!”
With these words, he walked angrily toward the door, Amaria behind him. His entire life, he had tried to be good! He had tried to understand, to give a chance to others, and this was his reward! This time, a sensitive nerve had been touched and he wouldn’t let it slip!
“Are you at least going to tell me what you intend to do?!” Amaria asked with concern, having troubles to follow him despite her steps being bigger than his. “I know that attitude, and every time I saw it, it was because it was personal!”
“And it is! There might be nothing I can do about the past, but there’s something I can do right now, and it’s going to feel really good! I’m going to tell this son of the devil what kind of man his father really was, and then I’ll be able to focus on what truly matters!”
“Wait! You’re not going to talk to this kid again! I told you…”
“You told me you wouldn’t let me until I’m ready, and I am now!” He cut her off, unwilling to discuss his decision, even with her.
“What has changed?! What tells you he won’t play on you once again?!”
“Because this time, I’m angrier than he is…”
Sorry i've been long, once again. I think I'll stop making promises on how long it will take for a next chapter, it's heavily mood dependant. This, and also that I struggle to get my ideas together. Still, I hope you'll enjoy that chapter=3
Bolner wasn’t waiting for them in his office like usual. As soon as they got passed the door, a young lady with a hard look simply told them they were waited in the maps room. This wasn’t a good sign…
First, because the young man had never heard about a ‘maps room’ anywhere in this city, and the fact that the stairs leading to it seemed to plunge into the bowels of earth itself wasn’t reassuring... And this name… ‘maps room’… it did sound like military term… Why else would the head of the city keep such a well-guarded place? Surely not for the treasure of knowledge itself.
Plus, it wasn’t hard to put things together. Exploring wasn’t quite the common hobby; the world out there could be dangerous… Other societies gathered in other cities, and not really friendly ones from what he had heard… Dragons, and other wild creatures… No one would take the risk just for the love of geography. A secret place, to which he was invited through a grim message… The young man did begin to get a bad feeling about this all.
Adding to the discomfort of the situation, two men in armor escorted them all along. Guards… But no regular guards like the one keeping the prison. These two guys had a straight look, and an attitude that betrayed a tough discipline. What’s more, the young man noticed knives at their belt. It definitely seemed a bit too official to be a casual meeting… Even Amaria showed signs of nervousness, though she might be only reacting like that because she sensed his.
When they finally reached the room a heavy atmosphere forced his respect… The rocky walls looked like they had been dug a long time ago, and polished carefully. Even the ceiling held the marks of the beings whom had worked it. Here and there, little crystals shined shyly at the light of the torches, making the whole surface look like a night sky with hundreds of stars. But if it was the point of the whole sculpture, it represented a setting he had never seen in any sky before.
In the center of the room, Bolner was turning his back to them, leaning on a huge table, made out of stone too, with reliefs on its surface. The massive warrior didn’t even look at them as the two guards announced the couple. He simply rose a hand, and the escort left them without a word, closing the door behind them. If he didn’t know better, the young man would have thought of a trap…
Only when they were alone in the room did Bolner start to speak, in a tone that would have given chills to anyone.
“Why did you visit David?”
“Who?”
“The boy who tried to kill you, and whom you visited in prison. Why did you go to him?”
So David was the name of Mr. Devon’s son… at least one thing that he would know about this kid… He didn’t bother to ask the head of the city how did he know that he was found there. To be honest, he also thought that it would have sounded like he was avoiding the question. Or maybe was he just starting to get too nervous to talk lightly. The tone of the head of the city sounded like a cold questioning.
Next to him, looking as anxious as he was, Amaria was staring at him. Despite her wisdom, she lacked knowledges about humans’ ways of speaking. But the tension in the room could be felt by anyone…
“I was trying to… fix things…” He replied with honesty.
“Fix things?” Bolner asked in return, finally turning to face him. “What were you trying to fix, exactly?”
The voice of the big warrior turned a bit more like simple curiosity. Yet, the young man didn’t feel any relief. He was beginning to think that time had come to answer for his crime…
“Well, he’s rotting in prison because he attacked me… I was thinking, maybe if I could appease him, he could be safely released. If he didn’t want to kill me, there would be no reason to keep him there…”
Bolner stared at him thoughtfully, but it wasn’t even the hardest to handle. He could feel the horrified look of Amaria, even without looking at her. She had probably not understood his full motivations for talking to the kid, and she would surely have a talk with him about that later…
“And how do you think you could achieve that? You killed his father, he will most likely always want to kill you for that…”
Such calm tone when speaking an awful truth left the young man speechless. He didn’t even know why he was surprised that the head of the city knew the story, but maybe he was surprised about something else… like… why did he seem to make so little deal about it. While a thousand questions raged into his mind, he was realizing he actually knew very little on Bolner…
And his face probably betrayed his feelings, since the big warrior added with a tough look:
“Are you surprised because you don’t remember it, or because you thought I didn’t know?”
Interrogation? Simple question? It was hard to tell… Though the crime discussed here could turn out to be his silence rather than his acts. At this point, there was probably no use to lie anymore.
“I… should have assumed you’d figure out what happened that night…” The young man replied a bit sheepishly.
“Everyone has.” Bolner sighed, turning to the table again. “On the bright side, it means you recovered your memories, this could come in handy… To be clear, I don’t care since when you recovered, that’s not the matter here. There is something I’d like to show you and your expertise could be crucial.”
This, more than the rest, took him aback. So… This wasn’t a questioning? All he wanted was his knowledge? This made no sense; how could the head of the city know so much about the events and still not care about it?
“Wait a minute, you aren’t going to confront me with… this?”
This question was rewarded by an angry look from Amaria. The dragoness still didn’t dare to speak a word, but obviously, she didn’t like hearing her human encouraging the head of the city to think about the matter with more attention.
“And what good would I get from it?” Bolner asked simply, like it didn’t actually deserve any attention.
Tricky question… Answering it honestly would be a confession of his guilt, but keeping silence would be as well. Yet, the young man decided to gather his courage and talk frankly. After all, he knew that Bolner saw him as a valuable individual of this city, maybe even as a friend… So this was a risk he was willing to take.
“Bolner, you are what I could almost call a friend. That’s why I’ll take the risk to be completely honest with you. You’re saying that you know what happened that night, and you don’t seem to even care… Maybe you’re even protecting me. And I truly don’t understand why…”
The massive warrior glanced at him from over his shoulder, but quickly turned his attention back to the table. To him, it obviously didn’t deserve a talk, but here was the question: why?
“A man tried to kill you, and you managed to reverse the roles.” He spoke naturally. “While I don’t approve every decision you made that night, you didn’t do anything I could truly reproach you. The laws of this city allows anyone to do anything against an attempt of murder, and sadly it includes what you did with the body. The only thing I still can’t get over is how you managed to fool me into believing this corpse was yours. For the rest, you did exactly what I hoped you’d do.”
The young man rose an eyebrow, deeply confused. What did it mean exactly? Even the imploring eyes of his beloved dragoness wouldn’t stop him from getting his answers:
“You… hoped that I would run away?”
“Have you ever wondered why I assigned someone with such potential as yourself to paperwork? I knew this city had was none of your interest after our friend here left it. I was kind of pushing you away…”
There was definitely a lot that he didn’t know about Bolner, and one of these things was his true motivations… Pushing him away? The young man twisted and turned these words in every possible way in his mind, but still, no explanation would occur to him. Whatever how he considered it, he still couldn’t understand what Bolner would gain from making him leave the city…
“Okay… Why would you do that?”
“Oh, I had my reasons. Who knew… maybe one day, you would have returned to share your knowledge with us… It’s a bit sad we had to wait for you to get injured to come back though…”
“You mean that you gambled on the slight chance of me coming back with valuable information? I know you can be optimistic sometimes, but you seemed highly unlikely to benefit from that, in your perspective…”
This time, Amaria did dare to hit his leg with a paw. She clearly didn’t appreciate that he dug the question in a place that didn’t allow any escape. He couldn’t blame her; he only based his questions on the faith and trust he had in Bolner, things that could blow up to his own face if his assumptions were wrong.
“And yet, you returned and Amaria willingly shared her venom as a miracle remedy. Don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say; I was really glad she did so. But truth is, I’m more realistic than optimistic. I didn’t assume you’d come back, when I took the decision to push you away… The possibility of a huge gain would have just been an excuse to whomever would have asked for my motivations.”
Then why, for god’s sake?! Why willingly getting rid of an obviously valuable element of his city?! Was this man totally mad?!
“Then it doesn’t make sense to me. If you didn’t expect to gain something in return, why would you let go someone you clearly considered worth of interest, according to your own words?”
Bolner dropped an audible sigh and turned to walk toward him. His face held no misunderstanding; the matter was serious business to him. When he stopped, only a meter away from the young man, his frown clearly meant that he felt somehow offended that he couldn’t get his point. And yet, his motivations remained totally obscure!
“Do you have the slightest idea why I accepted to become the head of this city? Before me, the council was actually looking for their own interests, and it kind of disgusted me… I have a very personal conception of what a leader should be. To me, a leader is someone able to think of the people he’s ruling before thinking of himself. The problem is, this job is mostly about politics, so it very often contradicts my ideals. But I like challenges, and the reason why I put so much efforts in my role is because I want to be able to handle the politic side, without abandoning my humanity.”
“I… still don’t get it.” The young man admitted hesitantly. “You mean that you did all that… for me?”
“As I said, my everyday challenge is to find the right balance between the interests of this city and my people’s well-being… Sometimes, I have to take decisions that make me choose between them. When I was on the battlefield, I often had the feeling that my commanders willingly sacrificed my life, and the lives of my brothers in arms for the sake of this city. And it felt wrong… Nobody should be considered as a number… So when it came to you, I mostly had in mind that I didn’t want to make you feel the same way. Never forget where you come from, this is a promise I made to myself… So in your case, I asked myself a simple question: Did I want to make everyone satisfied, or did I want to care about someone who obviously simply wanted to do what’s right? You reminded me a lot of myself… not caring about yourself, only wanting what was the best… So I kind of manipulated you to not make you live the same as me and force you to choose the life that would truly make you happy. As simple as that.”
This was truly noble… In the past, the young man had often felt respect for Bolner. Like he said, unlike the previous rulers, he had shown an open mind, and a deep kindness behind his muscles. It was rare to see a strong man sincerely caring about the weaker. But today, it was more than that… The young man actually surprised himself thinking that Bolner was the kind of man he would have loved to become. And it wasn’t meaningless, from someone who never considered anyone as a model…
“I get it… And honestly, I don’t know if I would have been able to make the same decision… But when I returned, it obviously occurred to you that I had killed Mr. Devon. How could you be so sure that it was in self-defense? Everyone else must be thinking I simply killed him for my own interest…”
“Seriously, what is wrong with you?” Amaria sighed, out of patience. She immediately lowered the head, like she was ashamed of her loss of control. But neither Bolner or the young man gave it so much credit.
“What people think isn’t worth of any interest.” The head of the city replied flatly, crossing his arms like he was daring fate itself. “If they think so and didn’t mention it to me, then it means that no one cares… And as far as I’m concerned, I never doubted that you didn’t kill him in cold blood… I observed you. You’re not… conventional, but you’re surely not a killer.”
“That… seems like no real proof of my intentions that night…”
At this point, Amaria seemed to have given up. She could visibly not bear hearing her human speaking things that could have got him in deep troubles, nor did she understand why he luckily wasn’t actually in troubles for that. Confused by these weird human interactions, she simply faked interest for the ceiling.
“Do you remember Linda, your secretary? I sent her to you; she was an agent of mine.” Bolner said with a smug smile. “She appreciated your work, so when I asked her if she could spy on you, she didn’t even hesitate. Back then, your state was worrying me, and I needed someone to have a close watch on you, in case you would… make a mistake. She told me you didn’t have your sword that night. And she used to sneak into your apartment when you weren’t there. She told me she hadn’t seen this blade in there, most likely stolen… but you weren’t in state to notice its disappearance, were you? She described with a lot of details how you seemed depressed. Now, either you were an evil genius able to plan a cold murder on a person who luckily was in a place you hid your sword, either that person was waiting for you to show up there and you managed to escape. And do not take it personally, but I don’t think you fit the first scenario…”
Touché… Hearing that Bolner didn’t assumed him to be able of smart plans indeed hurt his pride somehow. It was never easy to feel that transparent to someone else. But he couldn’t reproach him to have guessed the truth; a less clever ruler would have simply put him behind the bars just like David.
“And… what about the others? Do you really think they don’t care?”
“Either that, either they are too stupid to link your presence today to the body we found. If I don’t assume people to be evil geniuses, I don’t assume they are dumb either… None of them liked Mr. Devon. He was a loud mouth, a rude guy, and to them, someone who made you struggle to make them benefit of a true miracle. If people are incredibly complex individually, they are extremely simple as a crowd. The man who made their life better is alive, the man they despised is dead. I don’t think any of them sees anything bad in this, whatever the background story.”
“None of them… except David…”
“David is a problem I have yet to figure out.” Bolner dropped with a gesture of the hand. “He’s still a citizen, and I care for him just as much as I care for you. Plus, I understand his feelings. He doesn’t care about the truth, all he chooses to see is that you killed his father and made his life… more complicated. He has always lived in the shadow of his father, obeying his wishes and orders, and he blames you because he has not figured out what to do with his life now.”
“And he’s in troubles because of me…”
“You know, however unique you think you are, you are such a stereotype… You’re kind, and you’ve been rejected from the people of this city for a long time. People like you, in such situation, either turn out to be angry and careless toward others’ lives, or to be self-ashamed, eager to blame themselves for the misfortunes of their fellows. Once again, don’t misunderstand my words, I think that the fact you’ve become the second type proves that you have a good heart. But there is a right balance between caring for others, and wearing all the burdens of the world. David’s situation might have begun with his father’s death, but the rest is only the result of his own choices. So grow up and quit your puny survivor’s guilt, please… Just consider the possibility that he’s become the first type of people I just described to you, and that whatever his future is, it’s only up to him. You simply cannot stop living because someone makes you feel guilty, we have no time for that… The countdown is ticking…”
This last sentence rang a bell in his mind. Probably because countdowns always stressed him, this expression always had an impact on the young man. And it instantly made him forget his worries about David, reminding him that Bolner had called him for a reason that seemed quite important. He had first believed that the threat on all the lives of this city had just been a little manipulation of the head of the city, but he was now starting to fear that something really big was about to fall on them.
“The countdown… to what? What exactly did you call me for?” The young man asked carefully, scared of the answer. “According to your words, many lives are at stake…”
“All of them, actually, if I’m right…” The big warrior replied with an anxious frown. “That’s why I need your expertise… Today, I received this…”
Bolner took out of his pocket a crumpled paper that he unfolded before his eyes. It looked like an official letter, but it held a seal he had never seen before; it didn’t belong to anyone in this city. The sentences written on it were strange, in the way that it seemed written by a mad man who probably saw himself as quite a big deal. But what really got his attention were the last words:
You have two days to either kneel before us, or be shot to death.
“I… I’m not sure I understand… It’s a threat?” The young man asked, hoping it wasn’t to be taken seriously.
“A declaration of war, actually.” Bolner replied flatly, like he was talking about the weather.
“From whom?”
“Alexander. The leader of another city, which has been a long time ally…” The massive warrior sighed. It sounded like the threat being sent from this particular city was worse to him than the threat itself.
“Why? If they have been our allies for a long time, what has changed?”
Bolner didn’t reply, but the young man saw him biting the insides of his cheeks as he glanced at him. This look meant anything but assertiveness… Obviously, there was something he knew, but didn’t want to tell. Had he made a mistake as a leader? Was it why he wanted him to come, in hope he could fix the situation? But he knew nothing in politics… The young man started to fear that the head of the city might want him to use Amaria as a strategic weapon. It was something he would never agree to! But the massive warrior simply avoided the question, walking back to his table with a deep sigh.
“Do you know a bit of the geography of the region?” He asked the young man.
Weird question, but knowing him, it was probably linked with the current situation, in some ways… He joined Bolner at the table, looking down at its reliefs. It was a map, and a really detailed one! The places he knew represented less than hundredth of the whole thing! Where did this table come from?
“I’ll admit I mostly know the places I’ve been… which means, not more than a few kilometers around…” He said in shame, drawing a small circle around the representation of the city with a finger as he realized the immensity of his ignorance.
“This road, here…” Bolner showed with an index. “It’s a very important one, sort of the main commercial axis with Alexander’s city. In fact, its role is important because this road is a symbol. Many other ways link his city to ours, but this one is the most direct and the least dangerous. Merchants, but also official diplomatic representatives use it, which means it also has political purposes. For these reasons, both cities keep a close watch on it. Any aggression, any misbehavior from one city on this road can easily be taken as a threat. To maintain good relations between us, both rulers do their best so nothing… annoying… happens there. We could say that the number of accidents can be an indicator of the political climate. And lately, it has become more… tensed.”
“There were some of these ‘accidents’ there, lately?” Amaria dared to ask. If she had been rather silent until now, the map seemed to revive her interests. Maybe did she see there a way to better understand humans, or maybe was she just amazed to see a geography setting she had only seen from the skies before.
“Let’s say that a few years ago, while we kept good relationships, a new ruler appeared in this city. Alexander. According to the saying, he named himself after a mythological warlord. He was someone who didn’t quite like having to be careful with us, because he saw it as a proof of weakness. I met him once, and he’s… a bit special. His words clearly meant that he found this arrangement disgusting. He kept saying that strong ones didn’t need to make friends with strangers, that his city would prove its worthiness in a better way if they didn’t have to justify everything to us. In brief, he thought of others either as enemies to be dominated, or as loyal subjects to his command. Before his rise to the power, he was quite controlled by the council of his city, which relentlessly tried to make him see the benefits of a strong collaboration that didn’t involve supremacy. But Alexander was kind of stubborn… I’ll make no mystery that I never liked him. To me, it was always clear that all he wanted from us was to submit to his authority.”
“From what you say, he seems to be the type…” The young man dropped with a frown, while Amaria nodded silently.
“And he would probably remind you of a man you had the displeasure to know… It happened that he also had a personal view on Mr. Devon, probably the only man in this city whom ideals fitted his, and whom he saw as a respectful rival. But I won’t waste more time on how their relationship disgusted me. The thing is, when things began to change in our city, he got a bit more… aggressive.”
“He became violent?” The dragoness asked naively. She had yet to understand the many ways a human could become ‘violent’…
“In his words, at least.” Bolner sighed. “Alexander had a personal interpretation of the course of events here, and he let me know through emissaries. When he learnt that the council of our city decided to give full power to a single man, he first congratulated me for such accomplishment. I sensed irony in his words, and envy too… I think that in his mind, I took over the city, quite logical for a man who doesn’t understand the values of trust, comradeship and political evolution. But a second letter was transmitted to me when he heard that we had a living dragon who seemed to live peacefully and freely inside our walls…” The big warrior said sinisterly, eyeing on Amaria. “He accused me of building a new kind of weapon, and said he considered it as a threat toward his city. I tried every polite way to tell him this had nothing to do with our military forces, and tried to make him understand that we saw them as precious allies, but he only calmed down when you both disappeared.”
The young man shivered, and by the stare he exchanged with his dragoness, he knew that they had both come to the same conclusion. Although it wasn’t a direct accusation, the situation Bolner was describing was rather clear: the tensions between the two cities had worsened because of the couple… And they had been totally unware of it. Now that he knew that, the young man kind of felt worried about the rest of his speech… After all, they had come back into the city… Could it… be the cause of this declaration of war?
“I guess there was more than my happiness in the balance when you pushed me away then…” He dared to comment, clenching his teeth.
“I’d rather say that it was a side bonus, but trust me, I wasn’t scared of his threats. I would have kept you there if that was what you wanted. I knew that as long as we didn’t show any hostility, his council wouldn’t allow an open war. They were wise men…”
The answer made the dragoness smile. She probably had only gotten the good part of the message, where Bolner assured that they were welcome whatever the situation. But the young man heard something else in Bolner’s words:
“In other circumstances, I would have probably not questioned it, but… were?”
“I learnt from my agents that there was a tragic accident of this road I mentioned…” Bolner nodded sadly. “When you came back, he started to threaten us again, so I politely invited the council to meet us, so they could see that we were not preparing any war against them. The council accepted, of course. This was the opportunity to cleanse the doubts once and for all. But they never made it to our city… Their bodies were found on this road by one of our merchants…”
Amaria seemed horrified by the news, but once again her lover wasn’t as gullible…
“And I guess I’m not being paranoid if I think their ruler is behind this tragedy?”
“This is the conclusion I came to… But there was no proof against him. I know that none of my men did that, but of course, he gladly accused us… I sent him an unharmed emissary to express our condolences and our hopes to maintain good relationship, but this time, this was our man who never reached their city…”
“Of course, you think he did this, or at least ordered his death?”
“Indeed. The fact that Alexander is behind all this is leaves no doubt to anyone, not even in his city from what I heard. I think war is inevitable, and his own men distrusting him is an advantage for us. I don’t think he could raise an army large enough to overcome ours, and until lately, I thought this gave us no reason to worry about. No one, as stupid and crazy they are, would send an army with no chance of success. But I think he found a way to reverse the tide…”
“What makes you think that way?”
“Because the body of our emissary was brought back to our city, and I think there is no mystery why we had so little trouble to find him… Come with me.”
Things were becoming worrying. A threat of impending war… The revelation that his acts had influenced the course of the event… A mad ruler from another city pulling the strings… and Bolner being nervous about all this. The last point was the most terrifying though. The massive warrior had knowledge of the battlefield, of strategy, and if he said that his army could defeat the other, then the only explanation for his concern was… that the enemy had a clear advantage. But what? Probably a weapon… What else could really reverse the tide in a war?
As they walked through tunnels with the same polished stone as in the map room, the young man’s mind was shared between his fascination for this structure, and his concerns about this situation. Glancing at Amaria, he noticed that the dragoness had a hard look, staring straight in front of her with like she was as lost in her thoughts as he was… And surely for the same reasons.
At the end of the road, a big, rusted door with four barely readable letters was awaiting them. Actually, only the first and the last, an ‘L’ and a ‘H’, could be read, the other two had been devoured by the rust… it vaguely reminded him something he had seen somewhere else… but where? It probably didn’t matter; what was on the other side was much more interesting.
The place was like an enormous room, dug into the core of the earth… a real treasure room… But instead of gold and jewels, all kinds of objects were here. And most of them were unknown to the young man. Like these wonderful things were of no interest for Bolner, the big warrior just walked toward a corpse simply laying on the ground. Though he had to admit this was a strange place to store a dead body, the young man felt far more interested by the treasures resting in this room.
“Bolner… What is this place?” He dared to ask.
“A place you’ll have to remember to forget… Only the leaders of this city have access to it, until they decide that the new generation is ready. According to legends, all these objects belonged to Adam.”
“Come on… Adam is exactly what you said, a legend…” He protested, seeing no reasonable theory behind this. He wasn’t the kind to listen to old tales. “Do you really believe in a heroic guy who cleansed this land from its demons to create a new world?”
“I do.” A voice replied to him. But to his surprise, it wasn’t Bolner’s. Next to him, Amaria was looking at him in a strange way, like his doubts were offensive to her.
“We have proofs that he truly existed.” Bolner said flatly. “And one of them is this room…”
“Okay, its content is astonishing, but it doesn’t mean there’s a supernatural explanation…”
“And yet, all this is intact… intact, and ageless. This room preserved all these unknown things exactly as they were when we first discovered them, a few centuries ago. It does this to any non-living thing. That’s why we sometimes store valuable things here too, where they seem to be protected from time itself. In the case of bodies, well… it prevents decaying…” The head of the city said, lowering his gaze on the corpse like he felt sorry for him to be considered as a ‘non-living thing’. “If you truly want to get proof of that, you could stay and observe him for as long as you want, to see by yourself that he will remain the same for as long as he stays there… But I think that you might want to put your time to better use, considering the situation…”
The young man sighed. If he wasn’t so sure that Bolner didn’t have that kind of humor, he would have thought of a bad joke. If he hadn’t been scared by a coming war, he would have surely asked the head of the city if he could be allowed to give a closer look on these treasures. Some of them did remind him some objects his parents had told him about, when he was young.
“Okay, fine… What do you want me to do?”
“I’d like you to inspect the body and tell me what you think killed him.”
What kind of game was Bolner playing, when, from his own saying, there was no time for that? It wasn’t like he was a doctor or something like that! But once again, he put his faith of the head of the city getting his priorities straight, and assumed there was actually something to notice on that body.
A simple look though wasn’t enough to answer this riddle. There was no cut on his clothes, so he wasn’t likely to be the victim of a sword or something sharp. Did this man die from poison? No, the young man couldn’t have been able to determine that. If Bolner wanted him to get a closer look, it meant that there was something to see here. And actually, something attracted his eyes, on the chest of the dead man. He hadn’t spotted it at first because of his reddish clothes, but a huge stain of blood seemed to have spread around the location of his heart. Inspecting closely, he noticed a little hole of ripped fabric, and saw that it penetrated under the skin and into the flesh…
“What is that?” He asked, and Amaria felt curious enough to come and get a closer look.
“This is why I asked your expertise for. The wound is too neat for having been caused by a spear or an arrow… I think this is a new kind of weapon we don’t know about… Maybe a big needle or something similar… I know your parents had an unconventional knowledge, so I kind of hoped you could tell me what this was. I think they left the body so we could see what they can do, but my own experts can’t tell me what it is…”
An unconventional knowledge? He couldn’t think of anything able to kill a man so neatly. Except maybe…
A chill ran through the body of the young man, like a terribly bad feeling… He hoped he was wrong; he had to be wrong! Taking out his keys, he used them to spread the deadly wound. It was deep, and he had to dig in the flesh… his improvised tools weren’t exactly the most convenient for this kind of disgusting task, but he had to be sure! Finally, after messing his hands with the blood of the dead body, he found something, something that couldn’t be a piece of bones… Using his keys to extract it, a little piece of blood cover metal popped out of the messed wound, before falling on the rocky ground with a little clinging.
“Oh no…” He dropped, his doubts confirmed.
“What is that?” Bolner and Amaria asked in a single voice.
The young man kneeled on the ground, and picked up the little blood covered piece of metal, looking at it with dread. The curved tip, the shape, the size… He tried to think of another explanation, but he found none. His worst nightmare had come true… This is why Alexander used these strange words in his letter… ‘shot to death’…
“A bullet… I have heard a lot about this, but until now, it was only an old legend my parents told me about… A long time ago, there was another civilization, people who mastered sciences at an unbelievable level, and that ended because of their arrogance… My parents used to tell me they had weapons that, according to the stories, used fire and had a destructive power equals to gods’. Their researches had allowed them to learn more about these, a knowledge they never shared for obvious reasons… This thing comes from common weapon of the olden times that people back then called ‘gun’. It basically uses some elements to produce a contained explosion, which throw a projectile at incredible speed, able to easily penetrate a body and kill. And this piece of metal I’m holding looks just like their description of a bullet.”
Bolner frowned, like he had troubles to assimilate these words. But probably also because such information wasn’t quite in their favors…
“Do you think that they discovered this too, in the other city? Maybe some researchers, like your parents, found this knowledge in the past…” The head of the city tried with a stoic face, though his voice let the sound of deep worries.
“Possible, but unlikely…” The young man replied, staring at the bullet he held, like this piece of metal was mocking him. “My parents were… specials. They were the heirs of a long lineage, that had been chosen to carry and protect the secrets of the past. Secrets that mostly died with them, since they didn’t have the time to share it with me. According to them, humans would invent these weapons sooner or later, but in order to keep a certain balance in this world, the knowledge of this old civilization had been buried deep. Buried deep…” He trailed off, looking at the treasures of the room.
What if their words had to be taken more… literally? This whole room was located deep under the ground level, where only rulers of this city could come…
“Have you ever checked the contents of this room? Have you identified what was the purpose of these objects? Maybe some of them could be weapons we could use to defend ourselves.” He suggested with hope.
“I told you we had proofs of Adam’s existence…” Bolner dropped, lowering the head. “When we discovered this room, a long time ago, there was a letter signed in his name, laying right here.” He said, pointing at his feet. “It said that this room had fulfilled its purpose, and that everything useful had been used when he cleansed the world from its demons. He advised us to leave these objects to an eternal rest, and to not try to understand them. He said that his world deserved to have a place to be forgotten in. To be sure that people wouldn’t disrespect his legacy, he’s been very specific that any weapon of any kind was long gone from here and that all we needed to make this world better than his was out there. Nobody ever disobeyed his wishes. We never touched or tried to understand these things. But we assume there’s no weapon in there.”
If this legendary man had really existed, he had been quite visionary… He knew that the human curiosity wouldn’t resist to dig in the past, especially if they thought they could find something to dominate their enemies. No wonder why this city kept this place secret. In a way, it confirmed his theory… his parents had hidden in their words that they knew about this place. But unfortunately, it meant that nothing here could help them to fight the enemies who gathered out there. And there was no time to inspect this room in hope the message was a lie…
On the other hand, assuming this message was telling the truth, it meant that the other city couldn’t have sent a spy who would have conveniently found this new weapon here. And he truly believed that his parents would have never told anyone how to craft it. Even he, their own child, wouldn’t know, since they consistently told him he was still too young to be introduced to these secrets… He was deeply bothered by the feeling that he was missing something important.
“Are you really sure they couldn’t have found it by themselves?” Amaria tried Bolner’s approach, probably with a desperate hope for a different answer. War was probably an abstract concept for a dragon, but even though, she sensed the gravity of the situation. “After all, maybe it wasn’t so complicated…”
“Maybe they got some geniuses who figured it out, but still… When I asked my parent, they kept telling me the formula of the required powder for this specific weapon was at the same time simple, and too complex for our society.”
“Why so?”
“Because apparently, the natural elements can be found on this island, but are spread here and there… My parents used to tell that the gods had done so, in order to force humans to cooperate before being able to annihilate each other. If that’s right, they were smart gods… Charcoal can be found anywhere, but sulfur is more abundant on volcanic regions, and saltpeter is a powder that forms on walls, in humid region, when the water evaporates. And even though, it would require someone who possess good chemical knowledge to get the idea to combine them in the right proportions…”
While he was staring at the treasures, lost in his thoughts, the young man could see in the corner of his eye that his dragoness and the head of the city exchanged a worried look. Maybe the most important was to figure out how to counter the threat rather than discovering how it emerged… But this ‘how’ deeply bothered him…
“I thought your parents never told you the secrets of this olden civilization… how come you know all this?” Bolner asked.
“It wasn’t them.” The young man sighed at these details. “I did some researches about these elements after I’ve been told by… by…”
Suddenly, everything became clear in his mind. Of course! How could he not understand it sooner?! He knew how their enemies had developed these weapons! Someone had already done it before, or at least the fundamentals! Struck by horror, he slowly turned his head to look at Bolner.
“I have to go… Prepare the defense, I’ll try to help you…” The young man said, sensing anger starting to boil within him. He tried to walk toward the exit, but the head of the city held him by the arm.
“Wait, what’s happening?!”
The young man looked at the massive warrior with a tough stare, and took his arm back. In other circumstances, he would have taken the time to explain it nicely, but his realization had erased the last pieces of his patience.
“What’s happening? A bunch of blood-thirsted, heavily armed guys, led by a mad man, is coming to either see us kneel in front of them, or to kill us all. And you want to know why? Because the two of us were too nice and understanding to see what was going on in the shadow! This weapon they developed was never their invention! Someone from our city stole my parents’ work, gave it to them, and we saw nothing! Now, either you decide that this city will submit, either we’re going to prepare a solid defense to handle this coming storm! But first, there’s something I need to get done, right now!”
With these words, he walked angrily toward the door, Amaria behind him. His entire life, he had tried to be good! He had tried to understand, to give a chance to others, and this was his reward! This time, a sensitive nerve had been touched and he wouldn’t let it slip!
“Are you at least going to tell me what you intend to do?!” Amaria asked with concern, having troubles to follow him despite her steps being bigger than his. “I know that attitude, and every time I saw it, it was because it was personal!”
“And it is! There might be nothing I can do about the past, but there’s something I can do right now, and it’s going to feel really good! I’m going to tell this son of the devil what kind of man his father really was, and then I’ll be able to focus on what truly matters!”
“Wait! You’re not going to talk to this kid again! I told you…”
“You told me you wouldn’t let me until I’m ready, and I am now!” He cut her off, unwilling to discuss his decision, even with her.
“What has changed?! What tells you he won’t play on you once again?!”
“Because this time, I’m angrier than he is…”
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Western Dragon
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 36.2 kB
Listed in Folders
Ayou are definitely more productive than m, thsts for sure hahaha. It takes me at least 3 months to write a chapter that only consist of 3000 word. (Then again im working on bunch of other stuff as well hahaha)
I'm Gonna read it when i have the time and I'm certain i will enjoy it.^^
I wasnt expecting it to be released this early to be honest, i dont think its took that long at all.
I'm Gonna read it when i have the time and I'm certain i will enjoy it.^^
I wasnt expecting it to be released this early to be honest, i dont think its took that long at all.
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