Parabolis (2 page)

He was different. And he knew it.

It was this self-aggrandized sense of purpose pitted against an indifferent world that made Dale a brooding, temperamental adolescent. The world didn’t care what he thought of himself. In its busyness, in all its moving parts, Dale Sunday was just another kid—a dreamer put in his place by the overwhelming reality. At twelve years old, not many saw past his mediocrity, no one knew his musings. He was noticed instead for his socks. Long, black-and-white striped wool socks pulled up to his knees.

The previous summer, when the heat of the Westerlies blew away the temperate effects of the bay, Dale had taken the liberty of cutting his school uniform pants into a pair of shorts. Months later, his shortsighted alterations left him with nothing but his wool socks to fend off the winter chill.

“Don’t be a weasel,” Dale said to his friend, Arturo Lucien.

“I’m not. We never shook on it. You have to shake on it.”

For Dale, knowing he had beaten Arturo at arm wrestling was reward enough. The money didn’t really matter. It was the principle.

“Says who?”

“Everyone knows you gotta shake on it!”

“Give me my shilling.”

And that’s when Marcus Addy approached with three of his friends. “Would you look at these little dipshits.
Give me my shilling!
”

At fourteen years old, Marcus was the only one in his class with a mustache. A head taller and a budding acne problem made it clear to all that Marcus was superior. He was also the son of Count Nigel Addy, the school’s largest donor and one of Carnaval City’s premiere aristocrats.

“We were just talking about whether or not you have to shake on a bet for it to count,” Arturo bumbled. “I was saying—”

“Shut up, twerp!” barked one of Marcus’ friends. “No one cares.”

Marcus looked at Dale. Then, at his socks.

“Does your mommy know you stole her knickers?”

Everyone began to laugh. In his nervousness, even Arturo forced a chuckle. Dale felt the heat rise from his chest, through his throat, and to his ears. It wasn’t the first time someone had commented on his socks. Mostly, it didn’t bother him when people commented on his socks. But this was Marcus. And he made mention of a mother Dale did not have.

“I don’t know, Marcus. Does
your
mommy know you stole her mustache?”

Everyone gasped. Arturo masked a burst of laughter with a cough. And then he slowly inched away.

Dale stood alone, his chest up, a defiant look on his face. As Marcus stepped up to him, the anger and the defiance faded, and they were quickly replaced by fear.

He grabbed Dale by the collar and cocked his fist.

“What’d you say?”

“I think you heard what I said.”

Having sealed his fate, Dale braced himself for the beating. Arturo waited wide-eyed in morbid fascination. The bell rang signaling the end of the lunch period. The teachers appeared on the schoolyard to round up the children. Marcus released Dale with a shove.

“You’re dead.”

Then they all slowly merged with the rest of the shuffling bodies back into the school hall.

“Are you crazy?” asked Arturo. “What’s the matter with you?”

“You still owe me a shilling.”

“Here.” Arturo handed him the coin. “A lot of good it’ll do you when you’re dead.”

Like he did every day, as soon as class got out, Dale went over to the first-grade trailers to fetch his cousin, Mosaic. He was tasked with walking her to school and back from his uncle’s bakery in the Waterfront District. On this particular day, Mosaic was not outside. He stood, waiting, his eyes darting from one end of the schoolyard to the other for signs of Marcus. The urgency inside him seemed to slow time. When he could stand still no longer, Dale stepped around and peered through the small window on the door. The teacher was addressing the class. Mosaic sat attentively in the back row.

When the class finally emptied, Dale grabbed Mosaic by the wrist.

“Let’s go, Mo. Hurry.”

Dale walked as quickly as he could with Mosaic in tow.

“Dale, why are we walking so fast? My feet hurt.”

“I know, but we have to hurry.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

As they passed the laundry service, Dale got a waft of that distinct bay smell—of fishy gull droppings and salted air. They turned into the alley that cut across the block and into the waterfront. They were almost home.

“Hey, dipshit!”

Dale turned, still holding Mosaic’s hand. Behind them, Marcus and his three friends approached from the end of the alley.

“Dale, who are they?” asked Mosaic.

Dale looked at her, then to the alley opening ahead. They were just half a block from the Waterfront District where at this time of day there were sure to be familiar faces—mostly fisherman and merchants—who knew them by name. He could’ve made a run for it, if it wasn’t for Mosaic. Dale looked down at her. He tried to smile.

“Mo, can you get to the bakery by yourself from here? I just need to talk to these guys.”

Mosaic looked at him dubiously. “No. I’ll wait.”

“Just get going. Listen to me. I’ll be right there.”

The four boys were almost upon them. Dale nudged Mosaic behind him and gave her a firm push. “Go on, Mo. I’ll be right there.”

She took a few half-hearted steps toward the other end of the alley.

The boys surrounded Dale.

Marcus knocked Dale’s books out of his hand. He shoved him toward the side of the alley. “What? You got nothing clever to say now?” He punched Dale in the stomach.

It was the first time someone had hit him. It startled him more than it hurt. As he doubled over, Dale noticed Marcus’ brand new, red leather shoes.

“Who’s the jackass now?”

One of Marcus’ friends stood him up. Before Dale could look up, he was punched in the nose.

Through the shouts and laughter, through the salty blur, Dale turned to see where Mosaic was. He could see her standing there. Frozen. Frightened. Again, Dale tried to smile at her.

“Look! He thinks it’s funny. Hit him again!”

A punch landed on the side of his head. And then they were all on top of him. Dale curled up and covered his head.

Mosaic screamed, “Stop! Stop it!”

Dale tried to stand up, but he couldn’t. Again, he curled up. He could hear Mosaic crying. The boys were now on their feet, kicking him.

Then it suddenly stopped.

The kicking stopped. Mosaic was quiet. Dale opened his eyes to see Marcus sprawled out on the ground next to him, unconscious. The other boys had taken a few steps back behind Marcus, stunned, staring at the small boy who stood over their friend, who had just knocked him out with one well-placed punch. They hadn’t even realized he was there until Marcus was flat on his back.

Dale looked up. Standing above him was his best friend, Sparrow.

Of the proverbial four corners of the world, Sparrow was an immigrant from the shores of Azureland, or the Far East. Common to people from Azuric nations, his fair skin was tinted yellow, like the color of dried bamboo. He had a shallow brow, high cheekbones, dark almond-shaped eyes, and hair as black as a raven. Like all boys of the Far East, his head was kept closely shaved, as they were not allowed to grow their hair out until their coming of age.

Sparrow had permanently swollen tear-troughs that made him look like he’d just woken up after crying himself to sleep. And he had a scar that ran horizontally across his cheekbone just below his left eye, from the slash of a blade. Unable to afford proper schooling, Sparrow was an apprentice to a blacksmith who ran a disciplined shop. He was trained daily not only in the art of weapons crafting, but in all matters of martial skills including weapons and hand-to-hand combat.

Marcus began to come to. One of the boys said to the others, “Get him.” But no one moved.

Sparrow’s thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, his expression like a boy counting bubbles in a fountain drink. Sparrow wasn’t violent by nature. He just lacked the basic inhibitions that most people possessed, and that, combined with his training, proved useful in a fight.

“C’mon, let’s get him,” another urged as Marcus recovered.

One of the boys lunged at Sparrow. Sparrow sidestepped the assailant, swept his legs as he stumbled past. Before he could regain his stance, the other two boys jumped him. Together they managed to grab Sparrow and hold his arms behind him.

“Marcus, we got him! We got him! Hit him!”

As Dale staggered to his feet, Marcus punched his friend with vengeful fervor. Overcome with rage, adrenaline coursing through his veins, Dale plowed his shoulder into Marcus’ side and drove him into the ground. He began swinging his arms wildly. And as each blow landed on Marcus’ face, blood streaming out of his nose and over his fuzzy little mustache, he couldn’t help but feel sorry. For himself. For Marcus. For all of their losses.

“A lass will lose her innocence making love,” a naval officer had once told him, “and a lad, making war.”

“Dale!” Mosaic screamed.

Sparrow broke free by running backwards up against the alley wall and upon impact, throwing his head back into one of his captor’s noses. Just then, the sound of a whistle pierced the air. It blew again, louder, closer.

“You lads, stop right there!” From the far end of the alley, a constable came running toward them holding a club in his hand.

Dale immediately jumped up off of Marcus, grabbed his books, and ran toward Mosaic.

“Come on! Run!”

Sparrow followed them out into a sea of people along the busy streets of Carnaval City’s Waterfront District. When they could see the constable was no longer in pursuit, they stopped below an overpass.

Dale’s hands were still shaking, his knuckles swollen and bruised. Mosaic was still crying in rhythmic sniffles. Dale set his books down in a neat stack and crouched down beside her.

“
Shh
, it’s okay, Mo,” he tried. “We’re okay, now. See?”

He patted her on the back as her sniffles slowed until she finally slurped up the air and sighed.

“I want to go home,” she whimpered, her face still glistening with tears.

Sparrow was holding his ribs, one of his eyes ballooning shut.

“You all right?” asked Dale.

Sparrow looked up and nodded. He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand and sat propped up against a column supporting the overpass.

“I’ll be right back. Come on, Mo.” Dale rushed Mosaic across the street, around the corner, down a block, and around another corner, up to the front of the bakery.

Just before she walked through the door, Mosaic stopped.

“What’s the matter?”

Mosaic looked at Dale, a little wrinkle forming between her brows. She rubbed her eyes and frowned.

“I’m telling on you!”

Then she ran in.

When Dale got back to the overpass, Sparrow was reading one of his books.

“We’re doing a series on classic novels,” said Dale, crouching down beside him. “We have to read two of those every month. You know how to read?”

“Some,” Sparrow replied, gently placing it back on the stack. “Master T’varche taught me.
The sharpest weapon in the world is a well-read mind.
”

They sat a moment, staring into nothing.

“I think you might have broken that kid’s nose,” said Dale.

“Maybe. Nothing compared to what you did to Marcus.”

“What
I
did to him? You’re the one who knocked him out.”

Dale still took an occasional peek over his shoulder for the constable.

“Master T’varche told me that if a man strikes you, it’s okay to strike him back,” said Sparrow. “But if a man strikes your brother, that man must die.”

Sparrow never asked how the fight started. To him it didn’t matter.

“You really believe that?” asked Dale.

Sparrow shrugged. Then the corner of his lips slowly curled into a smirk.

“What?” asked Dale, pressing the tender bruise forming around his left cheek.

“Nice socks.”

Igotta go.”

“Yeah, I’d better get going too,” said Dale.

He was supposed to go to his father’s ship-breaking yard, or in local parlance, “the breaker,” to see an old decommissioned naval frigate. Dale had been anxious to see the ship ever since his father had told him about the holes and scoring on the deck from battles with Submariners. It was a parcel of common interest he shared with an otherwise absent father.

The son of a poor Albian immigrant, Dale’s father was a hard worker and a fair businessman. He had poured his life into building a business—a business of disassembling things of the past, piecing it out, selling and trading. It provided a stable living for Dale and his older brother, Darius, but his commitment to his work mixed with an already somber disposition made him an absent father, even when he was physically present.

“Hey, how do I look?”

“Like you’ve been in a fight.”

Dale despaired at the thought of spoiling the rare engagement with his father wearing blood and bruises and having to explain himself.

“You think I can go with you instead? To the shop?”

Sparrow shrugged. “If you want.”

People from all over made their way through Carnaval City. It was the trade capital of the West, the hub of Meredine’s thriving economy. Strategically positioned along the eastern seaboard, the city boasted one of the world’s largest seaports and busiest train stations. Like most Azuric immigrants, Sparrow lived in the lower Southside of the Central District, or Azuretown. Though it was only a fifteen-minute walk from the waterfront, to Dale it felt like another country. The strange smells of herbs and spices, the chaos of vendors and traders speaking over one another in foreign tongues, men with distant faces squatting along the wall—it all heightened that sense of
elsewhere
. Even the signs were written in Azuric characters.

Sparrow had taught Dale how to distinguish between the three dominant tribes of Azureland by the way the older men wore their hair. The Shen wore long braided tails, while the Omeijians shaved the crown of their heads and intricately folded their ponytails onto the bare pates. The Goseonites, Sparrow’s people, simply gripped their hair together into a short topknot.