Read The Burden of the Protector Online
Authors: S.C. Eston
The Burden of the Protector
The Burden
of the Protector
A Novella
S.C. Eston
Thank you for reading my story.
- Steve
This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BURDEN OF THE PROTECTOR
Copyright © 2016 by S.C. Eston. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author except where permitted by law, or for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by
Kira Rubenthaler of Bookfly Design (
bookflydesign.com
)
and
Vanessa Ricci-Thode (
thodestool.com
)
Cover art and design by Tom Edwards (
tomedwardsdesign.com
)
Formatting by Stef Mcdaid of
WriteIntoPrint.com
Inside art and map by S.C. Eston
Table of Contents
Map of the Province of Ta’Énia
7. Further Deceptions and Wiles
For GAETAN,
Who has been there since the beginning.
“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition,
but certainty is a ridiculous one.”
- Voltaire
“A friend to all is a friend to none.”
- Aristotle
Map of the Province of Ta’Énia
The First Words
Only one final act remained.
Tucked under a warm blanket, an old man sat on a bed, alone and looking inconsequential. He was just another who had come and was about to leave. The bed rested against the wall of a single-room house located on the outskirts of life.
With a slowness derived from age, the man dipped the tip of a white feather in a pot of black ink. Quivering slightly, he brought the feather in front of him, toward the curled parchment resting in his lap. Close by, a candle flame oscillated as a light breeze made its way into the room. A droplet left the quill prematurely and disappeared in the folds of the milk-white bedspread, imprinting it with a permanent blemish.
Doubt floated in the room, haunting in its omnipresence. It assailed the old man’s mind and brittle bones, digging deep and causing hurt. The pain was visible in the many wrinkles stacked on the man’s forehead and the torment in his eyes. The elder had waited a lifetime for his hesitancy to go away, and it had taken a lifetime to realize it wouldn’t.
Once, sharing his past might have been a choice. Now it had become a necessity.
Closing his fingers on the scroll, the old man pushed it open and exposed its blank surface. Then he put ink to paper…and wrote his first words.
Shading 1, year 3001, Dàr is 59.
Such a deplorable injustice.
It was perpetrated many decades ago, at a time when I was innocent and naive, a young man in his early twenties. The series of events left deep scars on my soul. For many long years, that is for most of my life, using relentless denials and lies, I was able to ban the disturbing images and surround myself with the illusion that these events were nothing more than hallucinations born of childish nightmares.
I was able to forget.
I lived what could be perceived as a normal life in these regions, if nowhere else.
As I now approach the age of the end, unwanted memories and a promise made long ago have returned to haunt me. It started about a month ago, with inchoate words murmured to me through distant and moving dreams. I would awaken, disturbed, but unable to recall. The dreams came again and again. Relentlessly. Torturing me until a week ago, when, while taking my daily walk, I erred through the eastern woods until I reached a promontory. There I dared to look upon the Yurita Highlands, my eyes going naturally to the bridge of Saril. Overtaken by powerful emotions, I nonetheless placed the voice talking to me in my dreams. It was the voice of an old friend.
Vìr.
Following that revelation, my mind turned traitorous, plaguing me with manifestations of a past I didn’t want to acknowledge. Once a coward, always a coward. I again tried to forget. But possibly because of my old bones, or maybe it was my lack of stamina, I failed.
I desperately needed to find a way to alleviate my conscience. My troubled mind convinced me, against all better judgement, to go to the library and find the written history, see with my own eyes the immutable words as penned down by the scholars of the League.
I was convinced that whatever I would find would free me. But it didn’t or I would not be here, committing to paper the events as I remember them.
*
It was five days ago that I decided to visit the library. As the sun dropped behind the hills of the west, I made my way through our small village. With each step, I kept trying to convince myself that I was only going to the library to peruse, to find a good book, one of those fictitious stories written by a scholar with too wild an imagination, a fable that ends with the promise of a peaceful abode after death. Many, as they reach the age of the end, want to depart with such promises in their heads. A final plea for consolation and reassurance.
Nice thoughts, but the nature of my visit was anything but legitimate. Manuscripts, especially those about history, are property of the Sy’Iss and only a select few scholars are privy to their contents. I, born to a family of mere knights, knew this. But still I went, my despair having mutated into a deep curiosity.
The Sy’Iss and its scholars kept history, made history, and were history. I was now on a mission to disprove my own recollections, and I knew the words of the Sy’Iss would do just that. At the time, strangely, that was my only focus.
If I were not a retired knight protector and a senile old man, I am certain my intrusion would not have been permitted. As it was, the clerk and bookkeeper glanced briefly at me and discarded me. This indifference was reciprocal, I must admit, and at any given time in the village, I was able to walk by the scholars without seeing them. But this time, I was wary and it was impossible to take my eyes away from the two individuals. They showed no recognition as I looked upon them. They were scholars of the Sy’Iss, untouchable strangers and more important than I.
Not making a noise, I passed rapidly through two rooms I had seen on previous visits. Down a flight of stairs, inside another room. Then I stopped in front of a heavy door, located in a lone corner. A part of me hoped it would be locked, to put an end to my delirious quest.
With a tremulous hand, I turned the knob…and found it opened. I couldn’t believe my luck. Or damnation.
Inside I found a space so vast as to overwhelm the senses. A high dome, covered in a fresco depicting images of the old west and its scholars, young and old. On the floor stood hundreds of bookshelves, arranged with an impressive symmetry. From the outside, the library had a unique façade, humble in size. The building was stuffed between tall trees, hugged by branches and leaves. But here, in its belly, the library was grandiose.
Knowing I didn’t belong, I hesitantly went from shelf to shelf. I was ready to label the search as futile when I found, in a shadowy corner, two large wooden bookcases with documents seemingly related to Ta’Énia. A quick glance told me these texts were about our village’s history, ordered by year, starting with the arrival of the League.
My trepidation grew. But with surprising determination, I went through several documents, scripts, parchments, and scrolls, as well as those rare books, many times over, one by one. Then again, from the beginning. After several sweeps, I could not deny it any longer. My search was in vain.
I found not a single mention of the events in which I had taken part. Of the years ’63 to ’65, there was but a single manuscript, aged, rolled, and secured by a thin twine, containing a few words. Prosperity, it said. Good years…
Nothing really. Lies. But nothing.
I should have been elated. Instead, I was overtaken by cold fear. Confounded and shaking, I simply stood there. And there I stayed for a long while. How long, I don’t know. Everything was false. The Sy’Iss had confirmed it in writing. There was no more to be said. And yet, I wasn’t ready to give up.
I started to wander and slipped, unknowingly, into the Hall of Names. All knew of the main corridor of the library, although few had seen it. Long, narrow, with a high arched ceiling, the Hall of Names had on both walls small right-angled compartments, each holding a single scroll, a biography of each of the scholars of Ta’Énia, alive or gone. These were arranged by alphabetical order and so, now excited, I made my way to the end of the hallway.
My fear turned to terror.
Of Vìr, I found not a single mention. It was as if he had not existed. I looked and looked again. Varatàm, Véria, Volus, Waràm. And again…Véria, Volus, Waràm, Waria…
For a moment, my sanity almost left me. How was it possible that he wasn’t there?