The Burden of the Protector (2 page)

And then I thought of Maéva. Certainly, she of all scholars would be here. And if she was I would find words about Vìr.

As I started moving toward the section that would contain information about Maéva, a door opened at the end of the hall. The keeper appeared. I lifted my hands and feigned being lost. Silently and rudely, with an iron grip on my elbow, the keeper escorted me outside. There he left me with a shouted warning not to return.

As I reached the family house, I was so taken by my discovery, or lack thereof, that I had already forgotten my transgression.

History, it seemed, had been altered. Some facts buried. Vìr…expunged. If only I had been able to look for Maéva. She had been one of their best. The Sy’Iss would not, could not, have erased her also.

It was thus that instead of discarding what I remembered, I became more certain of it. The more I thought about it all, the more convinced I was that I hadn’t imagined everything. At least part of my memories had to contain some parcels of truth. If nothing else, Vìr’s request had to have been real.

The next morning, I made an important decision, one I should have made at twenty-four when it would have truly mattered. This resolution went against everything I had been taught, but it had to be done. The poison had to come out.

I decided to defy the will of the Sy’Iss. I had done it once a long time ago, before becoming a loyal servant. I needed to tell about those accursed years of my life.

The truth as I know it is contained in the manuscript you are now reading.

*

The day of my resolution, they came for me.

My sixtieth birthday was one week away. Envoys usually came on the day one turned sixty. In some rare cases, they came earlier. Not once have I heard of them coming later.

I could only associate their early appearance with my transgression at the library. The keeper had made a report to the Sy’Iss, as he should. And the Sy’Iss, to prevent more misdemeanours, decided it was time. There were four knight soldiers, no protector. I recognized all of them, but no words were exchanged. They were young and impassive, well trained and wearing the dark orange banner of the Sy’Iss, with handmade silvery epaulets. Each had a long sword on his belt. I always hated those swords, which couldn’t compare to the elegance of the protectors’ bows.

They took me to a rest home on the outskirts of the village. Not one of the knights’ rest homes, as I had expected. Nor was it one of the scholars’ rest homes. A different home, unknown to me and probably to many others.

The accommodations were small, a single room with a bed, a rocking chair, a small fireplace, an even smaller desk, and a rectangular window…facing to the east…

Facing the Yurita Highlands.

Facing faraway Ul Darak.

I still shiver at the spectacle and its implications. To die with eyes upon the Borders promises an eternity of pointless wandering, ever vagabonding and never reaching the final rest.

At first, this realization sapped my vitality. The knights shoved me inside and left me. For the next two days, I took to the bed and barely moved. Lying down, I trembled from fear, crushed by the judgement passed upon me. I averted my eyes from the window. But the shapes of Ul Darak would not go away. The high crags, the piercing summits, the infinite and cloudy sky, the deep valleys and passes. And the storms, the deluges, the quakes, the opening of chasms and black abysses… I have lived my whole life looking at Ul Darak, guarding others from falling victim to its many dangers. It was impossible for me not to imagine it. Its silhouettes and grand presence were imprinted on my soul. As was the fear.

But even in that sorry state, I couldn’t forget the past. Vìr’s voice lingered, unrelenting, murmuring in my ear.

On the day before I started to write, I finally sat up and looked outside. Toward Ul Darak. Vìr was the only one I knew who had not been intimidated by the Borders. It was for him, and for Maéva, that I had decided to do this. And so I braved the sight of the cursed land and went on to fulfill my promise.

When the next knight came, delivering food, I asked for my eldest son. He visited shortly thereafter and I asked him for ink, a quill, and parchment, under the pretext of writing a short memoir, a text to be shared with my grandchildren and kept in the family annals. The lie came easily and my son obliged, although we both knew he would never share the text with any of my grandchildren.

Maybe Vìr knew it would come to this. His insistence was the only reason I accepted his teachings and learned the way of words. One would think that left to myself, I would have repudiated the practice. But I didn’t, for reasons unknown even to me. The love of words and reading is another of my many weaknesses.

Through Vìr, I learned to read and write and ultimately came to start this memoir. The memories are unnaturally vivid and blur the thin line between a disturbing past and a desperate present.

But let it begin from the start, with the discovery that changed everything.

*

Falling 2, year 2965, Dàr is 24.

The curious object stood in the middle of a verdant glade. The first thing I noticed was that it didn’t belong. It had the attributes of a mistake, completely alien to its environment. The sight was disturbing. It felt like something was suddenly wrong with the world. Even the tree branches seemed to shy away.

The thing was opaque, plain and grey, a single tint, no variation. It clashed against the lively foliage surrounding it. It contrasted with the colours of autumn, with the splatters of red and pink, yellow and orange.

I closed my eyes and took a long breath. The cold odour of fall was calming. It was a likable smell, my favourite season. I tightened the grip on my bow and felt the comforting wood under my fingers. The weapon was familiarity and normality. A memento from my father, passed down for generations, now almost two hundred years old I was told. An ancient weapon, but well kept and as deadly today as it had been in centuries past.

As I mastered my emotions, my thoughts started to align. The highlands of Yurita were vast, one of the many regions fringing the Borders of Ul Darak. This area was highly unstable and dangerous. There was only one way to reach the uplands, and it was across the notorious bridge of Saril—part arches and hard stones, part planks and ropes, standing a thousand feet above the valley floor. The bridge was close to where I was standing, a few minutes away at a run. The two main paths to Yurita passed on each side of this forested patch. My company and fellow protectors patrolled this region daily. How was it possible that no one had noticed this place and this object until now?

Without moving, keeping a tight grip on my bow, I opened my eyes.

The curio hadn’t moved.

I took a few steps to the left, trying to get a better vantage point. Dead leaves crunched under my leather boots. A small branch cracked. In the distance, an eagle cried, the sound echoing against the ravine walls. Everything was so loud and clear.

A hundred feet ahead, the inert thing didn’t change, and it didn’t seem to be reflecting the noon rays of the sun. As I moved a little farther, the colour seemed to become lighter, like silvery metal, with a certain gloss.

I climbed on a large mossy log and was finally able to make out more of the shape. It was a cube with blunt edges, with a weak inclination from left to right and a slight cavity on its top side. It stood as high as my waist and looked incredibly heavy. The most intimidating feature remained its complexion. Solid, unchanging, unmovable, untouched by the variations of the world surrounding it. It seemed unaffected by the passage of time, having the appearance of a new fabrication, carved but a few days ago.

There was no convincing me to move closer. It was not only the object itself; it was the impossibility of the discovery and its implications. The Sy’Iss needed to know. Vìr would want to know. I knew my duty lay with the Sy’Iss, and yet there I was, hesitating and trembling with fright, the normal routine of my life shattered.

I looked around and couldn’t figure out how it had been brought here. Not by the bridge. It was too large and certainly too heavy. Could it be the Sy’Iss? Had I stumbled on one of the organization’s rumoured secret experiments?

No. That…thing was not from Ta’Énia. Nor was it from Jarum.

A morbid fascination was the only thing keeping me from running away. I was enthralled. Against my better judgement, I started to explore the perimeter, one delicate step at a time. It was a slow process. At every step, I stopped and looked at the curio, expecting it to change or move. Or I looked back toward the path leading to Ta’Énia with a mix of hope and fear, wanting someone to appear yet dreading being discovered.

The forest held no sign of someone visiting the location, no broken branch, no footprint, no grass flattened, no hidden pathway.

Since my early childhood, I was taught through stories and history to fear the Borders, to avoid them, to stay away. That was the main role of the knight protectors, to guard against the dangers of Ul Darak, to block the ignorant and naive from getting too close. The travellers, explorers, scholars, painters and artists, pilgrims and monks, or those looking for a place to die. I had been raised and trained to stop anybody from going into Ul Darak.

I didn’t know what to do with something coming out.

*

The suspended section of the bridge of Saril was swaying to the lullaby of the wind, the creaking a part of the melody. I crossed and stopped when I reached the solid part of the bridge. This section was ancient and built of rocks, a wonder of architecture spanning the full width of the chasm of Saril. The construction was an impressive spectacle, bordered on both sides by natural rock pillars, which from afar could easily be confounded with giant silhouettes of guards or knights. The last stone section had been destroyed long ago and replaced by the rope bridge, which was a weak and unworthy bandage.

I put a hand on the stone railing and looked back toward the tree-covered hill I had left behind, a rounded mountain now turning red with the coming of winter. The sun floated to the west, still high, but slowly falling. A few more hours and it would disappear behind the highest summits, causing shadows to clamber up the slopes.

I had completed most of my round and was now on my way back to Ta’Énia. All the while, the discovery of the strange silver entity stayed with me, present in my every thought, imprinted permanently. It was all so clear, disturbingly real.

It was impossible for me to see the object from my current location. It rested on the other side of the curved ridge. And still it pulled at me.

I realized I was leaning dangerously over the railing of the bridge. I took a hurried step backward. Even after crossing the bridge every two days for more than five years, my fear of heights had not lessened.

My heart was pounding loudly. I felt terribly confused. Everything had been so easy until this day. Each step of my life mapped for me, by our traditions, by my parents, by the Sy’Iss. So why was I now hesitating?

A part of me wanted to divulge everything to Vìr, the only person I could call a friend. His every day was spent looking for exactly such a strange object. My other half wanted to do what was expected of me. Go directly to the Sy’Iss.

I approached the edge of the bridge again, carefully this time. I looked far away, over the endless hills covered in green grass and large boulders, going up and down until they reached the impassable barrier of Ul Darak. There the greenery tried to climb the steep façade but failed. Nothing could grow so high. Mountains and peaks, each taller than the next, reaching for the cerulean sky. Rocks going from a deep brown to a light grey and finally to black, or so it suggested. So far away, it was impossible to tell if the stone was truly black or if it was because the rays of the sun didn’t shine that far. Many summits, so formidable as to make one feel insignificant, barbed, gigantic black daggers. Higher and farther away, more pinnacles and zeniths, conflicting, completely covered in white and going on endlessly. How high had a mountain to be for it to be covered in snow for eternity? How high that it pierced the sky and the clouds?

I shook my head, pushed away the feeling of awe mixed with despair that one always felt in the presence of Ul Darak.

There was nothing in Ul Darak. No creature could cross it or live in it. It was too unpredictable, too deadly, plagued with frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which produced thick clouds of ashes. Landslides and avalanches were common. Schisms could open in the ground on any given day, creating impassable divisions, such as the chasm of Saril, but even wider, deeper.

No, the object could not come from there. Nothing could.

From where, then? Could it be that it had always been where it was, and by pure hazard, we had never found it before? Could it belong to a thousand-year-old extinct civilization?

Standing alone at the edge of the bridge of Saril, I could not decide what to do. I knew then that if only I had not befriended Vìr, there would have been no hesitation in my mind.

I hated him in that instant. Hated him for all the wild ideas he had shared with me and for the rebellious spirit he had somehow awakened in me.

This…discovery. It changed everything, and I didn’t even know why.

What was I to do? Why was I even hesitating?

Truly, what harm could come from sharing it with the Sy’Iss instead of Vìr? I knew the consequences if it was uncovered that I’d hidden the matter from the Sy’Iss. A great many people might pay for such a lie. My fellow protectors and knights. Probably some scholars. Maybe even Vìr, who regularly visited this region. Who was to say my family would even be spared? Not to mention the disappointment.

Why chance it?

Why indeed?

*

When I reached the village, late, my deep incertitude was still plaguing me. My usual comfort was shattered.

I started doubting what I had seen. The impossibility of it was staggering. Could the thing have been some kind of hallucination? I started to wonder if I was sick with some strange affliction of the mind.