The Burden of the Protector (8 page)

Master Iirus brought me before the other masters of the Sy’Iss. Six firm faces looked gravely at me and wanted to hear the whole thing from start to finish. I repeated the charade. They believed every word, without hesitation. I cowardly omitted everything about my discovery and my role in the whole affair. Maéva I spared, mostly.

But not Vìr. He was such an easy target. The Sy’Iss had wished so long for a misstep on his part. They would have believed anything.

I will stop for a while. These traitorous actions make it difficult for me to continue.

Shading 14, year 3001, Dàr is 60.

If only Vìr had been around when it happened again.

I was forty-four. One night like any other, the visions returned. The dream took me back to the object, where I was sitting and then flew out of my body, over the lands, all the way to the mysterious entrance, and in—deep, deep into the darkness, moving forward, always, and going farther than I had ever gone before.

But never far enough. Ul Darak was endless, and the passages kept going deeper and nowhere at all.

I awoke in a sweat, shivering from the experience. “Nightmares, bad nightmares,” I said to Eriéla before realizing that the bed was empty beside me. Eriéla had left me four years before and I just couldn’t get used to it.

The next day, I went on a patrol and looked for the glade again. At that time, my area of patrol was smaller and easier, as it was with any veteran protectors. It still took me to the edge of the forest where the object had been. I had not looked for the place in many a year. To my astonishment, I found the glade. And there, in its centre, stood the strange object.

These events stand as a distant imaginary pocket in the tapestry of my life. Contrary to the first time, this one never felt real. I do not recall much, but I remember sitting on the cube and having a similar experience to the one I’d had during my first encounter with the curio. I lost consciousness again and awoke some time later, in the grass. Visions haunted my dreams for the next few weeks.

I remember a discussion with Vìr when he first started taking notes about my visions. He suggested that maybe there was something on the other side of Ul Darak. “What if…think about this, my friend. Just try to picture it. What if there is another world out there, another continent, people, living as we do, not daring to cross the mountains? Them thinking there is nothing on this side. Us thinking there is nothing on that side. Can you imagine it?”

I couldn’t.

What the Sy’Iss had implanted on me from an early age were images of an eternal labyrinth, a prison of pain, torture and continual suffering, an ever after for the lost souls.

I remember the longing in Vìr’s voice. It makes me ponder his life before coming to Ta’Énia. It makes me question why he wanted so much to find a place to start anew. What was he running from? What was so bad about his past that he kept wanting to go farther and farther away?

Vìr had put these words and questions about another world on paper. I now admit that these enquiries were one of the pages of notes I had planted in his house to incriminate him. As it scared me, it would scare the Sy’Iss.

As for myself, for most of my life, I tried not to think about the visions and their significance. But now, at the end of my days, with just time on my hands and nowhere to go, I have found myself going back and questioning.

Why me? Why again at forty-four? Is there a pattern? If I was to live a little longer, would it come back again?

But my ruminations do not stop there. I am now more daring and ask myself what Vìr would have called real questions. I think about my place, my life, what I have done, accomplished…and more importantly, what my life could have been, elsewhere…what I could have done, would have done, if I had been given the choice. Would have I chosen the life of a knight protector?

A part of me says absolutely, while another isn’t so certain.

The most dangerous of all my thoughts, though, is one that pushes me to write this manuscript. I think it is one of the first questions Vìr, being a stranger here, asked himself when he reached Ta’Énia.

For the rest of us, it is a question that would never cross our minds, not without help or guidance.

And so, I’m now asking myself: what if the Sy’Iss is wrong?

*

With each passing day, my weakness grows. I only hope I’ll be able to complete this work.

*

Shading 15, year 3001, Dàr is 60.

Even Vìr could not have known how long the reach of the Sy’Iss’s is. Yet he was right. There is a veil over our eyes, constant, and we just can’t see through it. We are taught to live behind it, with it, never ask, never doubt. It is forced into our minds from the day we are born, through our parents, down to us. We become mindless creatures of scary stories. We are soulless puppets.

This shroud is one of the reasons why I never suspected until now that the Sy’Iss might be keeping me in this room purposely. I admit that because I was escorted here by knights, I would like to believe it is not so. The knights are not the Sy’Iss after all. But if there is still hope for the knights, the Sy’Iss has fallen very low. It is hard to believe how far the corruption goes.

It goes very far indeed, because the Sy’Iss killed Sia.

*

Poor Sia.

She was to be my messenger, the bearer of my manuscript. She was to bring these pages west, outside of Ta’Énia, outside of Jarum, if possible, somewhere safe and neutral. Bring them where they would be read and understood.

I met with her but two days ago. Retribution was sudden. This morning, my son came and announced to me that she was gone. Her body had been found at the bottom of the chasm of Saril. Supposedly, she fell off the suspended bridge when a plank broke.

That would have put her in a region where she didn’t belong. The Sy’Iss is using her death as a warning, as an example that one must abide by their rules. Rules they say are there to protect us. The Borders take those who transgress…

But I know Sia never went in that region and never would. She was not one to take chances.

In secret, I deeply mourn her loss. She was the last link I had to Vìr and Maéva. She knew them, had helped them before, was ready to help me now. Even though she was my distant cousin, I didn’t know her. And yet we shared something intimate, a deep secret and a hidden bond.

When I requested to see her, it was a desperate move. She answered. I tried to explain everything to her, but she stopped me when I mentioned the strange object. She told me that she knew I had once been a friend of Vìr’s, and if my words were to explain what truly happened in Ta’Énia, she would help. For Vìr. For Maéva. She would take my manuscript and spirit it away to a safe place, where it would be preserved and maybe shared with generations to come.

But she didn’t want to know about the object. It scared her too much. I had got as far as mentioning it was on the ridge of Saril, on the other side of the bridge. She would never have gone that way.

Her death was not an accident.

It was murder. Vìr was right yet again.

The Sy’Iss is on to me. I will continue to write, but at this moment, I have no one to take these pages away. Nowhere to put them.

*

Harvesting 2, year 2966, Dàr is 25.

The Sy’Iss’s response to my accusations was extremely swift.

One day later, a detachment of knight protectors was dispatched. I was asked to guide the company to the delinquents. Surprisingly, with us came three of the masters of the Sy’Iss, led by none other than Master Iirus himself. They slowed our progress considerably, but no one dared say a word. The masters’ stern faces encouraged me, told me they were serious, as I wanted them to be.

As we progressed, I was surprised by the tracking skills of some of the protectors. Vìr and Maéva’s trail was not easy to follow. Still, it was obvious they had not tried to hide their progression. I had seen Vìr’s skills before. If he had wanted to go unnoticed, he would have. A few times, I admitted being lost, but others took over and found the way. A broken branch, a footprint in the grass, crushed leaves or torn bushes. Signs that Vìr and Maéva were unsuspecting of being followed.

When we reached a small campfire three days later, Master Iirus smiled. Half of his teeth were missing or blackened. The smile was sadistic and, added to the white orb of his left eye, it should have scared me. But that day, I was convinced Vìr was the villain.

Because the masters were fatigued and wanted to rest, we decided to lay in ambush, in the eventuality that Vìr and Maéva would return. In retrospect, I now believe the masters were scared and didn’t want to move closer to Ul Darak.

A base camp was set up close by on the top of a hill, with a good view of the surroundings. The flames of the campfire were kept low during the day and extinguished at night.

We waited.

I was given leave to rest but refused and was posted on the western flank, hiding in a tree. From my perch, I could see how close we had come to some of the black mountains of Ul Darak. Mount Fara was just behind me.

If Vìr and Maéva had not returned, they might have escaped. But it was not to happen that way.

*

Harvesting 6, year 2966, Dàr is 25.

The following day, when the sun was at its highest point, Vìr and Maéva appeared at the camp. They were surprised, momentarily taken aback, but offered no resistance as they were surrounded and captured.

The masters appeared at the edge of the clearing, triumphant, arrogant smirks on their faces. From afar, Master Iirus showered the captured with a series of accusations, most of which had no connection with the story I had told. The worst were sedition and insurrection. When these were stated, some of the knights turned toward the masters, hesitating for a moment, especially in regards to Maéva. But the masters would not back down. Master Iirus’s countenance was enough to stop any reticence the knights might have.

Vìr didn’t flinch. He stood there, tall and large, as they roped his hands behind his back. Maéva, beside him, was devastated. And yet she found the strength to face those she had once called colleagues. She was treated with respect by the protectors, but I saw the masters grimacing at her, looking down on her. Her defiance, in that moment, was such that she gained my admiration.

During the arrest, Vìr looked at me once, and instead of being mad, he showed pity, shaking his head slowly.

This acceptance infuriated me. He was looking down on me. How could he?

I stood just outside the clearing, on the path back to Ta’Énia. I hadn’t participated in the arrest, was mostly forgotten already. As the prisoners were guided my way, I moved toward Vìr, my steps decisive and quick. My intentions were dark. My hands were hard fists at my side. Rage shrouded my vision. As I got to him, one of the other protectors caught my right fist and stopped me.

Vìr and I stared at each other. I was quivering with anger and hate…

“He didn’t deserve that,” whispered Maéva for my ears alone. “You, of all people…”

I backed away as if smacked in the face. Her words had bitten deep and brought me back to reality in a single instant. The previous few days turned into a haze, while the current events became so very real. Remorse rose in my throat and had I not turned around then, I might have been sick. I looked away from Maéva and away from Vìr. I looked at my feet, pretending I had dropped something. The masters, already impatient to return to Ta’Énia, pushed the group forward. They had forgotten me already. For this, I was grateful.

I stayed back and dragged behind. Tears were in my eyes.

What had I done?

“You, of all people…” Maéva had said.

Yes, me.

*

The ensuing days were chaotic and terrifying. Maéva and Vìr were welcomed to Ta’Énia by an opprobrium, led by the knight protectors. I had never seen such a disturbing demonstration of hate and criticism.

Vìr was thrown into a barred cave deep inside a maze of underground corridors, located outside of Ta’Énia in the low hills of Darani. Until that day, I had not even known the cave existed.

Maéva was confined to her residence, knight soldiers posted at her door.

*

Shortly thereafter, traffic in and out of Ta’Énia was halted by orders of the Sy’Iss. No one was to leave or enter until the situation was investigated and judgement had been passed. Even knights were locked down. The patrols of the Borders of Ul Darak also ceased. Such extreme measures had never been seen before.

There were murmurs and some unrest, but nothing more. Most blindly believed that events had demanded such drastic measures.

As for myself, I couldn’t think, didn’t want to think.

*

Maéva was not allowed to leave and became a prisoner in her own home. I roamed the village in what I hoped looked like random patterns, keeping a distant eye on her house. From what I was able to determine, she was treated well and even received a few visitors. Scholars of the League, whom I didn’t know.