The Windcaster [Fantasy/Adventure | Featured | Complete ]

Chapter 8: An Innocent Ear to a Dark Truth

"Mommu?" she whispered, lowering her hands from her mouth. Her heart was still racing. She reached into the darkness and touched an eyeball – causing another groan – and bouncing curls.

"Tia, when did you get so heavy?" said the other trainee, scuttling backwards to avoid another injury.

"Should you not be asleep, Tiamat?" came Enlil's voice from the other side of the room. Tia felt the space between the two rolled out straw mats and slid onto the ground to avoid inflicting any more damage, wrapping her arms around her folded knees.There was a pause. "Are you all right?"

"I wish we could stay in and help them – can we?" she said in a small voice.

"No, we cannot."

"But I thought you wanted to relieve people of their poverty and oppression, Enlil," Mommu said. "What is so wrong about helping a poor farmer and his little girl?"

"That is not the right way to do it," the boy said flatly. "If you help Namru and his daughter out of this problem, you will have to help every single soul that you meet, from now until the problem is over, or until you die, whichever comes first. That is not going to solve everyone's problems, is it? Especially if you die before you had saved everyone."

Tia didn't know what to say. Enlil was convincing, but his point didn't sit right with her.

"Or we tackle the problem at its core – the king and his government. If their greedy hands are no longer on the people's money, and jobs and opportunities are available and people are given the help they need, then we may have a chance of stopping all this tragedy. Then we can help everyone like Namru and Aga, not just the two of them. But for that, we need power. Lots of power. We need people to support us, aiming for the same goal and willing to die for it. Or else nobody will listen. We will just be crushed and silenced, like all the others."

"I wish you would not talk such serious things all the time, Enlil."

"It is the unfortunate truth, Tiamat." Tia flinched at Enlil's unforgiving tone. Each word ground against her heart. "It is difficult to hear, is it not? Hard to imagine people can be so poor and so close to death – and that your precious King is doing nothing? Namru and Aga are already very blessed: they have each other, they have shelter and food." Enlil sounded like he wanted to go further, but Tia couldn't take in any more. Her eyes had watered already and her hands were pressed to her ears. "Children are starving to death on the streets as we speak, in some places in Dernexes."

"But if we save Aga–" she began, but Enlil cut her off.

"Then we save this little girl, whilst thousands of other little girls die in Capital, in Hume, in the outside districts, in Ratho. Do you not understand? You are not solving the problem. Millions more will be born into the same life. So long as this forsaken system exists, their conditions are perpetuated."

"But how can we do anything?" she cried out. Mommu shushed her, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. Enlil's words hurt, and the helplessness was overwhelming.

"Now you are starting to understand the situation." Enlil sounded satisfied. "With the king's powers and his henchmen's connections, it makes everyone seem helpless – and we are, alone. Alone, it is us against the king's army, against the king's Windcasters. That is what is keeping the people quiet. Everyone hates it, but nobody dares to say it out loud, so people feel alone in their disgust with the kingdom. They feel they cannot voice their true thoughts or they will be judged, jailed, or worse, executed. This fear keeps the poor paying more and more and the rich stupid and happy."

"What you are suggesting," Mommu said, sounding horrified, "is treason. You will be executed if you are caught saying such things."

"Oppression by the king is how he has kept the people so quiet all this time." Enlil's voice trembled in anger. "Do you think slaves are happy living in the conditions they are in? Do you think the poor of Ratho are thrilled to starve to death?"

"Surely someone would have said something if it has gone on for as long as you have said, surely someone would have rebelled. Someone must have done something."

"That is what everyone keeps telling themselves. That is why nothing happens. The few who dare to speak get killed quickly in the process. How the kingdom rewards them! How they make sure nobody ever get the same foolish arrogant thoughts again!"

"How do you mean?"

Enlil let out a mirthless laugh that chilled Tia.

"My own father was one of these heroes," he bit the word out like it was venom. "He thought he could take on the kingdom, just him and a few other men. All of them were fathers. All of them were husbands. Armed with nothing but a few wooden swords and more confidence than wit, they demanded to see the king. When the guards laughed and spat at them, they attacked them. And they were slain and thrown away like rubbish. And that is not all, within days they had knocked on my door, and on all the doors of the families of those idiotic men. The women were raped, the young girls sold as concubines and the boys taken as slaves. We should have thanked them for sparing our lives," he added mockingly, his hands curling into fists in the dark. "So long as the slaves continue to breed, the slave numbers shall never fall. And so life goes on."

"I am sorry." Tia's voice trembled. Enlil chuckled, again without humour.

"Why? You are not to blame. You would not know. Nobody knows. The kingdom of Dernexes is a booming country, powerful with Wind magic and rich with trades. Who cares about the nameless poor dying on the street, out of sight?"

Enlil didn't seem like he wanted to stop.

"And then you have people like the tradesmen in Mooncliffe: rich, self-entitled – hardworking, don't get me wrong – but they fend only for themselves. Sure, they can rest easy at night knowing their children are safe in bed and well-fed, but their silence makes them also at fault. Their passivity is killing people like Namru and Aga."

The tension was palpable. The brutal honesty and the bitter silence that followed were making Tia nauseous.

"I want to go to bed," she said, in a strangled voice.

"I will take you back up," Mommu volunteered, reaching for her shoulder in the dark. The two left in silence, fumbling their way in the dark. With a heavy heart, Tia linked arms with her best friend and sighed.

"Enlil talks about such adult things," she said as they made soft steps across the hallway.

"It is the truth, Tia. All of this is new to me too, but did you not ever think that not everyone is as fortunate as us?"

"No." Guilt flooded over. "Master's stories were always so wonderful. I thought everyone was dressed well and ate well. I thought people were happy with King Ea. I did not know there were some who were poor and had so little for a living..."

"I have seen worse." Mommu's voice was miserable.

"I never asked you about living in Ratho, Mommu."

"I do not really want to talk about it."

"Well..." Tia hesitated as they reached Aga's bedroom. She gave him a swift hug and a small smile that could not be seen in the dark. "Good night, Mommu."

"Good night, Tia."

She slid into the space next to the curled-up Aga, who instinctively threw an arm around her waist, mumbling in her sleep. It was impossible to imagine this sweet little girl, whom Tia could see as her little sister, would be dead in a year's time, starved because people in her shoes couldn't make a difference. Her powerlessness would passively put Aga to death.

It was too much. The guilt was crushing her chest and Tia felt her ribs would splinter.

"—ma."

She blinked and leant in to hear what she was saying. She felt her heart break and fresh tears came pouring out.

"...Mama."