The Windcaster [Fantasy/Adventure | Featured | Complete ]

Chapter 46: When Books Become Deceptive

Gwent was a strange country. It was a country without hierarchy, despite the presence of a king. Indeed, his title seemed to be nothing more than a formality; he indulged in the same drinks, food and jokes as his countrymen and worked the same laborious chores and long hours. There was no sweeping or grovelling, nor stiff politeness or undue punishment. They slept in the same accommodation: everyone in the same room as their family in the old monarchs' chambers. They took turns in night shifts in patrolling the city hourly, in pairs, ensuring that the harvested crops were still dry and the animals not in distress. The efficiency and willingness to put the country before their needs was a strange concept for Tia.

Even stranger was how little the Gwentians appeared to care about her nationality and expected nothing more or less from her than any other citizen. She was assessed by one of Sarpanit's seniors, a trained healer, for her fitness to work. Subsequently she was put with the scribes, despite her protests she could not read the Gwentian language and would be of better use elsewhere.

King Lahar – or Lahar as he insisted on being called – would hear none of it. Giving her a steely look not unlike Master Anu when he used to catch her skiving off her apprentice duties, he left her in the city library. She sighed; scribing was always such a chore. She remembered when she used to be threatened with withdrawal of meals if she hadn't finished her writing, back in Mooncliffe.

She swallowed as a lump came to her throat. There was no returning to the place she had known well and she knew that; even so, the days she had spent in Gwent seemed surreal. It seemed unfathomable that the Windcasters she knew were all dead: Master Anu, Master Marduk, Master Mami, Master Enki, Ki, Nisroch, Nintu...

The tears that came with the first few nights had long dried, but the confusion and anger remained. She was reminded of Enlil's simmering rage when they had first met. He had been cruelly bereaved of his siblings, of his parents, of his friends and acquaintances, all at the hands of her people. It was almost ironic how she could empathise with him now that a different country had inflicted the same upon her, a Dernexan.

She had found it silly at first, but now she understood the unrelenting desire for revenge. The grudge reared its ugly head not long after she had settled in and weighed heavy on her heart day and night, consuming much of her thoughts. She could see now why Enlil could not see beyond the deaths and the oppression. It had seemed foolish how much he was prepared to sacrifice to fight against Dernexes and the monarchy, but now, even if it meant ending her life, she was determined to find justice for the Windcasters.

It mattered little what the consequences might be. It was just so much more difficult to find passion about anything anymore; Tia wondered what had happened to the cheerful, naïve little girl who had left Mooncliffe gleefully over a year ago.

She grew up, that is what happened.

The rumination dominated for several days to the point where she remembered little of the detail outside of her thoughts. She attended to scribing without much thought, poring over the strange, foreign language, murmuring polite responses to the helpful fellow scribes, although she had no motivation to pursue friendship, nor desire to explore Abaddon. She ate with everyone else, and took her turn at kitchen duties and cleaning duties. She slept in the same chamber as the other female scribes who had no families.

The highlight of her every day was ascending the tall tower of the Old Palace at sunset before supper, staff clutched in one hand and the other steadying her manoeuvre on the rickety stone steps, which ascended in a tight spiral. The flat apex of the tower, with its squat walls arranged in a circular formation, was initially oddly familiar, and then it struck her: the style was not unlike the towers of the Palace of the kings and the examination hall in Capital and at Ptarmigan Fortress. For two countries that had hated each other for centuries, it was strange to see that they actually had something in common.