David Dalglish - A Dance of Shadows

“He’ll just make me practice with my sword,” he said. “He knows it gets heavy.”

“That just means you need to practice more, until it feels like a part of your arm.”

“Milady, may I ask the source of these imports?” Henris asked, pointing to one of what seemed like a thousand pieces of parchment. Alyssa turned back to the man, and Nathaniel knew it was his sign to leave. He wanted to stay, to stomp his foot and demand attention, but he imagined the way John would react should he hear about such a display.

“Yes, Mother,” Nathaniel said, even though he doubted she heard him. At least her promise about the bard was exciting. He loved listening to their stories, most of them anyway. Some dwelt on lords and ladies, and who was in love with whom. They bored him to tears. The ones about dragons, paladins, orcs, wolf-men, and other creatures of the Vile Wedge… those were the ones that kept him up far past his bedtime, wide-eyed in the lap of his mother. He especially loved hearing of the war between the gods, back during the creation of the world.

Nathaniel left the study so the adults could argue and bicker about money and paper, as John had once put it. Part of him felt sad knowing that fate awaited him when he got older. There’d be no charging into battle on a white horse as he dreamed. His missing arm alone ruined any chance of that. No, he’d bicker with old men and women, count coins until the moon was high, and trade things he did not have for things he would never see.

So much better the life the bards sang about.

While on his way to see Lord Gandrem, Nathaniel passed by the door to his grandmother’s room. She must have seen him, for he heard her call his name. Rolling his eyes, Nathaniel turned around. He always felt awkward in his grandmother’s presence. He didn’t know her, had barely even heard of her until her sudden arrival, yet he was expected to act as if she were close family. It left him confused, unsure of how to act. And the way she looked at him, her eyes always watery even if she wasn’t crying, made his stomach twist.

“Yes, Grandmother?” he asked, stepping into her room, which had been a guest bedroom mere weeks before. His grandmother lay in the center of the bed, as she often did. Alyssa had said she had gone through many trials, and was left weak because of it. But she didn’t seem weak to Nathaniel. Whenever he was alone with her her motions were quick, her words sharp, his grandmother a coiled spring wound up and eager to release.

“Please, just Melody,” she said, shifting to the side so she might put her feet off the bed. She wore a thick homespun dress, the blue fabric clinging to her thin body. “Though it warms my heart to hear you say the word grandmother .”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She laughed as if this amused her, though he’d purposefully chosen not to call her Melody. “You look upset, dear,” she said. “Is your mother still busy with that worm of Victor’s?”

Despite himself he cracked a smile, thinking of Henris’s scrunched-in face. “He doesn’t look like a worm. He looks like one of the gophers groundskeeper Willis hates.”

To his relief Melody laughed instead of getting upset at him for saying such a thing. “Watch your tongue in their presence,” Melody said, gently easing herself off the bed. “But don’t worry about me. I spent too much time in silence to care for tempered words and padded half-truths. I say if a man looks like a gopher, call him a gopher, don’t you?”

Nathaniel nodded. He still felt awkward, but at least he could trust Melody to pay attention to him, and not care if he said something John would claim was “improper.” His grandmother walked over to her expansive closet and opened the doors.

“Can you can keep a secret, Nathaniel?” she asked as she peered into its darkness.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Lord Gandrem says my word should be my bond, and to never break it.”

“John’s a smart man,” Melody said. “And you should trust much of what he says. But I’ve spent a few afternoons with him, and he is lacking in knowledge of the gods. Tell me, Nathan, what do you know of Karak and Ashhur?”

As she asked this, she pulled a small wooden box from the far recesses of the closet. Nathaniel stepped closer, his curiosity too strong to resist. Her question itself, though, nearly deflated him. His teacher of numbers had been devoted to Ashhur, always telling Nathaniel lists of rules and expectations. It seemed nearly everything Nathaniel could do would make Ashhur sad for his doing it.

“My teacher made me memorize some things,” Nathaniel reluctantly admitted.

“I don’t mean prayers and sermons, Nathan. The gods are not figments, not boring lessons with names. They were real. They wielded blades, raised armies, and conquered the wild lands Dezrel used to be before their arrival.”

Nathaniel’s eyes widened. Now this was more like the bards’ songs than the dry lecturing of his teacher. When Melody opened the box, his eyes widened farther, so much that he thought they’d bug out of his head. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The base was a circle made of dark stone, with a soft indentation on either side. The center was almost like a bowl, but much too shallow. Lying in it were nine precious stones, each with a thin silver chain encircling it that attached to the base. The stones were all different: ruby, sapphire, emerald, topaz, even a couple he didn’t recognize. Each one was the size of his thumb.

“When I was in the darkness, this was all I had to keep me company,” she said. “Pull the curtains across the window, child. We must make it as dark in here as we can.”

Nathaniel hurried to do as she said. Even accustomed to the lavish lifestyle of a house of the Trifect, he was still excited by the sheer wealth before him that Melody held. Whatever it was, it was certainly worth a fortune. That Leon would have allowed her to keep it was stunning. As he tugged on the curtains, he thought to ask her about her time spent imprisoned at Leon Connington’s mansion, but dared not. Deep down he knew that he would not enjoy what he heard, and that it would involve things he was only starting to understand.

The curtains were long, and sewn thick, so that when Nathaniel returned to the closet, he had to hold his hand against the wall to guide him there until his eyes adjusted.

“Remember, Nathan,” Melody said, “you must tell no one of this. This is a chrysarium, and is worth more than I could ever replace. I’ve long cherished it, so do not make me feel foolish for showing such a young child.”

“I’m not so young,” Nathaniel said, puffing out his chest. He caught a smile from her, just a crease in the shadows, and then she lifted the chrysarium. Her thumbs and palms pressed against the grooves on the sides, the rest of her fingers holding it from beneath. Melody’s eyes closed, and he heard her whispering. The words were too low and quick for him to understand, but he felt something strange and foreign building in his chest. Panic struck him, and he wanted to flee, but before he could work up the nerve, the gems began to shine.

It was soft at first, just a flicker of color, like sparks of tinder on a fire not yet caught. The emerald shimmered, a deep glow growing in strength from the very center of the gem. Next was the ruby, its blood-red light swirling within, as if it were filled with a smoky liquid. One by one the rest lit up, their light growing in strength as his grandmother continued to pray. Nathaniel reached forward, pushed on by a compulsion to touch them, but a sudden fear overcame him. His hand dropped to his side.

“They shine by the power of my faith,” Melody said, pausing for a moment to catch her breath. Even as she spoke, the glow began to fade. “Watch the center, Nathan, and open your heart to matters beyond this world. Let the spirit guide you, and you will see.”