Chapter 108

The Swaying Winds

“The Tomes speak of the innumerable lands beyond the Peninsula, beyond the Misted Veil, and further beyond the Silent Cities. They speak of spired towers rising to the heavens, and speak of winged beasts that can spit fire. What a strange world…”

Historic Archives, Vol. VII – Beyond the Seas

A rather wide plaza that was until just a few days ago wholly barren of souls was currently packed to a brim, people climbing one over another to get closer to the center. Swarms numbered in thousands, cramping the surrounding streets and alleyways and even roofs of the nearby buildings. All eyes gazed toward the deep center where, near a monumental statue of copper depicting an armored man rising a sword toward the sky, an elevated, wooden platform was erected, currently occupied by a single figure.

Even Lo’kret felt a sense of pensiveness staring at the sea of people, thousands of eyes glued to him, expectant. He'd thought he'd have to perform at least three or four times before he'd gotten any major traction, yet today's events blew his mind completely – he'd only announced he'd be singing about the miracles that transpired over at the Silent Crossing two days ago, yet it looked as though that single news had set the whole city ablaze and drew everyone, even the most reclusive, out of their homes.

Taking a deep breath, he had to consciously prevent his hands from shaking as he held tightly onto his gittern. He contemplated bolting away but knew that if that queer Dacent ever got a hold of him, he’d pay far, far more than if he merely endured the pressure from a thousand eyes.

The sun above was slowly moving toward its zenith, and his eyes defiantly stared as they wept, trying to use his mind to magically stop the ball of fire from moving. Yet, to his dismay, he had discovered he possessed no such magical prowess. He even prayed, something he hadn’t done since he was four and he broke his Uncle’s favorite pipe. Unfortunately, it did little back then to prevent the beating that he still remembered, and it did little now to make all the people in front of him magically vanish.

Seeing that he was stuck with having to perform, he closed his eyes and concentrated; he wouldn't be singing the whole song today – as the damn thing took over sixteen hours to sing in full – but he still memorized at least half of it. He planned to sing the first ten verses that are about their journey over toward the Brightfort. It was like a prelude to the actual story, which always leads the masses to wanting more. Tough, by the looks of things, there was little he could do to make them want it more. They already want it plenty enough.

Snapping his eyes open, he looked up toward the sky and saw that the hour had finally arrived. Looking down, the masses quieted all of a sudden, as though a hand indicated so, their eyes glued to him and their ears perked up. He knew well enough that the full story of what had happened at the Silent Crossing was just a mystery for most of the people of the Kingdom; even he was blurry on the details, let alone a commoner from Elucido who had never seen the Silent Crossing in their life.

Rumors were there, as rumors always are, but people wanted more – and he, who promised them more, was now their sole point of attention. After all, he was there – and though he’d seen only the beginning and little else, they didn’t know that. For all they knew, he was right there, by Olivia’s side, prancing with his strings and taunting the foes with mockery.

“It burned,” the young man spoke at last as every other sound around him died. “The sun, on that day. It foreshadowed our journey, and our destination, and our fates. Sweat pelted our skin the second hour of our departure; it was hot, dry, and tiring. But…” he paused dramatically, looking around for a few seconds before continuing. “Not enough to stop us.”

The key to selling a fake story, he’d learned both from his own experiences as well as Dacent’s guidance, was to paint a scene with just enough details that those listening could formulate the general framework, but never to delve into truly describing everything as chances of holes plopping up increased exponentially. The best outcome would be for those listening to fill in the gaps and the missing details all on their own, with him merely leading them.

“And thus, our story begins,” he said, propping gittern against his breasts and clearing his throat. “When Light Extinguished Fire.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his fingers skillfully navigating the strings as he began playing the melody; it was a slow opener, easy on the ears, calming down the listeners and setting the mood. It was only half a minute later that his own voice joined, clear and rather far-reaching, though hardly enough for everyone in the plaza to hear it.

“Hear, o’ hear, o’ men of dirt,

Tale as old as time

Hear, o’ hear, o’ men so curt,

Where the truth aligns.

From roots of Everyman,

From steps of Everysoul,

When voices irked the sky,

And women dug the holes.

Upon our hardest hour,

When soles were hurt by Flames,

And our eyes were stung by Fire,

We fained the Holy Name.

And when the unheard voices,

Were heard for the time first,

When ushers of this dirt,

A sublime soul had nursed.

We amassed upon the stone,

And our eyes looked on dreary,

When we were weary to the bone,

And our silent hearts were leery…

…”

Noah stood just outside the plaza, using Dark to listen to the song; he noticed that the majority of people were already drawn in, slaves to the sounds, though quite a few resisted, writing down notes. He estimated that it was most-likely people sent by the Houses and perhaps even other members of the Royalty, but there was little he could do – or even wanted to do – about them.

He went over the song himself, and even he was shocked by it – Lo’kret, for all his faults, Noah had learned… was undeniably brilliant. He was like a sponge, soaking in all of what Noah said and all of what he observed by himself, applying it masterfully on the fly. The song was composed of four different parts, detailing what Lo’kret called ‘Four Pillars of the Journey’ – the departure, the arrival, the fight, and the grief.

Parts themselves varied in length, though even Noah was somewhat startled by the sheer length of the song. While hardly an expert when it came to ancient epics back on Earth and oral songs bards used to earn coins from, he suspected not many, if any, took sixteen hours to tell completely.

What the length afforded, however, was a sublime transition of Olivia from being an ordinary Princess, a young woman like any other, to a symbol of defiance, of the fight, and of grief. Lo’kret intended to sing the final part of the song a week from now, and Noah intended for Olivia to ‘accidentally’ show up and hear it, also happening to break down emotionally in front of the masses in a slew of apologies.

He had no intention of asking her, however, as he knew that would only draw more ire toward him; she was already emotionally charged and unstable, and if he just somehow made it so that she heard the song, she would do the rest without any scripting involved. It would be a good excuse to withdraw her from the public eye without drawing too much attention to her secrecy, and it would afford him some respite to stabilize his current situation.

Juggling so many things and so many angles at the same time was extremely tiring; he hardly had the time for rest, and he was sleeping on average four hours per night.

“… hey.” A voice drew his attention to the side where he saw Asandra standing calmly, looking at Lo’kret in the distance. Noah had come to realize that ever since she ‘awakened’, so to say, he was unable to perceive her approach unless he was entirely focused on scouting out his surroundings.

“Hey,” he replied. “You came to hear him sing about you?”

“If he does, I’ll set him on fire and throw him to the dogs.”

“Play the part, Asandra. Play the part.”

“You don’t need to play the part.” She said with a frown.

“Yeah, because if he included me, I’d have him skinned and flayed and then crucified underneath the scorching sun.”

“… haah, sometimes I really want to gouge your eyes out.”

“Comforting,” Noah chuckled. “So? What do you need from me?”

“I’ve managed to trace one of the assassins to an unsuspecting name.” she said with a strange smile.

“… how?” Noah asked.

“Immediately upon coming back, I started checking out the training grounds around the city,” she said. “Looking for anyone who fought similarly to any of the assassins we’ve faced. Eventually, I stumbled upon a small training arena in the lower segment. Most of the kids there are rejects from up here, desperately trying to improve as much as possible and give it another shot.”

“…”

“After, uh, kindly asking a few about their friends,” she said with a faintly reddened face, causing Noah to look at her oddly. “Hey, I really did try to be kind. Then one of them said, and I quote, ‘You better sit down, bitch, and pleasure us for a month with all your holes, or we’ll kill you’, and that was really disrespectful to the elderly. I needed to teach them how to behave.”

“Glad you did,” Noah nodded. “Were they alive to learn from the lesson?”

“… I think?” she shrugged. “Anyway, seeing the error of their ways, they spat out that, about a week after we departed, someone did look around the area, looking for anyone desperate for money.”

“… good work,” Noah nodded, inwardly impressed. “If your brutish ways ever fail you, you’d do well as an investigative guard.”

“… you know, you are a lot like those kids.”

“I will fix my ways.”

“I’m sure you will,” Asandra rolled her eyes and sighed, turning back toward Lo’kret. “Anyway, do you want the name or not?”

“Who is it?” Noah asked, his expression turning cold.

“Your competitor, actually.” She replied, smiling widely.

“… my… competitor?”

“Hm,” she nodded. “None other than our dearest Dacent Vorvil.”