Amendments (5 page)

Chapter 5

Into Tier

              The refugees left.  Where they went, Grandel did not know.  As much as he had tried to do good in the years since he left Chiron, he knew he could never do enough to make up for even one who died because of him – let alone the hundreds dead and hundreds more that were made slaves.  Grandel shuddered at the memories of those who he had killed with his own hands.  He had tried to give them a swift, easy death because he knew others would drag it out for their vile pleasure if he didn’t.  However, that logic didn’t matter to these people and he didn’t blame them.  For all Grandel knew, he could have killed Menoh’s son himself.

              “You’re so dumb sometimes, you know that Grandel?”  He looked into Adeel’s eyes as she stood over him healing his nose in his personal chamber.  She looked down at him as a teacher would look at a naughty student, but there was love behind her eyes to which Grandel felt he was undeserving.  “Selfish too. Letting that man beat up on you just so you can feel better….”  She finished healing his injuries and stood back to examine her work.  Isis seemed to relax a little on her perch in the corner after Grandel was completely healed. 

              Adeel's healing looked good, but his facial features still looked a bit off.  It had taken all of the past three months to get him back to looking like himself after Kit had changed his body structure and appearance.  No one could have gotten it as close as Adeel had because no one knew his face as well as she did.

              “It’s all coming back to haunt me again, Adeel.”  He shook his head and added, “First Kit, and now this.”

              “Grandel,” she started in a lecturing tone, “you know you couldn’t get out of what you did.  We’ve been over this a hundred times.”  She sat on his lap to soften her words.  “Now stop being a fool.”

              Grandel did not wrap his arms around her as he usually did.  “I need to do everything in my power to make it up to these people, Adeel.  But how?  They don’t want my help.”

              “Then they are fools just like you.”

              Grandel stood up and Adeel slid off his lap.  “No, they are not.  Their lives and their family’s lives were
ruined
.  If our positions were reversed, I don’t think
I
could forgive the man who was responsible for that.”

              Adeel regarded him like a reprimanding teacher once again.  “This is what I’m talking about.  For as long as I’ve known you, you have been so overly giving that I fear there is no self to you anymore.”  She frowned, obvious that what she was saying wasn’t coming out the way she wanted.  She started again.  “What I mean is this: we are all given a hand of cards in life.  Not everyone is dealt a winning hand or a hand that we like.  It’s what you do with that hand that counts.”
              Grandel looked up at her.  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say.”

              She sighed and turned her back to Grandel.  “I’m saying you did what you had to do to survive.  You are a good man.  Whatever you did in the past brought you to where you are now.  I look up to you as the best man I have ever met, Grandel.  Everyone here does.”  She turned back around.  “Does that mean anything to you or are you too obsessed with the past to understand that?”

              Grandel scowled.  “You overstate yourself, Luxin Adeel.”

              Adeel sniffed and gave a sarcastic bow.  “My apologies,
Captain
Grandel.  I will leave your presence if my words offend you.”

              Adeel angrily walked out.  Grandel wanted to call her back and apologize, but he wasn’t sure what to say.  Instead, he looked at the dirt floor and frowned.  He thought for a long while about all that had happened.  Eventually, he got restless and anxious.  He grunted, quickly walked out of his chambers, and spent the rest of the evening working stubbornly on the unfinished town wall.

~~~

              Noir looked out over the small Tierian town that lay before him.  He peered out of the brush on a hill that overlooked the town.  It was a small town on his map called Lithe that was to the northwest of the city Inderrin.  He was officially in Tierian territory.  The town looked like any small Chrion town that he had seen except it had a small, wooden wall, and several watch towers around the edges.  From what he had heard of Tierian cities, these watch towers would be as much for making sure the town’s population didn’t escape as it was for making sure nothing got in.  One or more of them would probably house Tierian din slaves, something which he would rather not have to deal with.

              A flash of memory of his battle with Aimee before she killed Asiada flashed through his mind.  Even though lux was the natural counter to din, he wanted to avoid a confrontation with the din slaves.

              Noir abandoned his hiding place and started down the hill toward Lithe.  He had to see if he could discover any information about Aimee or Ratt.  He wasn’t sure how to go about that, exactly, but he had to try.

              Noir reached the town’s small wooden wall within a couple minutes.  He passed under one of the watch towers and noticed it was empty.  From the stories that Ratt had told him, those towers were manned constantly.  Something strange was going on.

              Noir walked to the gate and called out, “Hello?  Is anyone there?”  No response came, so he called again, “This is Luxin Noir.  I come from the Lumin battlefield.  Is anyone there?”  He waited again and no one responded.  He studied the gate and noticed that it was already cracked open.  It was heavy, but he pushed the gate open wide enough to walk through.  The town inside looked peaceful.  Men and women worked in small vegetable gardens.  Noir heard the clang of a blacksmith, and saw a group of three guards patrolling the dirt streets.

              Noir finally entered and went straight to the guards.  He wanted to make sure they knew he wasn’t an intruder.  Also, they might be able to give some clues as to why the watchtowers were empty.

              As Noir grew closer, the guards noticed him.  One of them called out, “State your business, sir Luxin!”

              Noir bowed in the customary Tierian way.  He was glad Ratt had taught him how.  “I come from the Lumin battlefield.  I have aided the troops there and now wish to return home to the capital,” he lied.  “Lithe was on my way, so I figured I’d stop for some food and rest.”

              The three guards looked at each other, then a different one responded.  “You may want to pass this town up, friend, and be on your way.  The Tierian military will probably be here any day to regain possession of this town.”

              Noir took a couple steps closer.  “What do you mean?  What’s going on?”

              “The din slave, her captor, and all of this town’s leaders were killed by the one they call the Savior or Tier.”

              The third guard scoffed at the name.  It was the name that Fafnir had encouraged him to investigate.  Could it be Ratt they were talking about?  Noir admitted, “I’m sorry.  I still don’t understand completely.”

              The first guard said, “I am sorry, friend.  We are not being very polite.  You are welcome here.”  He turned and pointed to a building.  “There is the town inn.  Feel free to go buy a drink and put your feet up.  I bet some of the townsfolk would be happy to tell you more while you’re there.”

              Noir bowed again and said, “Thank you, sirs.  I will.”

              As he walked by, the second guard that had spoken a moment earlier said, “I want to advise you not to stay, though.  If the Tierian soldiers suspect you aided the Savior of Tier at all, they will put you in prison... or worse.”

              Noir nodded a thank you, and then walked to the larger building.  It was not marked as an Inn, but the sound of people talking inside and the horse stables out back said otherwise.  As Noir examined the Inn, something caught his attention.  A figure in a hooded brown cloak leaned against the building and seemed to be studying Noir.  As Noir looked closer, he could see the face inside the hood, and he was immediately shocked by what he saw.  The man had scars covering his face.  They brought back terrible memories of the scarred man who had trapped him with sye in old Talik.  Noir fought the urge to embrace lux and put up a light barrier, but this was not that same man.  He looked oddly familiar, but it was not the man from his past.  The man’s expression was one of amused interest, not hatred like before.  Suddenly, the figure turned and disappeared behind the inn.

              Noir felt a mix of emotions.  He was frightened by the sight of the scars because of his history.  However, as the initial shock subsided, he realized that the man wasn’t necessarily damaged from dragon’s blood like that last scarred man he had encountered.  He could simply be a person from the town with burn scars from a fire.  Or he could have a physical deformity.  He certainly hadn’t been threatening toward Noir, and he hadn't shown any signs of being able to use any of the vigors.

              Noir walked to where the figure had been leaning against the inn.  He then walked all the way around the building and arrived again at the front entrance.  There was no sign of the cloaked man.  Noir felt a bit silly, so he forced himself to forget the incident for the moment.

              Noir pushed open the wooden door and entered the inn.  There were two small tables that were packed with townsfolk.  They looked up at him as he entered.  A couple grinned, a few frowned, but most looked at him blankly.

              “Look, it’s a kid Luxin,” one rather drunken man slurred.

              One of his friends quickly put a hand over his mouth and said, “Hush!”

              “What?” the drunken man mumbled to his friend through his hand.  He seemed to have already forgotten about Noir.

              Noir strode over to the bar and sat on the only empty stool at the counter.  He then motioned to the middle-aged woman who was serving drinks to the other customers.  She came to him and said, “Good to see you, sir Luxin.  It’s rare to see such important visitors in Lithe.  What will you have?”

              Noir felt a bit awkward.  He knew she was expecting him to order some sort of alcoholic drink.  He was still years away from being able to legally buy alcohol back home, so he decided to say, “Just some water, please.”  She raised an eyebrow to him, and then walked into the back room.

              Noir turned his attention to the conversations around him.  Because of the slurred speech and Tierian accents, he could make little sense out of what was being said.  Soon the woman came back with Noir's water.  Finally, at the table behind him, Noir made sense of a conversation that piqued his interest.  They seemed to be talking about how many days they have not worked.  He turned halfway around in his stool and sipped on his water while watching out of the corner of his eye.

              After a moment, one of the men in the conversation noticed Noir watching them and spoke up.  “What’s it t' you, Luxin?  Yeah, we ain’t worked in days!  So what?!”  The alcohol that slurred his speech probably gave him the courage to speak to a Luxin the way he did.

              Noir shook his head.  “Don’t misunderstand my interest, gentlemen.  I am only wondering what happened in this town.  Why are the gate and the watch towers not manned?  Also, what was this about the Savior of Tier?”

              A few of the men in the room laughed loudly.  All other conversations in the room stopped.  It seemed as though this was a topic of interest for all.

              “That fool will get us all jailed or killed!” one yelled.  No one laughed that time.

              A burly woman at the other table stammered, “That savior guy is just tryin' t' help.”

              “Some good he's done!” a younger man at the first table growled as he smashed his fist against the table loudly.  “I certainly don't want t' sit in those cave dungeons under the capital and rot!”

              Various conversations sprang up again around the room.  The man sitting next to Noir leaned over and said, “Let me explain, sir Luxin.”  The man's breath was heavy with booze, but he seemed more level-headed than the others.  “This Savior of Tier guy came in one night an' killed the taskmasters and din slaves who oversee this town.  There is no one to make us work now.”

              The men who cheered earlier did so again.  “Woo!  No work!”  Apparently he'd been listening to Noir's conversation.

              “However,” the man sitting next to Noir said loudly, “this could be a very bad thing.”  The cheering died away.  The patrons in the inn grew somber.  The man continued, “Astraline is another town that was freed by this so-called Savior of Tier one month ago.  The town’s output of supplies and money slowed, and the Tierian military came in and killed one tenth of the population at random just to make an example.”

              Noir’s heart sank.  “They
killed
one tenth of them?!” Noir asked incredulously.

              The man beside Noir nodded deeply.  “They then doubled the din slaves an' Tierian overseers.  After that happened, any town that had been freed by the Savior of Tier sent word to the capital.  They hoped to not meet the same fate as Astraline.”