Red Leaves and the Living Token (10 page)

So he turned another page.

The man with the Token was now wearing a glowing white royal crown. The massive black creature appeared to be attacking from the left. This time he was holding up a glowing white sword and a shield in defense instead of the Token. Behind him, the little red plant and the little animal sat on a little spot of red ground. The man appeared to be protecting them.

He turned the page quickly before anything happened.

The small white sword that the man had been carrying was now a shaft of light shooting up into the sky from his hilt. The shaft of light seemed to be cutting through an appendage of the black creature.

Handers turned the page again quickly.

The drawing showed a destroyed landscape. Crops burned, earth scorched. Nothing living. In the center of the blackened landscape sat the red plant and animal on the little spot of red earth. Unharmed. The only life.

“What is this fascination with that book, if I might ask?” Bedic’s voice startled him. He hadn’t heard the sneaky old man come in.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I...” Handers tried to explain. He shut the book and stepped back.

Bedic stood in the doorway staring at him with an amused grin. “You know this book is a compilation of many of same stories that you yelled at my daughter for reading to your son. I'm having trouble understanding your obsession.”

“What is this book? Where did it come from?”

Bedic walked over to the pedestal. “Its called the book of healing. And It came to me as an inheritance.”

“The book of Healing?” Handers asked.

Tell me something Mr. Handers. Here you are digging through one of my most valuable books, causing who knows what kind of damage, and I delay calling to have you thrown out in order to save you some embarrassment. Yet you linger. Is there a reason you’re still here talking to me?

Handers pushed past him to get to the door. He heard the old man take a deep, pensive breath behind him as he left the room.

“Mr. Handers.” Bedic called from behind.

Handers turned to see that Bedic had followed him into the hallway.

“I've been thinking since our conversation. As I said, my daughter came by last night quite upset. You had quiet an effect on her, it would seem. Something she said before she left has planted a seed of doubt in my mind.”

Handers stared at him.

“She asked me if the stories I told her as a child were true. I couldn't figure out why in the world she’d bring that up. But now in the context of your son's illness and sudden disappearance the explanation looks troubling.”

Handers stepped towards him. “What do you mean? What stories?”

“The only other time she's asked me that question she was about three weeks away from losing her oldest child to a horrible disease. So you can appreciate the kind of mind-set she was in at the time.

“She lost a child? I... She never told me.”

“Well, we don't talk about it either. Not directly. Instead, she brings up these stories that I told her as a child. So here we are again only it's not her child this time. Its yours.”

“What were these stories?” Handers asked.

“The same ones she's been reading to your son. Stories about healing.”

Handers gave him angered look. “Faith healing?”

“You have no idea, young man, where either of us has been. You'd be wise to keep your criticism to yourself. I have done everything in my power to help her get past this. But she seems intent on punishing herself to the bitter end.”

“I thought you said she died of disease?” Handers questioned.

“Does it matter? The fact is her daughter died, and she didn't stop it. To her that was inexcusable.” Bedic let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head. “She had completely unreasonable expectations of what she needed to do. If she'd just have been a little more daring, if she'd just had a little more... faith."

Handers glared at him. “That's exactly why I didn't want her reading those stories to my son!”

Bedic looked away. “If I'd have known it would've caused her so much guilt I never would've read her those stories.”

“Where did she take my son?” Handers demanded.

“I told her the stories were figurative! Not to be taken literally! But, she wouldn't listen. She already had it in her head of what needed to be done. But when it came time to act she didn't have the guts to do it. Her daughter died, and she saw it as a result of her cowardice.” He whispered to himself, “But, It wasn’t her fault...”

Handers rushed up to Bedic, grabbed him by the arms and shook him. “Where did she take my son?”

Bedic looked up to meet Handers’s eyes. “This time it would seem she's found the courage. I believe she took your son to find Red Leaves… to be healed!”

“What?” Handers demanded.

“I told her when she was a little girl that 'Red Leaves' grew in the center of the old city.”

“The old city?” He asked.

“Yes, in Shishkameen. That's what she meant when she asked if the stories were true. She was asking if 'Red Leaves' was real.”

“And you told her yes?”

Bedic looked away and nodded slightly. Handers dropped him. His feet didn't hold, and he fell to the floor.

“I thought telling her the truth would do more harm than good. She's fragile.” Bedic continued.

“She's going to feel pretty good when she finds out you lied to her,” Handers stabbed.

His foot steps echoed down the stone hall as he stormed away.

-

Finally outside again, he hurried around the back wall of the school, wanting to get back home and gather some things together as quickly as possible. But as he turned the corner to head back into the city he was stopped abruptly. A large stone archway blocked the walkway in front of him. “Not again!” He muttered to himself. This was enough to drive a person altogether mad.

He took a deep breath and stepped around it. If he just closed his eyes and kept going eventually he’d forget he saw it, and he could be on his way. But the images from the book and his previous encounters with the arches flooded into his mind, one after an another. Forcing him to remember. He opened his eyes and turned back. A pathway extended out behind the archway now that he was on this side of it. Whereas, on the other side, looking through it into the city, there wasn’t anything.

He followed the path with his eyes as it rose up towards the mountains in the distance. Just as before he could see the side of the mountain in extraordinary detail even though it had to be hundreds of miles away. At the top of the path, he could see a white structure shimmering in the distant sunlight.

“Shishkameen is that way,” Bedic’s cracked old voice called with as much volume as it could manage from the school wall above him. He was pointing north towards the river while handers was facing the mountain range due west.

Handers looked up at him. “Thanks.”

Handers turned back to the Archway and pointed. “What’s this?”

“What is what?” The old man asked.

Handers stared at the distant blue mountains and then back at Bedic, “Nothing.”

“I would suggest you hurry before she gets too far ahead of you.”

Bedic kept his arm up pointing towards the river.

“Yeah thanks.” He answered. “I know where the port is old man,” He muttered to himself as he crossed the street away from the archway and headed back into the city. He had to pack first anyway.

V
alance hurried down the stone steps that lead to the tunnels under his property. He used them to go from building to building without having to worry about people knowing which building he was in. It was also a convenient place to store things of a more sensitive nature. He wouldn’t want his house keeper, for instance, cleaning the room he was about to enter.

He unlocked the thick door and pulled it open. A quick round with his lamp to light the gas lights brought the room to full brightness. The green walls were lined with an assortment of old and rusted weapons; spear tips with broken shafts, axes with partially intact blades, armor with plates so corroded that holes had formed in the metal.

It depressed him every time he came here. These were once the most carefully crafted weapons he’d ever had the privilege of using. The speed of their decay was remarkable and disturbing at the same time. He wasn’t sure what it would mean for him but guessed it wasn’t good.

Fortunately, his own life had not been unnaturally shortened. Quite the opposite. Yet every time he looked at them in their state of decay it made him feel… Old. He moved to the back of the room and opened a black wooden case. Inside was lined with a red velvet. Sitting in the velvet was a sword in the same state of decay as the rest of the weapons.

This was his favorite. It was the one he actually cared about losing, really. Of course he had done everything he could think of to prevent or even delay its decay, but nothing seemed to help preserve it. Oil rubs, cleansing solutions, polishes of every kind, dry storage, wet storage, cool, heat, all did nothing.

He took the sheath and tied it around his waist and slid the blade in. The mark on the palm of his hand glowed faintly as he released the handled. The mark on his hand had faded along with the weapons. Now it was hardly there at all.

-

The House Lord Valance stood in the center of a vast chamber that housed the dozen rows of senators, each row rising up above the previous. Opposite the rows, in single elevated bench with a gavel in his hand sat a single senator.

Valance dreaded the sight of him. Speaker Fiffe. It seemed he tried to make any and every issue discussed in the senate into something many times more than it was, as though his relevance as speaker depended on how well he could use any particular issue to wage a popularity war with the clans that opposed him. If he wasn’t constantly winning that battle, well, then what was the point of him being speaker?

Speaker Fiffe addressed Valance. “Am I correct in my understanding, House Lord Valance, that you authorized the wide spread deception of the people regarding the dilution of the people's Manea supply on two separate occasions. And if so by what authority did you take this action.”

Valance answered, “Mr. Speaker, I'm sure you've studied the situation, so I'm sure you're aware of the implications...”

One of the senators on the first row interrupted, “Its rather convenient that this is coming to light at the same time that we’re to vote whether or not to extend the Manea industry’s rather generous contribution package.”

Valance turned to see who’d interrupted. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, I am not here to discuss financial assistance to my industry. I am here to inform you of a crisis that is currently developing across the world and in our own nation. We are dealing with unprecedented events that have caused and will continue to cause greater and greater disruptions in world wide Manea production. These events are unlike anything we've encountered before. Now our great Nation has grown and expanded faster than any of us could’ve imagined. The vastness of our numbers are simply astonishing. We as a great and numerous people cannot survive without a plentiful and inexpensive supply of Manea. Plentiful and inexpensive is what has allowed us to become what we are today.”

He studied their faces to measure their reaction, then continued, “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, we no longer have that plentiful supply. Every man, woman, and child must eat. Every animal of every clan must eat! Not only are we facing a severe reduction in supply, we face demand that is not only greater than ever but endlessly growing. I am not here to cause unnecessary alarm or panic. This was kept private for that very reason, until we had done everything in our power to address the problem, to understand fully what we were up against.”

Speaker Fife interrupted, “With what right have you withheld this information from us?”

Valance turned back to the speaker. “This is a world wide phenomena and not at all limited to my company. You’re own internal agencies have said nothing? I am certain many of you in this room have known of this for a long while. My purpose today is to bring this issue out of the dark. It must be dealt with, and we must have the participation of all - including the public!”

The crowd of senators stirred. A subtle roar of discontent filled the room.

Valance rose his voice to speak over them. “We have done everything possible to stop the shrinking production. This is our business. So rest assured that we’ve done everything possible to keep our production from dropping off. We're losing money, and we haven’t been able to do anything about it. We are developing alternative solutions, of course, as I’m sure every other large scale Manae producer is. But they will take time to implement. Ten, possibly twenty years. In the meantime, we must turn to the one thing that we can control. Our consumption. Senators, we must cut back. We must ask the public to make sacrifices.”

“Sacrifices?” The Lord Speaker interjected. “And who will determine these sacrifices?”

A Senator on the second row stood up. “Who'll ensure that this sacrifices will be evenly distributed amongst the houses and clans?” He called out.

Valance answered, “It won't be evenly distributed. It can’t, we…