Rohvim #1: Metal and Flesh (17 page)

Aeden headed towards the southwest gate of the city, saluted the guards as he passed, and followed the road a ways until it divided to the east and west. He continued forward, walking on the green turf as a light misting rain began to fall. He passed a few farms and small houses, and just as the shopkeeper had said, saw a grove of trees rise before him in the distance. The tiny forest was dense, the trees tall and thick, and was surrounded by shrubs and bushes which blocked his view of anything within. He approached cautiously, walking through the final field that spread out before the grove, and rounded a clump of bushes that obscured his view of the ground about the feet of the trees. He saw several people, a few standing and talking, several more apparently taking mid-afternoon naps, and several more surrounded a boy with their hands on his head. Some of them looked up. One stood and came forward.

“Who are you?” the man asked. He appeared younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties, and was tall and muscular.

“My name is Aeden. Aeden Rossam, of Elbeth.” He stopped, and stood before the young man, extending his hand.

The young man grasped it, replying in imitation, “I’m Frederick. Frederick Tatum. Of Ramath.” Frederick looked down at Aeden’s courtly appearance, “out for an afternoon stroll?”

Aeden looked down, seeing the clothes the lord of the city had given him, and began again, “Oh, no. I was told to find you all here—a shopkeeper said I’d find healers here.”

Frederick sighed, “I’m sorry, my good princely duke, royalty get no special treatment from the healers in Ramath—so declared the lord of the city. You’ll have to go to the healer’s hall in the city itself and request …”

Aeden interrupted, “I’m not here to be healed. The master healer invited me to the society before I left Elbeth. I was just here to meet a few society members before I accepted his invitation.”

Frederick cocked his head at the boy, “The master healer invited you? And you didn’t tell him ‘yes’ yet? What’s wrong with you?”

Aeden stammered, “I, uh, well I was going to join the royal guard, but, I don’t know …” he finished quickly as he saw the older boy looking askance at him.

Frederick turned and yelled at the others, “Hey! Darla! Stuart! Wesley! Godwin! Look what I’ve got here! The master healer went and got us our own royal mascot!” He looked back at Aeden and, motioning his head, indicated for him to follow and went back to the group of other youth. Aeden looked at them all—rather poorly dressed, but clean and energetic. Some fifteen other youth gathered around as he approached, looking him up and down. A short, gangly boy extended his hand to him.

“Pleased to meet you! I’m Rupert! Don’t worry about these guys, I’ll stick up for you!” he chirped, his high, cracking voice matching his thin, wiry frame.

Aeden raised his eyebrows. “Uh … Thank you? I guess?” Another girl elbowed the small boy out of the way and stood before him.

“I’m Darla! Nice to meet you, prince!” She spat in her hand and extended it to him. He looked at the hand, and gingerly took it, bowing slightly to her as he responded.

“Very pleased to meet your acquaintance as well, my lady.” He withdrew his hand and wiped it on his leggings.

She looked back at Frederick and called out, “Ha! Told you he’d still shake my hand. You owe me dinner tonight! And did you hear? I’m a
lady
now!”

Aeden looked at them all. “So you are all healers? You’re all in the society?”

Frederick answered, “We sure are. Well, we’re still deciding whether to accept Rupert or not,” Rupert voiced a protest, and Frederick continued, “but for the most part, yes. You looked a little surprised. Did you expect to see more royals here?”

Aeden blushed a bit and responded, “Oh, no. It’s not that. It’s just that I expected the society to be a little older. On average.”

“Oh, it is. We’re the young ones—we like to hang out here during the day and practice and mess around and the like. Most of the society members are older than us, and tend to stay at the healer’s hall, or travel around the kingdom. We’re not allowed to go out and travel alone yet, well, I am, but most of these guys are not. Especially Darla. We like to keep her under control here …” She bopped him in the head as he laughed.

“Are there many others from the nobility that are members?”

“Let’s see, there’s Lady Ellen, there’s Lord Wickham, Lady Laura,” he went on, counting them out on his fingers, “Duke Wadsworth, Lady Ellington, Lord What’s-his-butt and Lady What’s-her-name. So yeah, about ten or so. Out of what, one hundred and ten?”

Aeden responded, “One hundred and thirteen—that’s what the master healer told me.”

“So there you go. Not a whole lot. Mostly common rats like me. Will you still be our friend?” He added this last part in a pitiable, begging voice. Another shorter boy of about eighteen spoke before Aeden could react.

“Hi, I’m Wesley. I just joined the society a few months ago. Did I hear you say you were from Elbeth?” the boy asked, rather shyly.

“I am.”

“Oh. Then, I’m sorry. I just heard the news this morning.”

Another boy asked, “What news?”

Wesley bowed his head. “It was attacked. An army sprung up out of nowhere, probably from the northern kingdoms, they say, and invaded Elbeth, killing nearly everyone there! I heard there were just a few survivors. Aeden here must be one of the lucky ones.”

“No, the city was not leveled to the ground and everyone was not killed. But most of the nobility was. My father and sister were.”

The group fell silent, most looking at the ground or into the trees. Darla came up the Aeden and punched him in the shoulder. “Sorry, prince. That must be pretty awful for you. We’re glad you’re here.” And followed the punch with a shoulder pat and a smile.

“So, what do you guys do here all day?”

The boy who had asked about the news from Elbeth spoke up again, “Oh! We practice our rohva skills. I’m pretty new to it too. I’m Godwin, by the way. Some of us were just going to play rohva ball.”

“Rohva ball?”

“Come on,” Godwin replied, beckoning to Aeden, “we’ll show you. Can you enter someone else’s mind yet?”

“I did it once, but I had help from the master healer.”

“Oh, ok, well, just put your hand on my head, and Frederick here will help you. The rest of everyone will also enter by touching either my head, or one of yours and ending up at mine.”

Aeden and Frederick put their hands on the boy’s head, and Aeden concentrated, feeling a little mental nudge from Frederick, pushing, encouraging, directing his mind to the right place. With an inward rush he entered the mind, and turned to see everyone else. They were on a flat, grassy plane, and looking up, he saw another flat grassy plane about fifteen feet above them where there should have been sky. He looked around and could not quite tell where the light was coming from, but all was as bright as midday.

“Ok!” announced the boy, “you all know the rules, but I’ll explain them for Aeden here. Here’s the ball,” he held out his hand and in it appeared a wooden sphere with lightly indented grooves to ease grasping it, “basically, we throw it at each other, and if you get hit, you’re out of the game and have to watch until someone wins.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Oh, except you know how in the real world, you’re always pulled down? Well here, sometimes you get pulled down, and sometimes it flips and you get pulled up. Or sideways. Whatever I want really, it’s my head.”

“You can make us fall up?”

“Sure! Watch!” And as soon as Godwin finished speaking, the whole group left the ground, and fell up, hitting the grassy plane with a thud. Aeden got to his feet, rubbing his side.

“Is that all?” Aeden groaned.

“Oh, heavens no. But it would take too long to tell you everything. Let’s just play, and you can ask questions later. Basically, anything you see others do, you have the power to do yourself. Just will yourself to do them. Choose to do them. Got it?”

“I guess. Sure, let’s play.”

They spread out from each other, and Godwin announced the game had begun. Gravity shifted, and Aeden found himself flying back up, or down, to the ground, and watched as the ball went whizzing past, its path shifting with the gravity. He looked and saw Frederick float by, apparently defying gravity, but when that shifted again, the young man went flying with doubled speed back up to the sky, caught unprepared for the shift. A few times he saw Rupert disappear entirely when the ball nearly hit him. A slow smile spread over Aeden’s face, as he dodged, twisted, fell, floated, threw, yelled, tackled, and had one of the best times of his life. His cares forgotten, his grief softened by new friendship, he played for hours and hours with his new friends.

Eventually, they left Godwin’s mind, and Aeden, looking up to the sky, saw that only a few minutes had passed, for the sun remained in nearly the same position as before. He remained there the rest of the day, telling tales and hearing jokes, and getting to know his new friends better. After another few games towards the end of the day, Betha arrived, bringing a small amount of food to share with all. She looked out of the corner of her eye at Aeden, taking Darla aside and talking in hushed tones. Aeden blushed a bit, but said nothing to the girl, only thanking her stiffly for the light meal. He walked back to the house at sundown, only to return early the next day, and continued this ritual for over a week, passing every day in blissful enjoyment, though sensing growing concern from his mother for the time spent away from her, for she still grieved much and missed his presence.

The sun beat down especially hard one day and the friends rested under the trees of the grove to stay cool. Aeden was good friends now with Frederick, Stuart, Wesley, Godwin, and a few others, but gave Rupert a hard time. He reminded Aeden of the excitable boys in Elbeth from the lower houses of nobility that constantly pestered him to spend time doing this or that, thinking him their best friend in the world when in fact all Aeden wanted to do was go home and duel with Priam. Rupert therefore became the butt of many jokes, only compounding the problem of Rupert already being the butt of the jokes before Aeden ever arrived.

After one particularly nasty put-down, Rupert leapt to his feet and cried good-naturedly, pointing at Aeden, “I challenge you to a duel!” The others, sitting under the trees, looked up excitedly and began to chatter as they gathered around the two boys.

“You what?” Aeden looked askance at the smaller boy, clearly doubting this measly pest had any fight in him.

“I challenge you to a duel!”

“Do people even say that anymore?”

“Would you rather go have a shuffling race with my grandmum? Are you too womanly to face me? OW!” He ducked and waved his arms above himself as Darla aimed another well placed punch at the back of his head. Everyone laughed as Darla pointed to her eyes and then to him, menacingly.

“Ok then,” Aeden began to draw his sword that he had brought to show some of the other boys at their request, “but you don’t even have a blade.”

“Not a sword duel, you silly little man! A head duel. In true rohva fashion!”

“Is this where I punch you repeatedly in the back of the head until you scream ‘mommy! Come save me’? Or is that just what you and Darla do?”

“No no no. Well, yes, Darla does do that a lot, but no. A rohva duel takes place in the head of a third party, a
disinterested
third party, Darla,” the girl hit her knee in disappointment, “where we both meet and try to best the other with any method we know how. Has the master healer explained any of this to you?”

“No. He did not get the chance before I left the city.”

“So in our heads, you can’t get hurt. Your head can get chopped off, you can sink into the ocean, be lit afire, be swallowed whole by a, a,”

Frederick piped in “by a wild Stuart!”

The round young man consuming a turkey leg suddenly looked up. “I heard my name!”

Frederick, not missing a beat said, “Never mind, Stuart.”

“Got it,” and the teen turned his attention back to his half-eaten turkey leg.

Rupert continued, “by a sea serpent, or a dragon, or your mother or whatever. Nothing can hurt you.”

“So how do you win?” Aeden asked, skeptically.

“Easy. By crushing my head. Or pulverizing it, or incinerating it or chopping it up into tiny bits.”

“But you just said if I’m beheaded that that won’t hurt me.”

“Right. Beheadings can be recovered from—just grow a new body. But once your head is destroyed, you can’t exactly grow a new head, and without a head, your connection to the host’s head is broken and you kind of fall out. Got it? You’ll understand more once I beat you.”

“Don’t count on it runt. Ok, so let me get this straight. Nothing can hurt me, but protect my head. Got it. Can I use any weapons? Or do I have to turn into some massive creature that sits on you?”

“Stuart impersonations are perfectly acceptable…” Stuart yelled out “I heard that!” not looking up from his mostly consumed turkey leg. Rupert continued, “but you are also allowed to think up some weapons. You just can’t alter your surroundings—that is, you can set them on fire, crush them, but you can’t invent new surroundings or make the current surroundings disappear. Only the host can do that.” Rupert was rubbing his bony hands together. “Ready?”

“I guess. Who’s the host?”

Betha piped in, “I’ll do it.”

Aeden glanced over at her, almost betrayed by the blush of blood that rose to his face, though his hand shielding his face from the sun managed to hide it. “All right. What do we do?”

“Betha sits here in the middle and we put our hands on her head. If the others want to watch, they can just touch our heads and they’ll be able to observe.”

Aeden got up to allow Betha to sit on the log he had been on. She half-smiled at him and took her seat and the two duelists each put one hand on her head. Many of the others approached and touched either Aeden’s or Rupert’s. When all were settled, they entered Betha’s mind. At first, their surroundings were dark, but soon they found themselves near the top of a mountain. They were seated on stone steps that looked to be some sort of amphitheater, and below them sloped the mountain, with lakes glittering here and there, trees and shrubs dotting the landscape. To their right a small waterfall cascaded off into a stream below feeding one of the lakes, its source some unknown body of water above them. The amphitheater on three sides surrounded a small, stone surfaced performance area, and on the fourth side stretched a field, white and yellow with dandelions, trailing down the mountainside until it came to the first of the many lakes in view below them.