A Dream of the Heaven

Chapter 2 (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 2

Imlon

-

Imlon dreamt of starlight, but woke early.  Morning sunbeams flooded through the dust-covered windows of his bedroom.  Swiftly rising, he dressed in a black doublet decorated with silver thread, suitable for the royal court but not likely to attract attention.  His travelling clothes lay on the bed and his riding boots sat at its foot, ready and waiting.  His stomach twisted and his fingers shook a little as he set to packing his small chest.

Memories echoed from each object he handled, most to be left behind; books on astronomy, history and art; inkwells and paperweights of coloured glass; a crude wooden model of a knight, one he had painted as a child with endearing smudges of colour.  He had always intended to send it back east to his young cousins, but had never found the time.  He had not seen them for years.  Neither had Isendrin.  That was the first price of a royal office; the second, it seemed, was ignominy.

A drumming of hoofbeats rattled outside.  Many had already passed and Imlon knew there would be many more of them yet, nobles and gentlemen riding for the audience at the Pinnacle.  It could be done with so quickly, he thought, if Isendrin stated his purpose from the outset.  The court, however, would expect drama.  Agostes would doubtless play the hero.

A key grated in the door and one of Imlon's jailors thrust it open.

“You’re to come to the audience.  Half an hour.”  The jailor smiled.  “Think your brother’ll be condemned?”

Imlon sighed.  “No.”

Something in the jailor’s face changed.  He took a few steps into the room.

“I think he will,” he said, “I think he’s a dead man.  I think his Majesty’s going to hang him, take his body back to Casa Flow, and chain him up on the sea wall.  And I think he’s going to make you watch.”

“Do you mean to scare me?” said Imlon.  The legionary stood a head taller than him, with strength to match, but the astronomer was past caring.  “Is that it?”

“Aye,” said the jailor, “That’s it.  And that’ll be it for the rest of your years.  Half an hour, stargazer.”

He closed the door.

It was not yet eight by the time Imlon locked his chest.  He sat on the edge of his bed and stared at it; all his worldly self, bound up in a few small bands of wood.  It was still more than most had. 

An image came to mind: a house, tiny, overgrown with weeds, near-flooded in mud from the river.  His grandfather’s home.  He had no memory of the man himself.  His parents had become more prosperous, moving the family west in search of a better life, when Imlon was only an infant.  In a moment of quiet revelation, he realised that his parents had succeeded, somewhat for themselves, but certainly for their sons.  One ennobled, a Lord General, the other a royally-appointed scholar.  Now those sons had squandered it.

As the sunlight drifted across the room, a glint on the low shelves running under the windows caught his eye.  It was a thin silver necklace, hidden in shadow until now, that he had missed when sorting his belongings.  He picked it up, scolding himself for nearly forgetting it.  The tiny, fragile links were plain, and hanging at the end was a stylised pair of wings, three curved lines for each.

He turned it over in his hands, the gentle sound of the links soothing him.  Over the centuries so many meanings had been layered upon the Wings – goodness, nobility, grand ambition – but since its inception it had stood for rescue, an escape to better things.  Clutching it in his palms, Imlon closed his eyes.