Quiet Courage

11

Cienn went straight back to the tent Kain told him was his and fell flat on his cot.

What is wrong with me? He thought as he stared at the tent's canvas ceiling. He noticed his bags had been dropped off here, and there was a table with a tray of food and a wash basin with a pitcher of water. He went over to the table, washed his face gladly and grabbed an apple from the tray. He went back to his cot and sat. He took a bite of the apple and stared at the hole he left as he chewed. That hole looked like his heart felt, empty and hollow and wrong. He squinted his eyes at the apple, like it was the cause of all his frustrations. Angrily he chucked the apple at the opposite wall. It hit with a soft thud and fell immediately to the ground, sending a ripple along the tent walls. Cienn growled in frustration and fell back on his cot to stare emotionally at the ceiling.

Why had Kain done all that stuff anyways? It wasn't like Cienn was anything more than another conquest for the young mage. Right? Cienn sighed and threw his pillow over his face.

"Why can't I get anything right?" he fell asleep like that, pillow over his head and clothes still on.

He came out of the tent the next day blinking angrily at the sun. It was his first day at Bylis, and he would have liked a day or two to recuperate. But Kain and Charna both insisted that it was crucial he be briefed in the current estates of the war, and truthfully he wanted to know what was happening. If he was truly supposed to lead these people as king, he may as well start early.

He looked about at the bustling camp, a myriad of tents, half reconstructed ruins and shabby huts housed most of the forces at Bylis. Looking up, he could see the cliffside dwellings of the Elementals, untouched by time and the destruction of the elements. Their palisades and terraces glinted in the bright morning light, and Cienn thought he could see people flitting back and forth along the open aired rooms. He headed slowly in that direction, dodging a myriad of people that he'd never truly seen before. There were towering Elementals of all kinds, mages with their dark, twisting tattoos, and people he could have sworn sprouted wings from their backs, or fluked tails from their rears. It was mind boggling truly, and if Cienn hadn't seen them all with his own two eyes he wouldn't honestly believe them.

In his quick tour of the day before he'd seen some pretty amazing things, but as he made his way through the ramshackle streets he was awed once more at the diversity and splendor of this place. Despite their troubles the people here seemed freer, more themselves. It was a nice change from seventeen years of tyranny. Even a noble had to watch where they stepped in the court of Sundast, as Cienn well knew by now. He was about halfway to the entrance to the Elemental city when a large yellow tent caught his eye. He paused at its entrance, listening in.

The voice of an old woman came out to his ears in song. She sang in a language Cienn had never heard before, and behind each note he felt some twinge of power similar to Kain's or Charna's. Intrigued he crept up to the entrance and looked in. The voice came from a shriveled husk of a woman. Every inch of her appeared wrinkled and sagging. Black magic tattoos curled along her limbs and what part of her torso he could see.

Above her head hung strings of herbs and dried plants. She would reach up to them from her stool, snap off a sprig of this or that, and toss it into a small cauldron on her worktable. As the herbs left her hand, they left a trail of green light in their wake. Small explosions of liquid green light burst up as they hit the cauldron spot on. Cienn ducked his head underneath the flap of the tent and into the gloom of its inner depths.

"I was wondering when you'd make the decision to come in here," the old woman said, not turning away from her work. Cienn walked up to her table to look over her shoulder, which he could still do despite her standing on a stool. Halfway there though there was an angry hiss and a beak snapped at his legs.