Chapter Seven: Lessons
He wasn't old, you should understand. He was actually quite young. I guessed in his thirties, although he never told me his age and he never told me where he came from. I never asked. Aryl was a man of mystery, and sometimes it's better not to solve them. I learned that the hard way.
The morning sun broke the horizon in pallid yellow flame, and I woke to its golden glow as it streamed in through the window of Aryl's study. When I peeled my eyes open and yawned a single, great yawn, I noticed that he wasn't there, disappeared without a trace, abandoned me without a note.
I made it two hours before leaving to search for him. For me, it had felt like a year of waiting, and I hate waiting. Hate it. Looking back, it was probably not the smartest thing to do, being that, one, he could have been anywhere, and two, I didn't know how to open the bronze-plated door back into the tower.
Lucky for me though, I found him easily enough. He was sitting in the small courtyard just outside the library, a staff in his resting grasp, looking very wizardly. He was only missing the hat.
"You failed," he said, matter of fact, as I walked up to him, disappointment creeping into his voice.
"What?" I said, confused. As far as I was concerned, we weren't playing a game, and if we were, I didn't know what the hell I had done wrong.
Aryl stood up, leaning on his plain oak staff. In the morning sunlight, his hair was wild and his beard was greying, and he had a strange look about his eyes. He looked like someone who hadn't slept in a fortnight, or some crazed delusional. I gathered quickly that either, if not both, of those descriptions could have been true.
"You left," he said, craning his neck in question. "Did I grant you leave from my tower?"
My shoulders slouched slightly in defeat. "No," I sighed.
"Then you failed."
His words smacked me like cold iron to the face. I was not used to those words. I was not used to how it felt, so, me being the fool I was, lashed out. "Failed in what?"
"Listening."
"But you never told me that," I barked back.
"I shouldn't need to," he said, calm. "Listening is not explicitly with your ears. Listening is many things. Listening is knowing. Listening is seeing, it is thinking. You did none of these things, and so forth, you have failed."
He wasn't making any sense. That made it all the worse. I failed and I still did not know what I had failed at or why.
"This is your first lesson of what will be many to come," he began. "Do you understand?"
I nodded, biting my lower lip as I did so.
"Good, you listened, even if you are biting your lip, you listened" he said, smiling briefly, a small amount of spite in his voice. "Now, if you are to live with me, which I greatly resent, mind you, you are going to learn. You have an eye for learning, this I have seen, but your curiosity is dangerous. It made you pry open my book, made you a target for the Empire of Antur. These things are not good."
"I'm sorry." It was the first thing that came to my mind.
"Don't apologize," he said. "It doesn't do anything." He began walking, walking towards the library, and I followed. "You will have access to the library again and to my stores, both food and money, and you will meet me in my study by fourth bell, everyday, for lessons. If you are late, or do not show, we are done. Understand?"
I didn't have time to answer.
"Good," he said as we passed beneath the archway and into the library. It looked the same as it had the day before, Alace jotting down notes on a piece of parchment with her back faced towards the doors, the atrium dim and ruddy. "Now, first order of business. You are to find these seven books." He slipped me a page of paper with a list of names scribbled across. "Read them, and we will discuss them tomorrow, among other things." Then he stopped and looked down at me, his voice going quiet. "I understand your father killed himself recently. I can see these things in your eyes. If you must, search for the answers you seek." He laid a hand to my shoulder. "I know the pain of losing someone you love. It hurts, more than anything in this world. Finding a reason will help, I hope."
I would have thanked him, but he was already gone, like smoke on a field.
It took me hours to search for the books he'd recommended, all of which were hulking tomes, dusty and ancient. While it felt good to be back in the library, I did not like what I was reading. It was dry and it was boring, but such is the study of history. I simply had to grit my teeth and keep my eyes from drooping.
I didn't work. I suppose it did for a brief while, by pure willpower, keeping my eyes just slightly open, but will alone only goes so far. I let my head slip from my hand and rest upon the pages of the open book that I'd been reading.
I woke with the side of my face wet with drool. Luckily, I was saved from my embarrassment. Nobody was there to see me wipe the slob from my chin and I prayed to Aylar that I nobody ever would. Reputation is a thing to be built, not destroyed.
I returned the books to their proper places and checked myself out of the library, this time finding the time to flirt with Alace, who of course wasn't having any of it.
"What do you say," I said in my sweetest voice, taking care to not come off desperate or over confident. It is understated but the placement of voice is extremely important, especially when conversing with women. It is an art. "I've a bit we can split over some tea and pie." I held up the small steel piece, dancing it through my fingers so that it caught the light and glinted.
"Kaedn," she said, looking up for a brief moment from her parchment. "I don't have I the time, nor do I think Ammor would like it very much if I danced off with you to have tea and pie. You know Ammor, he's not the sort..."
"To have a heart," I said, filling the gap in her words, but I understood what she was really saying: Fuck off, Kaedn, I don't want to have your stupid tea and pie. I didn't press her any farther. Instead, I tried a different approach. "What are you writing?"
"Translating, actually," she said, noticeably irritated at my presence. "You know the tale of Emberlan Ever-Young?" I nodded. I wasn't daft. "Well, I'm translating that..." She smiled somewhat and sighed. "Old Lentish really is a bitch."
It was my time to leave. She had turned away and started working on her translation again, dipping her quill into the well of ink beside her. It looked backbreaking work, so I simply said, "Have fun!" in my most sarcastic tone and walked the rest of the way out of the library and into the streets of Raenish. When am I ever going to learn? I thought with a smirk. She doesn't like me. She never did and she never will. I simply shrugged and continued on. At least it was fun talking to her.
The streets were busy, as usual. Less so closer to the lord's estates, but as I drifted farther and farther away, the crowds blossomed like a flower in spring and the throngs of people choked the cobbled walks like twigs in a stream. The cold kept the colors grey and drear, most wrapped in heavy wool or thick furs, each one varying shades of grey or black. I fit right in with my dark blue.
Amongst the monotone, sticking out like a sore thumb, was a troupe of minstrels, a garish lot, staging a scene of Lord Lady, a terribly sexual play in its own right, on the side of the road. I stayed and watched with the small crowd, and clapped at its close. I didn't stay for the rest. I knew how it ended. Lord Casperlan was tricked into having sex with Lady Melannan, and in return for his unfaithfulness the night before, she steals his clothes and makes him walk the city streets naked as the moon. The first time round, it was astoundingly funny, but after time, it looses its appeal, its originality, like most things.
I decided then to make my way across the road to a little tavern, alit with a warm, amber glow. I was hungry from wasting away in the library, however, I would be eating my pie and tea alone, without Alace, as was the regular occurrence. At least the pie was good, a fine meat pie with soft, delicate crust which flaked as I took bites into its warm center.
When I was finished eating and wandering the streets, alive with a new sort of freedom, I returned to the tower and knocked on the door, thankful that Aryl was home to open it for me. I made a mental note so as to find out how the door worked. I was not overly keen on the proposition of being locked out, especially in winter.
When I was up the stairs, Aryl took his seat by his desk, and set to his studies. I stood there and looked about the room, staring into the small, tame flames of the hearth at the floor until the sundering sunlight faded to darkness and it was time to sleep the night away. We dined in relative silence and as I ate, I remember clearly staring into Aryl's eyes and seeing things. They were not entirely good.
***
Fourth bell rung outside the tower's thick stonewalls as the morning mists had dispersed. Aryl stood at the window and I sat at the small wood table, reciting the information I'd crammed inside my head over the past day. I'd be ready for his questions, ready to prove myself worthy of his knowledge.
But he didn't ask me anything. He didn't even turn around. Minutes went by, then before I knew it, an hour had slipped between us, and we were still in the same places.
"I read the seven books," I said. "The ones you asked me to read, you know, Onctis's History of the Western Powers and Ellan's Antura, and..."
"We're not going to be discussing history today," he said, stoic.
"But I read all those books," I argued, unable to bite my tongue this time around. "They were massive and boring and I read them because you told me to."
"We're not discussing history today," he repeated, adamant. "Come stand beside me." I did so. It was then I noticed he was indeed a fair bit taller than me and he loomed over my figure like a great shadow. I watched his eyes scan the horizon. "What do you see, Kaedn?"
I looked out. I never noticed how high the tower was. It stretched easily over the surrounding buildings, facing the east and the rising sun and the cold grey lands surrounding the city all awash with wisps of white and brown. "Raenish," I said. "The sun."
"Boring," he said. "What do you see?"
The graveyard where my father was buried, I wanted to say, but didn't. "What do you see?"
"A man sees what he wants," he said, his gaze steady and lingering. "Each man sees something different, unique, such as each man is different and unique. Let me ask you once more: what do you see, Kaedn Fallow?"
"You didn't answer my question," I said, not letting him slip away.
Silence entered the space before he spoke, soft as a violet's petals. "I see the sun, the same sun that rose many years ago. It has returned, as so few things do. What is it that your eyes see?"
"My father."
Aryl nodded in satisfaction. "You see. We see different things. It's what makes us. Now, if we expand that concept, what does that tell us?"
I thought for a moment. "The same."
"How so?"
"Because if we all see different things from the same thing," I began. "We are all seeing things, aren't we, all from the same basic matter. The sight brings unity to our action."
"Close," said Aryl. "But such is not the true answer." He walked away from the window and sat on the floor. He waved his arms for me to join him, and I did. He looked into the fire, the fire that I had not even noticed the previous day. Its glow was weak and faint, the tendrils of flame dancing across the blackened embers, splashing red across the stone about them.
"What is this fire?" he asked. It was a general question. A big question, vast in its possibilities and potential. Far too great a question to answer briefly. I watched the flames writhe and wreath as the weak heat kissed the edges of my face. There was a subtle popping that faded into the silence of the tower.
"Fire is fire," I said, unable to think of anything more.
"Are you sure?" asked Aryl.
I wasn't, but I didn't have anything else to say or give.
Aryl filled the space. "If you study a thing long enough it no longer becomes a thing, but it becomes nothing. If you take away the word fire, the exact spelling, and replace it with something different, does that change the thing? No, it you call it water, it will still burn and glow red, just as if you call something wet such as water fire. These things do not change. Fire is nothing. It is a word. A word that will change and a word that will be lost many years from now. Words had their own power, but they do not hold physical form or power over something that is nothing."
He stopped and stood up. "These are the two pillars, Kaedn. "The change and the stationary. One cannot exist without the other. Change needs stability just as stability needs change to function. It you extract one of them it all becomes muddled. It all goes to ruin."
I watched the fire flicker as Aryl walked out of the room without another word.
***
The quick succession of lessons that followed proved to be strange engagements, filled with Aryl's weird and at times idiotic teachings. I learned things I never would have thought to learn, none of it being at all normal. They always seemed to posses a certain abstract quality, as if we were searching for answers outside of what was given, outside of what was provided both physically and mentally.
We spoke at length about ancient lore and myth, about the things that grounded them in reality, and why they did so. We talked about why things are called what they are, and if they had other names. We talked about obscure details, and observed little details that most people neglect or simply fail to acknowledge. Most important of all, however, in the days that passed Aryl became my father, or as close a thing to a father as I could ever get. He could never replace him, no, I loved my father too much for that, but he provided a certain comfort for me that I severely needed at the time, a comfort that went deep and true and pure.
Aryl was both a mysterious man and a dark man, but he was not a grim man, I should tell you. He was never grim or morbid in his musings. He understood things, as few people do, and knew things, as fewer people do. And he never spoke of Caleum Vinture, or arkency, or magic.
Never.
Not ever.
Not once.
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