(USFB): Seventeen: Dormant Sensations

The Jade Tower was the last in the line, nearest to the eastern section of the mountain that enclosed the town. Several stories up, Razien knew he would be looking face-to-face with an aged mirror of himself, one that was infinitely more critical of him than he could be himself. And once more, as he neared that great metal and stone column, he felt a magnetism to the space. It was never quite clear, but it seemed so likely it was the proximity to his father.

Derius was not a cruel man, nor relatively so crude as Jaium, but as Razien met his gaze, he felt the often expressed disapproval he so often radiated. It wasn’t as though he had reason for pride in his son, considering where he had chosen to roost. There was a weighing stare as the elder wolf fixed Razien and Byshael in his sights. The man directly under him was all his son should have been, but arrogance and volition had altered that future. He settled his quill on the writing desk and stood to greet them properly.

“Arms Master Byshael, what business do we have here?”

“A message from the Baylen Jaium in the south. Your s… Razien Moqura is among the party here to bring such information to you,” Byshael kept his best sense of decorum before the Consul.

Derius was unmoved by the slip; instead, he was more intent on the man just mentioned, “Very well. Can I have you bring his fellows off to a guest chamber in this tower? Let one of those in the kitchen know we have guests.”

Byshael bowed and, with a glare, caused both fox and coyote to fall in step with him as they exited the Consul’s study. There was a sinking feeling that threatened to pull Razien’s heart down past his tail as the others left. It was childish, he knew, to still look to his father as such a point of authority that he might fear him, but there was little else in the way of reaction. The room, once most and beneath a severe discipline, was far different. The arrangements along the walls were five times larger than in those days, the banners of old monarch less tattered and dusty, and the makeshift cot pressed into the corner nonexistent. He could see that in his time away from home, fortunes, if not simply conditions, had changed for his father.

Derius gestured to one of the cushions on the floor set in a semi-circle around the desk. That too was an addition, but likely one that was long in coming. As Consul, Derius often was busied with meetings and had clearly ceased with the concern where those would take place. Razien chose to stand, prompting his father to lean against his desk. He hadn’t stood the height of his own son before slouching, and now he would look to be the younger for his lack of stature. Banally, he threw down the question, “What is it that Jaium found so important that he couldn’t wait to send one of the men among the Wyse with this message on return.”

“The Wyse won’t be returning. Atali is dead, father.”

“Dead? How?!”

“I couldn’t say,” Razien trailed, knowing the answer insufficient, “There was a concern for a wound he had, but there was no ill-blooded infection. I was away when it happened and only came upon him after the fact. Jaium was hurt and in no condition to bring the message himself. As we speak, I’m sure he’s sorting out the culprit if one is to be found.”

As the news struck the old wolf, he sank onto one of the many cushions, “This is not… we are not in any shape to place a new Wyse, not with the troubles that have come in from afar.”

With his father silent, Razien allowed his mind to become muddled in the strange aura that emanated somewhere beyond the tower. He had never known it so strongly as he did in that moment. As a cub, and even into his adolescence, he had felt a pull from this side of the Roya. The clarity of this draw was beginning to concern him. It had been but a low thrumming in his head as they entered the gates and made their way into the valley, but now, within the towers, it was as though he listened to whispers at the far side of the hall. A voice echoed to him from some hidden place, but their words were lost in transit.

Finally, after pressing his ears to his head for minutes, Derius looked to his son, “No one must know of Atlai’s demise. Not here, at least. In your camp, I am sure it will be impossible to deny, but you will bring word that we have placed a successor in the meantime.”

“Who should I say is the Wyse now?”

“Anyone but me. If Jaium thinks for a moment that I have assumed the position, he will turn on me sooner than any of the Western washouts or the army pressing across the lands. He knows Byshael, knows that he and Tirasha are bound or soon to be, I suggest him.”

“Why would Jaium disagree with you holding that post?”

“Jaium and I are of an age with each other, but hardly are we much the same beyond that,” his eyes glossed with distant memories that were too numerous to recount and of such dubious quality that he never would desire to share them with any, let alone his son, “No, let us say that Byshael is assuming control. I’d offer Tirasha, but I don’t think the man quite favors ladies in such places. In his regiment, fine, but not in charge, not after…”

The exchange in silence spoke onto truths the man could not let slip. Razien allowed his father the time to breathe, to think about how to best attack the subject. There was no doubt in the wolf’s mind that his father would know best, not only as his own sire but for what the Wyse had thought of him. Atlai could have chosen anyone to serve as Consul, but he had selected Derius, and not without cause. As his father mentally worked through the problems, Razien allowed his tired mind to drift again. That sensation, the pulling aura, still trickled into his mind and became all the more intoxicating as he gave way to letting it rest more and more control of his conscious mind. There was the threat that it was some lurking specter or the faintest trace of vile-blood, but Razien wouldn’t give the notion the time of day.

The towers, for what they knew of them, were not like so many of the constructions in the valley of Roya. They had stood since prehistory and had never shown the slightest hint of decay or deterioration. Even against rumbling cyclones that had hopped into the bed of the mountains, they were unmoved and hardly bothered. They had served well against the storms, and in them, the population would ride out the worst of them. The sleek structures did little against the cold, but the scholars who studied such ancient things supposed they were not made to do so, at least not at the heights.

Floors and floors below, after hitting the ground and going yet deeper, almost an equal length below as they were up now, sat what could have been a constructed cave meant for shelter and warmth. The drawback of using this deep cavern, or caverns if the four towers were not connected in these trenches in the earth, was that they were entirely inhospitable to most. So deep in the ground, they were deprived of any light or fresh air, and then there was the murk and foul of the grave. At the bottom of the steps stood grim iron gates that separated the tower from these depths. Behind the gates, which had never once been open as far as record went, hung billowing webs of haze hardly parted by lantern light. Yet in that light, vague shapes, like markers or statues, could be seen. There had even been reports that shifting shadows, shades like that which drew away Sirian a generation before, lurked beyond those gates. It was a wonder if the whispering that found Razien so conveniently didn’t come from one of the segments of hollow earth.

“How long do you and your companions have?” Derius absentmindedly broke his son’s drowsy thoughts.

Pulling back from the depths of the mountain to the heights he sat at, Razien shook about, “We weren’t given specific word, but sure enough, Jaium would have us back as soon as possible.”

“How long were you on the path?”

“Better part of the night, but it’s something of a blur. The day was long.”

“I want you to rest here, even until the afternoon. I can put everything I need in place and you can return to Jaium with something more sufficient. It’ll take a little time, but I’ll have rooms set aside for the three of you.”

Despite his better judgment, Razien’s weary mind had already eroded his will. Though his father, doing his best to seem the humble and most formal servant for the late Wyse came across more as the mindful parent, he conceded that he needed the rest. And though it was plain enough Razien was deferring to his father, Derius looked no less vexed for the easy victory over his son. The troubled expression did not leave Derius’ face even after passing off his guests to one of the serving girls around the tower.

Girl was the proper term for the wolf Derius instructed to ensure rooms were prepared for the trio. As Razien allowed the name Thecla to bound around his head, he wondered if he hadn’t been in Roya when she was born or a cub just out of the bundle on her mother’s back. It wasn’t as though the village were so small that he would know any other wolf. Still, she was about the age to have been born before his departure, and despite a greater sense of unity, most wolves heavily associated with those of a similar coat.

The gapped-tooth little wolf ran ahead, the bell about her ankle jangling like mad as she led the way from one tower to the next. As they rounded about to the entrance, facing inward toward the mountain, Razien felt the pulse of echoes grow heavy once more. He halted, allowing Ceren to become the group’s tail in his stead. Though he had been on this side of the towers innumerable times, it was as though it were the first occasion for Razien. Standing stalk still as a Senturian statue set forth to guard the Harbor of Maus for time eternal, the wolf fixed on the only break in the craggy surface of the mountain.

Directly between the two towers eastmost of Roya, set into a natural alcove in the rock created by an ever-widening fissure, stood a grand coin of intense and unmistakable bronze workmanship. The massive icon was something like a disc, though may have been ovoid with a buried half in the surrounding walls. At its heart, there was a small divot like a pendant that had lost a well-buffed and shining shimmer stone. Spiraling with jagged points out from the core was a winding path that grew in width as it did in length until it was blotted out by the rock jutting about the edges of the seal. Yet, for all its apparent work and guildings in an eye-catching silver, it was a pointless thing.

Like too many manifestations of an ancient past alien to the living, it was a structure built once with some express purpose but now far removed from any such meaning. It was no different than the towers that concealed its hideaway, save the wolves could use the massive columns for housing. Still, there were more of these artifacts, some of which were more directly objects pulled from time that could be held in the paw. And, as time passed, ever more information was gleaned of these ancestral objects that, though lacking in name or specific purpose, were nonetheless sought after. However, the cord the site struck in Razien was unmistakable. If not the caverns that networked beneath his feet, then it was this space that captivated his half-sleeping mind. But, for all that was known, they could have been one and the same, linked through the spaces hidden in between.

“It must run in the blood,” came an all too familiar voice beside Razien, “Luckily, it doesn’t seem to carry the taint of the Goredrinker.”

The scarlet-draped belly would have given away the daughter of the Wyse as easily as her voice to Razien. Yet, what she was doing here, or better, what business she must have felt she had with him, was beyond the man. Undoubtedly, their youth as playmates was not forgotten, but it was very much a lifetime ago to Razien, distant memories of another wolf. He did not, however, choose to leave the woman without a response. Neither was proper nor lightly forgotten, “What’s that?”

“Your father is and, by my father’s word, always has been someone to serve as a romancer of the antiquarian world that sat in the lands before us. I’ve never had the nerve to ask him myself, but perhaps you could tell me, what is the allure of such old things? They hardly are of use to us. So is it simply to look upon the great works of a stranger and admire the delicate handy work?” her brilliant eyes sparkled with genuine curiosity rather than chastisement. Razien began to fumble for a response only to find two stubby fingers gripping his sleeve. Before he could give the child a moment, Tirasha had taken over the conversation once more, “Thecla, could you have your mother prepare something for guests? I’m sure they’ll need a good meal now and when they leave, and I don’t think anyone else has bothered. You aren’t leaving soon, are you?”

“Not right away,” he trailed as the cub looked up to him and then cleared her confusion on meeting the woman’s gaze, “We certainly need the rest, and something in our stomachs would be nice.”

As the cub jogged away, Tirasha watched after her, pressing an open paw to her burgeoning belly. To Razien, it was hard to tell if she lost her resolve or her place in the conversation or if she simply was reveling in the coming life. Standing side by side in silence, Razien again wandered back to her first line of inquiry before Thecla had interrupted. He hadn’t known his father to be anything but a man in the present, too concerned with keeping the balance politically that such trifles as ancient monuments and relics were beneath him. But, again, Razien could recollect a variety of trinkets and sketches of distant sites that had been brought to his father all through his youth and even now those that adorned private chambers.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but your father is still burnt up about you leaving Roya,” the cool eyes did not face him now but focused on the wolf waiting to erupt from within her, “My father, he might be the only one who yours trusts anymore. It doesn’t take much reading into, but he confessed that he wanted you to remain here, not to stagnate or avoid the Goredrinker’s domain but to take his place. Consul is not the most exultant position here, I know, but I believe he’d rather have given that position to you and not, as it looks now, to Byshael.”

“Why not Byshael?”

“Raz, love is blinding, but no one stricken with it, for Shae would be able to ignore things as they stand. He’s a good man, but he is rough and lacks that gentle insight your father pushes through with. I can’t imagine how so many treaties and contracts sewn between us and even nearkin would have gone with Byshael and not your father advocating for us.”

“He has always been a very pragmatic man. Maybe that’s why there are still those who could believe I’m not his son in truth but a child of compassion,” Razien let the remark sink the conversation for a moment. Tirasha could give her kindliest smile, but it did little, as did her inspection of his forearms before presenting her own wrapped and decorated in a dense blue ribbon. There was little wear to the piece, meaning it was still fresh unless she had been kept from any labors since conceiving, unlikely as it was.

Trying as she might to ignore the trouble such comments would cause, Tirasha remarked, “I thought by now, at least with how Derius spoke of you, you’d be bound as well.”

“No. Not now, and love or not, not ever.”

“I think if others knew that much about you, they’d insist you could only be your father’s son,” her punctuated giggle did little to smooth tensions, nor did her continuations, “I just meant… Well, I don’t think my father had any desire for it, but on the eve of our binding, your father was a bit taken by one thing or another and confessed, at least in private, how he wished to see the two of us… But, I can see why he would feel so free to say so even without his head filled with caps.”

“He’s always been quite sentimental,” the remark was automatic while Razien’s mind finally wandered from the gate to that lost possibility. It wasn’t as though he had never considered that life, a choice made for him by guiding paws that did not concern as much for his desires as the political gains of such operations. Still, now that it was beyond him, Razien felt his heart sink a bit despite his love for that lynx now so far from him.

His change in demeanor was not apparent, but the aura of the conversation had changed perceptively enough for Tirasha, “I’d better be off; allow you to get your rest. Rare as it is to have guests of our family here, I know you have your own duties. Until next time, Razien.”

The girl swiveled and was quickly away, her dress catching the breeze only slightly held down from fluttering by her tail pressed tight to her thighs. Razien watched but not for any malign attempt at an unexpected glance but in wanting for words to match her own. He hadn’t even been able to conjure his own farewell as Tirasha vanished between the towers. Instead, words fought and writhed and died on his tongue, searching for meaning or utility and finding between two lives so different, there was no purpose in bemoaning lost chances and unknown loves.