“Come along, Fe’n,” the second man said, and we began walking east
toward Itaska. “My name is Abhard Ahibari, and this is my brother
Alimarr.”
I smiled at once, as I knew who these men were. What was more, when I
provided them my family name, I would at once become familiar to them,
although they had never known and perhaps not even heard of me before.
This made me feel at once important and poweful, as I knew my hosts,
but they did not yet know their guest.
“Gentlemen, it is good to see you alive and well,” I said as we
hastened toward the coast. “You have known my brother, although perhaps
it has been so long, and so much has changed, that you have not thought
of him in many months or more. His name was Ansidrion Poniubiresh, and
he toiled with you in the Ilepyan Brotherhood.”
Alimarr stared at me in amazement, and Abhard clapped his hands
together. “Old Ansidrion! That mountain of a man! You cannot be
Yhako; you must be the boy, Federan.” Both men were smiling now.
“Yes, it is I. Fe’n, if it pleases you.”
“Ansidrion was a good man,” Alimarr spoke. “Although it has been a
while since I thought of him, please know, Fe’n, that Abhard and I never
cease to think of or work in the honor of our old fellows. I remember
and cherish those twenty-six other members of the Brotherhood, the men
who lost their lives that night. We have since spent every one of our
nights in the streets, have enforced the tarbhasht, the parebhur and the evatarr, have and will risk our lives that they have not died in vain.”
I smiled meekly. Would that I could say the same, but at least I had
been there for the fall of the Apgha, and at least I had been active
today. “Sirs, we are close to success, thanks in no small part to your
hard and brave work.”
“Success is at hand, Fe’n,” Abhard nodded. “And no single person
deserves the success for it, but rather anyone who has sacrificed
anything, including you and your brave brothers.”
I disagreed that I had done much at all, but I decided against saying
anything of it. When we arrived at the Ahibari home, Alimarr generously
offered me his bed, but I refused it. “I have spent many hours in bed
of late,” I told them. “Tonight I shall accept nothing less than the
floor of my gracious hosts.”
“Very well, Fe’n, as you shall have it,” Abhard agreed. “We have a
small parlor in the front of our home, and we offer you a few extra
blankets to keep you warm through the night.”
I thanked the men and followed them into the parlor. I took no time to
look around the room, but rather placed my body on the ground,
expecting that I might want sleep after such a long day. My hosts
departed for their chambers, leaving me in the dark with my thoughts.
Of course, the moment I laid myself down, my mind began to race. I had
had my night’s restoration in the streets, of course, and now I did not
need sleep at all. It was not as though I would be able to find it
anyway, as I had so much to give my thoughts to. Reform had taken the
day. The guilty had been willing to shout their names publicly, at the
building that had represented their oppression. And that very building,
the Apgha, had fallen to the people. It was all a marvel to me. Had
so much happened since I had last protested? Or had we already been
this close to success when I retreated to my bed?
I began to think of Yhako and Ansidrion, of Nidath and of Etiar, and
all of the many people who might have different thoughts about the
events of this day. Soon I found myself sitting upright upon the floor,
and then, as the weak light of dawn began to creep in through the
window, I took a brief stock of the room. It was nothing of particular
remarks, and had I not looked to the shelf over the small stove, I would
certainly give no word of the room at all. But even under the winter
morning light, I could see that the brothers had a few small books
resting upon this shelf. I was feeling both curious and restless,
naturally, so I stood and looked through them.
The cover of the first book, to my great surprise, bore the words asdelma Galmostaya—the
Song of Galmosto. I knew this book, of course. I had read it many
times in my youth, had placed great faith in it for my first eighteen
years, and had since given it great criticism. This was a prayer book,
which had been denounced by the reform. What was it doing in the home
of two honored opposition leaders?
I
looked to the next book. Perhaps they merely owned it to better
understand their opponents. But all of the books were similar—books
praising the Lords’ Occult and the Iqharepur, books that no one in
Grontinion held in any esteem. Might the Ahibaris follow the old
religion? Had they lured me into their home to do me harm? Had they
been spies within the Ilepyan Brotherhood all along? Did they merely
have the books as research of their opponents, or as relics of a past
life?
My
mind had been filled with questions, with contradictory explanations.
At that moment, however, I heard a great commotion from outside of the
house, and I heard footsteps just beyond the door. I rushed to the
small window in the room to see men and women running northward. What
could this be? An attack? But after a moment of observation, I noticed
in the dim light that the people smiled and waved their companions
along; they were running toward something. I made my way to the entry
of the house, where I saw my hosts standing in the doorway. Just as I
arrived, a man addressed the brothers as he ran by. “Abhard, have you
heard? The Yiffens arrive by sea! Their ships are come to port even
now!” The man summoned us with his right hand, and then disappeared
beyond the door in the direction of the Itaska Port.
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