Read Part 1: here
Trouble visited Starling exactly one minute after the crew of the Eponymous disappeared around a corner of the docks and faded into the crowds of Mellis. He bumped into a man carrying a crate that smelled of fresh fruits, was called a thief and had no other thought than to start running.
Panic welled in his chest and it poured out of him, manifested the crash of crates, stone breaking and falling from a building and shouts, echoing in the wake of his pounding feet.
At present he crouched between a building and stacks of empty amphoras that had once contained wine, based on the smell. He let his back rest against rough white-washed stone and for a moment, he missed the crew. Those two perfect days when he had no worries but helping to pull up ropes and keep the engines powered. It had felt more like home than anything in his life yet.
The first seed of doubt lodged itself into Starling’s heart while he hid in what felt like the single darkest and grungiest alley of the famous golden-towered city of Mellis. How many more might he injure? What lay at the end of all his running?
Come to me my boy. Do you want a home? I can give you one. One where you will never need to worry about injuring another with your power. The voice spoke for the first time in two days.
Starling hadn’t heard a single whisper while he’d worked with the crew. He let his head thunk back against the stone wall. The pain throbbing through his head grounded him for a moment.
“Alright then, where do I go?” Starling said and the voice told him.
****
Three hours later, Starling was pressed up against another wall. This one faced out toward a wide, thoroughfare lined with the famous red leafed flavius trees and packed with old carts pulled by olix, steam-powered vehicles and pedestrians all shouting at each other as they pushed and prodded their way through main road of Mellis.
Through the cacophony, and the smells both sweet and sour, Starling’s attention caught on a large, black and silver construct. Constructs were rare and not entirely legal in some Kingdoms for their dangerous combination of alchemy and astral magic.
He’d only ever read about them in tech folios. This one was built in the shape of an akaloman with plate metals in blacks and silvers. Its hooves looked sword-sharp and its mane and serpentine tail flickered with white electro-static and its eyes set on the sides of an elegant, elongated snout were red, beady lasers.
On top of the huge alchemical contraption sat an even larger man with shoulders like mountains. He wore armour that shone under the high sun and as he rode the construct, the crowd parted for him like water. Starling eyed the man with envy. There was someone who knew exactly who he was and where he was going.
The voice had given Starling precise directions. What the voice had obviously not realized, and what the voice was not commenting on, was that Starling had spent his entire life to this point being taken places by other people. He had never had to go somewhere on his own. No one let him go anywhere on his own, other than next door to visit Lila. Starling was lost and he hated it.
He had tried asking people on the streets where the Guild of Alchemists was, but after the first one had spat on him and the second and third had ignored him, Starling gave up. For an hour now he’d been largely ignored as he leaned against what he was calling his wall.
A scream cut through Starling’s wandering thoughts and he stood straight, eyes cutting to where the scream had come. There was a man lying prone in the middle of the street, just under the armoured man and his construct.
“Learn your place beggar,” the armoured man said as he continued forward. The back leg of the construct stepped on the downed man and he screamed. Starling winced at the crack of bone which followed. The crowd filling the road quieted, as everyone stopped to watch what would happen next.
“Who is that man?” Starling leaned away from the wall to ask a man leading a pyribex with tall horns.
“The Black Knight,” the man said. “He’s one of the Guild’s bodyguards.”
“Guild’s?” Starling asked, hoping he’d get words not spit for an answer this time.
The man gave him a look like Starling was flashed and did not answer as the the Black Knight continued, his voice echoing over the crowds with a deep, distorted boom: “dare come between me and my duties, dare meet your end and I am far kinder than what the alchemists will cook of your parts.”
“The Guild of Alchemists?” Starling said out loud. The man leading the pyribex didn’t answer. Starling shivered, a second seed of doubt lodging into his heart. What kind of people did that?
Powerful people. People who are not afraid to be who they are meant to be, the voice answered.
The Black Knight had moved on, the crowds restarted and Starling pressed himself back up against the wall, shifting his travelpack to his side so he could stay as much out of the way as possible as a huge olix stomped past him, snorting and shaking its curved horns while dragging an old, box-cart.
The adrenaline, the certainty, the rush of running and, of adventure had disappeared as quickly as the crew had disappeared after they’d docked in Mellis. That morning’s sense of hope and excitement now felt distant.
Pin had talked to him as the Eponymous docked; about who Starling’s parents had been as Starling thought about who they were now, who they wanted him to be and who he wanted to be.
In response to Starling’s uncertainty Pin had said, “everyone has a story, but you’ve got to make your own. Follow your gut.”
Follow my gut, Starling thought to himself. He needed to learn more about the voice and the alchemists. He also needed food and a place to stay. All in all, they were his best option but no one was telling him where the Guild was.
He jumped on the spot, craning his neck to see if he could catch sight of the Black Knight who had moved ahead on the thoroughfare.
The man’s armour flashed in the noon sun, far ahead but Starling could catch up, he was sure. Black Knight wasn’t moving quicker than Starling might run. Reinvigorated, Starling stepped away from the wall and began to dart around the vehicles, carts, creatures and people that crowded the road. He paused twice to jump up and check where the Black Knight was.
“Hey! Sir! Sir Knight!” Starling started to yell as he finally got in hearing distance from the Knight.
The Black Knight pulled on the reins of the construct, it creaked and groaned in response as it stopped short. People walking nearby scattered, leaving a wide radius between themselves, the Knight and Starling. The Knight himself turned in his seat and spoke.
Seeing him face to face Starling flinched at the skull-like mask that the man wore.
“You deem to speak at me urchin?” Even close up, the Black Knight’s voice echoed with deep distortion through the mask.
“I seek the Guild of Alchemists,” Starling said, proud that he managed to keep his voice steady as he looked up at the Black Knight. Steam flowed out of the constructs nostrils, pooling around its four metallic legs.
“Ah, indeed you do,” the Black Knight said, appraising him, and seeing something Starling could not identify, but made him safer than anyone in the thoroughfare. “Walk behind me.”
“You’ll take me there? Like that?” Starling said, amazement colouring his voice. It seemed far too easy. “Why?”
The Black Knight kicked the construct into moving with a groan of gears and rush of steam and did not answer. Starling hurried to follow, careful to stay behind, although he felt nervous about getting too close to the construct that made Starling feel like the air was coated in sludge.
As they walked, no one came near and the streets were quiet. All conversation and movement halted as the Black Knight passed. Starling had never heard of the man and wondered what he had done that his mere existence stopped all chaos of such a busy, grand city with his mere presence.
So focused on observing everyone else, Starling had barely a second to throw up his hands before he smacked into the back of the construct. The Black Knight had stopped and swung down, his feet shaking the ground as his heavy boots landed on the grey stone street they had turned on to.
“Come,” he said to Starling before turning toward a large, red wooden door set back behind four white pillars in a tall, two story villa. Starling gaped for a moment.
Wood was rare in the cities, there had been a decree some five hundred years ago for no more wood to be cut from the forests after too many people went missing or were found dead, after entering with intentions on harvesting wood. Most places used tapestries or woven river-reeds.
“Come,” the Black Knight said with more force and Starling snapped out of his awe, to hurry up to the door which the Knight opened without fanfare. He strode in and Starling hurried after, assuming he was meant to follow.
The Knight led Starling through what seemed a maze of corridors within the building, that although it was two stories, the inside seemed so much larger. They walked past busts of all manner of creatures, suits of armour, tapestries with the heraldry of the Twelve Kingdoms, there was even a flag with the three pronged symbol of the Druadin Order.
The floors were a wealth of colour too — made of elaborate mosaics depicting characters from stories. Some, Starling recognized and others he did not.
At last, the stomping Knight stopped before a red tapestry. “He will see you in there, go,” he nodded and then he turned on his heel. In a few heavy strides he had disappeared around a corner and was gone.
Starling blinked after the Black Knight, wondering who “he” was.
At last we are to meet my dear boy. Do come in. It does not look well to stand about like a fish, the voice, ever present in Starling’s head, ever since he could remember, spoke but this time it seemed to reverberate through his head and his ears.
He pushed back the tapestry and stepped into the room.
The first thing Starling noticed was the tall man. He was taller than his father, taller than the Black Knight, but as thin as a reed. His hands were skeletal and his cheeks were sunken.
He wore rich robes that were in the multi-layered and multi-fabric style of the Phyxian Kingdom, best known for their fashions. He had rings on every finger, each a different coloured gem and he gave Starling a gesture of hello that made Starling’s eyes hurt as the gems reflected off the light of the quartzal lamps set around the room.
“My dear boy, it is a pleasure to meet you in the flesh,” the man said with the voice that Starling had been hearing in his head for as long as he could remember.
“Who are you?” Starling said, not moving from where he stood, just in front of the door.
“I am Abramalion, the Master of the Guild of Alchemists. Welcome, Starling Swan, to our doors.” Abramalion stepped toward Starling, his hands spread out in a welcoming gesture.
“I’m not an alchemist,” Starling said, taking a step back.
“No, you are better my boy. You are power, as nature intended.”
“I’m dangerous and my mother couldn’t help me. How could you? You aren’t attuned to the astral.” Starling felt a third seed of doubt lodge itself in his heart.
“No, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand it. I’ve always been with you. I know you. I know all your thoughts. Can you say the same of your mother? Of your father?”
Starling shrugged. At a loss for something to say, or do, his eyes darted through the room, now that Abramalion was becoming more of a person and less of a figurehead taking all his focus. The room was round, it had a glass ceiling, through which Starling could see trailing ivy and the afternoon sun.
The walls were hidden by shelves reaching from the thick Phyxian rug-covered floors to the glass ceiling. They were stuffed with codices made of leather and paper, reed scrolls, kodak disks and quires, which used kodak technology to store any form of information in a steelback powered with quartzal.
“You are welcome to look. My things are yours now, my boy.” Abramalion said, giving the same welcoming gesture toward the shelves.
Starling debated for a moment and the fact he wasn’t being chased or yelled at, but welcomed, won out and in five quick steps he was in front of a shelf stuffed with old reed scrolls.
“May I?” Starling asked, looking to Abramalion with uncertainty.
“My things are your things, my boy,” Abramalion said with a smile which made his sunken face stretch even thinner and tighter. Starling ignored the uncertain jab in his gut and picked up a scroll with careful reverence.
He’d seen them at the museum in Castalia but he’d never been allowed to pick one up. Even the child of powerful parents was still a child, and liable to break artefacts.
Starling unrolled the scroll, to reveal a series of images and runic text that looked like the samples from a text his tutor had given him to read some weeks back.
“Are these alchemical formulae?” He guessed about the images, half glancing up at Abramalion who stood watching him. “What can they do?”
“Those?” Abramalion stepped up behind Starling. He tensed for a moment, before shaking out his nerves. The alchemist smelled of burnt wiring and blackened wood. Starling wrinkled his nose and turned his head as Abramalion spoke.
“You truly are one of the Swans my boy. You picked up the scroll that explains the logic of the Shattering.”
“That brought alchemy to the Continent?”
“What sent the fey fleeing to the hills, what made the Druadin Order as it is today. What your ancestors started. Many things began because of that great event.”
“My ancestors?”
“Of course. Surely you know? Your father’s fame was built on their backs.”
“Everyone says it’s his fault the Kingdoms are in chaos,” Starling said, thinking of his father’s father who was the family stand in for profanity more often than anything else.
“Oh, I’m not talking about Marlo Swan. I speak of Kithrin and Kithar Rath, later Kithar Swan.”
Starling blinked at the non-sequitur. Those two were characters out of children’s satyr tales.
“They were bedtime stories, the same known by every child on the Continent.” Starling started to roll up the scroll but Abramalion took it from his hands and unrolled it once more and gestured at the images as he explained.
“Oh no, no dear boy. They are the reason everything is the way it is today. Without them we wouldn’t have the Twelve Kingdoms, the Druadin Order, the Guild of Alchemists, kodaks, airships or your precious Odyssey.”
“Really?” Starling felt a combination of amazement and disbelief, but the uncertainty he’d felt in his heart began to unravel. Here was the first adult who’d been straight with him. Even the crew of the Eponymous had not given him the full picture and they’d flown with his mother and father during the war.
“Yes, my boy. Now, shall we have something to eat? You have had quite the journey coming here and I am sure you are starving,” Abramalion said with a smile as he rested one skeletal hand on Starlings shoulder. Starling offered the alchemist a tentative smile, resettled his travelpack and nodded.
“Wonderful! I am pleased you have chosen to stay. It would have been terribly unpleasant and awkward otherwise.” Abramalion’s smile stretched into his skeletal face as he tied up the scroll, set it back on the shelf and led Starling toward a small side room. Starling felt a twinge in his gut, as one of his many seeds of doubt sprouted, but he smiled back and followed the alchemist.
After all, he was hungry and he didn’t want to be known as the “kid who ran away and then crawled back home with nothing to show for it.” Better to stay here, learn more, lots more. Then he could be just as powerful as his parents, and maybe even like the Black Knight. Plus, there were so many books!
His smile turned brighter as he thought of the prospect of being able to freely browse all the texts in the Guild, something he’d never been allowed in Castalia, be it at home, or in the palace.
****
Two hours later Starling felt warm, full and calm as he lay on his back on a
small cot in a corridor where apprentices of the Guild alchemists also slept.
For the first time since he could remember, an adult treated him not like a
child, but like someone who was perfectly capable of understanding what was and
wasn’t being said to him.
Despite this, Starling couldn’t sleep. He thought of his mother. He wondered if she had broken her parole ruling to not use magic so that she could scry for his location. He thought of his father.
He wondered if he was on a ship right now, flying out over the Blue Mountains and the Aurora Plains, or if he’d deployed more royal ships to cover more ground.
He thought of his uncle and his great aunt. Had his uncle joined his father’s search, or was he off on his own hoopo chase? If his great aunt knew he was missing, had she sent out a team of her Ravens with their sharp and deadly alcantari?
He sat up, toed on the slippers that had been left for him in the room and opened up his door. The hall was quiet and dark. The quartzal lamps were out and through a window at the far end of the hall Starling couldn’t see anything. It was a cloudy, dark night.
Quietly, he closed his door and with one hand against the rough stone wall, he walked toward the far window and down a set of stairs. He didn’t know where he was going, just that he couldn’t sleep.
He heard the whoosh of a weapon cutting through air, grunts and the stomp of a foot on the tessellated flooring of the Guild’s courtyards. He followed the sound and moments later spotted a large man doing what looked more like a dance, than a fight with an invisible enemy in the middle of one of the courtyards.
The man wielded a stormblade, a Druadin weapon that could manipulate the astral as much as it could also harm the physical. It flashed and sparked as the trapped, lightning scattered gold stars into the air with each slash and parry.
Starling’s father had lost his, along with his kalisar, a smaller sword made of star ore, when the war had ended. Now, Starling looked on with awe.
He’d never met an actual Druadin, like the ones from the Giants War, fifty years ago. Not just scholars, royal advisors and healers, but paladins of the Empire of Kingdoms. His father and great aunt didn’t count.
“Come out,” the man said, as he stepped, lunged and slashed. His voice was deep and reminded Starling of someone he’d met.
“Are you a Druadin?” Starling asked, coming out from the shadows of the archway. It wasn’t much brighter in the courtyard but the man had a portable quartzal lamp sitting on the ground by the corner of the box-trimmed bushes which framed the edges of the courtyard.
The man snapped his stormsword into a sheath at his waist and snorted, “Am I?” He started to laugh then, a deep, belly chuckle that had him bending over and shaking. Starling crossed his arms and frowned. The sheath jerked, as if moved by an invisible hand, stopping the man’s laughter.
“Take it easy. I’m not laughing at you.”
“Who else is here to laugh at?” Starling grumbled, his good mood, despite his sleepiness, had flown away.
“I laugh because I am more than a Druadin. I am what they should be,” the man said, crossing his arms in reflection to Starling’s own stance.
“And what’s that?” Starling asked, cocking his head to the side.
“Paladin’s of the Empire of Kingdoms,” the man said with a grin making Starling blush, wondering if he read his mind. He’d heard of Druadins who could do that.
Then, the man laughed. “Least, that’s what I strive for. At present I’m merely Abramalion’s attack dog and ghost terror until I get gutted and I don’t have a successor.” He shrugged, stepping closer to Starling, cocking his own head.
“Hmm, hello again kid,” he said after a moment. Starling frowned and the man waved a hand as if in apology. “You know me better as the Black Knight,” he introduced himself and stuck out a hand.
Starling blinked but took the hand, gripping it in the fashion of the Castalian greeting. “I knew you were something, Abramalion has talked for months about you but I figured you’d be his pet project. You’re attuned.”
“Why were you grumpy earlier?” Starling said and then he slapped a hand over his mouth and muttered an apology.
The Black Knight laughed. “Part of the act kid and you’ve caught me in a good mood.”
“Your construction is total clock! The wiring, the gears…” Starling said, stepping forward, filled with passion. “I’ll be your successor, with one just like it and a total storm of a stormsword!” Starling grinned at the pun he made.
The Black Knight’s face turned serious and he crossed his arms. “Don’t jump ship so quick kid. You can’t go back if you do. Join the Guild, join me and you join a lineage that is not airships and sunlight and white feathers. Becoming the next Black Knight isn’t an easy road and you’re what, nine?”
“I’m thirteen!” Starling said with an indignant scowl. The Knight responded with a grunt that did not sound convinced. Starling bit back a retort. He wanted to make a good impression. He wanted people to start liking him.
“I don’t want to bring trouble anymore,” Starling said thinking of earlier in the day when he’d seen the Black Knight terrifying people in the city. “I just want to be liked and known for me, not my parents or the problems I cause. I’m feared there and for that, no one wants me back home. The Guild’s been the first.”
“Abramalion you mean. Well, you’re not wrong kid. He was the first for me too, but if you want to do this, you’re going to need the hide of a olix and stand as straight as adasonia tree. You can’t be running or crying.” The Black Knight paused for a moment, crossed his arms and then continued.
“You’ve got to be steady and sure, be whatever you want outside that. Even after all these centuries and all the technology the alchemists have made for the Continent, they are still not trusted, not like the Druadin Order. I’m the bridge between the two. The balance. Can you do that? Can you take no other side than ours, casting away who you were to be something more,” The Knight gestured to Starling.
Starling thought about controlling his power, making a name for himself, proving that he wasn’t a burden or trouble. He’d run away to fix things. He could do this. This was nothing compared to leaving everything he’d ever known behind.
He could be balanced. Definitely. Once he got his power under control and he’d always wanted to learn to fight, to be as powerful as his parents, but they’d always fear his abilities.
Now, he could learn to control his power, and rather than fear controlling him. He could let go of his name, his past, and start anew. That’s what he’d started by running away, and he may as well finish it. That’s the sort of grand gesture his father would do.
Starling’s train of logic ran fast and in circles, bubbling around his excitement and burying a growing seed in his gut that warned about hopping onto this quickly sailing ship. Thirteen years of listening to his emotions over his gut won out over the seconds it took for Starling’s thoughts to finish their sprint.
“I can,” Starling said out-loud with a grin which caused the Knight to give a small chuckle which Starling took as a positive sign.
“Welcome to the Guild, Squire. I’m Marit Garendos,” the Knight gave a waist deep bow. Starling recognized the man’s surname, placing it as one of the “power-hungry” noble families from court he’d often overhear his father complaining about to his mother.
“Thank you,” Starling said, returning the gesture but skipping the usual declaration of one’s name. His name was well-known and if he really was going to be the Black Knight’s squire, then he needed a fresh start.
“Dawn is in one bell Squire. Let’s get you a practice sword.” Garendos said and the large knight began to stride out of the courtyard, leaving him to catch up, a feeling of excitement bubbling up in his gut.
At that moment, everything was perfect. He was free of trouble for the first time in his life. He felt like he was where he was always meant to be and he had someone who knew exactly what he’d always been going through. He’d found his own home.
Continued in Part 3
[…] Continued in Part 2 […]