Chapter 2

I don't recall the arrows piercing me, but the fear of drowning had been etched into my mind since my eleventh sunth, when our boat capsized en route to Sïlenia. On that fateful day, my older brother took his last breath, and the king lost his beloved firstborn. I escaped that shipwreck in the Great Reservoir unscathed. But in the attack at the Wailing Whales, about five sunths later, I was left unconscious.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone in a room, with my feet tied to a beam. The bed was a heap of rough canvas, like that of sturdy ship sails. The air was thick with the scent of spices, some of which I recognized as medicinal. They must have filled the neat sacks piled around the room. I checked my body and found no wounds or bruises. Had they vanished? I wondered.

“Hello?” I called out.

I tried to sit up, but I was numb. I initially thought that I was on a ship, but shafts of light revealed the stillness of the room. They streamed through horizontal slits across the top of the wall, and the angle of the shadows remained constant. The sensation of swaying was coming from my mind. I felt compelled to sleep, against all of my instincts.

Many leaguebeats went by, and even days. I was under the spell of a dream where I fled from a road, and ran towards the sea. Roads elicited far more fear in me than rabbits ever did. I was exiled from the human realm, and those golden lamps on yellow sand bricks had become a sign for me to vanish. Patrol guards are usually Spadians from the north, and like their commander and general, they never liked me. These so-called mighty swords were the type of humans I found hardest to fraternize with.

In that dream, they brought me before Father, an animated skeleton beneath a gem-encrusted crown. And the guards removed their helmets to reveal the faces of battle-scarred rabbits.

Reality returned with the sunlight.

I woke up again. “Hello?”

A hooded shadow had entered the room. It replaced the candle in the lamp, handed me a modest tray of food, and left without saying a word.

“Hey!” I tried to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth.

The bread was fresh, and I was grateful for the drink: coconut water. There must be a baker nearby, so I couldn't be in the Wailing Whales; although the distant murmur of waves suggested that I was still in the Sea of Isles. I confirmed my suspicions as the daylight dimmed. The Wailing Whales didn’t earn their name capriciously: whales camp in those waters, and their songs arrive at sunset. But that night drew on without the distant hum of their penetrating baritones. I was at least five leagues away.

The next day, my captor didn’t respond to my greeting. It was futile to complain: “let me go!” or “do you know who I am?” They clearly knew and had no intention of releasing me.

My vision blurred. My cervical spine succumbed to weakness—I felt suddenly neckless. My body was no longer a body; it became transparent and amorphous. It was as if I’d been shrunk and placed in a box outside reality, where the Ailanthus could never find me. Even the cloaked figure seemed to tower over me. Each day was the same: a candle, food, silence, sleep. I took refuge in my memories and thought again of the castle, fearing that my captors would take me there.

I remembered the royal gardens where I spent time with Prince M'Neki. I helped him learn the written word and the wisdom of the lands—the great magisters said he had the measured mind of a vendor sloth from Bazäres. But he made up for his verbal and motor limitations with humor and a playful spirit. I wanted to be a good big brother to him, as M'Rik had been to me.

I was the middle child for a while. Midas' firstborn was a tall, dark, and strong prince.  At fourteen, he had already won the battle of Track, Topple, and Toss in the category of humans, hares, and hogs. He was everything that I was not: a promising mighty sword, a warrior. But he was also caring. He encouraged me to study at the Magisterium, and was happy to see how quickly I mastered the numbered tablets and lettered scrolls.

At that time, the young prince was obsessed with kites, which pleased me greatly as I was studying the wisdom of flight.

“The paper must be tilted upwards to lift when it cuts through the air,” I explained. “And the rods must be strong yet light; the lighter, the better. But... here's the key piece!” I pulled a colorful strip of fabric from my sleeve. “It needs a tail.”

M'Neki marveled at the trick.

“Like a cat!” he exclaimed with his plump cheeks, heavy tongue, and slitted eyes. Only he could smile with such joy.

We were accompanied by two guards, and butterflies fluttered around us, it being the height of another fertile spring.

“Not like a cat. Cats don't fly,” I clarified and smiled. “You mean like a bird.”

“Have you ever seen a cat?”

“No one ever has, M'Neki. They're imaginary creatures.”

The guards exchanged disconcerted looks. I shouldn't have told a child that cats didn't exist. But I couldn't lie; I never could, not even when I was young, especially not then.

I wondered what the guards would think if I told them that I suspected birds didn't exist either, not on the land, nor in the skies—this was before the Ailanthus’ maiden voyage across the open sea. All we had about them were drawings and fantastical stories from a temple in the north. What if the principles of our faith are also imaginary, children's tales with fictional characters?

“I imagine cats can fly,” declared M'Neki, dragging the kite away from me.

The guards laughed at the notion. I did too. The kite spun behind him without a tail to weigh down one side and stabilize it. That is one of my last memories of M'Neki. I never got to find out if he mastered the art of flying kites. Before we could make another, Lydia, his page, came looking for me, alarmed: I had missed the opening report for that moon cycle, and Father was furious.

We ran through the corridors lined with massive palace portraits, each boasting a new stage in the city's expanding grandeur. Then we climbed up the gold-rimmed marble stairs that led to the throne hall, while Lydia told me how the king had yelled at three messengers who couldn't find me. She described them down to their cufflinks, unable to restrain irrelevant details. She was a chatty human, an unexpected trait given her tiny mouth and button nose. Short and sturdy, she was my age and had caramel-colored skin. She was always embroiled in some trivial mission and spoke in a succession of frayed whispers. But her eyes, large and brown, were quite pretty, and she always smelled good: marigold? almond oil? honey butter? something about her made me think of sunflowers and lemurs.

The knight and steed did their best to hoist us quickly in the golden pull-lift—but not fast enough to escape Lydia's windy-winding monologue while we were trapped inside.

“The Jack of Trades reported on the length of each new road,” she said. “I think he got a rash again; he keeps scratching his neck,” she laughed.

“Jack Swift is funny, but a rash...? Wait, does it have pus?” That cracked her speech—I wedged my way in. “That's what happens when it's serious, you know?”

“A rash with pus is funny?” Her eyes widened, bewildered. I often elicited that reaction in others.

“Oh, no. Sometimes it spreads,” I replied matter-of-factly.

Her face contorted in a mix of horror and disgust.

“You scare me, prince,” she smiled playfully. “You're being funny.” Giddy and quivering, she slapped the air and giggled.

I didn't understand what was funny. I guess it was my turn to feel bewildered.

We arrived at the throne hall, vast and echoing, its floor tiled with interlocking rhombuses—each polished to a mirrored sheen, forming a lattice of gold and ivory. Thick marble columns soared to the ceiling, banded in gold and wrapped with carved reliefs of victories and vows. Between them hung long velvet banners in royal white, embroidered with the royal crest: a golden rhombus encircling a crown, its many sun rays splayed like swords. Tall windows filtered in the light of high noon, so bright it made everything glow as if consecrated.

We knelt before the king, and Lydia fell silent. Father's proximity was the only force capable of that feat. Not even a “your majesty” came from her impetuous little mouth after he said, “Thank you, Lydia.” She left promptly to escort M'Neki to his chambers.

Everyone looked at me, except for father. He watched the Jack of Trades, standing still in the middle of the room. He held the scrolls for that moonth’s report and scanned the room nervously, unsure of whether to continue reading or not. Swift was a tall hare that resembled a donkey covered in a brown fur that looked rough, especially over the bony areas. And boy, did he have bones, as if only the lower part of his body accumulated fat, aside from the lumpy cheeks that jutted from his elongated face. His lopsided, bulging eyes matched his large, crooked teeth. And he always smelled like dry powder, with a slight hint of fertilizer and aged paper.

The fluttering of his ears and scrolls continued until I sat in my chair. There, a young messenger apprentice handed me paper and a stylus. It was the young rabbit Tricks.

“And to the east,” read the jack, raising his voice, “ten leagues beyond the Oasis of Bazäres in the Aurean Valley and ten leagues north of the Dancing Dunes, a tower will be erected to extend our views of the desert.”

I took notes, but after a couple of sentences, I only pretended to write. In reality, I was sketching the jack and the places he mentioned. Tricks was the only one who noticed this as he handed me the ink.

“Is there anything to see in the desert?” asked Father.

“A vast expanse of yellow sand, my king.”

“Then what use is that tower, my swift jack?”

“Ah, Your Majestic Highness, it will be the tallest tower ever built,” he said nervously. “Taller than the castle's keep. Taller than the observatory of the Magisterium. The tallest in the history of tall things. It will be a tribute to your... highness,” he boasted, trying to elicit a gleam in Father's eyes.

“Impossible,” I interjected, and all eyes turned towards me.

Whenever the Magisterium was mentioned, I felt the need to defend it. This irritated everyone in the throne hall, but I was too naive to notice.

“No, not impossible,” Swift chuckled uneasily.

G’Menon, the commander of the royal guard, approached me. He had been watching me since I entered. As usual, he looked at me with disdain.

“My prince...” he murmured as a somber warning.

Father sighed, resigned: “What now, M’Nuel?”

I rose to my feet slowly and explained:

“Stones are too heavy to stack higher than the castle's keep, especially on the sand.” I delivered this statement with the gentle gestures of a magister. “The dunes stand in the way of reaching the bedrock. And the desert winds will kill any brick-laying lizards who dare climb up so high.” The jack tried to interrupt me, but I continued, “The observatory of the Magisterium is the tallest tower in the kingdom because its stones are held together by strong ivy. And those plants don't grow outside the marshes of Basilic Bay, much less in the desert...”

“Ah, yes, My Young Princeliness,” Swift interjected, feigning cordial shyness, “we have been digging for quite some time, changing the excavation site and later digging again in the same place. Many lizards have died in the process. But we reached the bedrock in the last quartilune, as you may recall—nothing to worry about, of course; who pays attention to inter-lunar reports? What matters is that we’re back on track. Track! Yes, track is right—we are building this tower with golden bricks, just like those we use on our glorious roads, lighter than rocks.” He chuckled, pleased with himself.

“They're not golden, just yellow,” I clarified. “If they were gold, they would be heavier than rocks. I've measured the density of gold at the Magisterium...”

“I was merely trying to embellish...”

“And what about the lizards?” I continued. Father called my name, but I insisted. “How come we don't care about the lizards? They suffer too. They can't read, but they can count. So they must count. Magisters assessed the emotional and arithmetic skills of the Reptilians, and they are as competent as human children. The great magister Ochän says that we choose to ignore what does not suit us...”

“M’Nuel!” Father exploded, and silence swallowed the room. “There are things you do not understand, nor do they concern you.”

His yellowed eyes crushed me just as the crown did his curls. The golden jewels and rings decorating his skin matched the mahogany and diamond-studded throne in the hall of towering golden columns. A throne that mirrored him, just as he had begun to mirror it—a cycle of mutual self-aggrandizement. Its sturdy dark wooden base was embroidered in gold, even in the threads of its plush hairy and leathery furs, and draped in a veil of diamonds on its head and armrests, as white as Father's shining teeth. He turned to the jack from the chair—perfectly positioned between the balcony archways to glisten at dawn and dusk—and his voice thundered:

“Forget that tower. If we cannot go more than fifty leagues east of Bazäres, it is fair to assume that no one will come to us from there; nothing ever has. Besides, who will cross the desert to see it, no matter how impressive it might be?”

I sat down silently, slightly irritated. 

“What use is my presence if they won't let me speak?” I whispered to Tricks.

The only thing more boring than the agricultural and the tax collection report was Father's lack of interest in exploring the lands beyond the kingdom. At least Swift shared the desire to see what lay on the other side of the desert.

When the accounting of the gold was over, I longed for him to dismiss me. But Father did something he had never done before: instead of me, he dismissed Swift, his surveyors and inspectors, even some of the pages, and asked that I stay for the report of the royal guard.

I felt intrigued, but not genuinely interested. Listening to G’Menon was the last thing I wanted. And the commander was equally uncomfortable with my presence. He walked to the center of the hall, as tall as he could, which wasn't very, but he compensated for this with his arrogance, large muscles, a deep and assertive voice, and a thick black beard on his pale skin. His gaze pierced me for a heartbeat. If eyes are the windows to the soul, G’Menon's had thick dark curtains—his massive, expressive eyebrows. One raised as he glanced at me, then settled back down to hug its mate.

“My king, it has been five sunths since the last uprising. As you have pointed out, the conquest of the east reaches its furthest region in the desert.”

“That is unknown,” I whispered to Tricks.

“The southern waters are inhabited by filthy wayfarers. They're happy to trade on our lands, then return quietly to their miserable isles.”

The king nodded his head in all directions, urging G’Menon to get to the point.

“The army keeps the savage clans of the Spadian Range to the north at bay, as it has done for generations. And it remains loyal to the Crown. Our challenge, my king, remains the West.”

“G’Menon, my brother...” Father took a cup from a page's tray. “Every full moon, you come here and make the same observation. But why don't you stop to consider if the threats you see in the West really come from within you?”

“My king?” G’Menon sounded puzzled.

“You don't like the Cardians, the Sïleni aristocrats, any humans from the old kingdom, nor those who live in the jungles of Gälarä. You reject all wisdom from the West and its horde of fiery hearts. Perhaps the threat lies within you, in your fear and fire.”

I straightened up, alert in my chair. I couldn't believe that Father was accusing his commander of fear: G’Menon, the hero of the Spadian army, the queen's younger brother, the most powerful and brave human warrior of all the lands, near and yonder. I never imagined my proud uncle reduced to an even shorter stature.

“Fire is precisely what I came to discuss, my king. Your Majesty just asserted that no threat comes from the desert. What if the western jungle also turned into a desert?”

I shuddered, incredulous. Does the commander intend for us to burn the jungle? Does he have any idea how vast and impenetrable it is, or how many known and unknown species of individuals, critters, and plants live there? Numbers were swirling in my head, ready to burst out and break my silence.

“Nonsense,” said Father. “The West lacks power, gold, and industry. Its abundance stops at wine, flowers, and superstition.”

“But they disrespect our kingdom, my lord!” G’Menon raised his voice. “They mock this throne and dishonour the Eternal Light...”

My father countered:

“What does it matter if a street singer mocks my attire when he himself wrestles in rags? What does it matter if a soothsayer sees gods emerging from the ashes when he is delirious with wine, smoke, and past glories? Sïlenia and the Cardian Peninsula can only be conquered by winning their hearts. And those hearts lie in the same stupor. We must build. We must transform Villämara and this castle into the most glorious place that ever existed. The Sïleni will have to acknowledge our greatness. And nothing a drunken soothsayer says will diminish this reality.”

“Your Majesty,” G’Menon bowed his head, “our roads will remain the safest zones in all the lands. I will see to it myself.”

“And I trust that you will. Now let me speak with my son.”

G’Menon and his guards left.

The king stood up and walked toward the western terrace. This was my silent cue to follow him, so I handed my bamboo stylus and paper to Tricks. In my last drawing, G’Menon had turned into a snail, leaving a trail of slime over the diamond-shaped tiles of the throne hall's floor.

“Tell me what you see,” Father asked with great satisfaction from the highest turret's balcony.

I looked out at Villämara, the city growing beyond the castle walls, with columns of polished marble and yellow roads weaving through a sea of rooftops that glittered in the golden sunlight, bisected by the Silver River and surrounded by fields of amaranth, wheat, and barley. Beyond lay the Great Plains of Valëmar, the mountains at one end and an indecipherable horizon at the other; but above all, there was the great blue sky that occupied the top three-quarters of that canvas.

It's now clear to me that Father was inviting me to praise his city; to marvel at the kingdom I would one day inherit. But all I said was:

“I see a barren sky.”

“Barren?” He was baffled.

“Dead?” I offered.

His bewilderment gradually turned to disgust. That blunder of mine is what lodged this memory in that dark chamber of the soul—where one taunts and torments oneself.

“Father,” I tried to explain, “I see that the Crown is concerned with owning this land and its people, but it has no curiosity about what lies beyond... across the sky...”

“What in all the lands are you talking about, boy? You cast my kingdom as dead?”

“Father, I...” I choked. I was known to make inappropriate remarks in the name of precision, but I never intended to upset anyone, let alone the king. “I mean that. The lands. Is this all there is? Could it be that birds really exist out there… and can fly? Aren't you curious about that?” I rambled on.  “What lies beyond the desert and the open sea? Where does the sun go at night?”

“What is this parade of nonsense?” Father exploded again. I never had to wonder for long if I had angered him. “I have traders stealing gold from the Crown in the markets of Bazäres. There is an ongoing war among the northern clans. And the aristocrats of Sïlenia mock me in the palaces of the West. I'm not going to indulge in feathery fantasies about birds... or the flowery opinions from robe-wearing clovers who criticize the greatness of real men.” He said this with flagrant disgust. “What are they teaching you at the Magisterium now?”

I tried to murmur something, but I couldn't.

“Put those books away and pick up a sword. Get some muscle on that frail frame of yours. You should be studying wars, tasting the blood of battle, and pulling your head out from the clouds. You'll soon be a man and a future king, M'Rik...” He stopped as he realized his error. He paled, stiffened, and scowled at me before walking away. His gaze was heavy, filled with the same disgust that poured out of him at the mention of feathery birds and flowery clovers.

It wasn't the first time that Father had addressed me by the name of my deceased brother, and it had always been uncomfortable. I thought I had done something wrong, that I was somehow wrong. But I didn't have a word to describe my emotions or to describe myself.

I was not M'Rik. I was far from what Father wanted. That prince who possessed a Spadian heart, and was imbued with Power from an early age, no longer existed. The king was left with a bookworm—a strange, delicate, weak, and fanciful boy. An inadequate successor he could no longer ignore, and had to face as his new rightful heir. It was clear to everyone in the throne hall: Father believed the wrong son had survived the shipwreck at the reservoir.