The Medievals 1, page 2
part #1 of The Medievals Series
{Richard}
This is where my story begins, Richard thinks.
These words run through his mind as he hangs off the side of Mount Saurian, four hundred feet above the ground, the dry air whipping at his eyes, his knuckles a ghostly white as his fingers strain to keep hold of the crimp above him.
He is here because he wants to prove himself. And because he is haunted by a braying question that Master Cheng introduced into his mind: “What story will people tell about you when you are gone, Prince Richard?”
Within the walls of the kingdom, Richard is untested. His life is padded by the gentle lie of privilege, his ego protected by the Crown.
No one will challenge the son of King Henry. Not out of fear, but out of respect for their beloved King. During lessons, Richard can sense his peers holding their knot-sticks looser, moving their chess pieces slower, allowing him to win too easily. Richard is no fool with a weapon, but he is also not foolish enough to believe that he has the surest sword among his peers.
He wishes people would be honest with him. He wants truth, not flattery meant to please the King’s ears.
And so he is here, now, facing the deep gray stone of the mountain -- the test of Kings before they are Kings, going back generations. His father faced the mountain near Richard’s age. As did his grandfather, and greater, as far back as the creation of the mountain some three hundred years ago in the time of King Avedon when hundreds of saurian beasts were frozen together in stone, giving the face of this rock a rare and brilliant texture.
This mountain is an opponent that will not go easy on him. One that will not lie. Perhaps today, as Richard is alone, no one but the applauding wind will know he has scaled Mount Saurian. But it is enough for him to know that he is able. That he is not just some Poet Prince, a name he has heard whispered among his friends, the King’s functionaries, and even the White Hairs. It is what he is called behind his back.
And he knows their intended meaning: a boy of words, not actions.
As he hangs there plotting his next move up the rock face, Richard sees a black bird wing past him, black as the night. It lands on a tiny ledge above, and he recognizes the bird as a darkling -- a member of the corvid family (if he remembers Master Cheng’s ornithology lesson correctly).
Richard and the darkling match eyes. He has never seen this breed of corvid outside of sketches or his dreams. But from his lessons, Richard knows that darklings make their nests beyond the Northern Barrier.
The bird has the eyes of a hunter, a powerful gray beak stabbing out of its face. But there is something around its neck: a medallion on a collar. Why would a bird have a collar around its neck?
Just as this question enters Richard’s mind, the darkling pushes off the lip of the rock and hovers out into the air, pausing there momentarily as if hung by a string. And then, it is carried off by the shoulders of the wind.
Richard eyes the tiny ledge just vacated by the bird. Above it and just to the right is another hold -- his pathway up. Richard flexes his toes and pushes off, extending his arm upward to grab at the first hold, his fingers slipping into the grooves of the rock. He keeps his momentum going and swings himself to the next hold up. But as he curls his fingers around the jag...
The rock comes loose!
His torso scrapes against the scaly rock as he slides back to the other hold, swaying by one arm. He hangs there, his feet dangling. His right foot seeks purchase, sending loosened rocks clattering, until he catches a crack in the vertical face and jams his toes into the crevice.
Having regained his hold, Richard catches his breath. His muscles burn like a thousand fires inside his arms, the ground far below pulling at his legs. And the heat of the shadowless noon is forming beads of sweat on his brow that drop into his vision, stinging his eyes.
What was he thinking, attempting this climb on his own? Should he fall, no one would hear him scream out here, so far from the castle. No one would see his body break against the rocks, the mountain stealing his life from him.
As he leans into the rock, he realizes that a fragment of the loosened jag is still in his grasp. He opens his right hand to reveal the rock tucked into his palm.
The craggy underside shines green in the sunlight. It reminds him of the story of Mount Saurian -- how the mountain’s rock glows green with the viridescent blood of the saurians, an ancient creature that is half-man, half-dragon, now forever trapped in stone by the magical power of the Sorcerer of Light. It is a story told by parents at bedtime; part of the Realm’s history that has spread to his dreams.
“From my vantage, there are no paths upward in that direction.” A booming voice from below pulls Richard from his thoughts and nearly startles him from his hold.
Richard looks down past the leather of his boots to see his father climbing up to meet him, only twenty feet below.
“How did you know I was up here?” Richard asks his father, although Richard already knows the answer to his question.
“Jun Cheng,” his father responds.
Of course. Master Cheng. He should have never told the old man where he was headed. He is Richard’s mentor, not his friend whom with to share secrets.
“Do not let Master Cheng’s betrayal trouble you,” his father says, as if reading his mind. “The confidence of a King is served before the trust of a Prince.”
Far below his father, Richard can see the King’s retinue waiting on the ground, diminutive from this great height, looking like a circle of red ants in their crimson uniforms.
“Richard, you know it is not safe for you to be out on this rock alone. Come down.”
There is a relief in seeing his father. In hearing his voice. Certain and measured. It is the voice that, as a young child, Richard felt he could always use to climb to safety. It’s the voice that keeps the peace throughout the Realm.
But his father’s voice, with its baritone that can boom across the battlefields and make a thousand men march, also reminds Richard of how thin his own voice sounds in his head. How childish. He is a Prince of nearly sixteen, and yet nobody would mistake his voice for a commanding one.
For so long, Richard had fooled himself into believing that, simply with age, he would inherit that unnamable thing in his father’s voice that makes men move on his orders. But even now, as his Triumph Day approaches -- the moment when the man ceremoniously leaves the boy behind -- that thing is absent in Richard.
“Come down, Richard.”
Richard shoves the saurian stone into the depths of his pocket, then looks down at his father, his decision made. “No. I will reach the top.”
“I have been climbing this mount since before you were a thought in my head,” his father says, his lips peeking through the speckled beard that hides his face, which has comfortably taken in the roundness of middle age. “I know every jag and every crevice. The path you are on will give you another twenty feet at most, but then your climb is over. Come down to me, and then I will lead you up the rock. Safely.”
Richard looks up the rock, shielding his eyes from the uncaring sun as he peers through his fingers to see the top half of the mountain plunging skyward to its snubbed crest. He has at least another three hundred feet to go. But if he can reach the mantelshelf that is thirty feet above him, he will be able to reassess from there.
He looks back down to his father: “I must do this alone.”
“That is your pride speaking.”
“Maybe. But how will I ever learn for myself if I am always climbing in your shadow?”
And with that, Richard launches himself upward, grabbing hold of another purchase, winging his way even higher. The wind carries his father’s appeal to his ears -- “Richard, wait!” -- but Richard ignores it.
One toehold crumbles under his weight, but Richard’s momentum sends him higher still -- reaching another grip and swinging his leg wide to reach the next toehold. The pathway up almost reveals itself to Richard as he climbs, his mind yielding to the instincts of his muscles.
And then it is right there in his reach, the prow of the rocky shelf. Just a leap away. Richard’s right foot finds a hold, and power surges through his leg as he hurls his body upward. But as his fingertips near the shelf, he realizes he has made an error of judgment. The distance to the ledge is a full arm-length out of his reach, leaving nothing but empty air for Richard to grab.
For the smallest moment as his momentum continues to carry his body upward, Richard can feel his insides falling. An ethereal sensation. Two halves of himself moving in opposite directions at once.
But then all of him is falling.
He lets out a yell. Or tries to. But no sound escapes, his voice caught in the squeeze of his lungs.
As he is falling, Richard wishes air were strong enough to hold his weight, like the black bird floating on the wind just moments ago. But there is nothing but open sky between his body and the hard earth far below.
A second becomes a year, becomes his life. And in that second, he remembers it all. Images, sounds, and smells gathering quickly in his mind. His mother’s sweet-sounding voice singing him a lullabye of Fire Fairies. The scratch of his father’s beard. Master Cheng’s hands over his, showing Richard the grip of an iron staff. Night sounds out his window that lull him to sleep. The scent of that girl in the market that he would never see again. Her violet eyes. Beautiful pale skin. The birthmark on her shoulder.
And then -- like magic -- the air grabs the back of his shirt and Richard is flung into the side of the mountain, his bones colliding with rock. A crunching sound in his knee.
“Argghh!” Richard cries out in pain.
“I have you!”
His father’s voice. His rope to safety.
He looks up to see his father, one hand gripping Richard’s shirt, the other hanging impossibly from a jag, as if his fingers are made of iron.
As the veins in his father’s arms swell: “Richard, I am going to swing you to that crevice in the rock, and you can climb from there. Do you understand?”
Richard can only nod as he looks to his father’s hold on his shirt, the cloth starting to rip away from his father’s fingers. Richard can hear the tear of the stitching, like years of his life being ripped away.
But his father is faster than the shred of the fabric, and he manages to heave Richard to the crack just in time, with Richard holding on with everything inside of him that he can muster.
His father gets both hands back on the rock, relaxing his muscles for only a moment before he propels himself over to the crevice.
“Follow my lead.”
Richard gathers his strength and follows in the midday shadow of his father, working his way up the thin cavity, hand over hand. Finally, his father pulls himself up over the edge, and then reaches back down, hauling Richard over as well.
Lying there, his chest heaving, pain lancing through his knee, Richard forces his eyes shut, partly from exhaustion, partly from shame. He does not want to see the world. Or his father. He has failed the test of Kings.
“Richard, you are okay, my boy.” His father has the ability to meet failure and victory with the same measured tone, something Richard cannot do.
“Does this foolhardy climb have anything to do with your upcoming Triumph Day?”
The celebration of his sixteenth year is only a fortnight away.
Without opening his eyes, Richard gives a weak nod: “I thought I was ready. Like you were. And all the Kings before you.”
“Son, your bones are my bones. And so one day you will certainly conquer Mount Saurian. But still, that will not make you King. To be King, you must become a leader.”
Even with his eyes closed, Richard can feel the sun staring down at him, burning an orange glow of judgement through his eyelids.
“Now open your eyes.”
Richard takes a long breath. He does not want to face his father.
But he must.
He opens his eyes, blinking away the salty sweat that has gathered beneath them. He looks to his father, trapped in the halo of the sun. The rest of the mountain continues skyward, reminding him of the unfinished climb.
“How? How do I become a leader?”
“You were born a future King. You have it inside of you already. Just let it come.”
Richard recites the words that have been scraping against the front of his mind recently: “Leaders are not measured by rank, but by deeds.”
“Those must be words from the mouth of Jun Cheng. He is a wise man, indeed.”
His father is right. Master Cheng said those very words during a lesson. His tutor relays many ancient wisdoms to Richard, all of them spoken as if Master Cheng were imparting a secret to his young student.
“Alright, my son, here is your answer: You will know you are a leader when men follow you. Not because they must, but because they so choose.”
Richard weighs these words, not sure he fully understands. “You make it sound easy.”
His father’s lips curl into a gentle smile. “It was not long ago that I looked through your same eyes at my father. When I was a child, he was a giant. Bigger than life. He was like a shadow cast by the evening sun, ever-lengthening. It was impossible to think I would ever be half the King he was.”
Richard cannot imagine his father ever lacking the confidence he has now.
“You have nothing to prove, Richard. Not yet. You must only live to celebrate your Triumph Day. Because if you do not, your mother will have my head. And then who will run this kingdom?”
This gets a smile out of Richard.
His father offers a hand. “Come. Stand up. I want to show you something.”
He takes his father’s hand, leveraging it to force his body up, bones aching where his knee met the unforgiving rock.
Richard limps to the edge of the outcropping.
“This is the reward of your climb. This is everything,” his father says, gesturing to the view that’s being held by the blue blaze of sky. “When danger visits our doorstep -- when something threatens the Realm -- it is our job to protect it. Our ancestors have been safeguarding it for thousands of years. Right now, I am charged with that task. And soon, you will become the guardian of the Realm. That is what you were born to do.”
From this height, the Realm spreads out before them: pine trees shooting up out of the valley; the mountains beyond sharpening their peaks against the blue sky; the river cutting into the castle’s eastern wall and then spilling out into the endless ocean.
As his eyes move over the sundering territories -- past Rodina and Cumbria and others -- to the outer reaches of the Realm, Richard squints to see the top of the Northern Barrier: a long, snaking wall that divides the Realm from the Beyond.
Long ago, just after the Endless War between the Runes and Mankind, the walls of the Northern Barrier were erected as a frontline defense against invasion, designed to protect the citizens of the Realm from magical creatures and foreign enemies. According to Richard’s father, the Northern Barrier was constructed from an impregnable volcanic rock shipped into the kingdom from the far reaches of the Earth.
The fortification is complete with watchtowers and passes, manned by spotters from the Army of the Realm, who are vigilant in their efforts to keep Beyonders from crossing over the boundary wall. No Beyonder is permitted to enter into the Realm without the written sanction of the King, which is rare. (In fact, Richard cannot think of a time that this has happened.) And while there are citizens of the Realm that dare to scale the high obsidian walls and enter into the forest, such men are typically fugitives who have chosen the gamble of the Beyond over the certainty of a noose. Richard has also heard of thieves and mercenaries risking their fates to the Beyond for the promise of gold and rare gems that yield hefty sums in the dark markets.
But because travelling outside the Northern Barrier is not permitted without a royal charter, few people are certain of what the Beyond truly holds. From here, Richard can see the impenetrable roof of the Eternal Forest, and the billows of the Cloudlands farther out; but that is all.
As the wind catches his hair, Richard is reminded of his great height. He has never been this high before. He feels weightless looking down on the world. Like the wind could lift him up and take him.
His father places a hand on Richard’s shoulder: “When I was your age, my father would bring me up here. He would tell me, ‘Henry, this is where you come to wake your soul.’ Then he would point his finger out at that very horizon and he would say: ‘As far as your echo reaches, that is your kingdom.’”
Richard’s father steps to the edge and, after inflating his chest with the mountain air, he lets out a roar, deep and mighty. The roar echoes over the collective roof of the territories below, repeating its sound across the valleys, then traveling across the snow-capped Cumbrian mountains and disappearing over the wall of the Northern Barrier. From there, the outer edge of Richard’s sight is reached and his imagination takes over as it carries him into the Eternal Forest, where his father’s roar shakes the leaves on the mythical Tree of Ten Thousand Roots.
“Now you,” his father says, turning to Richard with a proud smile.
Richard is not feeling up to it after his failed climb. But he obliges his father.
He takes in a deep breath, and forces a yell out into the air before him: “Raaahhh!”
It is a half-hearted roar, one that seems to drop from Richard’s mouth and immediately fall to his own feet.
His father smiles and grabs Richard by the nape. “Come now, I have heard kittens roar louder. I know you, my son. You have the heart of a lion. Now show me.”
Richard inhales deeply, then expels a roar that is stronger and louder than the last, but still remains muted when compared to his father’s bellow.
“Are you afraid we will awaken the saurians beneath our feet?” his father asks with a wink and a smile.
Richard looks down at the rock under his feet and a chill whispers into his spine as he thinks about the mountain’s origin. He knows the saurians died off years ago, but standing on this ledge, he feels an energy passing from the rock to his toes. Like the mountain itself has a pulse, something living and breathing inside of it.
