Echoes of Memory, page 32
“It wasn’t long after that that the beatings began,” Wallace explained. “My mother was one of a long line of Memory Mages. You could say that I was born into the magic. That it was my birthright, and she made sure that I knew every facet of it. My mother was no saint though. She had always been a hard woman, but her edges only got sharper after we lost my father to the sea when I was just a little over five years old. His death stole any of the softness she had left in her and replaced it with steel. A cold, sharp, hard steel. She would not allow her only son to be weak. No, he would survive, no matter what may come to pass,” he said.
Sephira looked at Kestrel when his shoulder grazed hers. He’d sat down by her side.
When had they taken a seat? She hadn’t been paying attention. His light touch warmed her. She turned her head to look at him. His attention was rapt. He clung to every word the old man said. He had thrown himself into the world of Memory Magic with reckless abandon and soaked up every detail he could. He worked at mage-craft with the dedication of one who had always been a failure offered one last chance at redemption.
How would it feel being there with her uncle and Kestrel?
Yes, she was training with them, but she was different. She had no Magic. Though she had been born into it —her father Van was a powerful mage— it had abandoned her. She was an outsider even though she was sitting next to them, shoulder to shoulder as Wallace told a story that reshaped her whole view of the world.
“My mother’s idea of praise was a fist. I can’t recall how many times I got the switch. I’m sure that you’ve seen the scars, Aris,” Wallace said. “I was too young at that time to have many painful memories to protect my mind with, so my mother beat them into me. It only got worse when Evrain arrived.”
Aris’ ears perked up at the mention of the emperor. He had been waiting for Wallace to get to this point of the story.
“He came from across the sea. He was much younger then. He looked to be barely a year over fifteen when he appeared as if from nowhere. One day, we’d heard rumors of the fall of the caliphate of Sanfid across the sea, and then our coastline was flooded with refugees. Their extremism caused untold problems for us. Their presence brought terror as they tried to rebuild their caliphate on our shores,” Wallace said. “He appeared not long after the Sanfidi’s were driven to our shores. This young man, barely more than a boy really, appears, as if from nowhere and quickly rises up the ranks of the military and, nearly as quickly as his rise, was his conquering of the Sanfidi’s. He quelled their uprising within months. It was as if he intimately knew their ways. Like he had been one of them in a previous life,” Wallace told the trio whom he held in rapt attention.
Aris’ skin crawled at Wallace’s description of Emperor Evrain.
Why? And what about the Sanfidi’s?
Of course, Aris had heard of them. Much of the blame for the destruction of the old capital and its sister city had been placed on them, but why had they disappeared so completely after the destruction? Why did the mention of them make his heart feel as if it had split from his head, standing at odds with each other?
“Evrain’s defeat of the Sanfidi agents brought him great acclaim in the eyes of the nation. His name was on every tongue. It wasn’t long before he gained generalship of the whole of Vealand's military,” the greying soldier explained.
The night deepened with his words. His story made the blackness of the night feel deeper, and the stars feel further away.
Just who was Evrain really?
“It was after his generalship that things started to change. Evrain was constantly warning that the Sanfidi weren’t fully defeated. He kept saying that they would return and that their vengeance would come down like a hammer. The poisoning of the wells was just the first of many acts of terror yet to come. He kept up his rhetoric. He stirred the hatred. He fomented the violence,” Wallace said. His voice sounded as if he were struggling to recall what had happened. He noticed the question in his audience’s eyes. “I remember, but Evrain is a powerful mage. His Memory Magic is like none other, with others, if you too have the touch of magic, you can recognize its presence, as young Sephira here well knows,” he indicated to Aris’ niece.
She nodded, her recognition of magic outstripped even that of her uncle’s and Kestrel.
“But Evrain’s Magic is different. It’s constant and insidious. Even one such as I, who’s known Memory Magic since I was a tiny youth, have never seen such power. Despite having lived through the destruction of the coast, I often feel like the memories he’s implanted in me are more real than my own. It was so real that I allowed myself to fall under its touch for years. I knew it not to be the truth, but it was easier to believe it to be so despite what my heart knew to be true. It was during that time that I met Aris.”
That made sense. Aris had always thought Wallace had been a strange fit for the military. Yes he’d lived a spartan lifestyle and the trials of military life had seemed to barely faze the man, but he had led differently. He would just as soon ignore the command of higher-ups to do what he knew would save more lives or kill more of their enemies. He had always seemed to be the reluctant leader. Like he knew that he shouldn’t be there, but never left because he knew there was nothing better out there for him.
Aris had once admired that aspect of his former commander but now despised it as cowardice. Wallace was unique. He was one of the few, if not the only, of the Memory Mages to live through the destruction that had destroyed their old Capitol. He was one of only a handful of men who had known the monster that Emperor Evrain truly was, and he’d done nothing. He had joined in the military to fight for the man who had destroyed his city, who had uprooted his country.
Wallace had been a coward, but what would have happened if he hadn’t been? Where would their nation be if he hadn’t hidden and trained those such as Aris’ brother Van in Memory Magic? Would he have led the revolutionaries? Would he have died, and along with him any hope of opposing Evrain?
Who knew?
There was no use dwelling on the past now. Wallace’s cowardice had begun to quell ever since Kestrel had crashed into his life that day he’d blinded Rel. That was what Aris would choose to focus on.
Wallace would have to live with the cowardice of his past that had eaten away at his bones, but now he was moving forward. He was leading them into an alien world. Aris’ view of the man may have been tainted with each new revelation, but he was owning up to his past.
Aris had to forgive him. Resentment for his cowardice would get them nowhere.
“Everything came to a head when the Sanfidi sent an assassin to kill the former Emperor. That’s when the real violence erupted. Evrain blamed the attack on rogue elements of Memory Mages who had taken the rogue Sanfidi and had fed his mind with delusional memories of the horror that the former Emperor had rained down on his people. The well connected had long known the former emperor’s hatred towards the Memory Mages” Wallace said. “That was when they started hunting us.”
It seemed that despite the warming weather the mountain air got colder as Wallace spoke those words.
“I still remember the smell of their bodies. Evrain whipped the public into a frenzy. Any suspected of having Memory Magic were reported and chased down like dogs. My mother was taken early. I wish I could say I cried for her but I didn’t. She had been a monster to me. Even now my bones ache from her beatings, but what she had done did protect me. When they came after me too, the memory of her beatings protected me. I couldn’t have been a Memory Mage, no one would abuse someone so unless they hated them for being alien. I hate my mother, but she saw what was coming and saved my life,” Wallace said. “Not soon after my mother died, people started turning on each other. Have an argument with someone? A rivalry? Simple, just accuse them of being a Memory Mage and they would be killed. The purge was so complete that it wiped our existence from the minds of the people. What’s more terrifying is how quickly it was forgotten.”
Wallace stretched, his old bones popped with the motion.
“It was that loss of memory that terrified me more than anything. It was that that led me to join Evrain’s military. Why should I fight a monster that could so completely rewrite the memories of his people?” Wallace asked rhetorically. “It wasn’t long after the purging that the riots started, and with them, the fires that started the destruction that laid the coast to waste.”
Wallace’s story continued late into the night, the moon had passed its apex by the time he had finished his recollections.
Chapter 50
“HELLS MAN! I TOLD YOU! I told you not to look! I said it didn’t concern your safety, but you didn’t listen to me. You should have listened to me!” Wallace rubbed his throat. Aris’ choke had taken more out of him than he’d expected.
He wasn’t a young man anymore.
He turned to look at Aris who had collapsed to the ground in shock. He hadn’t moved yet.
“Why do you have to take every cursed burden upon yourself!” Wallace knew that chiding was the last thing that Aris needed right now, but the words flew from him. He was furious at the General. Aris should’ve trusted him. He should have let it go. But he hadn’t and now he had to live with the earth-shattering consequences of his curiosity.
“She was his,” Aris finally said after a long silence. “She was Van’s.”
Wallace plopped down next to Aris. He put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. He had chided Aris Ravenscroft enough. Now was the time for companionship.
“Does she know?” Aris asked. His stomach twisted as he awaited a reply. He didn’t know if he could handle it if she had known all along but had never told him. How could he maintain a relationship based on a lie? “Does she know?” he repeated.
“No. Not as far as I can tell. Her memories have been wiped clean. I’ve never seen a Taker’s work done so completely. Everything related to Van is gone. It was only by blind chance that I stumbled onto the one memory that I did,” Wallace responded. “I’m sure she was taken from your memory too.”
“Than it could have been someone else?” Aris knew the question was idiotic but he had to ask.
“No.”
Aris deflated upon hearing that word. The last shimmer of hope that the vision he’d seen in Wallace’s mind had been a mistake was shredded.
At least she didn’t know. Aris thought and immediately regretted it.
What sort of monster would celebrate their beloved having cherished memories ripped from them, never to be returned?
“You’re sure that she doesn’t remember anything?” Aris asked his old commander.
Wallace nodded. The Taker had been thorough. It was only due to his extensive history with Van that he had realized just who the Memory Mage had stolen from the minds of Sephira and Corrine.
Sephira.
It seemed his thoughts strayed to the girl at the same time as Aris’ did. “What does this mean for Sephira? Is she my daughter? My half-daughter? Just who am I to her? Am I capable of being a father to her? She’s lived with her mother since her father died but I’d always assumed Van’s wife had left. That she’d run away like a coward. Why didn’t I remember her? Why couldn’t I remember Corrine?”
Wallace squeezed Aris’ shoulder. The cool night air enveloped them, but the General didn’t make to move. He sat erect, straight like a statue.
His skin was cold to the touch.
Aris didn’t move to speak anymore. He sat in silence. Fiell shimmered in torchlight beneath them. The flickering of the lights made it seem as if the city were alive. As if it crawled over the valley like a millipede walking in circles.
A burst of wind assaulted the duo. Wallace thought it would lessen, but the winds only seemed to grow in power with every minute. Soon the mountains became a thousand howling giants.
“We need to leave. It’s getting dangerous,” Wallace said.
Aris still sat silent.
“Did you hear what I said?” the old soldier asked.
Aris ignored him and stared straight forward despite the wind whipping his eyes and causing them to water.
Was it the wind?
“Curse you,” Wallace said to Aris and made to grab his arm to lift him to his feet.
“What’s that?” Aris broke his stoic silence.
“What’s what?” Wallace asked.
“That.” Aris pointed to where the Trout River met with the White Mountain River where they joined to become the mighty Lao River.
“What? I don’t see anything,” the words had barely left his mouth by the time he caught what had demanded Aris’ attention.
A building was on fire.
Then two.
Then a few more on the other side of the river.
Soon, the whole riverside was on fire.
Chapter 51
ARIS SNAPPED INTO ACTION. “It’s arson,” he said. “Go down to the barracks now. Get every guard. We’re going to need all of them.”
Wallace was running down the mountainside at a breakneck pace before the General could finish his sentence. He had seen just how deadly fires could be during his younger days on the coast. That was at the seaside. How much more deadly could this tinderbox of a city —whose streets were filled with wooden structures, barely a stone building in sight— be?
Wallace’s stomach sank, knowing he was about to find out.
In seconds Aris passed him on his mad dash down the mountainside. He was heading straight for the stables, straight to the riverfront.
In what seemed like the blink of an eye Wallace found himself at the base of the mountain that touched Aris’ estate. By the time Wallace arrived the whole squadron of thirty guards that called Aris’ compound home were all out in the sparring grounds, soaking their clothes in water and wrapping wet linens around their faces.
Wallace spied Kestrel among the crowd. He’d just ripped off his clothes, exposing his scar-covered body, and dunked them in the large drinking barrel. In a second he had the clothes back on again.
Someone had seen the fire and they were already preparing themselves. Bless the heavens for whichever guard had been so vigilant.
Wallace, not needing to explain the situation, fell in with the rest of the guards and quickly stripped to his underclothes, soaking his outer layers in water. He grumbled his thanks as a wet linen was handed to him and he wrapped it tightly around his face. It felt as if his nose might cave under the pressure of the wet rag, but Wallace would rather have sore sinuses than die from smoke inhalation.
In less than three minutes the guard company had finished their preparations and began their jog downhill towards the fire. It felt like they had run but mere seconds before the smoke overtook them and eyes began watering.
Still, they marched onwards.
The heat increased with each passing step. Wallace took a sip of water from the leather water skin hanging on his side. His throat was already beginning to tickle, and it would only get worse with each passing step. Nearly half of the other soldiers followed suit. Making sure they were well hydrated before stepping into the midst of the battle that would steal moisture from their skin.
Soon they reached the first of the fires. It was almost as if seeing the source of the blaze added intensity to the heat and as they neared the burning structures, the detachment of city guards felt as if they had stepped through a wall of heat and into a furnace. Skin pricked from the inside out. Almost as if the fire summoned the heat from their bodies and it was desperate to escape its shell.
Upon the sight of the burning structures, the group went to work, grasping the fire-pumps that they had brought from the barracks, submerging them in nearby water barrels, and going to work spraying down the ramshackle wooden buildings while others beat sodden blankets against smaller burns in an attempt to beat out the flames.
Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.
Kestrel fell into a routine. His skin felt like it was steaming from the inside, but he’d felt pain before. He had felt the burning of stinging cold and the extremes of a building on fire during his time spent on the streets. He had escaped those streets, but now he was back. He had a chance to save those same streets that raised him. He wouldn’t fail them. So, even though the air that threatened to choke him with each breath despite his wet linen mask, Kestrel kept up his constant siphoning and pumping of water.
Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.
Kestrel's arms began to ache.
How long had they been fighting the fire? How many houses had they saved from the fires? He’d lost count after the tenth one. It seemed that with each fire stopped, a new one sprang to life in another building.
Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.
The air bit into Kestrel. It attacked him. The very atmosphere around him felt as if it were a malicious entity hungry for destruction. Feeding off of the sorrow that its presence brought with it.
The fires raged and Kestrel moved to help put out each new one. Each time he reached to grab a sip of water, his fear increased. His fear insisted he gulp down the liquid until he overflowed, protecting him from the inside out, but the training he’d received during his time spent in the barracks won out. He only drank enough to keep him going during each interval. Still, his heavy water skin was growing frighteningly light, and each time he reached for the life-giving water, his hands had a harder time breaking from their rictus around the water pump he wielded to battle the elemental monster that threatened to consume his city.
What sort of monster would intentionally cause so much destruction?
He wished the arsons death.
Pump. Refill. Pump. Refill.
Smoke stung Kestrel’s eyes. Tears fought back the damaging particulates but also blurred his vision. He saw the world as if gazing through milk. Each breath was harder won.
Still, he fought the fires.
