The narrow streets of Dion joined together in the heart of the city.
The pesky merchants, peddling spirits and soul charges with which they had to polish their weapons daily, or they would fall into disrepair, swallowed him up.
-Hey, pretty girl, don't pass by, the best charges are for you and your friend - the chubby gnome shouted as we ran through the center to turn one of the corners leading to the residential neighborhoods.
The city of my childhood. That's how I remembered it. Poverty at every turn, high crime rates, and annoying gnomes.
Mostly the farmers who lived here, who grew wheat outside the city walls,
and bandits who liked to fight outside the gates in front of the guards who were used to this kind of squabbling.
Here you had to keep your eyes open.
Another villain could sneak up unnoticed and stab you in the back for a handful of gold aden.
There were dilapidated huts, rotten roofs, shutters that didn't close with age, minimal vegetation, and the smell of greed in the air. I could never understand why my parents chose this particular town. We weren't that poor. We could have afforded to move to any other provincial town or even the capital. But the obsession with becoming the best farmers in the neighborhood had been on their minds for a long time. Apparently, even before I was born. Growing wheat is a dubious occupation in an age of chaos and war. Of course, our house was invariably full of food and guests, and that was the only upside of farming.
Mother baked unbeatable bread by adding red kobol fruit to the ground wheat. That magical crust that crunched on your teeth! And that wonderful aroma that filled the house... I could smell it from hundreds of yards away as I approached my once home.
Even now, years later, I could smell a familiar sight - ramshackle houses, untidy streets, children in unkempt clothes, but as I got closer, I could smell the aroma of ground red kobol more and more vividly. So luscious and familiar.
-When was the last time you were at your parents' house? - Snay suddenly asked.
-Hmm, I don't remember. A couple of months ago. We were still going to go hunting the Queen Ants back then, but if you remember, not many people showed up. They all had their own lives that didn't intersect with the clan, and...
-Turning the subject," he interrupted me, "why do you visit them so infrequently?
-Too much studying, you know, hunting, household chores.
He made no comment. We were already standing in front of the wooden door that led to my father's house. I raised my fist and knocked softly. The knock echoed down the hallway, and then I heard my mother's hurried footsteps. I pictured her in her apron, all agony and worry.
-Angel! - She was evidently surprised at my appearance, hurriedly shook off the flour from her apron, and threw herself into my arms.
-Hi, Mom! - I whispered, resting my head on her shoulder, and squeezing, as much as I can.
-How did you... end up here? - She mumbled, then turned her attention to my partner, let me out of her embrace, and said,
-Hello, Snay, it's a hundred years haven't seen you, how are you, how's the family?
-I'm fine, thank you, nice to meet you," he replied with a smile.
In fact they had only seen each other a few times, and were familiar mostly from my stories:
to him, about the taste and flavor of her bread, and to her, about our protracted hunt for monsters.
My mother had always been against my hunting. She wanted me to farm like she and my father, or raise cockaburras and steers and then sell them at the market.
It's a fascinating thing, shoveling tons of crap out of the barn every day.
-Why are you standing there, come in, I've just made spore mushroom cakes! - and let us into the house.
I took a step, and the tantalizing aroma of kobol filled my mind.
-Mom, we won't be long, I have to get something from my room," I said, "but we'll try your special tea with cakes, you can brew it.
She hurried into the kitchen, and I glanced up the stairs to the second floor.
-And Father in the fields? - I shouted.
-Yes, he'll be back as usual in the evening, won't you wait for him? - She shouted back.
-I left her to make the drink while I hurried upstairs to the room that had once been my own.
Everything was still there. The bed was neatly made, the oak desk and matching chair, the massive closet that hadn't seen my clothes in a long time, the full-length mirror, and the trunk.
A huge treasure chest from my childhood.
Everything was so pristine you'd think my parents were waiting for my return.
Not a speck of dust! It was as if another ten years would pass, and I would settle down, learn, and give up my dubious ideas about battling monsters and return to my home corner to grow wheat and bake bread with them.
There was an iron lock on the chest. I knelt down and removed the silver chain from my neck, with the little key dangling from it.
- Do you carry it with you? - Snay was surprised.
- Yes, it's a reminder of my childhood experiences," I said, and carefully inserted the key into the keyhole.
There was a distinctive click, and the lock was defeated. I lifted the lid of the chest:
- You're about to learn all my secrets," I curled my lips into a tube and made a face that looked like a ghost was behind it.
- Ha, I suspected you were a witch a long time ago, so I wouldn't know anything new," he laughed.
- But you obviously didn't suspect that," I laughed back, and threw a small straw doll at him that was lying on top of my treasures.
He had a great reaction. He caught it, saw it, and laughed all the harder:
- You talked about sword fights and learning maps and political strategies, but you never, NEVER said you had dolls!
And I got a little offended.
- Give it to me!- I stood up and snatched the toy from his hands.
- Is that why we came here, to remember our childhood? Maybe you've got more pink ponies in the back. - He wouldn't let up.
-Yeah, a whole stable - I grumbled, putting the doll aside, and then continuing, "I got it from my grandmother.
-I'm sorry.
-Nothing. That's what my mother used to say. I never saw it myself anyway. Stupid, wasn't it, to keep a toy of someone you didn't know? I always thought that doll looked like me. But too kind looking and no weapon in his hands.
He was silent and sat down next to me, scrutinizing the contents of the chest. Most of its contents were scrolls, neatly bound one by one, several hardbound books beneath them, and in the very corner was an inkpot, long since dried, and a harpy's quill that had seen its day.
I ducked my hand into the stack of parchments and carefully laid them out on the floor in front of me.
-This is the story Cain told, remember I mentioned it once?
-There was something about a man and an elf-woman, when they wanted to take the castle? - He thought about it, - and I remember she dreamed of becoming an Olympic hero...
-Foolish, what can I say, with their resources it was impossible. Equivalent to the fact that I will now enter the arena. I will have only the Gods to help me, having neither good armor nor decent experience in combat with the enemy.
-But you do have such thoughts, don't you?
I left that question unanswered. He knew the answer himself.
- There it was, the last scroll I'd never read." The rough parchment was in my hands, and I pulled at the bright scarlet ribbon that bound it.
When the ribbon loosened and the paper opened slightly, the red Mandrake root of sorrow fell into my hands. Had it lain with the scroll for so many years? I put the root aside and looked at the contents of the manuscript.
The handwriting was different, I could tell right away. Though I had not touched the manuscripts for years, I remembered the letters the author had painstakingly written. They were straight and followed all the rules of spelling. These jumped from line to line, as if the scribe had drunk mandrake juice before sitting down to write.
- Look," I unfolded the other scroll at random and held it up to him so that he could see the differences.
- The scrolls were by different authors.
"She once confided to me that her goal was to unite us all. To create such a cohesive society that you could call it a clan, a family, anything!
Now I am standing in the ashes in front of Aden Castle. That acrid smell of burning and the aftertaste of battle. Here was a great, but not equal battle. Why, why would they do such a thing, they knew they could not win it! I DIDN'T HAVE IT. I was in a hurry when I heard the siege was coming, but I was not in time...
To attack the most defensible castle in the Kingdom, with no Cardinal at my back, is a feat not everyone can accomplish.
They died as heroes, with honor but no one else's. In their memory, I will keep the name of the clan and its emblem. I know they would have wanted it very much."
I slipped my hand under the row of books that lay at the bottom of the chest and pulled out a small square badge. A yellow pattern on a dark background.
-Nirvana.
-Do you think that's what their clan was called? Give me the scrolls! - he reached for the even older scrolls-the beginnings of the events described. - Her name was Emily," he said thoughtfully, examining the neat handwriting.
In some places the parchment had crumbled from old age, and the writing was faded and faintly visible.
-Yes, I remember. "A Master of Magic by trade, just like me.
-Long golden hair, blue eyes, it looks just like you! - he kept glancing through the stories I had once lived and breathed. Needless to say, I remembered a lot of them by heart.
-Nonsense! All elves look alike.
-Well, I've known one pretty elf, -Goddess Eva in the back, and Vasya the orc in the front,-I laughed when I saw what I've heard, and he added. - She's so described here as a nymph incarnate. Ah, here, just listen," he filled his lungs with air, waited for a pause, and read out theatrically:
"Emily looked out the window, from which a chill reeked. Her hands clasped Waldo's palm, and her head rested on his shoulder.
And there was an inexplicable sense of serenity about her. She knew that as long as he was there, she didn't have to worry about anything. All she had to do was hold his hand and feel his heartbeat. That night she fell asleep in his arms."
-Phf, fairy tales, - I muttered, but I remembered how, as a very young girl, I read these lines and dreamed that one day I would meet my Waldo, he would take a castle for me, and I for him will become a Hero of the Olympics. And we would live happily ever after, giving birth to several elves and settling somewhere at home in the Elven forest near the Mother Tree. Basically, everything almost came together. Only my husband is dark-skinned, we live in the political, cultural and religious center of the Kingdom - Aden, we have no children yet, and we can't think about castles and the status of Heroes.
-Why so glum? - Snape brought me back to reality, and I ignored his question and unfolded the last manuscript again.
-Do you think it was him? - I couldn't believe that was possible, but I ventured to ask.
-Who is he?
-There's only one "Cardinal" in the story, and his name was Cartan. In a nutshell, he's the reason Waldo and Emily had to leave the clan and give up everything they'd worked for. They supposedly moved to a secluded spot, lived happily ever after, abandoning their dreams of capturing the castle and gaining Heroism.
-What had this Cartan done?
- Killed their faith in their ability to keep the clan afloat and grow. He wanted something more. And they wanted to form a family where everyone had the freedom of speech and choice.
- Do you think...? - Snape took the precious scroll from me, resting untouched for about ten years, and silently reread it.
- It all fit," I said, sitting on the floor with my childhood treasures scattered around me-a doll of unknown origin, a clan emblem, books, maps, and manuscripts. I glanced at the accumulated goods, which now would have seemed like cheap junk to anyone.
- How could you not have realized it before? - he asked. It was more of a rhetorical question. - It clearly stated that he blamed himself for their deaths.
"Going into an attack on the most defensible castle in the Kingdom without a ''Cardinal'' behind him is an act not everyone is capable of.
- The end of the story was written in Cartan's hand," Snay said.
I stopped talking. No, that's impossible, why would he change his name. Why would he come to our family home and tell us what happened back then? Why would he do that? Unless...
- Angel, Cartan is Cain," my partner said.
The door of my room opened slightly, and my mother appeared on the threshold. She was still wearing an apron with flour marks on it.
-Your tea and cakes-" Her phrase was cut short as soon as she saw the look on my face.
She knew everything from the beginning! She knew the story was real. She knew about Cain and Emily and Waldo, and she kept quiet all these years! Oh, Great Einhazad, why?! I had a right to know too!
-Child, I have something to tell you," she said, and took a step toward me.
***
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