“The Scavengers forming an army? Impossible! The miserable bastards are little more than skeletons!”
“Well, if wielded with enough strength and hatred, a bone is as powerful a weapon as any.”
“But isn’t the Princess supposed to be guarding the passage to Waste Valley?”
“Hush, you fool! You fancy joining the meat-heaps anytime soon?”
“Oh, rubbish! The old fart couldn’t hear a thing if it were chiseled right onto his big ugly ears!”
However, all four of them turned and glanced at the end of the long dining table, where the Master Scribe sat, toothlesly chewing his food like a goat, while his eyes, two beads beneath the bird’s nests of his brows, darted here and there with the mistrust and hostility of the thoroughly deaf.
Yodren sat next to the jesting Scribes, sipping his wine and soaking up the chatter without giving the appearance that he was in the least interested in what they were saying; Divinators were expected to be aloof, even to one another – but these four were Advocates, and as such, paying frequent visits to the Palace for the King to seal the laws, decrees and proclamations they prepared for him, they were notorious gossips.
Thus, by pricking up his ears to the tales they brought back to the Scriptorium, Yodren had learnt things that, if openly disclosed, would earn the tattler a swift execution.
For instance, one of these impudent pieces of knowledge was that King Fazen, like his father before him, couldn’t read or write – and so, whatever scroll was given to him, he pretended to peruse, frowning and silent, and then signed with a shaky scribble that supposedly stood for his name. In fact, rumours said that a few years ago, a reckless Scribe had fooled the King into signing a contract by which he granted the entire Order of the Advocates limitless rights of sexual congress with Queen Firalda.
An even more daring, malicious and amusing hearsay, which by now was common knowledge among the Scribes, concerned Prince Fantyr, and his long absence from both the Castle and the Palace.
For King Fazen’s first and only son and heir to the throne of Feerien, ever since he was a toddler, had been a source of grave disappointment and shame to his father, falling discgarcefully short of what is expected from a future monarch.
Because, for reasons no one could explain, from the time he was able to walk little Fantyr refused to unfasten himself from his mother, moreover demanding that her handmaids dress him up in queenly attire, complete with powdered face and painted lips and as many jewels as his tiny frame could support.
At first the King was uninterested in his son’s mischief, thinking it a result of overindulgence that, given time, would pass. But when the little runt begun parading himself in pearl-embroidered gowns and introducing himself as Princess Fantyria, it was obvious that some remedy ought to be found, and quick.
However, despite the Healers’ potions, the Spirit Servants’ prayers and charms and the regular thrashings administered by the fearsome executioner – the King in his despair had even had him thrown into the dungeons –, the Prince gave no sign of amending his aberrant ways. By the time he was twelve, he had managed to corrupt the executioner, his jailers, and nearly every other male who set foot in the Palace.
Thus King Fazen, despite the Queen’s vehement pleas and threats, decided that their only hope lay in the Army, whose rigid discipline and morals might rouse their son’s dormant manliness. And when even this failed – for the incorrigible Prince would intimidate both peers and superiors into submission by threatening to exterminate their entire families –, the King had special barracks built at the desolate fringes of Feerien, manned by soldiers who would guard the kingdom from Scavengers attempting to cross the borders, and where Prince Fantyr, unseen and unheard, could debauch to his wicked heart’s content.
And there were many more diverting tales in store, which the four Advocates, flushed with drunkenness, proceeded to exchange in raucous voices – but Yodren had stopped listening, not feeling quite up to all this mirth. Because no matter how many venomous laughs they had at the expense of nearly everyone else but themselves, Scribes were, in essence, pampered prisoners, their whole lives dedicated to a kind of work that most of the time seemed utterly pointless. They were only allowed to leave the Scriptorium once a week, and even then they were forbidden to step outside the Castle’s walls; their fine robes were tailored and their sumptuous meals prepared by others, regardless of their personal taste; and as for the Scriptorium itself, it was a gloomy, dank tower at the very edge of the Castle, its only view – and that from its top, for the Scribes’ chambers were windowless – a grey expanse of sea and sky stretching as far as the foggy bank that hovered above the Drowning Isles.
Yet all these things would be bearable if they were permitted to see their loved ones more often than the seven years the heartless rule decreed, to be able to embrace their fathers and bury their faces in their mothers’ bosoms to weep as when, little more than boys, they had been snatched from their loving arms.
Like every other Scribe in history, Yodren could vividly remember the moment his gift had first manifested itself. He had just finished feeding the chickens, closely followed by three-year-old Yofana who was eager to shoulder her womanly duties but still too clumsy to do so without instruction, when suddenly a brightness burst before his eyes like a lightning, dazzling him so profoundly he collapsed to his knees, scaring poor Yofana out of her wits; but while she ran off to the house shrieking for help, Yodren, the movements of his body not entirely of his own will, grabbed a stick that was lying to hand and began carving big, trembling letters on the dried mud, and by the time Yern and Yenka came rushing to his aid, he had written four words, the names of all four of them, though of course to his parents and Yofana’s startled eyes they were just a bunch of incomprehensible symbols that seemed to slither about like long, invisible worms, leaving an ever-changing trace – for Yodren, despite his youth and the humility of his roots, had been further blessed by being an adept in the Divine Language.
Of course his parents knew what had befallen their son, even though it was extremely rare amongst Farmers, Miners and others of lesser stock; most Scribes were born inside the Castle, and were usually the offspring of other Scribes and the whores they patronized to compensate for the fact that they were not allowed to marry. And they also knew the rules concerning this elevated caste were strict: once a boy showed possession of the gift of literacy, he had to be brought to the Scriptorium posthaste, under penalty of lifelong imprisonment, although no Farmers who had the fortune of producing a Scribe would ever turn their backs to the favours such a parentage could afford them. Yet that was the last thing on Yern and Yenka’s minds as they struggled to conceal their heartbreak over having their firstborn torn from them under a mask of prideful overjoyment. So they had bought Yodren the finest, dearest clothes the Castle peddler carried, and then, along with little Yofana, who understood nothing but was nonetheless excited to a frenzy, they made the four-day journey to the Castle, till they reached the Scriptorium, which none but Yodren was allowed to enter.
Up until that moment, Yenka had managed to sustain her pretense of cheer, waiting for her children to doze off in the back of the wagon to wipe away her silently shed tears – but as they stood before the stark tower, and it suddenly dawned on her that the next time she’d be seeing her precious boy, the light of her life, he’d be a man of nearly twenty, she crumpled to the ground and began to wail, moan and claw the dirt with her fingers, a pain so raw that Yern’s tight embrace did nothing to console.
The memory of that day was still so hurtful to Yodren, he couldn’t recall if he’d been forcibly led away from his family and into the Scriptorium, or if he’d caught a last glimpse of his mother’s tear-streaked face. Thus now, to dull the pain as he had often done before, he filled once more his wine goblet to the brim, vowing it would be his last.
But just as he was taking a sip, his mind still foggy with remembered anguish, Yodren was approached, stealthily and suddenly, by Harf
ien Griff.
Even by the enigmatic standards of Divinators, Harfien was a riddle. He was the eldest of the Order, and yet instead of bullying his subordinates like others of his status did, he was withdrawn and taciturn as a novice Scribe of twelve, so that even his physical presence seemed to blend with the Scriptorium’s thick shadows. Some said that this was due to his exposure to the Seers’ alleged mind-bending powers – for Harfien, by virtue of his seniority, was the sole Divinator who was allowed to enter the Cave of the Seers, in order to converse as best he could with these otherworldly oracles. Yodren had never seen these strange, almost mythical creatures, but he always pictured them as sharing Harfien Griff’s long blond hair, nondescript face and unnatural pallor.
So when he realized that the weird man was standing behind him and addressing him in his low, whispery voice, Yodren was greatly surprised.
“...and I thought I saw the name of Royen,” he was saying.
“What?” Yodren said, turning around to face Harfien, who stepped back and looked down at once to avoid his gaze.
“Royen the Eternal. I was going through an account of some great drought that had struck the Farmlands about two centuries ago, and suddenly, near the bottom of the page, the word ‘Royen’ flashed before my eyes.”
“But then you blinked and it was gone; I know; I’ve seen it too; must be because of all this nonsense talk about the Shy Death and the Seventh Moon and whatnot. You of all people should know that sometimes our weary minds simply play tricks on us.”
“I thought so myself; but even when it changed, the name was a familiar one.”
“Oh?” Yodren said, turning his back to the Scribe’s tiresome talk to drink. “And, pray tell, who is our saviour supposed to be this time around?”
“I know it will sound strange,” Harfien said. “But the name – it was yours.”