The Chaos Circles #12

In Lya’s memory, the Head Villager had never looked more furious. But it was Finnigan Jaymeson who took a step forward and spoke his anger first. Clearly he was displeased with his nephew.
“Enough, Jaque, or I will deal with you myself!” he cried, shaking his fist.
But the man’s stern gaze quickly darted to the direction of his younger brother as well. Terrence only half-stood from his position, his face was exposed his indecisiveness.

Like many heads of his clan-name, Finnigan Jaymes made a reputation of being a tough and unwavering man, even emotionally. Some who spoke behind his muscular back would and had mouthed arrogance but proof was in his profits and his loyal farm hands. Finnigan’s determination and persistence in success was one of the major influential factors in Enatuh’s recovery from the disaster thirteen years ago. But he was also a traditionalist and a xenophobic to boot, a habit Lya sometime wondered if the Jaymeson had passed to her father or the reverse.

Upon the Jaymeson’s words, the old mage placed a knotty hand on Jaque’s shoulder. Lya thought he was pushing her friend away but then Mariel Hivyniqiv turned to face the Heads again and appeared to give Jaque a tight squeeze. His eyes caught Lya’s and for some reason, he smiled and did not move from his place between the other mages. That was when Lya knew he had a plan. She wondered if it was the right one to do.

The old mage raised his stick to the Hall and spoke loudly to the Heads. Lya could not hear his first few words as the people’s echoes were receding only slowly.
“... you owe us a great favour, don’t you think?” said Mariel.
“What favours? We owe none!” cried the Head of Leigham. His voiced somewhat pitched.
He seemed to have stopped himself at the last word, as if he had wanted to say something stronger.

Her father narrowed his sight and whispered something to the man. The man’s face turned flushed and he fell silent. Lya could not remember the Leighamson’s name but she knew he was young, only five and thirty was his age, the most inexperienced of the Heads. Father controls everyone and everything. That thought came to Lya as suddenly as the other that followed. Even those from outside Green Cliffs.

And the smile of the old mage’s face seemed to grow Handred’s withheld fury.
“Seven Men and Seven Towers, Under the Mark of the Flowers...” began Mariel softly.
He did not spoke those words loudly; more to be speaking of him to himself, but the Hall was quiet enough to hear it all. The old mage raised his head and his tone changed.
“Hear me, oh cousins! It darkens my heart to hear your Father resist our cries but it burns my soul if all of you had lost your Past.”

Lya could not make heads or tales of this strange speech. Jaque looked as if he desired to return to his seat, or that he was growing some second thoughts but the gold-eyed mage, Gerald Usuquinota, held him in his place. All seven Heads were standing, some muttering curses and others only shaking their heads or fists. As the old mage walked small steps to the middle of the ring table, Handred Samuelson snapped his voice.
“Enough, mage! Go back to the lowlands. There is nothing here for you and nothing you can give us. Leave us and away with you!”

The Hall too rose from their seats and cried mixed noises of disapproval and distaste. But for each small step Mariel the Old Mage made, he tapped his staff to the wooden floor. Each tap grew unnaturally louder until he reached the middle; the last tap was almost similar to the bang of his previous handclap.
“I’ll leave, yes! I’ll leave a reminder of your lost past. Think about that when an elder teaches you on what to listen and what not to.”

That was when Finnigan Jaymeson strode from his chair and advanced dangerously upon Mariel, with a determination in demeanour to physically push the old mage out. Handred did not even cry out to stop him. Near the entrance, Chris Anasteq tucked his hand into his coat, as if he was ready to pull something out but the female mage held firm to his arm, unmistakably a warning she had signalled. Lya held her breath as the powerfully built Jaymeson faced the old mage, his hand curled like a claw.

Lya thought the old mage was going to do more magic. A bubble of excitement grew within her. Despite his stooped figure, Mariel Hivyniqiv acted fluidly, without uncertainty to the opposition, neither in words nor in strength. He held his staff tightly. With a flash and one motion, he aimed and struck away the hand that threatened him before the staff’s top end hit the centre of Jaymeson’s chest. The huge man staggered backwards and caught himself before he fell, coughing and gasping as if he was out of breath.

Lya exhaled and it felt as if the rest of the Hall released their breath with her. There was no magic, she was sure of it. When Mariel clapped his deafening burst, his fingers glowed brightly for an instant, like there was lightning in his hands as well as thunder. But the move against Jaque’s uncle was seemingly ordinary, if the sight of a frail elder overcoming one of largest men in Enatuh was ordinary. The Hall did not erupt into noise; rather a shocked spell had fallen upon the people.

For a moment, only Finnigan’s coughing and wheezing were the only sounds of the Hall, until Mariel continued to speak, his staff pointed and his eyes never leaving the Head clansman who had doubled over.
“Over four hundred years ago, your families were master of wars. Great knights and Mages that fought against the tyranny of Inutqland’s Open War. Your seven Head clansmen is a traditional reminder of the seven great friends who made the Esaeni Aqens Order, the Peaks of Green Order,” said Mariel.

He spoke not like a storyteller in front of a festive-day fire but more like a teacher who was lecturing history that would appear in an examination, with the same air of discipline. The old mage shook his staff to the open entrance doors of the Hall, ignorant of the soft but chilly mountain breeze that flickered the candlelights.
“Esaeni Aqens was the name of this great mountain range you made your home in before the Open War, before the Order was disbanded. That was what the Order was made for and what it represents. A long wall of never breaking spirit, against both evils on both sides of the mountain range.”

“How could you, the children of that great order, that one soul-binding clan, had turned blind from one of your forgotten motherland? The pride of your brethren’s triumphs still hung in your hearts, stronger in mind and body than you believe but you did not come to Asuqaro’s aid during our moment of peril. The shame! Instead, you cry that we are ignorant from your massacre. Have you even tried to venture outside your valley home to see others? Had the old oaths been lost that long too?”

Mariel grasped his stick tightly as Finnigian recovered and rose from the floor. Lya thought that it might have been the first time that the Head Jaymeson had ever fallen so quickly. The man did not move, nor did he hold support from the table behind him. Jaque too looked tense but often without turning his head, his eyes would dart to the open entrance behind him. Mariel continued to speak strongly.

“All the nations and kingdoms were broken from Inutqland’s rage. That was when all men were equal under the sun, neither old status nor promised riches can distinguish separately. That was when seven men, all born under the shadows or within sight of Esaeni Aqens found and made their home in a soft fertile pocket between the mountains’ bones. This valley, your valley, your clan’s valley. Those men build their clans away from the Open War for as long as they held their ghosts at bay.”

“Landless were scorned for, but the valley did they lived for as the lands around them exchanged lives without care. Until Inuqtland came knocking on their lowlanders’ door. Asuqaro it was still called, though the capital that shook was dubbed Aqa-Anau, the Heart of a Star in the Light of the Earth. The nation was whole, neither Nauqa-Aro had stained it nor Northern Uvounuq had swallowed it. To have the Kingdom of Destroyers casting its shadow was more terrible than any historians could describe.”

She knew the story, reading the dusty yellow pages under faint candlelight. Years ago, when she found the archives, she had read them excitedly as if they were fairy tales of lost worlds. Perhaps, a part of her still thought her childish views were true, being raised by a man with a steadfast discipline in a village of severe peacefulness. To actually hear the tales from a mage who spent a lifetime to more than just reading the histories was like rediscovery to Lya.

“From a small community in the very same you’ve called your birth-home, your clans did endure and fought to survive and keep it away from the ancestral Inutites. Men and women broken and torn a shudder from the distant places they once called home, they were ready to more than just dies from the land they’ve gained. And so the Battle of Paths was the most unsung and uncelebrated victory of the Open War, yet many heard of it. Sorrow of the lost was too great to sing tales.”

To be continued...