Trials by Fire

story 2 with Jirus and Campbell, plus a new face. not sure what this will turn into. "semya" basically means one's aura, but can also be translated to a soul or one's spiritual character

“The sun hasn’t reached this part of the world yet,” Campbell said, staring into the flames of their small campfire. 

“Is that so?”

Catl kept his face to the wind.  He didn’t need to see Jirus’ face to know it--the raised brow, the hint of a smile at the left corner of the lips, the mild ever-loving bemusement.  Catl wondered how long it would take for Cambpell to see it.  Probably too long, probably not long enough, probably never at all.  Most likely, it would take all three iterations of the same situation for Campbell to figure it out--and even then, it would come a long way from now.  

It would come like the scent of the battlefield to a man who is still a long way off, but on high enough ground to get a clear view.  The stench may be days or weeks old, or the aftertaste in the air months or years later, where enough time has passed for the dead to be buried but not enough time for the weighty horrors and atrocities of war to have lifted from such a place. 

“Catl, what say you?” Jirus asked.  “You feign sleep well enough to fool the enemy, but the waves of your thoughts break steadily across your semya.”

Catl turned his face up to the night sky.  The heat of the fire gently caressed his cheek with a mother’s warmth.  Were he any closer, it would be a stinging slap--the reprimand for speaking or acting out of turn.  He’d not earned many of those, and was less likely to receive them when he happened to press further than was generally warranted, since he rarely pressed at all--or only pressed just far enough. 

“You keep your own counsel and are an honorable man for it,” Jirus prodded.  “Speak with us now, friend, and lend us your wisdom.”

Yes, and if I think too loudly, my semya naught will ripple but will wag and flail, Catl thought.  I’m practically inviting you to poison me.  But that was all part of the game.  Opposing Jirus was impossible, as much for the man’s rank as for his charisma.  Did sorcery count as the content of a man’s character?  If not, it certainly influenced it. 

Catl knew he could not resist Jirus drawing him out to speak; refusing reply after a third solicitation to speak was to adopt the silence of a fool.  Whatever his response would be, he could craft it with integrity.  A wise man may keep his own counsel and ensure the downfall of his fellow men.  Perhaps in this iteration, he was to save Campbell the embarrassment of willful blindness. 

“Campbell broods this present darkness,” Jirus said, offering a final invitation to their conversation.  “Is there light for us yet?”

“We are the light!” 

Catl wouldn't go so far as that, but Campbell’s pupils reflected the glow of the fire.  Perhaps the question wasn’t whether or not they were light, but rather the nature of their light.  What source, holy or hellish, lit this torch they had come to carry?  And what would happen if I tried to loosen my grip?  Or has my skin already melded to the steel of my sword?

“Light from the sun is dead by the time it reaches us,” Catl said.  “The stars spill their guts a galaxy and a half away, and we watch their deaths with awe.”

“You make no sense, Catl,” Campbell said derisively.

“He makes a sense that you cannot,” Jirus corrected.  “Would you listen, you could make his sense as well as he.”

Campbell held his tongue, but there was fire in his face all the same.  That fevered passion was what made him so easy for Jirus to toy with.  Let Campbell get infected with the hint of an idea and Jirus would lead him to the valley of the shadow of death and out the other side, and Campbell would see him as a savior all the while.  Perhaps this was the story in which Campbell would remain blind. 

“If the light that reaches us comes from dead things, what would you suggest to lead us onward?”

You are the one who leads us along, Catl thought.  Some of us follow more willingly than others.  The content of his thoughts could not be read in his semya, but the nature of them could.  There were some who ascribed to attempting to hide their true selves, but a disproportionate display of acquiescence raised greater suspicions than gradual compliance.  Jirus knew him as he knew Campbell, and could play him just as well.  Catl knew that his own resistance would only delight Jirus with the challenge of becoming even more dexterous in administering his lessons. 

“If the stars were not dying or already dead, we would not look to the night sky and contemplate mortality and eternity,” Catl said. “In the old days, when we passed from one life to the next with an amnesia of our former selves, mortality and eternity bound us to hopes and fears which would seem absurd to us now.  But there are intersections, threads that hook between different worlds and times, and that is where the light of dead things can be blinding, offering hope where there is none."

He paused a moment before continuing.  Jirus would not interrupt him, but he was surprised Campbell hadn't leaped to deconstructing his argument before he was finished.  Catl didn't think this was an argument, but to Campbell every conversation was one.  Another reason to keep my theories to myself.  But he had a teacher, and there were rules to this game.  Learning under the tutelage of the Chancellor Mage was a privilege few were allowed.  He had not asked asked for this, but he would not invite more in the way of hardship by complaining.  At least I needn't see their faces.  It was a small comfort, but a welcome one when so many of their confrontations required a careful reading and display of expressions.  Keeping one's own countenance was more exhausting than keeping one's own counsel.

"The reason the sun is sought after as the sign of promised relief is because the sun is not yet dead," he said after a moment.  "If the sun has not reached this part of the world, perhaps the darkness is a sign of a long life to come.”

“Brought by the light we carry,” Campbell said.  “The darkness will rip open, and we can spill light for many reigns and more.  When we bring light, we bring life.”

“The night grows old even yet,” Jirus said, stoking the fire one last time before they took their sleep.  “Light already this way comes.  Tomorrow we will onward.”

If only your mind could advance beyond its own light, Campbell.  Catl turned his face to the wind once more, trading the expanse of dead stars for the tangle of branches snarled in the black of the forest.  If only the darkness would stay on a while longer, and you weren’t so eager to set the world to a right it isn’t ready for.  Only time would tell which story this would be, but Catl had a feeling that all the endings would turn out the same.

Author's Note

"semya" is a word I made up that basically means one's aura, but also be translated to a soul or one's spiritual character

any and all comments/feedback/pointers are welcome (: