Fortress Walls

Chapter V, Part 1

Chapter V

The night it stormed, several things happened.

North of Toragon, where construction was continuing on the newest railroad, the engineers and laborers had just started work on a trellis bridge to cross the troublesome Westbend river when it overflowed its banks due to the excessive rainfall and swept the scaffolding away. No one was hurt, but construction was set back at least a week. The storm had hit the construction site a while before it reached the capital, so news of the accident arrived in the wee hours of the morning by gale-battered messenger hawk. The crown prince didn’t even wait for the storm to let up, but left the capital immediately to help repair the damage.

At the army base just outside the capital, Tariq woke panting from a nightmare to discover that the ceiling was leaking. The barracks was old and needed repairs that the army was too poor to make. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep again anyway, so despite his exhaustion he got up and went to find some buckets and pans to catch the leaks. He didn’t bother to wake any of his roommates to help him. He set them up and then lay in his bed, watching the monotonous drip of rainwater from the moldy, stained patches on the ceiling and listening to the nearly constant, low rumble of thunder. Every so often, lightning slashed through the rips in the old window shade, casting eerie shadows around the room. Tariq couldn’t explain it—normally he found storms comforting—but he had a sick feeling in his gut as though something bad was about to happen.

In the heart of the capital, in a cozy office in his mansion, wrapped in a blanket to keep out the chill, Lord Clade was still up. Hektor had gone that day to meet an informant, and he wasn’t back yet, though it was nearly two in the morning. Clade sat up straight at the knock on his door. Hektor slipped in and told him that he’d finally gotten all the information he could on the blonde soldier with the limp.

~

The day after the storm, the air was crisp and fresh and the sky blue, acting innocent like it hadn’t just been throwing down buckets of water only a few hours ago.

At half-past-thirteen, the whole army was on break including ESAIC, and Corbin Stoll, the academic one, almost hated to be in his barracks room studying when it was so nice outside. It was really feeling like fall. He’d compromised by throwing the small window open, pretending it made a difference (it really didn’t, since the cheap panes were as wrecked as the rest of the tired, shabby building and didn’t keep any heat in or out). His roommates were all elsewhere, except that Tariq kid, who sprawled on his bunk in the corner, dead to the world. He was snoring lightly, but it hadn’t gotten to the point where Corbin was bothered. Not much could bother Corbin. To an aspiring philosopher like him, there was enough to think about without getting bothered by a roommate’s sleeping noises.

As for Tariq, he was about as happy as he could get—deeply unconscious, no dreams, no itchy thoughts, just dead sleep.

Corbin hummed one of the janky, psychedelic songs that had been increasingly popular since the war. It mixed a bit strangely with Tariq’s soft snores and the scribbling sound of his pen as he jotted down notes on the book he was reading. He was so wrapped in his thoughts that he missed the first, soft knock on the door.

The visitor knocked again after a minute, harder this time, making Corbin jump. He dropped his pen, stopped humming, and went to open it. It was a soldier he didn’t recognize—he must have been from another battalion—but he wore the uniform of a division commander, so Corbin saluted.

“Sir! Can I help you?”

“Private Tariq Wahidan, he’s your roommate, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s right there.” Corbin pointed to the bunk where Tariq lay and moved out of the doorway to let the officer in.

The officer looked at Tariq sprawled on the bed. He was drooling a bit. The officer pulled a disgusted face. “Wake him up.”

Corbin went over to the bunk, frowning at the man’s rudeness, and poked Tariq in the shoulder. “Tariq.”

The boy shot up even before Corbin had finished saying his name. He stared wide-eyed at Corbin, then at the officer, lifted a hand to wipe the drool from his face, and got out of bed, a bit unsteady. He saluted. “Sir.”

“Private Wahidan? You’re wanted at the general’s office.”

Corbin glanced at Tariq, curious, but the boy didn’t react at all except to glance at the clock, still standing at attention, and say, “I have training in half an hour, sir.”

“You can join training late. You won’t be in trouble. Get dressed and come.”

Tariq obeyed. He’d been barefoot, in baggy trousers and a thin black undershirt. The officer’s disapproving eyes lingered on one sleek metal foot as he threw on the dark red-brown uniform overshirt and pulled on socks and his worn combat boots. He was about to buckle on his weapons when the commander stopped him.

“No weapons. You won’t need them.”

Obediently, Tariq put them away and stood ready to go.

“You look sloppy. Tuck in your shirt and comb your hair.”

Tariq obeyed, and they left. Corbin shut the door, stood looking at it for a moment, shrugged, and sat back down with his book.

~

The general’s office was in the Military Archives building, separate from the rest of the Toragon army base. It contained a few offices and conference rooms besides the actual military archives, which were even larger than the Royal Archives and took up most of the building. Despite its formal use, though, it was just as rundown as everything the army owned. It was deep in the city, in the sixth sector, a good way from the army base itself, which lay outside the walls. Tariq and the commander walked into the city and then waited for a carriage to ride into the sixth sector. From where it stopped, they walked again to the Archives. Tariq hoped whatever the general wanted to talk about would be quick. Afternoon training would have started now, and he hated to miss it, and he knew Thierry would be annoyed he was gone, too.

They went inside, and immediately musty air hit them—a smell of mildewy paper and the bitter herbs meant to freshen smelly rooms. The commander wrinkled his nose as they walked down the hall to a row of offices on the ground floor. Just around the corner, they stopped before the closed door of the general’s office. The division commander knocked.

A voice floated from inside.

“Stay here,” the commander said, and went in.

Tariq waited.

A minute later, the commander came out again and beckoned to Tariq.

Tariq entered the office. It was stuffy inside and smelled even more of damp. Someone had opened a window to let in a breath of air, but it didn’t help much. The room was small and simply furnished, only a cluttered desk and a few mismatched chairs by the walls. One of them had been pulled away from the wall to nearby the desk, and in it sat a middle-aged man. Looking at him, Tariq felt a shiver of familiarity, as if he’d known the man in a past life. When he searched his mind, he had no memory of ever meeting him. It made him uneasy.

Zarael cleared his throat as he rose from behind the desk, snapping Tariq back to attention.

“You can leave, Commander Blake, thank you,” he said. The division commander saluted and left.

Tariq waited at attention. The general went and pulled another chair away from the wall, placing it also near the desk.

“Have a seat, Tariq,” he said, not unkindly.

Tariq hesitated.

“It’s all right, Private. At ease.” He smiled and Tariq sat down, reassured. He still wondered if he wasn’t in trouble.

Zarael sat down behind the desk again, folding his hands and smiling at Tariq.

“This is Lord Clade,” he said. “He is the prime minister, head of the king’s council. He wants to talk to you.”

The nobleman smiled thinly at Tariq. The young soldier stared back uncomfortably, not returning the smile. He could sense hostility like a veil over the man’s features. Hostility...hatred.

I’ve never met this man in my life. Why would he hate me?

And how does he know of me? I’m nobody.

“Yes, sir,” he said to the general, unsure how to respond.

“Good.” Zarael got up and came to pat Tariq on the shoulder. “I’ll leave you two alone for a little while.”

“Thank you, Alaric,” said Lord Clade. Tariq was shocked and slightly scandalized to hear the general called by his first name.

The door shut, and they were left alone in the airless room.

A breath of wind from outside stirred the shade, but they didn’t feel it.

“So you’re Tariq,” said Lord Clade, scrutinizing him.

Setting his jaw, Tariq stared back and gave a tight nod.

“Is that your only name? Just Tariq, nothing else? You’re registered with the surname Wahidan, but Zarael told me it’s only a nickname, or something.”

Tariq nodded, shrugged.

“Do you talk?” He seemed exasperated.

Smiling thinly, Tariq nodded.

The nobleman compressed his lips and looked out the window, unsure how to begin.

“I heard you conducted yourself well at the Battle of Corrin.”

Tariq frowned.

“Pardon, my lord?”

Clade didn’t answer. “But you would have been fourteen, yes? Maybe fifteen. Fourteen-year-olds don’t conduct themselves well in battle, my young man,” he mused. “Fourteen-year-olds are cannon fodder. To keep the enemy distracted until they begin to tire. Or at least that’s what Damon meant them to be, isn’t it? Really fourteen-year-olds don’t conduct themselves well in battle because fourteen-year-olds shouldn’t be there in the first place—”

Tariq squirmed. He was feeling more and more uneasy.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he dared to ask.

Clade seemed to snap out of a reverie. He looked at Tariq, bemused, then smiled at him, a bit more warmly.

“How did you lose your leg?”

Puzzled, Tariq stuck out both of his legs.

“You’re missing one.” Clade pointed to his left leg. “Show me.”

Slowly, Tariq pulled up his pant leg, revealing the metal underneath.

“Looks well made.”

Tariq murmured something about being apprenticed to a metalworker.

“So how did you lose it, in battle?”

Oddly, Tariq felt like the man was testing him. Something about the crafty glitter in his gray eyes.

“Born, sir. I was born without it.”

“Aah.”

There was a brief silence.

“Either of your parents have any... defects like that?”

“Parents?”

“Forgive me, but didn’t you have parents?” Clade asked condescendingly.

“I suppose I must have.”

“You didn’t know them?”

“I was found,” Tariq said.

“Found where?”

“In the gutter. That’s what they told me.”

“They?”

Tariq was silent, looking darkly at the nobleman.

“Never mind that.” Clade shrugged. “So you’re missing your left leg, didn’t know your parents...you’re how old? Eighteen?”

Thoroughly confused, Tariq nodded.

Clade studied the young soldier for a minute. He was just like he remembered from their brief first meeting, which the boy probably didn’t even remember. So like Phineas. Those solemn eyes. Something twisted inside him. He told himself this boy wasn’t Phineas, he had nothing really personal against this boy, he must control his temper.

Also, there was one final test before he could be absolutely sure.

“Give me your hand,” Clade said suddenly, reaching toward Tariq with his right hand.

Tariq’s eyes narrowed, but he had to obey. His right hand shook a bit as he gave it to Clade.

Clade took the hand in his and studied it, compared it to his own. It was smaller than his but had the same shape: slender, graceful, except for the scars and callused palms. It felt rough and cold in his. He could feel the boy trembling, but when he glanced up at him, Tariq’s face was impassive.

He turned the hand over to look at the thumb. As he’d expected, there were two small freckles on the side of the thumb, just like the freckles on his own thumb and the freckles on Phineas’ thumb.

He could remember his wife, weak and sleepy after just giving birth, crowing over the matching freckles, saying how darling it was that the twins matched their father, when all he had been able to think about was how one of the babies had a small, pitiful lump of misshapen flesh where the left leg should have been. He felt a pang, and his grip tightened around Tariq’s hand involuntarily.

Whatever Tariq saw in Clade’s eyes when he looked up made him jerk his hand away and stand up so suddenly that he almost toppled over, unsteady on his false leg.

He couldn’t explain why he was so scared and angry, but he backed towards the door, his cheeks flushed. “What’s going on? Why are you asking me all these questions?”

Clade let out a breath. The boy had to ask. Well, he’d half intended to tell him anyway. He might as well stop putting it off. He wasn’t sure why he was so worried about it.

“I’m your father,” he said.

Tariq gritted his teeth. He was lying. He had to be.

He stalked back to the chair and sat down heavily. All sorts of venomous things to say were boiling up in his mouth, but he kept his lips pressed together to keep them in. This man could have him executed with a word; he must be respectful.

“No you’re not. You can’t be. I was found in the gutter,” he repeated.

“I know. I put you there.” Clade rubbed his hands together, remembering the rough feel of Tariq’s, smiling awkwardly.

Tariq was struggling hard to keep his temper. His whole body felt blazing hot, like he was on fire. It was all lies. It had to be. His voice trembled with the effort to keep it level as he blurted things he’d made up on the spot.

“With respect, my lord, that can’t be true. My parents didn’t want to expose me. They couldn’t afford to take care of me, but they hoped someone would find me and take care of me for them. They couldn’t have me but they wanted me.”

“Who told you that? The people who found you?”

The only sound in close, hot stillness was the crack of the young soldier’s knuckles as he clenched his fists tight enough to crush wood.

“You told yourself that, didn’t you?”

Tariq had to bite his tongue, but his eyes glittered with all the words he couldn’t say.

Clade settled back into his chair, his smile gone. Suddenly he was all business. “So now you know the truth. I suppose I didn’t need to tell you, but after all, you’re the one who asked—I just wanted to make sure you were who I thought you were. And you are! You are the little brat I tried to do away with because I couldn’t have a crippled heir. You weren’t meant to survive—you must have realized that. You’re lucky some soul thought to move you from the gutter to the orphanage steps.”

Tariq listened, shaking and burning as though fire ran through him instead of blood.

“But since you did insist on knowing all this, I must give you a choice. Because of course, I can’t have this little incident getting out. Everyone who’s anyone knows you were stillborn. So now that you know something else, either you must swear to forget what you’ve learned, or I’ll have to kill you, which believe me, I’d rather not do now that you’re here. But if it comes to that, I can make sure no one asks questions about where you’ve gone. So keep silent or disappear—I’ll leave it up to you, son.”

Son!

Kill me, you sadistic, arrogant bastard, Tariq’s heart raged, kill me! Rip me to pieces, burn me alive, feed me to dogs! See if I care!

Through his teeth he forced the words, “I don’t—see why things should change from how they always have been before. I need never have learned all this.”

Immediately he hated himself, and he couldn’t meet Clade’s eyes.

“I’ll keep silent,” he said.

“Good. I hoped that’s what you’d say. Only, you must be aware that if word of this gets out, I will assume it’s you and consider your promise broken, in which case you know I’ll be forced to do away with you.”

“Yes. . . sir.”

“Wonderful!” Clade beamed at Tariq and then looked at his pocket watch. “Well, I told Alaric to give us half an hour, but we’ve wrapped this up so nice and quickly, why don’t you go fetch him like a good boy? I believe he said he’d be in the library.”

Seething at the double insult of being called a good boy and hearing his general referred to so informally, Tariq stood up, bowed, and left the room.