ISAIAH SPENT THE rest of his birthday trying to avoid thinking about the rude suggestions Archilai had made about him. Despite his best efforts, his mind kept recalling the incident, and so he had no option but to convince himself of what he knew to be true. Surely, if anyone took action in there it needed to be him, and he was certainly not among the many captives lost in childish fantasies and delusions. Quite on the contrary. Whenever strange occurrences arose (leading most of the captives into superstitious misconception), he would usually find a logical explanation. There were reasons why the brick walls would suddenly change to a darker shade overnight, and it had nothing to do with sorcery and everything to do with dust brought by the southern wind.
Born and raised in the Delta region, the south was completely unknown to him, but he knew a few things about nature's movements. Deltans, it seemed, were generally known for being simple-minded people – rather uninterested and even unwilling to accept the newer sciences. Even though he’d never studied at the academy in Nagár himself, he’d been fortunate enough to learn quite a lot about the world from his grandfather that once did - enough to know that a man’s impulses (more often than not) were best kept contained, and that reacting to the vicious words of strangers should be below him. No, if anyone in the fortress did, he certainly knew where to put his focus, and if someone was delusional it would need to be Archilai himself – thinking it appropriate to speak so bluntly to a perfect stranger.
Having concluded both the man and his so-called gift, ridiculous and invalid, he still felt curious as to what a jewel was. Over the past four years, he’d heard plenty of wild stories about magic and alchemy – at times, entertaining ones, but usually far too outrageous to be credible. He was yet to hear anything about turning potatoes into jewels, and so he went to consult with Rim as soon as his sacks were full. The elderly woman (who had more common sense than most) had explained to him, it was a beautiful sort of stone of no practical functionality – the sort the patrons carried. This gave him some peace of mind, as he could at least answer Archilai’s question to himself: yet another clear no, as he saw no reason for major risk-taking, only to turn something edible into a pretty stone.
After spending some more time further convincing himself there was no point in evaluating the matter any further, he headed to the ballroom. All the rooms needed to be spotless whenever the capitalers visited, and though it was still many days away, he wanted to make himself useful. He began scrubbing the quartzite (light yellow and brownish pink in color and more layered by dust than dirt). Its uneven tones laid the foundations of what was by far the largest room in the fortress, both in width and height. A mostly empty space meant for dancing. Other than the five white statues of unfamiliar faces (lined up against the left wall), it currently collected nothing but dust – and of course “Greatest Nagár”. The large, proud painting of Araktéa’s capital, framed in gold and placed between the two arched windows.
Soon enough he found his thoughts again returning to the conversation and realized he needed a different approach to it entirely. With neither solitude nor cleaning easing his mind, he saw no other option than going to the noisiest, and quite possibly, the dirtiest place within the walls – the Cave.
As the smallest of the fortress’ four structures it would be easy to overlook for an outsider. Placed at the northern edge of the fields, and a healthy range away from the dorms, it was usually the first place the workers would go once they’d fulfilled their daily chores. Many would often spend their nights there drinking, playing cards and for the most part, speaking nonsense. Consequently, it was not a place Isaiah himself visited with much frequency, and yet this particular evening he went with a hope that external chatter might finally put an end to the one in his head. For once willing to waste precious paper, he even brought his book with him. Cave conversations mostly consisted of dull fortress gossip or village lore. Still, he’d written down a few tales, knowing all too well such adventures were the reason he’d left home in the first place. He’d come to terms with the idea that writing stories was much more preferable than living them. Being surrounded by big-mouthed people (with either wild imaginations or pasts), had thus turned out to have some benefit after all. Reminding himself of this, as he paced towards the noise of the sad-looking structure, he still found himself little at ease as he entered.
“Care for a beer, boy?” one of the triplets, named Khair, asked him.
“No, thank you.” He answered, not impolitely and yet wondering why he bothered asking, as he’d already made it quite clear he had no interest in their poisons. He then remembered he hadn’t been there since the coldest day of last year. During what the people of Nahbí considered winter, but, that felt more like fall. Khair had asked him the same question then, as he’d told a tale about the resurrection of an Amnos King (what number in the lineage he hadn’t been certain of), that everyone but Isaiah had found thrilling. Khair had had his normal conspiracies about it, which had led to arguments he luckily had left too early to witness.
“Alright, boy. You’re welcome to sit with us, but I see you’ve brought that little book of yours.” The broad-shouldered man grinned, flashing a bridge of teeth in at least four different tones of yellow. Isaiah instinctively held it tight to his chest. He’d caught him once, trying to steal it. Paper was a rare privilege in there – and nearly anywhere else for that matter. Perhaps if he had asked him nicely he would have shared some pages, but Khair had been unwilling to even give an explanation or apology, and so he’d kept it underneath his madras ever since. If nothing else, it’d been a good reminder that all of these people were true criminals.
Making his way past the triplets, sitting in a row at the bar among five other drunks, Isaiah found himself a table-less corner nobody else had claimed. The benches were of faded, brown leather, matching the ambience in every sense (color it seemed, was understandably of no concern to the Patrons, except when it came to their own garments). His seat was next to some cooks, still smelling like the dinner they’d prepared some hours earlier, and it had a lantern above it, that he knew beamed just enough light to see the pages clearly. With thick, wooden walls and heated by dozens of captives (most on the heavier side) it was almost unbearably hot in there. This first moon span was warmer than usual, and their breaths (smelling of beer and potato stew) filled the room faster than it could escape from the two tiny, half-opened windows. Despite the discomfort, he didn’t think it wise to go anywhere else. Instead, he remained seated, waiting for any sort of compelling distraction to captivate his mind.
As it turned out, there were for once no wild stories being shared among the captives that evening. The triplets were once again rambling about where the Jalas had gone to - a tribe that had once lived by the river running through the valley of the unnamed mountains. Some Deltan villagers were complaining about the food, and a couple of new Dabárians were criticizing the injustice of “the system”. Overall, it seemed little had changed since the last time he’d entered, and after once again trying to understand exactly what system they were referring to, and which part of it they disagreed with, Isaiah gave up. Opening his book, he looked down at the blank pages, meditating. He only wanted it to store important writings. Good stories. Of course, it had to do with integrity, but most importantly the fact that his grandfather would read it as soon as he was back home. “Well, that won’t be for some time now, anyway,” he thought, oddly nervous as he pulled out the charcoal pen that Lady Huxley, quite generously had gifted him, from his inner pocket. They hadn’t offered him ink yet – being much too precious to gift a captive – but he felt charcoal did just as good of a job. Either way, he’d be a fool to think the issue was with the materials at his disposal. As he tried thinking of words making up a story worth telling, he couldn’t help but hearing Archilai’s – uninspiringly flowing around his head again. “You’re putting your focus in all the wrong places.”
“Are you having problems writing, lad? Maybe I can tell you a story or two.” Lost in thought and surprised that Byron, the biggest of the triplets, all of a sudden was paying attention to him, Isaiah looked up.
“Oh, no, thank you… I am just working on a poem.” Poetry was a concept Lord Huxley had introduced to him to some moon-spans ago. Though he hadn’t gotten enough time to understand the rules of the genre very well, he found it fascinating. While most stories were expected to be thrilling and exciting, poetry seemed to have no such rules. It had given him the idea that perhaps, instead of an ordinary storyteller, he'd someday become a poet himself.
“Poems you say? Let’s hear one, then!” Byron said with unsettling enthusiasm, choking Isaiah’s hope that he’d lose his rare and unasked for attention, if he spoke of things he didn’t understand. Apparently, Byron wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the arts after all, and he knew how to get people’s attention with his loud, broad voice. Within a very few, and uncomfortably rapid heartbeats, the Cave had quieted down. Most eyes were directed at Byron, but as he explained Isaiah was the self-declared poet of them, more and more were turning towards his dimmed corner. The faint fire of the lantern suddenly seemed to be burning on top of his head. In his whole life, never had he felt so many eyes on him at once, and to make matters worse, he was nowhere close to prepared to share any of his writings. He opened his mouth to protest, but as he couldn’t find any sensible words, he started flickering through the fine pages. His fingers trembling awkwardly. “It’s just some words on paper. Nothing to make a scene over.” He told himself, finding the whole thing rather ridiculous.
“Uhm, yes, let’s see…” he stuttered, and finally, he found the one he’d written a few weeks prior. It was the only poem he hadn’t ripped out, penned instantly after coming out of a dream he now only remembered as a pale blur. He cleared his throat and tried soothing it, but it seemed every drop of saliva had dissipated from his mouth to further thicken whatever was left of the cave’s air. The lump that lived in it, that he was growing much too familiar with, pounded aggressively, as if warning him that saying the wrong words would lead to death and misery for them both. “It is just words.” He reminded it, as well as himself, and then took in a long breath, before speaking to his first audience:
“They were two
Two walking through
Through an invisible war
Cold, and in bliss
Looking for more
Together,
forever in a dream
Both hungry
both freezing
both yearning
One burning
For some God
Or all the stars
Shining brighter
in the north
The north beyond Dabár
A place only to reach
with little more
To learn and teach
Still not until
One is left behind
at a quiet place
left behind
in vicious flames.”
Isaiah didn’t dare look up from his book, having quite awkwardly ended his performance stuttering the word “flames”, and feeling as if it had materialized inside his head. He realized he hadn’t actually finished the piece, and that it didn’t sound as good read out loud, as it once had in the dream or inside his head. Furthermore, his voice had been too quivery, and though the Cave wasn’t large, he felt it hadn’t reached far enough. Slow seconds went by in an unusual silence that rarely occurred in Captive’s Cave, as he thought of these many shortcomings.
“That’s all.” He finally stated, feeling they were waiting for something more – misreading his words as a story with a clear beginning and an end. It didn’t need to be so. This was poetry after all, and that much he knew.
“That’s all?” Timotheus, the third triplet, asked. Isaiah nodded, confirming and closing the book as if it is the action that would make everyone turn their attention away from him and go on as usual. It didn’t of course, and the throat-lump seemed to ascend to a whole new state of existential distress.
“You wrote that?” Byron asked. His ungroomed fingernails scratching through his beard.
“Yes. Just the other day.” It might have been a few weeks back, or even a moon span ago now, but his voice was trembling too much for him to correct himself.
“And how did you come up with these things?”
“I had a dream and…” Isaiah stopped himself, feeling his cheeks flushing, “It doesn’t really matter. What… what did you think?” He felt both bold and silly for asking, for it should be the least of his concern, and they probably hadn’t understood. As Lord Huxley had explained, poetry was all about the unsaid. None of the captives seemed particularly familiar with silence or keeping things to themselves. Not to say, he hardly understood the piece himself anymore, and wasn’t sure if he was even meant to.
“I think it was good.” Timotheus smiled, his teeth just the slightest bit brighter than his larger brother’s, and his tone quite a bit friendlier. “I would prefer a song, but it was alright.” he added, looking over at Byron who looked inside his half empty jug of brown ale.
“I didn’t find it too extraordinary, lad. Besides, Khantal, as you should know, is the land north of Dabár, and it’s not a place a child should be making up stories about.”
“You…didn’t like it then?”
“Not very much, no. Sorry.” Byron said, and the apology would’ve almost have sounded sincere, hadn’t it been for his cunning smirk. Now, the others started mumbling, clearly uncomfortable with the lack of chatter.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Isaiah was very surprised to hear himself say. It was not the first time he’d felt an urge to speak up to one of the triplets, but he’d never thought he’d be stupid enough to actually do so. Perhaps it was because it was the first poem he’d ever written, and because he felt almost certain it was, at least, a decent piece of writing. The lump seemed to dig its way through flesh and veins, and if nobody had heard his heartbeats before, there wouldn’t be any way of ignoring them now. At last, every thought having to do with Archiliai had successfully dissipated. His head, and every other part of his body, were occupied imagining which way Byron might grab a hold of him – just like he’d seen him do numerous times with rude, or just plainly unfortunate, men. As the large man got up from his seat and took two slow steps towards his corner, even moving an inch seemed impossible. In the dim light of the lantern, he saw that Byron’s narrow, green eyes bore an unsettling seriousness to them. Like a large animal ready to assassinate its prey, or a Zura preparing to punish a captive, and yet, Isaiah’s throat remained free as he placed his hand on the wall above his right shoulder and bent down towards him.
“You read your words to us, thinking we know nothing about literature and would be impressed with anything you’ve written. Now, I might not be an academic like that grandfather you’ve spoken so fondly of, but I’m a Dabárian, and I’ve read some poems in my days, lad.” Time seemed lucid, as the two of them eyed each other. Byron then lowered his voice, as if out of courtesy, as he said, “Your writing is not bad, boy, it is just... unremarkable. Real labor suits you better, so my advice to you would be to keep focusing on just that.” It was so silent just then, that even if he’d made a bigger effort to whisper, the nearly sophisticated insult would’ve been heard by every ear in the Cave. He followed up his advice with a stiff smile, and a hard patch on Isaiah’s shoulder. Before the rest of them had a chance to take in what had just been said, Byron turned and raised his jug from the bar – to everyone’s relief, signalling for things to go on like usual. This was Captive’s Cave after all, and not some Nagárian salon. Certainly not a place for poetry, or for innocent, young dreams to blossom.
Isaiah walked out immediately. The fact that he could do so with his breath still intact, and all his bones in the right order, was a minor comfort. It didn’t just feel like the slightest hope regarding his potential talent had died. Rather, it felt like it’d been publicly executed, hung, burnt and ridiculed all at once. Though he knew he shouldn’t pay attention to what uneducated men like Byron said, his words had rung too clearly for him to deny. Still, the fact that he allowed himself to be so affected by a drunken fool’s words, was perhaps more unsettling than both the stuttering and his audience’s confused eyes in the aftermath of it. “Why would I even ask their opinion?” he wondered, thinking he should know better than asking questions he did not want the answers to.
He’d never been fond of surprises and after a long day when nobody, not even himself, was acting as usual, he wished he could become calm enough to sleep. He walked at a rapid pace over the fields, feeling as if everything that’d been reliable, or at least predictable, was flying around like dry, meager soil – blinding him and unwilling to land anywhere. Looking up towards a nearly completed moon, with a head full of questions, he realized it was still not too late to go through with his birthday ritual. There was still enough time to ask. He did not have any seed to plant, but could at least look for the Lady’s gardener and tell him that any seed would do. As he stumbled over a misplaced rock, he threw the idea away as soon as it’d come, sensing his skin crawl by the very thought of owing anyone in there anything at all. Besides, he had too many questions at once, all graspingly desperate and hysterical. Reaching the end of the fields, he found himself nearly unwillingly walking towards the seeding place. Looking down at the ground, he started wondering. Wondering if perhaps the earth simply had grown tired of him and his questions. Offering no objection nor confirmation, he finally laid down on the bed of leaves in mutual silence.
For some time, he looked up towards the sky, appearing like dark velvet in between the leaves that still clung to the oaks behind him. It’d been some time since he’d given the night sky his full attention, and he wished the stars would write out what he should do. They were silent of course, but less static than many other things, and so he allowed himself to hope they could at least see him. That they were somehow staring back at him in their own heavenly way. His grandfather had once explained that the stars could guide you home – yet gazing for too long could turn anyone into a lost and irrational star-chaser. He hadn’t said anything about how long ‘too long’ was, but having felt both lost and irrational (looking down or straight ahead) the whole day, Isaiah thought looking up couldn’t possibly cause any further harm. There were low whispers tingling through the trees and the faint smell of something sour he hardly ever noticed anymore. It resembled vinegar, and though always present, he’d failed to notice it for some time. He continued gazing, focusing on the moon as his lump slowly eased. Some captives claimed the moon to be magical – a distant god watching over them. He’d thought they’d been spending too much time looking upwards, for though beautiful, he thought it had more of a resemblance to a glowing potato than a god. Or perhaps, he now realized, it was more like a flying jewel. Hanging over their heads with no other use than to please their eyes. “Not the worst of fates.” He realized.
Letting go of analyzing these distant mysteries, Isaiah took a deep breath, allowing the night air to fill his lungs. Eventually, as he claimed a few more, his mind calmed, and came to the acceptance that he wouldn’t be planting anything on this birthday – nor any other day of this year. He then decided to make this lack of action a promise to himself – a promise that he would do whatever it took to get out of there. No questions asked. Even if his writing was unremarkable and his escape plan had been foolish – even if he was a failure, he was at least no longer inside the delusion of being anything else. It seemed clear enough now that it was time to leave, but right there and then, he didn’t need a plan, a plant or the sky telling him how. He just needed some rest and silence. Some time to look upwards until his own existence seemed insignificant enough, for it not to bother him anymore. For some precious moments it seemed that a beautiful, useless, flying circle was all he needed.