We All Suffer

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” These words sufficed for Elidan to regret asking the decrepit old lady. Old people always answer with too much context, thought Elidan. He had only wanted to know if the rumors were true, but he would have to listen to the hag’s story if he wanted to have an answer. If I even get an answer. I’m sure she already forgot the question. He was already making a tremendous effort not to roll his eyes. If it turned out that all of this was in vain, he would scream.

“Are you still listening to me, child?”

“I don’t have time for your stupid stories!” answered Elidan before running off. Patience had never been one of his virtues.

There were very few advantages to being a child but getting away with this kind of behavior was one of them. Elidan walked for a while, dragging a sword by his side. The weapon was too big to fit on his back, so every morning he would start the day by carrying it on his shoulder. He would do so for as long as he could, until both shoulders were too sore for such a burden. At that point, he would reluctantly agree to drop it and drag it in the dirt every time swearing to himself that it would be the last time. Quite a burden considering how much he had walked to get to the Valley. Yet, despite all those miles, not once had he considered getting rid of it, for that was all he had left from his father.

The shadows of night were slowly creeping in the streets when Elidan’s stomach started growling. He did his best to eat at least once a day, but that was not an easy task for an eight-year-old kid like him. After all, the world had no use for insignificant boys. It has plenty of uses for defenseless ones, though. Uses that will leave you wishing you were dead. That is why he always made sure not to appear weak. Lucky for him, his short black hair and his brown eyes did not stand out. He also had a long scar going from his nose to his right cheek that made him look tough. He pondered the idea of stealing some food for a few minutes, but with the sword to slow him down, he decided against it. After all, one day with no meal had not killed him before.

Elidan walked until he found a narrow street that appeared quiet. He looked at it for a few minutes. Seeing no movement, he decided he would find no better place to spend the night. He did not like this town so much. It was filled with soldiers, merchants, mercenaries and other shady-looking figures. And the buildings! Elidan could not understand why they were so tall. You could barely see the sun properly. He was happy to know he would leave the next day. According to the map he had stolen, one last day of walk would bring him to the Valley. Elidan fell asleep thinking about dragons, wondering if there was at least one thing left worth seeing in this world.

“These are not dragons!” shouted Elidan upon reaching the Valley. There were a lot of tents, fires, horses and warriors, but no dragons. “They are just men. Stupid soldiers in stupid armor with their stupid weapons!” He would have yelled in anger had he not been scared to be heard. He tried swinging the sword to vent his rage but he only managed to throw it a foot in front of him. He pounded at the ground until exhaustion stopped him. Only then did he realize what he had done. Elidan almost threw himself at the sword, picking it up and going over every inch of it, making sure it was not broken. His sight was diminished by the darkness of the moonless night, but it seemed the weapon had not been damaged. He hugged the sword, promising to never again let it leave his side.

“I should have known there would be no dragons,” he said as he went back to observe the army stationed in the Valley. “Dragons were never real. Just like elves and magic are just stories. There is nothing but stupid humans.” Elidan had left his home for nothing. Thirteen long days spent walking for nothing. The rumors were false. There were no dragons in the Valley. How anyone could mistake soldiers for dragons was beyond him. His journey was over. There was nowhere left for him to go. Elidan wondered if he should go back home, but he still felt unsafe there. He decided he would sleep on it and decide the next steps in the morning. His father always said that night brings answers.

“If the empress says the Valley is important, then it is. Doesn’t matter that we don’t know what for.”

Shit! Elidan had not realized that there would be men patrolling the area. He felt that he only had to keep a good distance to be safe. He glanced around and saw a light coming behind him. There was no time to run, so he laid on his belly, trying to become one with the ground and hoped they would not look his way. If they did, he could only pray that the blackness of the night would cloak him. He unsheathed his long knife, seized it in both hands and waited.

“All I say is there is nothing of value here,” said a different voice. “The empress has us building fortifications in the Valley like the locals could force us out. With what army? They have nothing. They spend their days shoveling shit, the whole of them. Why is the empress so afraid of them?”

“I don’t think it’s the peasants she fears,” said the first voice. “And in any case, it’s not your place to question her wisdom. She has never led us astray and she won’t start now. I believe in her.”

“Aye, so do I. I’m not saying I don’t. I just wish we knew what we are doing here.”

That was all Elidan could hear from their strange conversation. They were gone and he was still safe, still alive. Yet fear would not leave his little heart. With their torches fending back the darkness, he had caught a good look of the group. Three men and two women, all wearing the same armor, all in black leather except for a red dragon head painted at the center. That’s what the rumors were about! Now I understand.

There was something else that troubled Elidan. The men that had come to their farm to kill his father had also been wearing black armors with a red symbol painted on them. Hiding in the barn, he had not seen them properly entering the house, but his gut was telling him this was no coincidence. After all, there were no other soldiers in the Valley. He decided sleep could wait. He wanted to know more.

He looked at the tents and torches below, trying to decide the path he deemed the safest. After a few minutes, he felt his eyelids getting heavy and decided he had to move or risk falling asleep. He crawled for about a meter, then stopped, waiting to see if he had been seen. Then he crawled again and stopped again. He did so until he got near enough to hear voices, but not near enough that he could understand the exact words that were spoken. He wanted to keep going, but his arms were too tired. Crawling with his father’s sword had been too much for his small body. He waited for a while, hoping that the soreness would go away and that he would be able to turn around. Unfortunately, it seemed that time only made things worst. The dampness of the night only seemed to freeze his muscles and the wait only made his eyelids heavier. He was not that close to the tents and yet he was too afraid to stand and walk. Too weak to crawl and too scared to walk, you’re pitiful Elidan Venji, he told himself, thinking that anger might help him move. But anger was not in him. He was sad and scared. He was a tired eight-year-old boy who missed his father and did not want to be alone anymore.

“That’s quite a nice sword you have there, boy.”

Shit! I fell asleep. “Give it back,” answered Elidan as he got up, eyeing the three soldiers in front of him. There was a woman and two men – a fat one and the one holding the sword, small and cruel-looking.

“Nah, I don’t think I will. I’ve never seen such a good weapon. It’s way better than mine. Reckon I’ll keep it.”

“Give it back!” Elidan yelled this time, as loud as he could, not thinking about the army nearby. Three soldiers or a thousand made no difference to a child like him. There was nothing much he could do either way. “Give. It. Back!” he said again, trying to sound menacing.

“Just consider yourself lucky we’re letting you go and not putting you in chains for sneaking up on the empress’s Dragons,” said the man just before leaving. Turning his back to Elidan was the last mistake he ever made. Rage filled the eight-year-old boy with the violence of a forest fire: everything was consumed by it. He unsheathed his long knife and jumped on the soldier’s back, stabbing it more times than he could count. He struck, again and again, until the small man dropped and stopped moving.

Once the surprise of seeing such viciousness in a child passed, the remaining soldiers drew their swords. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Elidan turned and started running. He took two steps and then hit something. A woman on a horse had been standing behind him. He had not noticed her. Neither had the soldiers, judging by the look on their faces.

“Please help me,” implored Elidan to the stranger.

The woman looked at the soldiers in the camp, then at the ones standing in front of her, weapons in hands.

“Let the boy go,” she said in a tone that showed so little conviction that Elidan felt she would leave him to his fate if they refused.

“He killed one of our own and the Dragons avenge their deads. Just keep riding, lady. This does not concern you.”

“And yet here I am, standing in your way.”

The fat man took one step towards the horse and froze. He put one hand over his chest, grimacing in pain, and collapsed to the floor. Elidan looked at the scene, trying to make sense of what had just happened. As the last soldier charged, the stranger took out a small knife and sliced her own forearm with it. Elidan gasped in surprise, refusing to believe what he was seeing. The blade had cut, a wound had opened, but no blood had come out.

“What have you done to me?” yelled the last Dragon who was coughing and spitting blood.

“Get on the horse before the others come,” said the stranger.

Elidan looked at the soldiers running towards them. He grabbed his father’s sword, then seized the stranger’s extended hand and jumped on the horse.

“Why did you kill him?” said the woman after an hour of riding in silence.

“He took my sword. Nobody takes my sword.”

“You’re lucky I happened to come your way or you would be dead. No sword is worth your life.” Elidan remained silent. He did not care if she understood why he did it.

After a few minutes of riding, Elidan observed his savior. She was dressed in traveling robes and carried various bags and pouches. She wore her black hair short, like a warrior. Yet she carried no weapon aside from a knife. Elidan thought she was pretty, though the absence of a smile on her face made her look mean. “How did you kill them?” he asked.

“Magic.”

“Magic isn’t real. That’s not possible. How did you really do it?”

“I will not repeat my answer just because you don’t like it.”

“I thought magic would be more… Well, I guess it’s only fitting that even magic looks stupid.”

“You just learned magic is real and that is your reaction?”

“Yeah! There are no dragons and magic sucks! It’s a stupid world. If that’s magic, where are the flames? The lightning, the colors, the…. The magic! This just felt like some lucky coincidences. It’s stupid.”

“I think you’re safe now. You can go your own way,” said the lady as she stopped the horse. But Elidan did not move.

“I have nowhere to go,” he said in a small voice.

“As sad as it is, I don’t see how it’s my problem.”

“Would you teach me magic?”

“I thought you said it was stupid.”

“It is stupid. It’s not what magic looks like in the legends, but I still want to learn it. I’m an eight-year-old with no parents and a home I’m scared to go back to. I’m not strong enough to fight and I have no money. I’m smart, though. I’m sure I could learn magic.”

The lady looked at Elidan for a while. She could not deny that the boy was intelligent. She could see it in his eyes, always judging, always thinking. A boy with nothing to lose would be a perfect candidate for the order. He would be dedicated and focused. And yet…

“You might have what it takes to learn the arcane arts, but you also have what no mage should: anger. Anger usually comes from pain. We all suffer in this life, child. The way we act in those times says a lot about who we truly are.”

“What has that got to do with learning magic? That’s just stupid.”

“No one becomes a mage without knowing sorrow and agony. There is a lot of both down that path, child.”

“I can take the pain! And if I must control my anger to become a mage, then I will. Please let me try.”

Velina paused. She studied Elidan for a few seconds before answering. “There is a bridge nearby. There, I will give you your first test. If you succeed I will introduce you to my order,” she said as she nudged the horse forward.

“Thank you. I’m Elidan by the way. What’s your name?”

“Velina.”

“Velina, if magic exists, does that mean elves are also real?”

“Yes, though they are nothing like in the old tales.”

“Yeah, I should have guessed. I bet they’re as stupid as humans.”

“You have to stop saying ‘stupid” so much.”

“Why?”

“Because it reveals two things about you. One, that you are a bitter little boy. And two, that you lack vocabulary, something that is easily associated to a lack of wits.”

“Wow, that stu –” Elidan paused. “I’ll try,” he mumbled. “Where are we going exactly?”

“To the bridge of the doomed.”

“What? That’s a really stu… err… That’s a really weird name.”

“It is called so because of all the people that jumped down from it to end their lives.”

“It says a lot about the world we live in when enough people kill themselves for a bridge to be named after it.”

Elidan was standing on the bridge of the doomed, trying to keep warm despite the cold winds. Velina was still on her horse. If she was cold, it did not show.

“The test is simple,” she said. “Cast your sword into the river below, never to see it again.”

“What? I can’t do this. This is my father’s sword. I’m never getting rid of it!”

“I understand. Have a nice life.” As she said that, Velina turned the horse around, meaning to leave.

“Wait! Please, just wait.” Elidan was trembling. He was cold, hungry and angry. So angry. But he did not want to be alone. Velina was the only person who had been nice to him since his father died. If he did not go with her, what would he do? What would he become?

“I will not wait all night,’ said Velina. “Make your choice.”

“You don’t understand. This is all I have left of my father. If I throw it away, then he is just gone. He can’t be gone! My father has always been there for me. He was my best friend. The world makes no sense without him. I’m… I’m so afraid to go on without him. I’m terrified.”

“I do understand. Believe me. Now throw it away. Your father is gone. That is just a sword. I am offering you a life, child. I will teach you things that defy the laws of this world. But if you can’t endure pain, if you let fear stop you, then you don’t have what it takes.”

Elidan knew she was right. If he let dread dictate his choices, then he would be afraid all his life. He walked to the brigde’s edge, took his father’s sword in his two little hands and held it in the air. His hands were trembling, his cheeks were wet with tears, his heart was beating faster than it ever had. I love you so much, but you’re not here anymore. He dropped the sword.

“Good,” said Velina as she helped him back on the horse. “That was the easy part.”

Elidan did not move. He looked at the river where he had just thrown the last thing that meant something to him. His father was gone, he would never see the farm again… He felt empty, unsure of who he was and what he would become.

Velina, for her part, was glad that Elidan succeeded the challenge. He had a lot of potential and she felt he might become an impressive mage. And the order needed strong recruits if they were to win the war to come.