Petrov slipped back into his loft without making a sound. He stepped lightly over the creaking floorboards, careful not wake Fyodor, who still laid sleeping on his bed. Petrov slowly eased onto his own bunk before slipping off his coat, then his thermal shirt. Without the layers of clothing covering him, Petrov looked more emaciated than anyone meeting him on the rooftop would have suspected. His pale skin clung to his ribcage as his abdominals caved in slightly with each breath. His arms looked like little more than chicken bones with slivers of meat on them. Yet despite his physique, Petrov carried himself like a man unafraid of anything. He knew what people thought of his slender frame, which is why he always tried to wear layers of clothing, a trend that went unquestioned in the dreary climate of Knight's Harbor. The illusion of strength, Petrov knew, would keep him safe at least part of the time.
Petrov rubbed his eyes. He reached for his coat, wanting to drape it over his face so that he might catch a few winks of sleep, when the papers he had been carrying slipped out. Petrov stared at them for a moment, shocked that he had completely forgotten about them. Then it hit him: the letter from Osley.
Petrov dove to the floor to scoop up the papers. He ruffled through them until he found it, a brown envelope addressed to him. It was in writing that he did not recognize, which made Petrov wonder if it was indeed for him. There was only one way for him to find out.
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Fyodor, stirred by the rustling of papers, awoke. It was still dark, meaning that he did not have to go back to the clerical office until mid-morning. He rolled over onto his side as he opened his eyes. If Leo stumbled in here drunk, he nearly said, I'll kill him. I don't care how big he is. I will take my shoe, hit him in the back of the head and bludgeon him to death. If only it could be that simple.
Fyodor's eyes cracked open to find not Leo, but Petrov. He sat on the edge of his bed, opposite Fyodor, reading a letter. At first glance, the sight of Petrov reading was no surprise. Fyodor knew it was the day when he went to gather news from Chenia. He often found him reading in the mornings before he went off to work. But after the haze of his sleepiness had passed, Fyodor noticed that there was something different about Petrov. What it was exactly was difficult for Fyodor to pinpoint. But there was a certain sense of intensity in Petrov that Fyodor had not seen in him up until now.
Fyodor sat up in bed, staring across the room at Petrov with genuine concern. Yet Petrov did not seem to notice. Just then, Leo entered the loft with fresh baked bread in his hand.
"Good, you're up," Leo said. "You owe me six bits."
Fyodor paid Leo no attention. Neither did Petrov.
"What's wrong?" Leo asked.
"Petrov," Fyodor said. "Is there something you want to tell us?"
Petrov set the letter next to him on the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. His voice, usually as clear as a lark's, cracked with grief.
"It's Uncle Tobin."
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The port of Knight's Harbor was one of the busiest of the world. Every good imaginable from every corner of the globe flowed through its waters. From Knight's Harbor, the Maricanian provinces shipped silver from the Vincenian Mountains, jerked beef and grain from the Twin Rivers Valley and timber from the Simeon Hills. Iron ore and salted cod came from the lands of the North, while palm oil and tropical fruits made their way from the South. Then from the West, from the massive steam-powered factories of Czaria itself, came enough manufactured goods to satisfy every need and want possible. Among the wares were those crafted of Czarian uranium.
Only a hundred years before, Knight's Harbor had been little more than a sleepy fishing village that went by its ancient name of Halvane. The sand crabs had outnumbered the residents a thousand to one. Most villagers lived and died without ever having met anyone outside their community. Any one of them wanting to see the powerful cities of the East had to traverse the countryside to reach the Twin Rivers of Ender and Naly, which stretched hundreds of miles inland to empty into Lake Cali and the shores of the Maricanian capital, Britalia.
Much of the land the rivers bisected remained untapped, as fertile valleys offered resources that remained isolated from the heavily populated Eastern provinces. Three hundred and eighty-eight miles of hard, rocky terrain separated the shores of the Halvane from Britalia and the major cities on Lake Cali. The vision of a waterway connecting the provinces had long existed. But the funding of such an undertaking remained out of reach for Maricania, a nation so widespread in both land and people that even the collection of taxes remained an overwhelming task to its administrative offices.
But then, ninety years prior, the coffers of the Maricanian Treasury began to grow exponentially. Many questioned where the funds had originated. The authorities claimed it was from an influx of levies put upon foreign ships. But few were aware that a small contingent of influential magnates from Czaria funneled their resources into a Maricanian account specifically intended for the canal construction. After only a few short years, the Maricanian authorities announced that construction was underway on a canal to connect the East with the West.
Their massive canal project, which they named the Dominus Waterway, took over ten years to build at a cost that could have fed the entire nation for three years. Ten thousand workers toiled day and night year-round. One out of every twenty laborers perished from exposure, dysentery or malnutrition. Almost all of them were Chenian migrant workers lured to Maricania in the hopes of leaving behind their depressed economy at home and finding their fortune in a foreign land. Unbeknownst to them, the same forces that had barred many of them from the port jobs in Sagemark were the ones that spread rumors of grand wealth available to immigrants in Maricania.
Halfway through its construction, the laborers began to perish or desert the project in record numbers. The Maricanian authorities responded with decrees that any Chenian found abandoning their work would be found guilty of grand larceny. Guilty for not honoring the terms of their contract and keeping the advance compensation given to them in the form of oceanic passage to Maricania, which they had accepted because they could not afford the passage on their own. Many of those Chenians who wanted to leave offered their savings to the authorities as restitution for their passage. The authorities balked at their offer, for the Czarian magnates had compensated them to resist such bribes, which were soon designated as crimes punishable by death. Those Chenians who still persisted and deserted found that the ships which brought them to Maricania only offered one-way passages to Chenians, who still managed to come in droves as word of their plight in Maricania was stifled by Czarians and Maricanians alike.
As the canal project dragged on, Maricanian citizens began to doubt whether it would ever be completed at all. In an effort to shore up nationwide support for the project, the Czarian magnates bought ads promoting the newly developed harbor area in the village of Halvane, which they renamed Knight's Harbor. Nevermind that no knight ever settled in the region, for the knights of Maricania, the last of whom died some two thousand years earlier, had lived in the East. The name stuck and proved successful in drawing Maricanian entrepreneurs to the region. Longtime residents found overnight wealth as rich businessmen and women bought their land at inflated prices.
Upon its opening the Dominus Canal proved to be an instant success. The tolls and taxes alone from its first month of operation matched the cost of the canal's first year of construction. Soon boomtowns cropped up along the Twin Rivers Valley, both to support the ships that traversed the rivers and to provide for the settlers who made their way West. Not least among these destinations was Knight's Harbor, where the population swelled two hundred fold only thirty years after the canal's inauguration.
With newfound wealth and glory, Knight's Harbor began to experience the growing pains of too much success. Rising land and labor costs made operations more expensive, to the point where they threatened to siphon the profits of the Maricanian business owners. Rather than stand idly by as their pockets were drained, the entrepreneurs of Knight's Harbor turned to an alternative source of labor: Chenian immigrants. Scores of people poured into the Maricanian provinces from overseas. Docks and warehouses that once begged employees to work double-shifts were now flooded with excess labor. Wages dropped. Working conditions worsened. Unemployment, which at one point was almost nonexistent, spiked.
The labor situation was fueled in part by the political unrest between Czaria and Chenia. Peasants in the Frontier and the Sacred Plains of western Chenia, once self-sufficient farmers, shepherds and craftsman, were forced to flee in what became known as the Purge, a decades-long conflict that saw Chenian crops, homes and even villages sacked and burned by bandits and forces never firmly identified. Tales of destruction from witnesses and survivors drove many Chenians east. After months of harsh travel, those fortunate enough to escape the horrors of their homeland to land on the shores of Maricania found themselves now competing for scarce work.
It did not take long for the Chenian immigrant influx to overwhelm the local populace. Within months of the escalated Czarian conflict, Maricanian officials put restrictions on the number of Chenians allowed into the country. Sweeps of the Chenian ghettos became common as the Shavice officers searched for illegals brought into the country. Those Shavice of a less reputable nature used the random interrogations of the Chenians to shake them down.
Such were the conditions for Chenian immigrants in Maricania. They struggled every day. Racism and prejudice were prevalent. The threat of extortion, violence, or worse – deportation - was a constant. Still, despite the obstacles, many Chenians considered their situation a second chance at a better life. Nicolai was one of those Chenians.
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A crate swung with full force from the ship crane. Dockhands dove out of its path as it narrowly passed them overhead. From a distance, one could have mistaken the crate for a giant pendulum. For a brief moment, it looked as if it would falter back to slam into the side of the ship. Thankfully, mere inches separated the crate from the wooden planks as it swung back in the opposite direction for a second try.
Nicolai stormed onto the ship. Onboard, a sole deckhand struggled to grip the loose ropes that flayed with the crate's movement.
"I can't hold onto them," he said.
Nicolai studied the jumbled mess on the deck. At least a dozen ropes of varying length and width moved with the crate.
"That one," Nicolai said.
He reached down to grab a frayed yet sturdy rope from the pile. The crate again swung away from the ship, nearly taking Nicolai with it.
"Here, here, give me a hand."
The deckhand stepped up to assist.
"Hold it right there."
"Here?" the deckhand replied.
"Yes."
As he held the rope, Nicolai took the end of it. In a singular motion, he wove a boom hitch around the nearest deck cleat.
"Let go," Nicolai cried.
The deckhand released the rope. As the crate swung away the boom hitch held. Within seconds the suspended crate hung steadily above the dock. Those who had dove out of the way rose to their feet. They brushed themselves off, as if nothing had happened and their pride was still intact.
Nicolai looked down at them. He grinned.
The deckhand, a boy barely sixteen years of age, looked at Nicolai expecting a tongue lashing for his nearly fatal mistake. Nicolai, sensing his humiliation, chose to laugh it off.
"It reminds me of when I first tried to tie a knot. I lost a barrel of the captain's best rum."
The deckhand sighed. He even smiled.
"Nicolai!"
Nicolai looked down at the dock. Below, among the dockhands, stood his boss, Mr. Stacy. The sight of him made Nicolai's brow furrow. He was the first Maricanian Nicolai had said more than two words to when he and his friends first arrived to Knight's Harbor. A tall but portly man, his pasty complexion always made Nicolai think of bread dough, white and malleable, ready to be shaped. But what Mr. Stacy lacked in physique he compensated for with attitude. He was the first person Nicolai had ever addressed by last name, a fairly rare practice in Chenia, where last names were infrequent, but apparently commonplace in Maricania, Nicolai would come to discover. From the day he began work on the docks, Mr. Stacy never passed up an opportunity to remind his porters and dockhands that he was the man solely in charge of their fates. Any man who forgot to address Mr. Stacy by his last name faced immediate dismissal.
With his hands on his hips, Mr. Stacy stared up at Nicolai. Everything about his face, from his furrowed brow to his beady eyes, suggested that he held Nicolai solely responsible for the incident. And he did.
"Get down here! I'm not paying you to stand around."
Nicolai bit his tongue. He wanted to yell back, to tell that infuriated piece of worthless flesh how he had just saved a crate of cargo, gunpowder no less, and spared the other deckhands from disaster. He imagined going up him, pushing him off the dock and into the water, so that he could take over and improve dock operations. He dreamed of that day. But he knew any such action would ultimately be his end. There was no justice for Chenians like Nicolai. Not here. Not today. They were the foreign labor. The Maricanians were the entitled citizens.
"Yes, Mr. Stacy."
Nicolai turned to the deckhand. The young boy stepped back, sheepishly, now fully expecting an act of violence.
"Learn that knot."
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The horse-drawn cable car home was packed with laborers. This was not unusual. What stuck out to Nicolai was a sense of tension. It was, for the most part, indescribable. There was nothing that had happened that day to warrant such emotion amongst so many workers. The dock incident alone had only affected a handful of them, and even then it was not particularly out of the ordinary. No, this was something else. It was as though everybody knew a secret they dare not discuss.
Nicolai was dressed much like his people on the cable car. The worn canvas slacks and starchy wool shirt were typical of most of the dockhands, service workers and civil servants that populated Knight's Harbor. Yet unlike his counterparts, he retained a sense of exuberance one expected to find in the young offspring of a farmer or shepherd, such as could be found amongst the four- or five-year-olds of the countryside that knew the joys of living in open land and fresh air, but had yet to carry the burden of farm labor. This was not to say that Nicolai was a stranger of hard work. In fact, it was just the opposite. His unspoiled demeanor made him ready to take on the most difficult of tasks at the docks, whereas others with his experience shied away from such dangerous endeavors. His face also betrayed his life on Knight's Harbor. It carried none of the lines of stress or sagging skin associated with alcohol or smoke as a means of escape. His face was one of smooth, straight lines that persevered through the elements and consequences of physical labor, like a granite statue that had been smoothed by rain and sun. The only hint of age was reflected in his dark green eyes, eyes that held a sense of power and wisdom when they met others, so that one felt not that they were looking at a man in his twenties but that these eyes belonged to a sage in his golden years. "Green Eyes" was the name his fellow dock workers had given him when he first arrived. Even Mr. Stacy had taken to the name on occasion, although not on this day. It was those green eyes that searched the faces of the cable car for a hint of what the passengers felt. But each time Nicolai made eye contact, he was met with averted stares and empty expressions.
Nicolai dwelled on the sense of undefined tension amongst his people for much of his ride home. He could not tell if in fact there was something there, or if it was just the aftermath of a bad day. By the time he reached his stop, Nicolai felt that it was fatigue on his part, nothing more.
Nicolai jumped off at his stop to find the line into the ghetto. It stretched for three blocks before ending at a checkpoint, where the Shavice inspected every Chenian entering the neighborhood for illegal contraband. No one in line seemed at all bothered by this. This was normal. This was the price Chenians paid to live here.
The line flowed so smoothly that Nicolai had to wait only minutes before his turn to pass came. He lifted his arms as a Shavice officer frisked him. Finding only pocket lint and a passive face staring back at him, he gave Nicolai a nod, allowing him through.
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"Hey you!"
Nicolai froze. He hated this. The waiting was tolerable, the frisking was bearable, but the second-guessing always hit a nerve with him.
He turned around, only to find the officer approaching a young man at the exit gate.
"Come here."
The young man, eighteen perhaps, tried to slip through the crowd. But the officer, along with two other Shavice, nabbed him. Two pinned him against the outer brick wall as another frisked him.
"There we are," the officer said.
From the man's inside jacket pocket, the officer pulled an object no more than six inches long, wrapped in a soiled cloth. He uncovered it to reveal a wheel lock pistol.
Nicolai stared at the pistol. To find a Chenian concealing such a weapon in broad daylight was unheard of. While it was perfectly legal for Maricanian citizens to carry loaded firearms, either concealed or out in the open, Chenians were strictly forbidden from owning weapons. Even the possession of gunpowder resulted in instant deportation for them. In fact, when Shavice wanted a certain Chenian removed from the neighborhood, they would plant small traces of gunpowder or weapons parts on the unfortunate soul.
But this was indeed more serious. The young Chenian, still pinned against the wall, began to fidget as the Shavice officer inspected the piece. He knew what was to come. Only hours separated him from his deportation; a long, brutal voyage to take him to the motherland.
The officer turned to the young Chenian.
"Where did you get this?"
The man remained silent.
"Who were you going to give this to?"
No response.
"Answer me!"
Still nothing.
The last moment of silent defiance turned the officer red. He pulled his nightstick from his belt. The Chenian fidgeted in vain as the other two officers pinned him against the wall. Then the Chenian did something very stupid. He turned his head to spit in the officer's face.
The officer, who moments before was a force to be reckoned with, paused. For a second, those watching believed he would be merciful. But his momentary lapse of goodwill faded as he raised his club to strike the youth across the face. Those officers who held him against the wall let go as he fell to the ground. The Chenian tried to crawl away, only to have the officer strike him more ferociously as he attempted to escape.
The crowd reacted with a similar explosion of violence. A few of the more brash men in the line broke free to push the officers aside. The officers, realizing they were overwhelmed, blew into their whistles to call for reinforcements.
As Shavice from other checkpoints stormed in to quell the riot, Nicolai stared on, caught between the reality before him and the imagination he alone possessed. The blood, the cries, all of it progressed in slow-moving, fluid motion, as a ballet of violence that unfolded before an orchestra of human tragedy. Deep within Nicolai, a familiar feeling stirred. Nicolai reached for his torso, as if he could touch the area from where his emotions could gush. The scene, the violence, while familiar both through Nicolai's personal experience and from what he had heard from other Chenians, struck another chord with him. It awoke something buried, and dangerous, inside.
Nicolai's trance was broken by the jarring shock of gunshots. He looked up to see that mounted Shavice had arrived, brandishing pistols which they fired indiscriminately into the crowd. No warning shot was given, nor was their pause after their first initial firing. They shot at will, at everybody, whether they were throwing stones or running for cover. Chenians trampled one another as gun smoke soon filled the air. Nicolai, nearly run over himself, stepped backward before turning to run from the hostility.
Minutes later, an exasperated Nicolai stumbled through his apartment. More emotionally drained than physically tired, he collapsed onto his bed, unaware that Leo and Fyodor sat on theirs, waiting for Nicolai to notice them.
"Do you know?" Leo asked.
"What?" Nicolai replied.
"Petrov."
"What about him?"
"Don't tell him just yet," Leo said. "Nicolai should hear it directly from him. He's at the tavern."
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Nicolai sat across from Petrov. Reading. His eyes only scanning the letter before him, paying no attention to the drunken horde that crowded the smoke-filled basement. Petrov, with a bottle in his hand, stared at Nicolai as he read. Every few seconds, his head would sway, as the alcohol in his body festered. Petrov, not usually one for drinking, made a special exception on this night.
Nicolai finally set the letter down. He looked over at Petrov, trying to read him for any emotions as he searched for the right words to say. Petrov, by now inebriated, stared back at Nicolai with glassy eyes.
"I'm sorry," Nicolai said.
"I know."
"Uncle Tobin was, he is, a good man."
"Thank you."
"I can't believe it's gone that far."
"I can."
"The border. They've reached the Green River. A few stray gunmen have always visited its shores. But this time, the threat is many. This letter from one of my uncle's friends says that. It even goes so far to suggest that it's a regiment of the Czarian Guard itself, not just its mercenaries. Can you believe it, Nicolai? The Green River. That was the one thing separating the horrors of Czaria from the safety of Chenia. That unspoken line has provided refuge to our people for years."
"I know."
"Now it's gone. Once the Czarians cross the river there will be nothing to stop them from invading the whole of Chenia. All the refugees from the Sacred Plains, all those displaced by the new regime, they'll never find peace."
"Nicolai, I'm glad you said that. That's why I wanted you to meet me here."
"What? Why?"
"I want to do something."
"Will you send word back to Osley?"
"No. I plan on going there."
The words hit Nicolai. No less powerful than a swift kick to the stomach. Nicolai, already careful of what he said in a bar full of drunks and thieves, pulled in closer to Petrov. Petrov, in turn, leaned in.
"You're insane. And drunk."
"No, I'm just drunk."
"You can't possibly be thinking of going back?"
"That's the only possibility I'm thinking of."
"Petrov, Chenians have killed for the chance to smuggle their way into Knight's Harbor. We have all paid a heavy price just to be here. No one ever thinks of going back."
"I am."
"There's nothing anyone can do."
"I can see him. I can bring him back."
"He sent us here. All of us. You, me, Leo and Fyodor. To get a fresh start. Away from all of this," Nicolai waved the letter in front of Petrov, who brushed it out of his face.
"I know!"
Petrov slammed his bottle on the table. Nicolai drew back. He looked around. A few tavern patrons glanced in their direction, but most just carried on, since Petrov's outburst only further blended them into the drunken atmosphere.
"Petrov, what is it exactly you plan to do?"
"Everybody knows the grain ships ferry Chenian refugees into the harbor. But no one ever thinks of searching them for contraband going in the other direction, and even if they did, none of the Shavice would waste their time with it. I can get the four of us . . ."
"Wait a minute. Four of us?"
"Yes. You and me. Leo and Fyodor."
"No, no, absolutely not. This drunken plan of yours goes too far."
Petrov haphazardly swung his fist at Nicolai. It connected with stifled force, as Petrov lacked the strength to stay upright let alone land a strong punch. Yet Nicolai still flew back, not so much from the blow but out of shock. He landed on the floor with a heavy thud. He shook his head a bit before looking up at Petrov, who just stared back with those glassy eyes of his, shaking his hand.
Nicolai opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. Speech failed to capture what he was feeling at that moment. Petrov, sensing that their conversation had come to an abrupt halt, stood up. His slender figure swayed as a leaf in the wind. He stepped up to Nicolai, who remained sitting on the ground, still unsure how to reproach his drunken friend. Then, in an unusual move for Petrov, he spat on Nicolai.
Nicolai closed his eyes and clenched his fists as the spray hit him in the face. Had Petrov been any other man in any other place, Nicolai would have ended what remained of his life. Even some of the tavern patrons now looked down upon him, expecting an entertaining fight to ensue. Nicolai, however mad he was at that moment, managed to subdue his feelings and bury his momentary rage deep within, along with a host of other suppressed emotions that he had kept hidden for quite some time. For now, Nicolai's demons remained in darkness, kept under control and out of the light.
Petrov saw that his offensive gesture had not elicited the response he had expected. He shook his head. So much for him being a man, he thought. How can I expect him to understand my uncle's plight when he doesn't even have the courage to fight back? And in a tavern of all places? Petrov stepped over Nicolai to sluggishly make his way out, stumbling through the crowd that had lost interest in their squabble.
Nicolai rose to his feet once Petrov passed. He pulled his chair back up and sat down, not bothering to see if Petrov or anyone else in the tavern was still watching him. He remained there another hour, alone, not speaking to anybody, before leaving the tavern for the night.
The wind chilled him immediately once he stepped out the door. Nicolai pulled the collar of his coat around his neck as the wind nipped at his skin. The fog had rolled in, as it usually did in the evenings, to blanket the harbor in a cold, damp mist that seeped into one's bones. This atmospheric change forced all except the hardiest and most tested sailors indoors at night. Even then only the drunkards who didn't know any better stayed out longer than they should.
Yet there was Nicolai, a ghost, wandering the streets of Knight's Harbor. It wasn’t so much that he chose to stay out when all others were inside. There was no conscious effort on his part to walk in darkness. Rather, it was more of an effort not to make a conscious effort, that is, to forget everything that bothered him. Petrov, Leo and Fyodor. The conflict in Chenia. The prejudice his people faced on the streets. He welcomed the chill that ate at his joints and bones. It kept his mind off his deeper concerns. Hours passed. The cold grew stronger until every soul retired to seek comfort and warmth. Except for Nicolai.
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As the hours stretched on, night turned to early morning. By sunrise, Nicolai found himself on Saber Ridge, a narrow peninsula that jutted out to form the southern border of Knight's Harbor. At one time it was much wider and was even home to a lighthouse that warned incoming ships. The lighthouse had since disappeared, having fallen during an earthquake and then swallowed up by the sea. Now the peninsula itself was falling victim to the ferocious blue beast, as the water continued to erode the sandstone to the point where gaps now threatened to turn the long expanse into a series of islands.
The rocky, porous terrain was unwelcoming, yet there he was with the sea wind at his back, staring at the harbor. The ocean cut into the land, up to the wetlands that bordered Knight’s Harbor in the north and south, wetlands that gave way to the Twin Rivers that ran east. The hills behind the port town, as if knowing that they couldn't battle the mighty waters, parted, so that the Rivers Ender and Naly each snaked out a path between them. It was between those two narrow valleys, and the hills that flanked them, where the sun first broke through to shine on Knight’s Harbor every morning.
Nicolai stared at the soft warm glow as it rose. He basked in its light as if for the first time. With his arms outstretched, he soaked it in. All of it. At that moment, Nicolai, along with all his fears and concerns, ceased to exist as he converged with the sun.
Nicolai's visits to Saber Ridge were not frequent. Much of his free time, when not spent in taverns or on the docks with his friends, was enjoyed on the rooftops of Knight's Harbor. There he would read from the few manuscripts his comrades had smuggled from Chenia or play cards with his neighbors, but most often he would find himself practicing Zenista, an ancient system of the fighting arts, which predated any other known form of combat. Zenista, which was said to have flourished in Chenia only a few generations earlier, was now considered a lost discipline. The Chenian masters that had known it best, the Shepherds, had all but perished in battle or scattered and fled in the more recent years of turmoil in the motherland. Their students and apprentices, mostly men and women from rural Chenia, had only learned enough to pass along basic moves of striking and self-defense. Most of the Chenians that were of Nicolai's age showed little interest in hand-to-hand combat, preferring instead to focus on procuring pistols or blades, the very possession of which was illegal by order of the Shavice, who made examples of any Chenian caught with a weapon. The few young Chenians that showed interest in the ancient art knew only the basics, except for Nicolai, who showed a natural inclination toward Zenista. He practiced often, usually by himself or with a straw dummy on the roof of his flat or the nearby warehouses that overlooked the harbor. Yet when the rooftops of Knight's Harbor became too familiar, he often escaped to Saber Ridge to find peace.
Saber Ridge was the one place where Nicolai could go to abolish his worries, if only for a little while. Albeit inhospitable to everyone else, it remained a sanctuary to him for that very reason. Here the words from the manuscripts he brought to read sang a little louder in his mind than they did at his flat, and the motions of his body as he swayed in the wind while practicing Zenista seemed more focused and fluid than on the rooftops of the city. The daily struggles of living in Knight's Harbor and the tragedies he learned of from Chenia seem to stand still in time on that stretch of sandstone suspended in midair. It was here that Nicolai's soul lay bare. His body relieved. His mind cleared.
His thoughts, having drifted toward no specific end or purpose up until that moment, ceased. There was nothing in his mind. Save one voice. The poet within.
Nicolai had always favored the craft of poetry over every other leisure activity. There had long been an oral tradition in Chenia, yet only a handful of people still carried on the custom of reciting verse. Nicolai, as much as he admired poetry, could only recollect a few classic works himself, turning mostly to the written word when available. Yet in times of meditation and solitude, during which Nicolai could gather his thoughts, he often recited those memorable verses or even experimented in making new ones. Sometimes, words would flow freely through his consciousness while he worked. But he often had to put them aside for fear that they would distract him.
Yet it had been so long since Nicolai had had the opportunity to even think of the written word. Work had consumed him as of late. News from Chenia, which told of ever increasing hardships and oppression against his people, haunted him for days on end. Now, the latest word regarding Petrov's Uncle Tobin, and Petrov's subsequent reaction, drove Nicolai further into anxiety and despair.
It was hardly the condition appropriate for verse. But as a rogue wave crashed onto the coast, so too did the words flood Nicolai's mind. He closed his eyes. The words hurried to sweep away his most pressing concerns. As a torrent, they drove in, like sea nymphs that sang of prayers and dreams:
On the shore
the sea seeps into the gray sand.
There I rise.
As I step
Heaven flows from under my feet
to spread out before me.
Seedlings sprout, to blossom
into alpine giants.
Wild strawberries abound
between creeks of sweet milk and wild honey.
See this now,
Daughters of Sarbin.
Witness this paradise,
Sons of Chenia.
Nicolai opened his eyes. That last word rang through his mind. Chenia.
He looked down at his hands, his feet, with a renewed sense of self. His eyes then drifted over to Knight's Harbor. As Nicolai gazed upon the town, a sense of urgency welled up within him. He felt a need to return, for reasons unknown, to be present for whatever may come his way. His brothers, sons of Chenia, needed him now, whether they appreciated his efforts or not. Nicolai, more a man of logic and not prone to follow his feelings, put aside his doubts to make his way back.
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