Matabar

Book II. Chapter 8 - "Aror did what he did"

“Two tickets, please,” Ardi said, producing two banknotes and a few coins.

Tickets for the cinema cost an astronomical amount of money—one and a half exes for an adult and sixty kso for children. But firstly, Ardan had promised Tess, and secondly, ever since the first cinemas had opened in the Metropolis, he himself had been curious to see what this thing called cinema was all about. In the capital, tickets cost even more, in fact, starting at three exes and only going up from there.

A young man, perhaps a little younger than Ardan himself, yanked the lever of the cash machine and then pulled out the register drawer, into which he briskly swept the coins and then stacked the bills in a neat pile. Then, adjusting the peak of his cap that shielded him from the relentless sun in his cramped glass booth, he took a tool vaguely resembling a chisel and neatly sliced off two tickets from the long paper roll.

“Row four, seats fourteen and fifteen,” announced the freckle-faced youth in a tone that was as mechanical as his tools.

“Can’t we choose different ones?” Ardi inquired.

Judging by the size of the ticket reel and each ticket’s numbering, the hall had about seven or eight rows, with twenty-two seats per row on average. And so, if the cinema hall’s layout was the same as a theater’s, it would be best to sit in the center.

“It’s not a theater, sir,” the ticket seller replied matter-of-factly, sweltering in the heat. “There’s no choosing here. You get whatever tickets there are. And honestly, it makes no difference.”

Ardan sighed, collected the tickets, thanked the young man, and returned to Tess. She was standing by the curb that separated the broad sidewalk from the narrow roadway, where in addition to automobiles, one could occasionally spot horse-drawn carriages and wagons. Mostly wagons, truth be told.

Farther ahead, the busy waterfront sloped gently downwards. People strolled along the damp cobblestones. Ladies shielded themselves from the heat with little parasols, while the men made do with hats and, occasionally, when it became truly unbearable, by removing their jackets or coats (coats were mostly worn by laborers) and draping them over the crook of an arm. Umbrellas, of course, were not carried by everyone—only by the wives and companions of men who certainly didn’t work in the port, the sawmills, or the factories.

Still, here in Delpas, the social divide between the well-off and the have-nots didn’t seem as sharp or as wide as in the capital.

Amidst it all, Tess—in her light dress and brightly colored, whimsical shoes, without a hat, her hair loose and flowing in the lake breeze—looked like something that didn’t quite fit into the orderly, rule-bound life around her. These were the very same rules that Tess herself obeyed for three seasons of the year. In autumn, spring and winter, the red-haired singer dressed like everyone else—but not in summer.

Ardi, still limping slightly and trying not to breathe too deeply, came up beside his fiancée. She barely reached his shoulder, which he found both cute and comforting.

“Just look,” she said, waving her ice-cream cone toward the townsfolk. “Summer only lasts a week longer than ours here, and yet they all hide from the sun.” Tess smiled and took a bite of her treat. “And later, when the rains start, they tell everyone how they didn’t get enough warmth and how they dream of living on the shore of the Azure Sea.”

That was exactly why Tess tried to dress as lightly as possible in summer—sometimes with outfits right at the edge of propriety. Her summer skirts and dresses were so daring on occasion that they nearly fully exposed her calves, reaching almost to her knees.

Ardi had no objections to this. Her stage outfits were far more revealing anyway, but a revealing dress worn for a performance was considered perfectly normal. It was one of those curious aspects of human society that Ardi didn’t understand, but he had neither the desire nor a reason to challenge it.

“And would you want to?” He asked.

“Live on the shore of the Azure Sea?”

Ardan nodded.

“And could you even manage it, Ardi-the-wizard?” Her green eyes sparkled impishly but also innocently. “Everything is the opposite there—not like the Metropolis at all. Six months of summer, five months of spring, two weeks of winter, and the same for autumn. Could you handle that?”

Ardi shrugged. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, watching the sun tirelessly facet a pathway of golden diamonds—if such things even existed—across the surface of Blue Lake.

Tess, once again not caring at all about propriety or the strangers around them, leaned against her betrothed and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “Is this because of what happened the day before yesterday?” She asked softly.

Ardan had returned that evening. His mother and Kelly were already asleep by then. Erti was tinkering with something in the boiler room—apparently repairing the clamps holding the hot water pipes. Kena was asleep too.

And so Ardi, as quietly as possible, had crept up to one of the guest rooms. It just so happened that, at the same time, Tess had been coming out of hers. They met each other’s eyes and, without a word, left together. They lay down on one bed, pulled the blanket over their heads, and lay there in each other’s arms for a long time, until they fell asleep.

Tess hadn’t asked him anything. Not about the dried blood. Not about the dark bruises. Not about the heavy look in his amber eyes. She hadn’t asked a single question.

Ardi was immeasurably grateful to her for that. By the Sleeping Spirits, he wouldn’t have been able to endure that conversation. Not that night. Not again. He’d just wanted to wrap himself in the warmth Tess gave him and fall fast asleep. Preferably without words.

Maybe that was selfish of him and... no. Not “maybe.” It truly was selfish. Then again, he wasn’t perfect, nor did he claim to be.

“If you ever want to talk,” Tess whispered even more quietly, moving her hand to Ardi’s wrist, “I’m always here, Ardi-the-wizard.”

“Yes.” He hugged her gently and pressed his chin into her fiery hair. “I know. Thank you...”

She smiled silently and took another small bite of ice cream. People passed by, glancing at them—some with fleeting disapproval, some with outright scorn—but, as often happened in the capital, the moment they spotted the staff in Ardan’s hand and the grimoire at his belt, the passersby quickly busied themselves with their own affairs and pretended nothing outrageous was going on.

Seagulls shrieked in a loud competition, boasting of how much fish they’d caught and where the best places were to rest after the hunt. The engines of cars and trucks droned insistently, spitting out diesel fumes.

“Thank you,” Ardi whispered even more quietly than Tess.

She didn’t ask what he was thanking her for because she knew. Just as her mother had known when those same words in that same tone had perhaps been spoken by Reish when he’d returned home from his own not-so-easy job.

It was funny, but Ardi could now understand that nothing would ever have worked out between him and Anna. Or the vast majority of other girls, most likely. This was because of one simple reason—they didn’t understand what Tess did.

“You’re welcome,” she replied softly. Then, her voice regaining its earlier playfulness and joy, she snatched the tickets from his hand. “Now then... oh wow! Just imagine it—the show is going to last a whole twenty-five minutes!”

“And what kind of production is it?”

“Not a stage production, Ardi—it’s a film,” Tess corrected him, peering at the note on the ticket. “It says we’re in for a comedy about a construction worker.”

Ardan could hardly imagine how that was possible—making a comedy about a construction worker—but the fact that he loved hearing stories didn’t mean he understood the process of creating them.

“Alright, let’s go.” Tess wrapped the rest of her ice cream in the cardboard it had been sold in, tossed it into a trash can, and pulled Ardi by the hand toward the entrance of the cinema building. “It’s starting soon!”

The ticket seller in the booth, who was serving another customer, watched with a sad, longing look as the cold treat disappeared into the trash.

Inside, the foyer was not much different from those greeting guests in theaters. It had the same well-trodden carpets on wooden floors. Except here, off to the side of the coat check, there wasn’t a buffet with expensive crostini topped with caviar and rare fish, but... a perfectly ordinary bar counter.

They served chilled beer, cider and mead, and as snacks, they had the usual assortment of fried potatoes, pickled pigs’ ears, and of course, nuts of every flavor and color. In the most literal sense.

Several people in jackets and sturdy caps were already seated at the bar. Armed with enormous beer steins that looked more like glass kegs, they were noisily discussing something and laughing, which unnerved the family with children that was seated on the distant couch.

No security staff were present to maintain order, as they would be in a theater or concert venue.

“This truly isn’t the Metropolis,” Tess murmured with a restrained smile, but Ardan felt her press closer to him.

As for Ardi, who’d long ago gotten accustomed to such company (cowboys usually entertained themselves exactly like this when they reached a saloon), he calmly led his companion through the lobby to the auditorium doors, where they were met by an usher—an old fellow of about sixty.

With trembling hands, he took their tickets, managed to punch them with a hole punch on the second try, and let them inside.

The auditorium was half-dark and smoky, and unlike a theater, the seating didn’t rise gradually and imperceptibly upward—it shot up row by row along an almost steep incline.

They quickly found their seats and, brushing off the crumbs, sat down to discover what exactly made every Baliero evening so packed on the streets outside the cinemas.

“So far, it doesn’t look like much,” Tess whispered, looking around the hall and then peering more intently at the empty orchestra pit beneath the huge expanse of thick white material that covered the wall opposite the seats.

Gradually, the hall filled up, and once all the seats were occupied, a bright light flared from a small window behind them, a mechanical clicking sounded, and in this hall that had been plunged into darkness, something happened that, for the first time in a long while, Ardi could have called magic in the best sense of the word.

***

As they had done on the beach in the Metropolis, Ardi and Tess wandered along the sand with their shoes off. The warm grains prickled lightly at their feet, which found relief in the cool foam of the lake surf stirred up by a breeze that blew down into the lowlands from the steppe.

“I wonder how it works?” Tess couldn’t stop marveling at what she’d seen on the screen (the name of that thick canvas). “How can they capture what the eyes see not with eyes, but... I can’t even imagine it. It’s some kind of magic.”

“Yes, exactly,” Ardan agreed. He also had no idea how that device worked—the one that had creaked and clicked behind them.

The streetlamps had been lit along the promenade. A few establishments had set tables out on the sidewalk, and mostly young people had gathered there—about the same age as Ardan and Tess, maybe a bit older.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Automobiles could hardly be heard now, so those enjoying am evening stroll were able to walk right along the empty roadway. Only a few stragglers, mostly schoolchildren, splashed their feet through the foam of the lake’s ripples.

“And imagine if they could transmit sound as well,” Tess said dreamily.

“They have an orchestra pit,” Ardi reminded her.

“Yes, I saw,” Tess nodded, wrapping her arms around his forearm and resting her cheek on his shoulder again. “Shiller, our-”

“Saxophonist... I remember.”

She smiled radiantly—softer and brighter than the streetlights—and then gave him her habitual peck on the cheek.

“He was invited to play accompaniment for films a few times. And they sometimes invite certain vocalists to sing as well,” Tess went on. She stopped and, releasing his arm, stepped into the lake, not caring in the slightest that less than a hand’s width remained between the hem of her dress and the water. “What I’m saying is, if only we could hear what the people on the screen are saying… Or how the wind rustles. Or how the birds sing. Can you imagine it? That would be amazing...”

Ardan doubted that was possible. Certainly not in the next few decades. How many phonograph records would it take to capture all of that? Then you’d have to amplify the sound. And synchronize it with the picture. It was far too complicated.

Of course, someone else could invent another piece of technology and...

Ardi sighed and shook his head. His knowledge of technology was limited to the inner workings of Ley-generators. And even that was only at the most basic level, just enough to help Arkar at “Bruce’s” and pass his exams at the Grand University.

“Just imagine it, Ardi-the-wizard—I could, for example, be singing in the Metropolis, and people all across the Empire would see and hear our concerts!” Tess exclaimed, standing right in the middle of the silvery path the moon had forged across the lake.

Of course, in reality, it wasn’t like that at all—just a trick of the light. But Ardi didn’t mind being deceived in this case.

“Maybe the Baliero Concert Hall will open its own cinema, and we can figure out something with that,” the girl continued to dream aloud.

Concert Hall... The Dandy...

Ardan still hadn’t told her anything. He wanted to. He was going to. And maybe, if not for those accursed Shanti’Ra, he really would have by now. But last night, lying under the blanket—not just in down and feathers, but in his fiancée’s embrace—he’d suddenly felt fear. Fear that it wouldn’t last forever. That someday, those arms would let go and he would be left alone.

Or worse, that the arms would stay around him but turn distant and cold.

Ardi didn’t want to take the risk.

Was it selfish? More than a little.

Even so, he would rather ensure that the presence of Arthur Belsky—better known as the Dandy, the Uncrowned King of the Criminal Underworld—in their lives did not affect Tess in any way. She wanted to sing and perform on the biggest stages and for the largest audiences. And that meant he had to see to it that her dream came true.

He stepped closer and put an arm around her shoulders. “Tess, about what I said regarding the Azure Sea... I’m sorry. I didn’t ask what you wanted.”

Without turning, the girl pressed her cheek to his hand. “Will you tell me what happened?” She asked at last. But she wasn’t pushy. She hid her worry under a veil of gentleness, but Ardi could hear her heart pounding. “You came back… not yourself. Not even after your colleague’s funeral did I see you like this.”

Ardan pulled her close, her back against his chest. “Do you remember how I once asked you whether you saw me as a man or a Matabar?”

“I remember,” she said softly. “I answered that to me, you’re Ardi-the-wizard. That’s enough for me.”

Ardan watched barges and pleasure boats gliding slowly along the dark expanse of the lake. “I thought it was enough for me, too.”

She remained silent. Not because she didn’t want to say anything, but simply because she knew that if she did, Ardi would immediately change the subject and try to crack a clumsy joke or something of the sort. She had seen it before, when her mother had talked to her father, the Governor-General of Shamtur.

“But Tess, I keep coming back to that question,” Ardi said, closing his eyes and savoring the tranquility her presence brought him. “Whether I’m a Matabar or a human and... sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

She whirled around so suddenly she nearly tore her dress, catching it on the buttons of Ardi’s lapel. Tess raised her hands to her future groom’s cheeks, as if to make sure he wouldn’t turn his gaze aside.

“Never apologize for that, Ardi,” Tess said sternly, her green eyes flashing as her brows knit. “Don’t ever apologize for sharing what’s in your heart.”

“Tess,” Ardi covered her hands with his own. “I can’t—and shouldn’t—dump everything I’m thinking onto you. You have plenty of worries yourself. About the theater. About your performances. About what’s happening in Shamtur, and-”

“And you always listen to me,” Tess interrupted him. “You always support me. But every time I want to do the same for you, you go quiet.”

“Because-”

“Because you think I won’t understand,” she cut him off again. And with good reason. Because Ardi really did think that sometimes. “And you’re right. I won’t understand. I won’t understand the things you’re talking about the way I wish I could. Because I don’t know what it’s like to be both a human and a Firstborn at the same time.”

“Tess, I-”

“But I remember, Ardi,” as always, once Tess got going, there was no stopping her. “I remember how as a child, when I went outside to play with the other kids, some of them saw a friend in me—someone to jump through puddles with and catch frogs in the river—and others were afraid and saw only a baroness, the daughter of the Governor-General. And that is, of course, not even a tenth of what you live with, but it’s something, at least.”

Ardan lowered his hands to Tess’ waist, pulled her to him, and wrapped her in a tight embrace. Yet again, as always, he didn’t care that people might be watching. Hypocritical as it might sound, he wasn’t human. And he didn’t always grasp the unspoken rules of the tribe of men.

“Everyone wants me to choose one or the other, Tess,” Ardan whispered so softly his lips almost weren’t moving.

“And you? What do you choose?”

“I choose... I choose not to choose,” Ardi answered. “When I was a child, I thought a choice had to be made. That there was no other way. But now it seems to me that choosing, in this case, will only do harm. All of them want me to reject one half of myself. Just throw it away as if it were something unnecessary. Something tainted. But I don’t want to. I’m not human, Tess. And I’m not Matabar. I- ”

“You’re Ardi,” she said, nuzzling her cheek against his chest. “Ardi-the-wizard. You are who you are. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you any other way.”

“Yes... thank you. And I apologize for saying all that nonsense about the Azure Sea.”

“If you care to recall, about a month ago, I said something in the same vein,” Tess reminded him. “So let’s promise each other that when one of us starts spouting nonsense, we’ll gently point it out. And if it gets really bad—well, then we won’t be gentle about it either. Deal?”

They stood there, holding each other, while the cold surface of Blue Lake lapped at their feet like a playful dog.

“Mother said that I ought to have proposed a wedding date to you.”

“To my father,” Tess nodded. “And then to me, but those are minor details.”

“Remember half a year ago, when you invited me to the Festival of Light?”

“Well, technically I didn’t invite you—I very pointedly hinted that you should invite me. But by the Eternal Angels, Ardi, sometimes you are as foolish as you are clever.”

Ardan had heard similar sentiments from Elena, from Milar, even from Boris and Arkar. But he still couldn’t fathom what they all meant... Which, all things considered, only confirmed Tess’ point. In the end, realizing that you didn’t understand something required a certain understanding of the subject in question.

It was the logical paradox Star Mages used to explain why a two-Star mage cannot fully grasp a three-Star seal—because if they fully understood it, they would be a three-Star mage. And likewise, the same paradox explained why foolish people didn’t realize they were foolish. It takes a bit of wisdom to know that.

And so Ardi simply replied, “You’re right,” and, kissing her fiery hair, proposed: “The beginning of next year. Let’s have the wedding at the start of next year, at the Festival of Light.”

“Really? And here I was hoping for the first day of spring.”

Ardan faltered. “Sorry,” he breathed. “I didn’t ask and-”

Tess laughed. Loud and ringing. Like a spark set to dry tinder.

“You... you were joking?”

And Tess, unable to stop her peals of laughter—still sparkling like a falling star—nodded, again and again.

Ardan only scratched the back of his head in bemusement.

People... They seemed far more complicated to him than even the most convoluted seals with unthinkable numbers of runic connections. Those, at least, had formulas.

“And children-”

Tess, finally catching her breath, ran her palm along his cheek. “I’ve always loved that you don’t much care about public opinion, Ardi, but I refuse to embark on that topic right here.”

“I wasn’t suggesting it here.”

“But if you’ve figured out a way for the two of us not to disturb anyone in the house, then we can discuss that situation tonight.”

There was a mischievous glimmer in her green eyes, mixed with something else—something that Ardi had never learned how to look away from.

“But your music, Tess...”

“There are plenty of famous singers with children, Ardi,” Tess shrugged. “But let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we? Agreed?”

Ardan nodded.

***

Erti was animatedly telling Tess something, and she was either pretending to be interested (so convincingly that even Ardi thought she truly was intrigued) or she really was listening attentively while somehow managing to play with Kena as well. The little menace refused to part with her new toy—the plush bear.

Kelly, sitting at the head of the table, was smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper—the Imperial Herald. There, judging by the headlines and the front page, they were still droning on about the Emperor’s new social insurance reforms; and, of course, the crash of the airship in the Niewa, as well as the death of Trevor Man and Tarik Le’mrity.

Ardan turned away from the newspaper headline and went back to more pressing matters. He and his mother were washing the dishes. He was diligently scrubbing off the food remnants, rinsing each plate in soapy water, and then passing them to her. She was wiping them dry and setting them on the metal rack, where the dishes could shed their last droplets of water.

“So, the Festival of Light, hmm?” Shaia leaned on the counter and tossed the towel over her shoulder. “To make it in time, we’ll have to set out right after New Year’s.”

“I’m sorry to put you out like that, Mother,” Ardi apologized sincerely, since the trip really would be inconvenient—especially considering Kena’s age. “I’ll send you first class tickets so you can-”

“We can afford first class tickets ourselves, dear.”

“I know, Mother, but-”

“You feel like you have to do it.”

“Yes,” Ardan said with a firm nod.

He truly did feel that way. A couple of days ago, he had genuinely thanked Kelly for everything he’d done for Shaia and Erti. But the fact that Ardi had acknowledged the deeds of the former Sheriff of Evergale meant... nothing beyond the act of acknowledgment itself.

Shaia came up to her eldest son and gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear. Ardi had run out of hair wax, and he hadn’t found the time to buy more or visit a barber. Maybe once they arrived in Shamtur, he’d do something about his overgrown mop.

“You know, my dear, sometimes it seems to me like your grandfather knew you wouldn’t find your happiness on the mountain. And so...”

She trailed off, but she had already said enough for Ardi to turn to face her.

“You knew? You knew Grandfather himself made a deal with the Crown?”

Shaia didn’t reply at once. Not until she ensured that everyone in the dining room was busy with their own affairs and no one was listening.

“I didn’t know, but I suspected as much,” she answered, her tone carrying a trace of sorrow. “Your grandfather had many enemies. Possibly more than anyone in the world, Ardi. Your father had plenty of them too... And among them, there must have been those who wanted to find us. But they never did. In all those years, they never found us. Understand?”

Ardi did understand. He could see it now.

He remembered how the Emperor, back at the half-built temple of the Face of Light, had looked at him with slight disappointment:

“Have you really not figured it out yet, Ard? Then I fear it will take a little longer to train you if you decide to accept my offer.”

He should have guessed it back then, when Cassara had told him about his grandfather’s true identity, that he was actually his great-grandfather, a man named Aror Egobar. Someone who’d been nothing less than the right hand of the Dark Lord.

They really should have been searching for them far longer than just those few years after Ardi’s encounter in the Alkade forest with the then-Duchess Oktana Anorsky (now the Empress-consort). But they hadn’t searched for them. Or rather, they’d searched for them and yet never found them. Why?

The answer was quite obvious. Because Aror had arranged things so they couldn’t be found. And perhaps, to manage that, he’d expended the last shards of his former power that he’d still had.

“He protected us for as long as he could... or he thought was necessary,” Shaia said, taking a wet plate and carefully wiping it. “They came at just the right time, Ardi... after you had grown up. Not only as a Matabar, but as a man as well. Not earlier or later. Exactly at that moment. I pondered it through long nights for months, Ardi. Wondered how you were doing out there in the distant, foreign Metropolis. And now...” She looked over at Tess, who was playing with Kena and chatting with Erti. “It seems to me that everything turned out as it was meant to. Maybe it’s because your grandfather struck some agreement with someone, or maybe, as he used to say...”

“Such is the dream of the Sleeping Spirits,” Ardi finished for his mother.

Shaia nodded.

“He could have told us,” Ardan murmured, not even noticing how his grip on the countertop had tightened enough to nearly crack the stone. “He could have warned us. He could have-”

“Perhaps he could have,” Shaia did not deny it. “But your great-grandfather, dear, rarely shared his thoughts. In fact, he almost never did so. He had an astonishing ability to talk about something and, at the same time, tell you absolutely nothing.”

“Skusty’s craft.”

“What?”

“That’s what one of the Matabar spirits teaches—how to speak like that,” Ardi explained. “I’m sometimes accused of the same thing.”

Shaia smiled and touched his hair again.

“I can’t say those accusations are baseless, my dear.”

Ardi could hear Cassara’s voice in his head: “Aror did what he did, and why he made such choices… No one knew except him.”

Had he learned all the secrets? Were all the mysteries Aror had harbored now known to Ardi? Or was the shaman of the Shanti’Ra right, and Ardan’s mind was being influenced by those robes of his, which at the moment lay in his travel bag?

Maybe there were no mysteries at all? Maybe there was only an old Aean’Hane who’d done everything he could to escape the demons of his past. Who’d tried to fix what he had done with his own two hands, even if only on the scale of one small glade in the Alkade Mountains.

Those thoughts could wait for another day.

“Thank you for coming, dear,” Shaia said suddenly.

Ardi jolted like he’d been slapped and looked into his mother’s eyes.

“Of course I came, Mother! And I’ll keep coming back every time I can. And when I can’t, I’ll find a way to make sure I can, and I’ll come anyway.”

Shaia said nothing in response. She only smiled, stroking his hair gently and affectionately. And once more, just as in his childhood—before Aergar and everything that had happened after—Ardi gazed into his mother’s eyes, and it felt like she knew something he didn’t.

Or maybe it only seemed that way.

Because tomorrow, they would be on the road again. Leaving for Shamtur.

He set aside the last dish, wiped his hands on his apron, and hugged his mother. Tightly, oh so tightly. He breathed in the scent of flour and blackberries. That was how his mom smelled.

And everything else... Everything else was just tomorrow's thoughts.