Chapter 8: "All the Brothers Blue" (part a)

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The very first place Hamoni took him was right up to the guest rooms, on the second floor. The stairways between floors were steep and windy to accommodate the height of the ceiling in each story of the building, which Teine guessed at better than fifteen feet each. High ceilings gave each floor an airy yet comfortable feel, relieving the tomb-like sensation of being enclosed in solid stone. The stairways ran spirally around the inside of the perimeter wall. It made for an elegant design, attractive and easy on the eyes, but because the building had been built for Krunal originally, the stairs had been designed with their shorter legs in mind. This made for awkward climbing and descent for Humans and Aoife because of the odd spacing. Teine had to watch his footing all the way, trying to decide if he should take two steps at a time or three. By the time Teine had climbed up only the first set of stairs to get to the second floor, he could see that getting around Madric's tower was going to take some physical effort, even if one was already fit.


On the second floor a long hallway bisected the floor into two halves and there were doors on either side. Hamoni spoke, shaking Teine out of his own thoughts. "I bet you like blue." She chose the first door off to the left. Throwing open a set of double doors the Aoife girl popped the button on the wall that turned the electric lights on, then held her arms wide to display the beautiful, lavishly decorated suite that spread out before them. Teine could only stare.


The bed itself was a curtained four poster, the kind most of the thin-skinned Aoife preferred, as they could draw the curtains against any drafty night. Velvet outer curtains in deep blue and the rich dark turquoise color of the twilight sky draped around the bed, tied back with golden rope ties. There was also another layer of curtains, he noticed, made of a fine lace. He'd never seen such an attractive way to keep the flies away. Rich tapestries adorned the walls, depicting scenes of boats at war, boats at play, and a solitary oil painting hung on the wall opposite the bed. There were also several windows, shuttered against the storm's fury.


Teine drifted over to the painting, dropping his battered satchel on the bench at the foot of the bed without even stopping. He stopped about a foot away, then stared in astonishment. The portrait was an informal scene of two young Aoife boys, playing in the sand of a beautiful beach with their toys. A half constructed sand castle was in the foreground, and the turquoise of a clear sky and azure of the ocean was the background. One of the boys, the older, was bent over laughing with his hands on his knees, while the younger, barely a toddler, had a very serious face as he poured sand into a bucket.


"I know this painting," Teine whispered, trying for the life of him to place it before looking at the brass plate screwed into the wooden frame.


"You should," Hamoni said. "It's been in every art history book for the last two hundred years. It's-"


"The Brothers Blue." Teine finished. He could hear the rain hissing against the shutters, but instead of feeling immediately threatened, the rain and the continual rumblings of thunder receded into the the realm of "pleasant background noise." It gave his discovery a dreamy, surreal feeling. "It's of the Solmurrians, isn't it?" he asked. Now that he'd met them and gotten a good look at the two Lords of Solmurry, he could see that these two children- their poses, their faces- they'd been captured as surely as if Teine were travelling through time to see Madric and his younger brother as children. "I never thought I'd see an original DesMarte." Teine whispered as reverently as if he were viewing a holy relic. "Much less this one."


"I thought you'd like it." Hamoni smiled. "Personally, I think Madric does this picture a great injustice, keeping it locked away in a guest room like this. It's one of the most famous paintings of its century. It should be down in the drawing room."


"But it does very well here, with the decor," Teine countered, testing his wings as "devil's advocate." He agreed with the Aoife girl, but he was curious to see how she'd react to a contrary point of view. As far as he was concerned, she was at least as much of a mystery as the painting. Why was she locked away, in this Tower, wearing the clothes of a servant? Madric ordered her around as though she were a Human, even though her Aoife blood was enough to give her rank over Teine and his ilk. In spite of that, she seemed companionable rather than authoritarian. It was a mystery.


Hamoni shrugged, as artlessly as any human scullery maid. "I don't know. I suppose. But anywhere up here where noone sees it- it seems like such a waste."


Teine grinned, leaning in close to the painting to examine the brushstrokes on the boys' faces. "Believe me. It's no waste. I could be up all night looking at this and still not absorb it all. DesMarte was a god."


"DesMarte was old, crabby, and flatulent." Hamoni giggled, breaking into full on laughter at the look of horrified astonishment on Teine's face. "To hear Madric tell it, anyway." she amended. "He always says that having talent at anything is no excuse for being an egotistical bore."


Teine blinked, then laughed along with her. Truthfully, he didn't know what else he could do. Hamoni surely was nothing like he'd expect of an Aoife.


"Come on, then." she said, catching his sleeve. "You can moan over that painting all night if you want, but there are things far more interesting upstairs."


Teine allowed himself to be dragged along. Although he was curious to see all the things Hamoni had to show him about the Tower, a part of him was longing to curl up in the lavish bed, read his letter from Vosh, and write him a reply thick with the day's adventures. Another part of him didn't want to sleep at all so convinced he was that he'd wake up at home in his bunk at Mastiff Cohort. He wished he could kiss Leis on the cheek and tell her she'd been right. It was his life, and he was going to make the most of it.


Hamoni led him back to the stairway where they climbed several more floors. "Madric's personal quarters are on the fifth floor." she whispered as they passed the landing, but didn't stop. "He's probably dead asleep, but we don't want to be loud."


"What's above?" Teine asked, trying not to let her hear him panting from exertion. Those steps were awfully steep! He could have run to the Demesne and back twice for the same amount of effort.


"His magical workshop," Hamoni replied. Her voice was as full of reverence as if she had said something as weighty as "the tomb of a long dead saint" or "the place where God hangs his coat." Teine was amused. For all that she was an Aoife, Hamoni was not all that different from other girls he knew, and was turning out to be not that hard to read. She positively adored Madric, in the manner of most school girls with and their first passionate crushes. Teasing her about it would ever remain out of bounds, as she was an Aoife and it was never prudent to speak to them in matters of love, but her obviousness was kind of endearing and made her seem somehow more approachable. Like a peer. As Teine was contemplating Hamoni's impossible infatuation, the Aoife girl pulled out a ring of keys and had them in hand as they approached the last door at the top of the stairs. "Here we are." she said, jingling the keys to select the right one, which she fitted directly into the lock. The door swung open, and she reached in to pop the light switch. "Our workshop."


"Our workshop?" Teine repeated. The way Hamoni spoke, it was as though she had some claim to the complicated spread of beakers, tubes, cauldrons, and shelves upon shelves of ancient looking, dusty tomes.


"Oh, I just called it 'ours' just like I would call another room 'our kitchen' or 'our billiards room,'" she hastily amended. "Not like it's my workshop or anything."


"You have a billiards room?" Teine asked, hopefully.


"Yes!" she beamed. "Third floor." Then, her expression turned instantly serious. "Don't ever play Marne for money."


Teine couldn't help but chuckle, even though the mention of his child-master was like taking a cold glass of water in the face. Since he'd been at Madric's Tower, it had been easy to lose himself in the congenial company and forget his real duties. He supposed he'd be used to the idea before long.


"Don't make such a face," Hamoni scolded, striding confidently into the room. She walked right up to what looked to Teine like a giant, reinforced glass aquarium, only with no fish in it, and began to turn a spigot attached to the side of it, with a pipe that ran up through the ceiling. "Did I say something wrong?"


"No, no." Teine waved off the suggestion, coming to her side. "I've only met Marne once, and I think he's said perhaps twenty words total to me. I just don't know him at all, yet. What are you doing, anyway?"


To read the next installment of Chapter 8: "All the Brothers Blue" (part b) click HERE! 


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The Gilded Shackle is the first book in The Evermancer Saga, a series of online serial novels. Go go right to the most recent chapter, go to www.evermancer.com.

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