Rylan's Rise: Chapters 3 and 4

Yeah, I still haven't even given this thing an interim name, but i did write a couple more chapters. This also brings the total word count u

Yeah, I still haven't even given this thing an interim name, but i did write a couple more chapters. This also brings the total word count up to around 10,000, which is generally my threshold for deciding that I will finish something, rather than I might finish something. It may take a while, but it'll probably happen. So, enjoy! ~Eric

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3.

Waking up was an exercise in confusion for Caleb. The last thing he remembered was being beaten by Janica and her friends. After that, things got fuzzy. He vaguely recalled seeing something that he thought for sure was the embodiment of death, but that had to have been something he hallucinated after getting hit in the head. Right? Even more confusing was that he was laying on something soft. The blankets at the orphanage weren’t soft. They were cheap and scratchy. Their only saving grace was that they were warm. They also didn’t have a vague floral scent. Caleb thought he must be asleep. If he was awake, he’d surely be in pain. He was always in pain after Janica was done with him.

“You ever going to open your eyes?” asked a man.

The voice was oddly familiar and sent an inexplicable chill through Caleb. He cautiously opened one eye and then the other. There was a man sitting in a chair. He had his legs propped up on the end of the bed, crossed at the ankles. He was reading a book. Caleb’s eyes bulged at the sight of the book. The orphanage had three, but Mistress Revan was very particular about who could read them. Scrolls made with cheap paper that would fall apart in no time were common enough. It’s what he’d learned to read from, but actual books were almost as valuable as gold. At least, that’s what everyone said. And this stranger just had one? Caleb almost choked when the man folded the corner of the page he was currently reading and snapped the book closed.

“Oh good. You are awake,” said the man.

Caleb gawked in horror as the man casually stuffed the book into an inside pocket of the cloak hanging off the back of the chair. The man gave Caleb a quizzical look, followed the line of his gaze, and pulled the book back out. The man frowned at the book, turned his eyes back to Caleb, and shrugged. He tossed the book to Caleb, who panicking almost failed to catch the near priceless item. He cradled the treasure in his hands the way he might a newborn child, fearing that the man might kill him if he damaged it.

“Consider it a birthday gift,” said the man, standing from the chair.

Thoughts of being robbed and killed for the book passed through Caleb’s mind. He tried to give it back.

“I can’t take this!” he almost screamed.

“It’s just a book,” said the man, looking utterly mystified by Caleb’s response.

“It’s too valuable,” said Caleb.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The thing that makes a book valuable is what’s written inside of it. Not the fact that it’s a book. As for that particular book,” said the man, squinting at the ceiling for a moment, “it’s not bad. There are some useful ideas in it. Too bad the man who wrote it is such an ass. But that’s neither here nor there for you. I just don’t like him.”

Caleb didn’t have the first idea how to respond to any of what he’d just heard. This stranger was talking like he’d actually met someone who had written a book, which was just insanity. No one had made books in a thousand years. That meant that every book had been written before that. So, it struck Caleb as profoundly unlikely that this person could possibly know someone who had written a book. Even the strongest adventurers didn’t live that long. At least, Caleb didn’t think they did. He’d never heard of anyone living that long. Could people really live for that long? As for a book’s value being measured by what was written inside of it…This man was clearly unhinged if he thought that.

Not that Caleb had any intention of saying that to the man. Everyone knew that it was unwise to provoke the insane. If this man was going to just hand out priceless objects to complete strangers, Caleb would have to deal with the problem some other way. He decided that he’d hide it until he could give it Mistress Revan. She’d know what to do with it. By the time he’d finished thinking all of that, he realized that the man was standing there and staring at him. He was certain that the man must have said something or asked him something that he hadn’t been paying attention to while he had a heart attack thinking about what to do with the murder magnet in his hands.

“What?” he asked weakly.

“I said, let’s go.”

“Where?” asked Caleb, finally realizing that he had no idea where he was right now.

“Isn’t it your birthday?”

Caleb nodded.

“I thought so,” said the stranger. “You should probably stop using the church’s bed and go get your class. At least, that’s what I’d do in your shoes.”

Caleb’s heart, which had just barely started to slow down, started beating wildly again. His class! He leaped out of bed and almost toppled over from being lightheaded. Strong hands grabbed his arms and held him upright until he shook off the dizziness.

“Right. You just got healed. Probably best not to run, or fight, or do anything too strenuous just yet. Healing takes a lot of you, especially when you’re unclassed.”

Caleb nodded as he straightened up.

“Is the priestess here?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure Jennalynn is around here somewhere,” said the man in an unconcerned voice. “It’s not like you need her to get your class. You just need the alter pool.”

Caleb found himself mouthing the name, Jennalynn. He knew that the priestess had to have a name. Everybody had a name. He’d just never thought about what the priestess’s name was, let alone heard anyone use it. She was always just the priestess. She’d always seemed kind to him, yet being a priestess had always made her feel somehow other to him. Hearing someone call her by a name made her seem…He wasn’t sure. Less holy, maybe? More mortal? He couldn’t quite pin it down. All he knew was that hearing this man call her by an ordinary name had diminished her.

As for the rest, who would ever get their class without a priestess present? He’d never heard of such an outlandish thing. Caleb hadn’t paid that much attention during services, but even he was pretty sure that was some kind of heresy. Yet, this stranger seemed utterly convinced that it could be done. Or, this was just more madness. That felt far more likely to be true. Unfortunately, Caleb was not in a position to object to such heresy. Not with the man standing in the open door and looking at him expectantly. There was a question that did need to be answered, though.

“Why do you—” Caleb started to ask, only to be cut off by the man.

“Quickly now,” said the man, clapping his hands together twice. “You don’t want to keep the goddess waiting, now do you? She can be a smidge impatient.”

Caleb flinched at those obviously heretical words. Any moment, divine wrath was sure to descend on this crazy person and wipe him from existence. As the seconds ticked by and no divine punishment appeared, Caleb realized that he’d just been hoping that the goddess would free him from this man’s company. It was obvious that there was something deeply wrong with the man. Yet, for all that, there was also something powerful about the man as well. Caleb wasn’t sure if it was what people meant when talked about a person’s aura, or if it was something simpler than that. Like when the hairs stood up on the back on your neck when danger was nearby. That was the feeling that Caleb got whenever he looked at the stranger.

Resigning himself to just do what the man said until he could escape, Caleb followed the man out the door. He’d half expected this to be some elaborate trick or trap. When he was brought out into the familiar surroundings of the church, he was left at a loss about what to do. The stranger just put a hand on his shoulder and guided to him the temple pool. The pool was supposedly a boon from the goddess, Armia, and a means of drawing her attention during class ceremony’s. Caleb looked around in the desperate hope that the priestess would appear. However, it seemed that luck wasn’t with him, as usual.

“You know how this works, right?” asked the stranger.

Unable to keep his curiosity in check, Caleb blurted out a question before he could get cut off again.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Rylan,” said the man without missing a beat. “So, you know how this works?”

“I—” Caleb started before he decided to just answer. “I pray to draw Armia’s attention, and then I make my offering.”

The man gave him an odd smile that he didn’t know how to interpret.

“I guess they still don’t stand much on ceremony out here. Well, start praying.”

Caleb was torn between his almost insatiable desire to get his class and his desire to separate from this insane person. In the end, getting his class won out by a hair. Caleb kneeled next to the pool and start praying under his breath.

“Goddess Armia, please, please, please, make my class swordsman. That way I can be an adventurer. I know I shouldn’t want to be a hero, but I do. So, please make me a swordsman.”

Caleb had thought about dressing it up and trying to flatter the goddess, but he was confident in his poor ability with words. He wasn’t going to come up with something new to say. That meant that all he could do was be honest and earnest and hope she heard him. Then, he dug into his pocket and pulled out the silver coin. It was his life saving’s. Everything he’d been able to save. It felt so pitiful. So insufficient. He was sure that nobles probably dumped bags of gold into the alter pool when their time came, but he didn’t have bags of gold. All he had was this silver coin.

He reached out to drop the coin into the pool, only to stare up in shock as the stranger, Rylan, plucked the coin from his fingers. The man looked at the coin, and then at Caleb. Something passed across the man’s face. It looked almost like pain, but it was gone in an instant. The man flashed him a grin and shook his head.

“Oh, no, no, no. This won’t do,” he said, flipping the coin and catching it in his hand. “You should use this.”

Caleb stared as the man opened the hand that had just caught the silver coin. Instead of the thin silver, there was a heavy coin like nothing that Caleb had ever seen before. It wasn’t the silver coin, although it had a silvery look to it. It also had strange markings on it in a language he’d never seen before. There was a face on the coin that was also foreign and utterly mysterious to him.

“Trust me. This is the coin you want.”

Caleb almost demanded his silver coin back, but his eyes kept getting drawn to the strange coin in the man’s palm. It felt like the coin was urging him to pick it up. Calling to him to take possession of it. Feeling like someone else was controlling his arm, he watched his hand pick up the coin. It felt like it weighed pounds to him. His hand trembled and then twitched. The coin fell from his own hand, bounced once on the floor, and then slipped into the pool without making so much as a ripple in the liquid.

“Well now, that should do the trick,” said Rylan. “Oh, right. Don’t want to deprive you of this.”

Rylan dropped the silver coin back into Caleb’s open hand. Still feeling like he was being controlled by someone else, he put the coin back in his pocket. He turned and watched curiously as Rylan backed several steps away.

“You’ll probably want to brace yourself for this,” said the man.

“For what?”

Light exploded from the alter pool. It was so bright that Caleb was left blind from the intensity. He tried to close his eyes, and then cover them with his hands, but it didn’t help. The light seemed to invade him, seeping into his skin and muscles and bones. It wasn’t painful, at first. Then, it felt like every bone in his body exploded.

4.

“What did you do?” screamed Jennalynn as she stormed toward the alter.

Rylan turned and shrugged.

“What I was paid to do. It should be fine. It’s not like she’s going to kill the kid on his class day.”

“Does that look fine to you?” she demanded, gesturing at the boy.

Rylan looked at the youth…Calvern? Costan? Caleb! He looked at Caleb and had to admit that he didn’t exactly look great. The kid was hovering three feet off the ground, body rigid, and blazing like the sun. Rylan thought about it for a moment before he answered.

“Honestly, I’ve seen worse.”

Jennalynn looked taken aback.

Anger momentarily forgotten, she asked, “Really?”

He nodded and said, “I mean, not a lot of times, but it happened a few times back in the empire. I bet he’s getting something good.”

Regaining her composure, Jennalynn glared at him and spoke in clipped words.

“What did you do?”

“All I did was give him a better coin to use as an offering. The poor bastard only had a silver. One silver, Jennalynn. I mean, I’m sure it took him forever to save that but still. Not exactly going to get Armia’s attention with a silver, was he?”

The priestess took a step closer to him and smiled in a way that made Rylan suddenly feel like his life was in danger.

“And just what kind of coin did you give him to use?”

“It was just an old platinum coin.”

She frowned at him and looked back at the boy who was still hovering in the air. The glow around him hadn’t diminished in the slightest.

“Just a platinum coin,” she murmured before she whirled on him and seized two fistfuls of his shirt. “What was on it?”

“On what?” asked Rylan.

“On the coin, you halfwit!”

“I don’t know. It was old. It had old writing on it. Some guy I didn’t recognize. I assumed he was just some king from a country none of us remember. Goddess knows there are plenty of those.”

Rylan was rarely afflicted with such mundane feelings as worry, trepidation, or the haunting fear that he’d made some hideous, irreparable mistake. Yet, as he watched blind terror take hold on Jennalynn’s face, he wondered if he had, in fact, just made some hideous, irreparable mistake.

“Oh, you fool. You damned fool. That was one of The Sinner’s coins.”

Rylan blinked at her, his mind failing to make the connection for a moment. Then, it came back to him. In the war against the Eldritch Horde, there had been a hero. Or, everyone had thought that he was a hero. He’d led humanity against those horrors from some unnamed hell. That was how the story went, at any rate. Yet, in the end, he’d been responsible for the greatest sin ever committed. The man who scarred the face of the world. He had been the one to create the Great Waste. History had forgotten his name or erased it intentionally. Now, he was just called The Sinner for his unforgivable act. Before that, though, when he had still been considered the salvation of humanity, the empire had minted coins in his honor. Platinum coins.

When the war was over, the collective rage against him had led to everyone destroying those coins. He hadn’t ever imagined that such coins still existed. In truth, Rylan had believed that both man and coins were myths. Yet, Jennalynn clearly knew differently. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. She had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and he could hear her desperately praying. He looked to where the boy remained unnaturally suspended in the air. And the only thing Rylan could think of was to wonder why anyone would pay him to hand such a coin to this unremarkable, abused youth. What could they have hoped to accomplish? Did they mean to damn this kid who seemed half-damned already? If so, why?

That led Rylan to wonder just who it was that hired him. At the time, the job had seemed odd but ultimately harmless. He’d thought that maybe the guy was the kid’s crappy father who was trying to do something decent for the first time ever. Or maybe the kid was the product of an indiscretion. That kind of stuff happened in the remnant of the empire all the time. Some noble gets a girl pregnant when he’s young and stupid, and the family tells her to go away. The noble moves on but never forgets about the girl or kid. Years later, driven by guilt, they send someone to try to make up for it. Maybe by giving the kid a valuable coin to help him get a better class. It couldn’t make up for years of not being a father, but it was something. A small boost to give the kid a stepping stone to a better life. Something the noble could say that he did right.

Rylan didn’t think much of those better late than never acts of contrition. He secretly suspected that Armia wasn’t that impressed by them either, but he supposed it was better than doing nothing at all. That was half the reason he’d taken the job in the first place. He’d thought he was helping the guy do something that was at least borderline decent. The other half was that it didn’t explicitly call on him to kill anybody. That hadn’t worked out, but the guy hadn’t hired him to get bloody. Rylan had decided to do that all on his own. Some of it was because he knew that the girl was Weathers’s kid, but also because those four had been bullies. Rylan had been bullied often enough before he’d gotten strong to take a certain cold pleasure in showing bullies how weak they actually were.

But if Jennalynn was right about what that coin had been…Rylan was flippant about the goddess, at times, but he wasn’t in the business of actively, intentionally offending her or undermining her. He knew all to well that life and death could turn on a copper coin. One surefire way to have that coin turn to death was to make an enemy of Armia. If there was one thing he did not want, Rylan did not want the goddess angry with him. Yet, it might be too late to avoid that now. He wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do to make up for that kind of a mistake either. He looked skyward and decided that a little pre-emptive damage control might be in order.

“I really wasn’t trying to infuriate you. I hope you know that,” he told the goddess, who he desperately hoped was listening. “I get that I’m not coming up first on anybody’s list of good people, but even I wouldn’t knowingly fuck around with something called The Sinner’s coins.”

He looked down to jerk back when he found Jennalynn glaring at him from mere inches away.

“Do you honestly expect that to help?” she demanded.

“Not really, but I don’t see how it could hurt to let her know that I wasn’t trying to be evil,” he said, before adding, “today. With this kid. I wasn’t trying to be evil with this kid. I know results matter, but intentions have to count for something, right?”

Before Jennalynn could say anything more to him, the almost overwhelming light coming from the kid started to dim. They both stared as Caleb drifted to the floor. For one, eternal moment, Rylan thought the youth had died.

“He’s breathing!” shouted Rylan. “That has to be a good sign!”

“Breathing, but not conscious.”

“Well, that did look like it might be painful. It could take a—”

Rylan was cut off as Caleb sat up with a scream that suddenly cut off. The kid looked around wildly, as though he didn’t recognize anything, only to shake his head and relax a little. Rylan and Jennalynn stared at him, both dreading the possibilities. The kid pressed a hand to his temple and muttered to himself.

“Oh, my head hurts. Is it supposed to hurt this much?” he asked, focusing on Jennalynn.

She seemed to need a moment to gather herself before answering in mostly steady voice.

“It can, sometimes. What class did you get, Caleb?”

“My class!” shouted the kid, seeming to forget all about his pain.

The youth’s eyes went out of focus for what felt like an eternity, even if Rylan knew it was just a normal amount of time while someone read their information for the first time. His heart clenched a little when Caleb frowned.

“Huh,” said the kid.

“What is it?” demanded Rylan and Jennalynn at the same time.

Rylan had himself mostly convinced that the kid was going to get some class that turned him into an enemy of civilization.

“What kind of a class is spellblade?” asked Caleb.

Rylan had to fight the urge to scream in triumph. Jennalynn had given him a bad scare, but the kid had gotten spellblade! He turned to look at the priestess.

“I’m just guessing here, but I’m going say that wasn’t one of The Sinner’s coins. Not if he got a class like that.”

“I guess not,” said Jennalynn.

She sounded relieved, but she didn’t look convinced. Rylan decided that was her business. He was just going to be thankful that he hadn’t, however unknowingly, turned himself into a target for divine wrath.

“What’s a sinner coin?” asked Caleb.

Rylan laughed and said, “Something that is not our problem today, thankfully. As to your other question. What kind of class is spellblade? It is fantastic. You’re going to be able do, well, pretty much whatever you want from here on out.”

“Even a kingdom knight?” asked the kid with shining eyes.

Rylan felt a brief desire to gag.

“Why would you waste your time with them?”

“Waste my—” the kid trailed off. “But their knights.”

“They’re thugs, kid. Thugs with royal approval, but thugs all the same,” said Rylan. “If you’re thinking they’re all honorable and noble defenders of the land, they’re not. They spend most of their time putting their boots on the necks of people just like you.”

“Rylan,” said Jennalynn in warning tone.

“What? Should I lie to him? Let him waste that class trying to be a knight, just so he can serve a weak king who’d use him to fight wars for the honorable cause of seizing territory?”

“Do you really expect me to think you care about that?”

“Look, if he got a class like fighter, I wouldn’t have said anything. But spellblade? Are you going to tell me you think it’s a good idea for him to be a knight with that class? I’ve seen what an experienced spellblade can do. They’re an army, all by themselves. Do really think it’s safe to put that kind of power in King Serence’s hands? There’d be nothing but corpses from horizon to horizon. I might have blood on my hands, but even I know that is not a good thing.”

Jennalynn glared at him.

“For the goddess’s sake, Rylan, look at him,” she said through clenched teeth.

Rylan glanced at the kid who looked like he was on the verge on tears. It struck him then that he might have just jumped up and down on some long-held dreams and illusions. It hadn’t been his intention, but he didn’t think he could walk it back now. Then, he heard someone bellowing outside.

“Rylan Birchburn, you bastard! Where are you!”

Hearing that voice pushed every other concern out of Rylan’s mind. This was what he’d really come back for. He started walking toward the door before he hesitated. He looked back at Caleb.

“You should come and watch this, kid. If you want to know what being a knight in this kingdom will really be like, this is your chance.”

With that, Rylan strode over to the door, opened it, and walked outside, a smile as cold as the grave on his face. There was a moment of silence before Caleb rose to his feet and started walking numbly toward the door.

“You don’t need to watch that,” said Jennalynn, reaching out to grab the boy’s arm.

There was a terrible deadness on the Caleb’s face when he looked at her.

“Was he lying? When he said it’ll be like what the knights do? Was it a lie?”

Jennalynn opened her mouth. She wanted to say the words. She could see that Caleb wanted her to say the words. Except, there were all those stories. They might not all be true, but there were simply too many to all be lies. When she couldn’t force the words out, it was like she watched the boy age ten years in front of her. He pulled his arm free and walked toward the door. Jennalynn stood there, frozen by indecision. It felt like time was stretching like taffy. She told herself to stay in the church. She told herself that she wouldn’t see anything she wanted to see outside. How could she want to see her childhood friend butchering people? Yet, her feet carried her, inexorably, toward the door. By the time she reached it, the screaming had already started.