Enslaved: Chapter 2 Interlude: The Dream, Part 2

“Arvad.” The voice was both stern and tense with some restrained emotion. The shadows retreated, menacing from a distance.

Erunian stood before him, supported by a cane and wearing a red vest, high collared and trimmed in yellow. He leant down, offering Arvad a hand. Arvad took it guiltily, though he thanked his master dutifully.

The scribe was not even looking at him, “boy, cut me some wood,” he held out the cane, upon which an axe blade had appeared.

Arvad took it and glanced around them both, “Master there is no wood.”

“Boy I have no time for your trivial concerns, do as I bid you, the fire is dying down,” Erunian ordered gruffly, warming his hands on a fire that wasn’t there. The tone was so sure of itself, so certain of its correctness in the order of things.

Arvad knew it was stupid but he strode to the edge of the swirling mist and, having chosen a particularly woodish wisp of shadow, leaned back and swung with all his might.

The axe and wisp both shattered with the clatter of fine glass, showering the stone ground with glistening shards of black and grey.

“Foolish boy,” Eleanour thundered, striding in from the dark, tossing him a brush and cloth “clean up this mess immediately”. She marched past him toward her uncle, keen to warm herself by the fire.

Arvad squatted, trying to shepherd the black shapes into a pile. They reminded him of a volcanic glass he had seen on a Trader’s cart in his home village. No-one had bought it, as it seemed to serve no purpose. It was easily sharpened to an even finer edge than steel, but shattered easily and could be of no use as a weapon or reliable tool. The brush slipped in his hand as he fumbled it. A thin gash opened up in his right arm.

“Boy,” Eleanor’s voice sounded toward him more softly this time. He had grown used to her shifting moods. “Come over here, I have a task for you.”

Arvad stumbled to his feet, holding his left hand over his right arm to cover the injury. He did not seek to conceal it, and he needn’t have bothered, both Eleanor and her Uncle’s attention were on a small bird she held clasped in her hands.

Eleanor cooed softly as she cupped it, stroking its oversized head and underdeveloped wings. It was a Tanwing, native to the hills around the Davani village.

“It is a rare thing my niece, but not fit for our purpose”, Erunian counselled, stroking at loose wisps of beard, almost as though they were the strings of an elaborate musical instrument “The risk is too great”.

Eleanor seemed torn as she glanced down at the baby Tanwing. It chirped up at her, flapping its useless wings in frenzy, demanding and terrified at the same time.

Arvad did not understand these words, though they seemed familiar to him. A sense of foreboding overcame him and he raised his hand in protest, but the words died on his lips, unspoken.

Eleanor closed first her eyes, and then her hands, which were shaking. The Tanwing cried out once and was still. Eleanor opened her hands, revealing a tiny, crumpled body, which quickly dissolved into the mist.

Erunian was pacing as he did when he lectured, but his words when he spoke them were quiet, and almost introspective. “We can choose kindness or justice. That is how you might see this choice, Eleanor, but the truth is that it is a bargain we made years ago, and our goal is set in stone.”