A Fine Black Sky
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
There was nothing incongruous with Kid’s own peculiar system of morality in the tales he had been told, such as the one of the Inspector and the one of the Giant. Instead it bolstered a tight principal already inborn within the young man from an early age. True it pushed to the foreground ideals and an idiom he had tried to live his life by, making some of the movements, the dealings with others and the view upon which Osseus Rivalis still attended to Kid’s torment tolerable. Kid was affable, yet there were parts of him that remained haled, very much hidden to the natural eye. It would take the eye of mythicism to penetrate that veneer. In a world of darkness, it was easy for a practiced man to become swallowed up by the shadow if he so desired it. And more often than not, Kid desired it.
He tried to make friends, to talk to other Apprentices, but his status prevented any true diatribe, other than a less than sanctimonious grovelling to a peerless Noble such as he. His status, therefore, prevented meaningful kinship with any other than the most temporary of charges. This pained him greatly. All he really wanted was a friend. What he had was loneliness, and a deep distrust of anyone else, so much so that he held firm to the belief that everyone was going to let him down, sooner or later, so why not avoid that hurt entirely? It was a mask of a masquerade to the true desire he felt.
If only Muet had lived, perhaps Kid would have had a close bond with him? Too far had Eighteen grown from the Family, leaving often when Kid was but an infant, and no real bond ever came to either of them. Perhaps once Kid was Eighteen’s Advisor, then they could create a life-long friendship, of sorts? A bond of trust that would last their entire lives through? Or perhaps Kid would simply be another lackey to the already beneficent, philanthropic Lord? Only the passage of time would present the truth.
During the following months, which gradually turned into years, Kid was taught the principles upon which the South Tower thrived - that of Judiciary Law and Defensive Tactics - edicts passed, unused, from long dead generations to now. As the entirety of the City of Unity was at peace, the tactical training was little more than a way to instil personal and conglomerate discipline into the young men, so that their lives would forever be controlled by that discipline, as a false sense of maturity by concession of a unified identity.
Kid had always been an individual, very much allied to that assumption, so the concept of grouping in any manifestation was incongruous to the sanity of the young man. Yet, because of duty, he complied. Somehow, perhaps out of some kind of fatalistic ribaldry, Kid had found himself in a grouping with Osseus Rivalis. And thus the ribbing was relentless.
Kid had assumed by the passage of time and the growing maturity most of the other Apprentices felt, that Osseus would likewise grow up, as it were. But unfortunately, that was not to be the case. Not straight away, however.
Kid had read virtually every book in the Library - some more than once - so he undertook a higher, spiritual endeavour, in the pursuit of art in its many manifestations. There were certainly countless paintings created with thick dark oils, almost hidden in the darkness and only referred to on cold dark days when the eyes seemed to follow the wanderer of the Halls. Some said this was likely a guilty conscience, feasting upon an integrated impulse of fear, of discovery perhaps, caught in the lie. Others though it more ethereal, ghostly even, but there was as yet still no magic in Unity. There may have been none when it was Kombayn also, but as the history books were a little sparse in their dealings with the Old World, Kid could only speculate.
If the tales he was told were to be believed, there must have been some kind of magic once, but not in Unity. Not of the MonoGod, for He was vengeful upon those who chose to compete with or against Him. So none did. They simply bowed to Him and made their penance when they ought, through prayer and supplication, so that He would not look upon them and despair. There were many paintings, many sculptures and craven images in praise of the MonoGod, in the hopes of being closer to Him, forgetting that once the Old Gods had walked amongst the people and lived as they did.
“Hmm. Not my favourite, that. Too heavy on the brush stroke.”
“Understeward.” remarked Kid at the arrival of the same, “I am sorry for keeping you from doing your duty. If you will excuse me -“
“Really? Like that, is it? A lowly labourer can’t appreciate art, I take it?”
“I’m sorry I gave that impression, sir. If I have, I apologise for any -“
“Seriously? Look, I’m anything but a sir, lad.”
“Then I apologise for that also.”
“Eugh. What’s with the indoctrination, lad? Don’t have an opinion of your own?”
“I -“
“You. Tell me, what do you see?”
“A Noble, of some two hundred and thirty years gone, dressed in a -“
“Enough! What’s wrong with you? What do you see, not what you’ve been told is there?!”
“A - It’s a -“
“Spit it out, lad! Release that little greasy, hairy boy you’ve got hiding in the corner of your mind, running scared from the powers that be!”
“Reptutis, Noble of the South Tower, a man of singular pleasures, and often in want of the same, would take a woman to his chamber. He was a scoundrel, a deceiver, and ultimately a criminal, vindicated by Rivalis the First for services to the Tower and Unity, but a depraved individual of the highest order. He is the tipping in the scales, for which imbalance Unity is still recovering. It is said that Osseus Rivalis takes very much after him at the same age. Of that I have no doubt or trouble in believing.”
“The Bending Noble. That’s what the painting was called when made. It’s now called, unimaginatively - wait a moment - ah, yes. Reptutis Noble. Interesting how history paints over the cracks, isn't it? Ah, I can see it boy! It’s there, in your eyes! That free spirit! That unfaltering ball of energy! But tamed, I see? Calmed to nothing more that an institutionalised whimper. Oh, it comes to us all, my boy. It comes to us all.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“There he is! Never let him go, not this time! Never let him go! Kid - let me tell you a story -“ began the Understeward, encircling Kid around the shoulder in his ample embrace, the long worn fingers gripping Kid’s overworked deltoid muscle in excited entreaty.
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