Those Who Walk the Flame Road
Stars gleamed like silver sand in the jet-black sky. Hugo was walking along the shore on the way back to his ship. He heard the waves coming in and the wood creaking on decks and rigging as he approached.
He climbed up on deck and took a look around. He heard footsteps on the deck behind him, but he didn’t turn. A scrap of paper in his left hand fluttered in the sea breeze.
“I wonder how long this feeling will last.” He turned around slowly. Sodok, a magic weaver, was behind him. Sodok was past middle age, short, and slightly built. He looked annoyed, but there was also a certain fondness and consideration in his eyes, buried perhaps, but still there.
Hugo grinned. “I never tire of hearing the tide coming in. The waves soothe something in me. Everything that’s bothering me seems to get farther and farther away. It all feels insignificant, looking out at the ocean.”
Sodok sighed.
Hugo showed the scrap of paper in his hand to Sodok. “Have you heard the news? It has to do with the Southern Army’s spies.”
Those spies had the same rank as Hugo. They were Taku, which meant “hawk” in the Talsh language. There had been two messages from the southern continent in recent days, and one of those letters included an encrypted letter. This letter was probably written by one of Hugo’s allies in the Southern Army, which was led by Prince Hazar. Hugo served in the Northern Army under Prince Raul, but there were always a few people willing to switch allegiances if the pay or the ideology was right.
The letter was from an old man with a breezy attitude and the light of laughter his eyes. Hugo remembered him now, lips twitching upwards in a faint smile. “The letter’s from an old friend. I’ve known him even longer than you.”
Sodok’s eyebrows drew together. “So it’s from one of your friends in the Southern Army before your defection, then?”
Hugo’s smile deepened, but he didn’t answer Sodok’s question one way or the other. He put his back to the harbor and fixed his eyes on the sail fluttering in the clear air. “Go to sleep, Sodok. I want to listen to the waves for a little longer.”
Sodok shrugged. “Fine, I’ll sleep. You don’t need to tell me twice. But you should sleep soon, too. We want to leave early to take advantage of the wind. We should get to where we’re headed in two or three days.”
Hugo waved Sodok off with an impatient gesture.
Sodok grumbled, then made his way belowdecks.
Hugo was left alone on the deck. There were no other people around, and only the sea remained with him, vast and spread out to the horizon line. Darkness fell, overwhelming and oppressive. Hugo narrowed his eyes and looked out at the ocean, smoking a pipe of choru. The aged infiltrator of the Southern Army had written about General Hamil’s movements through the countryside, but the last thing he’d written had nothing to do with the war at all.
There are still birds nesting on the roof of that house along the canal. Do you remember it?
Hugo did. Reading the words recalled to him the smell drifting off that canal, riding the wind just like the white-feathered birds that tended to flock there. Those birds crowded around people so thickly that there seemed to be no way out. Hugo remembered seeing people like that, and being surrounded himself. He felt like he could sense the presence of those birds and people on the deck, though they were all far from here.
I guess he went back to that house recently.
Hugo hadn’t been back there in so many years. It was part of his distant past. Hugo wondered why the infiltrator had decided to include those lines as part of his message, and guessed that the infiltrator had been forced to make some kind of choice. Or maybe it was his way of saying farewell.
“Never hesitate. You’re steering the ship, and you want others to follow you. They won’t do that if you’re weak-willed.”
It was like Hugo could hear his voice again, across the distance of time.
Hugo was still smiling, but there was something painful in his expression now. The infiltrator had set Hugo on his life’s path. The only reason he was here now was because of that man. At the time, Hugo hadn’t realized how terrifying his life would be, and how many close calls he would have. When he thought about it, he felt a strange warmth in his chest that was difficult to identify. Was it pride? Or remembered fear? A bit of both?
Hugo closed his eyes and let the memories wash over him like a crashing wave. He extended his hands to the white birds as they flew away from him, onto the crude roof of the house near the canal where he’d spent part of his childhood...
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