Words

“Did you find it?” Gerald hurriedly asked, almost before Neal had even entered his messy study. Neal rolled his eyes and closed the door behind him. A gust of wind blew through the open window nearby and the door slammed shut behind him, making Gerald jump. Neal rolled his eyes again. The old man was always jumping over nothing.

“No. You sent me up there for nothing. Again,” Neal added agitatedly. Gerald sagged slightly, and sighed. He half turned back to his work before giving Neal a worried look.

“You’re wounded,” Gerald noted, pointing to Neal’s bandaged arm. Neal grimaced, remembering too well how he gained the injury. He had cleaned it thoroughly and applied all the usual creams but it still hurt to move much.

“There was no one else there, you crazy man. Just a minor rockslide near the top. I slipped; one of those weird trees up there impaled me on my way down. You’re just lucky there was a stream nearby and that I thought to pack bandages, or I’d be clobbering you with my other arm for sending me up there in the first place!” Neal threatened half heartedly. They both knew he had been more than willing to take the opportunity to skip town for a few days. Susana might have calmed down by now. More likely not, but if he claimed the wound was from battle he might manage to woo her over again.

“A shame you didn’t think to wash the rest of you for once,” Gerald commented mildly. Neal grinned, and deliberately wiped his hands over his mud caked jeans. Little flakes fell to the floor like snow. Gerald scowled. Neal laughed at his expression, then remembered something.

“Actually, there was something else up there, not that far from where you told me,” Neal said, reaching into his jeans. More mud fell down as he moved, but Gerald ignored it, his eyes wide with hope. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes again he pulled out a long scroll. It wasn’t tied, but it had been rolled up so long it held its shape anyway. Tiny, spider like writing covered the scroll on most of both sides. Neal had glanced at it, but didn’t know what it said; he could read a few words, but anything longer than a few letters gave him a headache.

“That … give it here!” Gerald demanded furiously, standing up and walking over.

“What?” Neal asked. Gerald ignored him and snatched the scroll from his hands. He examined it carefully and shot a glare at Neal as he saw mud and smudges over the outside. Still silent, Gerald laid the scroll on his desk and carefully unrolled the first dozen lines or so. Neal watched disinterestedly as Gerald scanned the writing.

“This is it. This … this is actually it,” Gerald slowly said in shock. He suddenly burst into a rare laugh, then cut himself off just as quickly, turning serious.

“That’s what you’ve been looking for?” Neal asked in disbelief. This wasn’t the first time he’d been sent out on the promise of rare, valuable, and vaguely defined treasure. He hadn’t really expected it to be any more than another one of Gerald’s crazy stories, but he certainly hadn’t expected the target of his search to be another mouldy old scroll. As if Gerald didn’t have enough of them already. Neal would be laughing stock of the town if that got out, but Gerald was oddly secretive of his research.

“Fool!” Gerald snapped, then lowered his voice. When he spoke again it was with a gravity that surprised Neal. “If the Black Guard knew I had found this they wouldn’t wait until dawn to hang me. I only thank the gods they believe it no more than a myth now. You must not tell anybody what you found!”

“What’s so important about that scroll?” Neal asked curiously. He didn’t believe Gerald of course, but it paid to humour him. He had more money than all Neal’s family put together after all, and he wouldn’t last forever. Ah, but Neal had to admit it was more than that. Despite his occasional eccentrics he was fond of the old man. Neal’s father had died young, and Gerald had been there for the family in other ways than providing money.

“It was written by Marcus in the weeks before his execution. He had …” Gerald stopped, frowning at Neal’s face. Gerald shook his head in disbelief. “How can you not know of Marcus? I’m sure even I’ve told you several times before! He was a great philosopher in the time before the Empress came, and he was the first in their decimations to be killed.”

“Oh right, him. The slacker who’d rather die on his arse than live on his feet,” Neal interjected before Gerald got carried away on the subject again.

“He was not a slacker! He was a great thinker who …” Gerald picked up his quill and waved it at Neal in a demeaning manner. “You have no respect for people with strong minds! It’s your kind of thinking that has put our country in this mess, and it’s his that will help get us out of it.”

“What, with his opinions on the Empress? Even I don’t need an old scroll to tell me those. I’ve had to live through them,” Neal said, and for a moment his face was clouded with sorrow. The fun he had with Susana was no more than a distraction compared to the Empire’s effects, and she knew it too. Love was hard to come by in this bleak world, so Neal had learned to settle for second best.

“How to explain to one so young?” Gerald sighed, rubbing his wrinkled forehead. “People go along with the Dark Guards because they don’t know any better. We outnumber them ten to one, but people are still afraid. If we overthrew them, what then? For all her faults, the Empress has kept us alive to do her bidding. Without that enforced order there would be chaos and power struggles to find a new ruler.”

“Since anyone with royal blood was killed when they took over,” Neal added, to prove he was following along. Gerald nodded.

“Yes, but even if they lived there would be challenges. Marcus predicted this might happen, so he devised a radical plan to replace it, one without a ruler,” Gerald explained. Neal raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Well, not so much without a ruler but with many. Each person would rule, together with all others.” Neal’s eyebrow rose higher. “I would have to explain it fully for you to understand, but it would take too long. Just believe me for once that this scroll contains the knowledge to live without the Empress and her Guards.”

“It’s just a scroll, Gerald,” Neal said sadly, almost regretfully. “It can’t do anything.” Neal turned to leave, but Gerald gestured with his quill for him to sit down. Surprised, Neal took a seat on the extra chair alongside Gerald. Mud fell over the floor, but for once Gerald didn’t seem to notice. Neal waited as Gerald carefully rolled the scroll up and put it aside. Quickly cleaning the rest of his parchment to the side of his desk, Gerald took up his small inkbottle and held it flat on his palm.

“Let me put it to you this way,” Gerald began, and Neal could tell from his tone of voice he would be sitting here a while. Perhaps he should have left while he had the chance. A Black Guard spear, he would tell Susana. “What would you say I had in my hand right now?”

“It looks like a bottle of ink from here, Gerald,” Neal said flatly.

“On one level, you’re right. It is ink,” Gerald agreed. Pulling back a small sheet of blank parchment he dipped his quill and drew a straight line. “But I can use the ink to make lines and patterns.” Gerald demonstrated further with another few short strokes, resulting in a single letter. “I can use these lines to draw letters.” Gerald dipped his quill again and wrote out several more letters, ending with a small flourish. The parchment read Marcus’s name. “I can use these letters to form words.” Gerald put the quill aside and faced Neal. “It’s just ink on a page, but it represents something, and more than a name. For most, Marcus still represents freedom, and a defiant will.”

“And a lack of real work,” Neal added, but Gerald ignored him.

“I can string words together to form sentences, something you could use a bit more time learning to do,” Gerald added dryly. “When each word has meaning, think how much meaning could be contained in just one sentence. And if so much in one sentence, can you imagine how much could be contained in a single story? Stories are not always just tales of exploits, or who you’ve been doing behind the Guard’s eye, you know.”

“Gerald,” Neal warned light heartedly, and Gerald gave a brief smile.

“Think what Susana would say if I asked her about your row last time.” Neal opened his mouth to interject, then closed it again. Gerald always seemed to know everything he did. It would be infuriating if it didn’t make him so easy to talk to. Gerald smiled again, as if reading Neal’s thoughts. This time, Neal didn’t resist his eyes’ slow journey upwards.

“Different stories, but some things would stay the same; what they meant to each of you. Get enough stories, even from separate people on separate events and you have the stuff to forge legends,” Gerald continued. Now he was just being embarrassing, Neal thought. “Maybe you wouldn’t appreciate it, but think about how you feel next time someone tells you about Duran the Dragon Slayer or the illustrious Alicia so popular amongst you boys. Legends lend emotions to those who hear them, and take them from you in their telling. The greatest acts in the world were fuelled by the strongest emotions. If the Empress hadn’t felt so passionate about her ideals she would never have come at all.” Gerald took up the ink bottle again. “I hold in the palm of my hands the power to change the world.”

“You only use words to form exaggerations, crazy man,” Neal scoffed. “Words alone never changed anything.”

“I didn’t say they did. But it’s what they lead to that counts.” Gerald gingerly picked up the old scroll again. “Marcus did what few men bother to do. He took those emotions, ideals and ideas from everyone he knew, and he wrote this. The answer to our problems, if we can keep it safe and spread his words.”

“His words will change nothing. People have spoken of resistance before, and you know what happened to them,” Neal argued, and touch of concern reached his voice. Now he had his scroll, what was Gerald planning to do? Neal didn’t want to see him mixed up in anything dangerous.

“This scroll speaks of more than resistance, but change and the future. And I told you what Marcus represents to most; even beyond the grave his voice will carry more weight than mine,” Gerald explained. “Your problem is that you have been taught not to think far enough down the chain.”

“Words can not stand up to a sword,” Neal said darkly. “I don’t want to see you at the wrong end of one. If it’s as important as you say, you should burn the scroll rather than have the Guards hear you found it.”

“A sword is short term solution only. Another death would not be enough to stop the change.” Gerald spoke quietly, and there was intensity in his words that Neal had not heard before.

“No death is short term!” Neal protested angrily.

“From the gods’ perspective it is,” Gerald sighed. “And it is they we worship, and will be in the arms of eventually.”

“Then it doesn’t matter for us mortals,” Neal countered.

“Not for the individual. Do you think I wish this change for myself? I would be dead before it had begun, and others sharing my grave. Perhaps it just selfishness that since I have the least to lose, I am the most willing to act.” Gerald stood and placed the ink bottle away on its shelf. As he spoke he tidied and put his work away, but he left the old scroll where it was. “But another will step up when one falls, unless the guiding principal behind those swords change. Death doesn’t change that. Only words, and everything that goes with them, can save us now.”

“I think you’re ‘reading’ too much into it,” Neal said dryly, and stood. For a moment he considered taking the scroll and burning it himself. He reached for it, but hesitated as he saw Gerald had stopped and was watching him.

“You have a lot to learn,” Gerald said sadly. Neal stared at him. He could tell from Gerald’s expression that he didn’t have to say anything more, but he spoke his own words anyway.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Gerald,” Neal warned forcefully. “I don’t want to lose another friend to the Black Guard.” Neal turned and walked for the door.

“There aren’t many I can trust,” Gerald called softly as Neal pulled open the door. “This crazy man could use an extra set of hands, even you can’t argue that.”

“I’ll think about it,” Neal replied after a brief pause. The door slammed behind him as he pulled it shut, and he heard Gerald jump once again behind it. Neal waited a moment longer, then walked away from the house, his mind in indecision.