Aurix the Bold

The boy clawed his way up from the impossible depths of the night-haunt. A silent scream raked the back of his throat in the early morning quiet. In the pale light of Shura’s predawn and in the glimmer of the tears caught in his eyelashes, his mother’s eyes seemed to linger for a moment, squinted against some horrible agony. In his ears, his father’s voice echoed a heart-rending scream of remorse, followed by a battle cry so filled with fury, it chilled Aurix to the bone—even across all the revolutions, and all of the places between dream and waking.

It was a visit his parents paid him often, but it was no less terrifying or tortuous for that. Ashamed of his tears and angry with himself, Aurix sat up and swiped at his cheeks and eyes with a trembling forearm as the sweat evaporated from his back. Then, ashamed of his shame, he heaved a great sigh and collapsed back onto the thick bed of skins beneath him. For a time, he lay staring at the thatched ceiling while the last of the night’s darkness crept into the furthest corners of his room. Aurix would not find sleep again. He never could after his parents looked in on him. He pulled on some clothes, and made his way silently through the house and outside.

The morning sky was the sickly purple of a bruise, and obsidian-colored clouds drifted across it like smoke from a great and terrible fire. The day would bring storms, Aurix knew—he could scry the sky as well as anyone. Later, it would be bright with jagged bolts of lightning, and filled with rain and ferocious concussions of thunder.

The air was cold at this time of the morning. The ground crunched beneath his booted feet, the grass brittle and glazed with ice crystals. Shura was just about to crawl over the horizon in the south, and Nova would follow to the north a few arcs later. Together, they’d warm the air of Valeria, but they would also charge its atmosphere into a rage.

He reminded himself to bring his uncle’s animals to the barn later. The tempests might blow the birds into neighboring farms, and a fierce enough gust could even knock over the big shaggy braka. They couldn’t regain their hooves on their own, and if one went down, it might well drown in a deep puddle. They were the dumbest of all animals, but necessary for their thick, heavy fur. Without it, people would surely freeze to death when Shura slumbered for the winter months, and when Nova only cast its dim, reddish light for a few arcs each day.

Aurix spent the last of the starglow ambling along the dirt roads of Dren, watching the world wake up a little at a time. After almost five revolutions of the night-haunts and the subsequent sleepless mornings, Aurix knew the rhythm of life in Dren as well as he knew his own pulse.

Old Shlee stepped outside his tiny house wearing little more than a sparse tuft of white hair on his head just as the first ray of Shura bathed the sky beneath the clouds in gold. Shlee was little more than skin and bones, but every sunrise, without fail, he would dance a prayer to the old Gods, kneel and kiss the ground, blow kisses to the still starry sky and each of the four compass points, then he’d kiss his palm again and lay it over his heart. Aurix, out of a respect that he’d never really understood, always stopped and watched in silence from across the road until the ritual was over. Then, unabashed, Shlee would turn to Aurix, raise his hand in a wave, and bow his head in a gesture of thanks. Then he’d go back inside to do whatever it was that crazy old people did in the morning.

Aurix had asked him about it once, and Shlee told him with a toothless cackle that it was his way of giving thanks to the Gods for granting his ancient buttocks another of Shura’s beautiful dawns. Aurix suspected there was more to it than that, but didn’t press the old man for more. Shlee was pleasant enough, but he was also a giant windbag if he thought he had a willing ear to bend. So, despite his curiosity on the subject, Aurix had thus far decided to spare himself a several arc chat about deities that no longer existed.

Aurix resumed his walk and watched the familiar events of the morning unfold around him in Shura’s growing light and allowed himself to forget—for a short while at least—the screams of his father and his mother’s anguished eyes.

By the time Aurix had circled the small village and arrived back at his uncle’s house, the sky was clear and bright, and it was comfortably warm. The grass was wet from the frost melt, and it didn’t crunch underfoot anymore. Aurix wasn’t fooled by the change in weather though—the storms were still coming. It took him almost a full arc to wrangle up all of the animals and get them safely indoors.

He cursed the braka under his breath as he guided them to the barn by their long, thick fur. “I have no idea how you dumb oafs have survived this long,” he said to the black one as he fought to get her inside. She was the only solid black braka Aurix had ever seen, and her fur was the primary source of income for the farm. She gaped at him with big, vacant eyes, and tried to walk back the way they’d come. He shook his head, sighed, and yanked the huge beast back on course.

Aurix locked up the animals’ stalls and made sure that they were all watered and fed. It was only then that he realized he was ravenous. He gathered up half a dozen eggs from the barrochi coop and brought them back to the house. His aunt and uncle would be up soon, so he started breakfast. Hovering over the barrochi eggs like a hawk to make sure they didn’t burn, he tried to keep his mind off of his parents, but found it impossible. The night-haunts were nothing new, and though Aurix understood enough about his own grief to know why they occurred, he hadn’t figured out why they’d recently become so relentless. Lately, his sleep was tormented more nights than not. Was it not enough that his days were riddled with memories that seemed to be just a bit dimmer than they had been the day before? Were the visits his mind’s way of punishing him for forgetting? As if he didn’t already feel guilty enough about it.

He’d become so lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the smoke curling from the pan.

“By all ’at were sacred, Aurix, step ’way from the eggs!”

Startled, Aurix jumped and spun around.

His uncle stood grinning in the doorway of the kitchen with his arms folded across his narrow chest like he’d been watching for a few minutes. He winked at Aurix and strode toward the fire to take over. “Yer aunt’ll cuff ye one if ye put those blackened things on a plate ’fore ’er.”

“Sorry, Uncle Brill,” Aurix said, red-faced. “I’ll take the burned ones.”

“Ye better, lad.” He dropped his voice to just above a whisper and added, “Elsewise, I’ll ’ave to ’ear ’er bellow bout it all day like ye’d tried to poison ’er.”

Aurix covered his mouth to stifle a laugh. He let his uncle take over at the fire, and instead collected three mugs and filled them with mint water.

“Did I ‘ear ye pennin’ up the zoo?”

Aurix nodded. “Storm’s coming.”

“Ye sure bout that, lad? Looks like a nice mornin’.”

He smiled. “Bet you my next braka brushing.”

Brill looked at Aurix sideways with his eyebrows raised. He knew how much Aurix hated that chore. He deftly flipped the bubbling eggs over in the handmade iron skillet with an expert twist of the wrist, and shook his head. “Don’t think I’ll take ’at bet. Not if yer ’at sure bout it.” He tapped his temple with a finger. “No foon, yer Uncle Brill.”

“Drak,” Aurix swore, frowning. “Maybe I’ll try Aunt Jilly.”

“Ha! I’d not rec’mend that, lad. E’en if ya won, she’d ne’er pay up. She ’ates those beasties.”

After a few seconds of silence, Aurix sensed his uncle’s mood change.

Brill gave him a serious look. “Again?”

Aurix set out a loaf of bread and a small saucer of honeymilk for dipping. He shrugged. “I’m getting used to it,” he lied, avoiding his uncle’s eyes. He tore small chunks from the loaf and put several on each of their plates.

“’At’s not summin’ ye get used to, lad. I ’ave ’aunts bout yer da erry now ’n again, and they give me the hooberwibbles, aye. Wonder I ain’t ne’er peed the bed, it is.” He slapped his knee and snorted. “Can ye ’magine what yer aunt Jilly’d say bout ’at?”

Aurix burst out laughing. Not for the first time, he was grateful for his uncle’s unfailing humor and understanding. “Thanks, Uncle Brill.”

He gave Aurix another wink then flashed a feigned look of horror as the wrath of his wife began from the other room.

“How is anyone s’posed to sleep with you two carrying on in there like a couple of braying asses? You men are louder than the Rilx. And my eggs better not be burned again.”

Brill rolled his eyes made yapping motions with his free hand.

“Sorry, Aunt Jilly,” Aurix called, trying his best to sound sincere while holding back more laughter.

“We’ll talk more later on, lad, aye,” his uncle whispered. “Now’d be a good time for us to kiss’ up to yer fine beauty of an auntie. Ye with me?”

Aurix gave his uncle a horrified look that suggested he was out of his mind, but he nodded just the same.

It was Brill’s turn to laugh.

Jilly came in with her lips pursed so tightly, she looked like an enormous kisserfish.

“And what is so funny, ya scrawny weasel?” she asked her husband, with hands on her ample hips.

Brill regained his composure in a hurry. “Not a thing, sweetest of me life’s gifts. How’d ye sleep, love?”

She glared at them both suspiciously for a moment. “’Tween your snoring all night, and the two of you carrying on this morning, it’s a wonder I slept ’tall.” She balanced her considerable behind on a chair at the table. “Good morning, Aurix,” she said coolly and began tearing into her eggs and honeymilk bread as if she’d not eaten in weeks.

The storm was even more ferocious than Aurix had expected it would be. A few arcs after Nova joined Shura in the sky, small wisps of cloud appeared as if by magic. They began to turn and twist and curl themselves together until the two suns were completely hidden behind massive thunderheads. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped, and Aurix could feel the electricity in the air, charged and waiting for the clouds to burst.

He made sure everything light enough to blow away was safely inside or secured, then went to check on the animals in the barn. The barrochi birds and pigs were agitated, and the braka were in a full panic, hoofing at the ground and huffing, the whites of their eyes showing as they rolled in their big heads.

Aurix opened the barn door to head back to the house when the first bolt of lightning ripped the sky in two. It was electric blue and so bright, the colors of the world inverted and he saw everything in negative. The phantom of the flash burned into his eyelids and he could see it clearly when he blinked for a full minute after. The crack of thunder that followed shook not just the barn, but also the ground beneath his feet. He was about to make a run for the house, when the rain started, a deluge of tiny liquid shrapnel propelled on a steep downdraft.

Aurix slammed the door on the storm. He would have to ride it out with the animals, which were now composing a veritable symphony of hideous noises. He turned and looked up at the rain dripping through the thatched roof, and had only enough time to think how hideous the braka were going to smell after a good soaking. The barn door swung open on a monstrous gust of wind and struck Aurix in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious and sending him sprawling.

The sound of his uncle’s voice, and a horrific stink that he couldn’t begin to describe brought him back around. He opened his eyes slowly and at first thought he was blind. Everything was dark. And rank. Gods, the stench was awful. He was more concerned with getting away from that than the fear that he might have lost his sight. He groaned and tried to move his arms, but he was pinned to the floor.

“’Rix, lad!” His uncle’s shouts sounded far away, but he could feel his uncle’s strong hands on him. “’Lil help ’ere, Jilly?”

“Ugh! Foul beasts,” she said. “Almost not worth the price their fur fetches.”

Aurix sensed a weight being lifted from him, and his vision returned. He saw his aunt and uncle struggling to heave the black braka back onto its legs. It must have fallen over him in the storm. Despite the rest of the barn floor being soaked with puddles, Aurix was dry and warm. And very smelly.

“Ye alright, lad?”

Nothing hurt except the back of his head. He nodded.

“’At beast done saved ye,” his uncle said, grabbing his hand to help him up from the ground. “Ye’d ’ave drowned or froze most like. ’Ell of a storm.”

Back on his feet, Aurix brushed off his clothes and screwed up his face. “Depends on your definition of saved. I may go to my grave with this reek.” Still, he stroked the big braka under the chin.

“I’ll go draw a bath,” Jilly said, her own face scrunched up in disgust. “Best strip ‘fore you come inside, boy. And we’ll be burnin’ those clothes.” She stopped near the barn door and picked up a broken hunk of steel. “You’ll be needin’ to smith a new hasp for the barn door, Brill.” She tossed the twisted metal at his feet. “’Ell of a storm is right. Glad you’re okay, boy.”

That was about as affectionate as his aunt ever got, but she waddled off before Aurix could thank her.

“How long did it last?” Aurix asked.

“’Best part of two arcs,” his uncle said, inspecting the snapped clasp. “No savin’ it.” He shook his head. “Ye sure yer okay?”

Aurix felt the back of his head with his fingertips and winced. “I’ll live. Just a knot. The door must’ve hit me.” He grinned at his uncle. “Guess I won that bet.”

His uncle laughed. “Nice try, lad. I ne’er took ’at bet. Don’t pretend to not ’member. Better go and get cleaned up. When yer done come give me a ’and in the smithy, aye?”

Aurix nodded and made his way to the house, his boots squelching through the sopping, muddy field. The sky had already forgotten the deluge. Nova had set, but Shura still hung high and bright and warm above Dren, as if apologizing for the sudden disruption.