Chapter 15 - Oakenstaff

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

I used to wonder what death is. What does it mean to die? Do you simply cease to exist? To vanish from the world, to be remembered only through a grave?

I had always been afraid to die. I did not want to die.

Now, watching Phillip vanish from my view, his voice still reverberating through my head, I feel cold emptiness, my mind blank with shock and terror, my nails digging into my arms. Do I want to die?

Phillip taught me not to be afraid of death. That is what a warrior is, to give his life for the purpose he serves, to die with beauty and grace.

The Eternal Grace. Is that why they called him that?

Niro looks at me with concern, his face haggard with shock and grief. I know that he loves Phillip too, his comrade and his brother-in-arms in many ways. His hand is in mine, my head on his shoulder. My silent tears have already soaked through his dark cloak. But even the softness of his gaze cannot piece back the broken shards of my heart.

At the front of the aircraft, both the man and the woman are silent, as if mourning Phillip as well. But he is not dead.

I do not believe he is dead.

"Who are you?" I ask them. My voice comes out sounding hoarse and strangled.

The man glances up, but the woman doesn't take her eyes off the monitors. He walks over to us with a heavy tread, his eyes weary. Niro still looks pale from his leg wound, but is otherwise well. The man glances at him, as if for permission, before addressing me.

"I am known as Oakenstaff," he says, "but my real name is Brand Steele."

"You know, that really makes a lot of sense to me," I say.

Brand ignores my sarcasm. "I knew Phillip, and Niro." My fists clench. The use of past tense. Phillip is not dead. Not yet, at least. "And I knew your parents."

My head jerks up to stare at him. "My parents? Benjamin and Cecily?"

Brand's eyebrows rise. He looks at Niro.

"Not my call to tell her," Niro says. "It was... Phillip." He seems to find it hard forcing his old comrade's name from out between his lips. "You know how he is. He thinks the truth always has to be told." I can see his face twist with pain as he speaks of his friend, and my shattered heart throbs more painfully.

Brand nods, his face grave. He sits down on the seat next to Niro. "Benjamin was my friend," he says slowly. "And he was a Kelandi, the last of his race. I knew him before he met Cecily Ethi. I knew him after I married." He jerks his head towards the front of the aircraft. "Livia Steele. My wife."

The pilot looks around for the first time, peering over her seat. She has glossy black hair cropped short to the nape of her neck, and olive skin, with kind chestnut eyes. She smiles at me sadly, her hands still on the controls.

"Hey," she says softly. " Call me Liv. Good to meet you, Lenore."

I don't ask how she knows my name, but incline my head in her direction. My heart is too worn with grief to answer her.

"Where are we going now?" Niro asks Brand.

"Arkendor," he answers. "Helene and Helafar want to meet her."

"Helafar," Niro says, and I'm shocked to see the sneer on his face. "Oh no, Brand, I don't believe that. Edwin's the reason why we're headed there, isn't he?"

Brand sighs, and Livia looks tense. "Not so much Edwin, but Kathy."

I hear all of this with detached disinterest. I stare dully out the window, wondering how the sun can still shine behind the clouds, with Phillip gone. I had no interest in the onslaught of names I don't recognise that Brand and Niro spout behind me.

Niro nudges me gently on the shoulder. "This will get you interested," he says quietly. "Phillip told you to look for his brother, didn't he?"

"You heard?" I ask, looking around at him.

"I heard," he says grimly. "And I'll tell you the best place to start. You do want to do that for him, do you?"

I think of the love on Phillip's face when he spoke of his brother that night on the rooftop, the naked anguish on his face when he speaks of his brother's disappearance, the despair, anger and helplessness. My heart throbs, seeming to swell twice its size.

"Yes," I whisper. I will do it for him. Just to be able to see that face, that beloved face smile again, if only in my memory, in my mind. Just an illusion.

Niro grins, the first time he smiles since Phillip was lost. "Then you'll be thrilled." He glances at Brand. "Edwin Brooke is Phillip's father."

I stare at him, open-mouthed, my mind numb with shock. He smirks at the sheer astonishment in my face.

"His father?" I say when I can get the words between my teeth. I shake my head. "But his father abandoned them. His entire family."

"Phillip hasn't been entirely up-to-date with everything," Niro says. "I knew that Edwin Brooke was still alive, that he abandoned the family out of love and protection. But I couldn't tell Phillip, hard as it might be. Crowley was watching, it was too risky."

I glare at him first, then at Brand. "Explain."

Brand leans forward. "Edwin Brooke met Clarity Questorm, Phillip's mother, in the woods outside Arkendor," he says. "They fell in love, and Edwin came into Arkendor to marry Clarity. They had three children."

"A daughter and two sons," I say, remembering Phillip's tale.

"Two sons," Brand says, nodding, "twins."

"Twins?"

"Phillip is the older one," Brand says. "And his brother, Jeremy, he was the younger. Their sister is three years younger. Her name is Kathy."

"Kathy stuck with her mother after their father fled," I remember. "Even though Phillip and Jeremy tried to take her away."

"Let's just say that Kathy was very loyal to her mother," Brand tells me. "She joined her father outside of Arkendor years later, but Clarity refused to see him."

"What family drama," Niro mutters under his breath.

I look at Brand pointedly. "Jeremy was captured."

"Captured, yes," he says, "by a great power, a power of darkness. The same one," he says, glancing down at the trapdoor through which I saw Phillip disappear, "as the one that took Phillip."

My jaw drops, my fists clench. "Say that again."

"The same power took both Jeremy and Phillip," Brand says wearily. "We call her the Raven. We don't know much about her, except that she's been popping up now and then to wreck chaos, to wreck destruction, and then she disappears without a trace. Impossible to track."

Niro looks down, fiddling with his fingers. I can sense his discomfort, and file that away to question him later. A new question has risen to my mind. I look at Brand's hazel eyes, remember Livia's chestnut ones.

"You're not a Colour," I say to Brand, an accusing tone in my voice. "You're not Kaleidoscope, or Violet, or Gold, or Silver. You're completely human."

"I am," Brand says steadily. If the sudden change of topic unnerved him, he doesn't show it.

"How is that possible?" I ask.

Brand sighs and leans back. "I have to thank Jeremy for that," he murmurs. He looks at me. "You see, when the epidemic was at its worst, many of us hid out in America, in the very building you were just held captive in. I was one of them. So was Livia."

My blood goes cold. "Solum."

"Yes," Brand says. "The remaining of us were mostly famous scientists, soldiers, generals. Jeremy was there, at the helm of the ship, and he tried to think of a way to save humanity. And he did." He looks at me. "Edwin Brooke is a scientist. A distinguished one, at that. He's got the most ingenious brain in the universe; Liv teases him that he thinks in fifty dimensions."

"And?"

"He taught Jeremy and Phillip an equation," Brand says. "A formula that affects the entire human body, strengthens it, so that they can survive in the harshest conditions. Livia and I volunteered for an experiment, and Jeremy performed the formula on us. He succeeded."

"But," Niro mutters.

"But, the remaining scientists and generals in Solum immediately wanted to get the formula," says Brand. "To survive. And they stole it, and banished Livia and I from it. They set up Solum."

"And Jeremy?" I whisper.

"Jeremy left as soon as the experiment succeeded," Brand says. "He returned home, trying to find his parents and brother and sister. He never made it."

"Because he got captured by the Raven." My mind finally clicks as I piece one and one together.

"Correct," Brand says heavily. "Phillip tried to find Jeremy, many times. He did so until he himself got captured by Solum. Niro befriended him, and with his powers they began to navigate a way out. Within a few years, they had managed to get a message through to us."

I look at Niro, who seems to have difficulty meeting my eyes. "So that's why you knew. That we were getting out."

"I did," Niro confesses quietly. "I devised a plan with them. I've known Brand and Liv for years now. I told them I found the last Kelandi, the daughter of their best friend."

Something in Brand's eyes softens. "I was best man at Benjamin and Cecily's wedding," he says.

I look up at him, finding something close to fatherly in Brand's expression. Instead of warmth, I find pain.

"And we're going to meet Edwin now? Phillip's father?"

"And Jeremy's," Brand nods. "We've been scanning landscapes for anywhere that might be the Raven's den for ages now, and with Niro here, it should be a lot easier. You'll like Edwin. He's friendly, pretty cool, and a genius."

"With a head the size of a basketball," Livia mutters from the cockpit.

I ignore that. I address Brand directly, feeling something harden inside of me. "You're searching for Jeremy. You think he might be in the Raven's nest, wherever that is."

"Yes," Brand answers.

"So that must be where Phillip is, too."

"I have more than enough reason to guess that yes, it will be where the Raven is taking him."

That's enough for me. I turn to look at Niro, feeling my heart light up with renewed hope. He smiles back at me, looking a little pained. "It'll be hard to get him out, Nora. Next to impossible."

"But you'll help me, won't you?" I whisper.

Niro looks carefully at me, weighing his response, before saying, "To the best of my power, I'll help you get him back, Lenora. I know how much Phillip Brooke means to you."

I see a new sun rise in Niro's violet eyes. I find his fingers, and squeeze his hand tightly in mine.

"We'll be landing in a little over an hour," Brand says, rising from his seat and moving towards his wife in the cockpit. "And oh, by the way, when you get there, watch out for Kathy Brooke."

"Isn't she Phillip's sister?" And traitor to him, I add silently in my head.

"Yes. She's... hotheaded. Very. Hard to get used to, but she's softer than marshmallow on the inside. And she lost a lot when she was young, too. Her family, her home, everything. Try to think of it all from her point of view."

I seethe silently, unable to doubt for one moment that I will not like Kathy Brooke. With Niro's hand in mine, I look at my future with clearer eyes and a heart filled with hope and determination. No matter what, I will bring Phillip Brooke back to my side, and if I can, I will fulfil the promise he swore me to.

I will find his brother.

~

Niro has dozed off beside me, the blood loss from his leg obviously having taken its toll on him. He looks so much younger than he is, with his face smoothed out and peaceful, almost angelic. I look at that face of an eight-year-old, and wonder how someone so small can seem so much older when he's awake and his violet eyes are open and alert.

I stare out of the window, watching the open blue sky and the clouds beneath, gleaming as the radiance of the sun bounces off them. I have never before felt so free, with an open sky before me. A sky so huge it feels like it's about to crush me. The sense of loneliness that feels like it's going to leave me isolated forever. I sit back and pull my knees up to my chest, hugging them.

"Hey. Want to see something cool?"

Brand has walked over silently, and his hazel eyes are surveying me kindly. In one hand, he holds a strange wooden stick.

"Yeah, sure," I answer without really thinking. I shift over so he can sit down without jostling Niro.

Brand sits down beside me and holds out the wooden stick. "Take a look at this," he says.

I take it in both hands, weighing the wood and rolling it back and forth in my hands. It's surprisingly light, and the intricate carving feels warm under my skin. Graceful loops crisscross and spiral across the wood, dancing beneath my fingertips, swooping here, swirling there. I close my eyes and let my fingers fly over the staff, feeling it as if I were a blind person reading a Braille. There's a thirst in me as I feel it that I don't recognise, or understand.

"This is why you have that name, isn't it?" I say, eyes still closed. "Oakenstaff. This staff is made of oak?"

"Very accurate," Brand says. "This staff was made for me by a friend, and I use it as a weapon. I'm not a big fan of guns and bombs, so forgive me for using something rather ancient."

"No, no," I murmur. "I hate seeing blood up close as well." My fingers come to a strange, polished round surface that I recognise as not wood. I open my eyes, and to my surprise I find a black gem embedded in the top of the wooden cane. "What's this for?"

Brand grins. "It's a black moonstone."

"A moonstone?" I run my fingertips over the stone. It gleams softly, like a new moon, true to its name, shaped like a large dewdrop. It's about the size of a chicken's egg.

"A black moonstone symbolises mental power and the ability to remain calm," Brand says. "I find that I need that power often when I go to battle. So yes, that's something I take with me. It's something of a good luck charm."

"You need that." I hand the staff back to Brand.

He takes it and says, "You have some weapon of some significance too, eh? A bow?"

"Yes. I - I don't like seeing blood up close either," I answer.

"I can see why," Brand mutters. He smiles at me, a real, genuine smile that I can't help but trust. Brand Steele seems to radiate a kind of warmth that draws people in, a warmth that no one can resist. Maybe it's the naked honesty on his kind, lined face, or maybe the gentle look in his eyes that is so rare in a warrior - but already I feel like this is a leader I can follow.

"Show me your bow," he says conversationally.

When I had climbed into the aircraft, I had thrown my bow and arrows aside to tend to Niro's bleeding leg. I stand to pick them up now, from where they've fallen. The arrows have been spilled onto the floor, the bow discarded. I gather my arrows and wrap my fingers around my bow, feeling relief at the warmth that seems to shudder through the silver to my hand, as if vibrating with joy at hand and bow's reunion.

Without thinking too much about it, I hand over my weapon to Brand. He takes it, and his eyes sweep across the simplistic design, surveying the softly glowing silver, the swoop of the planes and the grip of the bow.

"Nice," he says with a nod, handing it back to me. "You would do better with a weapon that holds the enemy off close-range, though."

"That's what Phillip said, but..." I wrinkle my nose. "I don't like the prospect of close-up fighting."

"You'd do better with a knife," Brand says. "Just a knife. You don't have to use it if you don't want to. It's just something to defend yourself with if, say, you run out of arrows or something."

I nod, sensing the sensibility in his suggestion.

"I'll ask the friend to try forging one for you when we arrive," says Brand.

Livia breaks the silence from the cockpit. "Enough chitchat, guys. We're descending towards Arkendor...now."

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net