LYMAS I

Lymas sat in his wheelchair, waiting. 

Silence fell in the woods. Trees that were embroidered in thickets of green leaves, full of life, now stood bare, defying the light of the sun. The two boys came close to a tree by his side and waited sharply. The third climbed up the trunk of the tree, opposite them. Lymas looked up at him and wondered what it would fill like to climb high up. He wondered what one could see from that height. Probably all of Liongate, he thought. The boy on the tree gave a signal with one hand, clutching a pebble with the other. He threw the pebble and birds flew and crossed their way through the woods, their wings flipping and flapping to the melody the autumn sang with the leafless trees and the golden ground of leaves. When silence fell again, birds rested on the outer twigs of the tree.

"There it is. There it is!" They all squeaked in delight, pointing at the bird. They have been waiting for it to be in sight. Lymas saw the bird, all white as snow, with a black beak. As the bird twitched and fumbled, a hint of gold covered its head. The boys kicked at each other with excitement, leaves beneath them crunched.

Lymas took a small pebble from Nori and put in the small pelt of bulletswinger. He grasped the oak handler firmly in his hand, and stretched the rubber strings. Pheew. The pebble started up in the air and struck the bird. Screaming in fright, the bird fell, swinging, wings swirling, to the yellowy ground. The boys hooted and clapped in delight. They all ran to the bird's falling site, and then Nori, the big boy, came back and pushed Lymas towards it.

"Is it alive?" the boys wondered. Lymas saw the bird's white wings fluttering in the dead leaves on the ground.

"Torinn," Lymas said, "check his wound." Torinn climbed down the tree and went for the bird. He held it in his hands as it tried to flee from his grasp. The pebble stuck beneath the it's wing, and the wound trickled with blood.

"It's going to die," Lymas said. "We should help it." He felt guilty for shooting the bird down. But the bird was a white raven. It was very rare for a white raven to fly in their woods. Lymas remembered the tales of his aunt. The ravens were bad omens, she said, a sign of war and destruction. But she talked of black ravens, this one was white. His aunt had said that white ravens were the opposite, a sign of peace and prosperity. When he asked her if she ever saw one, she said that they are rare, and even if they're still around, they would not fly the skies of the tribelands for all the wars and the bloodshed that had happened in the past years. Few of them have been spotted around Starshade, she'd said. He was excited and wished his aunt had been here to see it. He hoped for the bird to live.

Torinn took the pebble off the raven. It flung at him with wings and poked at his hand with its sharp beak, but then calmed when it realized he was helping. Lymas' throat tightened. He gasped, wanting to shout at Torinn and tell him to be gentle with it. He leaned forward to take a look.

"I think it will live," Torinn said, his mouth twitching into a grin. "But we need to treat the wound." He gave the bird to Lymas. Blood slowly oozing from the wound, but the bird seemed strong enough to survive. Lymas held it in his hands. It was small and now weak. The raven's eyes were red and they looked at him sharply, blinking.

"Go. Take it to Sufe," he told Torinn. He hoped it would live. "Let's go back, Nori." Nori nodded and turned the wheelchair to leave the Smallwood, the boys followed them.

"No need for that, boy. I'll take care of it," said a voice of a grown man behind the trees. Lymas recognized the voice.

"I was looking for you everywhere," Umr said, standing now in front of Lymas. His bald head glittered bright with the specks of sunshine that escaped the trees. He wore a thin grey cloak held by a golden pin on his neck. The cloak covered him all the way down to his feet; little flecks of fiery leaves, strewn on it, danced as he moved.

Lymas was excited to tell Umr about it all, but he felt a rush of guiltiness doing so. "We were playing. I drew down a raven. A white raven. With my bulletswinger. It's hurt. I told Torinn to take it to Sufe… My aunt would always tell me tales about the myth of the white raven."

"Guess your aunt's tales are true, then." Umr grinned at Lymas.

"Aunt always said they never took to our skies," Lymas said.

"But this one did. I wonder where it came from," he said. "I'll take him," he told Nori. It was true, enough. The white raven was alone. There were no other white ravens, or even black ones. The other birds they saw were regular ones that long lived in these parts.

"This one might be lost from its flock," Lymas said, deep in thought.

"Maybe they were migrating, yes."

"Or maybe it was flying alone. I just hope it will survive."

"Well, I don't know if Sufe knows how to fix birds, but I know the bird's in good hands." Umr smiled, taking the wheelchair in hand.

 "We have to go. You, my lordling, have urging matters that need to be taken care of."

"What matters?" 

"Ruling matters."

"Why doesn't father take care of it? Or Mayas?"

"They're not here, lordling. They went for that hunt in the mountain," Umr said. The wheelchair stumbled over rough patches of hard earth, slightly twisting sideways.

Lymas hated being in charge of Liongate. He hated to sit in a chair hearing people complain, not that he found it tedious, but he was tender and had a feeble heart for the troubles of the people. Few times had happened that he was in care of Liongate. Once when his father and brother went to Treehill, and another time when his father was far off visiting their uncle; his brother, Mayas, stayed, but he still made him sit by his side, and that meant sitting through all the meetings of his father's men from morning to lunchtime.

 "What matter do I have to attend to?" He looked up at Umr.

"I don't know, lordling. I've only been told to bring you at once. That's my job after all."

They left the woods through a passageway that led into a stone hall. Its walls brocaded with ancient clay pots with copper hinges, with gold covering them. They went through the great hall and into the Sid keep, his father's. The sun threw thousands of light spears into the marbled room, and the many-windowed, dark-gray walls reflected them on the great old runes hanging in the ceiling, where light danced and played in a feast of colors. Umr stopped at the entrance. Lymas gestured him to go forward. Umr pushed him through the azure marble floor. The gray walls turned pale-white. Thick, twisted lines that ran in the walls shimmered in the morning light. The lines represented the family tree of the Sids of Liongate. Every time Lymas went into the keep, he had Umr put him in front of it.

"There is no one here!" grumbled Lymas, stretching forward and running his fingers through the lines.

"Yes, but you must be present before them." Umr brought Lymas to the steps, and carried him up to the dais. Lymas stared at the chairs. There were five of them, centered by a big chair that belonged to his father. Two stood on each side. Umr helped him into his father's chair.

Lymas found the chair uncomfortable, maybe that's why my father goes hunting a lot, he thought. He hated sitting on it too; not so much that, but in how much responsibility the chair holds. It was not for anyone to sit in, only for the Sid, and the Sid meant a capable and responsible man, and it was so since the times of the High Sids.

As Lymas bothered with his thoughts, the Service came into the keep. They walked to the dais, side by side. Their green cloaks shimmered bright in the light of the hall, and each of them had an ornament on his sleeve, signifying their roles.

"My lordling," they said, tilting their heads as an accommodation of bowing. Lymas bowed in return. The Service sat by the small table near the dais; Umr helped Lymas to join them. He hated people see him being carried from place to place. He knew how people looked at him, inadvertently, especially those who saw him for the first time, and he felt hurt and vulnerable about it. But these men are family, he thought, they won't ever hurt me.

"I want to start first if you please," said Merin, a short man with a sharp, white face. His moustache covered his upper lip and twitched every time he spoke. "On the matter of trades, we have a small setback concerning our recent loads of apples and olives, especially apples. Most of our gardens have been damaged from the rain storms we've had recently, and the apples, too. The market's been a bit slow these last few days."

"What about the olives?" asked Sufe, the wiseman.

"The olive trees in the hills have been damaged too," Merin said.

"What do you propose we should do, Merin," Lymas said.

"We have to get men working on the surviving olive trees. As for the apples, we have to sell them, or they'll go rotten and useless."

"People won't buy apples with rotten holes in them," Sufe said, grinning. He was a small man with a small face that brightened every time he smiled.

"Well, as to that, we can put the rotten apples beneath the good ones. I've already arranged it. The trading wagons are set to go."

"No, this is cheating. We can't cheat people," Lymas said. What would father do? He didn't like what Merin said. He even didn't like Merin most of the times. He always stood to him as a cunning man, yet he always came out to be good. "Nothing will happen until my father hears of this."

"We can separate the good from the bad, and sell the bad at a lower price," Sufe said, grinning. He scrubbed the tuft of his uneven beard.

"That would work," Lymas said. Merin nodded in agreement.

When they stepped outside the Gathering Ground, it was midday. The sun had reached the middle of the sky and clouds gathered on the southern-west ward. Now the city was hot. The cold wind that had risen in the morning dwindled gradually.

"We have sentences at the Compartment, little lording," Sufe said. Along Kalaman and Sufe, Umr wheeled Lymas through the streets of the city. His teeth cracked and his body wiggled as the wheelchair pushed through the cracked, stony ground. Lymas hated the Compartment, where his father always made him go, to learn the rules and laws of his people.

The streets of the city were narrow and long. The stones were very old, weather beaten, and they stretched through all the alleys of the city. On the first alley they went through, small and big tents alike hugged the wall. Silk owners shouted their prices and shoved their goods at the passers. When they saw the wheelchair, they hailed and stretched their hands up in the air to greet Lymas son of Elyas. Lymas smiled politely and raised his hand in response.

They took a turn left at the end of the alley, then right at another end, then another left. The alleys were crammed with tents and people. Big wooden tables adorned each tent with silks and cloths with all colors and tissues for different seasons; food of different kinds, fresh food, fresh fish from the Axe, fresh meat of sheep and cow and camel and horse, white and black and green and burgundy olives; different kinds of medicine, from Sandleaf to Silent Tea. Men and women in their cloak and veils and wishaah swarmed on the goods. Sounds of low prices and bargaining covered the alleys. Lymas liked being in the alleys. He liked seeing the movement of his people. He loved the smell of freshly, baked bread on one of the alleys.

When they reached the Compartment, men were standing by an area covered with trees, concealed from the sun. Soldiers, his father's men. Their emerald velvets were tucked in serouals, wide at the legs and tightened at the waist. Swords sheathed in the serouals' casing. Other sat on their knees where the soldiers stood. Those are the ones to sentence, Lymas thought. He hoped they didn't do very bad things. The bad the deed you did, the worse the punishment you have, his father said once. And his father also said many things, like 'never have mercy on those who did not obey the law. If they break one law today, they'll break another by the morrow. You'll have to put fear in their hearts.' So, unless you punish them, they will do other bad things. Lymas ordered them to go inside the Compartment.

The room was small and the windows were closed. A hint of light came in as the soldiers opened the windows. Lymas caught a smell that lingered in his nose a while after the air went in from the windows. It was the smell of guilt and shame, he thought. He hated it.

Two soldiers stood at the entrance. The others pushed the guilty men to their knees and stood on each side of them.

Sufe stood closely to Lymas. "They await your sentencing, little lordling."

Lymas cleared his throat. He remembered what his father always said. He felt his tongue tied into a knot. "You are here for breaking laws," he started in his feeble voice, glancing at them. "Laws that keep our city and our people intact. If we let one mishap goes unpunished, everything falls apart. We are all responsible for our actions, and when these actions break the law, we pay."

The guilty men were trembling, some of them weeping and pleading. Lymas felt sorry for them. He felt guilty for them getting punished. The soldiers took them, one by one, in front of Lymas and Sufe.

"State your name and your misdeed," Sufe asked the first man.

"Halwen of Liongate. I stole from my neighbor," the man said, his words caught in between sobs. "But my lor—"

"Why did you steal? Were you in need of food or clothing?" Sufe cut him off.

"No. my lord…" The man fell silent.

"Why did you steal?" Lymas repeated. The man surrendered to his sobs and plunged into crying.

When the crying and the sobbing slowed down, he said, "I stole because I envied him. He's got more sheep than me… I-I tried to hide his sheep with mine."

"Envy grows from a black seed in the heart and blossoms into thorns that aches it," said Sufe.

Lymas looked at the man, face red and swollen from crying. He wanted to cry too, but as the son of the Sid, he held himself from doing so.

He bent forward to the man. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "By the laws stated by Starshade that go in the tribelands, I sentence you to amputation for larceny. Kalaman, the man is to be cut from his wrist." The soldiers took the man away to the barred corner.

There was a dozen of guilty men after the first one. Lymas sentenced them all. Some were adulterers and the sentence for adultery was a hundred flays in front of the city's people. Others were thieves, and one of them was very weak and slim in body that he could almost stay on his knees, let alone standing. The man said that he stole food from one of the tents in the Cornered Alleys and the owner caught him and called the soldiers on him, after giving him a beating. He was hungry and had no food or shelter, so Lymas forgave him for his deed, and called the owner to be sentenced for the false beating. And Sufe ordered the soldiers to speak to Melin, to provide the poor man with food and shelter, and get him work as soon as he is capable of it. Lymas felt joy grow in his heart, and he let himself be satisfied for a moment. At least there's something good coming out of this place, he thought.

There was one last guilty man they had to deal with.

"State your name and your misdeed," Sufe repeated for the seemingly hundredth time.

"Jaber of Treehill. I… I got into a fight with a man… broke his nose," the guilty said. Compared to all others, this one was not a grown man. He was young, maybe younger than Mayas. His dark hair was crumpled with filth and his face was darkened with smudges of dirt. Even his clothes were ragged and torn. When he looked up, his big, grey eyes sparkled with tears, but he held them back. His small jaws trembled. He does not seem guilty.

"Treehill. What's a young lad from Treehill be doing here, I wonder?" Sufe said. Lymas knew that Sufe had the answer to that, or at least could hint at it. He could always know what people meant to say when they spoke, especially people that have been around him all his life.

"Oh, yes," one of the soldiers said. "This Treehill boy's a prisoner. Here," he handed Umr a rolled parchment paper. Sufe unrolled it, gazing intently at its contents, his eyes moving.

"He is to be sent to the Divide," Sufe informed Lymas.

"Why, what have you done?" Lymas asked him.

Umr didn't wait for the guilty boy to answer, "He got into a fight with one of Balan's men." Lymas pondered at who was Balan for a second, then he placed him for the Treehill Sid, his aunt's husband.

"They were sending him to the Divide when he escaped. Two soldiers went after him and caught him at the edge of town, in the woods, and brought him here. He is sentenced three years in the Divide with five-year exile from Treehill." Sufe slid the paper into the table and fell silent again. He moved closer to Lymas. "Add one year to his sentence for the escape," he whispered.

Lymas pursed his lips, and sat straight in his wheelchair. A ruler must not show weakness. "Jaber of Treehill, I sentence you to imprisonment. You shall spend the next three years in the Divide…" He paused, hesitating. "…Plus, one year for escaping," Lymas announced. The soldiers held the boy up to his feet.

"My lord, sir, please. I got into the fight for a reason," his voice weakened, looking at Lymas, then at Sufe. "I ran from my sentence for a reason. Please."

"A guilty man always has his reasons," Sufe said, "Take him."

The soldiers dragged him away to the barred corner, but he kept wriggling off their hold.

"I have a sister!" He screamed, "A small sister. She's got no one but me. Please, my lord Sid." Lymas gestured for them to bring him back.

"I'm no Sid. What of your sister?" Lymas asked curiously.

"She's eleven, my lord. Her name's Ritel. Lives in Treehill. My parents are dead, and I'm the one who keeps her safe and fed. I know I won't get away with what I have done, but please Sid…sir, send word to Treehill. I regret doing what I did, but my sister should not be punished for it."

Lymas wanted to say that he will send word for his sister, but was afraid that Sufe might disagree with him. He looked up at him, his eyes flickering as if in agreement with his own thoughts.

"I will send word for your sister." Lymas said, a gentle smile grew on his face.

"Thank you, my lord." The soldiers took the boy away.

 When they were finished, they went back to the Gathering Ground. Lymas had been waiting for his duties to end. It took most of the morning and into the noon to finish what was wanted of him as the ruler of Liongate.

"What of the bird, Sufe?" Lymas wondered about the white raven. On his way he thought of taking a bypass to the House of Wisdom. He wanted to know more about it, where it comes from, where it lives, how it migrates. But he thought asking Sufe would suffice. Wisemen themselves were houses of wisdom, moving books.

"I was afraid this matter would be brought forth, my lordling," Sufe said. "I couldn't save the little bird. If it puts your mind at ease, it wasn't affected from the wound as much as it was from sickness, some sort of infection, that could easily be contagious to humans. I would say we've been lucky that it died, although the bird is rare and is seldom seen in our parts.

"Nonetheless, I do have a gift for you, my lordling," Sufe ushered them into the small library of the Gathering Ground. The library was dim, light hardly teasing its way through the curtained windows. Bookstalls pushed their way around the small room. Some of the stalls were seldom stood at and dust conquered them, and the books were disorganized. Other stalls were recently cleaned; huge tomes were organized by size and color. On the middle of the room stood a table with paper and ink on it; a used candle stuck to the surface of the table, spreading the wax all over. But what caught his attention was the boxed bird that was on the table. White as white can be. He flipped his wings and squawked.

Lymas let out a squeak of excitement. "It's a white bul, my lordling," he said, smilingly. "It's even rarer than the white raven."