The Cloud-Capped Towers .:IV:.

by ~veritaslux

IV – The Voice of Reason

What frightened Cysagh the most wasn’t the vision he’d just seen, it was the content of the vision. How could he be important? He was just a fifteen year old miller who’d never been further than the perimeter of the village; a fifteen year old miller that had done nothing to anger anybody as majorly as had been described by the angel ever! So how could he possibly cause this conflict, this bloodbath that had been promised to happen?

His head was still swimming in thought when he reached the front door of his own house. He strode in, the effect of the potion now having worn off. On the kitchen table that greeted him was a candle burning zealously, and a note written in his father’s untidy scrawl.
You were late home, so your mother and I went on ahead.
We’ll see you in the Ram’s Rump later.
- Dad

With a pang of guilt, he remembered that he had promised to meet his parents for dinner in the tavern after finishing up. Trying and failing to push all thoughts of the day out of his head, he rushed to his room and changed into something more suitable for a dinner down at the Ram’s Rump. Ten minutes later, and he was wearing a different blue shirt and a brown jumper that his mother had made him, and was walking quickly out the door, back down the path he had only walked a short while ago.

In floods, the memory of the prophecy came back to him. It scared Cysagh to think that they had predicted four qualities that he hadn’t even discovered himself; it made him wonder whether any of his thoughts or emotions were private to the angels and their prophets. And then there was the war. The war that would rip apart life as he knew it, pit each man against each other. The war that scared everybody, even if nobody knew what was going to happen. He realised that this was what they sometimes called the fear of the unknown. And in this unknown, it would supposedly be him, Cysagh the fifteen year old miller who would be the calm in the storm.

He was lost in his own imagination and thought all the way back to the centre of Épyren, and only stopped worrying when he saw the familiar, time tarnished sign of the Ram’s Rump. Drunken singing and joyous music could be heard coming from inside; it was the pinnacle of the village’s community inside this place. It made Cysagh feel at home to be standing outside the battered green door, with its round pane of glass giving a sight into the main bar. It was this that he was looking through, trying to locate his parents when the barmaid saw him gawping. She rushed over from behind a couple of huge men and opened the door. A look of mock annoyance was etched onto her face.
“What are you doing, gawping from outside like this? People will begin to wonder whether you need to go down to the funny farm soon!” she said in an agitated tone. The hard expression soon broke, and she was grinning, trying to hold back a giggling fit. The sight made Cysagh grin.
“You alright, Angela?” he asked, the girl in front of him having given up the fight against the giggles.

She stopped laughing to engage in conversation.
“Oh, we can talk inside; it’s freezing out here!” she said, and skipped inside, Cysagh closely trailing her.

The first thing that Cysagh felt when walking into the tavern was the heavy smell of beer mixed with pipe smoke hitting his nose. It made him splutter to start with, but getting used to it, just made him feel relaxed and at ease; he was amongst friends. Angela grabbed his arm and pulled him around into an alcove, where nobody had seemed to settle.
She grinned at him, and then started to gabble.
“Yes, I’m fine, thanks. But where were you? Your parents started to worry after, what, thirty minutes of you being late? To tell the truth, I was worried, I mean, you promised them that you’d meet them here! But no, you take two hours and we were just thinking of—“
“Stop talking,” whispered Cysagh, amused at Angela’s monologue. “I... I had to do something on the way back, and it took longer than it should have done. No, don’t look at me like that! I had to do it! But anyway, where are my parents. I’d better relieve them of their anxiety.”

Angela gave him one last puzzled stare, then led him over to where his parents were sat, talking to each other agitatedly. She coughed loudly, and when their faces looked up at her, she pointed to Cysagh.
“I found this one on the street,” she said jokingly, then darted off before the turbulence began.

Cysagh’s mother breathed a sigh of relief, before standing up to her not very substantial height. This seemed to be the signal for his father to bury his face in his hands and look up at Cysagh with an apologetic look. His mother’s hazel eyes stared at him for a minute, then started berating him in a deliberately poisonous undertone.
“If you ever do your disappearing act again, you’ll be for the high jump, young man. Your father and I were extremely worried about you, weren’t we?”
Although she had asked the question, she still was looking icily at Cysagh, which allowed his father to do a comical shake of the head. He had to try and stop himself laughing and seriously reply.
“I promise I won’t wander off again, really,” he said, not really making eye contact as he went to sit down. “So, what did you two do today?” he asked, changing the subject very quickly.
“Don’t get me started,” replied his mother, which was the sign of a very long speech, often a monologue, on how somebody down at the shop had managed to break four needles in two hours, which, apparently, was a feat that no woman could achieve. Cysagh’s mother was a seamstress, one of the best sewers in Épyren, and took pleasure in creating fine garments and selling them for high prices. She couldn’t do this often, though, because at her shop, it was only the poorer people who came in, as the higher aristocracy never came through the area, it was so off the beaten track. She swept the mousy brown hair out of her blue eyes and began to recount the gripping story of that day’s work.

Half an hour later, and his mother had finished the same mundane tale that was told around the dinner table every day. His father had one eyebrow raised, and then finally sensing the story was over, lifted his bald head from the table and drained his glass.
“Be a dear, Greta,” he said in his deep, gruff voice, “and fetch me another beer? I’m dying for something to drink.”

Cysagh’s mother stood up, took the glass from the table and walked across to the bar, where she requested a drink from the bartender. While she was gone, Cysagh’s father breathed a feigned sigh of relief.
“I love your mother, son, but she doesn’t half go on sometimes, does she?” he joked, causing him and his son to laugh simultaneously. “I’d tell you about my day, but it wouldn’t match up to the exciting adventures of your mother, would it?”

Cysagh grinned at the joke, and shook his head in agreement. He had just opened his mouth to start speaking when his father started talking again.
“Cysagh,” he said, lowering his voice. “I know you weren’t ‘just doing something’. You’ve never been a great liar. If you promise me that you weren’t doing anything... stupid, then this goes no further, OK?”
“Stupid?” asked Cysagh, curious as to his father’s change of subject.
“You know what I mean; rash, idiotic. Like, I don’t know, spending all of your money on one thing, getting into a fight or something.”
“But, I wasn’t—“
“No. None of it. Like I said, just promise me that you weren’t being stupid.”
“OK,” said Cysagh, defeated. “I wasn’t being stupid, whatever you mean by that.”
“I think you do,” replied his father mysteriously, and got up to go and help his wife.

It was then that it started. From the far side of the tavern, there was a great roar, a drunken roar that had obviously just arisen from a disagreement between two locals. The normal din that flowed through the pub quieted down to listen to the argument take place. It was the two farmers from the southern outskirts of Épyren that had been the source of the noise. Anybody in the village would have recognised their completely bald heads and slightly heavier accent than the normal Western dialect.
“If I’d have wanted your advice, I’d have asked for it, you imbecile!” said one of them, the shorter and slightly fatter man.
“I just thought you could have done with a bit of help!” replied the other, slightly defensively.
“Me, need help from a scumbag like you? Why don’t you just run off and tend the pile of cow dung that your place lies on!”
“That ‘pile of cow dung’ was inherited from my grandfather, and he inherited it from his grandfather! Don’t you dare bring me into this mess; I’m not the one who’s struggling to keep his land fertile!”
“Well at least I’ve got a decent family and wife. Yours looks like the runt of the litter, if you know what I mean,” said the short man. It was then he noticed the eyes of the entire tavern gazing at him in horror and repulsion. “Yeah, get a good look at the argument, that’s all you really want, isn’t it?”

But what he didn’t notice was the taller and stronger farmer whose wife he had just insulted bearing down on him, with his teeth bared and a look of sheer anger upon his face.
“What did you just call my wife?” he hissed with utter contempt in his eyes.
“I just called her the runt of the litter,” replied the other farmer, enjoying winding up his rival. But barely after he had said the last word, he was ducking for cover as a frenzy of wild punches was aimed at his face.

The accent of the two made their yelling completely untranslatable as they continued to brawl each other, some of the rowdier villagers egging them on as they tumbled through the tavern. The noise was deafening now that the fight had almost elevated to its peak. Cysagh watched, bemused at the fact that the evening had now pretty much been ruined by his lateness and the semi-drunken brawling taking place. He stood up, and walked over to where a growing crowd was now gathering.

He saw the two men aiming punches at each other on the floor, and felt absolutely no pity for them. But just as he was about to walk away, something clicked inside his head. Why shouldn’t he try to stop the fight? The voice of reason didn’t have to come from an adult did it?
“Stop this nonsense,” he said, firmly, but not loudly. He was staring at the men on the floor, who appeared not to have listened. Raising his voice slightly, he tried again. “Stop it, now. You’re really going to hurt each other.”

It was as if it happened by magic. Everything went gradually silent once more, and the gaze was now fixed on Cysagh. It made him falter a bit, but nevertheless, he continued.
“That fight there, that was pointless. Would any of you have gotten hurt if you had just walked away?” he said, looking at the taller farmer whose name he didn’t know. “If you’d have left, the situation would have cooled down, and your ‘rival’ would have been left to look like an idiot. Now it’s you who’s looking stupid. Just think about that.”

And with that final quip, he walked back to where his mother and father were sitting; who were looking shocked at their son’s sudden display of diplomacy.
“When did you learn to do that?” asked his mother, wonder painted onto her face.
“Wh-what your mother said,” concurred his father.
“To be honest, I don’t know. It just seemed to... flow out,” replied Cysagh, amazed at himself.
“Come on, let’s leave, before anything else happens,” said his father, getting up and putting on his jacket. Cysagh and his mother nodded in agreement, and trying to avoid any other occurrence that evening, they slipped out of the tavern, talking to each other on the moonlit path back to their house.

* * *

The angel was tired, and the darkness outside was combated only by a candle alight in the Hall of Prediction. The dim glow was illuminating a book that the same angel was poring over, studying every occurrence in the life of the particular person he was watching.

Then suddenly, new words formed on the page he was reading. It seemed to be a line from a poem that he had heard before, but could not put his finger on it. He read the line over and over again, until he remembered. And the realisation made him slightly taken aback. It was part of a prophecy, but not just any prophecy.

He read the line again, his mind exalting the fact that the angels were one step closer to their saviour, and despairing at the fact that the world was one more step closer to war.

In him the drive to dissipate furore.