Chapter 51
"But..."
"Alistar."
He deflated beneath the man’s stern look. Mr. Herst was stubborn when it came to subjects that he preferred to avoid, so he knew that there was no purpose in saying any more.
Later that night, he watched the spectacular storm roll through the county from one of the larger windows on the third floor of his uncle’s manor house. This was the second storm that he had ever seen, and also the strongest. It was as if the world had come alive and was angry at the county folk. Great tendrils of lightning clawed out at the heavy clouds, as thunderous reverberations shook the windows in their frames. Lightning had just struck down upon a far-off field, which made him realize that the elements didn’t care whether someone was a human or a Drunish person, a noble or a peasant. The weather was impartial to the people that had to suffer through it, something that provoked a thought that couldn’t quite manifest in his mind. Faced with the raw power of nature, he couldn’t help but think about the conversation that he’d left behind at the Hanging Hill.
If only other people didn’t see them as demons.
Aside from Mr. Herst, there were a fair number of Drunaeda in Distan. Of these, Alistar interacted with one of them here and there throughout the week. This was the horned man that he had seen on his first jaunt throughout Mayhaven with Anice, a quiet person that moved boxes and helped to set up the street stalls of those that tolerated his presence in exchange for small bites to eat. Sadly, even the sweet old lady that sold sugar sticks looked down upon him with the expression of someone that had swallowed a mouthful of bitter food. His name was Ruk, and he was usually busy at work whenever Alistar crossed through the market square. On the days that he wasn’t in a rush to get to Tramon’s, he stuck around Ruk and helped him with his work, a habit he had formed after noticing that the young man’s eyes almost always showcased the same sadness that he sometimes saw in Mr. Herst’s, a despondency that he recognized from his days in Crystellum.
The more Alistar learned about Lucianism, the more wary he became of it. He saw the expressions that the other children made at the mention of the demons, whether he was at the Hanging Hill or listening to a sermon at the cathedral. Whenever he was doing the latter, it was impossible to ignore the waves of frightful, protective prayers that flooded throughout the congregation at every mention of the devil, Drune. With the way people reacted, he sometimes expected the being itself to suddenly appear and begin wreaking havoc on the innocent townspeople. But apparently, this behavior was normal. When questioned about this matter, Caedmon told him that people held the same attitudes in regards to their religion all throughout the Holy Lucian Empire. His uncle often told him to quell his questions on the topic, the only instances when the scholarly man would not answer him unabated.
Alistar eventually came to realize that in speaking of even the most inconsequential things, Mr. Herst was taking a very big risk. It was through his elderly friend that he learned of those which had once been known as the strongest tribes among the Drunaeda—the fire-skinned Dauls, the black-eyed Kets, the nature-loving Felians, and the proud and powerful Abdales—as well as their old territories and the legends that they had left behind.
All things considered, hearing things from the perspective of a Drunish person made Alistar’s mind dizzy with thought. He knew that Mr. Herst wouldn’t lie to him, but whenever their talks intersected with the history that Mrs. Dawn taught him at home and that which he read about in the many books that he’d dug up on the topic, he was often unsure of what to believe. For instance, many people were in agreeance that all of the demons had survived by eating human flesh, though Mr. Herst had assured him that this was entirely untrue. Alistar himself had shared many meals with the man, whose diet was no different than any other person that he’d met.
As the days passed, it became clear that many of the other children that attended lessons at the Hanging Hill were distrustful of their elderly teacher. Sometimes the trio of young women that oversaw the lessons wouldn’t show up, and whenever this happened hardly anybody stuck around. Twice he had been alone with Zech and Corrie atop the hill, though he had been too shy to talk to them. Once, he’d almost worked up the courage, but the latter had slunk away without a sound, and the former had worn a conflicted expression that was anything but inviting.
Apparently, some of the other children didn’t like that he spent so much time with the old man, which he learned when he was walking home on the second occasion that the teaching assistants hadn’t shown up to the daily lesson. He hadn’t made it far from the Hanging Hill when he walked by a handful of boys around his age, who were tracing out images in the dirt with long sticks.