The Prince

Damien II: Chapter 4

Chapter 4





Everyone was gone when Damien got back home.  The walk having kept his bruised body from stiffening too much, he was able to make it up the four flights of exterior stairs to the gang’s apartment without anymore trouble than normal when he reached them.  Hungry, cold, and out of breath, however, he stumbled inside and immediately set about lighting the lamps and preparing something hot to eat.





Their newly repaired stove—someone had been in late the day before—did an excellent job with the vegetable soup he set on it, and soon he was sitting beside the heater with a blanket around his shoulders and a large bowl of the vegetable soup beside him.  His coat hanging on a hook near the door, his boots on the floor beneath it, he had hung his socks and gloves over the heater and changed into all new clothes.  Still cold though, he unfolded his fathers letter, pinned it down with a couple of stones he’d picked up from the beach over the summer, and dug into the soup just as he began to feel the warmth of the heater on his back.





The writing was all a jumble.  Squiggles connecting to straight lines, curved lines that nevertheless looked like they might be actual letters…Damien couldn’t make heads or tails of it.  His name, clear as day in the upper left corner, told him where the top was.  Other than that though, its contents were a complete mystery to him.





He stared at it a long time.  His father had used codes in his work, Damien knew.  Several different codes, perhaps a full handful in number, Theirn had only taught his son one of them.  That one had been the simplest, Damien imagined now.  He could remember being incredibly excited at the prospect of being taken into his father’s world.  Already having a firm grasp of Avallan letters, he had thought it would be easy to learn this new, secret alphabet.  With his duties to Quartermaster Vinaer, it had taken Damien nearly half the winter to learn and become familiar with it.  His father was going to begin teaching him a second code after returning from a mission that sent him abroad but, then the news had come and his apprenticeship and life in the Towers had come to a screeching halt.





Damien only knew what a small portion of his father’s job consisted of, and that part had nothing to do with codes.  Any chance for learning about it had also ended with his former life.  All he knew was that it must have been terribly important.





Staring at the letter for what seemed like hours, he discovered his soup to be finished only when all he raised to his mouth was air.  Setting the bowl aside, he picked up the letter and set it in his lap.  It couldn’t be this hard, he told himself for what must have been the tenth time.  Look, there was one letter that looked like an “f” but with a longer tail than it should have.  And here, a word that would have been “water” had the code been the one he knew.  But no.  The writing of this letter wasn’t that code.  It resembled it but…but…





His legs, butt and back were all aching, tingling with having with that sensation of having sat too long in the same position.  Damien had stretched his legs, tried to move around a bit, but all of it had only prolonged the inevitable.  It was useless!  The letter was indecipherable.  He didn’t know enough.  Only his father, or one of those he worked with might have been able to figure it out.  Not Erich or any of the others from the Towers, no.  But, rather, someone from wherever it was his father went to when he wasn’t at his office or in the rooms they had shared in the Citadel.  But who were they?  Where could they be found?





Rising, Damien paced around the small apartment.  It was surprising that the others weren’t back yet.  Hours must have passed and, surely, it was cold outside, probably snowing even.  Where were they?  The bar maybe?  Or had Sticks finally taken Twitch down to South Gardens and one of the Flower Houses there?  That was probably it.  They were in South Gardens, gambling and whoring the night away.  Damien would have envied them if not for the enigma of his father’s letter.  Heaven above, it had been a long time since he’d done anything hard!





“Come on Damien, think!” he said to himself.  “It’s not that hard.  Really, just a letter.  Just thirty or so little lines of very tiny print.  Really, it’s not that difficult.”





He stopped.  Difficult?  It really wasn’t, was it?  His father had come up with the code, and written something in it to his son.  Obviously he had thought, had expected that Damien would be able to crack it, prior experience with it or not.  What did that mean?  It meant that it was based on something that Damien would know, tied to something that he was familiar with.





Crossing back to where the letter lay on the floor, Damien stood over it, staring at the writing.  It was confusing, sure.  But could that be because it was all so tiny?  A ton of words all crammed together on one side of a single page.  What if he were to copy some of the different words, make them larger?  Then he could truly study them, see them as individuals rather than as part of a huge, highly confusing puzzle.





Under his bed Damien kept a small box with a few pieces of blank parchment and a long pencil.  Retrieving this, he placed it beside the letter and withdrew its contents.  Using the top as a desk, he copied out those words that he could distinguish from the first line.  Writing them down the side of the page rather than across, he was now able to see them separately from one another.  And, now that he could, Damien began to see some things he hadn’t before.





Covering all the words but the first with a second sheet of parchment, Damien stared at the word.  After a minute he wrote another word beside it.  And a few seconds after that, a word beside that one.  Three words, three languages.  The first in this new code, the second in the code he had learned, and the third word which was the Avallan translation of the second.





It looked like the letter had, maybe, just maybe, been written in a code that had been developed from the one Damien already knew.  A more complicated version of an earlier one.  Or a more difficult one to decipher should it fall into the wrong hands.





Doing the same for the other words he had copied, Damien soon completed the first line of his father’s letter.  Remarkably, it made sense.  Not all the necessary words were there, some of the prepositions and such were missing.  But, Damien surmised, they must be the extra bits on the new words that weren’t anything like the other code or its Avallan translation. 





Shouting his joy at having deciphered the code, Damien bent over and began to copy more words from the letter.  He had no idea how long it took but, eventually, he finished.  Checking each line as he went to make sure it made sense, Damien did not pause in his work for anything.  Not even when the others returned, laughing and making a racket as they hung up their coats.  Seeing him sitting there, they all greeted him and began to tell him about their night.  Engrossed as he was though, Damien just ignored them and, presently, they all fell silent.





“Hey, whatcha doin’?” asked Twitch, coming up behind him.





“Translating,” Damien grunted.





Feather came up, bent down before him.  “Translating what?”





“A letter.”





“Yeah?  What’s it say?”





“He doesn’t know,” scoffed Twitch.  “That’s why it’s called translating.”





“I know,” said the smaller boy.  He scowled at Twitch.  “I’m not stupid.”





“Please!” said Damien.  “Can’t you guys shut up for just a few minutes?  I’m working here.”





“Sorry,” they said in imperfect unison.  Turning away from him, they put their hands out to the heater.





Sticks finishing whatever it was he had been doing, he strolled over and placed a fresh lamp beside Damien.  Suddenly it was much brighter.  Looking up, Damien found the lamp he had previously been using to be all but empty of its oil.  Had he really been working that long?  He could have sworn it still had a good finger’s worth left in its clear glass bowl.  “Thanks,” he said.





Sticks shrugged.  “Thought you could use a fresh one.  Who’s this letter from then?”





“My father.”





Not saying anything, Sticks sat back on his hands and watched as Damien finished his work.





By the time he finished sometime later Damien was not only able to read the letter, but to translate individual letters as well.  This enabled him to translate the name on the second letter, the one sealed inside the first.  It was addressed to one ‘Esalla Jarin,’ whoever that was.





When he had translated the last word, and made sure the last line made sense, Damien held up his translated copy and began to read.  His friends looking on, they watched as the excitement and tension of concentration faded from his face.  Damien’s shoulders drooping, his mouth falling open in disbelief, he dropped his hand and let the letter fall to the floor.





“What’s it say?” asked Feather, bouncing up and down beside the heater.





“Damien?” said Sticks, laying a hand on the D-Man’s shoulder.





Ignoring them both, Damien rose slowly and went to sit on his bed.  Elbows on his knees, he held his head in his hands and just stared blankly ahead.





Turning to Twitch, Feather repeated his question.  “Twitch!  What’s it say?  What’s it say?”





Bending down, Twitch picked up the translated letter.  “I don’t know, you know I can’t read.  Sticks, will you read it to us?”





Sticks looked at Damien for a moment before replying.  Seeing no response from him, Sticks took the letter from Twitch and said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll read it.”





Feather and Twitch coming to stand behind him so they could look over his shoulder, Sticks began to read.  Slow, haltingly he read to them, for he could not read that well.  But read it he did.











“To my son, Damien,





I am sorry I cannot be there with you now.  I am sorry that I did not have the chance to teach you this code.  I know, however, that you will be able to read it.  I have the utmost faith that you will.  I have always had faith in you, my son.





If you are reading this, then you know already that I am dead.  I will not tell you not to be sad, not to grieve, for not all sadness is a bad thing.  I will ask three things of you, however.  First is that you not be angry with me, nor my superiors, for what has happened.  It was no one’s fault.  Death is a part of life.  Inevitable, it cannot be escaped.





Secondly, I ask that you survive.  With my death the Marshal will have no choice but to end your apprenticeship with the Quartermaster and expel you from the Towers.  The Quartermaster taught you well, my son.  You have a sharp, quick mind—you always have.  Your skill with words and numbers you have too, and these you must put to use in your new life, fending for yourself beyond the walls of the Towers.  Remember what you have learned, Damien, and you will survive.  Remember, too, what I have taught you:  how to run, to hide, to speak softly and listen hard.  Learn all that you can; never stop learning, never stop thinking.  They are your keys to survival.  Thought and knowledge, Damien, thought and knowledge.





Now, the third thing I must ask you.  Damien, son, inside this letter I have enclosed a second, to a man named Esalla Jarin.  The Chancellor to Duke Aldric of Solid Waters, I must ask you to take it to him at the White Palace on Alaire Street down near the harbor.  Get it to him as quick as you can, for he needs to know what it says at once.  Should anyone trouble you at any point, simply mention my name and all will be well.





Please, do these things for me Damien.  Take the letter to Esalla, do not be angry and, most importantly, survive.  Our family has lived long in Avalla, long have we survived its brutal climes and, worse, its streets and political machinations.  I know you shall not fail, Damien.  I know you will live long, in whatever position life grants to you.





I love you, Damien.  Always remember that.  I love you.  My son.











Your father,                             











Theirn                                      








Their eyes wide, the three boys gaped at each other.  Damien’s father was Theirn Bynae?  Even after a year the name still struck fear into the criminal heart.  Stories were still told by those who had run afoul of him, down in the Strets and South Gardens.  They simply could not believe it.  Their Day Man was Theirn Bynae’s son.  And his father wanted him to go to the White Palace, to meet the Duke’s Chancellor.





As one, Sticks, Twitch and Feather all turned to Damien, fully intending to launch an investigation and find out all those things they had not yet learned about him.  But, exhausted and injured as he was, Damien had lain down and fallen asleep while Sticks had read his father’s letter.  The others looking back and forth between each other and Damien, all they could do was shake their heads in disbelief.