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All things have their opposite, or so the Lector told Arondal and Ethiladan each day after the First Bell rang and their lessons had begun.
The Lector was an ancient man brought by Father all the way from Riandathar, the White City upon the sea, away in the North beyond the Three Towers and Tar Mandithar. He had arrived on the twins’ fifth birthday. Father had tried to call the man’s appearance a sort of gift for the two boys, but of course, Ethil had complained—loudly—that what he wanted for his birthday was a riding horse and not some stuffy old school teacher (Arondal’s brother had pulled him aside a year earlier on their fourth birthday and said that both their names were too much a mouthful to be used often . . . since then, Ethiladan had been Ethil and Arondal had been Aron and they’d both been spared a lot of tongue work). Aron had had kept his mouth shut, sparing himself the fierce strapping Ethil earned for his cheek, but he felt much the same as his brother about the Lector. What he’d really wanted was a sword.
Despite the twins’ voiced (and unvoiced) disapproval, the Lector had stayed and their schooling had begun. And, two years later, the Lector was as much a part of the family as Cook or Sheriff or even Old Gill the houndmaster. Both Father and Mother called the man by his right name—Gavim; but the one time when Ethil did the same, the Lector had hauled him by the ear out to the strapping block Father kept beneath the old oak tree in the corner of the courtyard and paddled him until he was bawling like a newborn calf. After that, Aron resolved to never call the man anything but Lector.
“Can there be life but where there is death?” the old man would ask as he passed out parchment and trimmed their quills, his strange accent so thick that Aron could only understand half the words the man said.
Their reply was always the same: “No, Lector.”
To which he would respond, sometimes without even waiting for them to speak, “And rightly so. Just as a plant”—he would gesture to the small potted flower that Mother’s sister had sent her from the South—“is nourished and strengthened by the soil until it reaches its full height, so too the soil is replenished by the plant as it decays and dies, falling back to the earth from whence it came. Day and night, the planting and the harvest, life and death: the course of all things is described by the Balance.
Then the Lector would gather up his pale gray robes, and—seating himself on his tall stool before Aron and Ethil—begin reciting in his gravely voice their lessons.
Ethil insisted that the Lector—and by association all the Old Folk that lived on or near their home, Tar Derethon, were all daft, and that there was no Balance of any kind.
“If Old Gavim was right,” his brother had said one day with a grin and a wink while stuffing three or four of Cook’s fresh-baked pasties into his pockets, “Then I’d get caught for this and Father would strap me silly. Now come on Aron, grab a few more for us.”
The pasties had been delicious, and just as Ethil had predicted, they’d never been caught. And yet, Ethil’s indifference towards the Balance never sat right with Aron; a feeling of uneasiness lodged itself in the pit of his stomach for days at a time whenever the Lector or Ethil brought the subject up, so that he was constantly looking over his shoulder trying to spy something that wasn’t really there.
The feeling came one day when the Lector had fallen asleep midway through the day’s lesson and they two had crept quietly out of the study, snuck past the Hall where Mother was tending to a group of freemen who’d come with complaints about taxes, and darted out the tiny side-door that led to the kitchens and the stables. From there they had slunk west through the shadows that clung to the base of the rough stone wall that encircled the courtyard, to the dog-gate set deep in a dark alcove in the wall.
The gate, barely large enough for a single grown man to squeeze through, was always locked, but they’d solved that problem nearly a year earlier. It had been Ethil who’d slipped the key off a sleeping guard’s belt one brisk autumn afternoon and made an impression of it in a bar of soap Aron had nicked from Mother’s room. It had taken weeks to carve a wooden key strong enough and of the proper shape to turn the lock, but their efforts had been amply rewarded: the whole world beyond Tar Derethon’s dark walls opened its arms to them . . . and more importantly, neither Father nor Mother, nor any of the Old Folk knew it.
On the day of the Lector’s inadvertent nap they had pushed through the dog-gate and leapt down through the tall, golden grass that carpeted the steep hill as it rolled down to the long, broken shore that was the castle’s namesake. There was a narrow path that snaked down the steep slope, but they had ignored it, half-running, half-rolling instead down the slope, swinging their arms wide to brush back the thick grass, laughing with delight and nearly dizzy from the heady smell of turf, the sea, and the white Daystar blossoms that bobbed in the cool breeze.
Aron had thrown off his shoes and rushed out onto the strand, feet crunching through the rounded pebbles, the surf hissing around his ankles, but Ethil stopped at the edge of the grassy slope, where the waist-high turf and bobbing flowers gave way to the dark, wet gravel of the Derethon, the Long Shore. Grey clouds were rolling in from the west, veiling the afternoon light. To the north, dark wings of rain curtained the distant dunes that marched along the margin of the sea.
Long, blond hair matted to his forehead by the sea spray, Aron had twirled about happily, arms spread wide, and crowed: “Don’t you love it, Ethil? Isn’t the sea wonderful? You can go anywhere on the sea. Why, if I were as strong as Father I could swim to the Jade Tower from here!”
Thunder was muttering, nearer by then, its dark voice mixing with the endless murmur of the sea and the hiss of the dark gravel on the Derethon and the whisper of rain drops moving closer along the shore. It was as if the world were alive, alive and speaking to Aron in a thousand different tongues. If only he could just understand it . . . then he’d know more than the Lector with all his dusty books ever had.
“No I don’t like it,” Ethil shouted back at him from the edge of the grass, and Aron found he’d moved further out into the surf without realizing it. Water sloshed about his knees, and he could feel the pebbles tumbling over his toes as they were dragged out to sea by the receding waves. “I don’t like the sea, Aron,” Ethil continued. “I never have.” His brother took a few steps back into the tall grass and carefully sat down. “You can drown in the sea, Father told me so. You can’t drown on land.” Ethil thumped a fist against the hard earth meaningfully, “Its too hard, see? There’s no order in the water. I don’t like it. We should go back, Lector will be looking for us.”
It was then that the Feeling came to Aron, and for the first time in his life he could sense the Balance, almost like it were a living, breathing thing, standing right next to him. Somewhere, high above in the endless sky, the sun’s light broke through the gathering clouds and pierced the mists and rain that swathed the Derethon. For an instant that seemed an hour long, the world stopped, and Aron caught his breath. Sunlight, bright and pure, vied in his dazzled eyes with the dark shadows of the storm clouds. The rain falling on the dark shore hissed into steam and rose again skyward. Waves broke on the shore, pushing the sea’s limit inward for an instant before being forced back by the slope of the land. Everything, from the surging foam to the shifting shoreline dunes to the light of sun and dark of cloud, was caught up in the Balance, creeping forward and then back in an endless dance that pulled down everything that was built up, thrust up all that was broken down.
Aron breathed in, lungs expanding, and then breathed out. For a fleeting instant, he worried that it would be his last breath, for all the world seemed to be poised on a knife edge, balanced perfectly, but only barely so.
And then the moment passed.
Sound returned, and Aron gasped, filling his lungs with salty air. He blinked, and blinked again, working the salty spray out of his eyes. The piercing shaft of light that had torn through the clouds a moment earlier disappeared, and the storm rolled in closer to the shore.
Ethil was standing again, still well back in the grass, shouting at him that they’d best get back to the castle before the Lector ratted them out.
Around blinked once more. How long had he been standing there? The tide must have been coming in, for the water was up to his waist. Or had he stepped further out to sea? Ethil certainly seemed further away.
Slowly, reluctantly, he took a step towards the shore. His feet moved like they belonged to someone else, but with each step they seemed to gain strength, pulling him further out of the water. It was like Aron was waking from a dream, with step, reality became more solid, Ethil’s voice louder.
And with each step, the voices of the ocean, the air, and the earth grew quieter and more confused, until—by the time he reached the spot where Ethil was waiting for him—they were voices no longer, just the noises of a world that Aron could never understand.
The rain fell harder, drowning the world in mist, and like two wraiths, the boys slipped back up the hill, this time following the muddy path, and disappeared into the castle.
Another aspect of the Balance was revealed to Aron that day, for the peace they had known all their lives was shattered by the arrival of news from the North.
All things change, for Change is the wheel that drives the Balance.
They entered the Keep through the side-door, rain-soaked and shivering, to find Father and Mother waiting for them in the Hall. Besides their parents, the Hall was empty, save for one other man. Grim and half-hidden beneath the hood of his dark cloak, the man was a messenger from the High King at Riandathar.
Dark storms were brewing in the North, and fell creatures were gathering in the hills and mountains. War was coming. It would break upon the Kindoms of Men before the first snows of winter fell. The messenger had come to Tar Derethon to call on Father to fulfill his oaths as a Ring-holder to the High King: to gather what men he could and ride to the High King’s aid in the coming struggle.
Her face tear-stained, Mother had pulled them close, and Aron could feel her trembling. Father, his face pale but determined, had then hugged them both. “I will return,” he said, gray eyes holding Aron’s gaze, “I will return, and Tar Derethon will know happiness again.”
There in the Hall, Father gave Ethil his ring and, laying his right hand on Ethil’s dark head, named him Lord-in-Waiting of Tar Derethon and the Long Shore, and Master of all the Folk that lived there, should Father not return from the North.
Father rode out that same day, as the sun was fading, the King’s messenger at his side and five hundred spears at his back, long banners snapping in the cold breeze that blew in from the sea.
Aron stood on the steps of the Keep with Ethil and Mother, who was dressed in black and had her face veiled. Father had bid them all farewell inside, and out in the cold no one spoke, not even the gathered soldiers. Only once did Father look back, raising his hand high towards them. Then he turned, and with drums rolling, left Tar Derethon.
When the last soldier had ridden out the gate was shut. Ethil turned without speaking, and entered the Keep, but Mother didn’t move, so Aron waited with her, until even the sound of hooves and armor had faded, and night without moon or stars fell.
Darkness lay on Tar Derethon.
Time passed.
Autumn failed, white snow fell, and winter crept over the land. Besides Father’s absence, which Ethil and Aron both felt keenly, life continued much as it had before. The Lector still roused them early each day, chivvying them as they washed and dressed and broke their fast, then leading them to the study with its tall windows and smell of parchment and wax, where he spoke of the Balance and then gave them their lessons. They did, however, see less of Mother, who—three weeks after Father had left—took to standing hours at a time on the high tower that rose up from the Keep, where she gazed north and said nothing to the maids that waited with her. 