Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [6]
Randur already knew his folklore and history, had learned further during his journey. You had to be prepared for an important city like this, because Villjamur was the residence of the Emperor Jamur Johynn, and this island called Jokull was the Empire’s homeland. Once known as Vilhallan, it had been a collection of small farming settlements scattered around the original cave systems, now hidden behind the current architecture. Most of the city’s current population were in fact direct descendants of those early dwellers. Eleven thousand years ago. Before even the clan wars began. The community thrived on myth. With such a history, a wealth of cultures and creatures, the city was said to possess an emergent property.
Randur had been traveling for weeks. Somewhere on the way, on a superficial level, he’d become someone else. His mother was back in Ule, on the island of Folke. A stern yet strangely faithful woman, she’d raised him on her own in spite of the collapse of their wealth, which had happened when he was too young to know about it. He remembered hearing her coughing upstairs, in a musty room, the stench of death all too premature. Every time he entered it, he never knew what to expect.
She’d found him a “job” in Villjamur. It came through the influence of one of his shady uncles who was well connected on Y’iren and Folke as a trading dignitary, though he’d never shared his wealth with them. The man had always commented on Kapp’s good looks as if this was a hindrance in life. Then that same uncle informed Kapp’s mother that a man the same age and appearance as the lad had disappeared only the previous week. His name was Randur Estevu, and it was known that he was headed for employment in the Emperor’s house. He had even been a rival of Kapp’s at dance tournaments and in Vitassi bladework during the island’s festivals. The young man had made enemies all right, boasting all too often that he had sanctuary guaranteed in Villjamur before the Freeze came.
“You lot’ll turn to ice, fuckers,” the lad had said at the time, “while I got me safe digs at the warmest place in the Empire. Can’t say more, though, because I wouldn’t want you lot getting in on my connections.”
They’d found his body, or what was left of it, stuffed inside a crate on a decaying boat that hadn’t left the harbor at Geu Docks for as long as anyone could remember. No one was even shocked the boy was dead. They were more interested in the old boat itself, as it seemed to fulfill some maritime prophecy someone had mentioned the week before.
Kapp then became Randur Estevu. Fled south with fake identification to the Sanctuary City.
He was told by his mother to seek his fortune there, where the family line might have a chance to survive the arrival of the ice. He had no idea what the real Randur Estevu was to be doing in Villjamur, as the stolen papers didn’t explain. Besides, Randur, as he would now be known, had his own schemes.
He fingered the coin in his pocket, the one the cultist had handed him all those years ago, in the darkness, on that night of blood.
Garudas loomed above on the battlements beside the final gate leading into the city. They stood with folded arms. Half vulture, half man: wings, beaks, talons on a human form. Cloaks and minimal armor. White faces that seemed to glow in this gray light. During his few days in a Folke station of the Regiment—which he joined on a poetic whim, and primarily to impress this girl who was all longing glances and unlikely promises—the men talked much about the skills of the garuda. It seemed only a talented archer stood a chance of deleting one from the skies.
Soldiers had checked his