Cocoon - Amanda K. Johnson (good ebook reader txt) 📗

Cocoon

Amanda K. Johnson

a tale of Silesia

Going back hurts more than going forward. One step forward, two steps back. Before his appointment to the position of general, Fado had seen even worse. Ilekano's not his kind of hero, but he's a good enough sort of emperor. He's going to do what needs to be done.

The main fortress in Shirikh, Camwyn An Shirin's headquarters, is surrounded by black trees. They're long dead and charred to stalks of ebony ash by the smoke and fires from within. Such reckless disregard for the landscape and life around him is probably a sign of Camwyn's growing desperation. He's readying the fortress for his wake.

At Fado's side, Ilekano shifts impatiently. "Is the waiting difficult, Your Highness?”

"I'm ever an impatient man, Fado. The sooner Shirikh falls the better. Of course, that isn't to say I didn't wish they would capitulate peacefully."

"We both know the likelihood of that at this point." He feels a laugh, black at the gates of the netherworld rise up and then choke to death in his throat. Ilekano doesn't laugh either, but Fado thinks he is smothering the same ill urge. The emperor's eyebrows raise meaningfully. "...Unless you know something I don't, Your Highness?" Fado ventures.

Ilekano knows better than to continue with that train of optimistic thought. "What we know of Camwyn is all the same," he says, coolly.

"I suppose that's for the best." Ilekano gives him a look and he feels the sudden urge to defend his remark. "Not to say that you should know more than the rest of us, Your Highness, but that-"

"I know, Fado," the emperor cuts him off, "I understand what you're trying to say to me."

Ilekano's words shoot straight to the heart of things as they tend to do, in court, on the battlefield, and in personal encounters. He isn't much for rambling or poetry. He prefers simplicity. He prefers for things to quietly run the way he wants them to from the get-go. This is the only thing that causes friction between him and his head general. Fado is fond of baroquely structured speech, ornate lyrics, and over-long titles. Their personal styles are at odds in all ways. Ilekano even conducts war more simply than Fado. Sometimes too simply. And for that reason, he relies on this man.


"Give me the telescope."

"It's not a telescope, Your Highness," Fado can't resist the urge to speak out and have the thing called by its proper name, even when speaking to his emperor. He leans away from the embankment and passes Ilekano the looking glasses. "They're called binoculars."

"What does it matter?" Ilekano frowns back.

"That's just what they're called."

"I don't care about that kind of thing."

He would be going too far to call the older man lacking in culture for his uncaring attitude toward the proper designations of people and items. Even Fado cannot speak to Ilekano that way, and Fado says many things to his master that even the other emperor cannot, or dares not.

"You should be too busy with the war to care what things are rightly called," Ilekano remarks, taking up the binoculars and turning them onto the black fortress walls.

"If things are not rightly called in war, there can be misunderstandings."

"As long as we are all calling things wrongly together, there will be no misunderstandings," Ilekano insists.

"It is as you say," Fado agrees to the meaning, if not the sentiment, and opens his eyes. He had not even realized they were closed and had been since he had set the binoculars aside. He takes a step away from the stone ruins they have made into a lookout post.

"Are you going?" Ilekano asks him, when the answer is obvious.

Fado makes a small sound meaning "yes," but doesn't speak. It is up to the emperor whether he will choose to follow or not. They are each their own masters, even while Fado answers to the older emperor. Despite the presence of a deep loyalty, it is also an awkward sort of allegiance.

The stone winds down for some distance in the form of something close to steps, but actually just a curving trail of blocks strewn down the hillside. The evening if darkening and the camp has lit its first torches. Fado is halfway down when he realizes Ilekano is following, stepping fast, stepping only on the stone and not the packed earth in between. His cloak flows behind him like a wayward shadow.

Fado stops to watch him. "Well, keep going," Ilekano urges when he is only several steps behind.

"Watch your step," the general answers mildly.

His master does not respond to this, perhaps out of annoyance at the unnecessary advice, or perhaps merely because he prefers to keep silent.


The men are all stirred up.

When they rest from fighting, they do so impatiently. They brush down the horses and speak in whispers. They are close to the fortress here and there is a rumor making the rounds that the enemy war mages possess the skill of far-hearing. If there exists a form of far-hearing powerful enough to catch their voices at this distance Fado thinks that it is useless to bother with whispering.

"How are you?" his aide approaches and asks.

Fado raises his head from the terrain map he has been studying. He can hear the continued scrape and sniff in Captain Gan Alion's normally sweet, honey-like voice. "I don't think it's a cold. I think I'm allergic to something out here," he says when after a certain space of time Fado does not respond to his question. Whether Fado really wants to know about his health problems he can't say, but the general has been so kind to him throughout the course of the entire campaign he figures saying so can't hurt any.

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing," Fado remarks. The nearby torches flicker with a passing breeze.

Gan Alion rubs the heavy fabric of his military tunic between his gloved fingers. He doesn't like the feel of the material when he touches it with his bare hands, but its weight between his leather gloves felt nice. "Maybe I'm developing an allergy to war," he tries to joke.

"Maybe I am too," Fado agrees.


Fado wakes with a start and immediately after does not know what kind of dream awakened him. He has been a general for years now, a soldier for longer. He is not unaccustomed to the sight of the strange and terrible things people do to each other. He pulls one hand out from under the warm of his brown blanket and touches his forehead. There is the distinct feel of sweat on his brow. The air is cold and after a moment he tucks the hand away again.

"What's there to be afraid of?" he asks himself, staring at the deep sienna of the inside of the tent. This is must be sort of what it's like to be in a cocoon. He goes in one thing and will come out another. In between there is only sleep.

"A scorpion, Fado?" Ilekano inquires, impudently opening the folds of the tent to peer in at this general. It is dark inside the tent, but not all that light outside either; another cloudy day in Shirikh.

The thought hadn't occurred to Fado and he gives the area directly around him a quick scanning with his eyes. Some of his men have awakened before to spiders or scorpions walking across their limbs. Those tiny creatures have proved far deadlier than An Shirin's warriors. For one thing, they actually come out of hiding.

Neither Fado's nor Ilekano's glance reveals anything and Fado props himself up on his elbows, turning his eyes to the emperor. Ilekano does whatever he wants, that's for certain. Was he just walking by being nosy or had Fado's cry actually been loud enough to attract outside attention? The later conclusion would be rather embarrassing.

It isn't until this juncture that he notices that Ilekano's hair is down. It is thick and black, taken to curling slightly at the edges where it grows the longest. He tends to wear it swept back in a topknot, which is convenient for wear with the armor of war, and also flattering to his lines of his well-defined face. When he was younger, he looked awkward and sharp, but age has refined him and made him handsome. The opposite effect had been observed on his rounder-faced younger brother.

"There are lots of enemies in Shirikh," the emperor says. He doesn't come any further into the tent, but he doesn't leave it either, hanging listlessly between the stale air inside and the fire-scented calm without. "Even the animals are unhappy that we have come here."

"It will be good when this is over with," Fado agrees. He reaches up and brushes back some hair, which is sticking to the side of his cheek. At night when he takes out the tie keeping his hair, just past shoulder length and black like the emperor's, out of his face, it all comes falling back in. It does not tangle easily, but tends to stray in every direction like bindweed choking a garden if it is not restrained.

"Camwyn doesn't have much strength left in him," Ilekano continues optimistically. "I'll have unified Greater Silesia by this time next week. Then my reign can truly begin. Do you think it'll be glorious when it happens, Fado?"

"I don't know anything about glory, Your Highness," he admits.

It's a disappointing statement, as far as Ilekano is concerned. Fado is the imaginative one, isn't he? He's a poet, isn't he? Shouldn't he be able to use all those fine words of his to conjure up a picture of the coming glory? He is quite displeased with Fado for the first time on this long campaign. If Fado wants the end to come that badly, shouldn't he be ready to envision a wonderful conclusion to all of it? Maybe he does not understand his general the way he thinks he does. Being wrong is not a pleasant sensation. He doesn't know what to say next after thinking these things. He does not want to give air to his bitterness.

"I'll leave you to dress," he settles on, tossing back the flap of the tent. He shouldn't be wasting his time with Fado anyway. Not when the end of is so close. He will brush back his hair and bind himself up in his most beautiful armor in hopes that this will be the day that An Shirin is felled by his army. He wants to appear at his most heroic when that moment comes. It doesn't matter whether he is the one who actually finishes off the defeated An Shirin or not, but he does want to appear in