Chapter 2: A Changing Tide

With one last look at Vachyllon, I turned on my heels and ran down the way towards the prefecture. My bare feet were quick on the well-worn path, and soon I entered the sole gate of the prefecture. The path widened into a road and I quickly made my way through the orderly buildings towards the center, the location of the houses of the aldermen and alderwomen. The largest and finest of these edifices belonged to Vachyllon's father; it stood four levels with two towers on either side reaching another three levels skyward. There was a stonewall surrounding the house and its magnificent gardens, and I stopped my sprint only when I reached this private gate.

At the gate, the path changed from the dirt of the road to neat, white cobblestones, which matched the white stone of the house, and the pavement was painful to run on. I entered at a walk and went to the large, double main doors. A thrall, dressed in nice, yet plain, black garments, answered my summonses. I told him that Vachyllon would be arriving shortly with four strangers from the Ring of Water, and that the alderman must be informed immediately. The thrall nodded his shaven head and vanished with no farther acknowledgement to relay the information to his master.

I turned from the closed doors and left the house grounds to return to my father's flock in the meadows.

As I approached the gate from within, Vachyllon and the strangers were approaching from without. The older of the men was gazing about at the high prefecture wall with a weary look while the other man, a man of darker skin with a strange gold marking upon his forehead, calmly looked around at the denizens and thralls that stared with quiet awe at them. The fourth stranger, a woman, was also looking around, but her blue eyes lingered on me as I stopped by Vachyllon and the stranger who spoke with him.

"I thank you, my Roani," Vachyllon said with a pleased smile. He kissed my forehead to show his great pleasure, and I could not help but smile in return. "I have sent a thrall, a young boy, to lead your father's flock back to his house. I wish for you to join us in my father's house this eve."

"Vachyllon—" I attempted to persuade him of the notion. I was not fit to attend a dinner at the supreme alderman's home, as I had spent the entire day in the meadow with the flock. However, he would not be swayed, and his decision stood firm.

"You will, and that is final. Come!" Vachyllon took my arm, and we walked through the prefecture. The stranger resumed his conversation with Vachyllon.

"What did you call the…ah, doorway?" the stranger asked. He brushed his brown hair from his forehead.

"We call the portal—the doorway—the Ring of Water," Vachyllon provided amiably.

"I saw that the Ring of Water was placed in a garden of some type. Is it used often?"

"No. The doorway has been closed for hundreds of years, and some of our people now believe that the stories around it were mere legend and it, being a monument to the legends, had no real power. Your arrival to our lands will cause some tension among the aldermen and alderwomen, if not panic among the denizens."

Lines appeared on the stranger's forehead once more, which interested me as I watched his face contort. "I do not know…these words…aldermen? denizens?"

"Our society is made up of levels: the highest is the aldermen and alderwomen, then elite, then denizens, and lastly thralls. The aldermen are fewest in number because of their great importance and precise lineage, and denizens the largest."

Vachyllon's voice was calm as he explained our society in simple, childlike terms to the stranger, who nodded his head and spoke rapidly in a strange, harsh sounding language to his three companions. The oldest man responded sharply, his eyes constantly surveying the buildings and people around us.

I listened to all though I could not in any way comprehend what was said amongst them. Before the stranger could ask more questions of Vachyllon, we reached his father's house and were greeted by the same thrall that I spoke to, as well as two more, a man and a woman.

"Mist'r, the supreme alderman requested your presence in his study," the shaven thrall spoke respectfully to Vachyllon as he gave a servile bow. The entire time his eyes and the eyes of the other thralls remained on the stone flooring. "And he has requested that the guests freshen up before dinner."

Vachyllon nodded and turned to the preceptor stranger. "Before we can meet with my father, you must freshen up. If you," he gestured to the three men and then to the male thrall in a simple blue garment, "would follow the thrall to a proper chamber, and you," he gestured to the woman and indicated the female thrall in green.

The man translated Vachyllon's instructions, and the older stranger spoke up quickly. The translator appeared frustrated as he directed his speech to Vachyllon again, and his brow creased deeper. "We were wanting…to speak with the alderman… soon," he said to Vachyllon.

"Yes, soon, but you cannot see him wearing those garments and immediately after journeying. What host would I be if I allowed such dishonor to be shown, not only to my father, but to you?" Vachyllon demanded. His voice reverberated off the polished walls of the foyer and the oldest of the strangers' raised one eyebrow, a feat I had never seen preformed before. It was apparent to the strangers that Vachyllon's mind would not be changed.

Vachyllon tilted his head slightly to one side and indicated the thralls once more. "Now go."

The strangers reluctantly obeyed, and the three men were led up the staircase by the male thrall. The woman waited patiently with the other as Vachyllon turned to me. His gray eyes were bright with excitement, emotions he rarely made evident, as he laid his hands gently on my shoulders.

"My Roani, this is an important event, and I felt it was only appropriate to include you," he explained mellifluously. "The presence of the wayfarers has proven your great-grandfather's ideas and statements of the Ring of Water to be truth, and perhaps the wrong done to your family can be made right." He leaned down and kissed my brow, eyes sparkling with pleasure. "Now go join my father's guest and remove the smell of sheep from yourself."

"You have told me before that the smell of sheep is pleasing to you," I teased him softly. His angular face brightened with an amused smile, and his gray eyes seemed to grow just a shade lighter.

"So it does; however, my father does not find such perfume as pleasurable as I, my Roani."

I bowed my head and crossed the spacious foyer to join the woman and the thrall.