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The Common Boy

"The court, the vision, and the smith"

Part one: the court

Tuesday, July 29th

That night as I slept I dreamt about the fire, and the burning house, the fear that I felt then resurfaced and I woke, sitting up strait, in a cold sweet, covering my mouth to smother a scream. When I calmed down a little I looked around. Gary was sitting in the chair of my desk, he had been watching me sleep, and at the moment it looked like he was thinking.

When he looked directly at me and saw the fear in my eyes and looked at the hand that still covered my mouth he asked, "Did you dream about the fire? I did, I don't know why but I did." I sighed and said, "Ya, I dreamt about the fire, but and I think that you dreamt about it because no matter who this happened to it is a bad memory to have." Gary nodded and said, "Well to change the subject, Beka left a little while ago, so I want to show you the secret entrances and exits before we head to the court." I got dressed and followed my dad around the house. The window in his room led to the roof, so if you had to escape you could run along the roof tops. There was a trap door in the cellar that led to a walkway that connected directly to the court. And there was an exit under my bed, which was a tunnel that led outside the city walls.

We left the house and headed for the court, The Dancing Dove. When we got there Gary went through the front, and to Gary's discomfort, I went through the side entrance that I usually use. I got to his throne and placed his usual drink on the stand that was next to his throne. He walked over to me and said, "I don't think you should serve anymore, here" he pulls a chair up beside his throne and said "sit down and relax, I want to show you how I govern my people, and maybe I'll let you chose some of their fates, and tomorrow you can do whatever you like. O.K?"

"Alright," I said, I sat down and smiled. I looked around watching people come in and sit at tables. One after another the other members of the court came and sat down, none of them asked or protested about me sitting next to the throne, they all knew why I was there. People in the crowd saw me and started to whisper. When all the members of the court were assembled people started to approach to ask for aid.

My dad whispered into my ear and said, "If we have to vote for a punishment and the votes are equal on all sides you will get the deciding vote. If the punishment is small or extremely high you will choose the punishment, so I can see how you judge a situation. Don't interrupt one of the people who is asking for help, and don't interrupt a member of the court when they speak, is that understood?" I whispered back just as quietly, "yes." Then proceeded what I expected to be a very boring day.

To my surprise I had fun, everyone who came before the council, for help, or for crime, were heard, and then after they spoke the council discussed either the punishment, or the way that they could help the person. At the end of each discussion I gave my opinion, which was always heard and encouraged more so than not they would go with my opinion, which was often a more merciful, or helpful, for those who came before us. I gave them a way to give more food rations to those who needed them, without using up our stores of food. I chose the fate of many men, if they were to be executed or not, and if not what would be their punishment. I gave the order to kill 5 times, the first two were murderers, and the other three were kidnappers, which to all honesty I was less merciful to them. I let ten men live, 4 were colemongers, makers of illegal coins. They had their right hands removed and a glowing silver coin tattoo on their left hand, to forever name them as colemongers. The other six stole from our stores, the punishment I gave them was, they had to pay back everything that they stole along with an extra 5 gold nobles for each item stolen, to discourage them, and anyone else from stealing from us.

For every decision that I made Gary made me give a reason for why I gave that punishment, except for the kidnappers, which he fully understood.

That night as we were leaving the court a man walked up to us, he was very angry, he yelled at Gary, "why are you letting a 'CHILD' govern us, and choose what the court does!?" Gary looked squarely at this man, and said in a threatening tone, that could make the most courageous man run, "This boy is my son, If you don't think that he is worthy of choosing the punishment of a low life criminal than I want you out of the court, actually I want you out of the city, tonight!"

This only made the man angrier, and before Gary could do anything the man charged at me with a knife in his hand. When he got within my reach I grabbed his wrist and twisted, making him drop the knife. He pulled his hand out of my hold and grabbed for me, I noticed he balanced mainly on his right leg, which told me that his left leg had been previously hurt. I ducked in-between his legs and smashed my fist into his left knee, I felt the crack of broken bone. I stood up as he fell to his knees, I was behind him now, and I picked up his dropped knife and placed it on his neck, just below his chin and added pressure. Many people had watched this fight, no one tried to help a fool who attacked a boy personally trained by the rough. Gary said, "If you want to you can kill him, no one here would hold it against you," I shook my head and said, "this man still has the choice to leave the city, and if he doesn't then he should be put before the courts judgment not my own."

The pride that was visible on my father's face, made him glow with happiness. I stood, releasing the man, and my father walked over to me, picked me up, then kicked the man into a pile of manure, and then brought me home. People were cheering us all the way home. We walked into the door of our house, my mom was just finishing making dinner and placing the food on the table.

As we were eating and talking about the wondrous day, a thought grew in my head, and I blurted out, "I want to be a knight when I grow up." I had spoken before I realized that my father might be unhappy with what I said, but to my surprise he smiled and said, "We can work on that, it will take some time, but I think it is possible that we can make you a knight."

Part two: the vision

That night as I slept, I dreamt, I was standing on a cliff over Corus, the sun was setting over mountains glowing pink over a shredded cloud covered sky. I looked at the ground and about 20 miles off in the distance, an army was approaching, the flag that was flying above them was one that I have never seen before. It was a sun design in the background with a dragon at war with a boat. I looked back at Corus and saw that an army was exiting the gates heading out to fight the approaching warriors. In the front were two men, one was wearing the gold armor of the king, and the other was wearing silver armor in the same style as Mithros' armor except silver not gold.

I heard a voice say, "One of these men is you, this is the path that you have chosen, it is grave with many hardships, but you will find your love, and many friendships." The voice faded but the dream continued, the two armies collided and battled for hours, neither having the upper hand, then in the middle of the enemies army the man in silver armor started to glow, power erupted from him swarming the enemy and they all dropped their weapons and collapsed to their knees, none of them dead, they just gave up.

I woke with a start, my eyes flashed open I realized that it was probably just a dream but it was terrifying none the less, I could smell food cooking and I could hear Beka humming a tune.

Part three: the smith

Wednesday, July 30th

I sat up in my bed and felt sunlight on my face, I got out of bed and changed into my day clothes and headed toward the kitchen, were I heard Beka humming. Beka heard me enter the kitchen, and without turning around she said, "Gary went to Port Caine to have a talk about why they sent colemongers into our city, the ones that you so kindly showed mercy to told Gary who they worked for."

I nodded looking at my feet, and then I looked into her face and saw sadness in her eyes, my guess of why is because she know that I ordered some peoples deaths yesterday. But, I also saw pride, she was proud of me for making merciful, and adult choices and she was also proud that I didn't want to just live as a thief. I wanted to move forward in life, I wanted to become a knight. And, she knows that if I had to, I would pay for it all by myself, and she knew I could.

I smiled and thinking about my future said, "I want to learn how to make armor fit for nobles, so that when I become a knight I'll be able to make my own armor and weapons. So, today I will be heading to the blacksmiths and seeing what I will be allowed to learn from him." Beka smiled and said, "Try your best, and be home by ten o'clock, no later, okay?" I said, "Okay, I'll be home by ten."

About to run out of the house Beka said, "Before you leave you need to eat some breakfast, here." She placed a plate with eggs, pancakes, and bacon in front of a chair and said "eat." I sat down and started eating; it was delicious, like everything else that Beka had ever made for me. I ate with happiness, and when I was finished I said, "thank you," and went out the door.

I headed straight to the closest blacksmiths, which was a 10 minute walk from my house. I saw the blacksmith leaning against the side of his forge, on break, or so it seemed. I approached him, he looked at me and said, "Hello, I can't help you at the moment, my last apprentice learned all that he could from me and now I'm waiting for my new apprentice, his brother to arrive." I looked down and said, "I was wondering if you can teach me to make armor and weapons that are fit for knights? I'm not the apprentice that you were expecting but I am willing to learn and I will pay for the lessons."

He laughed, with a deep roar within his stomach, and said, "Well seeing as you are early, and the apprentice I am waiting for is late, I will teach you. I don't need payment; you just won't get paid for items until you can make something worth the price, understood?" I nodded and asked, "What do I need to do first?" he smiled and said, "first I will teach you how to keep the forge at a perfect heat for hours at a time." I nodded and walked into the forge, with him right behind me.

For the rest of the day I worked on keeping the fire at a constant heat, it took an hour to master, but I had to keep pumping the bellows every 30 minutes about thirteen pumps. When I got the heat perfect he started to teach me the difference between each metal, where they were made, what heat they needed to melt, how long in the heat to make it perfect. That is all I did the first day. Just pump the bellows and memorize information. I don't know why, but I had fun.

I headed home at about 9:30, when he closed the forge; the apprentice that he had waited for came about 3 hours after I got there. When he got there the blacksmith, Fredrick, had him make nails for the entire time he was there, for being so late. The kid made 400 nails in 2 hours then got mad and left, I took the two buckets of nails and placed them next to the others, which were given to carpenters at the end of the day.

When I got home Beka wasn't home yet and Gary was still in Port Caine. I went to the living space, and took a book of maps from the book shelf and started to memorize the maps of our allies, just to have them in my mind. I was putting the book away and hour later when Beka came home. She closed the door and said, "How was your day?" I put the book on the shelf and started telling her about my day. She made dinner and when we finished eating we went to sleep.

The rest of the week I spent working the bellows and memorizing, then on Friday I started making nails, I did this through Friday, and Saturday, I used every kind of ore, because Fred told me to. He let me keep the gold and silver nails as medals of my mastery of nails. I placed them in slots that were in the side of my black box. Gary came home on Sunday, the rest day; we all went for a walk around town, we went to the market and a show, we had fun and everything was perfect. When we got home we were all tired and went straight for bed.

Monday, 4th august

Monday morning, I woke up and had breakfast with my parents. After the meal I headed to the smiths, on the way I saw Myles in an alley way, he was standing with the same group. They looked like they were getting ready to do something, but I couldn't tell what. I put the thought of them in the back of my mind and continued to the smiths.

I got to the smiths and started to work on cleaning and starting the fire. Fred came as I was getting the fire to the perfect heat, which is what we planned a while ago. I stood and asked, "So, what do I learn today?" Fred walks over to the pile of ores then he says, "You will learn to make knives." He tossed me some Iron and I put it in the forge, to melt it down for the knives, Fred set up the molds.

For the next three weeks I worked on making knives each one sharper, or stronger, sometimes they would be to weak, or to thin and they would break. But I succeeded in making the perfect belt knives, daggers, and a well made sword, which was just a trial, but it was my first sword.

I took them home and when I got to my house I showed them to my parents. Gary tested each one and when he was finished he said, "These are the sharpest blades that I've seen in a very long time. And you made them?" I nodded and said, "I've been perfecting my abilities on how to make these knives for about a month now, I think that I know how to make a sharp knife." Gary smirked and said, "Alright," then progressed to tell us about his day and the daily beggars, and bribes of his business. After dinner we headed to bed like always and went to sleep.

Tuesday 26th august

When I woke I smelled smoke, like something was on fire, I ran to the front door and through it open, what I saw outside at that moment brought back the horrible memory of my first house burning, a great fury built up inside me and I ran toward the man burning at the stake, not knowing that my body was glowing.

so hows the story so far, this one is almost over and the next is soon to come, hope you enjoy. please review, I feel as if no one is really reading these stories.

I will add the last chapter when it is finished, but I won't add my next story/ or the sequel of this story unless someone posts. but I will start writing my next story soon- completely different story.

Ta Ta for now.