"Now close your eyes, and tell me what you smell," his mother said. Scents of wood, lemon and greenery rose up to meet him.
"You always pick thyme," he pouted, disappointed.
"The last time we played this game you told me it was too hard. I wanted to give you a boost of confidence before this next one."
"Have we done it before?" He was eager to win now that she'd challenged him. She smiled and tousled his hair.
"I have. You didn't get it, but I have a good feeling this time. Shut your eyes." Now the smell had a burning quality, it singed his nostrils and brought with it the smell of char and dark, savory spices, the kind used to season heavy meat.
"It's nalphor."
"You got it!" His mother had moss green eyes and honey blonde hair. Everything about her seemed golden. The warmth on her face faded as she looked over his shoulder.
"What are you teaching him, Illeah?" He fought the instinct to jump off the stool and hide behind his mother at the sound of Brendol's voice.
"We were just playing a game."
"He's six. This is unseemly. Do you want him to be a kitchen wench when he grows up?" Armitage twisted on the stool to look at his father. Water dotted his uniform and he shook the raindrops from his hat. From his tone, Armitage understood that it would be somehow shameful for him to be like his mother.
"No, Sir," she said. Sometimes she called his father Brendol, but when she was afraid of him she called him Sir.
"Do you want to be a kitchen wench, boy?" Armitage couldn't find the words. He took a step backwards and he felt the reassuring touch of his mother's hand on his shoulder. He shook his head.
"Good. Come here." Armitage did not want to; he hesitated. His father sighed, "You spend too much time with women. It has made you craven. I was going to come and ask you to sit at table tonight, but this might be your place after all. I don't want you to embarrass me." Armitage felt his mouth drop open. He wanted to sit with his father at the high raised table instead of eating in the kitchen with his mother and the various groundskeepers and servants. He didn't even know that he was going to get the chance, and just like that it was gone.
"It's not fair," he whined.
"Come Armitage. There might be a way that you can earn your seat."
When Brendol gave an order, Armitage obeyed it, because his mother always did too. He followed his father out into the rain. It wasn't pouring, but it wasn't a mist either. He would have preferred to have his coat, but he needed to be a man like his father, so that he could sit at the high table and look out over the cadets. The rain dripped down his shirt collar. He hoped he would get to change before dinner.
They crossed the lawn, boots sinking in the mud, and stood at the edge of the cliffs. The sea was calmer than usual, when it got roiling at high tide the water would break against the base of the cliffs where they stood. Its retreat had exposed a long stretch of rocky shoreline that extended down the coast until the silver wash of rain wedded together the greys of the beach and the sky.
Without warning, his father flung his cap off of his head. Armitage looked on, speechless. It was a nice cap, one that he imagined wearing. The cap landed less than a meter from the water. For just a moment, Armitage worried that his father meant to throw him next and he backed away from the cliff's edge.
"Please get my cap, Armitage," Brendol said calmly, as though he hadn't just flung it away on purpose.
"But Sir! I'm not allowed-" Brendol held up his hand.
"I'm allowing you. Go get it."
"Not even the cadets are allowed to go down there," Armitage said uncertainly. Brendol hunkered down beside him.
"I'm offering you a chance to redeem yourself. If you go down and get my cap, then you can sit with me at dinner. Wouldn't you like that?" Brendol's voice was soft and gentle, and Armitage realized that he was being given a second chance, even though he didn't deserve it.
But then he looked out at the water again and imagined huge serpents lurking just underneath the waves. Brendol clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Armitage," he began, "You are not a strong boy. You are not a brave boy. But you are canny and quick. Sometimes that's enough. Can you show me? Show me how clever you are."
Armitage swallowed and resolved to show his father that he was all of those things. He headed towards the ancient steps of crumbling stone that had been cut into the cliffside. The steps were narrow, even for someone as small as himself, and he decided that the best way down was to slide down them on his bottom. As he reached the beach the stone gave way to wooden steps that were slick with the rain. He eased off of them, his back against the cliff face.
The beach was covered in blue, grey and occasionally red stones, all polished round by the punishing surf. Near the cliff they were bigger and he hopped from rock to shifting rock. Closer to the shore, the stones would fit comfortably in his hand and they became even smaller as they approached the water, until they were so small that he could fit a fistful in his pockets. In the area of the small stones, there were a few spots of flat grey sand, pocked and rippling from the rain. At irregular intervals, huge boulders jutted up from the beach. Brendol's cap lay on a part of the beach covered by the smallest pebbles. To get it, he would be close enough to the water that something could easily slide out and eat him. He was so focused on the cap he didn't see the figure on the boulder until he had started moving towards the surf.
More accurately, he saw the long tentacle twitch towards him as it lay amongst the rocks, impossible to see initially because it was also slate grey. The whole grotesque length of the tentacle was attached to a figure sitting up on one of the boulders. It was staring at him. One eye was obliterated by a huge white barnacle, the other eye was blue with a milky film over it. It was fixed directly on him. Its head was only slightly smaller than the carapace of the rest of it, a slimy greenish grey shell. Three other tentacles, each at least as long as the length of the kitchen, lay undulating uselessly against the rocks. Its mouth was by far the most horrible, a perfect, thin raised circle of melon pink, lurid against the otherwise monochromatic color of the creature.
He'd never seen one before, but he knew exactly what it was. He flailed back towards the cliffside, skinning his knee as a rock gave way underneath him. He was too afraid to cry out, or even to notice if his knee hurt. The ralom did not move, but continued to watch him with that single eye, its four tentacles quivering. His entire body shook. He wanted to run but couldn't stand the thought of putting that horrible thing to his back. He crouched back against the base of the cliff.
Having lived beside the ocean for his whole life, he appreciated that there was a subtle change in the sound of the water. The waves were coming closer. If he were going to get Brendol's cap before the tide did and not be trapped in a kitchen with his mother forever, it had to be now. Which meant that he would need to run past the ralom on its rock. He studied the thing for several long minutes. Though it never looked away from him, it did not come closer. Armitage realized that it couldn't move on land and the tremors that he saw coursing down the long tentacles were the thing trying ineffectually to crawl.
He sidled closer, mindful to stay out of the reach of the tentacles. He picked up an egg-sized rock and before he could think about it, he pitched it at the ralom. It made contact with a splintering crack but Armitage didn't see where he'd hit it because he was already running towards the surf as fast as he could. He grabbed the cap and pelted towards the stairs.
When he reached the top of the cliff he was crying hysterically. Ralom were portents of disaster, the first harbingers of the apocalypse. He was safe in that he had not been eaten, but he now bore the terrible knowledge that the world was ending. His mother was going to die. They all were. He ran towards Brendol, perhaps he could stop it, entreat with the ralom to forget them and return to the deep, but his father made no move to comfort him. Instead, his lip pulled up in distaste.
"Get a hold of yourself."
His voice was so cold and distant that Armitage abruptly stopped wailing, swallowing air noiselessly with big gulps, tears and snot streaming down his face. He held out the crumpled hat, ruined with sand and seawater. The rain picked up, fine, cold needles stinging his skin. He wanted his mother. Brendol ambled over to the cliff's edge again and peered down before shaking his head.
"Did you see something down there?" Armitage nodded, "Did you know what it was?" Again he nodded, thinking that perhaps now his father would reassure him that everything he knew wasn't about to end, leaving blackness where once there had been the reassuring, golden light of his mother. The apocalypse was just pretend, the ralom just an old story.
Instead, Brendol pursed his lips and swore quietly. Armitage had been unaware at the time, or perhaps only dimly aware, that the second death star had fallen, Endor was a rout and the republic was now set on annihilating them. Brendol got down on one knee and placed his hand on Armitage's boney shoulder. it didn't feel comforting. His grip was too tight.
"You did a brave thing. Now it is very important that you tell no one about what you saw. Can you do that for me? Best let the grown-ups handle this one, lad." He gave Armitage's shoulder one final shake before he continued, "I think you've earned your seat at the table tonight. But I can't have you looking like a kitchen wench's son." His eyes grew wide, and Armitage forgot all about the nebulous apocalypse. He would get to sit with his father and the cadets!
Armitage was well into his twenties before he realized that his father knew all along that there was a ralom on the shoreline, and that he had been sent down to investigate because he was expendable, and no one would believe him if he shared what he saw on the beach. His father was not a superstitious man, but he had likely wanted to avoid any panic that the sighting of a ralom would cause. Morale was already low. Ultimately, however, it didn't matter. The world did end that night, after a fashion.
Soaking wet, he had followed his father into the academy. They came in through the service doors, the only ones that Armitage ever used. They found the laundress, and she cut the smallest uniform they had down to his size. It was a hasty job: the sleeves and pant legs were far too wide and the pockets were in the wrong places, but that didn't stop Armitage from feeling like he had finally been claimed, and that maybe, his father was even proud of him. He was a Hux instead of just Armitage, Illeah's bastard.
Before he accompanied his father into the dining hall, he was instructed to stay silent, speak only if he was spoken to, and to not acknowledge his mother in any way if he saw her. Armitage agreed to this, determined to be exactly who Brendol needed him to be.
The great hall was smaller than he thought it would be, damp and smokey. Pimpled cadets stared at him as he followed at his father's heels. He was seated between his father and a severe looking, thin woman who looked at him in horror. He'd seen Brendol's wife before, but only from a distance.
"I can't believe that you would do this to me," she hissed at Brendol over Armitage's head.
Brendol ignored her completely. She made a series of huffs but Brendol was deaf to them. Shortly after his arrival, his mother arrived with food from the kitchens. He wasn't surprised to see her, he knew that every day she left around this time to serve the staff and cadets. He followed his father's instructions; he did not look at or acknowledge his mother. Not even when she set his plate directly in front of him.
"Thank you, Illeah," Brendol said; Armitage had never heard his voice sound so nice.
"Of course, Sir." His mother smiled nervously. Brendol patted her clumsily on the hip, the same way that he'd slap the neck of a beast of burden after a good ride. His mother looked miserable. Brendol ignored his wife.
"She's too young for you, Brendol," Maratelle said.
"I told you it wasn't my fault," Brendol said and though Armitage had no idea what they were talking about at the time, he understood that the words were shocking and mean as Maratelle gasped, tears forming in her eyes.
Maratelle disappeared after that exchange, slipping away from the table like a ghost. The rebels arrived shortly after that.
At first he thought it was thunder. But then the whole building shook and the north tower caught fire outside the window. Everyone in the hall, few instructors, most of the cadets, his mother, and himself, were led down to the bowels of the academy. Brendol locked the door behind them and stumbled down the steps into the dark. He wasn't supposed to talk to his mother, but he was afraid and took her hand. She squeezed back, too tightly.
They wound through the service hallways and larders, the only light the narrow beam from Brendol's penlight. The rest was blackness. The walls shook. They descended deeper then, down rough hewn stairs, their boots sending small pebbles skittering until they reached the lowest level, the floor solid stone and air smelling of damp and seaweed. He expected the tunnel to collapse around them with each chest-shaking boom.
The rain distorted the white lights of the single smuggler's freighter that waited on the rocky shoreline. The screaming whine of the X-wings overhead, the trill of the laser cannons and the roar of the freighter's engine joined the pounding rumble of the incoming tide in an overwhelming cacophony. The very air shook from the shelling and rain mixed in with acrid smoke so that it burned as it touched his skin. The underside of the heavy clouds glowed an apocalyptic orange, lit from below as the academy burned.
The seawater came up to his calves and any moment he expected to be grabbed around the ankles and pulled into the ocean. He grasped his mother's hand tightly and was too afraid to do anything but follow the line of cadets as they waded through the surf towards the waiting ship. He got his feet onto the metal ramp and Brendol grabbed his arm and this time his grip was reassuring; he was finally safe.
But his other arm was jerked backward as his mother fell and was dragged down the ramp. Her face was drawn in horror. He would never, ever, to his dying day, forget the look on his mother's face as she accepted her own death and let go of his hand. She was swiftly dragged into the churning water below. Brendol had screamed her name.
He ran to a window and pressed his fingers against the glass, but instead of seeing a swirl of blonde hair in the water the engine lights illuminated the milky blue eye of a dead ralom as the freighter shot into space.