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My early memories are like the insubstantial bodies of clouds, barely recollected snatches of songs and impressions only of color and vague shape. They may have faded anyway, had my life been entirely natural, but whatever the cause, everything paled and fell away the day that I met Avialle.
It was easy to get lost in the subterranean warrens of the Brotherhood's home. As a boy, I would sometimes get lost completely on purpose, wandering and exploring whenever I was left alone. One night, I found myself unable to sleep, and I took it into my head to go off looking for my father. He was not with me in our apartments, he rarely was after dark, and for whatever reason I suddenly became quite curious of where he had gone.
Slipping through my door and into the cellar was the hardest part, as there were a few gentlemen gathered still in some of the smaller rooms. The scents of brandy and of stale sweat seeped from the doorways, their droning voices were all that drowned out the sound of my passing. Still, I managed to get by them all, through the kitchen, and down into the cellar.
There was a trapdoor there, which I pulled up and was greeted with humid reeking air striking me in the face. To this day I am unsure whether these corridors were official or un-, but the trapdoor I am certain was a relative secret.
I lowered myself down into its maw until my feet grazed the packed earth floor of the tunnel below, then finally let go the floorboards. It took a good solid minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but I was at the age at which such adjustments come far more naturally. I hadn't really thought far enough ahead to know what to do or where to go next, so I just began walking.
For full grown men the tunnel ceiling was low enough that they had to stoop, at least underneath this part of the house. For me, it came to just above my head, and the instinct to cower was strong enough that I walked along like a hunchback, roots and dirt brushing against my cheek from time to time. I thought I heard a distant noise, and moved toward it. That had to be my father, I thought.
It was easy to get lost in the subterranean warrens of the Brotherhood's home. As a boy, I would sometimes get lost completely on purpose, wandering and exploring whenever I was left alone. One night, I found myself unable to sleep, and I took it into my head to go off looking for my father. He was not with me in our apartments, he rarely was after dark, and for whatever reason I suddenly became quite curious of where he had gone.
Slipping through my door and into the cellar was the hardest part, as there were a few gentlemen gathered still in some of the smaller rooms. The scents of brandy and of stale sweat seeped from the doorways, their droning voices were all that drowned out the sound of my passing. Still, I managed to get by them all, through the kitchen, and down into the cellar.
There was a trapdoor there, which I pulled up and was greeted with humid reeking air striking me in the face. To this day I am unsure whether these corridors were official or un-, but the trapdoor I am certain was a relative secret.
I lowered myself down into its maw until my feet grazed the packed earth floor of the tunnel below, then finally let go the floorboards. It took a good solid minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but I was at the age at which such adjustments come far more naturally. I hadn't really thought far enough ahead to know what to do or where to go next, so I just began walking.
For full grown men the tunnel ceiling was low enough that they had to stoop, at least underneath this part of the house. For me, it came to just above my head, and the instinct to cower was strong enough that I walked along like a hunchback, roots and dirt brushing against my cheek from time to time. I thought I heard a distant noise, and moved toward it. That had to be my father, I thought.