We Fight Dragons (Volume 2, Chapter 7) "The Schism"
Jam had noticed a change in the way his parents were acting.
They had become cautious, and had taken to staying near the house rather than going out. A couple of times that week, Mum had even picked him up after school in the car, on the pretext that she was driving past at just that exact time.
It wasn’t just his parents who were acting like this. He talked about it at school with his friends, carefully not to let Tracey overhear them, and they had all experienced similar things.
‘My parents didn’t tell me exactly,’ Oli volunteered, ‘but mum can’t help it sometimes when she’s worried, and she said something to dad about being careful because someone is watching all of us.’
‘Why haven’t they told us what’s happening,’ Tobes lamented.
‘I reckon they think it’s better for us to stay in the dark! Adults!’
Jam didn’t think the reason for secrecy was as dramatic as that, but he made a mental note to ask his parent’s directly when they were at dinner.
Jam considered asking them and the end-of-the-day, because then they would have to be honest, or at least admit there was something they were not telling him. However, after thinking it over, he thought it was a bit underhanded to use their family ritual to manipulate them like that. He decided to let things play out and see if there was a natural moment to bring it up.
To Jam’s surprise, when dinner was over Dad got out a proper metal sword that Jam had never seen before, and began sharpening it with a whetstone. To Jam this felt like an invitation to ask if anything was up.
‘Hey, Dad, where did you get that sword from?’
‘It’s mine. I haven’t used it in a long time. Thought I’d better keep it maintained.’
‘Is there anything, like a reason, to do that now?’
Dad looked at him seriously. ‘So, you’ve noticed.’
‘Yeah. And I have to say that if you and Mum are trying to keep something secret, then you are going about it all wrong. You’ve changed what you do so much that I reckon I’m probably not the only one who’s noticed.’
Dad sighed. ‘Are we that obvious? Damn. Thanks for the heads-up. I suppose I owe you an explanation.’
‘No, you don’t. I trust you, and I know there’s a lot I don’t understand yet about being a Knight. But I’d like to understand as much as possible.’
This made Dad smile for the first time in days. ‘Hah! Thanks for the vote of confidence. If you figured out that much on your own, then I think you’ve earned the right to the rest.’
‘Are you sure, David?’ Mum asked. Her concern for Jam was riddled throughout the question.
‘Everything is a judgement call in the end, and I reckon now is as good a time as any. But Jam, you have to promise that what I tell you stays between us. No telling your friends, okay?’
Jam was reluctant to have to go back to keeping secrets, but he reluctantly agreed.
‘Tonight, it’s my turn to keep a ‘vigil’. Do you know what a vigil is?’
‘Like keeping guard?’
‘Yes. When there is a threat about, one Knight must always be awake. Myself and the other dad’s take turns. So I may be a bit grumpy tomorrow morning,’ he smiled ruefully at Mum.
‘But why? What’s so dangerous? Is it another Dragon?’
‘No, not a Dragon. I don’t think you will see one again in your lifetime. Do you remember the vision that you had at the Dragon-stone?’
‘Yeah. I have it as a dream sometimes.’
‘You will, for the rest of your life, especially when you need to be reminded about it. What do you remember about the ancient times, when we lived in the east?’
‘Well, after we agreed to serve the god of the light, we killed some Dragons, but then there was a fight and some of us stayed in the east, and our people went west.’
‘That’s right. We call that fight ‘The Schism’ and it was driven by different ideas on how to pass the gift along.’
Dad continued. ‘The others had come up with a technique that involved the gift being transferred between Knights and Maidens using a ritual. They called themselves ‘Torquar’, which means ‘True ones’, and they thought that they had solved the problem of never having children who were Maidens.’
‘That sounds… okay? What was the problem?’
‘Well, according to the Knights and Maidens who continued west and kept calling themselves the ‘people of the sun’, the Torquar have perverted the original gift. By altering how it is passed along, they try to control what belongs to the god of light. And when they combine the gifts of both Knights and Maidens, they counter-act each other. What results is a heartless form of power, disconnected from what it means to be a human being. It is rooted in intellect, which has its place, but it has lost its connection with humanity. It has become a tool for power, rather than for good.
‘When I was young, there was a gathering of several families where I was able to read a book our ancestors had captured from the Torquar. The Torquar wrote that their power comes ‘from the mind’. This is almost the opposite of how we think of our gift as coming ‘from the soul’ via the god of light, which is why it is a gift. Does that make sense?’
‘I suppose. Not really. Why do the Torquar hate us?’
‘As far as I remember, they think our refusal to follow their way is putting the gift from the god of light at risk. In their way, they can transfer one Torquar’s power to any other person through a ritual. And, if a Torquar dies there is still a chance that they can recover that power and put it into someone else. They don’t need to trust that a Knight and Maiden will ever find each other. In short, their way is almost a guarantee that what is still left of their gift will not be lost.’
‘And they hate us because we don’t do this?’
‘They think we betray the god of light because we risk the gift.’
‘Do you think any of what they say is true?’ Jam was nervous even asking the question, in case Dad said that it might hold merit.
‘Oh some of it is true, in a sense. We risk the lineage with every new generation. And sometimes we actually lose some of it. But we trust.’ Dad sounded like he was reliving a memory when he said this, but then he became serious again. ‘I believe the lineage of the Torquar was lost the moment that they chose their path of soullessness. In essence, they ‘think’ they doing good, but they have lost their moral compass, so they can never be sure.
‘All they have to guide them is their ‘Book of Rules’, which is the book I was able to read. It covers every situation they can think of. Without any intuition, they need a lot of rules to handle worldly situations. The book covers everything from how to greet each other in the morning, to forming tactical compacts, all the way to how to run meetings between Torquar leaders, or ‘Marshals’ as they call them. They follow a very militaristic code and lifestyle, which they think is the best way to fight a war against evil.’
Jam took a while to think it all through. When he felt that he understood it he said, ‘I don’t think you can live only to fight, that’s not really living is it?’
Mum had been listening to the whole explanation silently, and when Jam said that she wrapped her arms around him. ‘Clever boy. You’re right, that misses half of what life is about.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Stay ready. That’s what a vigil is for,’ Dad continued. ‘In a very real way it is a temporary suspension of life, to deal with a threat that cannot be faced any other way.’
‘Okay. I get that it is temporary, so you can’t keep doing it forever, Dad. So… what are we going to do?’
Mum and Dad looked at each other, and Dad answered. ‘The first thing we do is keep our eyes, ears, and intuitions wide-open. We don’t know who they are yet, as much as they don’t know who we are. They are so aberrant in nature that they know we will spot them up close, so while we are trying to find them, they will be trying to hang back. At least to start with they will try to hunt us indirectly.’
.