“The time has come for great changes in our society! In this coming war each and every one of you will decide the fate of our great nation, and in doing so, the fate of the world! Be proud, stand strong, and unite with confidence knowing that what we fight for -- what we do -- is right. I urge you all to do your part, be it on the field of battle or here at home. These times call for unquestioning loyalty, unfathomable devotion, and most of all strength, drawn from love, love of country which we all share.
Many a time in history great conquerors have been viewed as villains, and I assure you, the same will be said of us! But are not all great peoples envied for their success? Is it not natural for cowards to fear change? As your Queen, I promise you, the feelings of righteous fervor for country and for our cause are nothing other than just and true! Indeed, we take bold measures to ensure the survival of our race- but ultimately it is us who bring balance! We are the justified, the clear-sighted- and soon, the victorious.”
-Queen Elaine Glasskard, Independence Day National Radio Address, Herak 13th, 6008
She was wrong, of course, but who could have known at the time? That speech was the first time I really paid any mind to national affairs, as it was on the wireless in my grandfather’s workshop on during the festivities when I was six. One turn later, the war really did start, and I wasn’t phased by it in the least. Middle school came and went, and it wasn’t until the eve of my second turn in secondary school that the fateful orders came through to our city. In a discreet letter, rather than a confident radio speech, it was announced that due to the threat of enemy bombing, all youths below fighting age were required to move out of all cities and towns west of the Hel’Shaar province. It was decided that my younger siblings would reside in Yekratos, a bleak seaside village where my mother’s parents lived, as far East as my parents could afford to send them. This was before Kragos had joined the war, so the Eastern shores were thought to be safe. I couldn’t dream of quitting school to spend the rest of the war by the acrid coast, so I begged and pleaded with my parents to send me instead to my father’s brother Boris, my estranged uncle who worked for the railway in Blackheart. He was unmarried, living in a squalid flat above a cigar shoppe by the western aerodrome of the city.
I wrote to him repeatedly in the weeks before the deadline, with no reply. It was not until three days before we were to leave that my cousins came running into town to inform me that there was a call on my grandfather’s telephone, and it was for me. I ran up the hill to the manor where my grandparents lived and raced through the door without stopping to greet my grandmother as she opened the door. I snatched the receiver from another cousin, and in my best rehearsed telephone manners said:
“Hello, this is Dmitri Vladinova, may I ask your name?” There was a pause, then came a muted reply:
“Hey kid, it’s your uncle Boris. You still want to come live in Blackheart?”
“You got my letters? I.. I mean yes, of course!”
“Take a train to Kamtcheska in two days, I can pick you up there.”
“Yes, uncle, thank you. But why there? We have enough to buy a ticket to Blackheart I, am sure.”
“Yes but you don’t want to bother with a big city station, trust me, I work there. Remember, Kamtcheska. It’s a suburb, oh- perhaps thirty miles out of Blackheart. I’ll meet you there.” I was stunned with excitement and relief, I managed a few more thank-yous and asked what to bring. “Anything you want, just tell your father he owes me big. Take care kid, be there in two days, don’t forget.” And with a fuzzy click he was disconnected.
It was no small feat informing my parents of the abrupt change of plans, and as I had no proof of what he had said on the phone they were vexed to pay a small fortune to send a telegram to him in the city. The next morning he replied, frankly stating that yes infact he had invited me to stay with him. My father was less than pleased to have sent the telegram when my uncle could have simply written back to me in a timely fashion, so I was hesitant to ask him about the money which my uncle had mentioned. It was at dawn, during breakfast, that I confided in my grandfather that I had no idea what to do, and he heartily laughed and offered me a thick stack of sovereigns which he said should satisfy my uncle.
The next few hours were a blur of tearful goodbyes and worthless promises to keep in touch with schoolmates. My sibling’s train had come an hour earlier and when I departed it was only my mother and father who waved goodbye on the platform. A long monotonous dance of shifting in my seat came next, and it was midmorning the following day when the conductor prodded me awake to ask if this was my stop. I peered out the window, my eyes glazed with sleep and smoke... I squinted to read the station sign and indeed it was my stop, and I kindly thanked the man before dragging my luggage out the door. On the platform I breathed in my surroundings.
Only a couple dozen miles away from the capitol, I could feel the distinct change from my hometown. Overhead the largest steel clad airship I had ever seen hummed lazily across the sky. Around me the buildings were tight packed and the maze of houses seemed to spread endlessly around me, with a few lonely clock towers or temples poking out in the haze. My uncle was late, and I wandered the platform for nearly an hour before I was overwhelmed with the urge to sit beside the girl on the bench by the track and strike up a conversation. She was holding a travel bag, and looking intently down the track when I finally mustered the courage to start to approach her. Looking as casual as possible I sat down beside her and opened my mouth to speak. A motor’s hissing roar and two notes on a car’s horn drowned out whatever I meant to say. I was still looking at her as she glared past me at a bright red steam-car pulled aside on the road by the tracks.
“Dmitri!” My uncle shouted, indifferent to the crowd of people on the platform starting at him. “Climb in, let’s go!”
I politely nodded to the girl on the bench and stood up. I maybe even also uttered a “sorry” but who knows. I was mildly surprised to see a fashionable woman in the passenger’s seat with her arm around my uncle. “Dmitri?”She asked, extending a gloved hand to shake. “My name’s Mei, a pleasure to meet you.” My uncle laughed, bold and crude, and told me to get in the back. I had never ridden in an open top steam-car before then, and the ride was fairly unpleasant to me, although I blamed it on being far too accustomed to dull miller town life. I held onto my hat and fished through my belongings for the money, although I couldn't find it considering the way my uncle drove. In the front, he and Mei flirted, oblivious to my presence until my uncle looked back and said: “Gods above, look at you, how you’ve grown! What are you, eight turns old now?”
“Seven.” He laughed some more at this.
“Well, first we need to get you some new clothes! You look like you’ve just stepped out of the last century. Gods above, I know just where to get you suited- don’t you worry.” I nodded urgently, hoping he’d fix his eyes on the road sooner, if possible. He asked me a few more things on the trip back to the city and I answered mostly in single syllables. After a while the interrogation stopped and he stayed quiet while Mei introduced herself in full. She was Helio’Sharran, as evidenced by her almond shaped eyes and high cheek bones, although she was dressed like a singer at the most exclusive Operin nightclub. Her short bobbed hair and cloche hat, combined with her knee length dress and bare upper arms was a far sight different from how my mother and sisters dressed in my hometown. She told me how she came to live in Blackheart, and what she did for a living, but by this time we had crossed the Ellys river and were certainly entering the the capitol. The buildings grew taller and the sky grew grey, the air choked with exhaust and cigarette smoke. I marveled at the uniform grace of each shop and apartment, at the world famous monuments and parks at every other street corner. Never in my life had I seen so many people and automobiles and streetcars and airships and certainly never all at once! Nor the magic. Out in the country, there was only a sole witch’s shop. As a veteran of the Sand Wars she was nearing a hundred turns old in her isolated lab. Farmers came to her each turn for spells for their crops and my grandfather often consulted her, as mayors are apt to do. The owner of the granary was also a wizard, yet he hardly showed his face in town, rumor had it that a rival sorcerer had disfigured him in a duel, or as another tale went that he made a pact with a demon to win the heart of a woman he loved, but when she died the demon left him as well, aged and decrepit beyond his natural age.
Here, it seemed, magic was omnipresent. I saw on the sidewalks aspiring wizards cast dazzling illusions over crowds, and above I saw countless varieties of sorcerers transformed into so many strange beasts to fly. Soldiers wandered the crowds as well, the ones stationed in the capital still donning bright azure uniforms, as opposed to the pale grey of the men on the front. The color of the uniforms came to reflect the state of the war but it was still approximately an entire turn before the soldiers in the streets of Blackheart would be wearing black, rushing to put out fires and dashing to shield their younger siblings from shrapnel with their bodies. No, things were very much in Deltora’s favor it seemed, and despite the order to relocate the children, the war was still very much undecided.
Here, it seemed, magic was omnipresent. I saw on the sidewalks aspiring wizards cast dazzling illusions over crowds, and above I saw countless varieties of sorcerers transformed into so many strange beasts to fly. Soldiers wandered the crowds as well, the ones stationed in the capital still donning bright azure uniforms, as opposed to the pale grey of the men on the front. The color of the uniforms came to reflect the state of the war but it was still approximately an entire turn before the soldiers in the streets of Blackheart would be wearing black, rushing to put out fires and dashing to shield their younger siblings from shrapnel with their bodies. No, things were very much in Deltora’s favor it seemed, and despite the order to relocate the children, the war was still very much undecided.
Now up three flights of dark smoky stairs to a stained door at the end of the hall, I saw where I would live the next couple turns. Apartment 24, 1029 Sakahlin street, Blackheart, Kulikov Province. He unlocked the door and slipped inside, Mei kicked off her shoes and sat unceremoniously on a sofa across the room. It was very small compared to what I was used to, with low concrete ceilings and a central kitchen-and-lounge. My uncle gestured to the left and told me I was welcome to the spare bedroom, and he in turn went right, towards the larger master bedroom, which had an adjoining washroom. Nobody gave me any further directions so I shrugged and set about unpacking my things. My room was a small but well lit dwelling at the corner of the building, and its two windows gave a wide view of the busy street below and the roaring aerodrome a couple blocks away. I put my trunk on the floor and flipped onto my bed, producing a startling squeal of rusty springs from the mattress. I sat up and bounced in place to test this noise before opening my luggage and putting my remaining clothes and sketchbooks into the dresser drawers.
At supper we sat at round table in the kitchen, and my uncle and Mei chatted while they ate. This was common practice to them, in contrast with family dinner in my grandfather’s house. Every night in my hometown it was more often a solemn affair, with a mealtime blessing and scores of cousins sitting at the long wooden table, arranged by age. Embarrassed with nothing to say, I fished out the wad of cash from my trousers and offered it to my uncle.
“What’s this?” He said through a mouthful of pork.
“From my father,” I lied. “For taking me in.” My words hung in the air for a moment while my uncle and Mei exchanged an amused glance. He swallowed and burst out laughing. “My boy, I was only joking about him owing me! I see now you have a bit of spending money- That’s good, you’re in luck.”
“I.. You don’t want it? I can keep it?” He chuckled some more and explained that it was mine to spend or invest or gamble away. He couldn't accept money from his brother anyhow. I was tempted to ask how he had become estranged from my core family, but I could tell by his apparent lifestyle that the answer was probably obvious.
“We’ve got to get you enrolled in school. It started last week here in Blackheart.”
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