Legon Awakening: Book One in the Legon Series (4 page)

Both of them loved the woods; they would live right
in the heart of it if they could. They both cheered up as they saw
some rabbits running on the forest floor and squirrels high in the
trees chattering their disapproval of the visitors. Birds were
singing and life was bursting all over the forest. They didn’t stop
to practice archery as they didn’t have the time, and Legon didn’t
want Sasha to over exert herself. Soon they came to the foot of the
hill and were crossing the field to their house. The field was
green with wildflowers growing all over. Everywhere there were
splashes of color; red and white here, purple and yellow there. The
dew-covered plants shimmered in the morning light, reflecting tiny
rainbows. It was beautiful. As they passed a clump of tall yellow
flowers, Legon picked one and gave it to Sasha. She shortened the
stem and placed the flower in her hair above her right ear.

“Thank you,” she said with a slight smile. She was
apparently still feeling weak. Soon they could see the back of
their house. He could see his mother outside beating a rug. The
resemblance between mother and daughter was uncanny; their mother
looked just like Sasha but a bit older. As soon as they were close
enough to see her face they saw a worried expression cross it.

“Sasha, you’ve had an episode,” she gasped. She
dropped the beater she was holding and rushed over to them.

“Yes mother,” Legon said.

“Get her in, get her in!” Her voice sounded panicked
as she reached over and swung Sasha’s arm over her shoulders and
began to pull them in the house. “I want to have a look at
her.”

They got Sasha inside and to the kitchen table. At
that moment their father, an average -sized man with brown hair and
thick burlap clothes, walked down the stairs and into the room. He
saw what was happening instantly.

“Is she ok, Laura?” he asked in a deep, concerned
voice.

“Oh, Edis, I think so,” she replied. “Legon, what
happened?”

“It happened on the hill after we ate,” he explained,
giving the details of their morning picnic up until Sasha’s
episode.

“Thank the Gods your brother was with you!” their
father exclaimed.

Sasha nodded and sipped a hot cup of something that
her mother shoved in her hands. Sasha winced. “Mother, what on
earth…?” she started.

“It’s herbs,” interrupted Laura. She was the town
healer, which had its benefits if you felt ill but also had its
downside, as she was always giving them new concoctions to cure
various ailments that none of them knew they had. This was
especially true in Sasha’s case, since their mother was unable to
figure out what caused her episodes. Sasha had been subjected to
cure after cure for years, none of which seemed to help, but a few
did cause her to get quite sick in other ways. Once, after drinking
one of their mother’s brews she couldn’t eat for two days without
throwing it back up. Their mother said that this was her body’s way
of cleansing her from her illness. These remedies, of course,
didn’t make a difference. Sasha still had episodes, and their
mother kept coming up with new ways of fixing them. Legon didn’t
know what the remedy was today, but he could smell it and it was
horrid.

“Will you be ok, Sash?” he asked giving the drink a
look.

“Yes, I think so” she said, but her voice wasn’t
confident. She gave the glass a glance and shivered a bit.

“Ok, I’m going to go change my clothes and help dad,
I’ll see you before lunch okay?”

“Ok, don’t worry about me. I’m fine now.” She gave
the glass another look and placed in on the table.

Legon smiled at her, leaned over, and kissed her on
her head. He walked to the stairs and started for his room. On his
way up his father stopped him and placed his hand on his arm to
bring him in close. He said in a soft voice, so Laura and Sasha
couldn’t hear, “I want you to stay close today incase Sasha has
another one. You’re the best with her.”

“I was planning on getting a new cleaver from Kovos
today, but I think you’re right. I can get it tomorrow and Sash can
come with me. It will be good for her to get out and about,” he
said, looking at his sister.

“I think she’ll like that. Now go get ready, I want
to hit it hard today so we’re not working late.” His voice was
business-like as he patted Legon’s shoulder.

Legon chuckled. “I hit it hard every day old man,
you’re the slow one.”

His father laughed, shook his head, and walked over
to the table.

A Hard Day’s Work

“
To many, the Everser Vald was at one time
no more than a commoner, struggling with the everyday woes of the
world. Only the trained eye could see the servant and master,
laboring by day and by night for those that mattered most.”

-Excerpts from The Diary of the Adopted
Sister

Legon hustled up the stairs to his room and began to
undress. He went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of rough
brown pants made of thick cloth and an off-white shirt made of the
same material. His room was flooded with light coming in from the
window, and outside he could hear signs of the town coming to
life.

At the sound of soft footsteps in the hall, Legon
poked his head out of the door to see Sasha being led to her room
by Laura. Sasha was starting to look better, and he thought that a
good nap would probably help. He got his clothes on and rushed
downstairs, stepping out of the front door onto the dirt street.
The street was lined with buildings of varying sizes, all made of
the same dark brown wood. Many of the structures were starting to
gray with age and the constant bombardment of snow, rain, and
sleet. Most people in town built their home next door to their
place of business, and in some cases the buildings served both
purposes. The town did have a central market, but most of the
things sold there were livestock and produce, along with the
occasional traveling merchant who would sell their wares there.

Legon turned to his left and walked through the door
to their family’s store, instantly being welcomed by the scent of
salt, meat, and spices. An impressive array of knives and cleavers
glinted on the walls, speckling the room with reflected daylight.
Because they were butchers, their business was not set by the
seasons but by what people would bring in. People in the town would
bring their livestock and would either pay to have Legon and Edis
butcher the animal and give the meat back to them or sell them the
animal for them to butcher and sell to the rest of the town.
Oftentimes, people would bring in kills that they made while
hunting and would get the meat prepared. The shop did much more
than cut up meat, however; they would cure or smoke it if people
wanted, and they also would make sausage and other similar
products. Because of how fast uncured meat would go bad, Legon and
Edis would have to get all the work done in a short amount of time,
and if possible they tried to have a one-day turnaround.

“Ok, what do I need to get done first this morning?
Who has orders today that will be here early?” he said aloud to
himself.

A moment later Edis stepped in, and as if he could
read Legon’s mind said, “Moleth.”

“Just the person I want to see this morning.”

Moleth was one of the people that he liked least—she
was irritating and very odd. Most people in the town either
disliked her or thought she was a raving lunatic. Legon had gotten
into several arguments with her about Sasha. Moleth loved to tell
the town what a demon Sasha was, and that the day would come when
they would all regret not listening to her. And Moleth didn’t
restrain herself to criticizing Sasha; she had a go at the entire
town, and it was for that reason that no one took anything she said
seriously. She would often get into arguments with people because
she would say something about their family or friends.

Legon’s friend Barnin couldn’t stand her; his
family lived next door to her and he had been subjected to the
woman on a regular basis for most of his life. They would get into
huge fights shouting insults at one another. The townspeople would
often stop and watch the arguments just for the entertainment
value. It wouldn’t normally be acceptable to verbally accost a
woman in public, but in the case of Moleth people tended to make
exceptions, as most, if not all, had been in the same situation
with her before. Barnin had even once tried to sell her to a group
of soldiers, but sadly the men knew a bad deal when they saw one.
It didn’t even take them five minutes to figure her out, and they
left the town without Moleth leaving heartfelt condolences for
those she inflicted herself upon.

“I know how you feel son, she’s a right piece of work
that one.”

Legon walked behind the waist-high stone counter that
split the shop in two and leaned over a wooden box that, when
opened, revealed a big block of ice that had been collected from
the nearby mountains and a shoulder of lamb. He took the lamb out
of the box, set it on the counter, and plucked a cleaver off the
pegboard on the wall. Soon the sound of chopping filled the air. He
was almost done cutting the meat and wrapping it in paper when he
heard the little brass bell above the door clink. A short plump
woman with shoulder-length blondish-grey hair and a pronounced nose
walked in. She looked timid and seemed to have a slight facial
twitch.

Her voice was small but still irritating, like
screeching metal. “Hello, is there anybody here?” As she spoke she
looked around as if the shop was empty and Legon was not standing
in front of her.

He grimaced and resigned himself to an unpleasant
encounter, “Yes Moleth, we’re here. How are you today?”

“O-oh there you are,” she said with a nervous
chuckle. “I was supposed to pick up some…. Hmmm…. Some meat.” As
she spoke she looked around the shop noticing the knives and other
sharp objects on the walls and shook her head disapprovingly.

“
Well how else are we supposed to cut the meat you
idiot?”
he thought. Moleth was very odd and probably mad. He
was already getting annoyed with her. She walked to the counter now
and clasped onto it like Legon was going to pull it away from her.
She started to speak but he cut her off.

“I’m just finishing up now, Moleth. The meat will be
ready in just a moment.”

“Ah, oh well ok… ok I-I guess that works.” Her voice
sounded confused and tired as if she was worried that Legon would
do something to her; in truth she wasn’t worried at all. She was
always like this. She fidgeted with her hands in a way that
reminded him of a chipmunk. A fake smile played across her
face.

“Why… why is it so late getting done? I am a paying
customer after all, you know,” she started with a shaky but
surprisingly accusatory voice.

Legon tried to cut her off. She continued to talk but
he just spoke over her.

“Sorry Moleth, it will be done in a sec and you can
be on your way.”

“
She can’t hear you, you know?”
said a voice
inside his head. “
She’s in her own world right now; she’ll be
with you in a moment, not the other way around.”
This was true.
Moleth was prattling on about something completely unrelated to
meat and seemed not to take notice that he’d spoken. After what
seemed to be hours to Legon, Moleth registered what he’d said.

“Ah, so I take it you got off to a late start this
morning?” She said this as if she had figured out the solution to
some challenging riddle that he hadn’t solved yet. “Yes, I can see
it in Edis’s eyes. He looks worried,” she said, growing more and
more confident.

It was true. Edis did look worried. He was thinking
about his daughter, and he seemed not to have noticed that Moleth
was even in the shop. “
Why does he always do this? He pretends
that’s she’s not even here and I have to deal with her the whole
time!”
thought Legon bitterly. In the last few years Edis
hadn’t said much of anything to her, and when Legon thought about
it he wasn’t sure if his father had ever said anything to her at
all. Legon knew that Edis did not approve of the way Moleth talked
about his family, and he would have understood if his father had
banned her from the shop or even gotten into fights with her, but
he didn’t. Instead, it seemed that she just didn’t exist to
him.

His attention was jerked back to Moleth. “It was that
demon half-sister of yours, wasn’t it?” Moleth said knowingly.

She had apparently been born without the ability to
figure out that you don’t say things like this about somebody’s
sister. It was true that Sasha and Legon were not related by birth.
Legon was by all accounts adopted, but they were still brother and
sister. He felt his face flush.

“My sister is fine, Moleth,” he said through gritted
teeth. His anger was rising fast.

She tittered. “Na, na she’s not, I’ve always said
there’s something wrong with her, just you wait… not that it’s
going to matter anyhow. The queen will be taking care of her soon,
so don’t you worry.” She said this like she was telling a sick
person that they were going to get better.

Her statement pushed any kind or nice feelings from
his mind. If any man had just made the statement that Moleth had,
Legon would be all over him. He attempted to hold back his fury and
counted to ten slowly in his mind. He tried to keep his voice calm
but the attempt didn’t work.

“Sasha is not going anywhere, Moleth, so get used to
it!” He felt his hand tighten around the handle of the cleaver.

There was a warning tone in his voice that a person
with any sense would heed unless they were ready for a fight.
Moleth did not have this sense and she pushed on, oblivious to the
now quivering man in front of her.

“Oh come on now, you people can’t keep paying the
taxes that she costs you. In the spring they will take her away and
be gone with her. I dare say the queen’s men will have a lot of fun
with her, don’t you think? She is a pretty girl after all, and the
queen’s men do deserve it. They work so hard to keep us safe.” Her
voice was warm and a smile came over her face as she winked at
him.