The row touched the hard objects underneath, the head of the boat grazed over the pebbles of the shore. The low fog slowly revealed a wide beach of black pebbles, sprinkled by some black sand, sifting the seawater.
Euseff dared to look back again, but the ship is no longer visible despite the low fog. "They did not watch us land safely."
"They cannot see over the fog. The island does not welcome them. They will be lost when they try to near closer the fog." A little high-pitched voice resounded at the top of the elevated pebbles.
Euseff and Dakila tensed and prepared for an incoming attack. "Who's there?"
Euseff learned 'The Way of Knives,' as how street children calls it, since he was nine. He had a forte of cutting someone's vitals when he was part of the backtrack team of a gang, the ones responsible for misleading pursuers when a gang member is being tracked by the officials. He especially trained himself before journeying this 'Missing Island,' so he knows an already planned escape if the other party is a threat.
"You still have a poor smell, I see. Our older brothers will be very angry..." The voice sounded a little sad. Two smaller feet emerged from the darkness, carrying a flickering lamp held by both hands with obvious difficulty.
A boy younger than Euseff walked to them, wearing a toothy smile, giving the lamp to Dakila for him to carry. Euseff and Dakila looked at each other confusedly before Euseff nodded. Dakila reached for the big lamp from the small creature's stubby hand.
"My name's Jacksie of House Tresinfort, eleventh of father's line. I am as well a descendant of Georgio Everlark." The boy did not stammer, proudly memorized his line of nobility.
"Georgio Everlark..." Euseff unknowingly muttered his thoughts, lowering his guard. 'So he was a noble after all...' His hand suddenly itched.
"Yes, we have the same father... right?" Jacksie's smile slowly faded, he was sure yet unsure that he was meeting the correct person.
Euseff peered over the looks of the boy, wavy dark hair, doe green eyes, full cheeks, missing some neck beneath his chin, barely looked threatening, rather worth some pinching. "I guess so."
Jacksie flashed a toothy smile again, more excitedly, "Right? You look very close to our brother, Yules. Mama said he closely resembles father, I think Yules is very tall and handsome."
Euseff felt something was amiss around this conversation. He thought maybe because he was neither shocked or happy seeing someone sharing the same blood as him. However, he saw Dakila watching Jacksie intently, he can tell Dakila wanted to play with the boy. 'Maybe... I am just a little disappointed?'
"Why are you here, in the peak of the night?" Euseff, trying to brush away useless ideas, felt the urge to ask. The boy is still not to be trusted.
"It was said that you will be coming tonight or tommorow afternoon. I was waiting since three days ago, you know. It was a bit of tiring carrying three smaller lamps that couldn't last 'til morning waiting for my brother. That's why I decided to carry that heck of monster lamp, then you'd just ask who I am angrily the first time we meet..." Jacksie paused, not hiding such disappointment as well, his eyes were sincerely saddened recalling. "Even Lynnally would not dare such thing me."
Euseff exchanged looks with Dakila, he does not know how to 'Pet' a sad child. Yet, he still tried to make some good impression. "So little brother... how did you... wait, you knew we were coming?"
"Yes, everyone knows you're coming." Jacksie mused, hearing he was acknowledged as how he expected.
'Everyone... ', Euseff thought and tensed. He immediately searched around the darkness for any hidden figures, but failed to recognize any living being ogling over them.
"Don't worry, It was said you were a bit of afraid that's why only I was sent to attend you. Mama said they were sorry for such welcoming, but it has to be done." Jacksie assured him.
"I see..." Euseff unheld Dakila. 'Knowing I am afraid', he did not expect such bizarre foretelling. "Then... you definitely know where we are supposedly heading?"
"Indeed, then please if you follow me." Jacksie tried to copy the act of a room servant and skipped from the elevated pebbles to the sides of the tall trees.
Euseff and Dakila made moment to contemplate, but decided to clasp the older man's sweating hand and traced the steps of Jacksie as they dissappear along with the flickers of lamp from the darkness of forest.
Euseff knows a lot of the trees in this forest, he definitely remembered such tall and wide trees with magnificent twinkling scale-like barks are worth fortunes only found on the hunting grounds of royal nobles in the Tessicante Kingdom. He grew in a town near a viscount's Hunting Ground and his mother is a talented worker on that well-cared little forest.
"How old are you?" Euseff wondered. Jacksie is just a child being sent to a total stranger. Gambling a noble child over waiting for three days in a forest at night is not even a laughing matter.
'But they knew I am afraid', Euseff pondered, then he suddenly thought, 'What if they also know that, the thing I am here for?'
Jacksie was skipping like the forest is a flat ground while the two older boys behind him were being covered in leaves and breaking branches. "Glad you asked, I'm eight. I will be nine in the next three full moons. I will soon belong to the table of the big brothers and leave that loud Lynnally on the lower tables. Haha, I can no longer wait."
"So how did you know... I mean, did everyone always knew when someone is coming to this island?" Euseff still pondering the extent of what did 'Everyone' knew exactly about him, he tried to gather any useful information he could get on a mere eight-year-old boy.
"We didn't, but Owl Three always informs us. She wanders around the world all the time and just comes back when someone new is coming in the island." Jacksie revealed.
"Owl Three? What's that?" Euseff was confused, was it the bird looking at him at the harbor, the one following them?
"It was uhm, It was not exactly an Owl. Mama said it was grandmother, she has three owls following her. She always watches and protect us so no one can enter and leave 'The Children's island' without her watch, although she was never in the island since I was born. I think I saw the brown owl once back on the Northern Lighthouse, but I'm not sure, just the white one, perhaps." Jacksie, scratching his head, remembering his encounters.
'Three owls, white and brown owls who follows people it knew coming to the island, Grandmother who protects the island, Northern Lighthouse,' Euseff pointed in his mind, there is much in the island than what he have heard.
"So you, your mama, and your brothers were the only who lives here since no one is allowed to enter and leave?"
"Uhm... no, Lord uncle Tresinfort, Hubort Redhorse the shepherd, and Mrs. Ginbilog lives with us. Also that freckled peasant boy and blind girl Lynnally plays about, they live just outside The Southern Keep. However, I don't know most of the herders and the other townspeople, they were very good on us that they give us food for free. Mama said that it's because good people is being cared for by other good people, but I don't believe her because Lynnally is never a good sister. She always makes fun of me so how come she eats the food for good people?" Jacksie fumed, his cheeks almost turning tomato if not for the dark surroundings.
Euseff couldn't fathom how much Jacksie abhors his unmet sister named 'Lynnally,' he could not stop stressing out how bad of a kid she was whenever he had a chance. 'Was she that bad? Jacksie seemed a very polite kid, so it might not be just an opinion, does it?' He speculated.
'So there's a town here after all, and a shepherd, so there must be at least a field of weeds and an open land.' Euseff initially believed that the island looked rather small from afar, but then thought of the saying 'The only thing small in the continent and islands of southernmost is their men's willies,' He giggled inwardly, but he as well lived south, just one sail away from the southernmost continent. He pouted.
"Are we near yet?" Euseff asked, catching his breath. They were at the forest walking endlessly for at least three hours or more.
"We're already here!" Jacksie shouted above them.
All three of them stood at the peak of what seemed a hill which altogether connected with other hills, forming an even circle. On their west, sky-piercing cliffs were molded smooth by tree-like waterfall that flows just beside well-aged castle that can be seen yet small from a distance. The river born from the waterfall flows middle the rows of houses which are roughly around half a thousand people. The houses does not even look so peasantlike for herders and farmers to live so humbly, it was akin to the cramped, tall, and colorful beachside city houses at Vittor that cost five hundred silver livra for three weeks.
On their east, the farmland just had a good harvest. Red barns of what Euseff suspected to fill with more than enough animals to feed the entire town for three whole years, stretches in a row-like Galistrician Prison that 'No one gets in were able to get out' kind of build to wall tall over their pastures.
The gibbous moon surrounded by sea of stars are beginning to lower from the sky. Some windows had their lamps flickering, but most are still at rest, people inside sleeping soundly, uncaring of some strangers' arrival. Euseff just noticed a very obvious lacking on this very sufficient town, there were no loud engines of carriages, pipes, and the nightly reverberating machines of someone doing road repairs or the assembling workers at the factories. Although the town is so much green beyond his liking, he truly enjoyed to play the idea of stillness and plentifulness in his mind.
"I have not been in such a place for a long time." Euseff reminisced when he was just an innocent small town boy.
"Was the northernlings' cities that bad?" Jacksie stared at him curiously.
Euseff was taken aback because he remembered asking the same thing to his mother wayback their townhome when she always told him that the city exudes hidden poison with numerous bad people hiding their bad breath and bad attitude under suits and dresses. The cities he discovered were far more hideous than what his mother told, people live with pimpled and oily faces because they are lazy to wash it thoroughly, most don't have the courtesy to clean behind the dirtiness they left after using the public bathrooms, and the horrendous, heartless, and beyond helping people who leaves their pets unfed before they go to sleep. Just disgusting city people, they must at least have the shame.
"Yes, their breath stinks, so much in the morning." Euseff shortly identified the most pressing matter.
"That's vile." Jacksie scrunched his nose, he turned his back behind the two guests and checked his own breath, he was happy. He climbed down the hill and traced the road leading to the town.
Passing by the field near the entry of the town, few men were early, holding scythes and their carabaos carrying the bamboo bags filled with dried sunflower, corns, and some other low-fields crops. Other were burning the leftover stems and leaves for fertilizers. The wind is slightly cold, but warmer if compared to Mercoria, it carries the smell of freshly torn and sliced greens. The sound of the early curses from the roosters reverberates from one barn to another, following a synchronized shouting at the top of their lungs. The nearby houses' windows is now lit up, starting the day with a warm welcome to the breeze of the morning.
Jacksie ran towards the farm fence made of a whole log and shouted at the farmer busying himself at the corns. "Lord Tanduay, shall we have your specialty by supper? How I yearn for such delight of your making since Yules' Nameday. Also, we have guests, if by your welcome."
The farmer put down his fieldwork materials and walked in jolly towards the small boy. "Oh, if its not our very own Little Lord Tresingfort the Third."
"Not very long, Lord Tanduay. I will be officially introduced as descendant of father Georgio Everlark, eleventh of his line, in the next Three Full Moons and a day." Jacksie huffed and puffed, resembling the posture of high status.
"Haha, then it's my honor. How should I repay for such misbehavior as your loyal subject, my lord? A rice flour muffin with salted-egg top, perhaps?" Lord Tanduay playfully acknowledged the respect by removing and lowering his farming hat.
"Truly, I deserve such apologies. Add more salted eggs and I shall bestow my blessing of forgiveness, Lord Tanduay."
Laughters emerged from the two figures that seemingly alike a father and son practicing for their first fencing lessons as how Euseff always saw at the entrances of noble boy's schools. He felt a small tinge inside him. However, the farmer was clearly addressed as lord with distinct sincerity. 'Was a lord really farming here or the townspeople just fancies the titles that even though the island is small, they still base the power from the worth of farmlands? Kind of odd if you ask me.' Euseff believed so.
"Oh right, I must do the introductions like Mama." Jacksie reached for the remaining two figures behind him.
The farmer did not stop smiling reaching his ears, but it was evident that the smile from his eyes faded the moment he saw the boy's companions.
"Lord Tanduay, this is my brother, Euseff. Then this is..." Jacksie was finding the name, but he remembered that he did not ask.
"He's my uncle, well, step-uncle. Dakila of Acllan–a township of Vittor Province at Juritia Empire. It's an honor meeting you, my lord." Euseff intervened politely. He did not add further as it is well-understood that people with only forenames and followed of just the place of their origin are typically the lines not worth mentioning, so their rights of last name were removed to simplify the census. He was also used to be called as this, not after he entered the cities that he created his own last name as unique identifier.
"Exactly, the one... or the ones we were expecting." Jacksie placing the words right.
"I see, It's my honor meeting you Little Lord. If you wish for my help, I must attend you soon." The Lord Farmer guaranteed his service.
After paying some other respects with Lord Tanduay and the other farming men, Jacksie lead the way of his guests towards the town and the castle. Eyes of the earlybird townspeople mirrored the reaction of Lord Tanduay. It's playing between shock, astonishment, and peculiarity as if seeing a jester-dressed, talking, and trickplaying monkey for the first time in a circus.
Reaching the gates guarded by two men holding rifles while their backs arched to look straight and tall, they just did a free pass that made Euseff a little more uncomfortable, added from the peculiar stares. The gate's rusted and seemed not even used to be pulled up and down for a long time, it was just hanging up there forever to god-knows-when it will break its last strength and fall to someone. 'I expected things here to be more shiny.' He inwardly muttered.
"We shouldn't do the front doors, Mama will be very displeased of such etiquette. We should do the back doors." Jacksie explained as they circled the path around the castle.
Euseff found the castle very different, it sure looks very old like all the other castles he had seen, but the stones used in this one seemed strange. It was white as a newly attached marble, but it has formed cracks on the edges revealing fine ages of tampering and fixing the open wounds. It was like the castle is healing itself, perfectly being preserved that can survive at least another span of lifetime from the age it was built until today. Even the outer walls shows the same traits.
He understands the basic courses of history and he has taken attention of anything useful for his skills in the gang back in Vittor. In the case of acquiring books, he studied the general knowledge of dating the age of structures and the culture behind it.
From what he learned from his mother whose also scholarly very interested in nobility and stories of the world, he could easily guess that this entire structure align with the common Renoian city squares' thousand-year-old Magistries or even older. The Magistry of Calembraon far south of Renoian Continent could not even compare which he speculated to just be around half to a third of thousand in years when it was built.
'Did this family exist for thousands of years, witnessing the dawn age of the Tenth Everlast, a pioneer of Eevrian Eon?' But he concluded that nobility's ownership of land changes over time, so maybe they gained ownership later in time.
Jacksie pushed the tall and heavy door into a slight opening, he sneaked himself between the narrow gap to go in and signaled for Euseff and Dakila to follow suit. He said it's fine as long as they don't make too much noise.
They tiptoed along the white-marbled stairs in mosaic of multiple historical images, the walls were filled with frames and paintings depicting the faces of the owners and past generations of owners of the castle. The windowsills, lamps, and other shiny edges are plated in gold, matching the yellowish glow of the lamps. Each of the hundredth door they passed are made of very sturdy Nara Wood and every hall ends are finished with a statue of beautifully engraved women wearing elk horn crowns.
'Now this is shiny..' Euseff commented.
Everything inside the castle particularly matches the brown, white, gold, and black ranges of color except for one, the bright red door at the second level overlooking the entire atrium where it gallantly faces all the important rooms to easily gain more attention.
The place is still empty and silent, except for the incoherent rustlings and soft mutterings from below, it might be from the kitchen preparing breakfast.
"Third room on the right is both of you's room, the restroom's first door on the left." Jacksie instructed them, breathless from all the stairs climbing.
The room has a tag 'Guest,' and a hanging key on its knob.
Euseff understood and looked around for a bit when the boy just disappeared beside them from the puzzles of halls. Euseff saw Dakila eyeing their designated door so he walked with him and both entered the room quietly. The room did not especially differ from the outside's aesthetics: two beds, large and clear window, carpeted floor.
When Euseff first laid his back on the soft bed in exhaustion was when reality washed over him. He willingly followed a stranger boy claiming to be his brother, introduced him in the entire village full of more strangers, entered a mysteriously old castle, and laying flat on a stranger foreign noble family.
"Everlark." Euseff repeated after Jacksie's line, the origin name of his father.
The door suddenly opened and the head of Jacksie slowly peeked over them, worry in his eyes. "Once the daylight strikes, a bell chime will sound on all halls. You have to stand straight in front of your door and look straight on the other side of your wall. You must follow what the Maester instructs you. Oh, and Mr. Dakila can stay here, someone will attend him."
When Jacksie left, Euseff was raising thousand questions in his mind, yet he muttered only one. 'What will happen if he did not follow any of that?'
The door once again creaked open and Jacksie left a special reminder hesitantly, "Don't get really nervous, like really nervous. The Maester don't like the soft ones."
With that, their door closed. Small feet scurrying from the halls was followed by a thud of closing a door.
An hour and a half later, Euseff lost his ability to blink and never left his gaze at the door, hoping for a miracle to happen. When the sun striked their window, a chill sent the bones lf Euseff to jump out of his body.
A single ring of a large bell resonated back and forth the entire castle.