Dreams and Shadows (The Aylosian Chronicles Book 1) by Jeffrey Collyer

Author:Jeffrey Collyer [Jeffrey Collyer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-05T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

Child

A man may pity a child who begs on the street for his lack of shoes or for her belly that cannot hide the absence of food that nourishes. And these causes of sorrow should truly lead such a man to give of his own wealth, thus providing relief to the suffering he witnesses. In doing so, his bounty may restore to some degree what life has cruelly taken. But there is a loss so great that all the gold and precious gems of the earth will never be sufficient to repair. For if a child has never known one to love them, that part of their heart which is reserved for such tender caring will retain an emptiness that cannot be filled by any other means.

From the Wisdom of Ashael

***

Michael sat, stunned, staring into the Guardian’s eyes. The older man kept his arm around Michael for several minutes until his initial emotional response to the revelation had eased. And then, the two of them simply sat in silence. The Guardian must have had many important duties to attend to, Michael knew, but still he sat there as a comforting companion to him. The flames in the fireplace had long since died away, leaving the hot coals to emit only a faint light, and while Michael pondered what had been revealed, the Guardian poked around the fire a little, placing two more logs of wood on it.

Finally, Michael had regained some degree of control over his thoughts, and began to ask some questions. “Are you sure?’ he enquired. “How can you know that she’s my mother?”

“Oh, I am sorry,” came the gentle reply. “I cannot be certain. But there are several things that make me believe it so.”

“First,” he said, “to have a small child simply disappear like that… well, it is unheard of, and I am surprised – and a little disappointed – that I did not hear of it. I have made enquiries, and I am assured that in the last generation it is in fact the only recorded instance of its type. I am certain that if the child had simply been kidnapped, he could not have remained hidden all these summers, and equally certain that a stolen baby could not be smuggled out of the city. No, the boy must have somehow literally vanished from our city, and vanishing to your world is as good as vanishing to anywhere else.

“Second, you have spoken to me of when you came into Aylosia, of how you had been drawn to the image of Aperocalsa in the strange crystal medallion you had been given, and that you felt that you were coming home and would find your mother in this world. I believe it is possible that you felt a pull to our city precisely because it is where you were born and where you would find your mother.”

He continued with his reasons, “And finally, though it is only circumstantial of course, your name could easily be derived from Ramical, and the colour of your hair and eyes matches that of the lost child.

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