As Caleb and Sara walked back to the house, the child realized that Sara was being very selfless here, putting her own safety and potentially even Lydia’s freedom behind the child’s desire to learn about his family. Caleb felt fairly certain that they weren’t in any real danger here; at the very least, the newspaper suggested that the people here knew of his hometown. How many people outside of Eagletown or the Southern Kingdom even knew about the [i]Enquirer[/i], much less read it on a regular basis? But he also knew that Sara’s precautions were rooted in the reality that this empire was still a cruel place. However hospitable Alan would be or how quant the market of Loucanter had been, this was still a country where a border guard could kill someone simply for wanting to be free.

With this realization, Caleb also knew that he couldn’t do what Sara asked if there was real trouble. He’d be cautious as she suggested, but if there was immediate danger, he would put his own safety behind the safety of the one who was willing to do the same for him. That much, at the very least, was the right thing to do.

Once the two re-entered Alan’s home and went into the dining room, the only immediate danger was running into Luke as he while he was setting the table. Apparently, he thought it would be easiest to grab [i]all[/i] of the dishes at once to comply with his father’s request. Fortunately, the assorted tableware made so much noise all stacked together that he was pretty hard not to notice.

“Sorry about that,” the young man said with a laugh, “didn’t expect you two to be so fast. Have a seat.”

The room itself wasn’t particularly decorated; the furnishings consisted of four wooden spindle back chairs and a matching table with a red tablecloth on it. Unlike the wooden furniture, the tablecloth looked basically brand new, suggesting it didn’t get much use. Perhaps Alan even bought it especially for this occasion. The dishes and cutlery were both worn; the former were a plain white color and the silverware was a metallic iron color.

As Caleb and Sara sat down, they could hear a whisper in their ear. “Alan told Luke he’s an orphan. They seem close.” This was Rainbow’s voice, and he confirmed at the very least that the farmer was keeping his story straight, Sara thought. A few moments later, Alan came to the table with the food. A big pot vegetable soup was put in the center, along with some pieces of chicken placed next to it. On the sides of each dish were baskets filled with slices of bread. Following this, he brought in two pitchers, one with water and one with beer.

Alan explained that “I’m not sure what kind of foods you two like, so I hope this is-” he cut himself off at that point as he saw Luke taking a bunch of soup and chicken.

“You really should let our guests-”

He sheepishly cut himself off a second time, before adding “never mind, son, go ahead.”

Luke wore a confused expression on his face for a few moments, then realized what his father was thinking about. “Oh! The whole ‘Calvin’ thing. Why are you using a fake name, anyway?” he asked the child, using a tone that was casual rather than accusatory, as if he had been talking about the weather or something equally ordinary.

Caleb blushed for a second, but it was Alan who spoke up, indirectly scolding his son. “Eat your food, Luke.” He then gathered some food and water for himself and added “My apologies, Caleb. You and your friend don’t need to tell us anything you don’t want to.”

“Thank you,” the child sheepishly replied. He looked at Sara, who grabbed some food, which encouraged him to do the same after the woman tried hers.

After eating a few bites of chicken and a few spoons of soup, Alan spoke up again; “I do need to ask you one thing though, for hopefully obvious reasons; what do you know about your family?”

With Sara’s silent encouragement, Caleb told Alan how he was found on a doorstep with only a blanket and a note with two words on it, then given to the Red Twig orphanage because the couple that found him didn’t want him.

Alan nodded, then looked to be deep in thought for a few moments. “I see. The first thing you should know, Caleb, is that you weren’t told the truth. What likely happened is someone - probably the Elder Eagle or Ms. Ardia or both - wanted to protect you. So they made that story up, gave you your mom’s last name and put you in Red Twig where you’d be safe.”

Caleb was shocked. In four sentences, Alan had raised a ton of new questions. The most important one to the child, which he asked, was this: “who was my mother?”

“Her name was Cara. I didn’t meet her until I was maybe nine or ten, but it feels like I knew her my whole life. Your mother was a wonderful woman. She was one of the kindest, most empathetic people I‘ve ever known. I wish you could have met her, Caleb.”

“What happened to her?”

Alan frowned. “There were complications when she was pregnant with you. She passed away shortly after you were born.”

At that point, tears started flowing out of Caleb’s eyes. The implications of that were dreadful to the child and he said so. “I’m an awful person. I killed my mom.”

The farmer shook his head. “No. Don’t think of it that way. She knew the risks and went ahead with it. Cara may have only been alive for a small time after your birth, but she loved you more than anyone. She’d want you to be happy and would’ve done anything for you.”

Sara nodded in agreement, putting her hand onto Caleb’s shoulder. “She’d be proud of you, child. Any mother would be lucky to have a son like you.”

“You really think so?” Caleb sniffed, still sad but appreciative all the same.

“I know it.” Saying this, Sara hugged the child, who hugged her back. Alan smiled and wiped an unshed tear from his eye, happy that Caleb was traveling with someone who seemed to genuinely care about him.

After that, everyone quietly ate their meals, respectfully letting Caleb process his emotions. After about ten minutes of this, Caleb hesitantly spoke up. “Mr. Alan, you said you knew my father, right? Could you tell me about him?”

“Of course, Caleb. I think for everything to make sense though, I should start at the beginning. Is that okay?”

The black-haired orphan nodded, so Alan started his story. “Cecil arrived in Red Twig shortly after he was born, same as me. Neither of us knew our parents...that’s okay though, because the kids there and the people in Eagletown were family, you know? But your father, I was closer to him than most. We were brothers in every way except blood.” This last, he said while looking at Luke. Rainbow had told Caleb that Luke was close to his father, but nobody had even mentioned a mother figure since they had met. Maybe he was adopted?

He said nothing about it though, letting the farmer continue the story. “We were inseparable; whether it was playing games or listening to the Elder Eagle’s stories, we did everything together. And it seems like as soon as we learned what the word meant, we both wanted to be knights. Oh sure, lots of kids wanted that, and back then us common folk could do that. For your father, though, it was almost a certainty. He was fearless, the most skilled warrior I’ve ever met, and more than anything, he was ambitious. Cecil never stopped wanting to become stronger. He felt like he was destined to do great things, and as his brother, I wanted to be there right by his side. Even before we were old enough to become knights, we’d practice sword fighting with sticks or ask the older kids to train us. When we were 13 or so, we’d even sneak out of Eagletown sometimes to go on adventures. I’m assuming you can relate to that,” Alan said with a grin.

Caleb smiled at the man’s comment; he couldn’t deny that he had been on quite an adventure so far. The boy had expected Alan to continue his story, but Luke spoke up instead. “Hey Caleb, did you really sail across the ocean to cure your town?” 

The child nodded, figuring Luke had heard about it from his dad or read it in the newspaper. “Haha, that’s crazy! Sailing all the way across the ocean by yourself. Hey Dad, did you ever do anything like that?”

Alan shook his head. “No, not until later.” Looking at his son, he added “and you know how that went. Don’t skip ahead, please.”

“Alright, I guess” was Luke’s response; Caleb wanted to ask about this, but he felt like it would be awkward, so he asked about something else: “what did my dad look like?”

“A lot like you, actually. Black hair and a similar figure. You have more of your mom’s demeanor though, and her blue eyes. You have very kind eyes.” Alan smiled and relaxed at his observation, as if knowing this made him calmer for some reason.

This was the first time anyone had said anything like this to him, so Caleb wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “Thanks,” he ventured, hoping it didn’t come across as rude.

If Alan was bothered by this, he didn’t show it. “You’re welcome Caleb. Now what was I...oh, right! As we journeyed together, we grew stronger, and by the time we were 18 we were able to become knights easily. Cecil’s talent and ambition were apparent, and we rose through the ranks without much trouble. We helped keep the Kingdom and its people safe on many occasions; it was one of the best times of my life.” The farmer sighed, then added “it didn’t last, though.”

“Why not?” Caleb had to ask. He felt like if he could, he would be a knight until the day he died.

“Your father, mainly. I learned what kind of person he was. Myself too, really. Honestly, I’m not a very good-”

“Here we go again,” Luke interrupted with a roll of his eyes “it’s been like a decade, and you’ve done tons of good stuff since. Isn’t it time to forgive yourself?”

“It’s not that easy, son,” Alan responded, more irritated with himself as he was with Luke, “like I’ve said, what we did was wrong and it hurt the Kingdom a great deal.”

Both of the visible guests didn’t know what to make of this. Sara thought their back and forth was odd; if either of these people wanted to inflict harm upon them, [i]telling[/i] them that they were bad wasn’t really an effective way of doing it. These were not like the gangsters she had worked with and fought against in her more foolish days. Watching Luke and Alan go back and forth did vaguely remind her of a much less tense version of the arguments she’d been in with Junior though; he’d always insist that he knew what he was doing, but she always knew better. Even though she never was as bad as he was, Sara knew that her old ways were similar to the path the younger John had taken. The difference here was that Luke actually seemed to consider what his father was saying, even if he also seemed to lack some sense.

After a few moments of this, Luke spoke up again. “Look, Caleb here is from the Southern Kingdom, same as you. Why not just have him forgive you? He seems nice.”

“Son, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I wouldn’t put that burden on him. I can’t make him speak for an entire group of people.”

Caleb was confused as well, but for different reasons. From how Alan had described his father so far, he had been a brave knight who went on lots of adventures and helped people. How could someone so noble become someone who, for whatever reason, did the wrong thing? And perhaps more importantly, what was the “wrong thing?”

The child felt it important to find this out and asked accordingly. “What happened?”

The farmer sighed. “It was actually closer to 12 years ago that this happened. Our old king had always been vigorous, but unfortunately time is an unstoppable force, and so he died. He was a good ruler, but his biggest mistake was how he chose his successor. Rather than choose based on merit, his majesty chose based on emotion and had Prince Zachary be the heir. He was corrupt and vain, but the Prince excelled at staying on his father’s good side, so he ascended to the throne anyway. Most of the citizens thought it was a poor choice, but went along with it. Your father disagreed; he thought that someone more fit for the throne should rule. In Cecil’s eyes, that someone was himself. He had already proven his bravery and strength, so why not? His ambition had caused him to lose sight of right and wrong. I’m not proud of it, but I went along with him. He was my brother and Zach wasn’t fit to rule anyway, so of course it was the right thing to do - so I thought, anyway. Many of our fellow knights agreed, so the plan moved ahead.”

“That’s...new information.” Caleb felt vaguely sick at the notion that someone so close to him could have done something like that, but didn’t say so, given that he wanted to learn more. Whatever it was, the brave thing to do was face this new information head on. “What happened next?”

“We split off into two groups. Some of us, including your father and I, were supposed to be in the King’s Castle for the coronation already, so we took advantage of that. We manipulated where everyone was arranged so we could take out Zachary and any of his loyalists there before reinforcements arrived. That part of the plan worked perfectly; we took out the leadership in no time at all. Well, almost perfectly; I got knocked out cold by one of the Prince’s guards, but we won that round. Cecil even wore the crown, if you can believe that.”

Caleb’s face at that moment revealed that yes, he could, but no, he didn’t like it. “I understand,” the farmer responded. “Anyway, the second group was in charge of stalling or converting any opposition forces in Northgate. Cecil figured that the citizenry and army would be on his side, by virtue of his side being right, so taking the rest of the kingdom would be easy. Besides, anyone who could oppose him was gone.”

“But he didn’t win...right?” At this point, the child didn’t know what to expect.

Alan shook his head. “No. What Cecil never understood was that there are forces greater than his ambition. Honesty, charity, bravery, righteousness; in other words, being knightly. And Prince Laurence embodied all of them.” Caleb, having recognized the name, briefly raised his eyebrows at that point as the farmer went on.

“At the time, he was just one of the old king’s many grandnephews, noted for bravely fighting the gnolls at the cost of his legs. Nobody expected a wheelchair-bound man to, if you’ll excuse the phrase, stand up to our forces. Of course I wasn’t there, but I was told Laurence was able to single-handedly convince most of the men to abandon the coup and change sides. After brief negotiations, the turncoats and kingdom loyalists joined forces to proclaim Laurence as the new King, and they marched on the castle. Now our group was surrounded and low on morale. With few options, Cecil agreed to negotiate, but only under two conditions. The first was that he negotiate with the Elder Eagle, who was in the city at the time. The second was that he be able to see you, his infant son.”

Caleb wanted to be happy at that last part; even if his father had done some awful things, he at least cared about him. The expression Alan wore, however, did not make it look positive at all. After a few moments of silence, the man finally continued.

“It was a trick. Once you were there, your father held you hostage, knowing the Elder Eagle wouldn’t let you be harmed.” Sara, who had been respectfully silent up until now, gasped quietly in response. Caleb was shocked that his own father could do something like that, but said nothing. And even before this, Alan had sounded sad, but now he seemed bitter as well. “That plan of his worked perfectly; we all sailed away on the Kingdom’s fastest ship, free to live another day. I only learned of how it happened when we were at sea. At that point, I realized Cecil was no longer the man I grew up with, so once we made it to land I decided to use my savings and buy a farm. And, well, that’s where we are now. I’ve only ever talked to my brother through letters since.”

Caleb had a mix of emotions at that moment, including sadness, anger, but also a feeling of gratitude towards the leader of Eagletown for saving his life, even if at the same time he also felt like it was a mistake. “The Elder Eagle sure is amazing,” the child said, “I’ll definitely succeed here and save his town.”

“I agree, and that’s very kind of you,” Alan replied with a smile, “we don’t really have many doctors here, but I’ll help you however I can. What do you need - supplies? Money? Information?”

The black-haired boy considered the farmer’s words. What could he ask for that would help, but not blow their cover?

“Do you have any maps of the Empire? We’ll be here a while and we’d like to, uh, not get lost.”

“Sure. Luke, could you please get those? They’re in the middle drawer in the guest bedroom cabinet.”

The leather jacket-wearing man quickly rose up from his chair as Alan thanked him, running out of the room to comply with his father’s request.

Alan began clearing the table so Luke would have room to set the maps there. “Feel free to keep as many of these as you need. We can get replacements easily.”

Caleb thought back to the beginning of his journey. An extra map certainly would’ve come in handy then. “Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome, Caleb. I’m happy to see you, more than you know. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone from home and-”

“I got maps!” Luke exclaimed as he returned to the dining room. Alan, having finished clearing the table, left to go put the dishes in the sink as his son unceremoniously plopped the navigation aids down on the wooden surface. And Caleb saw there were lots of them, with titles including [i]Southeast Blackscale, Map of the Empire by Dragon Population, Village of Loucanter,[/i] and so on.

One, however, looked different than the rest. Unlike the others, which were in good shape, this one was crumpled up as if it was stored in someone’s pocket for a long period of time. Also, it was drawn in pen on what appeared to be scrap paper, not printed. Finally, it didn’t illustrate a part of the world like most of the others did; it represented a place called the Harrison Farm. There were the usual farm buildings and symbols representing planted crops, but the buildings in the back that had arrows creating a circuitous route towards them from the road nearby confused the child.

“Luke, what’s this?”

The man looked vaguely amused as he looked at the paper. “Oh, that? Just a farm about six hours from here. Dad and I freed a few dwarves there. Or were they gnomes?” Luke thought about it for a moment, then spoke louder towards the kitchen. “Hey Dad, were the ones at the Harrison Farm gnomes or dwarves?”

In response, everyone in the dining room heard dishes crashing onto the floor. Luke simply stated “I guess that was meant to be secret. Forget you saw that, okay?” Caleb looked over at Sara excitedly and she nodded, then spoke. “It’s okay, Luke. Thank you for telling us that. We’re actually here for a similar reason.” The elderly woman thought it was an amazing coincidence that these people, among the first they met in the Empire, were so friendly and of a similar mindset. Or perhaps it was more than that? This wasn’t the first time Caleb had the help of unlikely people. Whatever it was, Sara was grateful for the child’s presence.

“Dad, they’re here to free slaves too! Told ya Caleb was nice.”

“Really?” Alan had interrupted sweeping up the broken plates to glance back into the room, where Caleb confirmed this. He sighed in relief, then quickly finished cleaning up and returned to the dining room. “It’s good work you’re doing, but what does helping people be free have to do with saving Eagletown?”

Sara looked guilty as she responded. “Caleb sailed to Thorn to find a doctor and he did; Roger, a dear relative of mine. He’s the best there is, but he can’t help until his daughter is safe. She was sold to your empire and Caleb insisted on helping free her, so we’re going to do so.”

“Caleb, are you sure you know what you’re getting into? I’d hate for anything bad to happen to you.”

With equal determination and seriousness, Caleb nodded. “You can’t stop me from doing the right thing here.”

Alan chuckled before continuing. “Well, I suppose I can’t be too surprised. The knightly spirit lives within you, Caleb Crowsnest. I won’t try to stop you and my previous offer to help still stands, but I do want to make sure you’re prepared. What do you know about who you’re trying to save?”

Caleb appreciated the compliment, but he didn’t know anything about Lydia besides her name, so he let Sara take point.

“Her name is Lydia. She’s a skilled doctor like her father, and we know she’s in the Coldrock Prison Mine System. Does that help?”

“Yes. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”

 “The good” she replied.

“Okay, so if she’s as good as you say, she’s almost certainly alive and I know where she is. Skilled slaves are harder to replace.” Both Sara and Caleb were relieved at this news.

“The bad news is she’s in the Main Camp of Coldrock. It’s extremely tough to get into and even harder to break out of. Ever since the...” Alan paused for a moment, looking uncomfortable, “...current warden started there, only one man has ever successfully escaped.”

Sara wondered how he could already know all of this based on that small amount of information. Caleb, however, chose to look on the bright side of things. “If he escaped, maybe we can save Lydia the same way?”

“No.” The farmer stated this so firmly and assertively that Caleb was momentarily startled. “Nobody else could escape like he did. He took down a legion of guards by himself and still had the energy to get to Thorn.”

“Who was this guy?”

“I don’t remember much about him, just that his name started with a B and he was an alligatorman - Byron or Byrne, maybe?”

Caleb’s eyes grew wide. If this was who he thought it was, that would be pretty incredible. It also confirmed that there was no way they could use brute force to get into the camp.

“What should we watch out for when we’re there, then?”

The older man looked like he had thought about that question and was going to answer the child, but Luke blurted out an answer before he could speak - “probably the warden - you’ll want to avoid him.”

Alan shook his head; not because Luke was wrong, but because this wasn’t really something he wanted to talk about. However, when Caleb asked for his identity, the farmer reluctantly answered anyway.

“Your father.”

At that moment, Caleb looked like someone had punched him in the gut. After a few moments of trying to hold back tears, the child ran away through the kitchen and out the back door, shutting it loudly behind him.

Sara stood up shortly after this, saying she’d go check on him, but someone else decided to do so instead.

“I’ll talk to him, Sara. You should get more information about the mines for saving Lydia.”

As the farmhouse’s residents watched Rainbow walk in Caleb’s direction, Luke asked Sara “what in the world [i]was[/i] that?”

-----

Outside, it was a nice summer evening, a severe contrast from the emotions of the sobbing boy sitting on the simple wooden deck behind the house. Rainbow felt sad for Caleb, but he also found the situation to be somewhat perplexing; if Sara didn’t need to stay inside to get information, she might have been better suited for this task. But Caleb was the rablin’s friend, maybe even his best friend, so Rainbow felt a responsibility to do his best to make sure he was okay as he put a small green hand on Caleb’s side.

“Are you okay, Caleb?” he asked out of sympathy; Caleb’s condition was obviously far from okay.

“Of course not! My dad is some evil guy who enslaves people, tried to take over my country, and who knows what else!?”

“Okay...your mom saved your life though, so things aren’t all bad, right?”

“Oh, sure! Only half a chance I’ll be like my dad!”

Rainbow took a few moments to consider what to try next. “I don’t really know much about parents - my kind don’t really have them - but I don’t think it works like that. You remember Jake’s dad, Herrown?”

Caleb only knew him from what other people told him, but he managed to nod, which Rainbow took as permission to go on. “We talked on the ship and he told me that his parents were real jerks. They did...” he shook his head, “well, what they did isn’t important. What’s important was that Herrown was a good man. He wasn’t the smartest or most coordinated, for sure, but he always did his best and was the first to help when it was needed. Most important, I think, is that he loved his kids. Just because this Cecil guy is awful doesn’t mean you have to be.”

Caleb considered the rablin’s words. The child had stopped crying, but still looked sad. “But what if I do become like him?”

Rainbow shook his head. “You won’t. I’ve known you long enough to know that. You’re a good man, Caleb.”

The boy wasn’t sure if he was entirely convinced, but the faith his friend had in him made him smile and hug the rablin. “Thanks, Rainbow.”

“No problem, Caleb” he responded as he returned the gesture.

Following this, the two talked for around 20 minutes. With Rainbow having been hidden in the cart for the past day, they had more to discuss than they realized. Their conversation was only interrupted by Sara opening the back door. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” It wasn’t completely true, but it was true enough for now. “It’s just been a heavy day. I learned a lot and there’s probably more to learn later.”

Sara smiled. “Good. If it’s okay with you, Alan said he’ll be out here in a few minutes, and he wants to make sure you’re ready for our journey.” Saying this, she gave him a sword - it looked like the blades the knights of the Southern Kingdom use, except it was made of wood. Caleb beamed as he held and examined it, a genuine joy arising in the child as he realized the implications of this. “He said you’d know what this was for.”