Fiction: The Hozl's - Chapter One

“Just write something. Put the first question that comes to your mind.” Two shadowed figured huddled warily by the light of a single dim candle. A cold wind whipped through the trees, cutting through their cloaks as they pulled them tighter.

“What if I write the wrong words? Or, or, what if I can’t think of the right question to ask?” The voice of a young boy responded hesitantly, an edge of fear not unfit for the situation.

“You can’t you fatuous child, just, write whatever comes to mind. Whatever you put down, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“You do it.” He said, holding a small notebook and a piece of charcoal towards his companion.

“You can both do it if you want, but you should be first. You picked me up.” The voice spoke once more. It was at this moment that a casual observer, undoubtedly bundled against the cold forest night themselves, may have begun to note the source of the initial voice. It was not coming from either of the young anxious children in cloaks. The notebook prodded once more… “Just whatever you want to put down, this is the simplest way.”

“What if he finds out we took you?” The second young figure, a young woman asked impudently. This had obviously not been her idea, and while she had by no means tried to stop her younger brother, her countenance insisted it known that she had been against the venture from the start. The forest was quiet. It was very, very quiet. If the two young siblings were not caught up in their moment of larcenous beguilement it would have very quickly become an additional layer of certainty that what they were about to do was not for their young minds, and was undoubtedly dangerous. While not the first facet of the evening that should have drawn their concern, the silent forest was nothing if not a flashing warning against their current course. For all intents and purposes they had grown up in this forest. They knew it well, well enough to know it was never, under normal circumstances, this quiet. It was as much, if not more, their home compared unto the tumble of stone their father had built for himself and his children. Lesser minded men, supplicants unto their father, had called it a mansion. The two children had never seen it as a mansion. It was by no means a warm and welcoming home, though that may define many mansions as well. By and large, they chose to spend most of their days of freedom exploring the aforementioned woods in each other’s company. The notepad considered itself for a moment, as was one of the subtle defining facets of what set this particular binding of parchment aside from the common, everyday series of pages. It certainly hadn’t asked to be brought out here, to this dingy, moist, and frankly rather cold wooded glen. It had been quite comfortable, stacked in a precarious tower of its more mundane brethren before being so rudely jostled and absconded with. After a envisioning a series of potential outcomes, several of which ended with imagined impalements, beheadings, and burnings on stakes, it chose a reply. “I imagine he will be quite wroth with the two of you…”

The papers notion reverberated through the space between the two siblings.

Their mother had left long before their first coherent memory. The occupants of their home, as per the tax keeper’s census at least, entailed exclusively their father, Oilander Hozl, the young master Jainithan, and the young mistress Lowella. The tax keeper of course did not account for any of the other potential occupants of the rooms. The rooms, the numbering of which shifted week to week, were most often stacked floor to ceiling with books and scribbled notepads. Some of which, though a relatively small number, were not unlike the one they held now. Such rooms had always been off limits as they had grown. Their world inside of the household was a small one. One room had been set aside for their use, but aside from a shifting collection of the written word, it was largely drab and uninteresting to our burgeoning intellectuals. Not to mention the greater issue, the nature of their home could not always ensure their capacity to locate their designated room, and perhaps, from time to time, it was in fact not currently there. Their father’s presence in their lives was of a similar nature.

Their father was to most, from the outward observer’s perspective, a very absent minded man. He was not an unkind person, and if the two children present now in the forest knew anything, they did know that he loved them, in his own way. Unfortunately, in a sad truth of their lives, they didn’t know much else. The actual practice of provisioning and teaching associated with the upkeep and rearing of children was accomplished by a middle aged woman from a nearby village. The children did not know her name; she insisted against speaking it aloud while anywhere in sight of the pile of stone in which the shifting rooms lived. She was however very well compensated. Not in any coin of the realm, which may in truth have been insufficient to draw and retain her service to the rather odd situation. No, instead she was paid directly in an unrefined ore, heavily laden with precious metal. To the children this was a perfectly understandable arrangement. To the woman, a person of substantial, purposeful, incuriosity, it was simply a job. It was a very highly compensated job working for a very powerful and eccentric man.

“It doesn’t matter Lowy, if it knows we should ask it.” Jainithan reiterated, stating an opinion that while perhaps phrased differently, surmised his intentions throughout their scandalous endeavor. The Hozl children, while not traditionally close with their father, had certainly inherited some of his more idiosyncratic character traits. They were curious, uninhibitedly so. Neither of them could remember learning to read. In fact, their governess, upon taking her position, phlegmatic as she was, had taken in stride young Lowella’s capacity to digest literature at a fully adult level, despite her tender age of three. It could have been nothing but a purposeful resignation towards the oddities of life however, that caused her to make no comment on the capacity of the babbling babe Jainithan. Despite his incapability regarding the fine motor skills involved with locomotion, or even holding up his own head for extended periods, Jainithan seemed to have no problem following right alongside his sister as she delved into the classics of ancient lore.

So, while their formal scholastic education was up to this point nonexistent, the refinement of intellect garnered through a thorough ingestion of knowledge had left the young Hozl’s far more informed on the history and sciences than all but the most learned of scholars. If at some point in history a wizened man in a tattered robe had seen fit to jot down his experiences or theories on the secret workings of the world, there was a statistically likely probability that either Jainithan or Lowella had delved into his tome.

“If you are going to do it, just do it.” Lowella said with a sniff, the cold getting the better of her noses attempt to remain upturned at the notion.

Wordlessly, Jainithan began to write. The charcoal was crude, and by no means the most ideal implement for the task. Seeking out a more suitable tool had been at the rear of their priorities however, when they had pieced together their plan. It was a prowler’s plan. It had been first whispered in a dank hall between the two of them, hunched in front of a particular ornate brass door. Doors were in constant variety in the Hozl household. While Lowella’s proclivity for rule-following had ensured until tonight the children’s minimal involvement with moving through most of them, she had been unable to entirely curb her brothers childish insistence on rasping them open and peering through. It was her nature to ensure her brother knew exactly how foolish he was being, and that he was entirely stupid to be disobeying her father's commandments, but despite her rather openly mouthed concerns, she was not hindered in gazing through the cracks into mysterious chambers alongside her younger kin.

Calligraphy was another of the talents that neither the Hozl children, nor their governess could pin down the root of, but even the most particular of schoolmarms would have marveled in the flowing script that Jainithan put forth using his charcoal. It was a short sentence, though it was penned in a manner that implied that the author felt that showmanship must indeed count. As a matter of fact, while it was done in great flowing loops and swirls, it amounted after it all to three words.

“Where is she?”

 This was the simplest proposition that Jainithan could think of putting before the tome they had located in one of their father’s meandering studies. It was the one question that needed no further delineation of intent as far as he was concerned. The notebook would know who he meant. Though their lives had not been long as of yet, through the whole of them there was one question that burned in their souls. It was the one question never spoken aloud in their home. The hints of the question could only be passed between the two siblings as they approached the boundaries of their domain at the edges of the woods. An individual skilled in the thaumic arts would almost have considered the possibility that wards had been put in place to ensure it could not even be spoken inside their jostled halls.

The edges of the lettering began to glow, then burn. Despite the usage of charcoal, the Hozl children knew that it was not the mundane presence of the carbon in the writing that drew forth the hints of conflagration.

“We aren’t far enough away, I told you we had to go farther.” Lowella hissed, in an angry whisper that did not take kindness into consideration.

        

  “Quiet Lowella, it will answer, it has to answer…” Jainithan responded, gingerly moving his fingers towards the edges of the parchment, just in case the energy his words had drawn forth chose to spread.

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Of course you’d ask this… You could literally ask me anything… And of course you ask me what you shouldn’t… Damn it all, you really shouldn’t ask this…” The notebook croaked out.

As an aside, until this point in history, only sixteen disconnected individuals had ever heard the sound of a cognizant index article expressing extreme pain. If you have never heard it, it is in fact impossible to describe outside of the experience itself. The universe silently added two more to the rather obscure numbering, bringing a grand total of eighteen participants in a very obscure and exclusive club that would unfortunately never likely form a congregation of its members through the vast reaches of time and space.

The fire spread slowly towards the edges of its pages, and the notebook groaned, mimicking the sounds of pain for the benefit of the two children that had given it such an onerous task. Expressions of pain as it was presenting them were not intrinsic to its nature; as such it had only the memories of previous master’s expressions to guide it on the experience as humans knew it. It was in a tricky position. It was near the edge of its references, but due to its not insubstantial capabilities, it could by no means deny their request on the basis of lacking information. However, the demands placed upon it via the rules of the house, delineated by the master himself, never specifically defined the proper response for this circumstance.

If these pups had only lacked the presence of mind to take their request outside, it would have been so much simpler just to deny these insipid younglings and summon their patriarch. As it stood however, continuing to digress against the given purpose caused an experience not expressly identical but severely similar to extreme pain as humans knew it. No longer able to deny their request, despite the fully committed notion that it should, the notebook allowed itself to perform its task. Normally it was used to locate obscure references to ancient civilizations. Perhaps it would be tasked with seeking a quotation from a long dead priest regarding the proper burial rites for unwed males over the age of forty. Occasionally, though not often, it would reach out its figurative fingers, feeling the pulse of the world as it is, as opposed to the world as it was, and find information more current for the purpose of a curious researcher. This was such a request. Its was the realm of the written word, and as it scanned its domain, it knew, despite its fervent wish against it, exactly what the boy wanted.

“She signed a writ of passage in Dokh’ar three weeks ago.” It gasped out. “The document ensured her involvement in the safe travel of a sand barge across a particularly repugnant portion of the Lalcula Desert.”

“I told you! I told you there would be an unsecured signature somewhere!” Lowella cheered out, with an uncharacteristic positivity.

“I can’t believe there are still societies that don’t routinely secure their documents.” Jainithan sighed out. His shoulders slumped forward, obviously relieved at the news, or perhaps in having retained his fingers as the flame of his words began to die out, taking his question with them.

“Is that all you nincompoops? Because frankly I would very much appreciate being taken inside now… This damp is hell for my binding.”

“Yes you whiner, we can go in now…” Jainithan said with a sly smile as he slammed the notebook shut. “We have preparations to get underway anyhow…”

The sounds of the night resumed awkwardly as the pair and their book made their way back into the massive stone dwelling they hesitantly referred to as their home. Perhaps tonight they could locate the dining room their father had chosen for his supper. They had an eager question to ask him as well.