006. Confession

[katzepaw]

(Video is here from 2:38:52 to 3:01:56)

This memory takes place in an actually fairly nicely appointed hotel room. Caleb is waiting alone inside it, a complete bundle of nerves, terror, conflicted feelings. There are two knocks at the door, and in comes Beauregard as well as a small goblin girl dressed in a mask and bandages.

The goblin girl, Nott, speaks first. “I brought the monk. Are we discussing some escape plans?”

“Potentially,” Caleb admits. “You know, we’re leaving soon, and Beauregard has an in at one of the bigger libraries in the city, and I want to go there before I leave. But Beauregard has given me a condition. She had some questions for me, and I would like to answer them, but I don’t feel right telling her and not telling you, so I would love for you to stay here for a few minutes.”

“Whatever you want, Caleb,” says Nott. “It sounds serious.”

Caleb fidgets more, clearly nervous. “Beauregard, may I ask you a question to start?” He pauses for her to agree. “How do you feel about the Empire? Are you in favor of how things are going here?”

“No,” says Beau, “but I’m not in favor of many things. I don’t like a lot of things. Kind of have a problem with authority and they’re like the epitome of authority. I watched my father sacrifice a lot to try to impress these people, and I’m not sure what it was for.”

This isn’t exactly what he is angling for, so he asks “Are you comfortable with business as usual, do you approve of how the Empire is going?”

“I’m not super invested in the political spectrum, I just don’t want any part of it. So no? I think it could be better. No. I think most of them tend to be scumbags who want monetary and influential gain, and I think they treat their poor pretty shitty and their elite pretty great, and I think that sucks. So I think they’re garbage people, but Molly thinks I’m a garbage person - “

“A trash person,” Nott interjects, correcting her.

Caleb watches her closely for a few moments, trying to gauge how sincere he thinks she is being. And then he seems to decide that he does believe she’s sincere, and he takes a deep breath.

“Well, I really want to go to the library tomorrow. This may be a very stupid decision of mine. . . “ He glances at Nott, a little desperate. “Would. . . would you be willing to leave with me tomorrow, if I asked you to?”

Nott is looking at him, obviously concerned. “Absolutely. Right away, whatever you want. But why?”

“I am going to tell you the story of how I murdered my mother and father.” He speaks in a matter of fact tone, not making eye contact, ignoring Nott’s pained gasp of surprise and pity. “When I was younger, I grew up in a small township outside of Rexxentrum called Blumenthal. My mother’s name was Una. My father’s name was Leofric. Everyone was very excited about me when I was young. I was bright and confident. People used to say that I glided through life and everything just worked for me. As I got older, it became clear that I had a knack for the arcane. Everyone talked about this Soltryce Academy, maybe I would go there someday. The way they do things at the Academy, they don’t take all comers, they look for the diamond in the rough and every couple of years they find one. But when I was a young man, adolescent, really, they found three of us. Another boy and a girl from Blumenthal. And we were accepted.”

“How old were you,” asks Nott.

“Young,” says Caleb. “Anyway, we went there. I studied for a year. I worked so hard. It came easier to me than the other two, but they were also very accomplished. There were other students from other parts of the Empire there, and a little over a year of learning all they had to impart, I met a man named Trent Ikithon. He became our teacher.”

Beau reacts to this, reminds him that they met Trent Ikithon earlier that night and he didn’t say anything. She demands to know why he wouldn’t have said anything before they talked to him. Caleb ignores her questions.

“After a year of studying in the main school, Trent handpicked all three of us again, and we left the school proper and went with him to a home out in the countryside where he trained us. It was a good time. We believed in the Empire, we were going to keep it strong. He was cruel. He hurt us a lot. Made us go through extreme circumstances, but we got strong. I also fell in love, but that’s another story. We rose through the ranks and it was the Empire over all, and eventually, he wanted to test our allegiance, so strangers were brought in - traitors. Disgusting people, traitors to this empire, and we killed them.”

“You were just students?” Nott asks.

“And he made you executioners?” Beau adds.

“We wanted to be,” Caleb admits.

“Caleb, that’s deeply fucked up,” Beau says. “You know that, right?”

He shrugs, still focused on telling the story; you get the sense he’s misunderstanding which part she’s saying is fucked up. “Ja. A few months of studying, of a little bit of torture, a little bit of murdering dissidents and traitors and deviants. Then we were ready to graduate, and the last test of our allegiance was - I’m getting ahead of myself. I went on a trip home and visited my parents and when I was there, in the middle of the night, I awoke and overheard them talking, and went to the stair and listened to them talk about revolution and tearing the Empire down, and I felt disgraced and shame for my family. My mother and father, who were so wonderful to me when I was a child, and were so happy for me to go to the Academy and believe in the Empire so much. I went back to the school and when the three of us were summoned and told what was expected of us, I knew what had to be done. We went to this other boy’s home first, Eodwulf, and we stood by as he killed his parents. We went to Astrid’s house, and had dinner with them, and she poisoned them. Then we went to my home and we grabbed a horse cart, and in the middle of the night, placed it against the door to the home and I set it on fire.”

“You had to do this to graduate, to prove your loyalty,” Beau says.

“Well, yeah,” Caleb agrees, racing through this next part a little shakily, “but it didn’t exactly go according to that plan because as soon as I heard my mother and father screaming inside. . . I was so sure. I was so sure. . . until I wasn’t, and I broke a bit.”

“Did you go in after them,” asks Nott.

“No. I went to an asylum for a number of years. I broke. I don’t remember so well what happened to me there. It was quite a number of years. Years later, a woman was there, and she, another patient, put hands on me and she took the clouds away. She took it all away, and not just my madness but the fake memories that Ikithon put in my head of my parents.”

“Wait, there was a false memory?” Nott asks. “He tricked you?”

“Into hearing their talks against the Empire,” Beau guesses, “is that what it was?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter, because I still wanted to do it when I did it.”

“But you didn’t know what you were doing,” Nott protests. “You were brainwashed! Programmed!”

“So what?!” Caleb snaps back at her. “Doesn’t matter, I should have - I’m a disgusting person! It doesn’t matter. Anyway, all that gone, just like that. I ran. Not right away; I pretended like nothing had changed for several weeks. I killed one of Trent’s people there, and took this.” He pulls out an amulet he wears against his neck, under his clothes. “This has been keeping me hidden for five years. They can find whoever they want with magic, but not with this. They cannot find me. And I would really like to get into that library, because I would - “

“Like to run again?” Beau asks, a little accusatory.

“Hmm?” Caleb is surprised by this. “No, I like you all.”

“You were just talking with Nott about running tomorrow,” she points out.

He looks at her, finally makes eye contact, letting a little emotion back in his voice. “Well, that all depends on you, Beauregard. If you can keep a secret.”

Beau seems a little unsatisfied with this. “Caleb, I’m good at keeping secrets. But you heard us talking to Trent. You know he wants Yasha, and you’re the only person who knows the atrocities that this man -- who utterly gave me the creeps, by the way, so I’m feeling a little bit validated in the fact that I read him pretty well -- anyway, I’m just saying. You have a responsibility now.”

“Which is?” Caleb asks.

“Keep this guy from hurting more people,” she says.

“Well, that’s precisely why I want into this library.”

“You want to take down Trent,” Beau guesses. “Is that why you’re doing all this? You want to take down Trent?”

A little cryptically, Caleb responds “Among other things.”

“What are you hoping to find?” she asks.

He’s silent for a second, and then in a tone with a little more emotion than anything he’s said so far, “Anybody can make lights. Anybody could send a message through a wire. I want to bend reality to my will.”

“Caleb, you don’t, though,” Beau says. “No one wants that amount of power and responsibility.”

“Ja, well,” he says dismissively, “I told you why I am afraid of fire. So you are going to bring me to that library.”

“Don’t worry, I will. But there are two options here. You can selfishly try and go after this guy for your own vendetta, or you can use your motives to keep others from getting hurt in a very similar way.”

“Both of those are appealing to me,” Caleb responds in a quiet but dark tone.

“I know you feel like you just make dancing lights, but those dancing lights make sure I can punch people in the fucking face whenever I can’t see shit. A little bit of teamwork goes a long way.”

Caleb has no idea how to respond to this, so he just says “I think Nott and I are going to retire now.”

“Cool man, cool. Kick me out of the room,” Beau says, on her way out. “You just dumped some heavy-ass shit like that and then ask me to leave. No, I get it, it’s fine.” But just before she goes, she adds. “I’ll keep your secret. We’ll all keep this a secret. I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of, though.”

Caleb laughs a little hysterical, in disbelief at the thing she just said. “Goodnight, Beauregard.”

As soon as she leaves, Nott runs over to him and throws her arms around him in a hug, teary-eyed, her voice full of fierce protectiveness. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t you, it’s not your fault. It wasn’t you, you were made to do it. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. I know you don’t realize that now, but you will.” She pulls his face closer, makes him look at her in the eyes, although he tries to break eye contact. “This pain that you have, that you wear all over you like a mask, it’s just that, and you can take it off someday. I know it hurts, but it wasn’t your fault. I’m going to keep telling you that until you believe me.”

He doesn’t react, freezes, and it’s obvious he can’t believe her, can’t stand to hear it, but he still appreciates being shown this much love and acceptance by someone else, even if she’s wrong. He takes another deep breath, finally looks back at her, a heavy pit in his stomach.

“Are you and I good?”

She isn’t done, looking back up at him. “What you did was awful, truly terrible, despicable and unforgivable - until you can forgive it. At some point, you’ll have to do that. And I swear to you that I will be at your side until you do.”

He can hear this a little more than the last thing she said, the idea of being able to forgive himself someday more appealing than the idea that what he did wasn’t wrong enough to justify this self-loathing. So he admits another little secret to her, and only her.

“I have an idea that can make that happen,” he says, a bit of breathless excitement sneaking into his voice.

“Really?” she asks.

“It will take a lot of hard work, and a lot of books.”

“I’m in,” she says with a smile. “Whatever you need, just tell me and I’ll get it for you.”

Slightly cheered, he gets out his notebook and begins showing her, and the memory fades.