Pyke and Peril

When Edmund Peril first came to the Gateway, he was only a boy of ten.

Not to mention he was by no means Edmund Peril. No, that was for later in life. Much later. The boy, then, had been nameless, fatherless and not good for much at all, to be honest—of course this was not his fault. Still, he would need another good decade under his belt before he could acquire such a monicker as Edmund Peril and a few more years on top of that before one could even think of adding such a term as Sir. For now, he was just “Ed” if only because Josen Moar required something to call him by. After all, it was Josen Moar's little rowboat upon which Ed, two of his peers and the old knight rode. There was to be no namelessness as far as he could understand. Sharing was, however, allowed it would seem—considering those previously mentioned peers were both to be known as “Sam”. In Ed's mind, at least, they were Big Sam and Not-so-big Sam, respectively—and would remain as such for many years to come, even when Not-so-big Sam was a head above the rest of them.

Sam and Sam were not at the forefront of Ed's mind, though. More importantly, at said forefront, were Ed's first thoughts as “Ed”. He rolled the name around in his head. Ed, he thought, Ed. Would the name change when he left the little rowboat? Would someone with more say than Josen Moar decide to change it? He had never had a name, after all, how was he supposed to know how they worked?

His next concern was, what was even the point of it? The old knight had not spoken much to any of them since they'd come into his care—although, for all Ed knew, he had been a veritable chatter-box when it was only himself, Sam and Sam. Perhaps three boys made him nervous, because the most Sir Moar had said to him, as it were, was “Name, boy?” and when Ed had stared blankly, “Ed'll do.” And then it had taken him a great deal of time to work out that his name was not “Ed'll-do”—mostly because every time he tried to ask the knight a question, he was met with a huff and a puff, not to mention a groan. Sam and Sam were no help, either, they were too busy chattering on with each other. So Ed couldn't be sure why exactly he needed to be Ed in the first place. There were no “Hey Ed”s, “How's it going, Ed?”s. There was only the slosh-swish slosh-swish of Josen Moar's slow rowing and the Sams' whispering.

But, then, quite suddenly, there were the lights.

Ed had always been fairly normal, as nameless boys went—he was brown-haired and brown-eyed and had the same freckled complexion of any Northern-born person who'd spent their daylight hours actually in the daylight. He'd come from a small town where the roofs were thatched and the walls rarely plastered. It had been a great ordeal, he recalled, when the Magistrate had bought a gas-burning stove—nigh on witch-craft for most in the area. There were no street lamps, let alone streets—just a few paths where farmers had cut through with their carts over and over. Needless to say, when the fog cleared, the lights Ed saw when he looked up now—up and up until his neck hurt like all heck—made him rethink his very existence.

They were that unnatural.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as his gaze remained unbroken. Ed knew this was their destination—that was the one thing he'd actually been told—the Gateway. Its twin cliffs rose from the sea, guarding the entryway to the bay beyond and the heart of House Pyke, each sporting its own massive tower—the Pinnacle and the Andour. Ed's nerves had nothing to do with actually arriving, though, it was just that... the Gateway was much larger than he'd imagined. And those lights—he very nearly muttered a word that his mother would have never forgiven him for. He couldn't pull his eyes away, though, their eerie greenness keeping him somehow entranced as each slosh-swish carried the rowboat ever closer.

When Josen Moar cleared his throat with a sound that rivaled even the waves breaking against nearby rocks, Ed was unsure as to just how long those lights had kept him under their spell. The old knight hacked, coughed and cleared his throat again. “Shut it,” he gruffed to the still whispering Sams. “Need to concentrate.” Ed glanced around and finally took note of how close they were getting—and not that he had ever steered a boat before, let alone been on the water, but the need for something like concentration certainly seemed pressing when one was attempting to pass the Spires.

After all, they were the Gateway's first line of defense.

Each chiseled stone spike the little rowboat passed seemed to want for nothing less than to reach out and grab it by its bow or smash its wooden hull. Some of them even had faces, though more had long, wooden and barbed arms. On occasion, Ed even took note of a few that held the remains of ships that had smashed against them—cradling and clinging to the wreckage as if it were something precious. The old knight had done this before, though, as made evident by the almost easy way he would bring them nearly upon a spire, only to plant an oar an swing the little boat away from its grasp. Nonetheless, Sam had to let the world know just how close they came a few times—and by the time they had finally worked their way through, Ed was fairly certain he smelled piss...

Beyond the Spires, there wasn't much more that could stand in the rowboat's path—the lock would be lowered, the sniping holes in the rock-face unmanned, no canon fire forthcoming. Once they passed through the Gateway, the only thing the three boys had to fear was House Pyke itself—or if the Walkway stretching between the Pinnacle and the Andour suddenly decided to crash to the water below. Ed, though he could make no claim to even knowing what foresight was, didn't feel he should be preparing for any oncoming doom.

That still didn't mean he knew why he was even there.

Josen Moar was one of Lord Pyke's men and Big Sam had made it clear on many an occasion that that was what he wanted for himself—he wanted to be a squire, a knight someday. Sir Moar seemed far too grumpy to Ed, though. He would never want to spend the rest of his life grumpy. Not-so-big Sam, on the other hand, could read and write—he was probably meant to become a page. Ed had thought he heard him use the term “librarian” once or twice, but there was no telling what exactly that was... As for himself, Ed could only come up with one reason as to why he was there. He was a burden—an orphan, homeless. It was only because the Magistrate had pulled him off the street that he was here now. Lord Pyke had enough gold to afford a few burdens.

In a place the size of House Pyke, surely there would be stables to muck out. Or floors that needed scrubbing. Or some looming machine that only a child could squeeze underneath when the fibers needed untangling. So, Ed wouldn't be a burden for long. The great house was a place a burden like him could find a calling—even if it was just the sort of things no one else wanted to do...

And that was what would happen there for all three of those boys who now sat on the slats of Sir Josen Moar's little rowboat. They had come from their small towns and inland homes alike to cross the sea and to pass beneath the Gateway for something better—ironic that once upon a time their ancestors had landed here only to go in search of those inland homes and something better. Better may have only stood for the quality or length, though. The boys would find their callings, yes, they would also survive the winter, a drought, a war even. They would get the chance to grow up—but that was as better as better would get...