Victor · Rail sat alone in the tossing carriage as it maneuvered across the narrow rocky valley between the high cliffs of Starlit Ridge. It was the type of valley that a river used to flow through but gradually dried off with time, you could see it from the typical V-shape feature formed by years of rushing water that cut into the soft ground as it washed away layers of mud.
The landscape is ephemeral compared to the eternity of time itself, the only thing that does not change and fade with time is the fact that everything does. You cannot see ethereal mountains bore into the sky from plains, but you do see time take away your acquaintances, thought Victor.
This line of thought does not usually occur in the disturbed turbid mind of a child of ten, but it so happens that Victor had lost the person whom he revered and feared at the same time all his ten years of life.
He was lucky enough to be beside his father's deathbed in the final hour. The mission school gave him a week to see and, to morn his father.
He was not a typical little boy who would be scared and confused, in fact, he felt not a shred of grief at his father's imminent decease. Perhaps it was because he did not yet understand what it was like to be sad, or perhaps he was born that way, without empathy, and could relate to nobody.
His father, Capewell · Rail was an eccentric alchemist who would venture into faraway places for strange ingredients. Every time Capewell return from an expedition, he would feed to Victor a strange potion. Victor did not like the look of these potions, but he would obey Capewell's commands and gulp it down. After that, he would pass out for a week or so. And when he woke up, he would see Capewell looking visibly older than before.
In Carving town, the place where he lived all his life, everyone would come to the church and listen to an old man with white beard rant on and on for hours about someone very special, they would call this person, The Lord. Capewell never attended these sessions but allowed Victor to go with the crowd. The weekly meeting in the church hall seemed to be very important to the people of the town, and according to Victor's observations, the town's people despised Capewell for not being there. But the hatred towards Capewell did not, thankfully, pass on to him. He also observed that people came to church as families, and one important element of a family was the mistress, the kids would call their mistress "mother", and the master of the families would call them "honey", or "dear". But he had no mistress, he inquired about this phenomenon to Capewell but only got beaten up, so he decided that this was a major deficiency of Capewell's and it would be better for him to not mention it.
For the part of his life he could easily recall, his routine was quite fixed, he would go to the mission school, finish the day's work and play with the others in the mud until dawn. And this code of action would have continued if not for the special event that happened when he was six.
The root cause of this was a girl whose name he had forgotten, she had asked him in mission school.
"What's your mother like? Is she also a heretic like your father?"
He had developed the simple notion that heretic meant bad or evil. And if you act normal like the others, you won't be called heretic, and people won't mind what you do.
"I don't have a mother." he replied.
"Everyone does!" said the girl.
"I don't!" he insisted.
"Everyone has a mother, you must have had one too." concluded the girl.
Victor was shaken, he had believed that he had no mother, but the girl was so sure that he did that he became uncertain himself.
A growing doubt occupied his empty mind.
Did he have a mother? Was she a heretic?
He picked a night when Capewell seemed particularly happy to bring up the matter.
Capewell ignored the first question but became alarmed when he heard the second.
He squinted at Victor as if he had just realized for the first time in his life that he actually had a child.
"How old are you, Victor?" He asked, after a while.
"Six." said Victor.
"Six." sighed Capewell in a long drawn-out voice.
"Six." Victor confirmed.
"Six." said Capewell, brow furrowed as if he finally understood the unmitigated magnitude of this special age.
"Who taught you this word 'heretic'?" asked Capewell.
before Victor could reply he answered himself, "Old Bob of the High Lord Feu Church, huh."
"It's The High Lord Church, father." said Victor automatically.
"No Victor, we must know things by their real name, but still follow the crowd to be sociable." chuckled Capewell. "Let me show you something before it's too late."
And he mumbled something under his breath, "Almost forgot...Thank goodness..."
He took Victor into his reading room and showed him a graph on his desk.
"What is this?" asked Victor.
"A mapping." said Capewell with hidden glee. "An alchemy mapping."
And that was start of Capewell's monthly expedition. Victor would attend the mission school during the day and learn strange things in the category of Alchemy from Capewell deep into the night.
He found himself confounded yet mesmerized by Alchemy, and would beg Capewell to teach him him even more.
The days of learning was pleasant and full of joy for him, the only thing he detested was potions. He would be downcast and gloomy for days after waking up from the stupor of each dose but would feel more connected and lively after the recovery.
Capewell taught him other things, things beyond the wildest imagination of a boy brought up in Carving town.
That there are seven Lords parallel in position to the High Lord Feu, that people in other places worship the Lord Pangu, Lord Leau, Lord Mona, Lord Ciel, and the Cardian of North, the Baratheon of the South.
"You don't worship anyone of these, pretend to worship anyone of them when they come in handy. But there is one you must believe." said Capewell in one of his nightly sessions.
"Who?" asked Victor.
"Mother Death." said Capewell solemnly.
"Mother Death will come for everyone eventually, nobody can defy Mother Death, not even the Lords, Mother Death will come for them, too, one day. She will come for you and me, she will tell you it's to time to rest and take you to Carlando."
"Carlando?" asked Victor.
"Yes, Carlando. Carlando is nowhere to be found but also omnipresent." said Capewell, his eyes suddenly glistening with tears as he gazed deeply into the obscene drawing of the graceful new waitress of the bar with nothing on tagged onto the wall, he drew this himself after days of intense observation and calculation to get the correct numbers for her build.
The years passed quickly. Capewell taught Victor everything he knew, but he aged unnaturally quickly, and had grey hair at only thirty-three.
"Take the rucksack under the floorboard beneath the bed in the reading room, scrounge every hole between the bricks of the house 'cause I forgot where I hid the money. Go to Starlit Academy, you'll learn nothing from these idiots in Carving Town. Show them the letter in the rucksack and they'll accept you." said Capewell and he closed his eyes.
He looked so tranquil that Victor thought Mother Death had already taken him and was about to leave and prepare for the funeral before Capewell suddenly opened his grubby old eyes and said
"Oh, almost forgot, your mother, her name is... eh...Don't remember, doesn't matter, she loves you crazy and she is a heretic."
He died right after he finished. Victor checked his breath and pulse to make sure he's totally dead. Mother Death had taken him to merry lands of Carlando, there was no cause for grief, but you'll be heretic if you don't cry now, so he pinched his leg as hard as he could to squeeze out tears and howled loudly. This was a sign for the outsiders that the guy is dead, and they should come in and console the relatives of the dead and give them space after some some useless gab.
He was now officially a child who lost his parents, an orphan. That would be a status that could come in handy if you want get things for free as Capewell had told him, but he wouldn't have chance to use it, he had to go.