And now, the rewrite of For the Glory of the Wretched.
Chapter 1
“And when you dream, what do you dream of? Never thought to ask, but it’d be interesting to know,” She asks with such a coy smile. She sits there on the leather couch, brushing her golden hair. The ethereal rays of the morning sun shine behind her, making her appear so surreal.
“And if I say you?” I say, leaning against a stone and mortar pillar that’s absorbed so many conversations, sordid and candid, intimate and spurious.
“Then,” she says. She sets down the brush on the oak coffee table and picks up her ruby-glazed ceramic coffee mug. Takes a sip. An audible sound of satisfaction. “Then I wouldn’t believe you. I’d call you a liar. Are you a liar?”
“I am,” I say. There’s a half-eaten breakfast sandwich on the bronze and emerald counters. Some sort of stained marble. She looks at me and I look at her. We both knew that she would not finish it. But she wants me to admit my crime, so I do. “A thief, too.”
“So what’s the greatest thing you’ve ever stole?” She asks after the sandwich vanishes.
“I’d say your heart, but you’d call me a liar again. You gave that to me.” A blush appears on her pale cheeks. “But to tell you the truth, all my past thefts pale in comparison to what I’ve yet to take.”
“And that is?” She asks. It’s a leading question, and she feigns innocence. Ignorance. “But don’t think I don’t know. I know. You’ve got to understand that I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen that look in your eyes way too many times.”
“Where?”
“In the mirror. You don’t dream of me,” she says and she looks at me square in the eyes, demanding me to keep eye contact. So I do. “Because you dream of revenge, when and if you dream at all.”
“Justice. It’s justice.”
“Is stealing a life truly justice? And don’t you dare say that it’s your job to arrange the meeting between them and God. You were wronged, deeply wronged, tragically wronged. You died many deaths that day. I can’t understand what you went through, but I understand you want vengeance.”
“Why this? Why now?”
“Because you never told me what happened.”
“I couldn’t. You shouldn’t carry that weight.”
“But you were going to drag me into it whether I knew or not, because I’d follow you and be right behind you, and I wouldn’t have understood a thing.”
“How did you find out?”
“No one told me anything. At least, nothing forthright. I picked up fragments. I heard that the infamous ship The Dreaded was sunk a while back. Your ship. My divers found the wreckage and they concluded that it had been attacked. And with everything I know about you…”
“You put together the puzzle pieces.”
“I did. So I want you to tell me.”
“Tell you what, exactly?”
“What happened.”
And so I do. The explanation, the back and forth, the questions, the tangents, the laughs, a tear or two, the pacing around, knocks on the door, and phone calls ignored make for a morning of abandonment of supposedly greater responsibilities. The stakes did make it seem that nothing else did matter until there was some greater understanding.
“And before I go, you won’t have any choice but to help me. You can’t hear it from me, but Florian has something to tell you.”
“You have to tell me now.”
“As your love, Sanna, I wish I could, but as what do they call me nowadays? Pirate King? I can’t. You know this. It cannot come from me.”
“I know,” she says. “But where are you going?”
“There is business that I must attend to,” I say.
“You mean, you’re sick of me and you’ll take a nap on a rock?”
“Yes.”
Solton. The Golden City, the City of the Good Life, the City of Fire and Liberty. A city built from sandstone and cobblestone, limestone and marble. A city built into the cliffside by Firekeepers. It is not an exaggeration to say that they built the modern world.
When I say the Firekeepers built the modern world, I mean that they built the foundations. The bones of civilization are theirs. They still exist today, but far too many are shallow husks of their ancestors. Their connection had been severed somewhere along the way between now and then. It was not a slow and gradual hollowing, it was not rot. But perhaps it was natural. Man exists only in Time and he is restricted to his Time.
A city like this could never be built today. For there is no Will. Dreamers do not build and the powerbrokers do not dream. It is a never-ending cycle of false promises of a greater future, and if by some miracle, these promises are fulfilled, then they only construct fragile, rootless towers. They dare to reach for the sky, and even then, it is to tower over contemporaries, but they do not reach for the stars. A civilization propped up by dead, rotting giants that yearn to become free of their burden.
That is to say, Solton is an otherworldly, beautiful city that is rotten to the core.
And it is my first love. My first heartbreak.
This very city skewered me where I came to age. I will not tell this story here, now, and maybe I will never tell it. We have since made amends.
Solton must be explained, but it cannot explained perfectly. No explanation, verbal or written, could make you understand. It must be experienced to be understood, if it is to be understood at all. Place is Character, after all. But do not take for me a spiritual, mystical animist.
And I will tell you that I have returned to the city for business, but that is a lie. A lie so egregious and flagrant that it became the truth. There is a woman here.
These things we do for love. It is as if there is something foreign. Alien, if you will. With neither manner nor measure, all control is lost. A honorable, principled man incapable of telling a lie then commits the most vile, wretched deeds. Some say it was in his nature all along. That his honor and nobility were but an act. I have to disagree. In another instance, there is an otherwise hapless idiot brings about an invention to make the life of his wife a little bit better. An invention that changes the course of civilization.
I do not know if it is a good thing that my love does not make my mind and soul a foreigner to my body. I do not know if that makes my Love only a like, or if it is merely love. All I know is that because of this Love, my Will is stronger. My Faith is stronger.
I would not be here if it were not for Her. Here in Solton. I would not do half the things I have done if it were not my Love for Her. But do not get me wrong. This is not a romance, this is not a love story. My explanation is that if you are to understand this story, then you must understand my understanding of Love.
But perhaps. Perhaps all I do is in the name of Love. Not in a purely passionate romantic sense, no.
Take it to mean that there must be vengeance for my fallen brothers. Filial Love is still Love. Brotherly Love is Love. There is no lust, there is no carnal fervor. This Love is not Romance. It is not just about revenge and wronging those who have wronged me. It is not about base retaliation and retribution. This is about Justice. But do not take me for a honorable, impartial Judge. I am far from it. My judgement derives from my personal vindication. I know that might not seem like clear differentiation, but it is. To me.
And it might humor you to learn that I partake in piracy. That I have slain men, good and bad. You might consider everything deserved. Their murders justified. This confession might sow abhorrence and disdain within you. If you allow me to explain, then let me explain.
I have sinned. My brothers have sinned. And I cannot be saved. I do not believe it. But I will explain all the same.
There are monsters and demons out there, and they are capable of supreme violence and inhumane punishment. True that we are - were - the Wretched. Outcasts and dregs. Thieves and beggars. Lifelong criminals. But we had a code. Rules. We had honor. Again, that might humor you.
Until you learn that our vile deeds were against enemies beyond the pale. I bore witness to incomprehensible horrors. I am not sure if they are human. Were I a vulgar man, or if I were a man in court, then I would describe in detail. Yet I am not.
I will not paint the picture so cruel and twisted that it causes nightmares, that is not me. I must, however, mention that they spare no one. No man, woman, child, beast and pet spared. They are, at the very least, equitable in their torture and experiments. I am not sure of their aim, but I can only surmise they aim to dissect and innovate. I like to say that I have lived to tell the tale of my murder.
To make a long story short, they falsified a distress signal, and we came to their rescue. They ambushed. My ship sank, my crew my brothers captured and maimed, and I was taken hostage for further experimentation. Then I died. They revived me, of course. And then I escaped. I earned another ship and another crew, and I became the so-called Pirate King. That is a boring story that I will not tell for the time being. It must suffice.
And now we are here. In Solton for Love. For Sanna.
Call me Ignatius.
To be continued…