Ashrennon: Deleted Scenes (Unedited) (Patreon)

Warning: This was written about three years ago. Chronologically, it's just after the Prologue to Ashrennon (found here).

I wrote the first draft of Ashrennon a while ago. I've been revising it to my current level of writing and publishing it early for Tier 2 and above patrons, then on Royal Road. But not every part of the story I wrote three years ago makes sense to keep in the published work structurally.

I remember liking these scenes, but they no longer fit. They might still be of interest to some, however!

(There will be typos.)

Arithmetic and Reading

“If the nobleman you serve has two estates, one in the bustling inner city, and a larger country estate by the farms, plus four modest holdings scattered about, a cafe in the eastern corner, and a restaurant even the king deems worthy to dine in, you will need to be more than just an abacus with a mouth,” said Mr Setram, bearing down on Martin after he made a mistake in calculating the tax from a single successful cafe in the inner north. Martin was squirming slightly in his seat. His shoulders slouched, his eyes downcast at his parchment.

Rand looked at his own scrap of parchment, he had gotten the answer right, he was sure, but he could not for the life of him say how. He had a knack for numbers. He worked them around in his head until they felt right, but didn’t wholly understood many of the equations Mr Setram gave them.

Mr Setram turned his back to Martin and called out to the class as he walked back to the board. “Anyone else have a better answer than Martin? Or should we go back to counting apples?” When he arrived at the front he whirled and faced the class. “Well?”

Rand hesitated, then spoke up. “Five golds, five silvers, and one iron.”

Mr Setram looked at Rand with an eyebrow raised. “Not five golds, eight silvers?”

Rand looked at the equation on the board, then at his own parchment.

“In the equation you used the example of a nobleman called Sir Patres. Five generations ago a Patres became queen, and so all in the Patres now can claim family to the king,” said Rand, still peering down at his parchment.

“And as family of the king, they would be eligible for a five percent deduction on any business taxes,” said Mr Setram. “Clever, Rand. It is advisers like you that the king hates to see in the hands of businessmen.” He gave a small smirk. “Perhaps Martin would be better off sitting next to you, he might learn something.”

Mr Setram turned his attention to the blackboard and wrote some more problems onto it in his perfect print. Rand looked at Mr Setram’s hand as the chalk scratched numbers. His hands were bare. Mr Setram was not lighttouched, like the rest of the teachers in the academy. Though he was just as smart as any of the masters, even smarter, at least when it came to numbers. He had been the last kings accountant, until a regime change turned him out of favour. His teaching style was markedly different to the masters, as well. He was not nearly as patient as Master Willem. He gave more time to the students who showed promise, and all but dismissed those who did not. And so the smart grew smarter and the dull duller. It was not a perfect system, but it worked for Rand.

He wasn’t like the non-touched outside of the academy, either. He didn’t look upon their tattooed fingers and hands with contempt. He didn’t dart his eyes away from their’s with fear or shame of what they might see. He looked at them as they were. Children, teenagers. Students.

He even treated them with respect, if they earned it. Rand had no love for arithmetic, but he respected Mr Setram. Staring at the new problems on the board, he thought on Master Willem’s words. We must tread the path we are given, no matter how much we may want to walk another. Rand knew the master was right. He needed to put away his old dreams and wants, before they turned him sour, before they made him despise the life chosen for him. He turned to his parchment, took his quill, and started on the new problems.

As he scribbled on the parchment, he noticed a few of the younger students furrowing their brows and squinting at the problems on the board. There weren’t many in the academy younger than Rand, as he was still short of reaching just fourteen years, but those that were sat in the front row of his classes. At the academy, most pupils were thrown together into the same classes. The youngest at the front, and the oldest at the back. Some of the older students worked from books, instead of from the board. They had tougher problems to decipher, as their skill had long passed the the problems the younger pupils now stared at. Mr Setram would walk past them each as they made their way through the various equations, nodded at some and shook his head at others, until he made his way to the back of the class, to see what the older students were working on.

A bell rang before his mind managed to muddle through the new problems. Rand lent his head lightly on his hands at the sound of the bell. All that hard thinking had made his hard head start to hurt, and so the bell was a mixed blessing. Marking the end of class but sending a shock of pain into the front of his skull. After a moment he gathered his things into his shoulder bag and wandered out of the classroom with the rest of his peers. There was not much time until his next class, there never was.

His headache had not helped him through any of the classes in the day. Instead of easing off, like he hoped it would, it grew and persisted to twang at his brain. He dragged his feet to last class of the day. Reading. Which wasn’t quite as it sounded. They were all taught to read, of course, they had to be. But they had all learnt that before they begun their classes. Every class in the academy required them to be able to read and write. Except, strangely enough, for their Reading class.

Reading was taught by Master Elrayi. Who was as different to Master Willem as a chicken is to an eagle. Whilst Master Willem was tall and slender, patient and kind, Master Elrayi was plump, and just as short in his height as he was with his temper. He had a piercing cruelty that made the younger students cry and the older ones curse him when his back was turned. Rand sighed silently as he slipped into his chair. Reading class was certainly not going to be a remedy for his pain.

Eye contact in the academy was avoided much of the time. Whilst it did not come with the same level of disrespect to look into a peer’s eyes as it did a master’s, it was not thought of well. It was an uncomfortable thing to look into the eyes of anyone for Rand, let alone another lighttouched. But that is what Reading class was about. That, on top of Elrayi’s temper, would make his head pound more than ever. Reading class was his least favoured class. It more than anything reminded him of what he was.

“Today we will learn more about lying,” said Master Elrayi, walking down the line of desks. The Reading room was more like a long hall than anything else. There were two desks to a line, and they were pointed towards each other, so the students only had to look up to see the other’s eyes. “And we’ll be making it into a little game.”

Rand could see a smirk creep over the Master’s face. As Elrayi walked by he passed each of the students a stick of birch. Sticks they were well and truly familiar was, and always hated to see. One thing about Elrayi’s games they learnt fast, is they were never fun.

“You will each tell your partner two truths and one lie, looking at the other’s eyes as you do. Each time you pick up the lie, you get a point.” He made it to the end of the line of desks and turned around, smirk still on his face. “Each time you get it wrong, well.” He slapped a stick of birch hard into his other hand. “Roll up your sleeves.”

The ruffling of robes was heard as each rolled up their sleeves on their left arms. Some had scratches still from past classes, while others were bare. Rand’s was full of scratched, as if he had fought a pack of feral cats and lost. Master Elrayi was not so patient as Willem when he found students where they should not be, places Rand was often found. In the garden, on the roof, sitting on the edge of tall walls.

He looked across at his partner, Jesrie. Her arm was bare of even the smallest scratch. He lingered on her arm for a long moment, not fancying the idea of hitting it, then he dragged his eyes up to hers. This was his least favourite part of Reading class.

He squinted at the light when it hit him, it sent his head further into aching. When his eyes met hers, her skin glowed, and there was an aura of light around her. But it was her eyes that burned. It was like that with all the touched. He knew she would see the same thing in his eyes, though it it did not comfort him. Untouched couldn’t see the light as they did. So their hands and fingers were inked, to mark them to the rest of the world. But it was not just the light they could see. His sight was still young just as he was, but he was starting to see the glimmer behind people’s eyes. When their emotions were strong, or when they were trying to deceive.

Reading class was where they learnt to use their gift, though much of the time his sight felt like a curse.

Jesrie did not squint as she looked back at him. Her back was straight and her hands came gently to sit on her lap. Birch stick in one hand sitting over the other. She looked every bit a lady even in her robes, though she was no older than Rand. Her poised demeanour hinting at the life she would have had, had she not been what she was.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” said Elrayi from the front of the class in a booming voice. “Get talking!”

Rand, still squinting, motioned for Jesrie to start.

Jesrie cocked her head to the side, still looking into Rand’s eyes with hers burning. “I’m the daughter of a nobleman.” He knew that one to be true just by the way she carried herself. Still, he tried to catch a glimmer in the flames, seeing nothing, he nodded. She continued. “Strawberries are my favourite food.” No glimmer. Jesrie glanced towards front of the room where the master sat reading a heavy book, than looked back at Rand. “Yesterday at dinner I stole a piece of cheese from Master Elrayi’s plate.”

Rand frowned. Still, there was no glimmer in her eyes. He could not tell truths from the lies. He twisted his aching head in thought, and rubbed his already scratched arm. He ruled out the first one as true. Strawberries were expensive, but she surely could have developed a taste for them before she made it to the academy. The last one had to be a lie. Why would she steal from the master’s plate? Even Master Willem would lose his patience if a student did that, and Rand shivered at the thought of what punishment Elrayi would think up for stealing his food.

“The last one is the lie,” said Rand.

Jesrie’s lips curved to make a small smile. “I hate strawberries, they are too sweet.”

Rand sighed in surprise, then put his arm out. Jesrie brought up the stick of birch and winced more than Rand when she slapped his arm with it.

The rest of the class was more of the same. He could only catch a glimmer every few ten lies or so. He was lucky enough to guess many of the lies, but his sight was lagging far behind that of Jesrie’s. He was thankful for a while, that she got all the questions right. Then his arm became mightily sore. A part of him he was not proud of started to wish he could strike her on the arm for once. Though he knew she was not the one to blame for his pain. It was Elrayi’s stupid game, and his own poor sight that meant he kept losing.

He may have a knack for numbers, but Reading was another thing.

He was not the only one to leave the class was scratches down his arm. Many of the younger students had the same. Elrayi made them leave their sleeves up for the rest of the day to show everyone who looked just how good or bad they had done. The older students’ arms were bare, of course, their hands and fingers the only things with marks on them. Not so many marks as the masters, but more than the two inked fingers on Rand’s right hand.

There was still a few hours until dinner time, and the students were left to the leisure. As long as their leisure did not lead them to places forbidden to them. Rand had been there since he was eleven, same as everyone else, but he still hated being kept inside. And he knew, no matter how many years he spent in the academy, he would never be used to it. But all through the day he had been running Master Willem’s word through his aching mind. He would walk the path given to him, he would try.

Rand decided to spend his leisure time in the library. There was always extra study to be done following classes, though that is not what brought to the books. He may not be able to walk another path, but he could read about them. The masters always said that knowledge was an adviser’s greatest tool. The knowledge they taught, however, was mostly of Ashrennon. Of business. Of taxes. Of the royal line and noble lines alike. Rand wanted to know more. He wanted to know about the things past the wall. He wanted to know of life before it. When he wasn’t in places he shouldn’t be and sitting on the edges of things, he was searching the shelves for information about the world outside.

He had not found much.

The things he had found told of barbarians and savages. There were even some stories of strange monsters, but he dismissed them as pure fiction when he found them. The books that told of barbarians marked them as thoughtless things with the appearance of man but the instincts of animals. With no manner of society. That did not track with the maps he saw, of empires and kingdoms. And it didn’t match with the things travelling merchants brought back from their journeys. He had heard of books in strange languages. Devices that could tell the time not by the sun, but with little ticking hands. How could those beyond the wall be barbarians, if they have books and time pieces? Empires and kingdoms? Surely students being taught to be advisers to nobles and kings should know of these things? But, it was never taught, and not often spoken about.

So he searched the shelves and stacks, but never found anything. Sometimes he simply pick up a book of fiction, and read lies about nobles and merchants and kings who never existed. Other times he would settle on a book of Ashrennon’s history. Though they were very boring. They spoke of the lines of old families and the boring business of money changing hands. That is how he had learnt about the Patres family’s relation the king, and the deductions of taxes they were entitled to.

Taxes. So many of these books were about taxes.

“Rand?” said a small voice from behind him.

Rand was sitting at one the library’s long tables, reading a book about a king who had been poisoned by his once trusted lighttouched adviser. It painted the adviser as an evil, cunning man. It talked of how useful a lighttouched adviser can be, but how you must never trust them too much. It was an old book, with old ways. But many people still thought the same. He closed the book with a loud thump and turned to see Martin standing at his shoulder. He was holding a piece of parchment riddled with numbers.

“I was wondering if you could help me.”

Rand sighed and motioned to the seat next to him. Martin sat down and placed the parchment on the table. It had all the problems from class with only the easiest answered. Anything involving percentages had big question marks beside them in Martin’s scrawl.

“I was never good with numbers,” said Martin. “My mother use’ to send me to the market for things, when she was too tired. But I kept coming back with the wrong coins.” Martin had a frown on his face and his brow was creased with more lines than a twelve year old’s brow had any right to have. “These percen’ages don’t make any sense to me, but Mr Setram said he explained ‘em too many times already.” Rand glanced at Martin’s eyes and saw a flicker of shame. He remembered looking into Jesrie’s eyes for an hour, barely glimpsing her lies and only getting bits of her emotions. Martin’s eyes were different, Rand only needed the one glance to know how he felt. Elrayi always said some people wore their emotions more brightly than others. Martin seemed to wear his brightest of all.

Rand spent the next hour before dinner working with Martin, explaining that fifteen percent of one hundred golds was simply fifteen golds. Rand couldn’t break down the problems very well for Martin, he had never needed to break down a problem to get an answer. When Rand got to explaining decimals Martin’s brow looked as if it had never been smooth at all. Finally, the dinner bell rang, and Rand was pleased to realise it didn’t hurt his head. Sometime between Reading class and actually reading, his headache had managed to disappear. They left the library and headed towards the mess hall on the bottom floor. Rand thought Martin had at least learnt enough to survive Mr Setram’s next class without too many harsh words thrown his way.