The Dictionary

Have you no wish to emulate the heroic bravery of your fellow countrymen?

The poster hung on the wall. One of its corners was loose, and the light breeze that ran down the street folded it up, covering the image below the words.

Ardensius stepped up to the poster, and holding down the corner, he looked at the full portrait of the man depicted on the paper.

Private Jacobo Milgher was his name.

One man defeats twenty-six Iradans!!

He wore a military cap and had a long chin and a big nose. His green eyes looked directly at Ardensius.

Once a factory worker. Now a national hero!

There was nothing special about that face. The man was not handsome, nor seemed overly clever. Yet, Ardensius could easily picture those green eyes burning in the thick of the battle.

The order was given, and Jacobo, accompanied by his brothers-in-arms, went over the top of the trench. The no man’s land was too short for their charging determination. Soon they were upon the enemy.

Jacobo stood over the Iradan trench, his rifle, outfitted with a razor-sharp bayonet, ready to fire.

Three shots, three hits.

He joined his comrades. Bayonet first, he sunk the blade into his helpless adversary. The Iradans hurled themselves at him from left and right, wielding anything they could find on the muddy floor of the trench – daggers, shovels, planks of wood. They could not touch him.

Jacobo’s rifle was a spear. Just as Anwak the Forefather conquered the sea, his dragon-toothed spear tip leading the way, so Jacobo carved his way through the melee.

Soon the Iradans sounded the retreat. Those who survived the charge scrambled out of the mud and fled among the barbed wire. Jacobo slid a fresh clip into his MS IV Vinzenzmann Rifle and slammed the bolt into place.

None of the cowards reached the secondary defense.

The hero ran his hand across his sweat-covered face and looked into the eyes of his fallen enemies. He felt no hatred, no disgust. It was the way things went.

“Today it was you, my poor lads,” said Jacobo, his face growing sad of all the killing. “Tomorrow it shall be me.”

A bell rang somewhere in the distance.

Ardensius woke up from his daydreaming. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a watch hanging on a silver chain. It was exactly nine o’clock.

“Damn!” he cursed out loud. He was late, again.

Pocketing the watch, Ardensius turned away from the green eyes of Jacobo Milgher, and with a fresh step headed towards the Imperial Polytechnic University, whose tall and robust buildings rose in the distance among the houses in the old town of Willhelmsbur, the Imperial capital.

***

Ardensius entered the lecture hall.

The doors were situated at the very bottom right next to the lectern that stood in front of several large blackboards.

Professor Frusthal, an elderly man wearing a long black coat and an elegant white neckerchief, looked at Ardensius as he entered.

Ardensius could feel the burning gaze of the Professor’s eyes staring at him from behind his thick circular spectacles.

Feeling the attention upon him, Ardensius made a respectful bow.

“You are once again late, Mister Tarr,” said the Professor, pulling his glasses off of his nose. “That’s the seventh time just this semester.” Ardensius had to admit that for a man of his age, Frusthal had a razor-sharp memory.

“I apologize, sir,” said Ardensius.

“I would very much appreciate if you could become more punctual,” said Frusthal. “Or else I shall be forced to pursue official disciplinary measures which could greatly affect your studies. Am I making myself clear, Mister Tarr?”

“Yes, Sir. It won’t happen again. Sorry for interrupting the lecture.”

“Right then,” said the Professor, placing his glasses back on, as Ardensius disappeared in the mass of students somewhere in the back rows of the theater. “Where was I? Right! The four P’s of labor supervision. We talked about persistence, process standardization and product inspection. Now we shall introduce the fourth, and perhaps the most important element - penalties.”

Professor turned his back to the audience, taking hold of the chalk whilst reciting the words of his penalties lecture, which he had given hundreds of times throughout his innumerable years of teaching. The process of the lecture was standardized, its every word inspected thoroughly, and not a minute of the two hours squandered.

Ardensius sat down in the very last row of the great wooden podium. It was the highest level overlooking the entire theater, which could hold almost three hundred students.

From his leather bag that hung by a long strip over his shoulder, Ardensius took out a notebook and an ink pen. Casually placing them onto the narrow wooden shelf in front of him, he reached once again into the bag. This time he pulled out a book.

Nobody, not even the Professor, could see what was happening at the top level of the theater. Neither could they see the items on the bench. Despite this, Ardensius always pulled out the notebook and the pen so as not to feel completely inadequate.

Blocking out the sharp and penetrating voice of the lecturer, who was just saying something about the degree to which authority should and should not be considerate with the shortcomings of its subordinates, Ardensius dived into the book at hand.

Those hundreds of pages would fill up the two-hour lecture quite nicely.

***

The lecture concluded, and Ardensius was once again treading the streets of Willhelmsbur. This time his destination was one to which he looked forward to reaching. Down in the industrial quarters, where the orderliness and cleanliness of the old town was unheard of, there was a small place, a beacon of light among the soot and smoke of the towering factories, foundries, and shipyards.

It was a small bookshop. It crouched down between the supportive buttresses of a factory. The roof of this humble house began just where a great mosaic window, depicting a large steam engine operated by men in grey, ended.

There were many book shops in the capital, but there was a reason why Ardensius preferred this particular one. It was the assortment of the books that made this shop stand out. Whilst most booksellers offered academic literature strictly concerning the tangible realities of the world, Mr. Schmied sold adventure and mystery. Fiction was deemed unnecessary or outright obsolete by the highly industrious and educated class of Willhelmsbur, and so the only place where Mr. Schmied could sell a book or two was down among the factories, where dreams were of short supply.

Ardensius opened the door on the shop and lowered his head so that he would fit through the doorway. Upon entering, he almost knocked over a stack of books that hadn’t been there the last time he had visited. Luckily his reflexes kicked in and he caught the statically compromised tower, thus preventing what might have been a disastrous domino effect.

“Watch where you’re stepping!”

“My apologies, Mr. Schmied,” answered Ardensius as he secured the stack. He looked around. Books were everywhere – on the counter, on the floor, and on the window parapets, all stacked into high and chaotic towers. The only place where the books weren’t, was the bookshelves.

“Were you unhappy with how they were sorted before, Mr. Schmied?” asked Ardensius, “I thought that arranging them according to the typology of dragons did the trick.”

“I thought so too,” began a voice from behind the shelves. “But then I realized that I need to make sense of the books that did not contain dragons, which to my surprise were many more than I anticipated. I thought that dragons, being such principal entities of chaos and adversaries of sentient beings, were an inescapable feature of all fiction. Or at least that was the case during my earlier years. The authors of the past five hundred years have disappointed me greatly, especially those Imperial ones. I had to start all over again.”

Ardensius felt a bit sorry for the old man. All he had in the world was this little shop with all these books of heroic deeds and a small stove to keep himself warm in the winter. From the many interactions he had had with Mr. Schmied, Ardensius understood that he was a widower, but he didn’t know how or when his wife had died. He was living on a small pension, plus the little he earned selling books. There were not many people coming to the store, and on most days not even one customer would show up, especially now, during war time.

That was why, at least in Ardensius’ opinion, Mr. Schmied rearranged and resorted his bookshelves periodically, at least once a week: to keep himself busy. Each time he claimed that he had found a new and more logical way of sorting them. He used categories like the hair color of the protagonist, the number of pages in both descending and ascending order, the frequency of using the word stupendous, or the page number where the main villain would appear. The latter was especially difficult to identify in the case of more progressive authors, who claimed that the villain was hiding in each and every one of us.

“I assume you have finished the Stories and Legends of the Dwarven Folk, haven’t you?” asked Mr. Schmied, appearing from behind the piles of books.

“Yes. Yes, I have.”

“Well, what did you think of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on,” said the old man, his smile warm and nurturing. “I don’t bite. Brave up.”

“It’s just that some of the stories make no sense at all,” began Ardensius. “They start with a lengthy description of events that seem unnecessary and continue with a constant repetition of themes, as if they were trying to add length, only to reach the climax, which is then concluded in two sentences. The end. After such an abrupt end you are just left wondering why it has ended so suddenly, depriving you of the satisfaction of a well-concluded story.”

“Could you give me an example?” asked Mr. Schmied, furrowing his eyebrows while inspecting two large tomes he held in his hands.

“Yes,” said Ardensius. At once he pictured one legend that he had read just a couple of hours earlier, during the never-ending lecture of Factory Personnel Management with Professor Frusthal. “The Legend of Arkm the Blunt comes to mind.”

“Ah, yes,” smiled the shopkeeper.

“So first you have the hero, Arkm,” began Ardensius carefully. “He is a straightforward dwarf (a bit too much, in fact), and this makes him very hard to occupy the same space with. For this he is sent on a quest, so that the others might have peace away from him. These two parts of the story are extensively detailed. The way Arkm is a menace for his family and Hall, the different squabbles and duels he fights, the way his father sends him off on the quest, the journey itself, and the various characters and dangers he faces along the way – up to this part all is well and good. The story is running and the reader is drawn in.

“But then comes the climax. He finally stands before a gate that should hold the answer to his quest. He knocks, and an elderly man opens. The elder asks him a single question: ‘What is a king without a body?’ To which Arkm the Blunt answers, ‘Riddle me not, old man.’ And then he simply bashes in the elder’s skull with his hammer. Once the elder is dead, Arkm passes through the gate.” Ardensius fell silent. Mr. Schmied smiled even more, and somehow that smile irritated Ardensius.

“And then, then the legend ends. Just like that. The dwarf passes through the gate, which is supposed to be the end of his quest, but once he crosses the threshold, the words stop. And the readers find themselves in a state of panic. What happened beyond the gate? Did he reach his goal or not? The suspense rises but the sense of gratification never comes.”

“Maybe the writer intended it to have such an open ending.”

“But why?” asked Ardensius. “I don’t understand. There is no point to it. Just a single witty remark and then eternal dissatisfaction.”

“Well, if you look at it that way…” said the old shopkeeper. “I suppose one has to look beyond the words to see the true wisdom of such stories. But on the other hand, these are naïve folk legends, handed down generation after generation until someone decided to make a collection. The stories changed and were molded by time and oral tradition. Things could be added as well as deleted. But I still prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

“I guess you’re right,” Ardensius looked away; he didn’t like being challenged on his literary opinions. He changed the subject. “Any news of the new Regvani book?”

Jumiel Jaczic Regvani was a veoflar from Felintor. He was quite famous in the veoflar society but unknown in the Empire (and particularly in Willhelmsbur). Additionally, the books had not been translated into the Imperial common tongue, which created more barriers. Fortunately, Ardensius had learnt the basics of the veoflar language in school, which he had then perfected through reading Regvani’s books and other veoflar literature.

Regvani wrote fiction - heroic and adventurous stories usually comprised of a large amount of characters and plot lines that intertwined, creating a maze of names, events, and relationships.

The veoflar society had developed very differently from that of humans, due to several historical causes (like their human and elf ancestors and the fact that their land was separated from the rest of the world by the Great Gap).

The veoflar were much more invested in art and magic than in heavy machinery and mass manufacturing. For Ardensius, Regvani’s books were a window into an alternative, and definitely more exciting reality.

Regvani periodically published a book every five to six years, which made Ardensius anxious, as the last one, The Breathing Forest, was published exactly six years ago.

“No, none for the last few weeks,” answered Mr. Schmied. “Don’t worry, my friend. I have ordered ten copies from my friend in Felintor and he promised he would send them to me as soon as they get to him. And once they arrive, you will be the first one to know, I promise.”

“Fair enough,” said Ardensius. “In the meantime, I am going to need something else to read. Any suggestions, Mr. Schmied?”

“Hmmm, let’s see.” The old man started shuffling through the stacks while adjusting his glasses. Finally, he held up a thick black book, “This is another collection of dwarven legends and fairytales.”

“Oh no, please, no more of that,” laughed Ardensius. “Even as I read the first one I felt extremely infantile. It just might be that I’ve become too old for fairytales.”

“No one will ever be too old for fairytales, my dear Ardensius,” said Mr. Schmied. “But fine, let’s find something more suited to your distinguished taste then.”

Ardensius’ hand landed on a medium-sized book with a red cover, and he looked down at its title, Unveiling the Kingdom of the Wall. He opened the book and read the first sentence. This is a firsthand account, by General Egon Rosenheim, of the campaign to the north following the tracks of the Beastmen and the humans from beyond the Great Gap.

“Ah yes,” said Mr. Schmied when he noticed the book in Ardensius’ hands, “it is a very interesting one. It is supposed to be a historical account of the first-ever campaign against the Beastmen, but some things in it seem just a bit too fantastic, making it hard to believe that they really happened.”

“Maybe it is time for a little bit of history,” said Ardensius. “I will take it. How much for it, Mr. Schmied?”

“Five crowns. Just leave them somewhere on the counter.”

Ardensius took out his wallet and laid out ten crowns on the counter. “Thank you and have a pleasant day, Sir.”

“You too, my friend!” Mr. Schmied shouted after Ardensius as the door to the shop closed. Then he turned around and disappeared somewhere among the heaps of books.

***

The sun cast fleeting shadows across the streets of the Industrial quarters as smoke rising from the forest of chimneys blocked its beams midair.

Ardensius walked along a tall, rocky wall. Giant buttresses, with large mosaic windows in-between, passed by at his swift step.

Looking up at the heights, Ardensius felt dwarfed by the monumental size of those buildings. Not even the Royal Palace was so dominant, he thought.

On the walls, just in Ardensius’ line of sight, an endless line of posters hung. He walked along them, passively soaking in their messages.

The Imperial Phoenix gazed forth from one. His blazing talons wrapped around bodies clothed in green and black. The bird had proud eyes, and a breath of fire protruded from his bright orange beak.

Another poster depicted a mass of factory workers, in which one of them stood out. He held a hammer, and just above his head a red text glowed: Without us the boys at the front would stand no chance against the Iradan war machine! Work will deliver us from their grasp!

On the third poster, the Imperial soldiers went over the top of the trench. There was a red glow of artillery explosions on the horizon. Ardensius clearly saw the iconic helmets of the Imperial Army. They were matte bronze caps with a distinct crest that ran down the helmet, tall at the top and short at the back. Over the helmets stood: Forward! Not a single step back!

Ardensius’ chest was light and proud. Suddenly he felt a part of it all - the war effort and the sacrifice that every citizen of the Empire had to make, in one way or the other. He looked back up at the factories. They seemed even more majestic than before – beacons of strength and stability, power created by the enterprise of good men, of free men. Their labor now served to protect the very country that gave them the opportunity to rise up from the undergrowth into the sun.

He turned the corner. A couple of yards ahead, he saw the entrance into the grand building he had been walking by for the past several moments. Just as the gate came in sight, a bell began to ring, its high and penetrating sound echoing down the corridors of the soot-covered quarter. With the bell came many other bells from all sides, a signal for the changing of the shifts.

Ardensius pulled out his pocket watch. It was exactly two o’clock. A lecture from Factory Personnel Management rushed back into his memory. He could hear Frusthal’s sharp voice saying, “The most effective way to ensure constant and perpetual production is to set up a three-shift system where the shifts change three times a day - at six in the morning, at two in the afternoon, and at ten o’clock in the evening. In contrast with the old-fashioned twelve-hour shifts, this new eight-hour system proved to be very efficient as it eliminated the feared last two hours of the twelve-hour shift, during which the majority of manufacturing errors, caused by negligence due to exhaustion, occurred.”

As the bell rang on, the gates opened, and a mass of people began to flood the street so that they blocked the path ahead of him. All the men wore the same outfit: grey, baggy pants dirty from coal and oil and long-sleeved shirts which were also grey and also filthy. On their heads, they wore blue caps with a short shield that prevented their eyes from being blinded by the spring sun.

From afar their faces looked terrifying, devoid of life and energy. Their shoulders were slumped and their backs hunched over.

Ardensius adjusted his custom-tailored coat made of quality wool, and looking down, he headed into the mass of workers that walked opposite.

He walked through the crowd, not raising his eyes. He felt out of place. He did not blend in and wanted to be done with the experience as fast as possible.

Finally, he broke free of the grey sea of people, and was able to lift up his eyes again. Now he could see his destination clearly ahead of him. The giant wall of rock, the Conqueror’s Precipice, rose above even the highest of the chimneys of the industrial quarter.

This monumental cliff ran perpendicular to the East Ocean for fifty miles. Right where it met with the waves it turned north, mirroring the coastline for another hundred miles before toppling into the deep, cold waters of the sea.

It was at the bend where the cliff met the sea that the Conqueror’s Precipice was the highest, slightly over three hundred feet tall. This peculiar geographical location was also the host of the capital of the Empire of Üstland.

The city was built on two levels: one was atop the cliff, where the old town and the modern city lay. These were the quarters of academia, business, government, and the residence of the wealthy.

On the bottom level, down by the seashore, were the city’s factories. They huddled against the cliff and crept by the shore, creating a densely packed forest of rock, chimneys, and smoke. Beyond the factories and shipyards spanned the living quarters of the workers and the lower class of Willhelmsbur. The city hosted over a million Imperial citizens.

Ardensius slowly made his way to the cliff. He had to lean his head all the way back to see the top of it. At the end of the street was an entrance into one of the many spiral staircases that led to the upper city. He was, however, not keen on taking the steps. Instead, he turned the corner and moved towards a tall truss column that hugged the cliff, rising to its very top.

After two hundred feet, Ardensius approached the metal structure so that he could admire the riveted joints of the cast iron beams and girders.

Inside this tall cage was a lift. A mighty steam engine lowered and raised a platform, thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, carrying cargo and personnel alike. There were several lifts like this along the cliff; some were bigger and some were smaller. It took more than twenty minutes for the lift to make the full trip. Ardensius was in luck; the lift was just about to move up.

He managed to jump on at the last moment. Paying the operator three crowns for the ride, he stepped close to the railing to secure a spot with a good view.

The operator approached the iron railing and slammed it shut, enclosing the platform so that no cargo or passenger could fall off. Then he proceeded to blow a whistle. Ardensius could hear steam being released into the pistons. The platform shook upwards so that he lost his balance for a second. After that, the lift normalized its speed and slowly began ascending beyond the smoke.

One by one, the girders rolled by Ardensius’ eyes, blocking the view for less than a second at a time. Slowly the lift reached the level of the highest of chimneys, though it wasn’t even halfway through the journey to the top of the cliff. The slow movement of the lift gave him time to look over the giant fields of smoke rising from the factories. It reminded him of some fantasy realm where fire-breathing dragons had their lairs and where they hoarded their treasures. It was just like in that legend about Anwak in which he slew Kograr the Devourer – a battle that transformed Man’s old world into a desolate land, forcing Anwak to sail, with his people, onto the oceans in search of a new home.

About two thirds up the cliff, a giant object passed before Ardensius’ eyes, chasing away his thoughts about the ancient times. He focused his eyes on the object and saw the massive hull and the double gas reservoir of Essig Leviathan, the largest airship ever built within the Empire. These sky whales carried luxury items from all over the world - veoflar wine from the north, coffee from the far south, and spices and silk from the south-eastern reaches of the Eegrir Mountains, bringing them into the capital.

The lift platform stopped.

The operator slid aside the railing, opening a way into the side of the rock. There was a tunnel that led to docking platforms of the cargo section of the capital’s airdock. Now Ardensius could observe as the Leviathan made its approach. They were perfectly level with the ship.

When the ship was about two hundred feet from the dock, which extended about twenty yards from the cliff, a pair of harpoons shot out from its upper deck. The harpoons, with attached ropes, hit two targets, each at one end of the platform. Ardensius saw as stewards rushed to the harpoons, detached the ropes, and mounted them onto a pair of reels.

The reels began to wind up, powered by a source out of Ardensius’ sight, and the Leviathan began to move towards the dock, slowly and majestically. Several hatches opened in the ship’s side, from which propellers ejected (small compared to the three giant ones at the ship’s back). Once they were fully extended, they began spinning, creating a counter push to the reels on the platform and creating a tension in the ropes. They then stabilized the hull in its approach. On windy days, which were common in the capital, it was impossible to dock without proper stabilization and a slow, methodical approach.

After a couple of minutes, the Leviathan’s hull slammed against the platform, and the stewards began to fasten it. Soon the theater was over, the bridge was lowered, and the unloading began.

At this point, the lift moved again as all passengers and cargo that needed to be ushered off or carried from the lift were finally off the platform. Ardensius, still on the lift, rose above the Leviathan, and many more airships appeared from behind its giant reservoirs. The docking platforms ran off into the distance towards the sea.

Those were the cargo docks; the passenger docks were just above Ardensius’ head, level with the edge of the Conqueror’s Precipice. There different types of ship docked – ones with elegantly carved hulls with ornaments and gold and silver lines. Effigies and statues decorated their bows, and their reservoirs were full of color.

Ardensius remembered that his father, Klementcz Tarr, had taken him and his younger brother Nicolaus on a voyage with such a ship one summer. That was almost seven years ago now. They had sailed down the Imperial coast all the way to Helifsbur, one of the southernmost Imperial cities. Those three weeks were some of the most exciting of Ardensius’ childhood.

The platform stopped for the second time. Ardensius disembarked, and turning away from the noble sky vessels, he headed into the old part of town.

***

Korelus, the head servant at Ardensius’ father’s house, awaited Ardensius at the main door and approached him right after he entered.

“Sir, Master Tarr is requesting your presence in the study,” said Korelus, taking Ardensius’ coat. “He stressed that it is of the utmost importance.”

Ardensius obeyed his father’s request without delay or thought. He ran up an ornately carved wooden staircase in the hall, came upon the doors leading to the study, and entered without knocking.

The study was furnished very formally, as it was used for many meetings and enquiries regarding the cotton mill owned by Ardensius’ family. A big wooden desk dominated the room, and bookshelves with see-through glass doors full of books rimmed the entire room. Ardensius had never seen anyone, not even his father, open one of the vitrines. The books were there purely for decorative purposes. It wouldn’t surprise Ardensius to find them completely blank.

On the opposite side of the room to the desk there were several armchairs arranged around a small table. In the bookshelves just behind the armchairs there was a small partition. This partition was one plank of wood with hinges on the bottom side. The drawbridge, as they called it, could be lowered to open up a small bar with glasses and various bottles containing expensive liquor. The drawbridge was locked with a key, and the key was in the top drawer of his father’s desk, as Ardensius had found out one day. It was on that day that Ardensius’ father had started to mention the mystery of the vanishing whiskey.

“What is this meeting about, father?” asked Ardensius as he made his way to one of the armchairs.

“Let’s wait until your brother shows up,” said Klementcz, and he stood up from behind the desk where he was bending over some documents. Klementcz Tarr was a businessman, and a successful one at that, so his posture, movement, and presentation reflected that. He wore very formal dress: a brown knee-length coat, long black pants, a grey silk waistcoat, and a pair of master-crafted leather shoes. A white neckerchief, a sign of higher society, was tied around his neck. In a world where the vast majority of clothes and fashion accessories were being manufactured en masse, a custom-made garment such as this stood out for miles.

Klementcz opened the top drawer of his desk, took the key from the drawbridge and made his way to the other side of the room.

“What are you having, Ardensius?” said Klementcz, sliding the key into the keyhole. “Your favorite whiskey, or something else?”

“Ah, the whiskey is fine.” His father had never before offered him a drink, and would almost never open the drawbridge in front of him or his brother. This could mean two different things, thought Ardensius: either he has finally started to view me as an equal or something serious has happened.

Ardensius’ father pulled three glasses out of the drawbridge and placed them on the small table. Then he took one of the bottles and sat down in an armchair opposite Ardensius. He opened the bottle and poured a light brown liquid into each of the three glasses.

“How was your day?” asked Klementcz as he handed Ardensius one of the glasses. Ardensius could not help but see distress in his father’s eyes. “Did you go to the university?”

“Yes,” answered Ardensius, as he took a sip of the whiskey. It sent a burning sensation down his throat. “I had a Factory Personnel Management lecture today.”

“Interesting. A very important subject in our line of work,” smiled Ardensius’ father. “I wonder, does Professor Frusthal still teach that course?”

“He does.”

“Funny,” Klementcz paused for a second. “I remember him when I was attending the university. Tell me - is he still as mind-numbingly boring as he used to be?”

Ardensius let out a short chuckle. “Oh yes, mind-numbing indeed.”

After this brief exchange, the two men fell silent, sitting across from each other, politely avoiding eye contact. Ardensius was glad that his father kept the silence. When two people who know each other very well, with two very different outlooks on life, sit across from each other, a very particular type of silence settles. It is a silence of two parties acknowledging their differences and understanding the disinterest of the other in the other’s passions. Some try to break this silence just to appear polite, and so they pretend interest. This imposes a very uncomfortable position on the other, as he is now forced to talk about his passions to a man who has absolutely no interest in them, and he knows it. Thus, he sums up the most basic information into a few sentences and brief statements to adequately satisfy the question. It is better to just keep quiet, enjoy the other’s presence, take a slow contemplating sip from one’s whiskey, and not play pretend.

Ardensius and his father understood this very well, and so they waited in silence, sipping whiskey, until the door to the study opened and a young man entered.

“Nicolaus, have a seat please,” said Klementcz, and he handed Nicolaus the third whiskey glass.

Nicolaus sat down, looking bewildered by the drink in his hands. He was one year younger than Ardensius, and the brothers looked very much alike. They were about the same height, and both had light brown hair and very similar facial features. It would be very difficult to tell them apart at a distance.

Ardensius was twenty years old and was studying at the Imperial Polytechnic University so that he could one day take over the family business. Nicolaus was in the same program, only one year below Ardensius. Even though Ardensius’ interests didn’t lie in technological matters, he was a talented student and was one of the top in his class. This couldn’t be said for Nicolaus, who was struggling to make his way through the first year. He spent most of his time with his classmates, drinking and gambling.

Nicolaus’s gambling was becoming a problem. He was quite good at it and knew how to make a smart bet and when to fold, but he couldn’t say no to the cards, especially after a few drinks. Klementcz Tarr worried that one morning Nicolaus would come home with a check too big to be paid.

These kinds of stories weren’t rare. A young boy, most likely the son of a wealthy man, agreed to a game of cards whilst being in a more sociable condition. His opponent, on the other hand, was very alert and picked the boy clean.

Klementcz knew one prominent man who had been forced to sell his factory under very unfavorable conditions just to pay off the debt of his son who had fallen victim to this kind of gambling.

“I have received drafting orders,” said Klementcz, going straight to the point (as was his nature). “The order is not issued for anyone specific. It just states that one man of age from the family of Klementcz Tarr is to enlist into the Imperial Army, which means one of us three. I have long thought about who should go and I have made a decision…”

“Hold on, Father!” Nicolaus interrupted his father. “A drafting order? How can this be? Are we some sort of peasants to be ordered around like this? Let me have a look at the papers!”

“They are on the desk,” said Klementcz, waving his hand towards the other side of the room. Nicolaus stood up and walked to the desk, bending over the documents lying on top of it. Ardensius kept silent, looking into his whiskey glass.

“Unfortunately, we are not nobles. In the eyes of the law we are on the same level as common folk. And please, Nico, stay away from expressions like peasants. It is most disrespectful.”

“Yea, alright, I’m sorry,” apologized Nicolaus. “So why do we not just ignore it? What can they do to us?”

“The country is at war, and during wartime they can do anything they want,” answered Klementcz. “They could confiscate our property if they liked. Trust me, there is no other way, I have already talked to a lawyer.”

“As I was saying,” he continued. “I have come to the conclusion that Nicolaus should enlist. Before you react, hear me out. Ardensius, you are in your second year of university and you are doing well. Nico, on the other hand, would only benefit from some discipline.”

“Discipline!?” shouted Nicolaus out loud, his face turning red a little. “How about certain death? Would that benefit me?”

“Look, I understand your concerns,” said Klementcz with a tremor in his voice. “Do you think it was an easy decision for me? You are my sons, I love you both, and I don’t want either of you to go to the front. But orders are orders. Tomorrow I will go down to the ministry and I will try to set things right, but we have to prepare for the scenario that someone actually has to go, all right? Let’s settle this rationally, like men.”

Silence fell on the study. After a minute or two, Nicolaus downed his whiskey and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” asked Klementcz.

“Well,” said Nicolaus stopping at the doors, “there is not much to discuss, is there? At least not until tomorrow, when you return from the ministry. And so, in the meantime I am going to do what every sane conscript ought to do: get drunk.”

The doors shut after Nicolaus, leaving Ardensius alone with his father in silence.

“Father?” Ardensius broke the silence. “I respect your decision, but could I go instead? I have always dreamt of seeing combat, I think I could serve the county well, and I think I would handle it better than Nico.”

“I won’t hear of it. You have much better prospects here in Willhelmsbur at the university, which unfortunately cannot be said of your brother. I realize that managing a factory is not exactly your dream, but who else will take over the mill after me? And believe me, selling it to a stranger is entirely out of the question.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Ardensius, disappointed. “I should go; I have some studying to do.” Ardensius stood up to leave. He expected his father to reply, but he didn’t. At the door he turned back. Klementcz was looking into his empty glass. His gaze was empty and distant.

In his room Ardensius tried to take his mind off of the drafting order and his father’s decision, with no hope. He found a textbook on the inner and outer workings of a steam engine. Ardensius opened it at a random page and began reading.

A sudden wave of anger seized him. He stood up from the desk and walked up and down the length of his room.

How could this be? Finally, there was an opportunity to escape this life, and he was deprived of it. He came upon the textbook on the desk. How he hated it. He could not stand it at all – the lectures, the assignments, the boring struggle towards his inevitable future. His mind remembered the feeling he had felt earlier while walking among the factories.

It was the feeling of inclusion, of being part of a larger story – the machine of human endurance. The same realization now made him shrink. He was but a cog, worked and molded to fit perfectly into society’s needs. There was no room for deviation.

Ardensius could no longer focus on anything. He slammed the book closed.

I should look after Nico, he thought. To prevent him from getting into trouble.

***