The Burden of the Protector by S.C. Eston

must put it down. If there is but a tiny chance that it might be true, then someone must know. Someone must stop the abomination that it represents.
    It started as I was reminiscing about Vìr, of a time when our friendship was young and growing, before the discovery in the forest. He had asked a question, which at the time was innocent to him and irrelevant to me.
    Not so now.
    We were discussing the knight protectors, their role in Ta’Énia, the longevity of the service required, which is about thirty years, if one does not include training and mentoring. A protector starts his or her training at fifteen years of age, for most. Mine started at fourteen. The tutelage can be received in Ta’Énia or in a few of the cities of Jarum, such as Vi’Alana. It lasts for five years. Then the pupil becomes a protector and starts participating in the guarding of the Borders. Younger protectors receive the faraway regions. By the time the age of forty is reached, a protector is given only the closest regions of Ta’Énia to patrol. Mentoring the young protectors starts at fifty.
    “And after sixty, a well-deserved retirement,” suggested Vìr.
    “You could say that,” I remember replying, shocked, probably pale, due to his ignorance and his disregard. Vìr had then lifted an eyebrow, a habit of his when his curiosity was piqued.
    “What after sixty, then?”
    At first, I had not understood his question. Such a bizarre moment, when our disparate origins put us worlds apart. I had not answered, believing there was no need and nothing to add.
    We returned to the subject but one more time, maybe a few months later, maybe a year. “The final age, then, is sixty?” he had asked, probing. I had nodded and steered the discussion toward an unrelated subject.
    As I lay in my bed last night, unable to sleep, having overslept during the day, those discussions and questions returned to me. More important, the surprise on Vìr’s face returned. He had shown distress and some incredulity. I believe he would have liked to address the subject again, but we never had the chance. It had seemed important to him and that got me thinking some more.
    My strength has all but left me. Getting out of bed is a chore in itself, although once on my feet, I tend to be able to go on for a few hours. Until now, I had not questioned these sudden weaknesses. Why should I? After all, I am now sixty. It is to be expected, the proper way to pass…
    But since starting to put these words on paper, I have tried hard to analyze, to see beyond the veil. That is what Vìr would have wanted me to do. That is the only thing he ever asked for, with the exception of these records.
    “Dàr, my friend,” he would say, “do not take my words to be the truth. Do not take anyone’s words to be the sole truth. Think. Question. Learn. And then, only then, see.”
    So I stopped discarding the signs sent to me by my own body. I am sixty, true, but something didn’t feel right. Something still doesn’t. I can feel it in my bones, crawling under my skin…a deep burning and a wrongness. My vigour went away too rapidly or, dare I say, conveniently.
    Why sixty?
    Why is it that all of us, Taénians, fade away so suddenly, at the very same age, inside a period of a few months? If one takes but a moment to observe any other living creature, be it a dog, a cat, or a horse, or any wild creature, it is striking to see the diversity of the end, how it varies from months to years. It seems that Taénians pass away quite…unnaturally.
    I have no proof of this. Just an undeniable and strong instinct that I am correct. Please, read these next words carefully and heed the warning. If there is fact here, do what it takes to stop it.
    This weakness that is now affecting me, that has been affecting me for the past weeks, is abnormal.
    I believe that I am being poisoned.
    That I am being killed.
    Slowly.
    Deliberately.
    In Ta’Énia, we all are, when we reach sixty.
    *
    It must be something