The King's Ancestors

by Robin Simmons

  His mother was silent for a moment and then said, “You could do nothing to prevent Rebekka from being taken from you by force.”

  “That's just it,” Raven replied with tears coming to his eyes once again. “She knew we would fight to protect her and all die in the process. She just straightened her shoulders and walked right down to the enemy and gave herself to him as he demanded.”

  Raven’s mother asked, “You did not say anything to her?”

  “No, mother, she gave me that look and said there was no other way to give us any kind of chance. It happened so fast I did not even get the chance to say I loved her.” Raven could say no more and just closed his eyes to get control of his emotions. This was no time to be falling apart, Rebekka and the kingdom depended on him finding a solution.

  When he opened his eyes Master Fields was standing there, and spoke, “We must convene to devise a plan to deal with these events.”

  Raven nodded and rose to follow Master Fields. Aunt Jessica said she would find little Edward and explain to him that his mother had gone away on a long journey and would not be back for some time. Raven nodded at her and then continued to follow Master Fields.

  Sauron and Andrew were already gathered around the table in a quiet room in the castle off the main hall. When Raven entered they stopped talking and looked at him. He took his seat and tried to clear his thoughts, for this must be decided quickly, for they only had 3 days.

  Andrew was the first to speak to the group as he said with great emotion, “We should have fought to the death before we let the queen go!”

  “And what,” Raven stated, “be burned to a crisp like Jerddin. We would all have perished and what would that have accomplished. It still would not save the ancients and they are in grave peril as of right now.”

  Lorriel had just entered the room and now spoke up, no longer able to contain her emotions, “Rebekka is more important than the ancients, why did you not stop her from going Raven!”

  She said this with such a sharp, accusing tone, that Raven’s heart was smitten anew.

  Raven stood shaking with frustration and deep pain, “No one,” and he paused here for effect, “no one loved the queen more than I, you of all people should know that Lorriel.”

  Lorriel looked down, ashamed of how she had accused Raven of letting Rebekka go. It hurt them all to see Rebekka taken, but she knew none felt that pain more than Raven. She was sorry she had said what she had.

  Raven continued, “You all know the queen is wise beyond many in this kingdom and quick to assess a situation and make the right judgment. She saw that the only way to give us time was to give herself into the hands of the enemy. She did that willingly for us and the kingdom. I could have stopped her by force, but would any of you want me to stop you from making a sacrifice for others and the kingdom if you could save them?” With that Raven sat down and everyone was silent.

  Finally Sauron spoke, “Queen Rebekka has made a sacrifice to save us, we must find a solution to this problem so her sacrifice will not be in vain. But I have a pressing question that needs to be answered. Why can we not tell this man about our ancestors, the ancients? I know you know more about them than any one, King Raven. Why can we not give him what he wants, then he will give us back Rebekka and will leave. I know you have explained some of this to us earlier, but why not leave the battle to the ancients, surely they will know how to deal with this man. This should not be our battle, it is really theirs.”

  Raven contemplated this for a moment before answering, “The battle is for the kingdom of Glenfair, not just the past kingdom but for ours as well. The ancients feared this man so much they fled in time to begin this kingdom. I do not think they would be able to overcome him if he were to find them. If that happens and he kills them, or takes them back as prisoners to his own time, this kingdom will not be, nor will we be born. We will all most likely vanish. I believe our greatest chance to defeat the enemy will be here in our own time. He does not expect much from us, I have seen it in his eyes and the way he treats us. If we can use that to our advantage then maybe we can save the kingdom.”

  Master Fields spoke now, “The weapons he has against our own make this almost an impossibility. If he had swords I would not worry at all, but lightning bolts that burn and kill so quickly will slaughter us. We can not fight a conventional battle and expect to win. So what is your plan?” he asked Raven.

  Raven Kallestor, king of Glenfair sat thinking: What was he to do? It would be easy to seek revenge for the greatest harm anyone could ever do to him. But he had to put those feelings of revenge aside so he could make the right choice, not only for the kingdom of his time but for the Glenfair of all ages. The pain and sadness of what had happened clouded his reasoning, paralyzed his thoughts. He shook his head as if that would help to bring clarity of thought. Meanwhile Master Fields and the others waited patiently for Raven to decide on a course of action. Raven knew the survival of Glenfair had to come first. A grave mistake would mean the kingdom would cease to exist, vanish from history without a trace and all of them with it. With that overriding truth, he knew what needed to be done.

  “Call Aunt Jessica. We are riding north,” he spoke to Master Fields, “to convene a time conference.”

  “A What?” Master Fields asked.

  Raven smiled at Master Fields’ dismayed look and said; “I will explain on the way. You always wanted to meet Andronicus, the keeper of the wisdom, and now you shall. And you will come with us as well, Sauron.”

  Sauron nodded knowing such a crisis demanded extreme action. From the time King Raven had mentioned the Hall of Wisdom and the hermit Andronicus, he had wanted to visit this place. King Raven had told him it was at the top of Brickens’ Falls and Sauron wanted to see how anyone could get up there. Ever since he was a child he had thought of ways to reach the top of the falls, but none were found feasible.

  “Shall we take food,” Sauron asked the king.

  “No,” Raven answered. “All of our needs will be provided for by Andronicus. But there is one thing you need to do for the kingdom before we leave. Send word to the other dukes to meet here in two days, making sure they avoid the center of the valley by the river. I do not want Layton Teal to meet any of our dukes, nor they him until we figure out what to do. In two days we will all meet at this castle, for this concerns them too.”

  At that moment Aunt Jessica came in and stated: “I hear we are convening a time council with Andronicus.” Raven nodded so Aunt Jessica continued, “Then you will probably be needing these.” She held out a beautiful bag of soft leather to Raven. He took it from her hand and opened it and inside were the five different colored stones of the ancients.

  Raven looked at his mother with amazement, “How did you know we may need these?”

  “When you showed me the hidden weapons room in our castle and how to open the crests and view the stones, I memorized the riddle the ancients had written.”

  “We fled the enemy of our first home,

  and took with us the sacred stones,

  that would protect if he should find,

  to where in time we did fly,

  and the stones if used the proper way,

  will send him back to his own day.”

  “When you were gone I began to think if the enemy of the ancients had time shifted here, according to the ancients, you would need these stones. That is the main reason I came to the Crestlaw castle.”

  Raven threw his arms around his mother in a big hug, “You did the right thing, thank you mother.” Raven realized that he had called Aunt Jessica mother out loud in front of Master Fields and Sauron. He looked at the both of them and they had strange looks on their faces. He then looked to Lorriel and Andrew for support but they had their mouths open in shock that Raven could let this slip.

  Master Fields broke the silence with this statement of fact. “Sire, you called Jessica your mother.”

  Raven looked at them, the secret was now
out before Sauron and Master Fields. Raven could have claimed it was a mistake in his excitement but decided otherwise. After all they would soon know everything anyway.

  So Raven stated plainly, “I did call her mother because she really is Joanna Kallestor.”

  Master Fields just squinted his eyes in a kind of “I knew it all the time” type of look, but Sauron nearly choked.

  Lorriel interrupted their silence with a simple question, “Raven Why?”

  He answered just as simply. “Why not, they will know everything soon anyway.” Lorriel nodded and smiled, Andrew too saw the truth Raven spoke.

  Sauron gathering his composure asked, “How, I was at the funeral, your grief was real, the burial was real.”

  Raven simply said, “I will explain on the way, we must be going, for our time is short.”

  Master Fields looked at Jessica and said, “I never felt comfortable around you because you looked and acted too much like Joanna. But keeping your head covered kept me from guessing the truth.” He then laughed and came to her and gave her a hug. “Never too old to be surprised are we?”

  As they rode toward the falls Raven began the story of Joanna’s miraculous deliverance from the plague, which everyone thought she had died from.

  “Remember,” Raven reviewed for them, “how we found a cure for the plague in the northeast some years ago. Well, after we knew of the cure, Lorriel found out that she was very gifted. She found she could shift time and time travel became a reality for her. The first thing she did was to go back in time and ask Andronicus to save her mother and bring her to the Hall of Wisdom at the top of Brickens’ Falls. A decoy that looked human was burnt outside of the castle. As a result everyone, including myself and Lorriel in her past had thought her mother had died.”

  Master Fields interrupted here and asked a question, “Why did not Lorriel just cure her mother and just leave her in the castle?”

  “That was the mistake Lorriel made,” Raven answered. “She sought to spare her mother all the pain of Edward’s death, and my father, King Mollen’s betrayal of our kingdom, the war, and so on.”

  Master Fields nodded, “But Joanna was not happy being stuck up on top of the falls while all these terrible events transpired was she? Did she know of them?”

  “Most of it, or what could be guessed by watching the kingdom,” Raven stated.

  Now Master Fields finished the story piecing it together, “She could not come down to the valley and casually walk in with everyone thinking she was dead, they might think she was possessed or evil, no one would ever accept her.”

  “Yes,” Raven answered, “she had to wait more than three years for us realize she was alive and come to her. You see, until Lorriel went back in time we did not know she was alive either. So after meeting with her we decided to bring her back as the long lost Aunt returned from outside the kingdom to live with us.”

  “With that ability could not Lorriel go back and save Edward, or change things for the better?” Asked Sauron.

  “That was a hard lesson Lorriel had to learn, we all did,” Raven answered. “We cannot always guess what effect we will have by trying to change the past. What if in trying to save Edward’s life Andrew would be killed in the process, or I, or a thousand different things, who is to know? The hurt Lorriel had caused Joanna by exiling her to the Hall of Wisdom for those years caused her to make a promise to us all that she would never shift time without consulting us as to the possible effects the time travel might have on things.”

  “So what we are going to do is convene a time council to determine a course of action?” asked Sauron.

  “Yes,” Raven replied, “we need Andronicus’ input more than anyone else in these matters.”

  Everyone was silent for a time until Master Fields spoke. “I had forgotten you had told me about Lorriel’s gift of time travel, because you never brought it up again. But I believe it all and now it makes sense to me. For all of you (speaking of Lorriel, Raven, and Rebekka) ending up with these special talents that are far beyond the normal person is for a reason. God has given you these gifts because the enemy was going to come here to this time and perhaps with your gifts you may be able to defeat him somehow.”

  Raven thought on that a moment and shaking his head stated, “You may be right, we perhaps have a chance to do something, but what, I know not.”

  At the end of this conversation they had arrived at the falls. They dismounted, staked their horses and headed for the cliff face at the base of the falls. Sauron and Master Fields were curious as to how they would scale the cliffs, and even more so when they all began to walk the ledge that led behind the falls. When they reached the place where the ledge widened out Raven pushed the eyes of the owl overhead and the cliff face swung in to the chamber behind the falls. As they entered the lights came on so they could see.

  Master Fields commented that the light was unnaturally bright for the cave they were in. Raven could see it made him uneasy. He smiled at that because he remembered the uneasiness they all felt by the light coming on in the secret chamber at Rock Spring. They headed across the chamber toward the doors to the small room that opened silently as they neared them. Sauron and Master Fields followed Raven and the rest into this small room.

  Once they were inside the doors closed on them and Master Fields could be heard to say, “What have we gotten ourselves into.”

  Raven placed the ring into the slot made for it and the room began to move upward. Raven heard Sauron utter something under his breath and could see him hanging onto the rail that was attached to the inside wall.

  Andrew too noticed and spoke to his father, “Do not worry father, the first time I was in here I panicked when the doors shut.”

  His father only nodded and with that motion the room came to a stop at the top of the falls. As the door slid open, a short distance away stood Andronicus with a concerned look on his face, but relief showing when he saw it was Raven.

  “I thought the enemy had somehow found this place,” Andronicus said as Raven and the others stepped out.

  “Why did you not send me word of your coming by Rebekka so I did not worry when someone entered the chamber?”

  “Because,” answered Raven, “the enemy has taken Rebekka.”

  Andronicus stopped short, looked at Sauron and Master Fields who had joined Andrew and Lorriel on the garden path. “Then come, we must decide on a course of action.”

  The path to the Hall of Wisdom through the garden seemed to take a long time to Raven. For the first time he did not relish the garden or scenery about him, his only thoughts were of the current crisis.

  Not so Master Fields and Sauron, they stared in awe and disbelief just as Raven and the others did the first time they saw this place. Finally they reached the Hall of Wisdom, entered, and sat down in the chairs of the main room to talk.

  Andronicus came right to the point, “Did the enemy learn anything useful to him of the ancients?”

  “I am afraid so,” replied Raven. “It was my fault for bringing the armor and the sword the ancients made. Layton recognized them as an alloy we do not have.”

  “Ah yes, the titanium ceramic alloy triberridum, I should have remembered that and warned you to leave it hidden,” Andronicus said chiding himself. “So now the enemy knows he is on the right trail and your ancestors are in danger.”

  Then changing the subject Andronicus asked, “What did he do with Rebekka?”

  Raven frowned in concentration trying to remember every detail, “Layton Teal had a time shifter with him, a very young woman who took Rebekka somewhere in time. Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?”

  Andronicus answered plainly, “The future, perhaps back to his own time, but that would be unwise.”

  “Can you explain to Lorriel how far and how to get there?” Raven said hopeful of rescuing Rebekka.

  “No, I cannot do that,” Andronicus said. But clarified his statement; “I came with t
he ancients back in time but this episode with Layton had to take place after we left. I can not guess how long after we fled Layton he found out how to travel this distance in time. It would be impossible and dangerous to try and find her by simply guessing. Did Layton give anything away that would help to establish a time in the future?”

  Raven shook his head, “No he said nothing that we can use.”

  After Raven said this Master Fields jumped up and said, “Now hold on a minute, I have been impressed with this place and have so far swallowed this time travel thing, but for you to have been alive when the ancients were is just to much to take. You would have to be over a thousand years old!”

  “I am one thousand one hundred and thirty three to be exact,” Andronicus stated proudly.

  Raven cleared his throat and had everyone's attention. “Sauron, Master Fields, please come here with me to Andronicus.” They both followed Raven to Andronicus where Raven stopped and asked Andronicus to show them the inner workings of his arm and hand. Andronicus held up his arm pealed back the synthetic skin and exposed the maze of metal, circuitry, and small motors that made his arm and hand work.

  Raven then stated with a straight face, “Andronicus is a machine, not a flesh and blood person like we are. He was built by the ancients and brought here with them when they fled the enemy.”

  Sauron and Master Fields were shocked, this was almost too much to handle in one day. They both sat back down slowly realizing that all they understood of the world about them had just evaporated.

  Raven now spoke with compassion in his voice for he knew how this revelation would affect them. “Now do you see why I could not tell you both everything at once a few years ago, when I said some things you had to see for yourself?”

  They both nodded, still not saying anything but trying to process the immense information they had just received.

  Raven continued, “The ancients were far more advanced than we are because they came from our far future. That is why Layton Teal has weapons and abilities that we can not match with sword and shield. That is why Rebekka gave herself over to the enemy because she knew we could not defeat him in conventional warfare. We simply would have been slaughtered without a chance. She, by her sacrifice has given us opportunity to try and find a way out of this.”