Epistem- Rise of the Slave King's Heir

by Jani Griot

  I saw (without really seeing, just inside my mind) Ezra, tied to the back of a horse and being taken straight toward the fabled Sea of Blue Light. Toward Sand Mountain. I hadn’t seen either at that point, but I knew the direction. I looked to the sun, then determined the direction we had to go.

  “Fury, there’s no time to stand around. We gotta go. Now!”

  The boy quickly mounted the saddled horse and reached out his hand to me. I don't know why I took the boy’s hand, but his presence was something I was becoming used to.

  I had never ridden an animal before. I didn't know how to mount the beast, so it took a few attempts before I found success. Once I was on the unfamiliar creature, I was greeted with something I hadn't been expecting. A complete sense of familiarity. I knew what it would take to get the beast to move and stop. For it to turn left and right.

  It whinnied furiously as I leaned in and nearly flattened the boy. My hands wove into the mane of the maturing pony, and I swore the creature grew larger; the hair lengthened and took on a slightly red tinge.

  The horse looked back at me as it playfully kicked up sand in a challenge. As if it were begging me to push it forward. Daring me, even. Its all-black body was a direct contrast to its blazing red eyes. A glimmering anger shone where there hadn't been anything just moments ago.

  “What's happening?” asked the boy in a muffled voice.

  I kicked, swiping at the horse's side, and it took off in a dead charge. He galloped so fast and hard, it felt as if the horse's hooves could surf the sands themselves.

  We moved at that unrelenting pace for what seemed like the length of light’s warmth, but Ark's light still stood directly above me, letting me know only a handful of moments had passed.

  Then it came into view, even before the blue sea crested the horizon.

  “Sand Mountain.” The boy sighed in relief as I leaned back from squashing him.

  The sandstone mountain stretched far above the clouds and sky, its peaks so perfectly obscured, it looked more volcano than mountain. It was made entirely of sand and sandstone. A sloping pathway stretched around it, from bottom to top, like a giant snake wrapped around a pyramid.

  None of these features did any justice to its natural beauty. It was the first sign of water for miles. As we got closer, the details that were most striking unveiled themselves. It was astonishing, after only having witnessed such sights in a two-dimensional form, to be surrounded by, enveloped in, and wandering through a land so glorious.

  The first thing I noticed was the river. It seemed to come from nowhere in this desert. The river split, one path running directly into the mountain, and the other wrapped around the mountain’s large base. Both rushing waterways flowed into the sea. The river held peerless water, unaffected by anything. The river’s waters were recognized as a sacred gift of Ark in the birth of light, and the beginning of the Elementalist Age. I nearly lost myself in the color of the icy-blue water and gasped at my own reflection.

  “Yeah. Shocks me, too. It gives me nightmares,” the boy said, smiling as we trotted along the river.

  “You’re one scary lion, Fury. I can’t imagine what you’ll do next. I know we are more likely to die than to find success. It's just… I've doubted you a hundred times in my head over the last few days, but you’re still kicking. If it weren’t for you, I probably would’ve died fighting those girls. Or that weird light-monster. Or maybe the traps? No, not the traps, but the armed-guard-Dara thing for sure. So, thanks, Fury.”

  He reached back and patted me on the shoulder. I squinted at him. Thinking back on this, I wish I knew what he was saying to me in that moment. I would have thanked him as well. His smile made me smile, and I patted his shoulder back a little too hard.

  “Is that how you say ‘you’re welcome’? You Vassilious slaves are a tough bunch.”

  The boy was muttering. Something about an armada of ships and a camp, looking much more like an army than just a few royal guards on escort. I hadn't even gotten a chance to look at the perilous odds to my right. I was transfixed by the large expanse. The empty space under the mural of flying lions painted across Sand Mountain.

  They came in all shapes and colors. Something was different about these lions, though. Their manes were all painted in different styles. It was as if each lion had the attributes of a different, winged creature. Some had vibrant scales, or owl feathers. Others had all white manes, with sharp eyes like hawks. The number of different creatures was immeasurable.

  The largest of the painted creatures was a lion with the wings of a hawk. Its mouth, opened wide, made a cove, devouring the river running into Sand Mountain. It was a fierce depiction of animals, and their strength in numbers. Their teeth shone with the blood of their enemies, but it was still beautiful as it gleamed in the light.

  “Fury!” The boy yelled at me, causing me to yank the horse’s mane. Its hooves splashed sand into a huge arc as it came to an abrupt stop.

  “I’ve been calling your name forever!”

  I followed his outstretched finger past the horse, which appeared to be glaring at me for pulling its hair. The boy pointed toward treachery at its finest.

  There were more ships than I could have thought possible. The boats drank up the coastline on the other side of the mountain. Water disappeared underneath wood as if the shore was receding, escaping what was to come.

  From our vantage point in the dunes, we could see the whole army. It was, unmistakably, an army. The clouds parted around the top of Sand Mountain, giving me a grasp on the entire scene.

  The opening also revealed the base of a tall tower at the mountain’s peak, a small manor to its side. This was the coastal manor of Vassilious. Ochloc allowed Avery to stay there when he visited his kingdom.

  Past the hundreds of tents to either side of a river, was the army that occupied them, a mountain’s worth of climbing, and a heavily guarded manor and tower.

  The horse grew restless underneath me. I dismounted as I looked over everything in front of me, taking everything in.

  “Odds are Ezra’s in the manor already. Or she's on Avery's boat.”

  He elbowed me and pointed upriver, toward a vessel the size of a large hill. It seemed to swallow the river from shore to shore, its large sails pushing it rapidly toward the mouth of the lion, into Sand Mountain.

  “The ship’s heading this way. So, unfortunately for us, our best bet is probably to go up there.”

  He pointed his sword toward the clouds. I looked away from the manor and toward the river that gushed past effortlessly. My eyes, the only thing I could see in the river, were shining against it. The image brought a face to the forefront of my mind. The image of a man I would soon recognize. Vola.

  Images of ships flashed in my mind like a flood, making me dizzy. I broke the line of sight with the flowing water, only to be faced with another projection of the man. He stood on the shore across from me pointing upstream.

  Pay attention, boy. Do everything you can to benefit yourself and your allies.

  There was a smaller boat with goods upriver, well in front of the larger ship that would be on us any minute now and moving much faster.

  Strengthen your links, boy!

  I looked back at Vola. He pointed at the boy with a grand smile and a flash of fangs. He disappeared, as if his body were made of sand and flew away with the winds.

  I sprang into action, not knowing what to do other than move. I pulled the boy off the horse, then aimed the beast toward the army that lay beyond the dunes.

  “Wait, what are you doing Fury?”

  I smacked the horse on its rear end, sending it charging toward the encampment.

  “You do realize we still have to get there, right?”

  I walked to the shore, pulling the boy with me the entire time. I pulled the rope that was wrapped around his chest and unraveled it.

  He sighed. “I would ask what you're doing again, but I assume silence will bring me just as much reward.”

  I tied one
end of the rope around his wrist and the other around my ankle. Then, I pushed him onto his back. I threw handful after handful of sand on top of him.

  “Now Fury, I get that I said the odds were against us, but I don't think giving up entirely is the way to go.”

  I brought my finger to my lips, and he squinted at me before laying his head back. I covered everything but the boy’s mouth and nostrils. He didn't move a muscle.

  I stepped closer to the water and scooped sand over the rope leading to my ankle. After I could no longer see the rope, I laid down and began the same procedure on myself, burying my body in sand up to my neck (and higher) in the shallows of the riverbank.

  Everything went silent for a while. I could barely see out of the space I left uncovered for my eyes. My fingers grew cold in the running water as it flowed under the shield and around my right hand. I held my left hand held steady around the hilt of the sword. The weapon that filled me with rage.

  It came soon after, the voices of army men and slave commands penetrating my covering. I waited patiently. I only had one chance at this. I watched the ship as it swept by.

  “I could have sworn I saw a noble and a guard standing here only a few moments ago, sir. I swear it,” one of the ship’s crewmen said.

  The crack of a whip from aboard made me shudder beneath the sand. The muffled yelp of pain that followed affected my rage and resolve. My grip tightened around the sword.

  The back end of the ship was coming fast, and I needed to move.

  “That will teach you to lie to me, slave,” the same voice screamed at someone we couldn’t see.

  That slave’s yell reached my ears and I lifted my left hand out of the water. The sword cut into the wood of the transport ship, pulling me and the boy free of our sandy hiding holes, and dragged us along with it.

  We skimmed atop the water, with as much grace as a falcon’s talons would while catching fish. The boy pulled himself up the length of rope that divided us. Footsteps boomed our way. My grip loosened on the handle of the blade, and I looked away, quickly searching the river line for the bigger of the vessels. We had reached the river’s fork; instead of approaching the cove, our transport split off onto the waterway leading to an ocean port.

  “I should have thrown you in the sea ages ago!” The voice of a man, and the aggravated growls of another, came closer. The boy used the jutting bones of my torso as footholds to jump from the flat of the blade. He grabbed the rim of the ship, pressing himself against it, when a girl careened over the side directly on top of me.

  She was screaming, until she saw me. I was grinning at her. I couldn't help myself. She was a beauty like no other, and art has always made me smile.

  “I knew I saw—" the slave girl started but was sharply cut off.

  She landed directly in my arms with a plop. She was not heavy. My body dipped just below the water’s surface before I reemerged.

  When I resurfaced, a pair silver eyes stared at me above the bridge of her slightly crooked nose. Something about those eyes was mesmerizing. I either could not, or would not, look away—until a trickle of blood splashed across my nose. The girl and I looked up. We watched as the boy wrenched his sword free of the crewmen’s head, wiped it clean of blood, and sheathed it all at once. The action was that of a deftly trained assassin.

  He casually grabbed the dead man by the collar moments before he splashed into the crystal water. The fresh corpse dropped to the deck with a hollow thumping sound.

  The girl looked back at me, her arms wrapped around my neck. “Should I be afraid of you two?”

  I once again brought a finger to my lips, one of the very few signals I understood.

  “Yes,” said the boy with his hand out above the railing toward her. He had already hidden the body behind a barrel and was dead set on not being found.

  “Hurry!” he said as the girl climbed back on board. My fingers had gone numb and I struggled to pull myself up; almost letting go a few times in the struggle.

  By the time we were all onboard, the port was coming up quickly and we had no plan of action to get off safely. The girl hurried us to the opposite end of the ship.

  “Take these, and do not raise your gaze for even a moment. Do you understand?” She looked at the boy and me as she handed us bags of assorted seeds and grains. She picked up the remaining bags and stood. “Don't look up. Not even a glance, for any reason.”

  The boy nodded. They broke eye contact, and now she stared me in the eyes, stone-faced.

  She was striking. Dark skin with red eyes, two glimmering crimson irises, brimming with power. Stark, white hair that was common among the elder slaves of Vassilious. I cast my eyes downward and saw her chains.

  My face went hot. Memories of my own chains filled my body with that same heat. I’m not sure what made me feel that way. I assume, now, that I was angry, but I didn’t understand that then. The rage was consuming me so quickly, I looked to my left hand, unsure if I had stowed the white-gilded hilt away in my cloak as I thought I had. My hand was empty.

  “Is your friend okay?” asked the girl.

  “Yeah, but don’t ask him. You won't get a single word out of this one,” the boy said. He handed me another sack and another, and yet another after that. Eventually, I couldn’t see over them, I held so many. This would be the only way to hide the large shield I carried.

  The girl stared into my eyes once more and repeated her message from before, not knowing it fell on deaf ears. “Don't forget. You must not look up for any reason for this to work.”

  The boy pushed my chin up and down repeatedly. The girl returned the nod.

  The men who lived and died by the sea made quite the sport of bloodletting. This reputation had spread as far and wide as the waters upon which they sailed.

  We followed the girl to the front of the boat. Her chains rattled as she shuffled along. She moved as quickly as she could with the length she was given, taking quick glances back at us. I couldn't help but look at her eyes. Every time the opportunity presented itself, I took it. Something about them was hypnotizing. Even a small glimpse put me in some sort of trance.

  “Don't get too lost in those eyes, Fury.” The boy elbowed me with a smile, but his eyes changed almost immediately. Jubilation turned to the empty, marrow-less look he took on when he killed.

  “The runes on those chains of hers tell quite the tale. She must be outright drowning in power to have that many suppression runes.”

  Those dead, gray eyes of his scanned the ship. I found myself looking for something, anything. My mind wanted to know why he was so frantic, even if I didn't. He stared momentarily at two guards near the front of the boat before looking back to the girl.

  “She is from the kingdom of the Sun. Hopefully she’s the last of those dreadful creatures.”

  The three of us merged at the rear of a mass of slaves, waiting to get off the boat. The smell of unwashed bodies rose from below deck. I had to blink away tears as the stench conquered my nostrils. The girl looked back at me. “No more tears, my little light.”

  A smile filled her face. A small bell, or maybe a gong, sounded, startling her back into that downward focus. It was the signal to alert the dock workers that the scouting ship we were on was arriving. We were about to disembark into treacherous waters.

  The Dragon's Curse

  Things started off smoothly. No one was killed. Also, the boy and girl were starting to get along. I thought.

  Simply terrible, boy, but we can work with the worst, even jewelers struggle with diamonds. You have not camouflaged yourself as well as your young friends believe. Prepare yourself.

  I felt a slight sparking energy run the length of my spine, similar to when the ruse boys had thrown stones at me just a day prior. Nothing was heading in my direction, but it felt as if Ezra were standing over my shoulder and I was forced to continue on with her eyes on me.

  The boy was ranting furiously. “Fury, we have no reason to trust her kind. They’re malicious, ill-inten
ded, evil, terrible, all of the bad words to describe a horrible force that you could think of. She’s not worth our attention. Or sharing air with."

  We had just docked and were heading toward a splitting path. One path followed the river and the other led up toward the keep.

  Someone from a tower yelled. “Those two slaves there, why aren't they chained?”

  We were huddled in a small group with others, who dropped their heads to the ground at the first sign of danger. This left the slave girl, the boy, and me, standing upright and exposed. Vulnerable. For a moment, we were open from all sides. My body didn't even react to it until the boy dropped the bundles of goods he held and drew his sword. His eyes shifted into a dark, heartless stare I should have feared.

  “This isn't good. If I weren’t chained, maybe I wouldn't have to die here.” The girl sighed before closing her eyes. “By my honor, I can't leave those who have saved me, intentionally or not.”

  The girl smiled at me as guards drew their swords and started toward us. I couldn't tear my eyes from hers—until I saw the glint of metal rise behind her.

  I yelled as I dropped the goods I had balanced atop the shield. That dark red mist materialized again, plunging the advancing pirates into a fog of madness as they charged from all sides.

  “What is this trickery? I—” the man’s words were cut off when I plunged my blade into his gut.

  The slaves ran in varying directions as more screams rose around them.

  “By Luminous’s balls, that hurt.”

  I turned to see the boy wrench his blade from a man’s collarbone. The boy casually dabbed at his cheek with his hand. Blood bloomed from the cut on his face as he kicked the man in the back to dislodge his sword.

  “Bastard was just flailing about with his blade. It's a wonder he didn’t cut me in half,” the boy stated. He looked over at me as the crimson cloud retreated into my cloak.

  “Watch out behind you,” the boy said, pointing past me with his sword. His words were tame, as though he didn’t care if his warning was heeded. But I heeded it, and there was the girl, standing with her back to a pirate who had drawn his cutlass, posed to deal her a murderous blow.