The Last Pantheon: of spiders and falcons

by Jason Jones

  “Yes, m’lord, yes I did. Forgive my interruption. However, word has come from Gillian that after those infected pass on, the bodies m’lord….they spread once more. I am sorry.”

  “Sorry? For what? What is it that you are saying, priest?”

  “Your wife, she must be burned. Then we will bless the remains and tend to an Aldane burial. It is the only way, Lord Azarris, and for that I am truly sorry. Perhaps your newborn son could stay with a relative, as this must be difficult.”

  “I have no relatives. As you well know, this castle sat empty, the lands lordless, for many years. I know not yet the servants, or anyone truly.” I think of the two thousand years I was gone, the lies I was forced to tell, small as they were. No one can know who I am, and I have no one, not even a trusted priest, that I can rely upon to keep the secrets. This place is not mine by any right, any save written forgery upon opportunity by those I shall not name, yet.

  “I am aware m’lord. And that is the reason the child should be away. He is your heir, and we can risk him not to the plague. To be fair, our concern is for you as well, yet I do not presume to ask a lord to not be present at such a time.”

  The breeze hastens its travels, the sounds of life and land are muffled as gray clouds try in vain to shut the sun from the sky. My air returns, my mind finds peace in my son's eyes once more.

  “What would you recommend, were I not a lord?” I watch as farmhands gather along fencelines, all curious as to the meaning of the priests, none curious enough to approach me though.

  “Three or more hours alone. Let us say the prayers, bless the body, and burn the plague from the flesh in God's holy name. Return then, once your chambers and grounds have been blessed and cleansed. We will hold the prayers and burial until your return.”

  The words are hard to get out, I can tell. Despite his age, his holy position, I can also tell this is not the first time he has spoken them. The plague, whatever it is, has already killed hundreds, and is spreading. No cure, no hope, just isolation and prayer. This man has seen it, he knows his risk, and our risk should we stay. Against grief and anger, my mind chooses to listen to wiser words.

  “I shall take a walk, to the west, with my son.” I whisper, not sure if the priest has even heard me as my feet begin slow regretful steps.

  “Alden be praised, m’lord.”

  The priest, a man perhaps twice my apparent age, walks toward me with a brisk pace I would have thought impossible at seventy years he surely claims. He makes the sign of the feathered cross, up, then across to the heart and circled with his right hand while clutching his pendant with the left, and then he kneels. Whispers in Agarian and the mostly forgotten Carician prayer tongue came forth, more to himself and God than to us.

  “There is no need, priest, get up to Alden's work then, and let me walk.” I wish no prayers, but slip him three silver stallions from pocket to hand as I help him to his feet. A bit of shame washes over his face, and as he moves to disagree, I wave my hand that he should keep the coin regardless of intention. Alessandeir is gazing at the sky, tucked in my left arm against my chest. The silence lasts forever, albeit less than a few moments.

  “M’lord, may I ask something once more?”

  The stare I receive has nothing to do with Gabrielle, the plague, or her passing. His eyes of dulled blue, faded with age, tell me something else is on his mind.

  “Go on then.” I am intrigued, frightened even.

  “When I asked if you or the boy had living relations, you hesitated and looked up and away.”

  “And?”

  “In my experience, when a man looks away, he does not want to answer truthfully. When he looks down, it is shame and humiliation he seeks to hide. When a man looks to either side, he is afraid or mistrusting, but too fearful to state it, so he avoids. But, when a man looks up, he is searching for the correct or best answer to give, because he respects the question or the person asking it, but cannot be honest.” The priest smiles as he looks again into my eyes.

  He has me, regardless of the centuries I have endured in purgatory, this man knows without doubt I am hiding something. His years have been spent here, with men, in faith, and he is more than aware that when I said I had no relations that it was a mistruth.

  “Yes, I do have one long lost living relation. Though, he is unaware of it, and it shall remain that way.” My mind recalls the ages I had secretly watched, my family line dwindling over two thousand years to just one being. One orphan, after all the changes of time and name, and he knows not of me, much like the rest of the living world. And that is how I thought best it stay.

  “That is most sad, m’lord. I sincerely hope that God sees fit someday that your heart and path will see to reparation in the matter.” He pauses, looks back over his shoulder, and nods to the other priests waiting by the doors to my keep. “I go now. I will see you midday, or thereafter?”

  “Yes, yes you will.”

  At that he bows, as do I, and we part. I try not to think of what is being done. I shut out her face with the sky and wind. My mind quiets its anger and disbelief by looking to the eyes of my son. All the hurt and hate that wish to surface and unleash to the world wander elsewhere, for now.

  “I shall tell you of Sir James Andellis my child, for he is the beginning I would suppose.” A story, words of comfort for us both, it comes from visions I have stolen over so many years. A vision now I take, of the view from the keep, before I take my first steps into storytelling.

  Long is the slow rise to the north where my doors face, from gray stone a few stories proud yet small, I see an endless grass plain. It is strong grass, and tall at that, and along the winds from the east and south it stands. The grasses are green and vibrant along the rough dry earthen floor, a darker color a hand up, then they fade to yellow gold tops that lay splayed. It is the whispers of the eastern Shanador plains that greet me, and out beyond that lies the city of Gillian some many miles, and long after that the Janthes tributary of the great Garalan River. To the east the lowlands dive and finger apart into foothills that sway out from the Misathi Mountains that I would find south should I dare the journey. Upon those hills and valleys the grasses bundle into tufts and lay scattered with the occasional old elm that is rooted in the brick red stones. Wheats and cornfields break the monotony of grasses, as do several sparse forests of crackling pine and mighty banyans that must find sources of springs deep, or forgotten streams may have left them here long before me. I have one such twisting banyan in the front, next to the stables, and how it grows so wide and well I have not a clue.

  The stone fencelines, low as they are around the keep and yard, they bring more to life and wonder. For there are hedges with flowers of crimson that run with the wall, lilac and lavender shoots between, and ivy crawls as snakes over moss green topped stones of gray. Violet blooms with dagger thorns entwine the hedge and wall, more to the east than the west. I sit at times upon the wall, staring at the long lines on either side of my worn and curling brown road that leads out north. The road bends east and south out of sight, yet but an hour walk away is a small village under my care and supposed rule.

  When I turn to face home, the blue sky stands above a mighty view of high slanting distant red rock peaks, the Misathi Mountains glare as southern guardians over me, where the clouds pass and fall. I smile to see this, and know it is now home, and a gurgling in my arms means Alesandeir is aware I am in deep thoughts now. He looks up in almost silence, seeing what I see.

  Our eyes meet and I can tell he is content for the milk is being drunk from the bladder in my hand. He does not know his mother is gone. I try to continue, for I know not what else to do. I walk past the stables, the horses quiet, the smells hidden by morning dew. Storytelling has never been something that I had thought myself partaking of, for only a warning would be my own tales should I tell of them.

  “The floodwaters had receded over the last few centuries in Chazzrynn, revealing lost ancient cities in ruin. Teirenshire, Arouland, and the c
ity of Linn were once there, still there. However, those that took residence were not native. The ogre tribes had moved in many decades before, streaming down from the Misathi and Bori Mountains unseen to western lands. Trolls further north had done the same, and the west from Armondeen through Chazzrynn had been taken before the lands were civilized enough for men once more.” Unblinking, my child stares at me, hearing the words flow from my lips and chest like it was yesterday’s tale.

  “This kingdom, Chazzrynn, had already lost two princes out of three in the war with Harlaheim, so the queenless king was hesitant to send his best soldiers, or himself, with but one young heir remaining. The battles with King Richmond the First still lingering, Willborne turning sides with mercenary coin, meant that a few tribes of ogre were not a major concern. Yet rumor was that hordes of them threatened the south, yet proof had yet to be seen. To help the brave knights of Southwind Keep, the elite cavalry of the western borders, King Mikhail Salganat of Chazzrynn only sent one legion of his reserve army. He knew victory over the ogre was certain in any regard.”

  “Of their number in Southwind there is one knight that I should tell you about, my boy, for his story is much like my own. The orphan, James, of house Andellis, was the bravest, boldest, and one of the most skilled knights with a blade. And, one with a gift and a certain disregard for death...and the people he would meet seemed to have that same disregard. As the good priest of Alden so well divined, he is our only living relation. This secret is known only to you and I now, unless anyone else would be spying at the moment, for James knows not his origins.” I chuckle as I turn around, not wishing to tempt my curses into action or presence. No one there, just my son and I and the trees that hold root in the rolling hills of southern Shanador.

  “Ddda…ooh..ahhh…da deh du?” Alessandeir wishes to speak like me, has been practicing for some time now. It is far from a word in form, but the effort is something that I shall forever cherish as it forces a smile most undeniable to my face.

  “Yes of course, very good son, very good. Shall I continue?”

  I look into my boy’s eyes, follow his lips into a curling smile of anticipation, and wait until his voyage into words is content for now. I am as amazed as he is. I relish every sound he makes.

  “Where was I? Yes, James Andellis and the battle of the Arouland Ruins, you are correct son. Chazzrynn had decided to retake their western lands and it was cold indeed the morning of the battle. A young rider for Southwind Keep, and the right hand of Lord Arlinne T’Vellon, James Andellis was to be mentioned for royal knighthood soon after this battle was over. He was finishing prayers to Alden as the sun rose in the west. Thousands of years after the flood, over three centuries since the waters receded from western shores, I shall tell you his tale…for if we are to share stories, you and I, this is where it would begin, on a morning much like this one…”

  So begins my telling of tales, to one that would listen, yet I cannot help but to feel that many more ears are here for the words I speak than can be seen. Perhaps the last chapter of my life, cursed as it has been, is now at hand. Sharing what I know, to tell the story of others far greater than myself, is all that the end has to offer me. In that morbid revelation, it is not by chance that I find the smallest relief and a strange release in the admission.

  Knights I:I

  Arouland Ruins

  Western Chazzrynn

  331 AD

  “Should you see a lone wolf beside your enemy, know that your enemy lives without fear that day.”-Old Tethese proverb from the teachings of spiritual warfare, Teth, Northern Altestan 2150 BC

  He watched the rising sun from the hilltop, his breath casting a foggy cloud over the landscape. James felt the slow relentless chill in the early winter morning, yet his anticipation could hardly be contained and the minutes seemed like hours. He had polished his blade, checked the grip of his round steel shield, and readied his breastplate and helmet. The black falcon emblems on his shield and shoulders, full of rough scars, they summoned his pride fast with but a glance. Orange beams cast into the fog that wrapped around the ruins for as far as he could see to the west. The young man, barely twenty-three seasons, felt fear mixed with his eagerness. His prayers were finished, prayers to almighty Alden, prayers that the men here would fight well this day.

  James glanced behind him to the lines of still tents tipped with frost. Over a thousand men were assembled to regain control of the Western Waste, the region which was formerly the lands of Teirinshire and the holy city of Arouland, lands belonging to the kingdom of Chazzrynn, lands they had never held. They were drowned over two millennia prior. It was lost, they say, in the great war with the Northern empires of Altestan, whence came the great deluge from Alden. Saint Tarumin, the prophet of Alden, had walked the western coasts four centuries ago, proclaiming the waters would recede. Altestan sent blades in the night, to kill the messiah, yet his words came to fruition. After his murder, a new age for Agara came to life. Yet, before men reclaimed the western realms, other beings had arrived.

  James thought of his teachings, eyed each scratch upon his shield, and recalled what he was about to face once more. His eyes wandered to the distant mountain peaks behind him. The ogre came by the hundreds from the untraveled Misathi and Bori Mountains, and the valley between them, to the far north. In those times, three centuries ago, there was only a weakened and divided kingdom incapable of keeping them out of the ruined west. Wars with Harlaheim and Willborne had been far more important, and far more popular with nobility.

  James thought of the ogre he had seen in his training years, nearly ten feet tall, thinly muscled, glaring dark eyes, and dark yellow, blotted skin. Vicious creatures they had been, though he had only seen them in numbers of up to five or so, usually scavenging for livestock or terrorizing small villages. They reeked of uncleanliness, from the rancid pelts they wore to their braided, dirty black hair. The ogre possessed mouthfuls of yellow and brown teeth and the strength of two men, for certain. The young knight had battled many and recalled the brutal combat with a seriousness that pulled his head out of the clouds and fog for a moment. Staring at the rising sun to the west, James Andellis focused on the moments to come.

  James thought of home as the sun rose higher. He belonged to the mighty western border watchers, the elite trained of the kingdom, all orphans. A family of those left on doorsteps and foyers in the south, which was the way it was in troubled times, and had been for centuries. The families of Southwind Keep had all been abandoned at some point in their lineage. They stayed together, trained together, and none knew their heritage, nor birth name, but were raised as knights or soldiers to protect their kingdom. All orphans were bestowed with a surname of one of the seven families in a ceremony that occurred at the age of fifteen. Andellis, T’Vellon, Alvander, Dunmoor, Mederris, Sancadiun, and Pellanan; these names were his brothers in honor, names of saints and holy families, names not their own. Service and more service, that is all they knew, and each had hopes of true knighthood, of retaking the west, and of bringing honor to the once unwanted. Something, or someone, blocked the cold wind from behind, and James turned.

  The Lord of the Keep, a tall, dark bearded man of great renown in all of southern Chazzrynn, Arlinne T’Vellon stood next to James, also admiring the sunrise. His family, the T’Vellons of Southwind Keep, were held in great regard and admired by all for their leadership and devotion to king and country. James’ family of Andellis was more known for devotion to God Alden and the church.

  “Good morn, my Lord Arlinne.” James stood, gave a slight bow, and then straightened up a bit. “Sleep well?”

  “James of Andellis, I slept like a babe with dreams of victory. T'will be a good day for Chazzrynn. Get your horse, young man, the regular army stirs and needs our constant pressure to get moving and keep up with Southwind.”

  “They have been complaining the whole way. I doubt anything I say will give speed to their march.”

  “Is that not the truth.” Arlinne chuckled.<
br />
  “If Dunmoor and Mederris were here, we would not need the king's men.”

  “True again. But that is the way Southwind has been held for centuries. Five families march, two defend. Drawing lengths of reed to decide glory and death. I would suppose there are worse ways to gamble with fate.” Arlinne T’Vellon squinted, his eyes darting back and forth across the western ruins under the rising sun.

  “Reports returned early. Still dark,” James whispered as men began to snort and stretch from their tents.

  “And?”

  “Nothing, no signs. Not one ogre.”

  “They sleep late, much like this army of King Mikhail.”

  “Aye, it would seem so.”

  “Why are we here, James?” His eyes still focused back and forth across what used to be great sister cities to those in Chazzrynn, long before the flood.

  “To reclaim the west from the ogre hordes that stole it, sire.”

  “How many at last accurate count?”

  “Two hundred fifty.” James had to let his breath out with active effort, for the thought of that many ogre was not a pleasant one.

  “Two hundred riders of Southwind and one legion of infantry from Loucas, against the largest reported mass of ogre in two centuries. Two and a half score, would the scouting reports be true. What would you do if you were me, James Andellis?” He smiled, a confident grin of the battle to come.

  “Southwind on horseback in the center. Break their will with a heavy charge. Divide the infantry on the north and south flanks, pin them to the ruins, and cut them from the west in the matter of an hour or two. Just as you have planned, my lord.”

  “Beautiful day, for winter that is. Let us not waste another moment then.” Arlinne raised his hand, dismissing James to task.

  James smiled to match that of his lord. “I shall get them moving, my lord.”

  A strong hand stopped him surprisingly as he turned to take his leave. “I sent it before we left Southwind, James.”