by Jake Yaniak
'Let us take action then,' Zefru said with a gleam of excitement in his eyes. 'It has too long a time since we have meddled in mortal affairs. This will be a joy for us all.'
Zefru left his side and charged away from Sten-Agoni to call the other spirits to the mountain. By the next day there had gathered some ten-thousand spirits to the mountain, some great and some slight and frail. These were charged by the thunderous voice of Gheshtik to, 'hold fast to every stone of this kingdom against the coming of its ancient master. The lesser spirits must speak lies to the people, to drive them away from Agonistes. The greater must find flesh to command. Let us raise up a Feral King in this land, so that if the dark one appears he will find his entry opposed by more than spirit and more than bone. But let no spirit take it upon himself to meet the dark one in combat. For such would be the doom of you all for many ages of the world. Some of you have forgotten the other ancient souls that once offended Agonistes. So long have they been lost in the fiery places of the world that their names and faces have long passed from our memories. Such will be your own fates if you do not hearken well to my warning.' Gheshtik paused for a moment and then thundered, 'Though your strength is ten times that of Thewar, touch not the dark god. I will slay him, for among us he has no other rival.'
The Princess and the Virgins
On the very day that the dark gods met to conspire against the return of their ancient lord, Princess Leonara was brought to the temple of Agonistes. Her coming was unannounced and save for a very small guard she was unprotected. This was so that she might be brought there without attracting any attention from the people. She was brought in a small wooden carriage, the sort by which the other young virgins are borne to the Nunnery. Great pains were taken to avoid the eyes of the people of Amlaman.
She wore no regal garb, nor any tiara or other jewelry, save for a simple gold chain that hung about her neck. Her long hair was braided and wrapped about the top of her head like ropes of gold. Her face was sullen and she would not lift her eyes from the ground. The carriage pulled up to the western side of the Nunnery and she was let out, aided by several strong knights of Amlaman. High Priest Achil was there to greet her.
'Come daughter,' he said with his wisdom-laden voice. 'You will be safe here. Peril comes not to this Holy Valley, not unless all other lands first fall. You know that it is said that a just king can never fail, and that an unjust king must fail. And Lord Agonistes is a god of fierce justice; he will not fail to protect that which is his. Now come, you must be weary. I will show you your chamber. You can dine with the virgins, for they also are dedicated to the god of Amlaman and Ramlos. You will surely find among them that sort of companionship that only exists between the pensive.'
Leonara said nothing. Her eyes were full of tears and she could scarcely stand. He wrapped a lucent white cloth about her shoulders and clasped it with a golden brooch upon her shoulder. 'You are under the care of Agonistes now, so do not fear.'
Soon Leonara was made to learn the ways of the Virgins of Agonistes. Though she had been dedicated to Agonistes as a child, as each of them were also, she was not properly speaking a Temple Virgin. There was some subtle and nonsensical distinction in their mode of service that allowed her to remain under the authority of her father rather than the authority of the priests. She was meant to serve the religion in the same capacity, though with a few notable exemptions. The chief of these exemptions was that upon her no vow of permanent celibacy was laid, for in her body the royal blood was carried, which is a resource of greater worth than any number of Sacred Virgins. She was also, for the same reason, exempted from the Lot of Agonistes, that most corrupt of customs by which the Virgins were chosen to be victims on the Altar of the dark god. The girls, by their charms, had gained full control over Reonus, who was responsible for the selection. He saw to it that none of them met such a fate. There were fifty apartments for the virgins, but only twenty-five of them were kept occupied at all times. The rest were filled from time to time by peasants who had come to the mountain for refuge, or by those who had been accused of some great evil. Reonus, at the bidding of the virgins, saw to it that the Lot always fell upon one such as these, or upon one of the Virgins that had fallen out of favor in the eyes of Reonus and the others.
These exemptions left Leonara in the peculiar state of being the same, yet not the same as the other virgins. Envious of her beauty, and the special protections that hung over her by virtue of her parentage, the other virgins treated her harshly. They were not openly cruel to her, of course, as far as appearances were concerned they were like so many sisters. But in the peculiar ways of women, they cursed her with blessings and insulted her with kind words; saying nothing unkind, yet meaning nothing kind. And in the peculiar ways of women the Princess understood all of these things with their proper intentions, though perhaps another would have been unable to detect any malice.
In the end she could not abide their company and withdrew herself from the regular apartments to an empty chamber at the top of the northeastern guard tower. There she took her meals and spent her days in solitude.
One might have thought that the Sacred Virgins of Agonistes would spend their days in religious contemplation, or in memorizing the many attributes of the dark god, or reciting his hymns. And to a great extent such assumptions would be correct. But there were many other things that the 'Holy Virgins' practiced that the common people of Amlaman would not have guessed, though such things were well known to the nobility.
That they were well versed in coquetry would have been a surprise to many. The girls learned the arts of face-painting, so that their beauty would be magnified to draw attention. They learned to feign simplicity to hide their cunning. They were taught to speak and act innocently, though we shall see that this too was in conflict with the truth of the matter. They learned to bat their eyes when they spoke, to walk and sit in a specific fashion. In every particular they were taught to lure the attention of men toward themselves. In essence, they were each trained to be enchanting. And all their enchantments were refined and targeted toward one purpose.
For a price, wealthy men of Amlaman could bathe in the cool waters of the Meretris that ran through the Nunnery. But for such a sum, only those wholly unacquainted with human nature would remain of the opinion that a cool bath was all that was thereby purchased. Thus the young women of Daufina employed their enchanting arts and filled the treasury of Agonistes with gold and silver. The religious men, to cover this strange circumstance, made use of a strange ambiguity that existed in the language of Amlaman. The word 'Virgin' at once could mean just that, a virgin, but it had a secondary, though rarely used meaning of a 'woman who had born no sons'. Thus the holy men could unblinkingly declare these girls to be 'Virgins', knowing the whole while that the people were misled. To their own consciences it was sufficient that they spoke the truth, it mattered not to them whether the truth is what was heard.
In this aspect of the Temple 'service' Princess Leonara was exempted by royal command. But this only amounted to yet another reason that she was like, yet unlike the other girls, which only occasioned more ridicule and spitefulness. To Leonara's great frustration, despite the fact that the Nunnery of Agonistes was little more than a brothel, the honor and praises that were bestowed upon the other girls by the masses only grew.
Leonara envied their honors but despised their enchantments. 'Hypocrites! Hypocrites!' she would rage behind her locked door. The others turned to mocking her, making her out to be simple or overly modest.
'She is the truest believer in all of Weldera,' they would scoff. Others would interject in mock opposition that, 'she is, after all, the King's beloved daughter, so beloved that he sent her to the Nunnery.' This was to make a spectacle again of the fact that she was yet under her father's authority and protection. In response to their taunts she revealed to them her mother's serpentine powers of abuse.
'Double-faced whores!' she would call them whenever they crossed her, her face turning red with
passion. 'It is fortunate that there are so many old men coming here for you to wallow about with, lest you grow desperate and take to the mud like the sows you are! Then your robes would finally come to resemble your bed-linens; stained by the mud of rich men's boots.'
She never learned the arts of coquetry, an art in which the Virgins were well instructed. But in the arts of spoken injury, she excelled each one of them. All the while that she remained with the virgins her mind grew ever more conflicted. And as she hated conflict she grew to hate herself even more.
Every night she would cry out for the one thing that remained constant in her eyes, the one thing that was not distorted by politics or dirtied by hypocrisy. 'Volthamir!!' she would weep.
Leonara's state of mind can be understood easily if we consider the fact that of all things perhaps that which is most unpraiseworthy is physical beauty. Yet it so happens that mankind praises and cherishes beauty more than anything else. It would be nonsensical to punish a man for being ugly. This is simply because his ugliness is not of his own making. The fault lies in causes that mankind scarcely can fathom; consequently, prudent men judge nothing based upon mere appearances.
The same faultlessness lies in the beautiful as well. Yet herein a great inconsistency exists in the behavior of men. For they never extend their indifference to the beautiful; though they will excuse the ugly, they never fully excuse the beautiful. Of the beautiful they compose songs and epic poems; they make sculptures and paintings, though there is more to be praised in the artisans' skill than in their subject. For the beautiful, almost to the same extent as the comely and the hideous, had no part in their own beauty. The praise then belongs to Nature, or to the gods, not to the woman or to the man.
This is plain enough to everyone that considers these matters, and it was certainly plain enough to the Princess of Amlaman. Honor is something that all of mankind desires, and to watch it fall upon those who are most undeserving of it is no easy thing to bear. The virgins of Agonistes were honored for nothing more than their beauty; while Leonara remained hidden in a tower, feeling as worthy as she felt worthless.
If we took the time to consider exactly what the purpose of beauty is, I mean, what is its purpose as far as we as creatures are concerned, we would be forced at last to admit that physical beauty and virtue are alien one to the other. Why does the flower show forth its colors and its aromas? Why does the fruit hang low upon the trees, tempting mankind with its sweetness? Why does the rooster strut about among the hens? Why does the bachelor set all his hairs in place and shear his beard ere his beloved draws near?
Does not all of beauty exist for the sake of the unborn, that is, does it not serve to make the unborn become the newborn? The hen and her chicks, the bees and the flowers, the man and his lover alike unwittingly serve the child that will be by their romance. Those who find their tongues wagging with praise for long eyelashes, a slender figure and a painted face should never on that account consider themselves to be wise.
But what is a woman to do, and what is a girl to feel in a world wherein even the greatest of men chase after that wherein there lies no virtue? Surely they must make themselves into the same things they abhor. But this, for whatever reason, Leonara could not bring herself to do. Whether it was because of some inner virtue or whether it was, as she believed, merely cowardice, she did not seek after honor at the expense of herself as did her peers.
The result, however, was that she had to watch the world dance and sing the praises of the virgins of Sten Agoni, while she remained, aloofly, the princess in exile.
The Siren of Sten-Agoni
The presence of Princess Leonara in the Temple complex did not go wholly unnoticed by the outside world. Her voice, it was said, was more lovely than any other singer who lived in those days. So clear and beautiful was the sound of it that it drew the ear like a fish on a hook. For this cause she was called The Siren of Sten-Agoni by High Priest Achil.
It was said that the Sirens were the most lovely of all the creatures that were ever created. Each of their words were divine, and therefore as beautiful as a still crystal lake, and as warm as the summer sun. When Leonara sang, it seemed even the powers of nature calmed. But for all her loveliness, all that the other virgins could find in their hearts for her was enmity and jealousy. They took to being so cruel to her that she restricted her movements almost entirely to her bedchambers in the guard tower. And so miserable was she that she took no care to dust them or order her possessions. This only made her all the more miserable.
But despite all this, she would still find some way to sing her sad songs. She would wake in the midnight and hum her somber melodies to the full moon from the tower window. Or if she got a chance, she would have the guards take her out to the northern woods and she would slip away from their sight and sing her songs in some hidden glen. But such a lovely voice would soon draw her guards to her and she would be forced to return to her sorry abode once more.
The patrons of the Temple were at least partly aware of her. Those wealthy men who often visited the Nunnery told tales of strange bewitchments that lay on the mountain. 'The wind itself sings a lullaby,' some would say. There were rumors galore about this strange and sad vocalist, but Leonara was so elusive and secluded that people from the outside rarely perceived more than a distant tune, which they could easily believe to be some trick of their own imagination.
The word 'Siren' was not thrown out carelessly by the High Priest. 'It is a rare gift that this young princess possesses. Such as no mortal woman can bear without its turning to sorrow.'
Chapter VII:
History Revealed
Training in the Daunrys
It was Lord Havoc's desire to sharpen Volthamir's skills in battle against the goblins of the Daunrys. Within a month of their arrival at Star Hill, the two men began making their preparations for war. Lord Havoc summoned all the greatest warriors in Ramlos to join him in the defense of their homeland. This was some eight years before the Princess was sent to live at the Nunnery,
'The foothills are lost to us,' he informed them, 'and the northern woods of Heyan are infested with goblins. We must oust these brutes from our fair land, lest the whole northern kingdom fall into the paws of these half-men.'
On the fourteenth day of Leonius, Lord Havoc and Prince Volthamir rode away from Ramlos with three hundred strong warriors. They made their way along the northern marches of the Heyan woods and after five days they joined the men of Nolhern on the eastern banks of the Heyan River.
Nolhern was a fortified town, surrounded on all sides by thick stone walls and tall guard towers. It kept the northern shores of Ramlos safe from pirates and checked the power of the goblins in that region. They were not able, however, to drive the goblins from the northern woods, for their numbers were too few and the goblins were too clever once they came under the shadow of the trees.
Their first task was to drive the goblins from Heyan, and cut them off from their kin in the foothills. Patrols were begun and soon Lord Havoc's men drove a wedge between the goblins of the mountains and the goblins in the wood.
After this was done, they turned their attention to the colonies that had taken root in the deep places of Heyan. With amazing cunning Lord Havoc ousted these by the end of the first year, driving them into the open fields of eastern Heyan to die naked and hungry in the cold winter winds.
All the while he focused as much effort on the training and education of the prince. He taught the Prince his own peculiar form of swordplay, such as had gained him his reputation so many years ago. And when his training was nearly complete, Lord Havoc unleashed his pupil on the goblins of Heyan.
Within a month, northern Heyan was declared to be free, and by the end of their second year there remained not a single camp or colony of goblins in the forest. Lord Havoc himself remained in Nolhern for the most part, only entering the forest now and again to visit the prince and give council when it was needed. Consequently, the fame of the prince grew throughout the
region. Industry began to thrive in the northern kingdom and new towns began to spring up here and there. Brave men joined the warriors and built strong towns and cities in the east, some even within fifteen leagues of the Daunrys themselves. They were becoming bold. This land was once restored by the efforts of King Vulcan thos Ramlos, but was lost when the King took upon himself the rule of Amlaman. Now King Vulcan appeared to them to be only distantly concerned with their struggles. It was said among them that, 'Men have but one face. And can a man look east, when his gaze is fixed upon the south and the west?' They had a new 'savior' in the young man from Amlaman. And in him they placed their trust and loyalty.
His abilities, both as the result of his training and because of his own natural talents, soon became legendary. Tales of his daring battles against goblin hordes made their way into every home in Ramlos, and certainly found their way into the king's halls in Japhrian. But King Vulcan could not tell whether to be pleased with his nephew's successes or intimidated.
His deeds made their way to the ears of Princess Leonara, who began to perceive him almost as more of a specter from the ancient legends than a mere man of flesh and blood to whom she bore some relation.
The Visit
Through all the years of Volthamir's absence, Leonara maintained a correspondence with him. She sent letters to him nearly every month, telling him of her thoughts and her fears and her anger toward her mother. To avoid the censure of her father she hid these messages in rhymes and stories that only her brother would comprehend. One of her letters read thus:
Father hog so verily verily loved to be a hog,
That he moved his entire family to festering, stinking bog,
Mother hog so verily verily hated to see him grin,
