The Adamantists (The Crown Prophecy Book 2)

by M. D. Laird

  “At ten o’clock in the morning, your lordship. Should we meet at nine for the report?”

  “Very good, Commander. Thank you.”

  Zayn and Karim left to find their lodgings and Rya dismissed the guards who would take the night off. Maol walked beside Rya as she showed him the island.

  “The only thing I need to know is where I can take a bath and where we are having supper,” he said, grinning.

  Rya smiled. “Are you sure you wish to court me? There are many females on the island who you would see more often. A courtship with me could become frustrating.”

  “I’m sure it will,” he said, “but you have spent a lot on me, and I have a duty to ensure you get your money’s worth.” He grinned wickedly.

  Rya laughed and linked her arm with his and led him to his lodging.

  The lodging was a small wooden cabin. The main room held a small kitchen with a sink, a wood burning stove, a small table, armchairs and a dresser. There was also a bedroom with a small double bed, drawers and a wardrobe, and a bathroom complete with a bathtub, sink, a flushing toilet and running water.

  “I have only ever known the king’s palace to have running water and flushing toilets,” Maol remarked.

  “There are a lot of people on this relatively small island so we could not afford to risk problem with sewerage. We have an alchemical plant that deals with the waste on the far side of the island,” replied Rya.

  “That’s impressive,” he said. “This cabin is lovely. I did not expect to have my own home.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” she beamed. “Shall I show you where you can collect your rations? We provide food for the first few weeks until you have employment and then you can earn your own.”

  He grinned. “I may just do that tomorrow. Now I just want to have my bath, and then we can have our date.”

  She bit her lip and smiled coyly. “I was only joking about the bath. You smell just fine as you are.”

  “Shall we have our date now then?”

  “You have no food.”

  “That is true. Shall I get some?”

  “We could just skip the food,” she said, heading into his bedroom.

  Maol and Rya rose early the next morning. Rya gave Maol a tour of the island before breakfast. They were both hungry as they did not have supper the previous night.

  “We have an economy of sorts,” she said, leading him out of his cabin. “Every man and woman will earn their keep. If they have put in a day’s work then they collect tokens they redeem for their own food, better clothing, wine, ale and so on. Those who don’t work—Zayn and Karim when they arrived here for example—will get the basics. They have to eat what is prepared in the mess hall and have no food for their own cabins. They will receive three changes of basic clothing and no allowance of wine or ale. I will house, feed and clothe people, but I won’t give them luxuries unless they earn them—unless you’re ill or injured, of course, but you would just need to speak to the commander in that case.”

  Rya led Maol around the island showing him where he could collect his basic essentials, the mess hall and where he was to meet the commander. She showed him the markets with grocers and clothing stalls, and the bakers and butchers shops where he could redeem his tokens.

  Rya pointed to a house on top of a cliff. “That is my house,” she said.

  “Stone,” said Maol. “You have an alchemist?”

  “I am an alchemist,” she replied.

  Maol’s eyes widened. “Really?” he asked. “Then why is everything not made from stone?”

  “I think you get more loyalty from people if they work hard to build their community themselves than if they are handed everything. Also, I wouldn’t have time for anything else if I did everything. The people here build the homes and learn valuable skills and trades at the same time. They make clothing, forge weapons, grow and farm their own food. There are those who don’t want to, of course, and I can’t encourage everyone. That’s why we have Lunar. Things are easier there. People don’t have to do the ‘boring’ stuff, and it is a hope that they will become interested in learning other skills and want to come back here. It rarely happens, to be honest. I often wonder whether it is worth the expense and if I should just let them go.”

  “I am glad you had Lunar,” said Maol. “If you hadn’t then you may have sold me after I assaulted you and then I wouldn’t have had the chance to see this place or realise how wrong I had been about the hominem.”

  She gave him a gentle smile. “I never did apologise for touching you like that,” she said. “I was wrong, and I am sorry.”

  He smiled. “I felt violated at the time—like I’d lost control of everything including my own body,” he said. “I never should have attacked you, though. I went too far. Besides, I’ve grown to enjoy you touching me now.” He grinned at her and she slipped her arm through his.

  “And I am going to miss you touching me whilst I’m away,” she said. “Will you write to me?”

  “How? By the time the letter finds you, you will have returned.”

  She grinned. “I shall introduce you to some advances from overseas,” she said. “It is how I communicate with my men over the distances. Have you heard of lolites?”

  “Yes,” said Maol. “They use some properties of lolites to let people midspace in Arkazatinia.”

  “Yes, it can be used to let you travel between planes. It’s ridiculously complicated, and I don’t fully understand it; however, lolites have other uses too.”

  She led him into a cabin called The Scriptum. The hominem who was sat behind a desk reading a book stood up sharply.

  “Good morning, your lordship,” he said.

  “Good morning, Tim,” she said. “I am here to show Maol the scriptum.” She led Maol to another desk upon which were lots of sheets of vellum with a small blue gemstone laid upon each of them. “Each stone has a partner. One is here, and the other is set in the same arrangement in the offices, cabins or wagons of my commanders, captains and leaders.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a box full of lolite gemstones.

  “Where did you get them all?” Maol asked. “They must be worth a fortune.”

  “That’s a secret for another day,” she said, grinning. She picked out two gemstones and held them together in her hands. “I need them to pair with each other, so I will use alchemy to bind them together, and when I separate them, they will share the same properties.” When she opened her hands, she had formed one perfect stone. She put down the stone and blew on her hands to warm them up as they had become cold after she had sacrificed body heat as equivalent exchange. “I now need one side of the stone to develop an affinity for ink, so it draws it from the vellum, but I also want the other side of the stone to repel the ink and expel it onto vellum. I do this by giving it polarity.”

  She took some ink from a pot in the drawer. Her fingers became stained, and the ink dripped onto the desk. She picked up the stone again and began to manipulate it. Soon the ink vanished from her fingers and into the stone. She placed the stone on a clean sheet of vellum, and the ink spilt from the stone. Once the stone was clear of ink, she picked it up and began to manipulate it again to separate it into two seemingly identical stones. Both had a side that curved inwards and a side that curved outwards.

  “This is the fun part.” She smiled and pulled out two sheets of vellum, a pot of ink and a quill pen. She placed one stone with its outwardly curved side down on one sheet of vellum. On the other sheet, she wrote a message and set the other stone with the inward curve down. The ink disappeared from the vellum and appeared on the vellum in front of Maol.

  Impressed?

  “Very.” He grinned. “That’s incredible.”

  She smiled. “If you turn the stone over then it will draw the ink from the vellum and return it to the partner stone,” she said, turning over her own stone. Maol did as she said and the ink disappeared and reappeared in front of Rya. “We can use these to wri
te to each other. Use the concave side to send the message and once you’ve sent it, if you make sure that the convex side is facing down onto a clean sheet of vellum then it will be open to receive messages. If it is not on vellum, but the stone appears to be full of ink then you know there is a message awaiting you.” She placed the stone in front of Maol into his hand, and he put it safely into his breast pocket. Rya then removed sheets of vellum, a quill pen and a pot of ink from the drawer and handed them to him before pocketing her own stone.

  It was almost eight-thirty when they left the scriptum and Rya suggested that they make their way to the mess hall for breakfast. Unlike Camp Lunar, the food here was simple. There was toasted bread, porridge, fruit and tea. If anyone wanted anything different, then they had to earn tokens to redeem at the shops and stalls.

  Maol and Rya devoured their breakfast before Rya had to leave for her appointment with the commander. Maol then made his way to collect his supplies and equipment and took them to his cabin before he too had to meet with the commander.

  Commander Tamir seemed severe at first but became warmer as Maol spoke to him.

  “Good morning, Maol,” he said. “I’m glad you have arrived on time. I see our two friends are taking their first day back seriously and are nowhere to be seen.” Maol gave a slight grin but said nothing. “I’ve heard a lot about you already, and I have an idea where to put you to best use, but tell me, are there any skills that you would like to learn whilst you’re here?”

  “Alchemy.” Maol smiled.

  “Wouldn’t we all.”

  “I’m not sure. All I have ever done is fight and guard. I enjoyed training the lads at Camp Lunar, I hadn’t had the chance to do that for many years.”

  “Well, good news, we need good, experienced instructors. How about I put you on a few weeks’ rotation on some of the other jobs as well? The camp is always extending, and we can’t build fast enough so we could use your strength. You could also work with the blacksmiths, on the farms and in the kitchens if you wanted.”

  There was a time when Maol would have thought it demeaning if someone had offered him farming or kitchen work, but he found himself agreeing to try everything. The commander seemed pleased. He took him to meet the team of thorian instructors he would be working with before giving him the rest of the day off. Maol was leaving the commander’s office with his timetable as Zayn and Karim finally showed up.

  He grinned at them “Good morning, boys. You’re not getting off to a good start.”

  “They’re lucky to have us,” said Zayn. “They should be grateful we’re here at all.”

  “Right.” Maol laughed. “I’ll remind you that you said that when you are complaining that you have no ale.”

  He left the boys to meet the commander. He wanted to find Rya, but he had no idea where she would be. He returned to his cabin and set about lighting the stove and putting on some water to boil. He removed the lolite stone from his pocket. It was not full of ink, so it had no message waiting. He wondered if Rya would check her stone.

  It’s worth a try.

  He picked up the quill and dipped it in ink and wrote:

  I have the rest of the day off. I’m in my cabin and stuck for something to do. Any ideas?

  The water had boiled, and Maol was sipping his tea and making soup for lunch before a reply came.

  Have you taken a bath yet?

  He grinned and replied:

  Meet me in the bath.

  He had finished his soup before she replied:

  I’ll be right there.

  He laughed before going to draw a bath.

  Maol spent that night with Rya before she had to leave. He was sad to see her go and was already missing her. She was right about their foundation for their relationship being a little unusual. She owned him, and he stayed behind in her slave camp whilst she trotted around the country with lots of other men looking for other men. He imagined it would seem odd to anyone else, but in truth, he did not mind.

  He liked her, and he enjoyed her company. He did not have the usual pressures meeting women brought him. He did not have to worry about how well-born she was. Was she well-born enough for marriage? Was she not well-born enough and their relationship would have to be a secret? He did not have to worry about attending the right balls and being seen with her in court or whether it was proper to forgo a chaperone. For the first time in his life he could be himself, and after six hundred and seventy-two years he felt he was starting to understand who that was.

  He was finding it much easier to get along with people lately. He had spent the last three hundred years being the person who was in charge, and now he wasn’t. He once would have been abhorred by the idea, but he found it liberating. He also found he was less and less inclined to be an asshole to everyone. He had always been a leader, but he had never been a popular leader. He led through fear. He used his size, his strength and his temper to intimidate people into obeying his commands. Now he was not a leader, now he was on an equal footing with everyone else—including hominem—and if he threw his weight around he would be sold.

  It struck him odd that he didn’t mind and he truly did find it liberating. He was freer than he was before he became a slave—not because there is freedom in slavery because there wasn’t, but because his power was always dependent on others doing as he told them. His entire position rested on people under him obeying his orders and if they just refused then that power was gone. His position in the guard could have gone if his people had turned against him. Now, he was reliant on no one but himself. It was down to himself to make sure that he wasn’t sold on—his fate was in his own hands for the first time in his life. Of course, he was by no means truly free, but he was progressing along the spectrum of freedom and hoped that one day, Rya would release him.

  “The queen intends to visit my father tonight,” Eleanor informed the prince after he returned from decree.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” the prince asked. “It is riskier than last time.”

  “I know, but we have to do something. If my father has any information on the Crown, then it has got to be in his office.”

  “Information like what? How will you know what to look for?”

  “I don’t know. Suspicious buildings or land, guard budgets that seem out of place. I may not find anything, but I need to look.”

  “If you get caught I cannot come to your aid.”

  “I know that.”

  “If you are caught, you will be tortured.”

  “I know,” she said gingerly. “They won’t let me live. I won’t try to. I will fade out.”

  The prince sighed and walked to his drawers and returned with a small box. He opened the box to reveal a small shard of rock.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “It’s celestite,” he replied. “If you’re wearing this then you will be immune to pain. I suggest you wear it beneath your skin.”

  “Okay.” She swallowed. “Thank you.”

  Prince Thomas nodded and suggested that she put it in her inner thigh as she may be able to conceal the wound even if they removed her clothing. Eleanor shuddered at the thought but allowed the prince to make a small incision with a claw, insert the rock and then seal the wound with healing balm.

  “Can you feel the wound?” he asked.

  “No. It’s working.”

  “Good. I still don’t think this plan is safe. You were almost caught last time.”

  “I’ll be more careful,” she replied and tried to block out the memories of two nights’ earlier when she returned to the dungeon. She had left the dungeon to go through paperwork in the king’s guard’s office believing that information on any prisoners would have to be kept there. She found nothing and was about to leave as the guard captain returned, and she narrowly managed to avoid being seen by hiding behind the small armchair. If it had not been for the arcanus concealing the sound of her breathing, she would have cer
tainly been caught. On her return to the dungeon, a guard had thought he had spotted movement and had come to the dungeon to investigate. She had just cleared the tunnel entrance as he entered the dungeon. “Besides, the entrance is in my father’s office—I won’t have to wander around the guild.”

  The prince did not seem convinced. “You need an alibi,” he said, “a reason why you’re there that doesn’t implicate me.”

  She nodded. “I will think of something.”

  He sighed again before initiating intimacy. She indulged him, though the celestite removed her pleasure as well as her pain. She assumed he was making the most of his wife before she was gone. She did feel unnerved by his lack of confidence in the plan, but she could see no alternative—they had to find the Crown.

  Eve entered the Guild of Rexalis with Lord Tharazan, Son Jacob and her guards. She had also persuaded Lord Ezra to join them. She felt calm and was determined to remain calm no matter what was said.

  They were greeted by the Captain of the Guard who did not ask them to disarm and led them straight to the dining room.

  “Your Majesty.” The king grinned. “I do hope you can stay longer this time.”

  They took their seats around the table as indicated by the captain. “I am happy to negotiate terms for our alliance, Your Majesty,” said Eve, “but I shall not agree to make adamantine weaponry.”

  The king smiled and clicked his fingers. The attendants poured wine, which was checked by the guards. “That is unfortunate,” he said. “You see, your magic is coveted and many will want it. I wish to ally with you, but when the islands and Vernasia and possibly even your own people turn against you, then it puts my alliance with you in a dangerous position. I too would have to ally against you for the safety of Axandria. However, if we were better armed then I would feel more confident about our alliance.”