Black Scarlet

by R A Oakes

  Feeling disgusted, Aerylln noticed that these interlopers were coarse, unshaven and filthy. One seedy-looking warrior approached standing just outside the force field and watched the young woman in a way that made her feel decidedly uncomfortable. Making matters worse, he gave her a toothless grin.

  Yuck, how repulsive! Aerylln thought finding the directness of his gaze deeply disturbing.

  “Zorya! Zorya!” Aerylln shouted looking around for her horse, but Zorya was nowhere in sight. Close to panicking, the young woman eyed the massive stone wall separating her from her friend, and the fortification felt dense and thick to her senses.

  “Baelfire, Zorya’s not here. What will happen to the Trinity?”

  “You’ll be fine. Just stay focused and keep your inner balance.”

  “But don’t the three of us need to be together?”

  “No, not necessarily. The river of energy flowing from Zorya doesn’t obey the rules of the physical world. It flows through the fortification as if it wasn’t even there. So for all practical purposes, it isn’t.”

  Feeling frantic, Aerylln barely heard Baelfire’s explanation. The gross man was still watching her and was smiling even more. He could smell her fear, and, to him, it was like a tantalizing perfume. Aerylln was so frightened that she forgot Baelfire would protect her. Having rivers of energy flowing through her from Baelfire and Zorya, along with the action exploding all around her, was overwhelming.

  Aerylln began to feel claustrophobic. The young woman wasn’t in a tiny room, but the fortification was hemming her in, suffocating her. Most of all, she wanted to leap off Lord Stallington’s horse and run out the entrance.

  If she’d done so, Aerylln would have been surprised to discover that Corson was enjoying herself immensely. For the warrior woman, shooting light arrows at the men on the fortification was like being at a carnival.

  “When they see this bow made of blue light, I love the look on their faces,” Corson said to Zorya. “They stop, stare at it, and I nail ‘em. It’s so easy.”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Zorya began laughing. Feeling so good, the magic horse almost didn’t notice the change taking place within her.

  “Corson, I’m losing touch with Aerylln and Baelfire,” Zorya shouted. “The Trinity is breaking up!”

  “What’s that mean exactly?”

  In a moment, the warrior woman found out for herself. Drawing back her bowstring, she aimed for a warrior on the fortification who was gawking at her. Right next to him, a dead warrior was draped over a wall with a red light arrow sticking out of his forehead. Letting her arrow fly, Corson was expecting to see her target clutching his chest. But nothing happened. The blue light bow and all of Corson’s arrows had disappeared.

  Without missing a beat, the warrior woman pulled a wooden arrow out of her quiver and loaded up her regular bow. After she launched the arrow, the man did what he was supposed to do. He died.

  “Wow! A regular bow seems so cumbersome after using one made of light,” Corson said. “It’s too bad the opportunity was so short lived.”

  “We have a bigger problem than that,” Zorya said. “Baelfire’s power is greatly reduced, and the protective force field is gone. Lord Stallington can’t be much help, and Aerylln must be frightened.”

  Corson almost went berserk! Her own life had been a living nightmare, and the thought of her young friend being hurt or killed was like a knife grating across her soul. From her own personal experience, Corson knew how Aerylln was feeling.

  She understood what it was like to be alone.

  “Let’s get in there!” Corson shouted hauling on Zorya’s reins.

  Because the warrior woman was so distraught, the magic horse tolerated having the bit in her mouth pulled tight. But Zorya thought, At times, being a horse is so degrading and humiliating.

  However, the magic horse shoved aside her personal despair, focused on rescuing Aerylln and said, “When we go through the entrance, there won’t be any rivers of energy protecting us, and no beams of prism light. It’s back to old- fashioned fighting.”

  “Are you saying we’ll be facing incredible danger, and the odds are ten to one we’ll soon be dead?”

  “I know where you’re heading with this,” Zorya said as she neared the entrance.

  “Which is?”

  “You’re eager to display your bravery. You want to show those men how a warrior woman faces death. You want them to tell others how you died unafraid.”

  “Sweet, isn’t it?”

  “Just get your bow ready,” Zorya cautioned her.

  But before Corson and Zorya could reach the entrance, a young man wearing wizard’s robes rode past them shouting a battle cry while holding his staff out in front of himself. It was Marcheto, and he was no stranger to combat.

  “I thought the apprentice wizard was lost in a deep meditation,” Corson complained unhappy that her dramatic charge was being upstaged.

  “It looks like he snapped out of it.”

  Working himself into a battle frenzy, Aerylln’s boyfriend disappeared into the fortification with a warrior woman and a talking horse in close pursuit.

  As the young wizard rode through the entrance, he shouted, “Bentar ulray candas temantus!”

  Instantly his staff changed from wood to clear crystal. Next, he shouted, “Destak numonic bentray volernik!”

  Light arrows erupted from the tip of his crystal staff in an awesome display meant to intimidate and dominate the situation, and to do so quickly.

  The toothless man who’d been harassing Aerylln was cut down with two light arrows through his heart. Other light arrows scattered in all directions. Now that the multicolored force field was gone, an enemy warrior was grabbing at the reins of Lord Stallington’s warhorse but fell backwards after being struck by several blue light arrows. An opposing warrior standing directly in front of Marcheto and his warhorse tried thrusting a sword into the animal’s chest but quickly died in a hail of green and yellow light arrows.

  Galloping through the entrance, Zorya reared up on her hind legs while Corson fired a wooden arrow at a man on the fortification’s walkway. Riding his warhorse up a staircase leading to the walkway, Balder cut down two men attacking him near the top step. Not far away, two enemy warriors were attempting to drag Lord Stallington from his saddle. In defiance, the elderly ruler raised his sword and…all action ceased.

  Looking around, Marcheto realized everyone had stopped moving and were frozen in their tracks. Capes had ceased billowing in the wind, clothing had stopped fluttering, and long hair had stopped being blown about. Nothing so much as stirred.

  With complete silence and an eerie stillness filling the air, the apprentice wizard knew what was coming next. School was now in session.

  Dismounting from his warhorse, which was now as immobile as a marble statue, Marcheto took hold of his clear- crystal wizard’s staff with his right hand while resting the bottom end on the ground. Instantly, there was a blinding flash, and an old wizard with long, white hair, a full beard and eyes glistening like rubies appeared next to Marcheto.

  It was Eldwyn, who was Marcheto’s predecessor and the wizard who’d chosen the young apprentice to replace him. Eldwyn’s radiant wizard’s robes were made of iridescent cloth woven with threads of deep-blue light. The old wizard and his robes were further illuminated by a brilliant, nearly-blinding light making them appear translucent.

  Being so powerful and penetrating, the light didn’t escape the notice of others. Back at Chen’s castle, the dark sword, Crystal, felt Eldwyn emerge from Marcheto’s staff, which was also the gateway to the College of Wizards. And though the gateway was already closed, Crystal knew it would have to open again for Eldwyn to return home.

  Looking southward, the elderly wizard realized the dark sword was aware of his arrival. Eldwyn also felt a rumbling to the east within the bleak, barren, mountainous badlands. From deep within Lord Ridgewood’s Firecrest Castle, the elderly wizard felt a stone statue shaking, o
ne of a decrepit, old hag, and hairline cracks were forming at its base.

  Once Eldwyn’s intensity began to fade, however, he turned to his apprentice and asked, “Do you know what’s happening within the darkness?”

  “Others know you’re here,” Marcheto said.

  “They can’t do us any harm, at least not today. After the gateway closed and my energy dissipated, both Crystal and Balzekior’s statue lost track of me, the crystal staff, and, most importantly, they lost track of you.”

  “They don’t know where we are?”

  “Crystal and Balzekior sensed my presence but not our location. However, if more wizards had emerged from the gateway making it stay open longer, the forces of darkness might have gotten a fix on our position.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Well, let’s start by checking the energy level of your staff,” the old wizard suggested.

  Taking the clear-crystal staff and holding it in a horizontal position with both hands, Eldwyn tossed it up in the air where it began spinning ‘round and ‘round so quickly the staff seemed to disappear.

  “Cardeum zenkar dulray chenarah!” the old wizard shouted, and a surge of energy, like water from a fountain, shot upward from the spinning staff. The fountain of energy included every color of prism light, except for one. Near the bottom was a layer of purple, and then above that were layers of blue, green, yellow and orange. At the very top, there should have been a layer of red, but it was devoid of color and completely clear.

  “Hmmm,” the elderly wizard said considering the ramifications.

  Knowing he was being graded, Marcheto felt nervous. The apprentice wizard wanted to please his master but suspected he’d done something wrong.

  “Your huge display of light arrows drained about one- sixth of the staff’s energy,” Eldwyn observed. “Are you certain you needed to use that much?”

  “Aerylln was in danger,” Marcheto said. “If necessary, I’d have used all the staff’s energy to defend her.”

  “Would you now?” the old wizard mused.

  “Yes.”

  “What about Corson and Zorya? Couldn’t you have relied more on them? And even in a weakened condition, Baelfire would have fought bravely. Then there’s Balder, another fine warrior, and he was in the thick of it. Lord Stallington was foolish to rush in here by himself, but he might have taken down a few more warriors. Plus, some of Lord Stallington’s warriors remained behind to protect Genevieve and didn’t fall into this trap. How many of them are there?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Eight of them, and after getting Genevieve safely away from the fortification, two stayed with her, but the other six are just outside the wall. If you look over at the entrance, you’ll see a warrior was charging through it before everything stopped.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Freezing everyone in their tracks.”

  “It wasn’t that big of a group, so it wasn’t too hard,” Eldwyn said smiling. “But let’s stick to the business at hand. Now that you’ve had a chance to look around, what can we conclude?”

  “I don’t know. What can we?” Marcheto asked gloomily.

  “That you didn’t rely enough on those around you. You should have gone directly to Aerylln and Lord Stallington to protect them. After that, you could have let your friends defeat the remainder of the enemy. By doing so, you’d have carried the day without overusing the resources of the staff. So, what else can we conclude?”

  “That I panicked,” Marcheto admitted.

  “And?”

  “I wanted to impress Aerylln with my powers,” the young man sighed. “I guess I have a lot to learn.”

  “You have no idea,” Eldwyn said. “But let me tell you a story about the civil war that consumed the realm about 25 years ago. You know about it, don’t you?”

  “I know that before Lord Pensgraft, The Rock was ruled by Lord Daegal, and he’d inherited it from his father, Lord Glenhaven,” Marcheto said.

  “Yes, that’s true, but why did The Rock fall into civil war upon Lord Glenhaven’s death?”

  “I don’t know the details. Anyway, I’ve been having a hard enough time just keeping up with recent events.” From the perspective of the apprentice wizard, the civil war had taken place over a lifetime ago.

  “Well, the biggest single factor is that about five years before the civil war, Dominion Castle fell to the forces of darkness,” the elderly wizard said.

  “I’ve heard of Dominion Castle, but I don’t know where it is. Only that it’s far from here.”

  “Dominion Castle, my young man, was the home of the king,” Eldwyn informed him.

  “I’ve never heard of a king in this region.”

  “Oh, yes, there was once a great king, and the whole world as you know it was under his rule. The Rock, Skybrook Castle and Glenitant’s older castle, the one that existed before the black crystal cathedral, were all a part of his domain. Even Firecrest Castle in the badlands was a part of it, long before it became a den of thieves. But our entire region broke away when the kingdom fell into darkness.”

  “How did we escape being taken over?”

  “That was mostly due to Baelfire, Zorya and Aerylln’s grandmother, Lyssa,” Eldwyn said. “Also, Chen’s Aunt Glenitant was heir to the dark sword, Crystal, and she got the sword out of Dominion Castle before it was overrun.”

  “Before Chen killed her, Glenitant was an evil, old witch. Why didn’t the old crone stay at Dominion Castle?”

  “Glenitant wasn’t always evil and corrupt. Living with Crystal for over 30 years did that to her. But even Crystal didn’t want to remain at Dominion Castle after King Kardimont died,” Eldwyn said.

  “How did the king die?”

  “I killed him,” Eldwyn said dejectedly, the horror he was feeling evident in the anguished look on his face and his haunted eyes.

  “You killed King Kardimont?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’d used up all the staff’s energy beating back the enemy, and still they kept coming. Over the years, I’ve relived it again and again in my mind. Maybe I could have used the staff’s energy to gather more of the king’s army around him, but most of King Kardimont’s warriors were already dead. Maybe I should have been wiser, more careful and more prudent about using the staff’s energy. I don’t know. Anyway, in the end, the enemy overran the king and his family, all of whom had been entrusted to my care.”

  “But Eldwyn, I’ve seen you open the gateway to the College of Wizards to recharge the staff. A stream of multicolored light-energy flowed from the gateway and was absorbed by the staff itself,” Marcheto said. “Why didn’t you just recharge it and fight on?”

  “When opening the gateway, if you’re too close to the forces of darkness, there’s a really dangerous possibility that evil could penetrate the home world of the College of Wizards,” Eldwyn said. “King Kardimont’s death was my fault. I’d mismanaged the amount of energy in the staff and couldn’t get more.”

  “You say the king’s family was swamped by the enemy. So, King Kardimont did have children?”

  “Yes, he and Queen Loren had a young boy, three adult sons and two teenage daughters. Trying to protect their father, they fought like men and women possessed. But after hours of battle, and with enemy warriors swarming around them, the women retreated up a staircase and leapt from the castle’s highest tower rather than be taken alive.”

  “Why didn’t they just die fighting?”

  “When our last line of defense crumbled, it was chaos. Avoiding being taken hostage was their primary concern at that point. They were very brave, and as the young women fell, they continued shooting arrows at the enemy gathered in the courtyard below. The king’s daughters went out in style,” the old wizard said.

  “Was King Kardimont’s line wiped out forever?”

  “Yes, all were killed. The youngest son was only six-years-old at the time, but no one
really knows what happened to him. Thousands of gargoyles had been swarming all over the castle by then, and the boy probably ended up in someone’s cooking pot.”

  “Who actually struck the deathblow that killed King Kardimont?”

  “After two of the king’s three sons were already dead, almost a dozen gargoyle archers moved into range and cut the king down with a volley of arrows. The remaining son, the eldest, sighted an enemy general in the courtyard below and threw himself headfirst out of an upper-story tower window. On the way down, he’d drawn his sword, stretched out his arm and held the weapon over his head turning himself into a human bayonet and impaling the general.”

  “While this was going on, where were you?”

  “I’d also leapt from an upper-story window, but it seems the wizard’s staff protects its own. While I was falling, a bit of leftover energy materialized whisking me high above the castle and spirited me away. Once the prism staff and I were safe, the College of Wizards opened the gateway and recharged the staff, but by then it was too late. Even after all these years, I don’t know what to think. Maybe if I’d somehow used the staff’s energy more wisely, if I’d conserved it and not used so much so quickly, maybe things would have turned out differently. But madness and chaos were all around us.”

  “You didn’t kill King Kardimont. You did your best,” Marcheto said reassuringly, the wizard apprentice realizing his master was haunted by guilt over having survived when so many others had perished, including the king.

  “My best wasn’t good enough,” Eldwyn said with his face flushed and being near tears. The old wizard was looking deeply into Marcheto seeking forgiveness for the king’s death, forgiveness he couldn’t find within himself.

  “Our best rarely is,” the wizard apprentice said. “To put too great a value on one’s own importance in the overall scheme of things is to court disappointment. In the face of such chaos, all we can hope is to have an impact, no matter how small. It’s our duty to resist evil, even if we can’t defeat it.”

  Surprised by Marcheto’s wisdom, Eldwyn took comfort in it, but nonetheless persisted and said, “I should have done better. I should have mattered more.”