Even though he was the boy’s father, Nikolas wasn’t allowed to participate in the ceremony in any way. Of course, over the last days, he had taken counsel with the priests, and given counsel to his young son. But anything might happen: Dion’s experience at his own naming ceremony was proof of that.
The magus stood once more in the center of the diamond with the four materia at each point. The gold and silver were deliberately far from the center, whereas if the magus stretched out his arms, he could almost touch the more common copper and iron, at the diamond’s closer points.
He turned slowly until he was facing Nikolas’s son. ‘Boy, I will now use your child name for the last time. Come to me, Luni.’
The onlookers held their breath as they waited for the boy to move. Dion smiled as he saw Helena give her son a slight push from behind.
Luni struggled with his costume but began to walk to the magus, staring the entire time in captivated fear at the old priest, who never ceased to appear stern and unyielding. The boy crossed the floor with hesitant steps as his parents urged him on with their eyes. Even Dion breathed a sigh of relief when Luni reached the center of the diamond and came to a halt beside the old man. Occasionally a parent had to intervene to take their child to the magus, but this wasn’t considered a good omen.
‘Child,’ the magus called. ‘We magi have called on the gods to choose for you the path that you will take in life.’
He looked at the tip of the diamond farthest from Dion. ‘Gold will lead you to a life of leadership, nobility, charisma, and power.’
Dion couldn’t help but wonder how often the magi chose gold for a peasant boy, whose parents would never be able to afford his necklace, let alone his round medallion.
‘Silver is the materia of the winds of fortune and the tides of commerce.’ The magus gazed at the nugget of silver.
‘Copper stands for music and beauty, craftsmanship, and the arts of healing.’ Dion could see why the copper and iron were closest to the magus and the boy beside him, for they were by far the most common metals chosen.
‘Finally’—the magus turned again—‘iron leads to the path of the warrior and the farmer, the mason, the smith, and the miner.’
Luni looked fearfully at his mother and then turned again to stare with confusion at his father. Nikolas struggled to keep his face impassive.
‘The gods have made their choice,’ the magus intoned.
He left the boy standing in the middle of the diamond and then stepped outside the lines of white chalk.
Walking with his slow shuffling steps, the magus now circled the diamond three times. The seven-year-old child now watched the magus; everyone else in the room was utterly still.
The magus stopped. He was standing outside the lump of iron.
‘The gods have chosen iron,’ the magus said, his thin lips creasing in a smile.
Nikolas was unable to hide a sigh of relief. Glancing across the room, Dion saw that the king was now standing, fists clenched at his sides, but he was beaming.
Yet the ceremony wasn’t over. There was one final part for the child to play.
‘I name you Lukas,’ the magus said. His parents would have supplied the name, but it was the first time anyone else in the room had heard it.
‘Lukas,’ Dion mouthed. His nephew. He decided he liked the name.
‘Come, Lukas,’ the magus said, still standing near the lump of iron. ‘Come to claim iron.’
The smile fell from Nikolas’s face and he tensed once more. But his son knew what to do, and he walked to the magus, knelt at the corner of the diamond, and picked up the lump of iron.
Nikolas whooped as a resounding cheer filled the room. Helena wiped her eyes as she and Thea embraced. King Markos shook hands with the men around him.
‘Lukas is a fitting name. The gods chose rightly,’ Dion said as he turned and clapped his brother on the back.
‘Thank you, brother.’ Nikolas pulled him into an embrace. Dion felt prickly hair on his face as his older brother planted a kiss on his cheek.
‘Go.’ Dion laughed, pushing him away. ‘Go to your wife and son.’
Nikolas lurched across the room to join Helena, who was impatiently waving a hand for him to come over. She had a necklace of tiny iron rings in her hands and together she and Nikolas fastened the chain around Lukas’s neck; soon a circular amulet imprinted with the bull of Balal was proudly displayed for all to see.
As the parents united around the boy, Dion smiled. But then he felt a gaze on him and saw the magus’s dark eyes looking at him from the very center of the hall. Their eyes met before the old man nodded.
Dion’s smile faded as he reflected on his own naming ceremony.
He was now old enough to know that the magi and his family would have been discussing him behind closed doors. Even at the tender age of seven it was already clear that Dion wasn’t a natural warrior like Nikolas. He’d somehow managed to cut himself on the dull edge of a child’s sword and he’d always been afraid of large groups of hoplites, with their sharp spears ready to kill and steel helmets hiding their faces. He did have skills: he was good with horses and liked to ride; he was clever with numbers and could add, subtract, and multiply better than his much older brother.
Gold wouldn’t have been appropriate, for it was Nikolas who was heir to the throne, and Dion didn’t exhibit the natural charisma that would have made him the leader of other boys his age. Copper was out of the question: the last thing King Markos wanted was a musician or a craftsman for a son.
So the magi chose silver.
But when the magus circled the diamond and gave Dion his name, calling him to the silver, Dion wouldn’t come.
It had been an awkward moment. Eventually, King Markos had picked up the newly named Dion and taken him to the magus.
With loud conversation now filling the banqueting hall as the musicians took up their instruments and the festivities resumed, the magus continued to stare. The silver chain, with its amulet bearing the symbol of Silex, felt uncomfortable on Dion’s skin, as if it didn’t belong.
14
As the night progressed, the guests became more raucous, until finally, in ones and twos, they begged their leave, departing after a final congratulation offered to the proud parents. Eventually only the royal family and Peithon remained, though the magus was still present, waiting on the king’s permission to leave. They all sat in a circle of benches drawn up close together in the center of the room, the white chalk now smudged by countless feet crossing to and fro.
In a lull in the conversation, the old magus, seated a little apart, turned an inquiring gaze on the king. It was tradition that at the end of every family banquet would come a story for those still awake. Often the storyteller would be Markos or Nikolas, but on this occasion the king had requested that the magus honor them with a tale.
‘Magus,’ Markos said with a nod, ‘I believe now is the time, should it suit you.’
The magus moved his bench a little closer to the circle. ‘Which story would you like to hear, sire?’
The king turned to Nikolas and Helena, now seated together, with Lukas on his father’s lap. With Nikolas’s thick black beard and broad-shouldered frame he looked every inch the king-to-be, while the beautiful blonde woman beside him was the model of a future queen.
‘Lukas?’ Nikolas said, never tiring of using his son’s new name. ‘What tale would you like to hear?’
Warm and comfortable in his father’s arms, his fear of the magus now somewhat diminished, Lukas spoke up boldly. ‘I want to hear about King Palemon and the eldren.’
The magus tilted his head at the king.
‘Very well,’ Markos said.
The stooped old man cleared his throat and looked down, before casting his eyes on the people seated in front of him. The silence grew for a time, broken only by the faint crackle of the last embers in the hearths.
Finally, the magus spoke.
‘Long ago, our people, and all other people
, fought a terrible war with a race separate from our own, those we call the eldren. Where we are sometimes dark-skinned and sometimes light, the eldren are universally pale. Where we have brown hair and blonde, the eldren have hair of silver. Where we are strong workers, able to mine and shape metal, the eldren are thin and weak, and because they hate the touch of metal, they carry no steel or bronze weapons. But’—the magus let the word hang in the air for a moment—‘they can change their shape.’
Lukas shivered in his father’s arms, his eyes fixed on the magus.
The old man put out his right hand. ‘On one side was the kingdom of Aleuthea, greatest of all human civilizations. We still see their monuments in Sarsica, and it is clear that there has been no people so advanced since. Palemon, King of Aleuthea, is said to have lived in a palace nineteen stories high. The golden rays of the Lighthouse could once be seen from as far away as Myana, the Sarsican capital.’
All present were silent while they digested the magus’s words.
He then held out the other hand. ‘On the other side were the eldren in their magical land, Sindara. Their king, Marrix, was the most powerful eldran who ever lived. All eldren are magically connected to the ultimate source of life energy, but Marrix more than any other. When Marrix changed shape,’ the magus’s voice became low and ominous, ‘the whole world trembled.’
He now clasped his palms together and his thin arms tensed. ‘Some say that King Palemon started the war in order to claim Sindara for his own, and others that it was Marrix who vowed to end the human race. In any event, the war was long and bitter. Multitudes died on both sides. Bodies floated along the shores of both the Aleuthean Sea and the Maltherean Sea, turning the shallow waters red.
‘To do battle in the skies the eldren could become furies, men with wings like bats, and even dragons, huge reptilian creatures with wings each as big as this room. To fight in the sea they could become merfolk, men with tails like fish, and even serpents, monstrous sea snakes that could tear a ship to pieces. To war on land they could grow in size to become ogres, with the largest so big we call them giants.’
The magus started coughing and bent to pick up a cup at his feet; he was so old that the process took a long time, but Dion knew he wouldn’t appreciate any help. He sipped and then resumed.
‘If they could have changed for long periods the ancients would never have stood a chance. Palemon, king of Aleuthea, would have seen his proud kingdom laid to waste. But they could change for only short periods. For they sometimes went wild.’
Dion found himself falling under the spell of the magus’s story. Aleuthea was gone now; the stories said the island nation sank beneath the sea a thousand years ago. But signs of the ancient civilization still existed, and he’d once seen a crumbled ruin on the edge of the Aleuthean Sea where there were obelisks so big that the Sarsican builders knew neither how they were cut nor erected.
‘Seeking a way to gain an advantage over the humans, King Marrix made a magical horn out of a conch to recall the wild ones and bring them home. Blowing the horn brought all the wildren back to him, and if wildness was upon them they were reminded of their true selves and turned back. At the end of a terrible battle, when the human dead numbered in the tens of thousands and the fighting went on for so long that hundreds of eldren turned wild, King Palemon first heard its call. As he saw the wildren travel in the direction of the sound, he realized that the eldren now possessed a decisive advantage.’
‘What did he do?’ Lukas asked.
‘Shh,’ Helena hushed.
‘In a daring raid, King Palemon went to Sindara, the eldren homeland, and stole the horn. He put it in an iron box so that it could never be reclaimed, for no eldran can willingly touch pure metal. Raging, King Marrix launched attack after attack, but he was reckless, and ever more eldren became wildren. His army grew smaller with every sortie.’
Dion thought about the wildren rumored to infest the Sea of Serpents. Were all of them former fighters in the war against King Palemon?
‘Knowing he was close to victory, Palemon launched a great assault on Sindara. It was a mighty struggle, but he was finally victorious. Yet even in defeat Marrix could claim revenge, for after the war’s end, Sindara became a wasteland, a place we now call Cinder Fen. Any promise the land had for farming and mining was lost, for many wildren were, and still are, drawn to Cinder Fen, the same way a horse returns to its stable.’
There was silence in the banqueting hall as the story reached its conclusion.
‘King Palemon drove the remaining eldren into the Wilds, where they still live. Some also live in the Waste, closer to the Salesian continent. Palemon’s last years, however, were not content. Disaster struck when the ocean rose, burying the kingdom of Aleuthea beneath the waves. But I will save that story for another day.’
The magus stood and bowed. ‘By your leave, sire?’
‘Thank you, magus,’ King Markos said as he took a long draught of his wine. ‘You may go.’
The old man shuffled out of the room, leaving the group of seven behind. The men were in varying states of intoxication: Markos was bleary and Nikolas was looking as ready to retire as Dion himself felt, but Peithon was swaying slightly as he stared down into his cup.
‘All eldren should be eradicated like the vermin they are.’ Peithon swished the red wine, spilling some on his expensive clothes.
Thea frowned. ‘That wine you are so drunk on came from Phalesia, via the narrows that an eldran helped clear.’
Peithon’s broad face reddened as he turned on the queen. ‘What manner of woman are you, to preach peace with the race that destroyed your family?’
‘Peace,’ Markos said wearily, holding up a hand. ‘Peace between my beloved queen, and my loyal companion and first adviser.’ He turned to Dion’s mother, whose pretty face was curled into a scowl. ‘Wife, Peithon has fought by my side in many battles. And some of those battles were against groups of wildren. We lost good men. Peithon also lost his bride three weeks before his wedding day. Will you come to an accord with him?’
‘Yes, husband.’ Thea nodded stiffly.
Markos now addressed Peithon. ‘Peithon, Thea is my beloved wife, whom I love. She has helped us find a path to a peaceful solution for living so close to the eldren in the Wilds. They now aid us rather than hindering us when we destroy the wildren who were once their kin. She is also your queen, and deserving of your respect. Do you see the wisdom in peace?’
‘Yes, sire,’ Peithon said. When the king looked away, Dion saw Peithon throw his mother a look of loathing.
‘It is late,’ the king said. ‘We have had a long day. But,’ he looked at Dion, ‘I have said I would make a decision regarding my youngest son’s request, and here it is.’
Dion sat up, his tiredness vanishing.
‘Nikolas is the heir and commander of the army, as well as a skilled warrior, the best I have seen in my many years. He has a beautiful wife and a strong child, Lukas, my grandson.’
Markos nodded at the boy, who was now fast asleep.
‘But Dion has yet to take on the responsibilities of his brother. Danger to the kingdom is ever present. A warship from Ilea has arrived at the harbor of Phalesia, our closest neighbor, and it may be the first of many. Dion wishes to prove himself, and I believe him when he states the importance of filling in the gaps in our knowledge. Dion will go to Phalesia to learn more of this vessel and its commander.’
Dion nodded his acceptance. He saw his mother looking at him with concern.
‘But,’ Markos said in his gravelly voice, ‘if the warship has departed, Dion will return to Xanthos.’
Dion struggled to hide his disappointment.
‘He will return to Xanthos unless Aristocles, First Consul of Phalesia, gives his blessing for a voyage to Ilea to be made – on behalf of both our nations. If such a thing comes to pass, Dion will serve at the behest of the first consul, placing himself under his leadership. It will be Aristocles who will be the one to decide if Dion
should go to Ilea to learn about the sun king’s realm across the Maltherean Sea.’
15
Aristocles walked barefoot along the pebbled shore. On his right the waves made a familiar hiss as the water crashed onto the small stones, while on the left the smooth wall of the sloped defensive embankment rose to a height of sixty feet. He wore a thick tunic of blue silk, holding it above his ankles to keep the hem from dragging.
He glanced at the group he had with him, also barefoot and finely dressed. Nilus and the other four consuls were arrayed around him, so that Aristocles led them all from the center. Round-faced Nilus’s expression of jocularity looked a little forced to Aristocles’ experienced eyes. The other four consuls smiled as they walked, much as they would as they made their way to any banquet or symposium where there would be flowing wine and loose conversation. But they also appeared to be keeping a close check on feelings of anxiety, with one consul fidgeting as he walked along the beach and another incessantly smoothing his hair.
The final member of the group was Aristocles’ eldest daughter. She walked close by his side, standing tall despite her trepidation.
‘You look beautiful,’ Aristocles said to Chloe.
Chloe looked down at herself self-consciously. She wore a new chiton made specifically for this occasion, a gauzy garment of white folds that contrasted with her long near-black hair. It was bunched at the waist, tied with a golden rope, and left her arms bare. The neckline was low enough for the copper amulet bearing the symbol of Aeris, a cross with a double loop, to be clearly visible, but not so revealing as to be scandalous.
It was at times like this that she reminded Aristocles more than ever of his late wife. Like Chloe, she had been a dark-haired beauty. Like Chloe, she was never afraid of holding her own in the company of men.
‘How long will we have to stay?’ Chloe asked.
Golden Age (The Shifting Tides Book 1) Page 10
