The coached turned. The riders in her entourage followed. She smiled.
“Ahoy, the Mouth of the World!” screamed the lookout.
The call was quickly relayed throughout the whole of the Scarlet Hawk, followed by a call of “Down the main sails! Oarsmen to the ready!” from the ship’s captain.
Vilmos avoided the tangle of sailors amidships and raced to the bow. He and Xith had left the seaside town of Eragol the previous day and the Mouth of the World, a natural river cave that cut under the Rift Range near Jrenn, was their destination.
He swallowed a heart-sized lump in his throat when ahead in the distance he saw only ice-capped mountains on both sides of the river. As he looked on, a small dark space within the gray stone of the mountain seemed to grow and grow until the darkness was a thing that seemed would swallow the whole of the ship, and indeed it did, just as the captain called out, “Lanterns, fore and aft!”
Lanterns soon cast a dull glow into the darkness. No light reflected back to say that the rocks were close around them—or to say that anything was close around them for that matter. Everything seemed dead calm and just as the ship seemed to stand still in space and time, Vilmos heard the low thumping of the pacekeeper’s drum. The oarsmen struck their oars. The Scarlet Hawk lurched forward. Soon the rowing became a smooth seesaw that hinted of movement and progress through the darkness.
“Vilmos, come away from the bow!” yelled Xith. “You don’t want to be standing there.”
Vilmos gripped the staff Xith had given him in Quashan’. “Is it always this dark here?”
“Sometimes darker,” replied Xith. “Sometimes it is a place that resembles its namesake more so than any would like.” Xith didn’t give Vilmos a chance to reply as he led the boy below deck. “Gather your belongings quickly. We won’t have much time once the ship is docked to get passage across the river to Jrenn.”
Vilmos took to the task of packing without complaint. He wouldn’t miss the Scarlet Hawk or the bucket that had been a constant companion during the journey. He knew he didn’t have sea legs. Still, the voyage was his first and the open river was truly a remarkable place.
He and Xith had made many stops on their journey north to Eragol. He had seen Mir, Veter, Klaive, Heman and many sights in between. The shaman had been secretive of most of his activities and he was learning not to ask too many questions. Still his mind filled with questions—oh so many questions—and it seemed he would never get answers.
As he packed he thought about Efryadde, whose path Xith said he followed as a human mage in training. He knew of Efryadde from the Great Book, and what little he knew troubled him. The darkness had overtaken Efryadde, and in the end those he trusted most had betrayed him.
Calls went up from the crew as the Scarlet Hawk came to a full stop. He looked up from his task to find Xith regarding him. “To Jrenn and then to Solntse?” he asked.
Xith nodded and led the way to the top deck. “Stand close now, we have to move fast if we are to get across the river today.”
As the two emerged from below, Vilmos’ eyes lit with wonder at the sight of lanterns spreading out in every direction, revealing the outline of enormous docks and many ships in the port. He shouldered his bags and gripped his staff tightly. Lanterns overhead, suspended in the darkness by unseen ropes, lit their way along the docks.
All around them sailors, merchants and travelers hurried about their business. Everyone, Xith included, moved with a sense of purpose, seemingly oblivious to the fact that just beyond the shrouded yellow of the lanterns lay absolute darkness. Vilmos practically had to run to keep up with the shaman, and he did so with a sense of urgency because he didn’t want to lose Xith in this crowd, in this place.
As they reached the long straight run that led to the innermost section of the docks, Vilmos stopped. Ahead of him, no more than a hundred paces away, was open water, and across the open water was a city in the center of the docks. This journey with Xith had opened his eyes to the wonders of the world, but none was as grand as the sight of the floating city ahead.
From this distance he could see the gentle swaying of the water as it rippled beneath the city, and in the dark waters ahead, rowboats, whose paths were lit by a single lantern suspended from a tall pole aft, moved back and forth like carriages following unseen roads.
Xith hurried toward a line of rowboats at the end of one of the docks and Vilmos truly did have to run to catch up. For the sum of two coppers an oarsman took Xith and Vilmos to the inner docks of Jrenn.
The inner docks were very different from those used by the large sailing boats. They were low to the water and lined with tiny piers that made it easy to dock small boats, such as the rowboat they were in, anywhere along the floating circle of the city. The trick, however, was to find a section of pier that was unoccupied, and this turned out to be more of a problem than Vilmos imagined.
Xith solved the problem by giving the oarsman two more pieces of copper, immediately after which the oarsman docked and bid the two farewell.
“Until spring then,” said Adrina turning back to the carriage.
Rudden smiled and kissed her hand before he let go. “Until spring.”
She regarded Rudden, saying nothing more. Behind him, on the balcony overlooking the keep’s courtyard, she saw the baron and baroness.
The baron stood still and there was a slight smile playing on the corners of his lips. The baroness’s right hand was touched to her cheek and there was delight in her eyes. But it was Rudden that she was focusing on.
It was as if she was seeing him for the first time as the man he was and not as the man everyone else wanted her to see. He was tall with fair hair that showed his heritage and bright eyes that seemed to ask questions of her even now. He was the same man that had traveled all the way to Imtal just to meet her and then rushed to Quashan’ to bring supplies to the beleaguered city after the battle Great Kingdom had nearly lost, but yet he wasn’t. Things had changed and her heart had changed—and it had all happened in space of a few heartbeats.
She turned away. The attendant helped her into the coach, closing the door behind her. The coachman took his position. The Knight Brigade, Klaive Keep’s most elite mounted horsemen, took to the saddle.
As the coach started out of the courtyard, she turned to look back. Rudden waved and she smiled more deeply. In her heart, she knew she had made the right decision. The journey from childhood to womanhood wasn’t an easy one, but she would undertake it—it may lead her to a place quite unexpected.
Chapter Two:
The Long Road
Emel spurred Ebony Lightning on and the great black stallion charged across the open field with a speed that few other horses could match. As a ranking member of his father’s company, he had more responsibilities than ever before in his life and none so important as the safekeeping of the elves who accompanied the battle-weary group of Kingdomers as they returned to Imtal.
He cursed low under his breath as he urged Ebony to even greater speeds, vowing to Great Father that he would find the truth of the matter before him no matter the cost. On the return trek, his father, Ansh Brodst, King’s Knight Captain, had opted to take the faster, more dangerous route north. They took the Old Kingdom road through Moeck, skirting the Belyj Forest, Fraddylwicke Swamp and the Dead Sea, braving the Cliffs of D’Arndynne in rains that had swept far braver men into the sea and from this world.
But they braved and surpassed the deadly cliffs without mishap, and it was within the lands of Fraddylwicke that the trouble had occurred. At first, the onlookers had been curious, to be truthful, and so no one could have foreseen what was to come. Still, there was little excuse for failure and absolutely no excuse for forgetting one’s ancestry.
Ancestry in a place such as Fraddylwicke was everything. For it was here, in lands as harsh and desolate as any found in the whole of the kingdoms, that the Blood Soldiers had been born and here that thousands upon thousands had died defending a stretch of land whose on
ly value was in the boundaries that its borders represented.
Dnyarr the Greye, the last great Elven King, had laid siege to Fraddylwicke Castle two times during the Race Wars in his attempt to gain the southlands. The first siege lasted over one hundred years, which wasn’t enough time for young elves to grow to maturity but lasted generations for the men who defended the fields with their blood and their lives. Yet, if such a thing was unimaginably horrible to endure for those who served, could one possibly imagine a thousand years of such existence, as was the case of the last great siege?
Or could one doubt without any certainty that after the final victory in the fields around Fraddylwicke that those who survived were no longer what they once were? So when the victorious sought to rule the lands of Man, it should have been no surprise that divided kingdoms united against them and their allies, pushing them back to the dark corners of the world and, ultimately, leaving them forgotten like the past from which they came.
Emel Brodstson never should have forgotten this and his father, Ansh Brodst, shouldn’t have either. For the blood in their veins was that of those who Emel now eyed with a murderous rage as he chased them across the sodden field. Yet a distant kinship didn’t stop his sword arm or cause him to slow Ebony’s thunder as he ran down the last of the attackers.
By the time he returned to the company, the berserker rage in his blood had passed, but its short presence within had changed him in ways that he later would not be able to explain. In a way, it made him less human, less a man—but someone who could separate himself from his feelings and find only the burning rage within could never see this. It would only be apparent later, much later, to those who knew him before this pilot light of rage was ignited.
Vilmos awoke suddenly in the darkness, staring about the strangely shaped room as it shifted with the movement of the water beneath the floating city. He and Xith had not made it out of Jrenn the previous day and had rented a room at an inn instead. Now he was alone in the darkness and Xith was nowhere to be seen—or was he?
Vilmos stood and walked to the far corner of the room where there was an alcove. He moved quietly and carefully. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the glowing orb the shaman held in his outstretched hands. He saw images flash by in the orb as if the shaman was looking for a thing he could not find.
The shaman’s face, lit dully by the glow of the orb, reflected frustration, and he was muttering to himself. “Step aside; move about so that I may see.”
Vilmos leaned on his haunches, taking the weight off his feet. The flash of images was hypnotic and as he looked on, it was as if he was being drawn into the orb. Soon it seemed he was standing within the glow of the orb itself and the images of the world—vivid and real—were before him.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and waited. When he opened his eyes again, hoping that he would be standing in the room of the inn, he instead found that nothing had changed. Large as life images still played before his eyes—and even more strange, the images called to him.
Stunned panic set in. He forced himself to rip his eyes away from the hypnotic flash. It was then that he knew for sure he was indeed standing within the orb. His heart started racing. He twisted his head back and forth like a trapped animal. He was about to take a step backward, away from the flashing world, when a strong hand firmly clasped his right elbow.
He turned and saw Xith standing beside him.
“Don’t move,” said the shaman. “Dangerous, often lethal, to do so.”
“Where are we?”
“You mean, where are you? I just followed as you were drawn into the orb. Doesn’t happen often mind you, but it does happen. You were drawn into the orb for a reason.”
“Is this a part of the training? You said the training was to begin.”
“Vilmos, my boy, your education is never-ending and always ongoing.” Xith laughed, a fleeting laugh. His expression became dark and serious. “Dnyarr’s orb is one of the greatest powers in all the realms. I don’t pretend to understand, understanding is beyond the likes of those of this world. I only know what I can do with it and what others before me have done with it.”
Vilmos took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. “Why does it want me?”
“Why indeed,” said Xith. “Why indeed. I should like to think it has something to do with our present course—”
Xith stopped abruptly as the glow of the orb around them disappeared and the scene before them exploded to life as never before. The two raced through a great forest, and as they raced onward the mountains in the distance grew ever closer.
Soon the air around them grew cold as snow-capped peaks raced beneath their feet. In the distance now, they could see a swarm of flying beasts in the sky.
“Dragons?” cried out Vilmos as they raced into the midst of a raging battle.
Xith didn’t answer.
As they raced on, Vilmos saw two winged serpents locked in combat in the center of it all. They were larger and fiercer than any of the others around them. Their great wings beat at the air as their massive jaws locked one upon the other.
Just when Vilmos and Xith were about to crash into the fighting beasts, the two dragons turned as one and stared directly at the men before them. They spoke then in a language that was long gone from the world as everything around them began to fade away.
Reality came crashing in. The two were left standing in their rented room, staring at the glowing orb in Xith’s outstretched hand. They didn’t speak for the span of many heartbeats, the silence burning the images deeper into their minds.
The coach and the horsemen made fair progress along the East–West Road. By the end of the fourth day, the group reached the crossroads that would take them north to Ispeth, Mellack and then on to Imtal. Adrina was tired of the soft cushions of the coach. She longed for the leather of the saddle and wanted nothing more than to feel the open road all around her.
She passed the time thinking of Imtal and all that had happened since leaving home. In her mind, it seemed only yesterday that she was leaving Imtal with garrison soldiers all around her as they journeyed south to Alderan. But arrival in Alderan hadn’t brought anything that they thought it would. Instead they discovered Alderan had been captured by King Jarom’s soldiers and Quashan’ was next as Jarom sought to capture the key cities that would give him control of the southlands.
In her mind it was clear that the elves, Seth and Galan, single-handedly changed the course of the Battle of Quashan’. Galan had helped guide her through the treachery of William’s camp, and it was there that she had convinced William to quit the field, turning the tide in the Kingdom’s favor. Seth had helped guide the scattered Kingdom forces defending the walls of Quashan’, and it had been his superhuman speed and skill alone that had pushed back attackers more than once. Together the elves had communicated over the distance, using only the power of their minds, and giving the Kingdomers another advantage on the field.
No, Adrina had no doubt of their deeds. She only hoped her father, the king, had the good sense to listen to their words when they sought his support.
Outside the windows of the carriage she heard Landon, Chief Knight of Klaive Keep, call the group to a halt. The carriage kept moving, albeit at a slower pace, until she could see the doors of a clapboarded inn. The waiting attendant opened the carriage door.
The carriagemaster swept her from the carriage and hurried her to a room inside the inn that had already been prepared. She thanked the carriagemaster as he let himself out and bid her a good evening. All the pampering was going to her head. She had never been treated so well—in Imtal, attendants knew she loathed such foot to hand pampering—and she was never so miserable.
She longed for conversation. Open, honest conversation, angry, heated conversation, any conversation. She would have talked to anyone, if there were anyone to talk to. “Is this what true royalty is like?” she wondered aloud. “I’d rather be tarred and feathered.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” said a voice from the shadows.
Adrina turned, startled. She raised the flame on the oil lamp beside the bed to cast a brighter glow about the room.
She was frightened, but only barely so. In truth, returning to Imtal was more frightening.
Returning to Imtal meant opening many old wounds and remembering things that she didn’t want to remember. For years Imtal’s walls had symbolized and housed her fears. The walls were the keepers of secrets she had worked hard to forget. But when she returned—and proved to herself that one could get beyond Imtal’s walls—she would have to look beyond and within those walls.
So as she stared into the eyes of the one who sat waiting, she had the dark desire that she should never return to Imtal. And as the other smiled, deeply, darkly, she thought her wish would indeed come true.
Xith closed his palm about the orb and then released his grip on Vilmos’ arm. He staggered backward, his strength clearly gone. It was only Vilmos’ quick response that kept Xith from falling.
Vilmos helped Xith to a chair, took a seat opposite the shaman. “I’m frightened, Xith,” he said quietly. “I just don’t understand.”
“As am I,” said Xith. “More is at hand than I thought. To be sure, we must begin earlier than I planned and for that I am truly sorry.”
Vilmos turned his great brown eyes in a wide circle about the room. “No, you aren’t listening. I think I’ve made the wrong decision. I want to go home. I want to go home to Lillath now!”
“What?”
“Magic is evil! Why should I learn such a thing?”
“No Vilmos, you are very wrong. Magic is not evil.”
“Magic destroys!”
“Magic can be evil if used in the wrong hands, so can all things. Money is the worst evil of all, but if used properly it can be used for good. You learn magic for the purpose of good and not evil. I would think you would have accepted this now, particularly after Quashan’.”
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