“What did you do?”
“I threw it out, after trying to scrape the burned parts off of the bread. Nothing could be saved, so I started over.”
“Yjaros, my father, thought much as you did back then. He feels this world is burnt, ruined, so he tried to use force and clean it up to his liking. That is when we fled.” Seirena looked to the canopy, floating now with Angeline as the air obeyed their wishes.
“He can do that?”
“He created me, my brother Megos, and our sister who shall not be spoken of. He wished to toss this world away, and start over. We did not allow that to happen. For our trickery, our love of this world and all that exists, we all paid terrible prices, Angeline. We suffered, and still do.” The trees parted, still floating up with her newest disciple, the Goddess felt the weight of her words upon Angeline.
“Can he be stopped?”
“No. He is God. He imprisoned my son Annar who you just met. He also imprisoned my brother to the white moon, and took the green moon from me and cast me to the earth. He did many horrible things to his children and grandchildren, forcing us to run and hide.”
“Why can’t you simply rise up, unite and stop him?”
“That is another long story, yet we are here to talk of you, your path, and the wishes I have for you.” Seirena touched the stone wall above the canopy of branches neverending inside the mountain. “I hope we all survive long enough to see many things come to pass. It takes time untold, however, it is laid in the stars beyond my sight, so we wait. And we train, and we prepare, and we help others. As you know, only through total loss can one achieve victory over themselves. Only through surviving the impossible at the end, can we hope to make a possible future.”
“The Soujan code. Where I was in the dark will leave me a journey to find where I will be in the light.” Angeline smiled, thinking of the wicked harlot she once was, and what she was today.
“Very true, and you will become one of our chosen this morning, Angeline Berren. Should you choose to.”
“Our?”
“Yes, a chosen protector of the Caricians, a Knight Soujan. One who has come from the meek, the unworthy, and found themself reborn despite wanting to die. Only the weak and wicked, so is the curse of Yjaros upon us. It cannot be undone. Have you been reborn from your afflictions?” The Goddess stood larger now somehow before Angeline, and passed through solid stone and was gone.
“Yes!” Angeline yelled at the stone, the room growing dark without the light of Seirena. She pushed on the stone, it was solid and she did not pass.
“Do you swear to protect those of the white moon and my brother Megos? To stand for life and those that I love?” The voice echoed through stone and empty cavern.
“Yes!” Angeline simply walked into the wall to follow, her face and body hitting stone once more. She did not pass.
“Will you seek to find my son Haddius the Ruler of the Oceans and my son Solumet the King of the Sun who were imprisoned by my father thousands of years ago?” The words became force, became real in the blackness. Powerful words that could be felt but not seen.
“Yes!” Angeline fell to her knees, crying now, and sensing failure that she could not pass through the stone wall and follow the mother of the earth.
“Will you honor my children Annar, Embodiment of Strength, Alden Lord of Heaven, Vasentanessa the Lover and Judge, Siril Guardian of the Woods and Sky and Vundren Sentinel of the Mountains? All my Carician children and not just me?”
“Yes, yes, yes, all of it! Just please let me follow you!” Angeline felt no warmth. Cold and alone, doubting everything, feeling failure as real as the mountain she could not move through.
“No living being may pass. Only an immortal, a blessed messiah of the old Gods, one who will truly serve with love and honor may pass. Draw your blade and make it so.”
Something was wrong, the voice was different than what she had felt in her meditations all these long years in silence. Her blade was in her hands, the hand and a half sword that she could easily plunge into her own chest and pass the test of the Goddess, yet something was not as it should be. Her tears stopped. Angeline stood. “You want me to end my life, by my blade?”
“Yes, my child.”
“No.”
“You defy me?”
“No. I would not trade my life for one of immortality, for power, not for any reason or cause. All life, even mine, is precious. Suicide is never a course for a Knight Soujan.”
The stone parted, trembling with forces unseen on the surface, and Angeline was blinded by the lights of gold and green and white. Her heart and breath seemed to stop at once. Pure air, pure light, a being of force too bright to make out hovered above a lush forest deep within the stone of Soujan Mountain. Her green eyes were the same, yet her body was young, hair of gold, and skin of white marble under flowing gowns. The melody was deafening yet intoxicating, unknown songs from hundreds of beings unseen guided her inside.
The being pointed her hand to a grove of trees emanating with green sunshine from everywhere, their vines wrapped around ornate swords of all different styles and shapes, glistening in the glow of the Goddess.
“Your vows are complete. You are indeed reborn, Angeline. I hold you to your words. For many years have I watched you, heard you, spoken to you, and listened to you. You are here for a reason, and therefore precious. You seek not power, nor greed, nor fame. A sword here, one of dozens blessed over the ages by the Caricians, awaits your touch. For you and your blade shall be one, and you will carry it with honor.” Seirena settled to the ground, her bare feet touching the stone and grass.
“But which one, great Goddess?” Angeline was frozen in awe, joyful to tears, yet reserved and honored at the same moment. So many emotions at once, she thought her chest would burst.
“I am the mother of the Caricians, the Gods of the white moon, yet even this I do not know. Every blade holds the spirit of every Soujan that wielded it prior, and every one of them was forged in a holy place long ago. They each have a name, but you must follow your heart and choose.”
Angeline walked through the grove, feeling, listening, looking at the blades wrapped in vine and held to the trees, trees that moved when she passed. Curious trees. A longsword, a greatsword far too large for her, a scimitar, broadswords galore, gold ones, all inscribed with runes and gems and designs of names she could not read. She closed her eyes, closed her thoughts, knelt down in a small pond by the trees. Angeline took her sword out, laid it in the water, and held her hands out, palms up.
“Come to me friend, I ask your help in the long journey ahead.” Angeline smiled, sensing something warm trying to speak to her from one of the trees.
Angeline smiled, eyes closed, and turned toward where she could feel the Goddess to be. “She is shy, I can feel it. Come to me, yes.”
“They each have their own personalities, you will learn together over time. Ahhh, there she is, beautiful. It will be such a shame not hearing your song in my temple.”
Angeline felt the steel in her hands, weightless, she caressed it slowly, feeling the cold steel mixed with unearthly warmth. She was long, a bastard sword for certain, crosspiece perfectly balanced, and a silk wrapped hilt with strips still dangling like her own braids. Angeline felt the Goddess take her in her own hands and Angeline let her.
“You and I have shared many a tale over the centuries, now I ask you protect Angeline for me. Good, I knew you would.” Seirena was weeping, stifling sobs as she lifted the golden hand and a half sword over the bowed head of Angeline.
Whatever their conversation, Angeline only heard half. She opened her eyes as the blade touched her shoulders, then her head, then its edge sliced a faint cut on the finger of Seirena, allowing a drop of rich red blood to collect on her fingertip. The Goddess drew a circle upon forehead of the woman kneeling before her. Angeline wept, feeling the warmth upon her whole being, in touch with everything, nothing separating her from Seirena or the world.
“Kneel,
Angeline Berren of the Knights Soujan. You are now the bearer of the fourth blade of the sacred forge of Vundren. I ask you to give your remaining breaths to the knights and unwritten code of love, to the Caricians, and pay homage to no other man or God. For there is only one true God, and he is wicked beyond understanding. We are but his children, and you are but ours. Your worship is to each other knight only, and each to your blade. Her name is Charity, blessed by Alden upon her creation nearly three thousand years past. Listen long to her song, and guard her well.” Seirena handed the blade known as Charity to Angeline and stepped back.
The edge was immaculate, golden brushed steel, over four feet in length. The crosspiece was forged to resemble feathers and feminine eyes, like little girl angels hiding from each other, or maybe from the wielder. Green silk and braided tassels adorned the hilt, and the pommel was shaped like a partially open hand, round and heavy for good balance. She hummed a melody through her steel, and Angeline followed in tune, looking up to admire the blade of the Gods of the white moon, forged by Vundren, blessed by Alden, and given by the Goddess.
“I cannot speak, Seirena. I know not what to say.” Her cheeks hurt from smiling, her eyes hurt from crying, and her spirit felt some sort of elation she had never experienced. “Thank you.”
“Arise Angeline of Charity. Children, I give you Angeline, wielder of Charity! She thanks us, yet it is us who should give our thanks.” Seirena bowed, and as she did, thousands of lights, blades, sprites, and forest maids sang her name in unison and gratitude. “Sleep now child, and when you awake, you will travel to the west after the daughter of Lazlette. But first, pass through Harlaheim. You will know what to do when you arrive. You will see, you will sense your direction.”
Angeline bowed, feeling suddenly tired, her eyes heavy as the lights began to fade. The warmth of the cavern consumed her, inside and out. She held her blade tight across her chest, whispering her name as she sat in the wet grass and lay down to sleep. Just a little nap, then we will sing some more, you and I. Would you like that Charity? Angeline fell deep asleep, smiling.
“Angeline, Angeline, wake up Angeline.” A familiar voice, a man’s voice.
“I am awake. Wait, how did I fall asleep?” She looked around, the third tree, the banyan. She was lying on the stone floor next to the banyan tree. Yet there was no grove beyond, nor another past that, no lights, no music. Just a stone wall inside the mountain.
“I do not know, were you tired and fell asleep during your meditation? I found you here by the third tree, yet it appears you did not pass it. Are you well?” Larens showed concern, checking to see if she had hit her head or had a fever.
“So none of it was real? The Goddess, the tests, the sword?” Angeline looked to Larens, a lump welling in her throat.
“I do not know, was it?” Larens looked around.
Angeline felt by her side in the dark, a blade, yes, a golden blade with an open hand pommel and an angel and feather crosspiece.
“Charity.” She kissed the blade and stood up. “It was no dream, I passed the tests.”
“I know, Seirena told us. Come, you must be hungry. Your brothers are waiting for you, a feast in your honor in Ansharr’s cavern.” Larens smiled, knowing the will of the Goddess was miraculous and mysterious indeed.
Johnas III:I
White Spider Throneroom, Valhirst, Chazzrynn
“You are two days behind schedule and the siege is here. I suggest you hurry your men a bit faster in sealing our tunnels, Vanessa. Lest I leave you to the mercy of Prince Bryant.” Johnas paced, King Mikhail surrounding his port, Prince Bryant with four thousand outside the walls, and no word from Salah Cam on the progress of the war in the west. He had killed two of his own already today. One from an attempt to run and another who thought he was brave enough to take him with the blade and turn him in to the Chazzrynn nobility. He looked into a mirror in the hallway outside the underground throneroom under Valhirst.
“I will be finished within the hour.” Meek words eked out from the burned Caberran girl also known as Sapphire of the East. One of the Emerald Eight, deadly with a blade, had she chose to carry one, deadlier in the arts of the arcane. Vanessa was the appearingly helpless young wizard who was truly an internal spy for Johnas Valhera, her adopted father and master, among other things. With her arcane skills, she continued to meld the hinges of yet another tunnel door into the stone as to make it impassable. Then she would use another spell to color the wood to blend in turn with the stone, and then harden the wood to the strength of steel with yet more magicks. The process was tiring, taking hours for each doorway or tunnel, and there were dozens under Valhirst that led into the sanctum of the White Spider.
The blonde had strands of gray on the sides, he pulled his long hair back and gazed at his wrinkles around the green eyes and forehead that looked back from the mirror. He darted his eyes to his kris shortblade at his side with the dark emerald pommel, it was throbbing again, alerting him to danger. Johnas Valhera looked around, seeing no one but Vanessa Blackflame. “Are we alone, Vanessa?” The Prince drew his enchanted and very conscious blade.
“As far as I can tell, why?”
The Prince of Valhirst and patriarch of the worlds’ deadliest organization of criminals felt it again. An urge, a vibration, a sense from the blade passed down from his mother’s side of the family for generations. His mother dead twenty years or more, he and one other the last of his Valhera line, Johnas felt alone, the paranoia coming. He again looked at himself in the mirror.
“Stop.”
“My Prince?”
He held the blade up near his face in the reflection. “Stop, no one is trying to kill me.”
“Johnas, are you talking to me?” Vanessa paused and looked back toward the throneroom, seeing her master with his curvy blade near his green eyes and glaring into the mirror.
“No, just a conversation with myself. Carry on.”
Knock Knock, Bang, thud, pound, thud, knock!
The far door, left one into the main chamber was locked and unguarded, yet undeniably someone wanted in. Vanessa drew her wand while Johnas crept behind the door, blade ready.
“Open it.”
“Before we know who is out there?” Vanessa glanced at Johnas curiously.
“More amusing that way.” The Prince smiled.
“You are indeed going insane.”
“I am well aware. Open it, please.”
With a twist of her hand, an uttering whispered in the arcane tongue, and a quick point at the iron bars and locks, red light emitted in a strange ray from the wand and the bars lifted in opposing directions and the locks unlocked without a touch. The doors creaked open an inch, maybe less. Silence.
The stomping of armored boots, a dozen perhaps, began from but a few feet past the door. Suddenly, blue tabards, steel helms, falcon bearing banners and crests followed halberds and blades by men of the royal guard of Chazzrynn. Men under Prince Bryant Salganat, veteran soldiers that had been ruthlessly searching for hidden entrances into the rumored undercity of Valhirst, and now they had been let in. How they found their way past the walls, let alone here, seemed impossible.
“This way men! To arms!” One of the soldiers, a rough man with a black mustache and beady eyes held the rank and charged his men inside as Prince Johnas and Vanessa backed up across the mosaic of a white spider in the throneroom below the throne.
“Johnas Valhera!”
“Here Captain.” Johnas cautiously stepped back more toward the throne of ebony and onyx and emerald.
“You are under arrest by order of---Aaaahhh!” the captain fell from sight as he passed through the door on the right, two men following after to a life ending twenty foot fall onto spikes of steel as the floor slid from the weight.
“I never tire of that, no, not ever.” Johnas smiled as nine men paused, stumbled, went left around the hole in the floor.
Each one still dared a glance at the pile of bones and spikes. The moans of the still dying, the smell
of the opened shaft, the scattering of rats from the shadowy pit sent shivers up the spines of all nine remaining. Then there were five as black clad swordsmen plunged blades and daggers into the backs of the royal guard. Balric, the Harlian spy, thrust his saber through one then sliced the neck from behind with his shortblade. Fadim, the Altestani known as Crimson of the North, cut a fatal slash, then another, up then down with his curved shamshir and finished him with the curved dagger to the ribs. Oggidan, the one handed boy, thrust his locked gauntlet blade through the back of one man, then feinted a neck slash as his opponent turned. His blade plunged deep into the ribs as his man raised shield high, then his other hand drove a dagger into the throat of the man next to him. Four dropped dead.
“Niljiavu viaji vaal!” Vanessa opened her palm to the five left standing, flanked, and confused. Four lifted from the ground, twisting and reaching with their weapons, trying anything in their helpless screams and shouts.
They hovered over the pit, begging, dropping blades, surrendering, yet one boldly threw his sword at Johnas. The Prince stepped to the side and walked toward the fifth man, the only one standing on his feet. The doors shut loudly, the bars and locks only made him tremble more. He raised the kris blade to the man’s cheek. The sword mas matched by others, that of Balric D’vrelle, Oggidan, and Fadim, from every direction.
“Surrender.” Johnas grinned.
“Never.” As he spoke, he heard one of his men ignite in flame, scream as he had never heard screams before, and then be dropped into the pit. Burning flesh, heated rot, and moaning from those still dying from impalement filled the room as smoke issued upward.
“Surrender?” Prince Johnas smiled.
“I will die first, with honor and---“ Green mist shot from the wand of the Caberran girl in black robes. Hazily, as the sweat from the pressure was dripping from eyebrows to eyes, the guard saw the vapor dissolve the flesh from another hovering comrade, then into the pit he went.
“May I suggest something? Surrender.” Johnas took the longsword from the scabbard of his captive and walked to his throne.
The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains Page 7
