by William Ray
The GREAT
RESTORATION
A Tale of the Verin Empire
~
- WILLIAM RAY -
The Great Restoration is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is coincidental.
Copyright 2017 William Ray
All rights reserved.
Cover by Ramona & Adrian Marc
In memory of my Great Aunt Thelma.
She was always more of a sci-fi gal,
but I like to think Fifi would enjoy this anyway.
~
“Queen of Tulsmonia Found”
Refugees from the purges in Tulsmonia continue to escape from the ongoing chaos in that once proud kingdom. As mindful readers will no doubt have observed, several women have already emerged claiming to be the widow of the deposed magnar, Hamul Berengar. While the Workers’ Revolutionary Committee has repeatedly asserted their extinguishment of the Tuls’ royal lineage, rumors of her survival persist throughout the world, and a likely new claimant has emerged in Sakloch.
Doctor Gleb Nichols, formerly the magnar’s royal physician, has interviewed the woman at length and firmly asserts she is indeed the rightful queen of Tulsmonia. Even with the destruction of their kingdom, many loyal members of Tulsmonia’s deposed aristocracy will no doubt flock to her as the magnar’s legal inheritor. The Berengars’ fantastic personal wealth also extended well beyond Tulsmonia’s borders, and with sufficient political support, many believe she may be able to restore peace and stability to Tulsmonia.
– Khanom Daily Converser, 22 Ozr. 389
~
- CHAPTER 1 -
Dorna knelt patiently on the cold stone floor as the other Wardens entered the room and took places upon their knees alongside her. Each was wrapped in the identical green robes of their movement, with veiled hoods pulled over their heads, and only their eyes were visible; each seemed nothing more than an anonymous portion of the whole. Elsewhere, they were ordinary men and women of varying social rank, but here they shared a common devotion to a cause greater than any division raised between them by the world beyond.
With her hood drawn forward, and her face obediently downcast, Dorna could not see much more than the polished marble floor, but in the lair of the Malik Verdun, the Master of Wardens, she knew she was always surrounded by wonders of the ancient world. This meeting chamber held her favorite: a pair of tapestries depicting the ancient Elven court, embroidered in silks so fine that individual strands were nearly invisible to the naked eye.
An immortal Elven artist had used their centuries of practiced skill to painstakingly create images that were sharper and more alive than any photograph Dorna had ever seen. Whenever she looked at the tapestries, it was as if the windowless meeting room was somehow set amid the court of the Elven queen. The soft hiss of the room’s gas lamps would seem to fade away as the interplay of colors made her feel the gentle warmth of late spring and smell the sweet scent of the flowering trees just beyond the frame of the embroidery.
She had sometimes snuck here as a young girl to stare up at the image of the Elven queen, who had eyes of soft jade that seemed to hold measureless wisdom and a slight upturn of her lips that promised gentle compassion. In the tapestry, the queen was surrounded by attendants—the Master had named them her advisors. As a child, Dorna could not imagine what sort of advice they could possibly add to the perfection of their immortal queen, but now she wished they had warned her of the encroaching danger of humanity.
The tapestry across from it showed a panoply of Elves in elegant dress—the nobles of the realm, awaiting their turn to address the queen. The walls of that embroidered throne room were lined with knights resplendent in gleaming golden armor of polished elfsteel. The impudent armies of Dorna’s ancestors had never faced the Queen’s Guard, who no doubt still stood vigil over her, wherever she had gone.
The two tapestries, the Master had explained, were to remind the Wardens of the grandeur of those they served and of the beautiful perfection they hoped to restore. As the Wardens filled the room behind her, she could almost feel the queen’s approving gaze, overseeing the proceedings as if they truly knelt in her presence.
She suspected that nearly everyone must be in attendance tonight since perhaps forty or more knelt in fellowship, although Dorna was never sure of their true numbers. They rarely gathered so many together at one time, lest their passage here draw the attention of what lurked in the Oblivion, but the Master had warned that dramatic events were drawing to a head and that he would have assignments for them all.
Something imperceptible signaled the Wardens to silence. Dorna felt the call for it clearly, as she always did, though she never knew how. With the room stilled, she could hear the soft whisper of his slippers on the stone floor as he stepped into their presence.
Though she did not look up, she knew her Elven lord smiled down at her as he passed, and she felt a familiar shiver at his recognition. Despite their veiled hoods, he somehow always knew which one she was and always shared that secret smile of approval. As a little girl, she had occasionally peeked up to confirm it, but now she simply felt it and had faith in that presence.
After he passed her, she slowly raised her head, watching that movement echoed in turn by each row ahead of her, as the Master walked to the front of the room. Once there, he slowly turned to face the gathering as two Wardens from the first row pushed quickly to their feet and hurried by. Two large pieces of seemingly random jumbles of natural wood were pressed together by the Wardens behind him, interlocking like a puzzle to form his elegant throne, and the Master sat down without looking back, showing his complete faith in those who served him.
It was an honor shared by them all in rotation, but Dorna always felt a small sting of jealousy whenever it was not her turn. As always, she also felt a bit of pride for them as well—she did not know who they were outside of this company, but she was a woman of low birth and little money, and in a world ruled by mortal men, such honors would always be beyond her ilk. Here, Wardens were judged only by devotion and ability.
Seated, the Master smiled down at them, and raising his hands, he spoke. As always, he began with an invocation of the proceedings in classical Elven, the words of which none of them understood, but despite that, Dorna knew every syllable. His voice was melodious, perfect, and his words sang out in their hearts. It was a melancholy tune, but she felt it flow through her and felt a sense of deep communion in sharing the experience with the other Wardens.
Dorna’s whole body felt an electric shiver as she listened to the invocation, and she had to fight the urge to close her eyes and simply let the experience wash over her. The words were important, even if she didn’t know the language, so she moved her lips in time, silently mouthing each syllable to keep her focus upon them.
The movement of her lips was hidden by the veil covering her face, but she always bit her lower lip in embarrassment once the invocation ended, worried somehow the Master might notice what she was doing and take it as a sign of disrespect. By ancient tradition, Wardens were to remain completely still as they focused upon the words, and her silent mimicry was inappropriate. It was a solemn, holy moment, not to be disturbed by anything, but she worried letting her mind wander could be the greater sin.
The Master took a moment to smile benevolently down upon the rows of cloaked Wardens kneeling before him, but Dorna knew him well enough to see the sadness behind that gaze. He spoke next in melodic Verin, his voice as perfect and musical in the human tongue as it was in his own. “Loyal Wardens, you have served well,
and we draw ever nearer the Great Restoration. The imbalance brought about by wayward men can yet be undone. Glory and salvation await us all once the rightful sovereign of all peoples returns.”
Dorna resisted the impulse to look over at the image of the Elven queen, once the ruler of a nation at peace with the magical world, who had guided her realm with the accumulated wisdom only immortality could earn. Without that balance between the material and spiritual worlds that the queen had protected, crops were blighted, disease ran rampant, and people suffered. The Elves had ruled in a kinder age, and a comfortably prosperous one, until mankind’s greed destroyed the balance and forced the Elves into war.
The Master’s smile faded, and Dorna tensed for the news he had summoned them to deliver. “Alas, once again we face a blasphemy that must be resisted. Despite our efforts, loyal agents tell me that once again men conspire to raise their tower in celebration of the banishment of the elder race. Given their way, it will rise upon the very site of the queen’s palace.”
Around the room, there were hisses of anger from many of her gathered fellows, and Dorna was forced to clench her jaw to hold her own silence. With another speaker, they might even have broken into angry rumbles, but Dorna knew none of them wanted to risk missing even a moment of his honeyed voice.
The Wardens had worked time and again to prevent the desecration of what had once been the heart of Elven civilization. Their Master’s plans in that regard had been subtle and multifarious, disrupting attempts both high and low. For years, his will had shaped the human city’s relentless growth, carefully directing it around the most sacred sites to preserve them for the return of his people.
Dorna had performed several assignments for the Master to stop this very project, and though her last mission to do so had been a personal failure, the Master had stepped in to make things right. She had hoped it was finally settled.
After giving them all a moment to quiet themselves, the Master continued. “The city around us is no less offensive. Typically, another tower to human arrogance would be merely another expression of mortal folly.”
Dorna nodded sadly in agreement, and saw Wardens in the rows ahead of her doing the same. Unlike the Wardens of human myth, she had no hatred for her own kind, but she had seen the limits of mortal wisdom and the price of their impatience. As a young girl, her father had been worked to death by a callous foreman in the employ of an uncaring mine owner.
If the Master had not seen her promise and taken her in, the limited vision of human mercy would have seen her cast out into the street. It was that sort of benevolence that had won her to his cause, and she did not doubt the loyalty of many fellow Wardens had been earned by similar acts.
“This is worse, however, and not just for where it sits. At great personal risk, our agents have obtained the latest designs.” Their Master paused, as if pained by the import of his next words, and then said, “The twisted monstrosity they seek to raise there is a tower of iron.”
There were rumblings of outrage throughout the room. Even though she already knew of the tower’s design, hearing it again made Dorna’s blood boil with anger at the audacious effrontery of it. For all that men trumpeted their victory over the Elves, the Wardens knew it was not force of arms that had ultimately driven away their immortal lords, but the treacherous web of iron rails that had disrupted the mystic ley lines upon which Elven civilization had been built.
In ancient times, when rebellious men had first sought her overthrow, the Elven queen had mercifully banished them from her lands and forced them to fend for themselves. Men lacked the magical wisdom of the Elves, but over generations they learned to compensate. Dorna suspected they had known enough to purposefully lay railways across key points of the ley lines in a sinister effort to doom their former rulers.
With the flow of magic stifled, the Elves had been forced to withdraw from the world, and without their wise leadership, mankind continued to throw the natural order further and further out of balance. The Master was all that remained of that elder civilization, but he could not save the world alone. Each Warden was here because they knew everything now hung upon a precipice and had sworn an oath to help restore what had been lost.
For years they had secretly disrupted rail lines and other building projects the Master deemed dangerous to the Great Restoration. Dorna was no thaumaturgist, but if scattered railways were a problem, then an iron spire in such a key location was more than just an insult—it could well mean the end of the world. Even as she thought it, the Master spoke again and confirmed her fears.
“Your secret guardianship has nearly paved the way for the Great Restoration, but this tower places all your work in jeopardy.”
Across the room, a woman began to weep, and, whoever she was, Dorna hated her. Now was not the time for lament, and if Dorna had her way, that day would never come. They had sworn their oaths as Wardens, and in the face of such an affront as this, she felt no sense of defeat—only outrage and the urge to fight.
He spoke again, his voice soothing as he reassured them, “When foul spirits ruled the world, the Elves brought order and made the world safe for their vassals. When men embraced the gods of darkness, Elves and Wardens stood firm against it for centuries. Our queen aided Caerleon in his hours of need and defended him as he scaled the temple for Maladriel’s mirror. Throughout history, we have faced these challenges together. Together, we will thwart this tower. Nothing will stop the Great Restoration.”
A lesser speaker might have received an ovation, but feeling the honeyed grandeur of the Master’s words wash over them, the room fell silent. Dorna was pleased that no one interrupted him with their trivial gestures of approval. His majestic presence did not require their approval.
“You have passed through darkness to aid us, and loyalty is rewarded with service. All of you will have a role to play, but I have chosen three of you for a special errand that must begin immediately. The rest of you should return to your tasks and be ready for my instruction.”
The Wardens murmured the Elven chant he had taught them and then bowed low, their heads touching the floor. As the Master stood, the two Wardens at the front rushed forward and pulled apart the throne. They led the way out of the room, and as they passed each row, the Wardens kneeling there stood and filed after them in quiet order. In the hall beyond, they would no doubt quickly shed their cloaks and begin displays of merry camaraderie that Dorna always felt were absurd in the context of their collective mission.
Dorna remained kneeling, along with two others. She had not been told to remain, but somehow, she knew she was one of the three chosen. Her master could do many amazing things—appearing as a mortal man or woman, speaking without words, or swaying the thoughts of lesser minds—so when she simply knew a truth, she had learned to embrace it as his touch upon her.
The door to the hallway closed, muting the growing babble from those who had left. The Master smiled down at her again. She could not see it, with her face pressed to the floor, but she felt it in the shiver that passed down her spine. Somehow, just as she had known she was chosen, she knew it was time to rise to her feet.
In the hooded robes, she could not be certain, but judging by the bulky frame on one of them, she suspected it was Dougal. He was a dangerous man, if a bit indelicate, and was usually only called upon for important tasks. He was reserved for tasks in which the cause must sometimes override common moral restraint, and she worried his presence meant the Master did not trust her to go as far as was needed. That sign of doubt wounded her, but she resolved to embrace it. However dire their task, she would not flinch.
Nothing could be permitted to stop the Great Restoration.
~
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~
- CHAPTER 2 -
The sharp jostle of his shoulder shook him from dreamless haze into semiconsciousness, and was followed by an exasperated, “Gus, wake up!”
At first it was too bright to open his eyes, but the woman’s voice sounded urgent, so he pushed through the instinct to lay his head back down. Gradually, the world resolved into a brownish blur with light streaming in from behind him. He was seated, and a slight movement of his leg bounced his knee against the desk in front of him, pulling him even further from slumber. If the brownish blur was his desk, then this was probably his office.
Gus leaned forward in his chair, bracing his fingers against his forehead and setting his elbows on his desk to provide additional support when his head proved too heavy to hold upright. Emily would give him no peace, however, and pushed him back in his chair, saying something that did not at first resolve into any sort of coherent message.
The night prior was difficult to recall, and ignoring Emily for the moment, he tried to sort out how he got here. They had been paid a few days earlier, and the client’s promissory note had finally been negotiated into cash. With pockets full and having soundly embarrassed Detecting-Inspector Clarke once more, Gus had resolved to go out drinking and perhaps pick up a girl or two.
