by Sam Sea
The barge was sturdy but had no closed space that could provide them shelter from the briskly night chill.
As they set around quietly and cold, Mikka felt very strange and uncomfortable stare.
"What are you looking at?" Mikka called on Lord Eirnar who didn’t take his eyes of her for the better part of the evening.
"You remind me on someone..." he said quietly, but the look of the staring eyes was hard for Mikka to interpret.
Mikka decided not to answer any more questions and turned her back to him.
"You reminded me on a little child, a spoiled little brat of a child, having a stick in her hands and slapping everything around it because she didn’t get the supper she wanted."
Mikka turned around again to look at him, ignoring how suddenly everyone stiffened up. "I remind you of a spoiled little brat of a girl, playing with the stick, and breaking stuff around?"
"Yes..."
"Well, good... Just make sure you never become that stick."
"You have no honor."
"No, I don't. I almost have nothing." Mikka hissed back. "But if you don't shut up, I'll make sure you have much less than I do, stupid!"
"Maybe one day we can see about that.."
"Why wait..." Mikka jumped up and flew over the fire. The houseless lord had just enough time to put his hand up and protect t his face as the heal of Mikka's boot stroke threw him six feet backward. But he wasted no time falling down and his sword was already out in his left hand. Mikka was faster, already behind him, and her boot was behind Eirnar’s knee before he could swing his sword, making him touch the ground yet again. Then her other leg kicked him forward, and he almost fell on top of his own sword.
It took more than a few seconds for him to pull himself up and wipe off the blood that ran down his face. Mikka was behind him, waiting, waiting to strike again.
Very slowly he turned his head around to look at her.
"You're a good little lord, aren't you? Anything else you want to tell me?" she was mocking him.
Lord Eirnar decided not to say anything, staring at her quietly, expressionlessly.
“But you better pick your words, ‘cause I’m tired and do not feel like playing with little lords right now. So why don’t you pull that funny looking toying sword of yours away, before I break it as if it was twig and shove it up your lord's ass?"
Eirnar chuckled then. It was not a nervous laugh, more of a relief laugh that lasted and spread around the campfire until everyone except Derran were laughing.
"You know I bet you could do just that," he said as he threw his sword down and with obvious pain went back to the campfire. "I bet you could do just that. But I had to see it firsthand how good you are anyway… I mean, anyone can strike from the back, but… No need to get upset, I just wanted to see what you made off…"
“Next time your curiosity might cause you your head…”
She is not of this realm... She may be taking the shape of a woman, but she may be devil for all I can say… I didn’t even see her how fast she moved… Nobody can move that fast, faster than a snake, faster than a thunder... Les thought as he glared with fear and admiration at Mikka.
"Faster than thunder..." his whispering words came out unintentionally.
"Yes, I thought thousands of men... some of the best fighters that dared to enter the court and face me…” Ronnich was admitting it reluctantly. “But never did I ever see anyone move that fast. She is…" the unsaid words lingered in the air for a while.
"Lord Eirnar, you are lucky she let you live..." the words of Grand Master finally took the smile of Eirnar’s face.
"Well, when I saw her first, I thought I will have to take care of her when swords starts flashing. But now, I think she can take care of us... All of us…" he tried to explain his behavior. “At least we know how good she really is...”
"No, I doubt you do..." Derran finally said. "Actually, I don't doubt. You have no idea how good she is. And her tamper is too short to be played with. So just, take her advise and shut up."
C
hapter 13 – Little Prince’s Big Problem
Two weeks have passed since the little prince Satorius found out about the misfortune which had befallen on his uncle. His mother tried to ease her own grief by spending countless hours in the church, praying for his soul. Little prince tried to ease his by feverishly burying himself in the books, reading and learning everything. The world of old suddenly became his own, and submerging in the stories of others buffered the reality he did not want to face. He would get so lost within the words that nothing seem to matter anymore. Anyone walking into his room didn't get more than 'good morning' from his lips. Everywhere he went, he went with a book in his hands or under his armpit. Nobody dared to bother him about that, but left him almost completely to himself. Until his father noticed his rare behavior and decided to confront him.
"You are my son, and you will be king one day! You have to learn to deal with all of that!"
"Yes, father," he quietly obeyed, but impatiently waited for the talk to be over so he could get back to reading.
"You have to accept the death. It will come on all of us, sooner or later."
"Yes, father."
"You will not lock yourself out of this world."
"No, father, I will not."
"I want you to go out and play with other children."
"Right away father," he hopped from one leg to another, hardly being able to wait to run outside.
"That's a good boy."
How things have changed. Just two weeks ago, he would have loved to see him staring at the book, and forbid him to go outside... It obviously was bothering him to see so much change inside his child.
The little prince could not understand that, and his father could not explain his worries right either. The boy felt suddenly that the wall that separated him from his father grew mountain high.
He decided that he would not listen to anything anybody had to say, and would not give up his books for any reason whatsoever. That implied sneaking off to places where nobody could see him, so he could read there in peace.
And there were many places in the castle and around it to hide, places people rarely visited, guest rooms that were always empty, wine cellars with huge barrels of wine, storage rooms packed with mountains of bags of grains, lonely towers and even secret passage ways. He read about his grand, grandfather, about the wildmen, about the men who once came across the sea, about the mystery of Trilton stone... He read almost without stopping, until..
Until one cold morning, the commotion outside had awaken him up, galloping of horses, and shouting of men. He raised his red eyes to look through the window of his room.
It was the sounds of so much excitement, too much for him to ignore it. And the site outside was indeed very intriguing. First of all, he never saw before the types of men riding into his family's castle. Their hats were decorated in pheasants feathers, their red robes were flying behind their backs, and flags of a . And they rode tall, strong stallions, beasts, a head taller than the horses they had around, their hoof cracking the frost which has frozen the road's ponds.
In the middle of them, rode a man in the thickest, whitest robe he had ever seen, its linings clearly done with gold threats.
He realized that he did not need to dress up to run out of his room as he fell asleep yet again in his clothes. He knew he could not go to the greeting room to witness this unexpected visit, but there was a secret passage way which could hide him right above the head of the deer... He hoped that they would go straight to the meeting room.
He ran through the corridors toward his parents’ room, and noticed the guards paying him no attention as they hustled toward the lower floor. He stepped in the corner behind a large stone statute of a young boy with a real sword in his hand. Pressing on a boy's heal, cracked the wall silently behind, and when he pushed upon it , a hole big enough for a grown man to sneak through opened up. As he got in, he remembered to shut it and prevent
anyone from ever finding him.
The light coming from somewhere above was plentiful that he could even read there, but reading he could wait for. He ran next to the book of Wart he left there a day ago, and made it behind the head of a dear in time to hear a strange voice speak to his father.
"We need to know where you stand? Will you join us? We cannot stand with our hands folded anymore."
"I will not do anything to provoke an aggression from other kingdoms! It took us a long time to iron the peace we have right now, and I will not risk it!"
"But my Lord-"
"I will not allow us to sip into another war! They have not been yet able to count the dead from the last war, and you want us to risk another one?" The little prince heard loud pacing of his father's boots before he continued. "We will not risk that. Is that clear?"
"Yes, my lord, but... I was never suggesting we go to war with anyone... They certainly know..."
"I do not know what exactly you were suggesting, but your complains are fully noted. I will not forget them as I meet with other royal houses in coming weeks. We will discuss your case, and, we will see what answers we can find."
"My lord, it is not only my case. IT is really for the benefit of us all. You must see that. What benefit could I ever think of getting from any of these? We are only after the truth and justice, and to make things as our gods intended to be..." The tone of their voice subsided down to a whisper then, and as they moved toward the window, he could only make up scattered words. He was ready to leave when his father and the man in the white robe walked to the door.
"I was not planning on going to Three Rivers for , but on account of all of these. I will hasten my departure. Coming early to the city will give me a plenty of time to straighten out any problems with other kings over these matter. Rest assured, I will do my best to address your issues."
"I thank you, my Lord."
"YOU are of course free to stay here overnight and rest. We welcome you as always..."
"I apologize my Lord, but as much as I would like to stay and share your warm hospitality, I am afraid I am needed elsewhere. I sincerely thank you for your invitation, but the duty requires that I travel fast for much is to be achieved yet before the Gathering takes place. And if we are to keep this peace last longer, I better make a good speed."
"I am glad you see it so yourself. It is good to have an ally like yourself and someone who is so committed to our cause. We can provide you with fresh horses, and whatever else you may need..."
"Thank you my Lord..."
As they were saying good-byes, the little prince wanted to have another look at the strange man dressed in that funny cape. It looked so plush and soft as a snow, trimmed with gold. But the chained symbol hanging on the man's chest was the one that interested him the most. He knew he saw it somewhere before. It was a pyramid made of green stones with its top pointing to the twin golden rings, one covering half of the other.
So, leaving his father alone in the reception room, he didn’t go back to his room. He took the secret passageway to the right, and followed it along the main entrance corridor.
He heard the steps of the men's boot joined by a soldier reverberate against the stone flour. Luckily they stopped right under the hanged tapestry of the kingdom's map. It covered a small window where the little prince had stuck his head in. Through the fabrics of tapestry, the little prince could see the balding head of the man in white, and moved his head further to catch another glance at the chain, moving the tapestry ever so slightly.
"So, then, what is to be done my master?" the voice of a soldier was subdued, and it hardly reached prince's ears.
"It was worth a try. Let the king think about it all. But we have no time to lose. We let them have orange lotus. Let the lotus flow to them all..." were all the words that the prince could make out as sneaky voice of the man in white soon became less than a breath of wind, and their walking-away steps covered it all.
"Tens of thousands may die..."
"If not more, but so be it..."
Tens of thousands? The little prince thought hard to think if he ever saw that many people in his life. Maybe four years ago when he went to the last Gatherings that was being held in Virtorland. Orange lotus... what does that mean? And that symbol, I am sure I saw it someplace.
The curiosity was just too great for him to go back to his bedroom. Instead, with his clothes blackened by the dust of the secret passageways, he went to the study, and started to take out all the books he could find on biology and symbolism. Soon, in the Great Book of Words, he found out that the lotus was type of a flower, the one that grows in water. But the book said nothing of the orange one. So, he searched more, going through any book about plants he could find. He climbed up on the ladder and went to those in the top shelves, taking out books that have been opened for years.
They were all taken cared off with servants making sure that the dust didn't settle on them for more than a few days. Some books seemed very old, and turning their pages seemed to be a very delicate process. Others seemed in such vivid colors as if they were made yesterday. He could not get to all of them. He knew some were locked away in a vault on the second floor with the key his father kept around his neck.
But going through them reminded him where he saw the symbol the man had around his neck. It was in the book he saw on the writing desk where his father would sit sometimes and write correspondents. The book was called The Making of the First Men, and the familiar symbol, although slightly different, was engraved on its leather cover. He found out that the two rounded circles represented twin moons of Bo‘Ra, a distant, mysterious place from where gods came from. Green pyramids were actually temples serving those gods. Many had been build before, but only one still survives, the one in Three Rivers. That much he could learn while reading the back and the front of the book, but most of its inside parts were written in ways he could not understand. He made a mental note to ask any of adults about that.
So he went back to other books. To his great disappointment, he couldn’t find anything about the orange lotus - he found about oranges the size of melons, and of a lotus that could ease a fever. Reading about it all, the sleep eventually overcome him with dreams of flowers and ponds and an orange growing on a lotus.
When his father found him there in the dark, buried among all the books, about a minute before his mother rushed in to the study all upset that their boy could not be found, he did not resist being picked up by his strong hands, and slowly carried off to his bedroom.
"Are you going to wake him up to tell him we are to leave for the Three Rivers first thing in the morning?"
"No, let him sleep. We will go as planned, and we will leave him a note, right next to his pillow. He may like that. In two weeks we'll send a car for him, so he will be able to join us there once all the festivities start. Let him rest now. But we do need to have a good talk with him once we see him in Three Rivers... This too is getting out of control."
"He is just a little boy, grieving in his own way..."
When he woke up later that day, and found his parents missing, he was not as disappointed as he would have normally been. The idea that maybe he will be able to find a second key to the vault popped into his head, and now with his parents gone, there would be nobody around to stop him from turning the whole castle upside down. It was all his for taking.
The only troubling thought was that he would have to go in a month to Three Rivers. The idea of festivities and seeing all the crazy performing artists swallowing fire and daggers seemed suddenly not to carry any importance for him. But then his new tutor Siro, who was but five years older than him, skinny and tall, informed him how there were libraries in Three Rivers much bigger, and that he would certainly not be bored with over millions of books there to go through.
"Hundreds of thousands of books?" The little prince could not believe it.
"Yes, I've been to the library myself many times. And I will be glad to show it you."
; "And you can look at any of them?"
"Of course you can - anyone of noble blood can do that."
"I...I want to go there? Can we go there earlier? Tomorrow?"
"No, not tomorrow... Your parents were specific."
"Fine then. But I want to send the crow to my parents, asking them that I would like to study in the library of Three Rivers and would really like if they let me come to the capital a bit earlier."
"That might work. If you put it like that, they probably would let you come early. Maybe I can even help... I can maybe tell them that we want to go to the library to study...?"
"Plants?" The little prince was trying to finish his sentence.
"Exactly... we would like to study all the books about plants. And then I would take you and we would find all the books about plants...
The little prince was very pleased with that. He was sure his parents would approve.
"But you know what can be a good asset if you want to studying plants?" His new tutor suddenly asked him. "It's knowing how to draw them. So maybe today we can get some paper and I can teach you how to draw." But little prince's mind was already somewhere else.
The next day when the prince woke up, it was already past high noon. He had missed the departure of his father and mother in a big red coach with their banners flying high, and the noise of hundred or horsemen flanking and following it. In the back, other coaches followed, and more soldiers still. Even the drums rolling and people cheering could not bring him around then.
But as the sun made through the sky, he finally yawned and started to twist in his bed. Not a minute later, Serta, his old wet nurse had rushed in through the door.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her still unable to fully open his eyes.
"Your parents asked me to watch after you, and I told the sergeant guarding your door to let me know immediately as soon as he hears you making any noise. Your mother left some instructions to be followed, and you are not going to run away on me again... Not this time."
