by Kim Fedyk
Directly surrounding the pool were large dark green trees with huge leaves about half the size of Arleth’s body. They draped down on all sides, the leaves on some of the lower branches stretched into the pool and floated at the edge of the water. Farther back from the pool were all sizes, shapes and colours of flowers. One massive yellow flower in particular had caught Arleth’s attention. It was off to the side near the far wall of the courtyard, separated a little distance from any flowers around it. It had a thin green stalk that shot upwards from the ground and about four feet above the ground it divided into five separate branches. On each branch hung one long cone shaped yellow flower. Intrigued, Arleth had walked over to it and gently touched one of the yellow cones. When she did, a small pink vine had appeared from the top of the cone, almost like a tongue and had rubbed against her hand. Arleth had laughed delightedly and had stroked the flower as she would a favourite pet.
Arleth had wanted to spend hours in the garden looking and touching all the flowers, plants and trees. But the girl had grabbed her arm and pulled her urgently away, “Time for dinner,” she exclaimed as if this was the most exciting announcement she had ever made. Arleth had reluctantly followed her out of the courtyard but had made a mental note to return as soon as she could to explore on her own.
* * *
A few hours later after she had eaten dinner and helped the other servants clean up she lay awake in bed listening to the even breathing and occasional snores of the other servants sleeping next to her. Tomorrow morning she would be shown her duties and would begin her work as one of Absalom servants. She hadn’t seen Absalom since they had parted outside of the castle, but she assumed that either tomorrow or soon after he would call for her so she could describe in detail what the assassin looked like. She hoped it was soon; she didn’t want to forget any of the details. Arleth yawned and turned over on her side. What a marvellous, wondrous, exciting, surprising day she had had. This morning she had woken up in Tocarra as one of Bella’s slaves and tonight she was going to sleep in Oherra clear on the other side of the universe, about to start her new life as a servant to the handsome king Absalom. Contentedly, she nuzzled her head into the pillow, and closed her eyes. Within a few moments, exhausted as she was from the day’s adventures, she had drifted off into a deep sleep.
* * *
As Arleth slept peacefully, King Absalom was wide awake on the other side of the castle. Since returning to Oherra, he had been busy conversing with his chief military commander, Tom Buckrow. The giant had nothing new to report; in a stalemate of a war that had been going on for years a few days wouldn’t change things very much. But what had taken so long were the new strategies Absalom was going over with Tom. The commander had just informed Absalom that while he had been in Tocarra, Rogan had finally managed to create the first successful Imari. An Imari was the result of the combined minds of Rogan, Absalom and Tom; a ruthless, bloodthirsty and cunning fighting creature fashioned from dark magic. Upon hearing this today, Absalom had gone to see the creature for himself and had been more than pleased with the result. He had spent the rest of the day with Tom planning strategies and battle routes. Of course many more Imari had to be made, but Rogan was more than up to the task. He relished in this kind of work and would likely have hundreds made within a month’s time. It was Rogan that Absalom was now going to see.
He strode through the dimly lit private hall leading from his bed chambers to those of his sorcerer and knocked on the huge stone door. Gingerly Absalom placed the knocker back against the door. It was shaped like a human skull and Absalom suspected that it probably was a human skull. This was a new addition and Absalom thought it was a bit much, but right now he only noted it absentmindedly near the bottom of an ever growing mental list of things he needed to look at. There was a familiar grating sound and the door opened slowly inwards. Absalom found himself standing toe to toe with his sorcerer who stepped out of the way and beckoned Absalom to enter.
“Have you seen my Imari?” Rogan said immediately in his raspy voice by way of greeting.
“Yes it is quite pleasing, I believe it will give us a firm advantage over Aedan.”
“I quite agree. I aim to have three hundred created by month’s end. As you have seen, a straight combination works quite well, but I believe that I can also make enhancements to key features. Once I have tested the original models in battle, I will test out this theory.”
“What kind of features?”
“Longer talons, sharper eyesight, perhaps wings to scout out the mountains better. We will wait and see how the first models fare in battle. But I imagine that any of these adjustments will be a good improvement.”
“Of course of course.” Absalom was interested in the Imari but right now he had more important things to discuss. “I was successful in bringing her back with me.”
“I imagined so,” said Rogan, “I wouldn’t imagine that you would have returned without her.”
“Yes but the ... acquisition ... was not smooth.”
Rogan raised an eyebrow questioningly, “How so.”
“There was a complication. Val Odane followed me through the portal. He must have used one of those blasted concealing spells. He found Arleth and chased her halfway across the desert and through a city. It was lucky that I got to her first.”
“Aedan couldn’t have found out about her on his own. Only we were able to obtain that information, only we have the means, and I don’t believe in coincidence. Even if he had somehow managed to find out about her, it is hardly possible to have happened at the exact same time that we did.”
“Exactly,” said Absalom, glad that Rogan understood what he was getting at. “Aedan must have planted another spy in the castle, it is the only explanation.”
Rogan nodded thoughtfully, “I will cast some spells, lay a trap. Rest assured we will have them captured within a few days.” Rogan hesitated, something else had just come to his mind, “With such a complication how did you get her to come with you?”
Absalom smiled, glad that Rogan had asked this question. He never tired of showing off how clever he was, “It was quite easy actually, I fed her some nonsense about how Val was a member of a secret assassin group, I believe I used the name the Black Thorn...”
Rogan grunted in disgust. “Yes I know,” continued Absalom, “It was not the best name I could have come up with but it did the trick. I told her that she was the only one that had ever seen the face of one of these assassins and that was why he had chased her. I explained that I needed her to come with me so she could identify the assassin and through his confession I would be able to catch the rest of his group.”
“Not a bad story,” Rogan said approvingly, “I still think it would have been easier to just enchant her, with free will it can get... messy.”
“We have been through this,” said Absalom testily, “We cannot enchant her except as a last resort. Her abilities work better if her mind is her own, you said so yourself. It will be much easier to do what we need her to do if she does it by her own volition.”
“I don’t have to fully enchant her Absalom, I can leave her mind mostly intact. Just sway her will to our desires.” They were entering into the same argument they had repeated several times in the last couple of weeks. Ever since Rogan had realized that Arleth’s life was still being written into the Erum; when they had discovered she was still alive.
“That is too much of a risk,” Absalom responded. “As we both know, Arleth’s ability will make it harder to enchant her. If you only partly control her mind it is likely that it won’t work anyways... or worse. We have now read the Erum, remember how much trouble the last one, Jeneane had with her ability. She struggled because she wasn’t 100% confident in what she was doing. Her ability was shaky at best because she never fully believed in what she was using it for. If we partly enchant Arleth and it goes wrong, or if she is able to warp even a small fraction of the enchantment spell, think about what would happen? She wouldn’t trust us, and so ob
viously she wouldn’t trust in what we were getting her to do. Even if you were able to force her to use her abilities the way we want her to, she herself wouldn’t be confident and it would be Jeneane all over again. You would have to fully enchant her to erase any chance of that and then you Rogan would have to control her and her ability. No it is much smarter to concentrate our efforts on getting her to trust us.”
“And what if she doesn’t trust us after all of our efforts”
“If that happens then we will have no choice. Even enchanted, we will still be able to use some of her power. It will be better than nothing.”
“And, enchanted or not, after she has done what we want?”
“We will kill her. Once she knows her power, she will be too dangerous to keep alive.”
This effectively ended the argument, killing her was something they both agreed on.
Rogan stayed quiet for a few moments as if thinking, “You let Val back in the portal with you right?”
“Of course!”
“Then Aedan will be knocking on our door soon enough...”
Absalom smiled, “I’m counting on it. And I have a few surprises in store for him when he does.”
Rogan looked into Absalom’s eyes and smiled, “Humans are so sentimental. I’m sure Aedan won’t come here without a plan, even as tied to his human emotions as he is, he wouldn’t be that stupid. But it won’t matter though, once he comes he won’t escape.”
“No he most certainly will not.” And then I will have both of them, Absalom thought to himself. With Aedan captured, the rebellion would certainly lose force, but with Arleth on his side as well, there would be no way for his enemies to win. He almost regretted having the Imari now, it seemed like overkill ... almost.
Victory was sweet, but crushing, annihilating victory was much, much sweeter. Absalom smiled broadly and thought of how Aedan’s head would look sticking from a spike.
Chapter 11
Val slowly crept his way through the mountains. After losing Arleth through the crevice in the corridor in that Tocarran town he had heard Absalom’s voice and knew that he had lost. He had crept to the edge of the crowd and observed the exchanges between Bella, Absalom and Arleth. He knew in his injured state he was no match for the king as well as the two Grekens that had been standing with him. As much as he hated to give up, he had decided that it was better to admit temporary defeat and live to tell Aedan what had happened than to throw his life away meaninglessly. With that decision made, he had separated himself from the crowd and hidden himself in a small alley. There he had tended to his injuries.
He had ripped two lengths of cloth from the bottom of his shirt, tying one around his head and the other one, wider than the first around his chest. From his hiding place he had watched Arleth and Absalom walk by. He had waited a few minutes and then he had slowly crept out of the alley and followed them back to Bella’s mansion. He had hidden at the edge of her property, out of view but close enough that he could see when the portal was opened. He had managed to go through the portal without being detected and now, on the other side, he was making his way through the mountains to join up with Aedan and the rest of his friends. He was just at the edge of the inner ring of mountains and although he was safely hidden from view by Absalom’s patrolling soldiers, he could see down into the valley. The procession had just reached the castle gates and even though it was too far to see clearly, he knew that within a few moments Arleth would go inside the castle and it would become infinitely more difficult to reach her.
For the hundredth time since this morning he sighed to himself. If only he hadn’t failed. Now in his failure he was putting more people at risk. He knew that Aedan wouldn’t be upset; in fact he was likely not even to show his disappointment. Although younger than Val by two years, Aedan was the kind of man that Val felt honoured not only to know but to serve and call his best friend. That only made his failure even more upsetting though. He hated to let Aedan down. Especially in this case when the cost was so great, when so much was at stake. He knew Aedan well enough to realize that he would now take things into his own hands. He would go personally to the castle. He would feel responsible for Val’s injuries and would insist that he alone go.
They had all known that Val was likely to fail. Tobin had done a remarkable job in finding out about Arleth and in getting the information to them in time, but with no artefacts they had to rely on the Crystal Throne. And they had all known how faulty that plan was. There was slim to no chance that had Val been able to actually retrieve Arleth that he could have crept through the portal with the king and not been seen. But they had to try. At the very least, through trying they knew what she looked like and they knew for certain that she had been taken to the castle. Still, if only he had been able to get her....
With difficultly and with an annoyed shake of his head, he put his failure out of his mind for the present and concentrated on his path through the mountains. He walked a few more paces just along the inner ridge and then with practiced movements, turned sharply to the right and cut through a small crevice, travelling deeper into the mountains. Val knew these mountains well; he had been travelling their paths since he was a small child. He didn’t need to concentrate to navigate his way through, he knew their twists, turns and dangers as well as he knew his own body. But what he did need to be alert to were Absalom’s soldiers. The king always had them stationed near the mountains on the lookout for one of Aedan’s followers. They weren’t stupid enough, anymore, to actually venture into the mountains; they were Aedan’s home now and he knew how to defend them and lay an ambush. But that didn’t mean that a well-positioned guard wouldn’t see Val walking along the paths and report back to his master the route that Val had taken.
Their stronghold was safe; a large natural cavern in the mountains that had one small, easily defendable entrance and a narrow crevice in the back for a secret escape if need be. Their sorceress, Selene, had cast secrecy spells all along the passes closest to the entrance. If any of Absalom’s soldiers happened to pass by, they wouldn’t see the entrance.
If they were human, they would instead find themselves wanting to stare in the other direction or have a suddenly strong urge to return home.
If it was a Greken or another one of Rogan’s creatures incapable of human emotions, Selene’s secrecy spell made it so the creature would simply not see what was right in front of them.
In addition, Selene had cast powerful protective magic at the entrance itself as an added safeguard in case a lucky soldier did manage to somehow circumvent her secrecy spells. So far no one had and their stronghold was so well protected naturally, that very few soldiers had even ventured close enough to come within range of Selene’s web of secrecy spells. But that didn’t mean that Val could be careless and he continued to pick his way carefully through the passes. As he did, he thought about the hard years that had brought him here.
It had been 10 years since Val, his father, Aedan, Selene and a few hundred terrified Oherrans had first entered the mountains. It had been just after Absalom’s northern annihilation campaign. In three weeks time, Absalom’s armies had wiped out all five of the North’s thriving cities. Anand and Kresh had fallen first, within days of each other. Being taken by surprise, they had hardly even put up a fight. Next came Callis and Jyod. Jyod had been famed for its strong military and it had put up a good fight, holding Absalom’s forces off for almost a week. But it too fell and was utterly destroyed. The final northern city, Malek surrendered and opened its gates to Absalom’s armies. Absalom had been so enraged by this display of cowardice that he had singlehandedly butchered every member of its royal family and nailed their heads to the city’s walls. From all five cities, every man, woman and child that was not killed in the fighting had been captured and made into Absalom’s servants. Val shuddered to think about what had been done to these people; he well knew the nature of Rogan’s “experiments.”
Only a few thousand Northern citizens had managed to escape th
e slaughter. Many of them travelled south, to the fortified cities there or to neighbouring villages to warn family and friends. But hundreds had joined with Aedan.
More had joined later; most notably Winn Firwood the young lord of Jaya, a mid-sized city that lay about three miles outside of the mountains. Winn’s father had been a close friend and ally of Aedan’s and resultantly Winn and Aedan were childhood friends. After the destruction of the north, Winn made the rational decision to abandon his city, taking into the mountains with him every single citizen. Aedan had been overjoyed to have Winn and his formidable army, numbering in the few thousands.
Now, ten years later, Aedan was hiding near to fifteen thousand people from all over Oherra in his mountain stronghold. Seven thousand of these were his fighting force. Not nearly enough to lead a full out attack on Absalom, but enough that the war had been in a dead-locked bitter stalemate for the past six years. Aedan couldn’t defeat all of Absalom’s forces and Rogan was constantly making more anyways. But this didn’t stop Aedan from coming down from the mountains at dark, and with a handful of soldiers steal from Absalom’s men or kill them while they slept. Whenever Absalom’s armies ventured into the mountains or tried to cross them, Aedan would attack. The mountains were now his home and he knew them better than Absalom. Aedan always defeated Absalom in these mountain skirmishes. However, Absalom couldn’t kill or, much to his annoyance even find where Aedan’s stronghold was and so the two were locked in a stalemate, neither able to get the upper hand on the other.
