by Beth Wangler
Blessing
Beth Wangler
Copyright © 2018 Beth Wangler
All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
ISBN: 1986918041
ISBN-13: 978-1986918046
For Abbie,
My first fan,
And for the One who gives all blessings.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
CHAPTER 1
T here once was a kingdom named Clachan. It used to be a dark kingdom where the sun seldom shone, a land barren and shrouded in mist, until on a day far back in history a powerful magician with a good heart came to the land. He beheld its desolation and was dismayed, because he saw what it could be if only it were ruled by the right people.
The magician made it his life’s mission to find just such monarchs. He searched high and low, near and far, until at long last, when his hair had turned grey and then white, when his face grew lined with deep wrinkles, when he could no longer walk without the aid of his staff, he rested in the home of a lowly peasant family by the name of Weaver. The mother was kind and strong. The father was wise and compassionate. They had two happy children, a boy and a girl, who perfectly combined the best qualities of their parents. Before he went to bed that night, the magician knew he had at long last found the rulers Clachan needed.
He told them of his search, and though they thought themselves unworthy, they eventually agreed to the magician’s wish. He took them to the land, and there he crowned them, giving them this blessing: “May this land ever draw its strength from the purity and fortitude of its rulers’ hearts.” As a sign of the magician’s blessing, a heart-shaped mark appeared on each Weaver’s shoulder, a mark found on all the succeeding generations as well.
For the rest of his life, the magician stayed in Clachan as the royal adviser.
The land was immediately transformed. Green, thick grass covered the hills and valleys. The soil was rich, dark, and moist. The mist disappeared, replaced by a healthy sky. Animals came to the land to nest, burrow, and den. People followed, just a few at first, then multitudes who flocked to the good, hale land. Forests grew where at first there were only grassy hills, rich forests full of vibrant flora and fauna.
For hundreds of years, the Weaver family reigned. The kingdom prospered under them. Droughts and bad crops were few and far between. Illness, though present, was much less than in other kingdoms. Crime was nearly nonexistent. Wild animals lived at peace with humans and did not attack them. Few fires scoured the land. Clachan was at peace with itself and with its neighbors.
Then tragedy struck. To the east in the kingdom of Poldar there arose an evil king, Eric of Kangraff. He turned his greedy eye on the kingdom of Clachan, amassing his armies, and, in the middle of the night, he attacked.
High in the castle, little princess Elaine slept on her feather bed. Her mother, the queen, rushed into the room, gathering the little girl’s most serviceable shoes, plainest dress, and warmest cloak. She knelt by Elaine’s bed and stroked her daughter’s soft, straight brown hair. “Lainy, wake up,” the queen whispered. The girl stirred and opened her crystal blue eyes. “Dearest, you must get dressed.”
“What is it, mamma?” Elaine asked sleepily, getting up as the queen helped her dress.
“There are bad men here that your father is dealing with.” The queen knelt before her daughter, settling the warm cloak around her shoulders and pulling the hood up. “Derek, your father’s valet, is going to take you to his house for a while.”
Elaine, still muddled with sleep, saw the truth masked in her mother’s words. For the first time, she felt fear. She wrapped her arms around the queen’s neck and held on with all her strength, and started crying. “I don’t want to leave you,” she protested.
The queen was crying, too, as she handed the princess to Derek, who waited just outside the door. “I know, darling. You must. You will be safe with Derek, and his little children will be your friends. You’ll come back someday, I promise. Hush, dearest Elaine. Do not worry.”
Yet worry was all Elaine could do as she held Derek’s hand and ran to a hidden panel in the wall, covered by an engraving of the first Weaver king. Derek pushed on one of the king’s fingers, and a doorway appeared before them. The valet took a lantern from the wall and led Elaine into the deserted passageway. When they were safely inside, the doorway closed. No one who did not know the tunnel’s location could follow them.
The king would have stood against King Eric of Kangraff and probably defeated him, but for one thing: King Eric had on his side another magician, named Ivan, whose heart was not good like that of the magician who found the Weavers. Ivan the magician assured King Eric’s victory.
Clachan fell to the monarch with a poisonous heart. The kingdom collapsed into disease. The dark mists returned, only this time they brought cancer and insanity. The water was foul. The crops rotted before they were ripe. The royal family was presumed dead.
But Elaine lived in hiding, adopted into the family of Derek the valet. Their home was far from the eye of King Eric, in the center of what once was a flourishing forest but now was mainly a treacherous woodland wilderness. There they struggled to find food for the parents, grandparents, seven children, and princess. They knew hunger, they knew cold, but they, more than their desolate countrymen, knew hope, for they had the princess, and in the presence of her pure and good heart, the forest immediately around them was less affected by King Eric’s poison than was the rest of the land.
Life struggled on for a dozen years, with little divergence but the worsening of things.
Then Elaine turned eighteen years of age, and everything changed.
Chapter 2
I van! Where is Ivan the magician?” King Eric barked, storming down the castle’s dark hallways. He held cupped in his hand an item that seemed to almost cause him physical pain and certainly was the cause of his anger.
“He-he’s in th-the observat-tory, y-your Majesty,” a slave squeaked. He cowered against the wall, expecting fierce blows.
The matter at hand was greater than the king’s pleasure in abusing his human possessions. He marched through the halls and upstairs until he reached the magician’s observatory. There he stopped, seething with anger. Ivan the magician was indeed there, standing with his back to the king, leaning heavily on a table, his head bowed.
“Ivan, you promised,” King Eric finally said. His voice was more composed than when he addressed the slave. “You promised, but look at what the royal guard found.” He opened his fist. There, on his palm, lay a small, white flower with bright green leaves.
The magician laboriously turned around. His shoulders sagged and
his face was harrowed. When he beheld the wilting flower, he released a deep sigh. He spoke with great effort. “There is a deep and ancient magic at work in this land, Eric. Its subtlety is such that for years I detected nothing of its power. I thought it was crushed when we defeated King Weaver, but it only lay hidden these twelve years.”
“What are you saying, Ivan?” the king asked.
“There is a child who survived, the Princess Elaine,” Ivan said with great solemnity. “This magic rests on her and is the antidote to our magic. Today she came of age, and the magic that lay mainly dormant now bursts forth, unraveling our power over the land.”
Ivan the magician paused and briefly paced. He seemed to consider what to say next.
“Speak, Ivan,” the king requested. “Leave me no longer in suspense.”
The magician ceased to pace. “Eric, I have searched the stars these past weeks. Let me speak plainly: The Princess Elaine will be your downfall.”
Eric’s face turned pale. He was quiet, searching for a way out in Ivan’s pronouncement. “You have been wrong before,” his tone was one note away from pleading. “You said no one could stand against me.”
Ivan touched his index fingers to his lips in thought. “Though my intent has proved erroneous, my words have not yet lied,” he realized. “I said no man would stand against you, and the Princess is no man. No, Eric, there is nothing I can do, for this word does not come from me. I simply relay to you the course of the stars.”
Eric stood straighter. “Great beings can alter the courses of stars and even wipe them from the skies. My mind is decided. She cannot defeat me if she is dead.”
Having spoken, he strode from the observatory with new purpose, leaving Ivan the magician shaking his head.
Chapter 3
A t King Eric’s command, all the slave hunters in the kingdom assembled in the main cities.
“Hear this proclamation of his Majesty King Eric,” the messenger read aloud to the gathered hunters. “There is a particular girl in the kingdom who Ivan the magician has instructed the king to find. She is just eighteen years of age, with straight brown hair and clear blue eyes. Whoso brings in this one girl shall be rewarded with fifty thousand coins of pure gold, an equal amount in pure silver, and the title of baron, together with the forgiveness of all debts and crimes. Until such time as this maiden is found, there is a moratorium on all debt and criminal investigation, in order that the highest number of qualified men possible may search for the girl.”
In the crowd was a slave hunter by the name of Brandon Founder. He was young for a hunter, only twenty-two, but all acknowledged he was one of the best. When he was only seventeen, Brandon’s parents died in a flash-flood, leaving him to take care of his younger sister Claire. Soon after, she lost her mind to the poison mist and burned their house to the ground.
Homeless, parentless, and jobless, Brandon found a family who would take care of Claire for a monthly wage. The only course open to him was becoming a slave hunter, the despised mercenaries of King Eric’s rule who lurked in the dark and captured men, women, and children who strayed too far from civilization alone. Determined to become successful, Brandon first became the apprentice of a local tracker who taught him how to read on the earth the story of those who traveled it. A year later, Brandon hiked into the outskirts of the kingdom. There he excelled at hunting, bringing in more slaves than anyone else; and there, his grief consumed him.
Mourning for his parents and sister, eaten by guilt at divesting people of freedom, he followed the path of his elders and nearly lost himself in drink, until he had to borrow great sums to pay for Claire’s care and his own liquid crutch.
Fifty thousand gold coins, fifty thousand silver coins, and the forgiveness of all debts was just what he needed. He could take care of Claire himself and quit the slave trade. If this eighteen-year-old girl was the key to his retirement and, he hoped, redemption, heavens help the poor girl, he would find her and bring her in before the week was out. Taking a deep gulp of ale, he shouldered the pack that contained all his worldly possessions and strode out into the rain.
Finding a specific person, he reasoned, was more difficult than finding any person whose path he should stumble upon. Brandon began, not by striking out on his own, as was his habit, but by tailing a group of hunters who agreed to split the reward between themselves and went about inquiring after the brown-haired, blue-eyed girl. The other men were baffled, as was he, by how they should recognize the right girl with these minimal descriptive guidelines.
Darkness fell. Since Clachan fell to the kingdom of Poldar, being outside at night was more dangerous than the average person desired to face. The group of hunters, with Brandon trailing them, headed to the nearest tavern for warmth, shelter, and the possibility of news.
They settled loudly in front of a roaring fire, calling for drinks. Brandon wrung the water out of his cloak and hung it on one of the pegs by the door. After ordering a room for the night and a mug of beer, he settled into the shadows, near enough to hear and see all but quiet and removed enough to not be seen.
“Ho, boy, what are you doing all the way in here?” a loud, burly man called out, ambling over to see his friends.
“Bruce! What ho! You’ve returned so soon?” they greeted Bruce the Brute, a famous hunter.
“Aye, and just in time to hear what that the king issued a proclamation in my leave,” Bruce laughed. “Happen you tell an old mate what all the fuss is about?”
“Gladly!” they exclaimed. “Here it is: The king’s out for a eighteen-year-old girl with brown hair and blue eyes. Says he’ll give five thousand gold and silver, baronetcy, and free pardon to him what brings in the very one. We all’s come up as partners, lookin for this very lass. Happen you join us?”
Bruce the Brute’s face was surprisingly thoughtful for such an oaf of a man. “Sure and I will,” he agreed. “Now, lads, listen you. It happened so long ago I near forgot, but you remember my old neighbor, what used to valet for the king?”
“Aye, we do.”
“Well, now, see this. It was all very hushed up, but just about the time old Beardface attacked, they got themselves another daughter, though you could hardly tell, they had such a passel full. Now, there I was visiting not five days ago, and I hear them call her ‘Elaine.’ I thinks to myself, ‘Ain’t that the self-same name as our poor dead princess?’ And get this: Her hair’s brown and her eyes’re blue, though ol’ Derek’s family’s all fair-haired and dark-eyed.”
Unconsciously, Brandon leaned forward as Bruce spoke. It was unbelievable. His mouth fell open. Could it be? The princess was still alive?
“Reckon she must be the one the king wants,” they concluded, and raised their mugs. “To Brucey, who’s brought us luck this day. Come morning, we’ll be off to catch us a fortune!”
Did it matter that their prey was the princess? Brandon debated inside. It should, but a mere girl could not rule a kingdom or defeat a king and a magician. Besides, if he didn’t get to her, a thousand other hunters would, hunters more likely to abuse her before turning her in. He could not prevent it, so he may as well benefit from it. That decided, he headed upstairs to his room, stripped off his sodden boots and clothing, and fell instantly asleep.
Floorboards creaking in a silent building woke him. He glanced out the filth-streaked window and groaned. Surely Bruce and his boys would not be up yet, especially after consuming so much drink the night before. The sky was barely starting to lighten. Yet another creak and a footstep further down the hall convinced him he could not ignore whoever was up. Quietly, he tiptoed to the door and peeked out into the hall in time to see a grey head disappear down the stairs. It was an elderly man he remembered seeing downstairs the night before, listening raptly to the brute’s story with wide eyes. Brandon decided he had enough time to follow him and return before the others left.
Thankfully, his boots and clothing had dried by the heat of the small fire in his room. He dressed in seconds, carrying his boots a
s he walked close to the wall to avoid causing the floorboards to squeak, until he reached the tavern door and slipped them on.
The old man was gone, but Brandon’s sharp eyes picked up his trail as easily as if he had left behind footprints of bright yellow. He followed the trail to the stable, where he saddled his own horse and followed the freshest set of tracks in the post-rain mud.
Once outside the city, it took him no effort to follow the trail. He nudged the horse into a gallop, wondering what the old man was about.
Chapter 4
E laine, wake up!” an urgent voice whispered as someone shook her.
The girl jolted herself from a deep sleep, dread overtaking her. She had been dreaming of the night her mother woke her and sent her away with Derek, and it seemed to her that she awoke into the same nightmare.
Derek and his wife stood beside her bed, holding her clothes and a full bag. “Lain,” the mother said, “You must get ready.”
“What has happened? Is Jeremy alright?” she inquired about their oldest son who had gone to trade in the city the day before. He was not expected back for two days.
“Jeremy is fine, as far as we know,” his mother said.
“It’s you who is in danger,” Derek said, leaning on his crutch. “Old Albert just came to tell us grievous news. Child, the king knows you survived. He has every slave hunter in the kingdom out looking for you. Old Albert heard some of them talking last night; they’ll be here in hours.”
“It’s no longer safe for you here with us.”
Elaine pushed out of bed and went to dress behind a curtain. Where could she go? This was her refuge, her hiding place. Everywhere else was King Eric’s. “What can I do?” she asked the couple.
