Chapter Two
Book Two
1/
The calm summer morning spread throughout the land, casting a grayish light through the light gray rain clouds. It wasn’t raining yet, but sometime that day it would be. The inhabitants within the Serenian castle could feel the itchy moisture waft inside and make most of the chambers within smell sweetly musty. But those within the Great Hall easily ignored the distinct signs of rain, for an important audience was being held on this gray morning.
This particular meeting of the King’s Council was going against her favor. She had weighed the pros and cons of accepting the rumored challenge equally. He was the King of Serene, an indispensable being in these rocky times of Tribal clashes and uncertainty. He was also a short-lived Human of no real Tribe. He was to fight a possible magic user, a dangerous man, and of course, a devious man as well. If one used only these facts and these facts alone, one would get an almost clear-cut answer to this troubling problem. But Avaery was sure none of the other advisors to Graveis would see it all in that simple of a light. No, they said the people’s confidence in the King was very low, that this duel would restore him into their good graces.
On the left side of the Audience Hall sat a red haired man clad in armor seated closest to King Graveis, the Master of the Guard. Beside him was the First Escort of the King and following him down the Western wall were other high-ranking Guard Generals and the Head Librarian. The Head Librarian, Conoaminee was a wise woman, and one of the few people after the War to remember the true meaning of the Legends. She could read and understand omens of the Goddesses, a talent lost upon the masses that had forgotten the true heritage of the Land.
On the Eastern Wall Graveis’s other important advisors sat. Avaery sat on his immediate right showing her high-ranking status and importance to the Royal Family. Crimson Shaki war paint striped the apples of her cheeks and she was dressed in the formal Shaki maiden’s armor, armor that had been passed down generation after generation since the tribes were first created. It was made of rigid petrified silk that had been meticulously cut and spelled into linked form. From a distance it look as if it were a chain mail dress that held by one shoulder strap that ran from the swell of her breasts down to a handkerchief bottom just below her knees. On top of that she wore a simple sapphire surcoat with billowing sleeves. Black shin-tight and knee-length shorts ran under all of her attire, and a steel choker played about her neck, its main purpose to protect her neck in a battle. Her dazzling appearance was only tempered with the annoyance blatantly held in her eyes. The rest of her face remained neutral for the time being.
So patiently Avaery listened and waited in her seat for her next allotted time to speak and argue. Meanwhile the average-height
, muscular-built man clad in armor stood. Now the Master of the Royal Guard had the floor.
“Your Majesty, it is true, it would be dangerous, but your must restore the people’s trust in you. Without the people’s faith how can you be an effective leader?” The stentorian voice bellowed throughout the large hall. Graveis seemed to contemplate these words. The armored man’s dark blue eyes glittered in anticipation.
Oh yes, his argument was well thought out, well planned. What he spoke was true. Even if the monarch of the Land made a decision, any of the Tribal Counsels could try to gain support of the others and then overthrow the decision. And it was no secret that a large group of Gerudy radicals wanted to see the challenge go through. And not event the Gerudy Empress Kunata could overthrow the Tribal counsel. Avaery sighed. There had once been a time before the War, when the monarch had absolute power, and all the Tribes and Counsels supported the wise and true decisions that they had made. Only until the bloodline of the family had weakened, and its members began to marry true magic-less humans, had the decisions of the monarchs become confused and started to hurt the land. This drew the other tribes to wonder if the divine power that kept the monarchs all knowing was being diluted by these marriages. From that point on the Tribe of the Blood of the Royal Family stood for all of human-kind and not just those who were gifted with the magic to wield the magical weapons, to pull spells from the Dreamers’ River, etc. That is when the Royal Tribe had become too weak, and those against the Family began to plot against it. Not too long after that the War had taken place.
Graveis’s eloquent and strong voice filled the audience chamber, echoing in and out of the peaks and falls of the ceiling.
“So it is to be believed that if I do not take this Challenge then I will lose the Tribal Counsels’ favors? It would be impossible to rule the Land under such terms. Yet, I would be taking an even greater risk with my life in order to save the ties that keep me in power. Is there not anyone person who can rationalize this upon my Counsel?” Obviously the King was neither pleased so unhappy with both points. There was still time to sway him, though Avaery.
Avaery stood and peered her almond midnight eyes at all of the King’s Counsel members and spoke.
“This man who seeks revenge without mercy for Ardunaze’s life, do we honor him? Ardunaze a great and terrible man, the enemy of our Land; he was a monarch in his own right, but does that mean we honor the creator of the War that almost destroyed that was all and good in our world? Seems unlikely, no matter what the consequences. But then you decide Lord Grace, do you pay with your Kingdom or your life.”
And down she slowly but regally sat in her seat awaiting the final decision. King Graveis rose to his Counsel eyes filled with sudden power.
“Well said my counsel. A terrible man Ardunaze was. All the more that I have decided to slay his son, this man shrouded in mystery. The Challenge will be held, and I will fight for a better hold upon my Kingdom and the Tribes. If I should fail, which I promise I will not, Valruuah is of age to rule the Kingdom. But all across the countryside, let it be known this King will fight!”
All the Counsel members all left their seats, applauded and cheered. All but two. There Avaery stood looking diagonally across the Audience Hall to the other seated and equally grim-looking woman. Conoaminee as well already knew what would become of the already seemingly foul Challenge. She nodded at Avaery and stood to bid His Majesty adieu for the time being. Taking the hint, Avaery left the Audience Hall as quickly as her walking would manage.
* * *
Atop the south tower’s roof garden at the south edge, Avaery sat watching the three men on horseback ride out the main gate in three separate directions across the plain. The sky was cloudy above her and reflected the mood of her day. But she let the particular thoughts from the today’s counsel meeting drift away watching the men ride away. Below her, the main gate into the castle town boomed into place; slowly the drawbridge followed with its chains rattling slowly from the pulleys to the large coils that were then wedged to make it stay in place.
The left most horse sped across the field toward the valley in the Southeast to a cooler and more temperate climate that held the forest of the children of the wood. Lying among the towering white pines off in the distant a deserted utopia stood witness to the devastation of the War, which had wiped-out the true heirs of the Goddess Faroary to absolute extinction. The beautiful city was once home to the race of elves that had lived there as one half of the Forest Tribe. Now they lie buried in unmarked graves somewhere in the great expanse of the Serenian Field, the great plain that stretches to bring together the many diverse regions of the Land. The only ones inhabiting the once great city of elves now were Ebel and his only remaining child, the young and innocent Alexandra. As the last of the great elves, they both watched over the peaceful Kochi, the mixed blood of the Forest Tribe that remained immortal children their whole lives. Dying of sickness or old age was unheard of: only the murder by another magic being could kill one of the Kochi. But the cool drizzle of the now falling rain brought Avaery back to the present.
The second horse now halfway to cloudy noonday horizon was heading south by southwest. Toward the Lake Heroness it galloped to be greeted in a few days time by the large, looming cliffs of the Gerudy Desert. There the message of the King’s challenge would travel to the Emporess of the Gerudy, Kunata Chimora. The Gerudy were a hardy yet unsavory tribe at times. They cultivated the desert with the annual floods from the Lake and the Zoraina River that wound from the eastern mountains down to the lake. Their magic was derived form the power of the rubies mined for the mountains and cliffs near their homes, and while some of the members of their tribe were nomadic, they tended to stay resident to their metropolis built near the Empress’s permanent home, the Gerudy Fortress. They were feared my many humans after the Great War that Ardunaze had created the many years earlier . . .
The rain begin to fall more steadily as Avaery pulled the signs for parts of a shielding spell out of the Dreamers’ River. The spell pushed out of her physical being to her aura and then out a few more feet to create a rainless dome of transparent light around her.
Through the pouring rain, the third messenger horseman could barely be recognized as he passed over the hill that was fading point of the horizon. That particular messenger would have the roughest ride. Going up in to the mountain passes to the now human villages of Melon and Midenville was surely no treat compared to the steady rides the other men’s rides. Long ago, both the human thriving towns had been Shaki villages. There were times when she was younger that Avaey had felt that she had even been there, but in time she had learned that those were borrowed memories copied into her mind from those that come before her. She had never truly been in the Shaki’s land, and it irked her that many times she found herself confusing her ancestor’s memories with her own. Avaery always felt she shared her mind, which she thought should be a sacred place, with many other people.
As Avaery brought her hand up to her waist to readjust the broad belt that held her scabbard in place, she noticed how heavy and sodden her clothes were. In the time she had spent thinking, she had forgotten to keep the spell for her water-resistant shield going. Dismayed at her soaked apparel, Avaery stood, ready to leave the rooftop, and return to the warmer chambers inside the castle. With one last look, she scanned the Serenian Field for any signs of the messenger horses in the distance. As she had thought before she checked, they had all passed over the horizon, just out of her view. They were well on their way to delivering the King’s decision across the land.
Just before leaving, she whistled some spelled notes into the air and felt their warmth speed away and divide into three smaller harmonies. With that spell of quick journey toward the three horsemen, she walked toward the heavy wooden door that would take her inside. It would seem that Valruuah’s late afternoon lesson would be conducted inside today.
2/
On the north side of Melon, in the slums, Karri’s Inn stood on the dead-end of Bainary Lane, a small little alleyway that came off the second main road of that end of the city. It was mainly an overcrowded residential area where no one asked questions and the inhabitants of the huts and small family tenements found simple pleasures in sitting on their front stoops with no passerbys taking a moment to look upon them. It was just rude and cruel to take away one of a poor man’s only contentments. So, that’s exactly what Funatoke did as she walked out of Karri’s Inn.
It had been simple enough, she thought to herself as she looked straight ahead down the long alley that connected to the main road somewhere across the next hilltop. Of course a passionate afternoon in a woman’s bed and some strong alcohol always seemed to be enough to loosen a man’s mind. When Funatoke wasn’t with Gondrake, she used her talents in the fine arts of sexual pleasure and hired murder to scrap up money to live on. But today, both those talents went toward a mission for her beloved. After the hour of sickeningly bad sex and the pillow-talk interrogation, Funatoke finally had received the information she wanted from the drunken man. Not only that, a pleasantly surprising sum was paid for her services, much higher than she had asked for. Nevertheless, killing one of Kunata’s higher ranked guards cleanly had been difficult; his magical aura was protected with higher forms of Gerudian ruby magic. A shielding and reflecting sign was hard to create and even harder to break, and thank Goddesses she had detected them during the sex. *Of course what was there to keep my mind on?* Funatoke thought absently. Nevertheless, she had completed the kill cleanly and succeeded in disposing of the body with controlled flame magic. Swept into the hearth, it would look as if she had prepared an afternoon supper for them both to share with the strong wine she had cleverly laced with muscle relaxers. Pity she wasn’t a good cook for summertime meals. Funatoke frowned at that thought but kept looking straight as she finally came to the end of the alley.
As she turned right onto North Sarry Road, a little black-letter bound book appeared from within the linen pack strapped to her back to her left hand. With a spelled thought, it flew to the front of her face and flipped pages until she found the desired page. Funatoke’s eyes flicked to the very top pf the left page where scrawled across was a line of her handwriting that read: The Rubian Knife. Down the page she read until she had completed the section of notes on what the now deceased Gerudy guard had to say. There wasn’t much to know: the knife that Gondrake sought was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere within the Gerudy cemetery. Everything else she knew about it was common knowledge between her and Gondrake. The dagger was a royal heirloom to the royal line of the Gerudy and was the key to the Gerudy Temple. That was all she knew besides the mainly idle notes about its shape, weight, and properties. With another thought spell pulled from the Dreamers’ River, the small black book snapped shut and dissolved from the air in front of her face back into it’s water-resistant pouch inside her pack. As she did so, Funatoke almost walked into another dirty-faced pedestrian scurrying down the road in the opposite direction. With an angry scowl toward the back of harried man’s head she walked on toward the stable yard that kept her horse.
A square, open patch of land circled by a tall wooden fence sporting some barbed wire around the outside of it was the sight that greeted Funatoke as she walked up. Off to the side and outside of the ring of fence, a small hut and some covered stable houses stood with old, elegant carriages standing to bridge the gap between them. It was strange in this part of Melon to see such nice taxi carriages in a public stable house and Funatoke knew that the people working there must take great pride in them. As protection against thieves, she noticed that simply spelled chains and heavy pad locks fastened the carriages to the ground as she walked past them, entering the small tin-roofed hut. Inside, behind a rigid yet smooth wooden counter a middle-aged and bearded man stood.
“What can I do for ye, liddle lady?” he asked with a grin upon his face.
“I’d like to pay for my horse’s stay. One day was all my mare stayed,” Funatoke placed a small bag of gold coin on the counted in front of the man. “I hope that this is enough for a day’s feed and grooming.” She smiled as politely as she could manage. She liked the older man standing across the counter but she did not like the fact that he looked at her, a dangerous assassin, as a ‘liddle lady’. But how would he know that. Only the select few in the darker professions of illegal businesses saw her under that job description. The same amount, although a different group of people –the ones that ran inns headed by mistresses and their prostitutes, knew about her mastery in the art of the bed. *Ah well, such is my life. You swallow your pride to make a buck in this business,* Funatoke thought with a sigh. Across from her, the stable keeper had counted the gold and placed it within a safe on the wooden wall behind him. The door of the slightly rusty safe creaked into place, and when it shut, Funatoke recognized the simple magic signs of a uncharmable spell placed on the lock to keep magic users from opening it with another equally simple spell.
“Ye will find yer horse out in that there stable house. Thank ye kindly for tha’ generous payment,” said the stable keeper. As Funatoke turned to leave, he called a “Have a nice day, ma’am,” to the closing door.
A short stroll from the hut to the stable house brought a warm, summer breeze wafting to Funatoke’s face. As she approached, the closest stable lad unlocked her tawny mare’s stall and led her out to the saddle room.
“Silver piece for a saddle shine?” he called up to her in a high-pitched voice coming from a dirt-covered face. He seemed to be no more than a boy dressed in too-big cotton summer trousers and a stained grey short-sleeved tunic that fit no better than his pants. A ring of keys was fastened to his belt and a buffing cloth strewn over his shoulder. Feeling generous, Funatoke handed him a silver piece.
“Thank you for the offer, but I must be getting off quickly.”
The boy simply nodded and made quick work of saddling her mare with her black leather riding saddle. While she had waited, Funatoke had pulled on a pair of mud stained brown linen trousers over her maroon lower-thigh-length leather skort from out of her pack . Over her white, short-sleeved blouse she placed a mid-length midnight blue surcoat that was embroidered with silver silk at the bottom of the mid-length and open sleeves. Lastly, she buckled her broad belt that held her sword across her waist, buckled another small belt around her thigh containing her stiletto, and tied up her hair with a silver silk ribbon.
After she had finished, the sun was starting to set and the stable boy had long since left to tend to the horses that seemed to be staying the night in the stable yard’s care. With a swift, flowing motion, Funatoke mounted and with a soft kick started her horse off at a gallop toward the southern exit of Melon. At a village outside the major town, she would spend the rest of her gold on some provisions for that night’s supper and the small journey to the desert ahead of her. In a few more days ride, she would be to Gondrake’s latest hide out, and soon after they should find out the King’s answer the Challenge.
3/
Out in the middle of the Gerudy desert not far from the Zoraina River and the Gerudy Fortress, a small clay hut stood overlooking Lake Heroness. It was a simply created two-room hut, made not more than a week ago and obviously built by the more nomadic traveling Gerudy. It had probably stood as part of a small camp, it’s shape held together by simple binding spells. By now those spells should have faded into nothing and the small structure collapsed under its own weight with no more magic to feed it, but it still held.
From through the open window carved into the hut’s wall, one could see a fire in the hearth burning under a large pot shaped like a caldron. Within the small structure, the warm aroma of stew brought its inhabitant to the large pot as if to stir its contents. Instead of gripping the handle of the large wooden ladle, the figure waved its hand over the pot, summoning the ladle into its own slow, circular movement.
Galloping noises from the outside led the person inside away from the hearth and over to the window. Over the low hill not more than 300 yards away galloped a lone horse. Its rider’s dark-colored cloak and apparel rippled and shimmered dazzlingly against the earthy tones of the desert grasses and sand. As the dark stallion approached the small clay hut it slowed to a canter and then to a trot and stopped. The woman, for at this distance the man inside the small structure had long recognized the rider, dismounted with majestic, fluid grace. Standing just outside the building’s only entrance, she whistled a spelled note of greeting and proceeded in.
“And I thought you weren’t going to show,” the man’s deep voice greeted her sounding slightly amused and softly seductive. He stood in the shadows of the doorway out of the main room that led into what might be a sleeping area. The moonlight of the window to his left didn’t reach him, but the fire from the hearth created dancing bursts of light upon his clothes and on the plain wall to the right of him.
“I didn’t come to play tonight, Gondrake. I am here for business,” The Gerudy woman’s body seemed almost shapeless from underneath her midnight blue cloak and long, flowing skirt, but they could not hide her full, curving hips. A sheer fabric gypsy’s mask studded with rubies and gold beads covered her face up to her eyes, and her extremely dark auburn hair was pulled loosely back with a blood-red ribbon. Matching red, leather strips, woven to protect the bottom of her feet against the coarse, desert sand, did not hide the gold bands upon each of her toes, many of which were laden heavily with diamonds and rubies. Her stature and her posture gave off the sense that she was not a woman to be trifled with.
“And what makes you think that tonight will be any different than the rest?” Gondrake stood from his leaning position but kept his arms crossed. The woman stood still her but her eyes shown him a hint of longing. He silently mocked her as a smile played across his lips. The woman said nothing, but the molten passion that for a split-second flickered in her deep gold eyes told him enough.
“Well at least make yourself comfortable. You must be hot in all of those clothes.” Before he had even finished the sentence he raised his hand, ripping the woman’s cloak from her body by a sudden, magical wind. It landed neatly folded over the back of one of the only two simple clay chairs in the small hut, revealing the low-cut top that hugged her full curves and showed off her tan stomach. The gold and ruby beading was elaborate. Invisible hands gently undid the ribbons keeping her hair tied up and gypsy mask on and flew them both to the same chair. Her eyes closed as she took in the sensation of another’s magic surrounding her. She hated to have to be so very formal with her lover . . .
“Always so persuasive, Gondrake,” a slightly feral smile curved her lips as she gracefully took her seat near the hearth. “But as I said, I’m here for business, not pleasure. Well not yours anyway.” Seeing that she was seated, Gondrake walked over the nearest corner to the hearth. With a silent spell-mark his large leather pack came into existence, from which he pulled out two plain wooden bowls and some dull metal spoons.
“Persuasion is something I do best. Care to talk over dinner? There is much to say and I’d rather not wait that long to eat.” With a nod of agreement from his companion, Gondrake hovered the bowls to the cauldron in the hearth and magically ladled stew into both bowls. As he took the other seat across from the woman, the bowls hovered neatly to their open hands.
“So what happens now that the Challenge has been sent?” she asked impatiently.
“We wait for the answer. The King must address it; it’s part of the old customs he’s always followed. Besides, your mother won’t be able to control the Gerudy radicals long if he decides against accepting my challenge. They may one day soon rise up against her, seeing as they find the idea of women ruling to be intolerable,” Gondrake smiled as his listener hissed. She was full of pride and would never yield to the ideals held by the radicals. Not if she was to be the next Empress of the Gerudy.
Suddenly she stood and slammed her bowl to the floor, causing it to splinter into stew-soaked wood chunks, scattering all across the floor. She snarled.
“If they weren’t such damn useful fools, they’d have been dead by now,” she softly snarled out in controlled rage. Gondrake stood as well now trying to coax her back to her seat.
“Calm yourself, Aveilyruu! Once you’re in power and Graveis is dead, no one will rise up against you. As long as the radicals believe in Ardunaze they will believe in you. As long as we stick together they will believe in us.” She sat and pondered.
“But how long will we have to wait until I’m in power? Kunata, my mother, is only just past her prime. She is still a lasting figure to contend with in our plans. She’ll never step down from the throne willingly.” Aveilyruu despised her mother for never letting her feel the grip of power in her hands. Kunata always made the excuse that Aveilyruu was too hotheaded and needed more experience in her studies before she would even begin thinking of stepping down from power. But studies were for ladies, and she was a warrior, damn it! But Aveilyruu knew what was truly on Kunata’s mind. Kunata felt that her daughter was unfit to rule and unapproved of every thing that she did. Even after Aveilyruu pleaded with he mother to let Gondrake and his bitch-friend, Funatoke become Gerudy citizens again instead of outcasts, she told Aveilyruu she would never approve of her marriage to Gondrake!
“Who says she has to?” a wicked smile spread across her lover’s features. “A slip of something unwanted in an evening drink, a frame up of a meaningless servant, and a few deaths should be enough to clear the way to the throne. Think you can handle killing your own mother, Aveilyruu? Because if you can’t I will never make you. You say the word and we will plan accordingly. It’s our future together.” He took her hand as she looked away, not daring to look up at him at first.
“She’s not my mother anymore, just a pawn in our plan. But I have to know one thing before we do anything,” she said quietly as she stood and looked him in the eye. Her deep gold eyes were filled with a fire, Gondrake did not recognize. “Do you love me, or that whore you’ve been crossing the land with since the goddesses know when? Are you going to turn against me and stay with that half-breed, or will you take my hand in marriage for life?”
He looked deep into her eyes and kissed her hand before responding.
“I love you and only you, my lady. Funatoke is only a tool in our plan, as useful as any other. When they lose their usefulness they must be cast aside.” He smiled and then pulled her close to him. *Just like you too will be one day be cast aside, Princess.* She responded with a kiss.
“Then good night my love,” she pulled away and went back toward her chair.
“Good night my lady.” Gondrake helped her with her cape and her mask and then followed her out of the small dwelling. She snarled when he helped her mount her horse. Before he could make a remark about it she was already riding off into the wind with her cloak and hair streaming behind her.
When she was finally out of sight and over the large hill facing away from Lake Heroness, Gondrake quickly walked back into the clay hut and grabbed his pack and the cauldron the leftover stew was in. Using a simple magical mark to lighten the weight of the heavy metal, he tipped the contents into a large canteen-shaped bottle he had pulled from his pack. As he stoppered the top of the large canteen bottle, he whistled for his horse. With more lightening spells put upon it, the black cooking cauldron was strapped onto the black stallion’s back. His pack followed, floating neatly upward with a wave of his hand. As soon as it was tightly strapped, Gondrake pushed off the ground and mounted his steed. Turn-trotting to face the small hut, he then focused all of his power to the ring on his left hand. The small, round ruby glittered in its black iron setting, reminding Gondrake of the feel and strength of his own power.
The ruby inside the ring contained his magix staff, something that only the stronger of magic users could have. It was a vessel for strength that the body could not hold on its own and it meant a very strong bond to the Dreamers’ River and a very strong bond to the mystical Orb of all Dreams. Many who had the strength to own a staff did not know it’s full implications and what powers could be unlocked through its use. Ardunaze knew what could come of it and used it to cause the Great War. By corrupting all of the Tribal Stones keeping the Orb hidden, Ardunaze made the Orb come back into visible existence, but had never been given the full week needed to cast the ancient spells needed to unlock the power that would give him absolute rule of Serene.
Gondrake knew that one day he would finish what his father had started. But he did not need to start war to execute his plan. His was a subtle plan with pawns and traps to ensnare and leave not a trace of who had caused it all. And he did not plan on just ruling Serene, the Living Realm. No, he would one day become a God and rule both Realms, Living and Spirit. One day the Fifth Goddess would fall to him and bow before him, because his will would shape the land and the dreams that turned the tides of time.
But there was much to do before that day ever came. Years of planning and years of waiting were involved, and soon it would all come together. The death of Graveis in the Challenge would be the beginning of the end.
With that thought, Gondrake withdrew his spell marks keeping the little clay hut together and standing. He turned away from it and Lake Heroness as he galloped off toward the foothills where in a few days he’d meet up with Funatoke. Behind him the hut slumped and disintegrated under the stress that it could no longer take, leaving all that was said and thought unknown to any passerbys. Underneath the mound where it had once stood, a little shattered wooden bowl lie, a testament to the world foreseen in Gondrake’s plans. . .
On to Chapter Three 2
Back to Stories of the Bell
| Show these comments on your site |
Stumble!