Knights: Book 01 - The Eye of Divinity

by Robert E. Keller

  Knights: The Eye of Divinity

  by Robert E. Keller

  Book I of the Knights Series

  Content Notice: A complete 100,000 word fantasy novel.

  Copyright Notice: This novel is the exclusive work of Robert E. Keller and is subject to strict copyright laws.

  About the Author: Robert E. Keller is a fantasy author who has had more than 30 stories published in online and print magazines. You can find more information on his projects at www.robertekeller.net

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1: The Sacred Text

  Chapter 2: The Bloodlands

  Chapter 3: Goblins, Hills, and Elder Lands

  Chapter 4: The Tower of Arms

  Chapter 5: The Color Trials

  Chapter 6: The Tower of Sorcery

  Chapter 7: The Temple of the White Guardian

  Chapter 8: The Passage of Days

  Chapter 9: What Lay Beneath Old Keep

  Chapter 10: Child of Winter

  Chapter 11: The Fire and the Shadow

  Chapter 12: Squires on Trial

  Chapter 13: Whispers of Flame

  Chapter 14: The Secret Meeting

  Chapter 15: The Goblin Puzzle

  Chapter 16: Dark Evidence

  Chapter 17: Into The Depths

  Chapter 18: The Black Knight

  Chapter 19: The Blood Legion

  Chapter 20: Spiders, Honors, and Promotions

  Chapter 1: The Sacred Text

  Lannon Sunshield's father seemed worse than ever on this day, an aura of gloom and despair engulfing him like a poisonous fog. Lannon shrank back from that aura, but it seemed to reach from his father like dreary fingers that gripped the boy's heart and kept him from fleeing from the house. Lannon's mother didn't seem to notice, as she was lost in her usual evening rage.

  "You're utterly useless," Lannon's mother snarled at her husband. "I work all day until I'm so tired I can hardly move, while empty ale jugs pile up around your feet. The least you could do is clean up after yourself."

  "You know I’m sick," her husband muttered. For a moment the darkness thoroughly infested his gaze, a writhing shadow that hinted at the madness in his soul. "I can’t handle things like I used to. Otherwise, you'd never have to lift a finger to do any work. I'd do it all with a smile on my face."

  She threw back her head and laughed mockingly (which was one of her favorite gestures). "You say some truly funny things, husband. But I know better. You were lazy before you got sick. No, the burden of work around here is mine to bear alone."

  Lannon cringed. He hated it when his parents acted like he was useless. Even though his mother's words weren't directed specifically at Lannon, they made him want to sink through the floor. Unlike his father, Lannon was ashamed of his laziness, but he did nothing to remedy it. He would stand by and watch his stick-thin mother labor to carry in firewood, and then he would warm himself before the stove. He thought dishes somehow washed themselves, and he would kick something out of his way before bothering to pick it up. Tory, however, worked hard every day, gutting fish until her hands went numb at her job in town while the men stayed home and made messes.

  Lannon's parents waged their war amid an ugly battlefield that came in the form of a shoddy cabin in the middle of nowhere, complete with a leaky roof, bug-infested logs, and a yard full of decaying junk. It was the home of a man who bore a dark illness of the spirit for which no cure seemed to exist. Lannon’s father spent hours glaring at bugs on the wall and making threats. He'd been arrested twice in town for splitting barrels open with an axe and insisting scheming dwarves were hiding within them.

  Meanwhile, Lannon spent his days wondering when the madness would end. He had no friends, and every day was the same old thing. He wandered the forested valley that surrounded his home and then wandered it some more. He caught fish and then put them back so he might catch them again. He battled trees with sword-sticks and waited. And waited some more. He never knew for sure what he was waiting for, but he guessed it was adulthood and escape.

  Lannon’s father was named Doanan, and his mother was Tory. The fact that they both had names was all they seemed to have in common. They fought so much that almost nothing in the home wasn’t cracked or broken. Yet their rage was seldom directed toward Lannon. Instead, the boy was treated with an odd sort of pity that was worse than being the target of rage (when he wasn't being completely ignored).

  "I can do some stuff around here," said Lannon, already knowing what the result would be. "I'm fifteen years old and not a child anymore."

  "Do you want me to get up and work?" Doanan said to Tory, not even glancing at Lannon. "What tasks shall I perform, your majesty?"

  "Just drink your ale and be silent," Tory said, "like you always do. I don't expect you to do any work, Doanan. I gave up on that years ago. But the least you can do is keep your toothless mouth shut while I slave away."

  On this warm summer afternoon, Tory had just returned from the fishery. As usual, her clothes were covered in scales. She continued bellowing at Doanan while she scrubbed her gnarled hands in a bucket of cold stream water. "I do all the work," she spat. "All of it." She looked like a spindly preying mantis rubbing its legs together. "And what do get for my troubles? I get to come home to you, Doanan--the sorriest sod in Silverland."

  Lannon’s father sat slumped in a battered chair. His hairy legs poked out from beneath a filthy robe, and ale jugs surrounded his bony feet. What remained of his grey hair pointed skyward in dirty tufts. His skeletal face was covered in a map of lines, his brown eyes resting above dark spots. His mouth held shadowy gaps where teeth should have been. That mouth hung open in a huge, delighted (scary, certainly) grin. A dastardly twinkle shone in his eye, as he glanced from his wife to where Lannon stood by the door ready to escape.

  "Oh, is that right?" Doanan said, still grinning. "So I’m the evil man here. This is truly funny. Isn’t it, Lannon?"

  Lannon knew better than to reply.

  Undaunted, Doanan went on. "Look at your mother, Lannon. Just look at her. She’s the big queen bee of this royal hive."

  Tory raised an eyebrow and stuck her scrawny neck out toward him. Her short black hair was cut in a bowl shape with uneven edges, boyish like her gaunt face. Her left eye was open wide with bulging mockery. "That’s right. I am the queen bee. And don’t you forget it, husband. You know why? Because I’m the only one that does any work. If it wasn’t for me, this home would fall apart."

  Doanan’s huge grin twisted into some kind of humorless leer. "Maybe so. But don’t forget that I saved you from working yourself to death on that farm. Your father would have had you slave away until your knees were ground into meal and your back was brittle like cornstalks from a frost. If I hadn’t come along to save you, your father would have--"

  "Leave my father out of this!" Tory shouted. "He was ten times the man you’ll ever be. And if you speak ill of him again, I’ll tear your eyeballs out!"

  Doanan spat on the floor. "So this is what I get for a life of sacrifice? This is what the gods have rewarded me with?"

  "Be quiet, you crazy fool," Tory said, turning back to her task of scrubbing her gnarled hands. "Why don’t you drink yourself to sleep? It’s all you’re good for these days. Goodness knows I spend enough on your ale. You might as well use it up so I can go waste more money."

  "Ale is all I have, woman!" Doanan growled, kicking a jug across the room and sending a frightened rat scampering for cover. "You know it helps fight my illness. Without my ale, I would decline swiftly."

  Tory threw her back her head and cackled until tears actually streamed down her face. "Oh, tell me another lie, husband. You're
not fooling me, and Lannon knows how you are. The boy is not blind."

  "Yes, he is blind," Doanan whispered, "and so are you." He hung his head. "So is everyone in this world."

  The gloom seemed to squeeze Lannon tighter, radiating from his father in nauseating waves. The sickness was soon to start making Doanan rant about things that had given Lannon countless nightmares. Lannon glanced at the door but could not bring himself to flee just yet. He felt paralyzed by his father's gaze.

  "Don’t start your foolish talk," Tory said, turning away quickly (but not so quickly Lannon couldn’t see that her face had paled a bit). "You know that nonsense scares the boy."

  "Maybe he should be scared," Doanan said. "Why not? The gods know I am. I told you, Lannon, that the shadow is the blood. Remember? It is too deep for you to see--the Deep Shadow. The dark beneath the dark. It is the blood, flowing beneath the skin of our world. I can feel it in my dreams. It chokes me." He gazed at Lannon crookedly. "Do you think you comprehend what fear is, my son? The Deep Shadow is fear itself. Larger than the heavens. It could eat our world just like that!" Doanan snapped his fingers. "Strip away our flesh, enslave our souls."

  "I said stop that talk," Tory said, with her back to him. "I mean it, Doanan." Her hands were shaking.

  "It wants to devour everything, Lannon," Doanan went on. "Whatever it touches, it undoes. Our world gets dissolved, along with our skin and bones. Then our souls are captured by sorcerers who use us in their ongoing wars. We suffer in unimaginable ways. And we can never find peace."

  "I said that’s enough!" Tory slammed the washbasin aside, splashing soapy water everywhere. She turned and lunged toward Doanan, her hands raised in a choking gesture. She was so appallingly thin that Lannon looked away in helpless disgust. "One more word," she said, and you won’t have to worry about your crazy dreams any longer!"

  Doanan nodded, his face grim. "I’ll keep quiet for now. But Lannon knows I say these things to warn him. It’s for his own good. Right, my son? You understand, don’t you?"

  Lannon shrugged helplessly, and the paralysis that gripped him seemed to diminish. As the boy gazed at his father, he could only feel deep pity for an old man who was fighting a losing battle against some terrible, unseen foe.

  Lannon’s father gazed into infinity. "It's all for nothing," he whispered. "Struggle and struggle some more, and in the end, a bit of dust for our troubles. That’s what's left. Just a bit of dust to mark the end of all things."

  Tory flew at him.

  They continued their little war, and Lannon wandered out into the yard, slamming the door behind him in frustration.

  "Are you trying to break my door?" his father bellowed after him. "Sure, go on and wreck everything, you sorry little..."

  Lannon sighed loudly, blocking out his father’s muffled rants. "What a fine day!" he shouted, raising his arms dramatically. But as he looked around, he found that he liked what he saw. Mist swirled through the ancient oak forest, rolling across the grassy clearing where the cabin sat. The sky was purple with thunderclouds, the air charged with electricity, making Lannon’s hair stand on end. A storm could hammer down at any time, and Lannon welcomed it. A storm symbolized change. Rain and mist could conceal and inspire. Mystery was interwoven into the wet earth and mossy tree trunks, in the creeping mist and the angry frown of the clouds. The dim, unhappy cabin suddenly seemed a world away.

  Fresh air, heavily scented with damp forest, filled Lannon’s lungs. He gazed skyward, hoping the rain would come and soak him to the skin, hoping it would awaken change within him somehow. On this day, the forest he usually despised had become powerful in some sense he couldn't comprehend, and he would walk in it gladly and give himself completely to its embrace.

  Their old horse, Grazzal, stood near the edge of the field inside the split-rail fence Lannon’s father had built years ago when he was healthy. The horse raised his head, watching Lannon with his dark eyes. The coming storm sent shivers down his mane, and he stomped nervously. The roof of Grazzal's tiny stable was caving in, offering little shelter against the weather. Lannon had tried halfheartedly to repair it, but he wasn't good at fixing anything, and in the end he'd thrown an old quilt over the hole. His mother had promised to bring someone from the town of Knights Welcome to repair it, but she never seemed to get around to it (though she used Grazzal to take her to the fishery every day). Lannon suspected his mother had no intention of repairing it, considering how old the horse was. When Grazzal died, she would get another horse, and then maybe she would have the roof fixed.

  Lannon stroked Grazzal's mane. "I’ll fix your roof soon enough," he said. "At least before winter." He sighed. Maybe the quilt would hold.

  Then, with the dismal cabin at his back, Lannon set off into the maze of mist and shadowy tree trunks, following a narrow path crisscrossed by gnarled roots. He picked up a stick and swung it absently. The fresh, earthy scents and ethereal fog helped soothe his mood, and he imagined himself as a warrior on a quest, ready to club some nasty Goblin hiding behind some huge oak. Of course, no real monsters existed this far from the Bloodlands, but that didn’t stop Lannon from imagining one might have somehow made the journey. He swung his club against a rotten stump, scattering pieces here and there like Goblin bone and brain. "Die, wretch!" he growled. "And die swiftly! Ha!"

  Lannon struck the stump again, and this time his stick broke. He moved on, still carrying half of his weapon. Mossy boulders, little streams, and ancient trees sprung from the mist here and there to greet him. The humidity made his forehead drip. As always, his mind crept back to his family situation. How could he persuade his parents to get along with each other and create a happy home? And as always, he could find no answer. Once he reached adulthood, he could escape the situation by moving out, but for them he saw only a dark and miserable future.

  To battle the oppressive monotony of his life, Lannon had explored this wooded valley many times over, until finally reaching the conclusion that there was only one remotely interesting place here, and it was small. Lannon called it the Quiet Spot. Sometimes when he needed to escape, he went there, and he could feel it calling to him on this day.

  Lannon left the trail, pushing branches aside and stepping over rotten logs. A day like this was a blessing, for everything seemed to have a different look and feel. With all the fog, Lannon felt like he walked in a strange land rather than woods he'd grown up in. The same old trees, stumps, and boulders that Lannon was so familiar with took on odd shapes in the mist. Visibility was so poor that he nearly wandered past the Quiet Spot without realizing it.

  The Quiet Spot was a circle of mossy boulders that stood amongst the giant oaks, with a little stream running through the middle. Lannon knelt by the stream and splashed water in his face, washing away the sweat from the humid day. He ran his fingers through his tangled blond hair, pushing it from his eyes, and gazed at his reflection in the stream. He was not a shining example of a healthy fifteen-year old boy. The flesh of his thin face looked startlingly pale, his bright green eyes staring out in stark contrast. He was a bit on the skinny side and short for his age.

  His parents' harsh words to each other still echoed in his head, and their bitterness was something he could never seem to get used to. Someday (probably all too soon) his father would die from his disease, and then all of their arguments would mean nothing. Why couldn't they see that?

  Lannon stared gloomily into the stream, wondering why his home had to be so remote. The isolation seemed to make all of the problems so much worse. But Lannon's father had always preferred the solitude and the quiet, claiming it helped ease his burdens somehow, and all of the wholesome plants and trees here seemed to give him greater resistance against the growing sickness.

  Lannon scooped up cool water in his hands and drank deeply, splashing most of it down the front of his tunic, and his troubles were momentarily forgotten. He could feel the strength of the Quiet Spot reaching into his heart and soothing it. It was in the smell of the trees, the soil, a
nd the moss. Lannon had found the words Knights Valley engraved in one of the boulders, and whenever he came here, he often imagined he was a Knight resting after a long day of combat and adventure. This area left him feeling peaceful and quiet inside like no other place could.

  Lannon heard a hissing noise and looked up. A Tree Goblin was hanging from an oak limb in the fog, watching him with its huge eyes. The scrawny pale-skinned Goblin, which was only a little bigger than a rabbit, made no immediate move, but its eyes gleamed with contempt. Its mouth split open to reveal rows of sharp little teeth, and again it hissed at Lannon, before uttering a low snarl.

  Lannon chuckled. "You don't scare me, little Tree Goblin."

  The Tree Goblin's eyes narrowed, the evil gleam shining deeper and more menacing, while its mouth opened wider. Its face became a grimace of doom. Slowly it lowered one hand, and the black claws contracted and opened several times, as if desiring to be fastened upon Lannon's neck.

  Lannon leapt up and growled. With a screech, the creature shot up into the treetops and was lost from sight. Lannon smiled and called out "Some kind of monster you are!" Being the only Goblins capable of reproducing outside of the breeding grounds known as the Bloodlands, Tree Goblins were common in these woods, and Lannon was grateful for that. He was fascinated by Goblins in general, and these timid branch dwellers could sometimes provide playful amusement for him, which he sorely needed.

  Lannon sat around for a while, watching frogs leap about by the stream, and then he stood up and sighed, suddenly realizing how hungry he was. It was nearing dinnertime, and he'd slept through the lunch of fried mushrooms (he hated mushrooms prepared in any fashion) his father had cooked. If he wanted to eat, he would have to return home.