The Key of Creation: Book 02 - Journey to Khodara

by M. D. Bushnell

  In contrast, Cailyn talked incessantly, in between insisting on hearing stories from Garrick about his adventures. Although the king did his best to avoid being overly flirtatious, Warren read into every little thing he said, and eventually left the room with a scowl on his face.

  “Must you always taunt him?” Aldrick asked him after Warren had stormed out.

  Garrick shrugged. “He still sees Cailyn as the young girl she was when he left several Summers ago, and not the woman she has become. Besides, when did Warren need an excuse to overreact?”

  When dinner was finished, Aldrick thanked their hosts for their hospitality, asking Bryce if he could have a word. The quiet man motioned for the others to leave, and indicated for him to continue.

  Once everyone but Garrick had left the room, Aldrick said, “I wished to warn you about a potential danger to you and your family.”

  “Are you referring to the rumored invasion?” Bryce inquired, sipping his wine.

  “You’ve heard of that?”

  Bryce nodded. “I received a report of soldiers gathering near Karkerech, not too long ago.”

  “What do you know about this encampment?”

  Bryce shrugged. “The official word is that it’s merely a training exercise. Granted, rumors speak of invasion, but commoners have nothing better to do than gossip. I’m not overly concerned about it.”

  “There is another matter I wish to bring to your attention,” Aldrick continued. “I have found evidence that someone may be murdering the nobles of Asturia. Several outlying nobles have already died.”

  “I heard about Holmes, son of Adler,” Bryce said. “But I understood that to be an accident.”

  “I have reason to believe it was no accident.”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  Aldrick glanced at Garrick. “I’ve discovered a list of Asturia’s nobles, with several names crossed off. So far these men have all been reported as dead.”

  “And who is responsible for this list?”

  “I’m not certain,” Aldrick admitted. “The first copy I found was on the body of a man who attacked my family. The other was in the possession of a noble named Jahann, who has since fled the country.”

  “So, if in fact this list is what you say it is, the men responsible are either dead or gone?”

  “My father Tiberius and I believe there may be other forces at work here.”

  Bryce snorted. “Look, I appreciate your concern. I have heard good things about your father, and I’m sure you both mean well. But we nobles are used to having peasants jealous of our positions and our success. If I had an ox for every commoner who wished me dead, I’d…be running my own slaughter house.”

  “I really think you should…”

  Bryce waved off his concern. “And I appreciate your concern, as I said. What would you have me do? I can’t just run off to Kemett and hide in a cave. I have a business to manage, and a family to support.”

  “Of course,” Aldrick replied. “But I felt it my duty to warn you of the danger, especially with your proximity to Illyria.”

  “Thank you,” Bryce replied, pushing back his finely carved dining room chair and standing. “But I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Garrick spoke up for the first time. “Still, I’d like to leave my guards, Lewin and Elior here while we’re in Karkerech. They can work with your servants for their keep, and provide extra security until we get back.”

  “If you insist,” Bryce huffed. “For now, I’m off to bed. The servants will see you to your rooms.”

  Without waiting for a response, the straight-backed noble strode out the room.

  Garrick chuckled. “You’d think that prig had been born a noble from the way he struts about.”

  Warren returned with several servants, some of who began to clear away the table. Addressing one of the servants, Warren said, “Please show Aldrick here to his room. I’m going to show Garrick to his room personally. I want to make sure he finds it without any incidents.”

  Garrick gasped, but had a gleam in his eye. “What are you trying to say Warren?”

  Warren gave his friend a blank look. “I don’t trust you.”

  Garrick grinned. “Fair enough.”

  Aldrick followed the servant to his assigned room, and prepared for bed. Moving a small oil lamp to a table next to the bed, he tried reading for a time, but his thoughts kept wandering. He kept thinking of Jelénna and Adrias and wondering how they were getting on without him in Akkadia. He also thought about the men masquerading as ghosts who had attacked their camp. Clearly they were a band of thieves using fear of the unknown to cover their transgressions, but why had they attacked? There had been four disguised thieves, but they had only discovered two horses. Why the discrepancy? In his vision the attackers had seemed to spring out of the ground, yet something like that happening was clearly impossible. In the past, details like that in his visions, as the one he had recently had with Sargon, usually meant something, but was it simply a coincidence this time?

  With his head swirling with images of Sargon, his family and painted thieves, Aldrick tossed and turned for some time. He was nearly asleep when he heard a disturbance in the hall. Throwing back the light covers, he crept to the door to listen.

  “What are you doing out here?” Warren said from a short way down the hall.

  “Uh…I couldn’t sleep,” Garrick replied. “I was just looking for the…water closet.”

  “You were looking for Cailyn’s room, weren’t you?”

  “What? Are you out of your mind?” Garrick stammered. Aldrick smiled; he could not recall a more spurious attempt at innocence.

  “Right,” Warren said, his voice laden with sarcasm. “The water closet is the other way.”

  “Oh…great. Well, I suppose I’ll be fine until morning.”

  Aldrick heard footsteps, followed by the click of a door closing. Satisfied that nothing untoward was happening, he walked quietly back to his own bed and climbed under the covers. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing sleep to take him over.

  A short time later, Aldrick was once more on the edge of sleep when a creak at his own door woke him. Startled, he sat up and blurted, “Who is it?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Cailyn’s voice came from the doorway. “I’m so embarrassed. I was looking for…the water closet.”

  “Lost in your own house?” Warren abruptly said from the hallway behind her.

  Cailyn jumped, and let out a surprised squeak. “N-No, of course not Warren. I just got turned around in the dark.”

  “I sincerely hope you weren’t looking for Garrick’s room.”

  “No, no of course not,” Cailyn stammered after a pause.

  “Good. Do I need to show you the way?”

  “No silly,” Cailyn giggled. “I think I’ll be fine until morning. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Warren said with a sigh. Leaning into the room he added, “Sorry Aldrick. At this rate, I wonder if anyone is going to get any sleep tonight?”

  “Seems unlikely,” Aldrick frowned.

  The next morning, Garrick gave Lewin and Elior their instructions, and then joined the others as they waited in front of the house while the servants saddled and bridled their horses for departure. Everyone was a bit bleary eyed and spent a great deal of time yawning.

  Bryce met them outside the manor, and in a reserved manner asked his son, “You’ll be leaving then, I presume?”

  “Yes,” Warren nodded. “We are headed for Karkerech.”

  “Indeed. Unfortunate you could not stay longer,” Bryce added; although his tone belied the words he spoke.

  Warren ignored the lack of emotion in what his father had said. “I wish we could stay, but we have urgent business in Karkerech.”

  “Yes,” Bryce sniffed. “The business of the prince. No matter. One of the servants will lead you into the city, I’m not due in today.”

  Cailyn came bounding out the front door of the man
or and ran over to them. “You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?”

  Bryce immediately spun and scolded her, “Act like a lady, Cailyn!” before striding away without another word.

  Cailyn blushed at the remonstration. “Yes, father.”

  “We had no intention of leaving without saying goodbye,” Warren said quickly, keeping his voice cheerful to soften the sting of their father’s words.

  Cailyn smiled tentatively. “When will I see you…and the prince, again?”

  Warren threw up his hands. “Not this again!”

  Cailyn slapped Warren on the arm. “I meant nothing like that, silly!” Her tone was scolding, but even as she spoke she glanced at Garrick shyly before looking away quickly with another blush.

  Warren broke into a lop-sided smile. “I know, I’m sorry. But I worry about you! I’m not around to look after you.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Cailyn demanded.

  “Yes well,” Warren stammered. “We all have things we must do, don’t we?”

  “Oh Warren,” Cailyn rushed to embrace him. “I love you brother, even if you are willful. Please come back soon, we all miss you.” She sobbed into his shoulder for a moment, before pulling back and wiping her eyes. With a sniff, she turned to Garrick. “You bring him back soon, safe and sound.” She smiled then, though her eyes were still red.

  Garrick smiled and nodded, and Cailyn turned and walked back into the manor, but her shoulders shook a little from sobbing. Warren stood staring at the house for a long moment with a glisten shining in his eyes, before he turned and mounted his waiting horse.

  “Let’s go,” he managed, his voice wavering as he spoke.

  They followed a servant down the manicured drive and back onto the main road. Turning northwest, they continued toward Erimar and the merchant train they would need to get into Karkerech undetected.

  They rode for a time in silence until Garrick asked, “What was all that between you and your father? I have a feeling there is something you haven’t told me.”

  Warren glanced at the king and sighed. “My father is still disappointed I chose to run off to another country and follow some philandering prince around, rather than stay home and learn the family business.”

  “I suspected as much,” Garrick nodded. “I hope you realize how much I count on you, Warren. I couldn’t function without you.”

  Warren harrumphed and then chuckled. “That may be as close to a ‘thank you’ as I’m ever likely to get. I hope you aren’t thinking of making me a noble in Illyria, or anything crazy like that.”

  “With me you will get so much more than nobility.”

  “Oh, what’s that?”

  “Fortune and glory, Warren. Fortune and glory!”

  “For you perhaps,” Warren laughed. “I’ve seen neither so far, and by the All Father I don’t expect I ever will. Still, it’s better than managing my father’s shipping company. Nothing could be more boring.”

  “Don’t knock the boring merchant train just yet,” Garrick grinned. “That’s our ticket into Karkerech.”

  Disguising themselves as guards for the merchant train had seemed a brilliant idea, until they met the foreman of the one bound for Karkerech. A surly character named Franc sat atop the lead wagon, scratching the vast expanse of his belly which stretched his filthy shirt to the point at which Aldrick thought it must surely rip. With a mildly vacant look, the foreman scratched one armpit while Warren explained their intention of traveling with the wagons.

  Once Franc grasped the essence of the plan, he was quite unhappy with the arrangement. At first he denied them outright, but Warren insisted, providing written orders from Bryce. After much sniffing over the orders, and paranoid leering at them, the obstinate driver relented. Aldrick thought he overheard mutters of “spies” and other less complimentary epithets, but he was not entirely certain.

  In the end they fell in behind one of the rear wagons as far back from the foreman as possible. Slowly, the convoy rolled north out of Erimar and towards the bustling trade city of Karkerech.

  Chapter 11

  Paden, along with Jelénna, Adrias, and the rest of his men, topped a final rise and the shining walls of Akkadia came into view at long last. The walls did not truly shine, Paden thought with a twinge of regret, but with as long as he had been on the road away from the capital city, they seemed to gleam like the first light at dawn after a long dark nightmare. He felt a surge of relief as their horses trotted down the long gradual slope leading to the bustling capital city of Asturia. Home. He had been gone for much too long.

  Paden sighed as the renewed bickering of his charges interrupted his brief moment of respite. He knew that Aldrick’s lovely wife Jelénna and their son Adrias loved each other, but having spent most of the trip from Ubarra arguing, they had not been the best of traveling companions.

  Adrias was still quite put out that he had not been allowed to accompany his father on his big ‘adventure’ as he insisted on calling it. He was at the age when boys begin to crave excitement and adventure, and he felt left behind.

  Jelénna on the other hand, could not understand why Adrias, or anyone for that matter, would crave adventure or any similar endeavor that would involve having to leave their family. If it had been up to her, Aldrick would not have left with the king at all, much less Adrias. She had been in a disagreeable mood since being forced to leave her home, which Paden could certainly understand, yet he was tired of listening to them argue. He decided then, that upon their return he would request a holiday from Tiberius; he had certainly earned some time off with this particular venture.

  Tuning out the continuous bickering, he wondered again about the reasons for escorting the daughter in-law and grandson of his employer. Aldrick had sent them back to Akkadia to stay with Tiberius for safety while he accompanied King Gilmoure on his mission. He had only recently learned that the new king was in truth Garrick, the prince of Illyria; it was this unfortunate knowledge that was the cause of his concern.

  Both Tiberius and Aldrick had seemed to take the revelation of the true identity of the king in stride, but Paden found it much more difficult to accept. It was true he had not spent as much time with Garrick as either of them, and he did seem to be a good man and a capable leader. But could Garrick, the crown prince of Illyria, truly be trusted?

  Illyria and Asturia had shared an uneasy peace for the last five hundred Summers, ever since the defeat of the sorcerer Sargon, which ended the Great War. But a plethora of disturbing rumors were filtering out of their neighbor to the north, such as the massing of troops near the border. If this assemblage of troops meant an impending invasion as everyone said, how could they ever trust their king––the crown prince of Illyria––to protect them from an invasion from his own countrymen? Unfortunately, the entire situation left Paden confused and reluctant to trust their new king.

  Paden was so lost in thought he failed to notice when they rode through the ornate gates at the entrance to the capital city. He also missed the grandiose statue of the former king Hermanus. Before he knew it they had arrived at the very steps of the palace.

  Jarvus strode down the marble steps to greet them, and at his direction, servants rushed to take their horses and belongings. The head servant gave them a marginal bow, and addressed Jelénna. “It is my pleasure, and the highlight of my day, to welcome you back to Akkadia. The palace simply has not been the same without you.”

  “And how I’ve missed you, my dear Jarvus,” Jelénna replied, the sarcasm in her voice nearly a match for his.

  Surprisingly, Jarvus smiled, and the expression seemed genuine. “As feisty as ever I see.” His smile left as quickly as it had arrived when his gaze fell upon Adrias. “And you brought your offspring. How charming.”

  Adrias scowled at the cantankerous palace servant with a defiant glint in his young eyes. “Why are you so grumpy old man?”

  “Adrias!” Jelénna scolded. “Mind your manners!”

  Ja
rvus ignored the comment altogether and simply gestured for them to follow.

  “By your leave,” Jelénna replied politely, trying to mollify the rudeness of her son.

  The men Paden had brought took the horses and headed for the stables with the servants, while Jarvus led the three of them into the palace without another word. They passed through the grand foyer, and down a magnificently decorated hallway.