“Care to elaborate on that?”
“Prince Vincent.”
“Yeah? Oh, c’mon. He rose from the dead?”
“He walked right out of his tomb. His body was destroyed, broken into pieces by a bear attack out in the Woodvine area. Good fishing out there.”
“Apparently, good hunting too, if yer a bear.”
“The Queen said herself she saw the pieces of Vincent plain as day. They wrapped him up in blankets and the next day, here he walks out of the tomb in front of the memorial party.”
“Bet that put a damper on things.”
Alena nodded. “Niva declared it a sign, as she’d prayed and asked for it. I’m always suspicious of those who gain such easy answers to prayers.”
“Quick obvious answers to prayers aren’t the way of the gods. Usually, they are content to let ya sweat it out for a while.”
“Niva’s faith isn’t all bad, mind you, and the rules, disciplines have done great things for our land. I just…”
“…think it’s rooted in manure?”
Her smile returned. “I like your words, Gorias.”
“I got a few left in me. I’m awfully tired, little girl.”
Alena exploded with laughter. “Your words, so endearing to many, and they bless me with a moniker like that?” Again, the tall woman couldn’t contain her jollity.
Gorias stopped short of the place where Alena entered. Both hands on the styled outcropping of sculpted bricks, Gorias looked into the room dimly lit by surging light from the belly of the center of the room. Alena stood on the other side of a jewel held high on a set of alabaster stone hands. The jewel, bigger than a man’s head, bore a jagged surface, as if pieced together from a hundred glass triangles.
“Amazing, no?” Alena said, her brown eyes alight in the glow from the jewel. “No one knows why they bear a slight bit of light.”
Gorias nodded, stepping in, noting a robed figure that must be Abbess Niva watched them from a distance. Gorias’ mouth opened, but he stopped short of speaking.
Alena’s bearing lost some glee. She whispered, “You know why there’s the light in there, don’t you?”
He shook his head, dismissing her words. “You don’t even realize what this is, do you?”
“What?”
Gorias sighed. “Show me the vision so I can believe in the heir, too.”
Right hand poised over the jewel, Alena replied smartly, “Your attitude is not very nice.”
“I haven’t been nice in centuries.”
Alena’s palm rested on the jewel and her fingers soon lay on the pointed edges. Eyes closed, she let her head go back. She reached out with her left hand, gestured for Gorias to come closer. “C’mon, let me touch you.”
Gorias stood near her and held up his right hand. Their hands mirrored each other and adhered.
“It’s intense at first,” Alena warned him.
“I’ve done it before.”
He blinked his eyes, but the room vanished once he focused. Gorias didn’t expect to see it. The overcast sky outside the temple lent to the dreary mood. Gorias saw through Alena’s eyes, the perception of a little girl as the black-clothed royal family of Transalpina walked to the tombs, but carried no body. Though he couldn’t read her thought Gorias surmised this was a memorial for a soul already installed to the halls of the dead.
He noted Lady Garnet, her sister Mavik and a few of the usual military suspects, like Generals Appra and Thynnes. Appra, a slight limp in his gait, wheezed as he tried to stand as tall as the bushy bearded, fleshy brute Thynnes.
A huge crowd flanked the ladies as they walked several blocks to the edge of the city. The vision went fast and Gorias pondered that youthful times usually do. Soon, they all stood at the rocky hillside, probably a disused quarry now a holder for the bodies of rich families.
Artisans stood by, some holding waxen seals, others mortar and paste, ready to do a final seal on the tombstones.
Mavik walked forward alone, a wreath of lilies in her hands, trembling. Tears never came as the sturdy men moved the stone away and let Mavik come forward.
The crowd gasped as Mavik shook, dropping the wreath and going to one knee. Garnet ran up and took hold of her sister’s shoulders. Tough as ever, Garnet glared into the open tomb, her face frozen with amazement but Gorias also saw she roiled with anger.
There he stood, the prince, his grave clothes off, bare-assed naked in front of God and all humanity. His body bore not a scratch. He took no shaky steps. The prince walked into the light and held up his hands.
From out of the crowd stepped Abbess Niva, declaring praises unto her goddess. With her stood two stout men with shaven heads, also declaring the wonders of Ernytel loud enough for all to hear.
The prince seconded her motion and thanked the goddess Ernytel for his resurrection.
A religion was born.
Gorias stepped back and the room returned.
Alena took her hand back and made a fist with it. “Amazing, huh?”
“Garnet sure looked pissed.”
Alena smiled. “She usually does.”
Head tilted, Gorias motioned her to leave the alcove. Immediately, they saw the pyramid shape of Niva bordered by her two eunuchs, the same thugs from his vision.
Niva, hands folded, looked at Gorias intensely. “You have a deeper understanding of our faith now?”
Gorias stopped and stared at her across the room for a long time but only said, “Yeah.”
Niva blinked, openly shocked that no more words came.
Alena curtsied and explained, “We have to go, ma’am.”
Niva nodded and dismissed Alena before saying, “Come, Dola, Metrose.” She headed toward the main sanctuary. Gorias turned his back and walked away from them.
Once back atop Traveler, Gorias trotted away from the temple complex. In a few minutes, Alena joined him and Orsen.
“Mad that I’m rude?”
Alena’s eyebrows rose. “You are who you are.”
Gorias heeled Traveler a little and they started to trot down the street. “There are a number of things I couldn’t much talk about back there.”
“You’ve seen a jewel like that before?”
Gorias sent her a grave look. “They are the Eyes of the Dragon. Those aren’t natural gems nor cut from raw materials. They are cut from magical sources from the ecstasy of Dragons themselves. The light inside them is a tiny flicker of dragonfire, sometimes no bigger than a bitten off fingernail.”
“That is one theory.”
“That’s a fact,” Gorias snapped. “A century ago these jewels were sold as tiny necklaces, sparkling bobbles for the unknowing. They’re the portals of the dragons into our lives.”
“But there are no more dragons.”
Gorias nodded. “That’s the theory.”
Alena now shook her head. “Are there or aren’t they?”
“Not as such, but there are different sorts of dragons than the winged beasts. The dragonfire in this city is an attainable item, but practically impossible to use or direct. It confuses me that someone can do it.”
“Perhaps Yannick can make this clearer?”
Gorias looked away, quiet.
Alena wondered, “What is it? I get the feeling you know something.”
“Your recollection of that day is from your mind, your actual memories, that is what the dragon’s eye can pull out once it goes through your brain?”
“Yes, if that is how you say it.”
“No magic of the goddess in those jewels, just a greedy spirit far away, locked up and wanting to see more of this world. Think about that. At some point, the spirit convinced the world that crystals are pretty. Since people are dim-witted enough to not believe that they are being used from afar, they swallow it. A dragon feeds off silly false beliefs and bleeds a spirit from that, living or dead. Unsettling? It ought to be. However, in that vision, I saw Prince Vincent keenly.”
“Yes?”
“His grave clothes
. The one’s he dropped when he walked out, bare-assed?”
Frustrated, Alena slammed fists to her thighs. “What?!”
“They were dirty, green-stained, scruffy on the legs.”
“They were clothes for a shroud, after all.”
“But he’d been wrapped and laid in them, correct? Not walking around in the brush?”
Alena closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “I don’t see as that is…” Her voice stopped. “By the goddess, you mean?”
“He walked before he got out of the tomb?” Gorias chuckled. “I don’t think yer goddess has anything to do with it.”
“Then what does?”
“I’m not so sure yet. I have a nasty idea, though. Let’s see this wizard.”
*****
It was late in the afternoon when Gorias, Alena, and Orsen reached the small cottage of the chief Prognosticator to the Queen, Yannick. His rather opulent home didn’t sit in the main castle proper, nor in the great keep, but lay constructed away from the rest of the castle inner buildings, near the pilaster super structure that reinforced the eastern wall. On horseback, Gorias glanced up at the spires of the castle, wondering if any watched him from there. However, from the lower gatehouses, across the curtain wall to the various notches several eyes peered at him.
“Not many believe you’re real,” Orsen said about the great attention afforded La Gaul. He dismounted and marveled at the looks the ancient fighter received.
“Aw, bull crap, kid.” Gorias snorted and even waved at one young soldier nearby who seemed giddy at the sight of the legend. “They know I’m as real as the sun rising. Elsewise, they wouldn’t be staring at me from every embrasure or loophole in the fortifications.”
Once dismounted, Gorias saw the slender prognosticator open the door to his home and wave at them. Though an older man, Yannick wasn’t the ancient crone Gorias had in mind by this day. He’d seen him years ago and Yannick had centuries on him then. Half expecting him to be dressed in a huge robe with a long hood covering his head, Gorias saw this was not so as Yannick was dressed smartly in form-fitting breeches probably made of rich brocade fabric by the raised patterns on them. The elegant doublet Yannick wore was also made from this material usually fit for the prosperous.
“Friendly as if it were high noon,” Gorias commented in a low voice, taking in the wizard’s deep wrinkles that started at Yannick’s black eyes and flow downward over high cheekbones. “Then again, he’d be a piss-poor predictor if he didn’t know we were coming.”
Orsen tried to suppress a smile, put his hands behind his back and followed Gorias and Alena to Yannick’s.
“Gorias La Gaul,” Yannick said extending his hand to the old warrior. Clean-shaven face full of energy, dark eyes gleaming in joy, Yannick welcomed the fable to his entrance. “I’m honored that you have seen fit to visit me.”
Shaking the smaller man’s hand, Gorias smiled. “If ya have some wine handy, ya can be my friend, prognosticator.”
Giving Gorias a sly wink, Yannick said, “I believe I can liberate some spirits I have bottled up, kept under wraps for medicinal purposes.”
“God is merciful,” Gorias remarked as they entered the front room of the small cottage. Gorias ducked his head low as the thatched ceiling was not made for towering folk such as Alena and him. “Yer awfully cleaned up since the olden days. Garnet make you cut yer hair and beard once wizardry was outlawed?”
“No, it just was too much trouble to take care of the older I became.”
“Surprised ya aren’t up in the main castle.”
Yannick opened a lower oaken cupboard and reached into the shelves, saying, “One has to have their privacy. Besides, this separates me from the Queen. It makes me appear favored, yet effortlessly gotten rid of.” Holding up a small flask, Yannick asked Gorias, “Wine from Massainla good enough?”
“Long as it’s wet, yeah.”
Sitting across the table from Gorias, Yannick eyed Orsen at the door, still standing with his hands behind his back, and chose to ignore him. Into two cups, he poured a generous portion of the ruby colored wine. He paused, looked at Alena, who also still stood, but who steadily shook her head.
Gorias sniffed it and then toasted Yannick. “To your health.”
Yannick’s dark eyes glowed as he replied, “To yours.”
“Mine ain’t so good,” Gorias drank and his eyes flared. “But if I drank enough of this, I reckon I wouldn’t care. Damn, it’s strong.”
“You come to me for answers involving these castellans and their unusual demises?” Yannick said in a short voice, abruptly serious.
Gorias nodded. “If ya were forthcoming, it would make my life easier.”
Yannick stared at Orsen and Alena. “Could we have time alone? I’m sure La Gaul will make your dreams come true once I talk to him in private.”
Orsen’s mouth opened, ready to object, but held back his words and exited the home. Alena followed him, but sent a sullen look to them.
Yannick stated in a somber tone, “We all do what we have to in a bid to survive these days.”
“Granted,” Gorias said, sipping more wine.
Fingers drumming the polished wooden table, Yannick said, “I do as I must; you’re a famed slayer for riches. You can be bought.”
Gorias didn’t looked at him, but took the flask and poured more wine into his cup. “Keep talking.”
“I’m not sure how much Her Majesty is paying you for this venture, but I can add to that greatly if you see things my way.”
Again, Gorias never looked at Yannick, just the wine.
Giving a sigh, Yannick said solemnly, “The victims of these events are just castellans and politicians, drawn into the web of peccadilloes by their own lusts. The world is better off without such men…” His face flushed and Gorias faced him at last. “…present company excepted, of course.”
Gorias refused to betray confusion in his mind, for he really came to ask Yannick about the whereabouts of princess Nykia. “I don’t allege to be better than anyone or have a right to rule anything, so yeah, hang them all if they’re self-righteous bastards.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you haven’t guessed at my involvement in this by now?”
Left hand drumming fingers on the table, Gorias tried to understand why the wizard appeared ready to blurt out information about the dragonfire. He decided that playing along would have to suffice.
“Not sure exactly, but when the kid said you imparted the tattoos on him, well, that set me to wondering, now that you mention it. Care to make it simple for me?”
“Tattoos?”
“Like the lucky one the kid has. Do anything similar recently?”
“The magic imparted in my tattoos as energy in art is simple really. Everything has a price, be it balms, oils, souls or the promise of more lives. The charms for good luck woven as tattoos have a mystical quality and can cloud some men’s minds.”
“Yeah, so I hear.”
“Well, they are a simple force of nature to invoke.” His eyes were scorching as he spoke these words. “Some young fool was a horrible lover, but had me tattoo a balm on him to make him more attractive…so the women hardly would note his inadequacy.”
“I see.”
“I did one of you, long ago,” Yannick gazed at the ceiling, wistful of the memory.
“Do tell?”
“It was for royalty and in a rather rude place.”
“Please don’t tell me the Queen has my face on her ass.”
“No, but a lost princess has one of you near to her heart, shall we say, or the seat of her passion.”
Gorias swallowed hard, heat building up in his face. “You just may be able to help me with a few things.”
“I can play timid, but I don’t understand the motive for your stop in Transalpina. Surely, you don’t dally unless you plan to kill someone.”
“I’ve been hired before to find lost articles, but one never knows who I may be out to kill. You seem awfully conv
inced I came to ask you about the dragonfire.”
“Didn’t you?”
Suddenly, Gorias thought it unwise to show his hand in the pursuit of Nykia. Maybe the old wizard could help him find her, but something gnawed at him that this wasn’t exactly what the Queen wanted.
“Just tell me how the dragonfire came into this world again, Yannick,” Gorias said pointedly. “You’re old enough to recall when dragons still were around, when they had just wrymlings for battle. They aren’t something to unleash lightly.”
Yannick admitted, “I was against the wall. My own existence was threatened, oh, not just my life in the short run. Even prognosticators, or wizards, can grow ill. I had a massive tumor growing in my belly. But my powers are limited and I couldn’t secure myself without the proper palliative.”
Gorias blinked as the wizard paused to take a drink himself.
“Everything costs money or blood,” Yannick explained. “So when a refined lady approached me, wealthy and full of promise, I agreed as long as she fulfilled the program for me. I needed the money and the spell would require lives that I certainly had no means to go gather, due to age and my high station.”
“I see.”
“Secreted in the inks, in myriad spells, yes, I gave her the dragonfire from beyond, and true enough, she had to acquire the further sacrifices themselves for her bequest. Dragonfire is not an easy thing to acquire.”
“I’d say it’s bloody impossible.”
“But you know of Pergamus?”
Gorias’ eyes closed for a moment too long. “It’s a legend, like many other tales, where the father of the dragons fell. I’ve heard of the tree, lights and tiny collection of dragonfire maintained and all that. I’ve been all over the world and haven’t seen it nor tried to find it.”
“The lady did know where it was, for a foundling in her employ found Pergamus by accident.”
Eyes open, Gorias said, “She just happened to stumble across the land where Satan has his throne?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. In a word, yes. The island isn’t really far and is on all the charts off Albion. It’s in a cave accessible by a lagoon certain pirates use.”
At the mention of pirates, Gorias’ skin crawled. “Go on. What about this lady? Why did she want such a boon?”
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