by P D Ceanneir
Shanks nods in agreement.
‘The other problem I am concerned about is the Earth Daemon inside this Nexus,’ says the king.
Shanks holds up a hand, ‘I know what you are going to ask. Is it a threat? And I think the answer is yes, but not yet.’
Havoc nods, but sees us all frown. ‘In Sonora I slotted the Sword that Rules inside the Gredligg Orrinn in order to release the My’thos within. They tore the Earth Daemon to pieces and sent it back into the control of the Earth Mother, where she could use its individual component parts as pure energy, where it had no intelligent thought. However, this other, smaller, part of it inside the Nexus is a worry.’
‘I see,’ says Bleudwed. ‘You think the threat is not yet over, that this other Earth Daemon could still grow bigger by summoning to it those separated parts of the original?’
Havoc nods.
Shanks agrees also. ‘Correct, though at the moment it is using the Helbringer to gather, or harvest those components. Nevertheless, I believe it will become strong enough to gather on its own. When? I do not know. By defeating the Helbringer I may have bought us some time.’
‘Then I would only suggest that we do not stand down any of our armies in the near future,’ offers Powyss.
‘Agreed,’ says the king. ‘And we shall have to put into motion other military policies for defending the realm against unseen threats as well.’ There’s a moment of silence then Havoc slaps the desk with the palm of his hand. ‘Well that is all for now,’ he says. ‘Mother, show Shanks where the Eldi Cannon is stored, and be off with the rest of you, I have a kingdom to rule,’ says the king with a forced smile.
2
For the next sixteen years Shanks stays within the city walls of Aln-Tiss. He ventures out only once to the ruin of Dorit Lorne Castle and manages to stop the deterioration of the Mastirton Maelstrom, but he is unable to halt the shifting images through time as they skip from one landscape to another.
Mostly, he stays in Oakhaven House with me. The house is a small mansion gifted to Vanduke and myself on our wedding day by my father, Mormaer Altheas of Salen. Oakhaven is part of Baronstown and sits just inside the boundaries of the King’s Park surrounded by oaks, sycamores and maples. The park is so large that it separates the Noble Quarter of the city from Market Town and Old Port by several miles. The area of the park we live in is quiet and secluded. Most of the park is out of bounds to common folk except on the spring equinox when the huge common lawn becomes a place for fetes and festivals. Shanks loves those gatherings and managed to convince the king to hold more of them throughout the year. He even went as far as commissioning labourers to cobble over the old dirt paths from Market Town into the park so the city’s citizens could have easier access.
I even joined the cause of Telmar’s enthusiasm for improvement by passing a reform bill through the city’s Council Chambers that established my own Parks and Amenities Committee. Through the Committee, we redirected part of the Aln River so it ran into the park and pooled into a huge lake in the centre. It eventually became the most beautiful place to walk through in late summer evenings.
Shanks became a mass of frenzied energy and delved into his work and studies. One day he picked up a book from the library that was written by his father. It was a small handbook about several of his inventions and Shanks decided to emulate his father by creating, or improving others.
The Efron Pump became one of his pet projects to expand on. He developed a plan to pump water through the city, and purify it as well. Most homes around the city relied on one well per hundred yards that tapped into the Mali River which ran into a water table underground. Now, with Shanks’ help, hand pumps pumped water from underwater sources to multiple new wells and the older wells were covered up.
As chairperson of the Committee I took his idea of erecting a purification house outside the city walls. The water from the Mali River flows into marshland that sits to the north of the citadel. The peaty earth and reed beds cleanse the water before it trickles into the catacombs under the city. Shanks’ idea was to build a series of copper kettles with inbuilt filter mechanisms to cleanse the water from the marsh to make it clearer and disease free. The king commissioned large mills to be constructed to hold these kettles and soon a small village grew up around it for the mill workers. King Havoc saw sense in walling the village. This served to expand the city along the north coastline flanking both sides of the river.
The city also expanded to the south. Already dense with farmland and groves, Shanks developed a more economical way of crop rotation, and built the first mechanical plough. More mills sprang up that used his father’s triple saw design to cut logs into planking for ships, and he also encouraged farmers to plant trees on their lands which was paid for by the Assassi-Al Government. This ensured the future industry with more wood for building works and in turn beautified the landscape.
Many nobles accepted all of these great innovations, none more so than Lord Childersburg, Baron of Barnstown. The small cattle and horse ranching town of the Aln Plain grew exponentially in the next six years as it stretched along the paved Old Road for ten miles. Some of its outer suburbs came to within two miles of the east gates of Aln-Tiss and, from a distance, the citadel looked vast indeed.
Most of these improvements reached Sonora and Dulan as these cities faced reconstruction after the war, and many widespread towns and villages benefited from the Efron Pump, water purification and the sewage sanitation program that I implemented. In short, Assassi-Al became the most advanced civilisation in the world and the envy of many.
‘If my father had not been given the Black Seed,’ said Shanks to me one day in mid-summer as we walked by the lake in the King’s Park, which now bears my name, ‘and I had not become a Pyromancer, I believe we would have created a company together that sought to put our worthwhile inventions to good use.’
‘Tressel and Son,’ I giggled, ‘it has a nice ring to it.’ Telmar laughed with me, but I could also see that look in his eyes, that look of sadness at what could have been.
Telmar aged significantly. I could see this with every passing month. Whatever had “snapped” inside his head had denied him the ability to use the Rawn Arts so he was not able to “hold” his age like the other Rawn Masters could. Therefore, he aged as a normal mortal.
In some perverse, selfish, way I welcomed this, and so too did Shanks. No one saw us as a married couple and our relationship was only one of companionship, no one would be able to replace my beloved Vanduke. I loved Telmar as if he was a brother and he loved me as a sister. Moreover, I savoured the years we had together.
He was very much part of the royal family and in a surprise move after Havoc and Bleudwed’s son, Prince Vanduke, was born, the king and queen asked him to be the child’s Godfather. Telmar was so overcome with emotion that he accepted the honour with tears in his eyes.
It was as if history had come full circle.
In time I stepped down from my public role in parliament, leaving that side of things in the more than capable hands of Queen Bleudwed who was with child again, two years after birthing Vanduke. I continued with the Committee for another five years until Telmar became sick with pneumonia on one of the coldest winter days for many years. He recovered after I nursed him for a month, but he looked older and more haggard.
Most of the time, as the years passed, he was a recluse working from his small library in Oakhaven. Very few people saw him. There are few people living that would recognise him, for he has changed much over the years. He has become thinner and now lets his white beard and hair grow long. He still walks with his staff for his back pains him at times.
For his ninetieth birthday, parliament awarded him with the gold and silver Garland of Honour and the Keys to the City for his services to innovation and civic improvement. He was reluctant to show himself in public, but still found the courage after I nagged him for a week before he agreed to accept the award.
‘I would rather face the Helbringer
again than you in a mood,’ he said to me before he stepped onto the stage to receive his awards amid the roaring and cheering populace of Aln-Tiss. Havoc said to me as we watched him take the stage, ‘would it not be a cruel jape to announce to folk that the man they are honouring, the man that improved their lives, was once called the Evil Baron?’
I nod because it is true, if only people knew who he really was, would they still respect him? It was then that I decided to change history.
A long time ago, when my son went on the quest for the Gredligg Orrinn, a cabin steward on board the quest ship Cybelelion, called Opeac, wrote a biography of the king about the Blacksword. I found it such thrilling reading that I commissioned him to write about Telmar.
Opeac and the king had become close friends over the years and he has recently become the Royal Historian. He is one of the few who has read the Black Ledger while Shanks still lives. He wrote The Realm of Fire: the Life of Baron Telmar within a year, and it would become his most famous work, yet he delayed in making it public white Telmar lived.
It was on one cold winter evening, when frost hardened the ground and dappled the tree branches in white frost crystals that Shanks said something to me that I would never forget. Every week he and I would go riding along the Horse Paths that traced a circular route around the King’s Park. No matter what the weather was like we always took this journey. Both of us wore grey wolf’s fur and woollen leggings to protect us from the chill as we cantered through the leafless trees. We sometimes talked as we trotted side-by-side, other times we proceeded in silence as we admired the nature around us. This trip was one of those silent ones. I suspected at the time he was quietly pondering some new invention he was working on. I looked around at the tall oaks and saw Roe Deer skipping through the woods to my right, I pointed them out to Shanks when I realised I was alone. I turned to see him sitting astride his static mount looking up through the branches of a gnarled oak at the low sun in its blue sky.
I pulled my horse around and went back to him, ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked him.
He was still looking at the sun. ‘Did you know that the sun is made of fire?’ he said.
‘I think you mentioned it before.’
‘It’s also large, larger than this planet we inhabit. It often makes me wonder why people feared me, because when the sun dies, there will be no more fear, there will be nothing.’
I frowned. ‘It is too late in the day for doom and gloom prophecies,’ I quip.
He laughs. ‘I also think it is ironic that I have managed to outlive all of my enemies.’
That was when his words struck me as poignant. He was right of course. This man had lost so much in his life, his family, friends and even his reputation. He had also lost the ability to use the Arts, but one consolation was the dampening of his Pyromantic Curse, which had not bothered him much since Lord Ness taught him the techniques to meditate the volatile energies away. Now he has a new name, and has become more famous as Shanks than he ever was as the mad baron.
‘There is one enemy you will not outlive,’ I laughed at him, ‘and that is your death of cold if we don’t get back inside.’
He smiled. His features suddenly looked younger, as the light of mischief shone in his eyes. ‘Race you!’ He shouted and then slapped the rump of his horse, laughing as the gelding leapt into a gallop. My own laughter echoed around the woodland as I heeled my mount to chase him.
We were only about a hundred yards from the stable yard of Oakhaven when Shanks’ horse stepped into a pothole in the road. If he was younger he would have jumped and rolled, but instead he landed heavily and broke his collarbone.
I was so overwrought with fear for him that I half carried, half dragged him to the house and screamed for my servants to come to our aid. We took him to bed and there he slept for most of the day. The next day the Royal Physician arrived to administer some herbal medicine that sedated him so he can try to set his shoulder.
‘I fear that his blood has become sick from the broken bone,’ he said, ‘his body is old, and it is only a matter of time.’
The rest of the week I stayed by his bed and watched as he deteriorated before my eyes. On the third night, he awoke from fevered dreams as I mop his sweating brow.
‘What happened?’ he asked me.
‘You fell off your horse, you old fool,’ I said and smile when he chuckles.
He took my hand and held it tightly for such a frail man. ‘You, my sweet Molna, have given me the best days of my life, and I love you for that.’
I stroked his hollow cheek. ‘And you, Telmar of Tressel, have been a true soul mate, and I love you for that.’ My tears flooded over my cheeks then. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ I wailed selfishly.
He looked over my shoulder. ‘Too late, my dear Molna, I see the Blacksword has already come for me.’
I turned to look, expecting to see the tall-cloaked figure of Death in the corner of the room, but I see nothing. When I turn back, Shank’s eyes are closed; his chest does not rise anymore. He is still and finally at peace. He was ninety-three.
At last, his secret was out, his identity revealed to the world in a Royal Proclamation issued by the king himself. It was only four days after that when we could gauge the public’s reaction to the news. There were no riots, no disputes in parliament. Instead, a large throng of the populace came to the forbidden area of the King’s Park and placed flowers on the gates of Oakhaven in respect for such a great man.
I was to learn later that most of the public had known who he was for many years. So much for secrecy!
Telmar’s funeral procession was one of the largest since Duke Torphilian’s, over two thousand years ago. He was cremated, as was his wishes, and his urn interred in the Royal Vaults above the tomb of his godson, my husband, King Vanduke.
His epitaph says,
Here lies Baron Telmar, the Pyromancer.
So beloved of those who saw
The light of goodness in his eyes.
Such words, and the memory of him, will live with me forever.
Molna, Duchess of Carras, 3063 YOA.
THE END
P.D.Ceanneir is the penname, in Gaelic, of Peter David Kinnear.
He is the author of the highly successful Rawn Chronicles Series, and is currently writing its sequel, The Rawn Trinity.
He lives with his wife in a small village in Scotland.
* * *
[1] The Rise of Cromme Vol 1: by Elwin Ri
[2] The Bergelonian Lineage: by Count Moorcroft of Sythini.
[3] The Trader’s Almanac, circa 1500 to 2000 YOA: Lars Orenburg.
Vallkyte Canon of Law.
[4] The Tithes of the Merchant King- vol XXVI: Ordan Malic.
[5] Book Seven of the Southspire Encomium.
[6] The Keveni Ledger: A History of Vallkyte Vessels: Lucus Morra
[7] The Seaman’s Charter: Taken from the Keveni Derma Ken Records.
[8] The Consequences of the Hydem-Jare Accord: Liem Jare.
[9] The Footsteps of the Eldi. A Concise History: Efron of Tressel
[10] The Master of the Withers and other Short Stories: Opeac the Historian
[11] The Aftermath: Lost Histories of the Keveni-Marinet Debacle: Peron of Duli
[12] Battle Strategies and Tactics, Vol 1. Elkin of Storridge.
[13] Elkin’s War: Villain Hearn.
[14] Tale of the Inglefürn: Sigurdsson Mullion
[15]Steps to the Fallows- Act II Scene VI: Altea of Summerland Amon.
[16] See the Rawn Chronicles Book One: The Orrinn and the Blacksword
[17] See the Rawn Chronicles Book Three: The Ancarryn and the Quest
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