The Awakening

by Gary Alan Wassner

  The exchange of words attracted the attention of some of the people within the city, and shortly they could see others peering aghast over the slowly melting walls, down upon Alemar, her friends and the clamoring army of undead behind them.

  “Listen to me,” the Princess yelled up at those present. “I had nothing to do with what has happened here. You must believe me,” she pleaded. “The hand of the Dark Lord, of Caeltin D’Are Agenathea, is upon this. He is the one who wishes to see Eleutheria destroyed, not I. He is the one who has altered the weather and sent these warm winds our way.”

  “I am afraid your words are falling upon deaf ears, your Highness,” Clovis said, observing the expressions upon the people’s faces.

  “You cannot hide from the truth any longer. Do you see where our isolation has brought us?” she continued, ignoring her friend’s comment. “Who is it that placed the blame upon me? Was it Kalon? Has he convinced you that I am the enemy? That I am the one to fear?” she cried. “Am I so strong that I can heat the very ground beneath our foundations?” she pleaded. “Do not be fooled by those who are so quick to place blame but do nothing to rid us of the evil that has contaminated our great city.”

  Slowly but surely, more and more faces began to appear on the walls, peering down upon the Princess and her strange entourage. Her presence and strength of character were having their effect, and she was gaining a wider audience with each word she uttered.

  “I have traveled to the Caves of Carloman, as Wayfair instructed me to do. I have returned with the key to our salvation,” she roared, removing the pouch of seeds from beneath her cape and holding it high in the air. “Tell my father that his daughter wishes to see him. When he joins me here, before his ancestors and yours…” she said, pointing to Iscaron and his men, “…I will bestow them onto him, and together we can begin to repair what the Dark Lord has set about to destroy in the zeal of his overwhelming hatred. Tell him I will wait here for him until Eleutheria melts away completely if I must,” she concluded.

  By this time, the battlements were teeming with people. They had gradually come out to listen to what the Princess had to say, and they looked down upon the gathering with fear and awe etched upon their faces. She could hear them arguing amongst themselves, some calling for the King to join them and some supporting Kalon and his desire to keep his sister locked out of Eleutheria indefinitely.

  Alemar turned her back upon the city and walked toward Iscaron and his army, as if the cadaverous spirits provided her with a safer and more protective haven than her own people did. There she stood, next to her venerable ancestor, and flanked by Giles and Clovis. She remained motionless and waited for her father to appear, for she knew that he would not forsake her without seeing her once more.

  It was not too long before one of the massive gates began to swing back upon its frozen hinge, just enough for King Whitestar to emerge from within. Looking weary and old, he walked about ten feet toward Alemar and the army massed behind her, before speaking.

  “What is it that you want of me, daughter? Have I not erred enough in my judgement? I accept responsibility for what has occurred here, though that alone will never repair the damage that I have done,” he said, pointing to the melting walls of the city. “Eleutheria will soon be no more, and it is because I allowed you to trespass upon areas that you had no right to enter. And now you return home with an army at your back? Is it not enough that the city is dying? Must you bring in a foreign host to dominate us as well?” the King said to his daughter. “I have come before you because the people asked me to, not because I wish to reconcile. If you choose to attack us now when we are most vulnerable, I can no longer prevent you. If not, then take your mercenaries and be gone from here. Before long, I must ask our noble citizens themselves to abandon Eleutheria, lest they drown in their own beds,” he declared with a heavy heart. “Yours shall be a hollow victory, daughter.”

  Alemar was shocked and saddened by her father’s words. She bowed her head solemnly and shook it from side to side. Giles laid his arm across her back to lend his support, and Clovis stepped forward protectively. She lifted her chin and smiled a dispirited smile at her two loyal friends.

  “Whatever happens here, I will never forget you two,” she said so that only they could hear, and then she walked a few paces toward the King.

  “You are mistaken, father,” she said sullenly. “It hurts me so to hear your words,” she replied, tears streaking her cheeks. “You have been sequestered for so long, I should not be surprised that you believe what you say. Could it be that you do not recognize he who stands beside me? Step forward, Iscaron, and meet your great, great, great, great grandson, Whitestar, King of Eleutheria, my father,” Alemar said, and she spread her hands out before her. “Who but he wore the silver diadem and the armor of Eleutheria with our crest emblazoned upon it?” she asked him, pointing to Iscaron’s chest.

  Whitestar gasped and stepped back a pace. In his despair, he had not even looked upon the others standing with his daughter.

  “Yes, it is true. The lost army of Iscaron, trapped beneath the frozen waters below the Pass of the Righteous, has been freed by the very demon who trapped it to begin with. The heat that is so destructive to our city has melted their prison walls and thus released them from their tiels of captivity. They have accompanied us here solely so that Iscaron and his tortured soldiers could glimpse their beloved city once more before they march to Sedahar to avenge themselves upon he who imprisoned them. Then their spirits will be released and they will be free for evermore,” Alemar explained.

  The citizens of Eleutheria were now massed upon the battlements watching this incredible spectacle, craning their necks, hoisting their children upon their shoulders and listening as intently as they could to the dialogue on the plain before them.

  “I have returned with hope, not despair! Join me, father! Help me to plant the seeds that will save us all,” Alemar implored him, and she reached her hand out to the King, with the pouch clasped in her fingers. “Trust me, father. Have I ever caused you reason to doubt me?” she asked.

  Whitestar stood quite still for a while, contemplating Alemar’s words.

  “You have been nothing but loyal and loving all these years. I have always trusted you in the past,” he admitted. “But what other conclusions could I draw? Soon after you left, the trouble began. The air grew hotter and hotter, and the snows began to melt. I could not help but believe that your interference was the cause of it all. After all, your brother kept telling me…”

  The King stopped himself in mid-sentence and shook his head, as if coming to some kind of inner realization. He paused momentarily and looked back at the city, as if he was searching for something or someone.

  “I wanted to believe in you, to think that you were doing the right thing, but Kalon.” Whitestar hesitated once again and cocked his head, deep in thought. “It was hard, Alemar, to deny the circumstances. Your brother led me to the trough of doubt, and I was thirsty for blame.”

  He began to nod his head as if he had come to some conclusion before speaking again. Whitestar then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “I should not have suspected you, Alemar,” he finally said. “I was not thinking clearly. I have not been thinking clearly for quite some time,” he stated, as if he had just woken up from a long and deep sleep. “I have behaved like a foolish old man. How could I not have seen it? Can you ever forgive me, daughter?” he implored her.

  Cautiously, he walked toward her, and she stepped forward boldly to meet him without even a moment’s hesitation. When they were close enough, he embraced her, and she hugged him back, overjoyed to be by his side once again. A great cheer arose from the crowds above and spread up and down the walls in increasing waves that echoed resoundingly throughout the city.

  Alemar loosened the strings of the pouch that she had been clutching in her hand all of this time and handed it to her father. She knelt down upon the wet earth and dug a hole in the ground with h
er fingers. She motioned to Whitestar to place a seed in the depression. The King knelt beside his daughter, removed a silver seed from the bag and dropped it into the hole, and she covered it over with some loose soil. Together, they repeated this exercise until the pouch was empty. Then they stepped away from the area and stood facing Iscaron and the massed army of their ancestors with their backs to Eleutheria and its expectant inhabitants.

  The sun was beating down unremittingly upon the city and all of its inhabitants, as well as upon the partially frozen landscape. The running water from the melting snows quickly rushed into the indentations where the seeds had been placed and wiped out all evidence of their work. As everyone looked on expectantly, a tiny tendril of green swiftly poked through the surface where the first seed had been sown.

  Soon, another and then another after that sprouted from the thawing ground and wriggled their way through the soft surface. With great speed, the sprouts grew into seedlings and the seedlings into saplings, feeding upon the moisture and warmth in the air and in the soil. The tendrils turned from pale green to a beautiful, silvery brown, as the shoots extended themselves upward and outwards. The roots spread out with lightning speed under the frozen ground, and from above the people could see them radiating from each seedling as they darted in all directions beneath the surface, lifting the ice in some places as they increased in length and breadth.

  Beautiful silver leaves formed on the ends of each twig as it reached for the sky, and they opened wide to the heat in the air and sucked it in, absorbing it ravenously. The roots sought out the warmth below the surface and drew it out of the soil, converting it to energy and growing all the faster by virtue of it. They multiplied at a breathtaking pace and sent tremors of power reverberating through the ground all around the city. Before long, Eleutheria was ringed by a mighty wall of enormous trees, each with leaves as broad as saucers and trunks as wide as the Stones of Carlobad.

  The moisture and the great heat that permeated the atmosphere was rapidly dissipating, and the temperature was dropping precipitously, concurrently with the rapid growth of the trees. They consumed the devastating humidity and blistering hotness as if they existed solely to provide them with sustenance, and they grew and grew with abandon.

  A groaning sound could be heard everywhere as the soft slush and ice began to constrict and re-freeze. The pools of standing water swiftly turned solid once again, the majestic ice towers turned opaque from the cold, and the walls of Eleutheria were soon marked for all time with a new design. Formerly smooth, they were now streaked and variegated from the rivulets that had been so abruptly halted in mid-stream and now suddenly re-frozen as they dripped down the great walls.

  Whitestar grasped his daughter’s hand and faced the people of the city. He had so much to say, but his words were drowned out by the earsplitting cheers raining down upon them from atop the walls. Instead, he hugged Alemar tightly to him and kissed her tenderly and lovingly upon both her cheeks.

  With her eyes brimming with tears, she saw through the blur that Iscaron had already begun his long march south, separated now from her and from the city by the barrier of trees. Silently, one by one, his eternally loyal soldiers turned and followed him. The ancient King looked back upon his cherished city once more and at Alemar as well, and she saw that the anguish which had been part and parcel of his character since the moment she laid eyes upon his tortured face, was gone from him. His features were relaxed and smooth, despite their pallor and decay. Iscaron raised his hand in salute and bowed deeply to the Princess. Alemar placed her hand upon her heart and then extended it toward him in a gesture of genuine love. She saw a satisfied smile break across his somber and time ravaged face, just before he disappeared over the hill and into the distance.

  With her father’s hand clasped tightly in her own, and with Giles and Clovis close behind, they walked toward the gates of the city. The odor from the trees was as sweet as perfume and the cold breeze welcomed them once more to their home. The air was crisp and fresh, and a light snow had already begun to fall.

  “We must prepare the army,” Whitestar said as they walked. “Will you ride at its head and lead it to my brother’s in Seramour?” he asked Alemar. “It is time we offered our strength to our brethren in the south,” he said to her just before she was swarmed by the throngs of people lining the frozen streets of the city.

  Kalon watched in humiliation from his window in the tower of the castle.

  How shall I ever face my father again? he thought. I have disgraced my mother and I have abased myself before all the people of Eleutheria. I cannot remain here. There is no future for me among my own any longer, he deliberated sadly to himself.

  While his Sister basked in the glory of her courageous efforts, a heroine to all the citizens of the city and the pride of the King’s eye, Kalon slipped out of Eleutheria unnoticed, solitary and forgotten, with merely the belongings that he wore and a satchel of food that would last him for no more than two days at best. With no word of farewell, no note left behind, he headed for the shelter of the distant woods.

  Everyone will be happier if they do not have to see me any longer. In fact, they probably will rejoice in my disappearance. Mine will be a name, cursed and despised, Kalon thought abased, as the shimmering southern walls of the city receded in the distance. Even my own mother will cringe at the thought of me. Alemar has finally gotten what she has always wanted! She will be father’s only child once again, he said bitterly to himself.

  The Prince swallowed hard as he skulked away and the bile was bitter-tasting in his throat. Sticking close to the shadows, his steps barely left a mark in the soft ground, as it quickly re-froze around his horse’s hoof marks and immediately filled up with soft mounds of the new snow that was falling heavily all over the kingdom.

  As quickly as my trail fades behind me, so will my existence be forgotten, Kalon thought downcast, as he disappeared into the darkness of the trees.

  Chapter Forty-four

  “When all that they are is all they will be,

  And the fires of change burn out on the sea,

  When the winds of tomorrow blow back yesteryear,

  And the past is the sum they have left to hold dear,

  When they dare not move forward,

  Yet they cannot go back,

  When their sons and their daughters

  Despise them their lack,

  When betrayal seems better

  Than staying the course,

  When the most they can do

  Is remember their loss,

  When they find themselves trapped ‘tween

  Their wants and their needs,

  When the air that sustains them

  Grows poisonous to breathe,

  Beware. He comes hither…

  He slips through their door,

  A vision of beauty,

  So arrant and sure,

  A promise of salvation,

  A seductive entreat,

  A glimpse of tomorrow,

  A victory so sweet,

  He offers eternity,

  He claims that he may,

  Alas, all he gives them

  Is darkness, not day.

  And who will be left then

  To show them the way?

  Who in the tower

  Will guide them this day ?”

  Bethany closed the heavy cover and pushed the book aside. Rella had poured her some cider from a small vase and slid it toward the older Sister. She took a sip from the plain, pewter goblet in front of her and cleared her throat.

  “Once again we are called upon, Sisters. This passage is quite clear about that much,” Bethany related.

  “I cannot understand what compels some people to give in to his appeals,” Rella commented, shaking her head back and forth. “The Tomes speak of his falsity. Everyone has been warned. Nevertheless, he sends his servants into Talamar, and they flock to their sides,” she said, disgusted.

  “They say that his charms are so seductive,
many cannot resist him,” Violet replied, her eyes wide and innocent.

  “Are they so enticed that they do not feel the wrongness of him?” Dahlia asked. “Weakness renders them susceptible,” the dark-haired woman practically spit out the words.

  “It is not the Talamarans whom we need to discuss today. Their betrayal was no surprise to any of us,” Gretchen said. “Once again though, Parth has been mentioned and we cannot turn our backs upon the supplication. It could be disastrous for us all if we should,” she concluded.

  “What say you of this, Tamara? Has Liam or Oleander given you any indication regarding what we are to do after you are gone?” Emmeline asked.

  “No, Sister. I only know that I must leave here very soon. I endanger you all by remaining longer than absolutely necessary. And moreover, what we have held so dear and protected for so long has become a threat to us all. Of that, they were clear. I must depart as soon as I can,” Tamara responded.

  “Could it be that one of us who will remain must confront the evil alone?” Rose asked of the group.

  Lips pursed, “Perhaps. We do not know,” Gretchen replied, pensive and serious.

  “Time will reveal the plan to us,” Bethany said. “It will do us no good to speculate on this matter. The Tomes never are specific. They only hint of things. They do not risk altering the weave by being pedantic and preachy. I have studied them long enough to know that what we learn from them is never specific. They are descriptive yet they never are particular, and usually the answers are before us already,” she concluded.

  “If this answer is so obvious, it still eludes me nevertheless,” Violet admitted, looking down at the table.

  “I did not mean to infer that the Tomes stated the obvious, Sister. The contrary is in fact the rule. What I really meant was that often we need only reexamine what we have looked at a thousand times already, and therein we discover the meaning that escaped us before. Things fall into place. I remember…”