by B. H. Savage
Anye had cleaned herself up after the day’s events. It took her nearly an hour of washing to get all of the dirt out of her hair alone. She didn’t wear a festive gown or anything that would contradict her abilities, and even though she had unjustly fallen from grace in Delrich she still carried herself as an honorable knight would.
Instead of the usual formal wear of a woman, Anye had decided to wear a fitted pair of green pants she had bought, along with new knee-high brown leather boots and brown leather vest that covered a white blouse, and a belt that fastened snugly on her waist to hold the sheathed swords at her sides. Her hair was tied in a simple ponytail and she let her bangs hang loose in the front. The style made her feel as though she presented a more dominant appearance instead of a submissive one if she had dressed like a ‘proper lady.’ All in all she didn’t look like a weak woman who required protection, which was just how she wanted it.
Byron cleaned himself up a bit for the evening as well. His usual old robes were replaced by nicer, but still lower-class ones. He combed his hair neatly to the side, but the stubble on his face remained, and his ever-present cane remained in his hand.
As the pair approached the large wooden doors of Lord Taggart’s home, the entrance opened to reveal the announcer from the tournament, appropriately dressed in a servant’s robes and cleaned up nicely with his thin hair neatly combed to the side.
“Miss Karst and Master Stonemaker, I welcome you to the Lord Taggart estate,” he greeted them. “My Lord eagerly awaits your meeting, My Lady. He was quite taken with your skills today. Master Stonemaker must have trained you well. If I remember correctly he won the tournament himself a few times in his youth.”
Anye grinned and looked over at her old companion. “Really?” she commented. “Byron, you never told me about that.”
The old man blushed and waved his hand dismissingly. “Oh it was a long time ago,” he replied. “Living a life of travel and battle, entering a tournament or two felt natural towards the end of my career.”
“Indeed,” the attendant said dryly “Now please, do come in.”
The two guests were ushered inside and the massive doors slowly closed behind them. The interior of the manor was magnificent. Paintings of landscapes and long dead noblemen, noblewomen, and even legendary heroes of the past hung on the walls. Exotic vases lined the support beams painted in all kinds of different designs. Some of them Anye recognized, having designs originating from Delrich. Others appeared to be from Mitus, Toran, the Western Isles, and even the Frontier. The plants within the vases were all local flowers the servants had likely cut from the estate’s garden and placed for decoration.
Elegant tapestries hung along the walls between the windows, each one with a different story sewn into it. A giant crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, lit with hundreds of candles to illuminate the foyer. The hall was magnificent, but Anye was sure that whatever truly fascinating treasures the wealthy man possessed were stored elsewhere, maybe in a private room or vault of some kind.
“It just occurred to me that we don’t know what to call you, sir,” Anye said to their guide. “You know our names, but we were never told yours at the tournament.”
“Oh, of course,” he replied. “Forgive my absentmindedness. You may call me William, head steward in service to Lord Taggart.”
“A pleasure to formally meet you, William,” Anye told him as she bowed her head politely.
The portly servant merely smiled and continued to guide them through the hall, eventually leading them to a room on the second floor overlooking the fields to the west of the mansion. The sunset filled the room with a warm orange glow. A cool evening breeze blew in from the open balcony adjacent to the room where Amadi stood looking outside.
“Here you are. Lord Taggart will join you momentarily. For now, please make yourselves at home in his private library,” he said to them.
“Thank you, William,” Anye replied.
The hefty servant smiled again as he backed himself out of the room and closed the doors behind him.
Lord Taggart’s library was just as elegantly decorated as the foyer. Vases filled with plants stood in each corner while various paintings hung on the walls. There was no crystal chandelier, but candlesticks had been fastened to the walls and a large fireplace rested at the far end of the room. A massive round table was situated in the center of the room with enough chairs to seat twenty people, and so Anye assumed that the library was where the governor carried out meetings with his subordinates.
The shelves that held the nobleman's private collection of books were enormous and filled to the brim. They lined the walls almost all the way to the ceiling and were only each separated by the presence of one of the paintings. The sheer volume of books reminded Anye of Delrich’s royal library in the castle, where she had many memories studying countless amounts of subjects both before and after joining the royal army.
Amadi stood on the balcony overlooking the western expanse of the estate, and did not appear to have changed his clothes from earlier in the day, but they were miraculously clean. Anye suspected that the boy had used some form of magic to control air and blow the dust off of his clothes. It was an effective way to clean, but she thought it was careless to use magic in such a way. It was because of this thought that she was hesitant to believe that the boy had the information she sought, let alone that he was from the frontier and instinctively didn’t trust him.
“I can sense your hesitation,” he said to her. Amadi didn’t turn to face the woman or her companion. “I know it must be hard to accept, but I have given you proof of my sincerity already. Choosing to ignore that would be…unwise.”
“Why are you offering to help me?” she asked him as she walked to stand with him on the balcony. “First you claim that I’m someone else, and then you tell me you know what it is I seek, and that you understand what happened to me in the tournament.”
Now Amadi turned towards her. He remained silent though, instead choosing to stare at her. She didn’t turn away, but his lack of an answer wasn’t helping.
“Miss Everdyne, as he said it would be unwise to mistrust Amadi,” the deep voice of Micah Lord Taggart said to her from behind.
She turned quickly to see that the large nobleman had entered the room unnoticed.
“It is a pleasure to see you again, My Lord. She is everything you are looking for and more,” Byron commented with a smile.
Lord Taggart laughed heartily and walked towards Byron from the door. William pulled the doors to the room shut behind him again, presumably leaving to attend to other duties. “Byron, you don’t need to be so formal with me right now,” he told him. “Thank you for keeping an eye on her.”
Anye went rigid. Byron smiled as he turned towards her and stepped next to their host. “Yes, we know who you are, Lady Everdyne of the Holy Knights.”
Anye spaced her feet defensively and gripped the handle of her old sword, ready to defend herself if necessary. “You knew? How do you know who I am?” she asked.
“Relax, Captain. I’m not turning you over to Delrich for the bounty placed on you,” he explained. “Nor are Amadi or Byron, I assure you.”
“Then what do you want with me? And how do you know who I am?”
“First, you and Amadi were the champions of my tournament. As I do every year I congratulate the victor, or in this case the victors, with a feast here in my home,” The nobleman answered. “But what I do not make openly known to the public is that I propose a job to the victor, something that would arouse…suspicion otherwise.”
Anye relaxed her muscles but remained on her guard. “You still haven’t explained how you know my identity.”
“Captain, I am the governor of this region of Belrun. It is within my interests to know who enters the territory under my charge,” Lord Taggart explained. “When I received word from my agents that a beautiful red-haired woman that had recently crossed the bridge alone, without identification, and was carrying a sword and loo
king for work as a mercenary…well, let’s say I became curious. Women do not commonly seek that type of work, nor do they commonly travel alone.”
“And?”
“And I contacted Byron. He agreed to board you for a reduced price while I put the pieces together,” he replied. “Amy Karst was not a name known to any of my men both in and out of Bridge Port. The former captain of the Holy Knights of Delrich, who had recently been imprisoned on charges of treason, had escaped from the castle’s dungeon. That woman, if I recall my information correctly, had flowing red hair, fair peach skin, and was exceptionally skilled with a sword and shield, although I can’t say I had ever met this person before.”
“I’ll admit I wasn’t sure if you were really her until the tournament,” Byron added. “But I was sure after your first round. Mercenaries are commonly mages or warriors. A hybrid such as you is quite rare as you know, and usually limited to royal militaries like those of Mitus and Delrich.”
“Why aren’t you going to turn me over to Delrich, then?” Anye asked. “I’m sure there’s a hefty price on my head for what His Majesty believes me guilty of.”
“Captain, I am wealthy and powerful, and my influence already reaches far and wide. Turning you over to your kingdom for a crime you are obviously innocent of serves me no purpose,” he answered. “You are a much more valuable asset to me alive.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Byron, please explain the job to our guest,” the governor requested. He walked over to the large round table where Amadi had taken a seat, conversing with him quietly so Byron could explain to Anye what she wanted to know.
“Anye, if Micah wanted to collect on your bounty he would have done so already,” Byron explained. “I’ve known him for three decades, fought beside him in countless battles. You can trust him.”
“Byron you lied to me!” Anye yelled at him angrily. “I can’t even trust you right now, and you expect me to take your word for it and trust him?”
“Anye, if I had told you I knew who you were would you have stayed in Bridge Port?” Byron asked in response. “Would you have fought in the tournament, and be here now? Micah has access to information that you want, and this job is right up your alley if you’re looking to make a new name for yourself and leave your past behind.”
Anye stared at the old man but calmed herself more, eventually letting go of the sword’s handle. She didn’t say anything at first until she let out the breath she had been holding to calm her nerves. “I don’t want to leave my past behind, I want to find out the truth and expose the bastard who did this to me…but why did you help me then?”
Byron laughed at the young woman. “Anye, besides the fact that Micah asked me to, I haven’t had someone as beautiful as you stay in my inn for as long as you have in years. You’re easy on the eyes!” The comment on her looks didn’t help matters, and it made the old man sound more lecherous than she assumed, but he sounded genuine. “But the job Micah is offering I’m sure will pique your interest.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking back at the large man at the table.
“It’s a simple matter of locating and retrieving something for him; nothing too dangerous or boring. He’ll give you the specifics about it,” Byron replied.
Anye and Byron approached the large table and sat opposite of Lord Taggart and Amadi. The nobleman was holding Amadi’s staff in his hands, examining it with a childlike wonder in his eyes. The gemstone floating at the end of the staff was glowing with a pale blue light, and now that Anye wasn’t focusing on fighting she could see that the weapon itself was even more masterfully designed and decorated than she thought, and also incredibly old.
The governor handed the staff back to the boy after he realized his other two guests had finally decided to join him at his table. “So I take it you trust me now?” he asked the woman.
“Trust is something that does not come easy, Lord Taggart,” she replied. “But I do believe that you do not have the intent of turning me in to Delrich for a bounty, at least not while I’m still useful.”
“Very well, before we feast I shall tell you about this job I would like to offer you. Keep in mind that you were chosen for this based on your skills in battle, not because I knew who you were,” he replied.
The nobleman looked at Anye with that same look of youthful excitement as he had when looking at Amadi’s staff. “Captain, as I’m sure you’ve either noticed or heard, I’m a bit of a collector of all things historic. I am fascinated by our world’s history and legends, and I’ve dedicated my life to learning more. My home is decorated with some of the oldest artifacts ever discovered. Some of them date back to the times before the kingdoms as we know them existed. Being a citizen of the Frontier, like Amadi here, the outside civilizations of the world gripped me as a child and grew into my life’s passion.”
“Micah and I traveled together when he was a little older than you are,” Byron commented as he looked at Anye. “He was quite the talented mage in his youth.”
“Yes, well…tell me, Captain, what do you know of the holy land of Del’Mond?” he asked.
Anye was surprised. “Del’Mond?” she repeated. “I read about it while I was a student of the church, and later during my training,” she answered. “It’s a lost land, said to be the source of all magical power in the world. It was a gift left behind by the gods who created the world, and it is thought that our ancestors made it the capital of their country. It is said that it was lost in the great war of legend, but Del’Mond is just a story to tell children to lull them to sleep and explain where magic comes from.”
“Legends are often steeped in truth, Anye,” Lord Taggart replied. “What if I told you Del’Mond was real?”
Anye laughed. “Real? My Lord, if the holy land really did exist, it would have been found long ago by some cartographer. Del’Mond is a myth, simple as that. Now what’s this all about? I thought you said you wanted to hire me for something that would arouse suspicions if done through normal means. Byron says you want me to find something for you; looking to increase your collection?”
The nobleman rose from the table and walked to one of his bookshelves before answering the question. He pulled out a visibly old, dusty red tome and walked back to the table with it, placing it in front of Anye before sitting back down himself. There was no title on the book’s cover, only a symbol or seal of some sort shaped like a tree growing out of a sphere, with the tree’s roots reaching all the way around. Anye had only seen that symbol once before in her life, and the presence of it printed on something like an ancient tome created more questions when she remembered it.
“Where did you get this?” she asked quietly.
“Do you know what that is?” Lord Taggart replied. “If you do, then you know that this is proof of Del’Mond’s existence, or at least that it existed.”
Anye recognized the seal from her childhood, in an ancient book that was kept in the castle’s restricted library. She found it after she had snuck in to the parts of the old building that had been forbidden to those not granted special permission by the king to enter. The book, as she had been told by historian who found her, was a journal kept by someone many years ago and contained information that could be used against Delrich. She was so young at the time she didn't press the matter further.
"That symbol was Del'Mond's sigil, its mark," Lord Taggart went on to explain. "Our people, the tribes of the Frontier, know this mark as the Punt van Gaia, the Mark of Gaia, the mother of our world and source of all of the world's magic. Other countries also know this symbol by various names, or at least their history does. Mitus, for example, calls it the Heimat der Götter in their native tongue, or the Home of the Gods. The people of the Western Isles refer to it as the Seinaru ōkoku, the Holy Kingdom. Of course most people would not recognize this if they saw it anymore," Lord Taggart explained. "Any serious study on the subject of Del'Mond was ceased long before our time. Now it is commonly shrugged off as a myth, left
to decay in the sands of time and to be forgotten by the minds of man. This book, however, proves that Del'Mond does exist!"
"And how did such a thing come to be in your possession?" Anye asked, less skeptical than before.
"I found it during my travels after I left my home tribe," he told her. "I decided to leave the teachings of my shaman behind to make my own mark on the world as a mercenary. That was when I met Byron. A wealthy landowner desired more treasure for his private collection and hired the two of us and a few others to protect him while he explored some ruins he had discovered in Toran."
"The ruins were up in the mountains, where Delrich's military gets dragons for their lancer knights," Byron explained. "On the surface they were half buried in the snow and mostly collapsed from years of neglect, but the passages underground were mostly intact. Our employer was afraid of bandits and wild dragons, hence the protection."
"He was wise to be wary of the creatures," Lord Taggart added. "Not long after we had arrived at the ruins we were set upon by the largest dragon we'd ever laid eyes on, and were forced to flee inside to the catacombs." He paused for a moment as he searched his thoughts, remembering the events of the day. "I remember the surge of magic I felt coming from it. It felt like it was trying to protect something."
"The morons that came with us thought they could make some extra coin if they brought in the dragon's scales and bones to sell to the armorers in Toran," Byron said. "We tried to warn them, but they saw nothing but gold. I remember their screams as the beast burned them alive in seconds. We had no choice but to continue further in to the tunnels and hope to find another way out."
"Eventually, we stumbled in to a set of chambers that we thought may have acted as emergency shelter at a time," the nobleman continued. "Our employer was ecstatic to find that some of the inhabitants had left their possessions behind. I on the other hand decided to follow a feeling I had and search a seemingly empty room, where I found that book tucked away alone on a shelf and covered with dust."