Modern Magic
Page 192
“I see you have met,” Marion said as he appeared from around the corner to Zykeiah. “I did not know you were coming so soon today. I thought I would see you closer to dusk.”
Zykeiah finally removed her gaze from Sarah and over to Marion whom seemed unabashed by her fierce glare. “There is much to tell.”
“I am sure.” He patted Zykeiah on the back and added, “But first things are first; your celebration and dubbing ceremony…”
“…is tomorrow,” Zykeiah finished. “Yes, I know.”
“Then you must meet with tailors, bathe and then see Queen Zoë.”
He flicked Zykeiah’s ear playfully, smirking at her.
“Yes, but first I must talk to the Queen.” She glanced at Sarah then back to Marion.
“No, first you must bathe!” Marion quipped. “I will help you.”
He winked at Zykeiah and playfully slapped her bottom.
Laughing, Zykeiah playfully punched him in the stomach and Sarah noticed her well-sculptured arms. This Zykeiah had little stock on her bones, her build, although not tall, was stout and solid, like a hard, rigid stone wall.
“Come on, Zykeiah.” Marion teased all the more as the two of them wrestled.
Sarah watched with growing impatience at how comfortable they were with each other. Marion did not order this woman around or treat her like a child, the way he treated Sarah.
“Pardon,” Sarah mumbled as she pushed past Zykeiah, who had Marion in a headlock, and rounded the corner leaving the two to discuss whatever ‘celebration’ they needed to. She had not been told of any celebration or dubbing. In fact, neither Marion nor Kalah had mentioned anything of the sort.
They continued to reiterate that she was not a prisoner, so why did they treat her as such? She could neither leave nor was she informed of news that surely everyone in the castle was aware of. It certainly felt more like she was a prisoner than a guest.
She passed through the foyer on her journey back toward the East Wing. As she walked through the groups of people, she noticed that one of the foyer’s two hearths was ablaze and bright. Three servants carefully swept the floor then tossed the old herbs into the awaiting flame, while a fourth placed fresh herbs and crushed flowers onto the foyer floor where the old herbs had been removed.
As Sarah got closer to the East Wing Hall, the delightful smells of sweet cakes, rolls and eggs filled the air within the tight corridor hallway. The smell aroused her hunger and she quickened her pace to reach the Hall before the cook decided to shut down for morning meal. If she hurried she might be able to get a quick bite to eat, then perhaps she could venture outside to those smaller cottages she observed the night prior. Maybe there she could get some answers.
Servants were often thought of as a part of the castle’s furnishings, often seen but not heard. Contrary to that belief, servants heard many, many things that royalty discussed and would no doubt some have information about the Minister Knights, this Zykeiah person and probably about Sarah herself.
Fighting down the temptation to run to the Hall, she marveled at the appetite she had developed. Stolen and taken to Solis as a young girl, Sarah could barely remember if she had such a large appetite before her trip to the cages. She enjoyed the meal Kalah made the prior night and that only made her anxious to try the morning portion of meals.
Finally the overpowering aromas of morning meal condensed at the entranceway to the East Wing Hall, which surprisingly was empty, this late in the morning.
Sarah entered and sat down at one of the wooden tables, not exactly knowing what to do. A servant girl, perhaps about ten years old carried out a plate, cup and fork. The girl placed the plate in front of Sarah, carefully, and without making eye contact.
The girl’s hands were scruffy, red and almost covered by her elongated robe’s sleeves; the hood hid most of her face. The robe did not disguise the girl’s hefty frame and pudginess. Her wide body made it difficult to reach over Sarah, so the girl moved to the front of the table to finish setting out the bowls, cups and plates.
“Good morning,” Sarah said to the girl.
The girl did not respond, but rather turned and fled to the kitchen, reappearing after several minutes with breads and hard-boiled eggs. The girl sneaked a peek at Sarah as she placed the bread on the table alongside the eggs, before hurrying back to the kitchen.
Shrugging, Sarah picked up one of the boiled eggs and immediately dropped it.
“Ouch!” She rubbed the angry red spot on her hand where the hot egg had burned her skin.
“Careful, those things are hot,” Marion called to her as he entered the East Wing Hall.
He took a seat across from her and whistled for the servant girl. The young girl reappeared, this time with a small boy that carried a plate and cup.
Marion placed both elbows on the table as the young girl sat still more bread and eggs onto the table. The smaller boy struggled to place the plate and cup in front of Marion. He seemed caught between his duty and trying to get a good look at the Minister Knight.
Marion did not speak until the young girl and the smaller boy had returned to the kitchen.
Sarah cautiously picked up the egg. Feeling the hard cracked shell, she rolled the now slightly cooler egg around in her hand, noting its texture and shape. Rolling the shell away from the actual egg, she grimaced at the gooey slime that separated with the shell, leaving just the pinkish color of the egg’s “flesh”, the yolk was till to come.
Marion watched with interest as Sarah examined the now shell-less egg before slowly placing it into her mouth and biting.
“It is good,” he remarked before rapidly removing the three eggs’ shells and placing an entire egg, one at a time into his mouth.
“No?” he asked around a mouth full of egg before swallowing.
Sarah swallowed then felt the squishiness of the eggs and hardened yolk inside her mouth. “No.”
Draining her cup of the bitter ale, Sarah decided she needed something that tasted better than eggs and reached for the sweet bread.
Glazed with an almost clear substance that was sticky and sugary sweet, the sweet bread lived up to its name. Liking her fingers again and again, Sarah ate three sweet bread rolls before she said another word to Marion.
Marion did not eat any of the sweet bread; he only ate the eggs and a few pieces of the flatbread. He tried not to stare at her, especially as she licked her lean, elegant fingers to free them of the sweet bread’s stickiness. He should not be eating with her in the East Wing Hall; he should not be this close to her at all, except he could not help himself.
And if Queen Zoë found out, worse, if Zykeiah found out, his life in the castle might be made more difficult for many lengthy rotations to come.
“What are you doing here?” Sarah asked as she beckoned to the young servant girl that she was finished.
“Having morning meal,” he answered before finishing his third cup of drink.
“You know what I mean. Queen Zoë told you and Kalah to have morning meal more than an hour ago.”
Sarah stood and brushed the sweet breadcrumbs from her pants.
The young servant girl blushed beneath her hood and dropped an empty cup to the ground. Marion waited until the servant girl had left before reaching across the table and snatching Sarah’s wrist and nearly dragging her across the table. He stood up.
“If you ever speak to me in such a tone in front of a servant again, it will be your neck. I do not care who the Queen thinks you are!”
Thrusting her backwards with a hard shove, Marion stalked out of the East Wing Hall. Cursing himself for coming to this end of the castle, he did not hear Sarah’s calls to him until he reached the door to his chambers.
“Marion! Marion!” Sarah raced after him down the East Wing hallway towards the foyer. The same hallway, where just yesterday, Marion and Kalah were discussing Valek’s threat and the Queen’s health.
Out of breath, she stopped in front of a door labeled with a crossbow and a bras
s door handle. Marion placed his hand on the door handle, and then turned to look at her.
“What?” His eyes burned into hers. Anger forced his mouth to form a sneer.
“I-I am sorry,” Sarah whispered.
Her fear of him returned for the first since she tried to escape from him on their way to the castle. With the fear was also the new fluttering of things that Sarah did not readily understand…an oozy warmth that burned inside her. It was almost pleasant, but she could not linger on that feeling because her fear quickly eroded it.
Marion’s pale gray eyes continued to stare at her. They seemed to be searching and silently questioning her. Sarah did not flinch; she found herself unable to glance away and unable to speak. Her words were stolen from her before they escaped her lips.
“Fine,” Marion finally replied as he turned the doorhandle.
“Wait!” Sarah reached out and placed her foot in the door’s closing pathway. “Please, tell me what you meant in the Hall.”
Opening the door wider, Marion grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room, slamming the door just as she was in.
“I should not have said anything,” he mumbled as he wiped his head.
His chambers had only a bright red sleigh bed, a makeshift rocking chair and a woven basket of greenery. On the wall was one tapestry, an exact replica of the one hanging in Queen Zoë’s chambers. Like her room, this room only had one window that faced the castle’s small courtyard that housed the central baths, the greenery and the supply rooms.
“Sit,” Marion ordered.
Sarah slowly looked around the room for some place to sit before deciding to sit on the floor, which was covered with herbs of rosemary and thyme.
The room smelled of forest and smoke and Sarah noticed that beside the bed were swords, daggers and crossbows all shined and polished. Upon further inspection, she saw that despite their polished gloss, the swords had nicks, dings and outright damage to them as if they had been used heavily.
“You promised that Queen Zoë would tell me, but today she did not tell me anything of my purpose here.”
“No?” He paced in front of his bed. “The Queen is quite ill, as you saw this morning with the coughing.”
Nodding and wrestling with the idea of whether he should tell her or wait for the Queen, he soon fell silent as his pacing increased. Sarah watched, unsure of what to say or do. Should she leave? Stay?
Finally, he turned to her and said, “You must know before it is too late.”
Marion sat down on his bed, removed his sword and placed his glasses on the bed. “Where do I begin?”
“I know of Valek’s smuggling and his potion that allows people to read minds,” she said softly, “but what does that have to do with me?”
“Then you know almost as much as we,” Marion said as he sat down on his enormous bed. “But there is something that we believe Valek does not know.”
“And that is?” Sarah inquired.
“According to the Antiqk scrolls, there would be one to arrive into the galaxy that would possess extraordinary powers of magic and sorcery. Her powers would be so fantastic, that she would free the souls from Solis, destroy Valek and cease the war between Earth 3012 and Saturn Four.”
Marion glanced quickly at Sarah before continuing. “I know the Queen has waited since she was a child for this person to arrive on Veloris. Queen Zoë had researched, meditated and visited the Oracle of Antiqk for years, most of her life, in search of the signs that would lead us to know when to act.”
“And let me guess,” Sarah interrupted. “Queen Zoë believes that person is me?”
Without waiting for his answer, she laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it. She stood, ready to leave Marion’s close cozy chamber.
“It is true,” he said as he stood too and walked across to the door.
“Look, I am grateful for my rescue, but my sister is still trapped on Solis.” Sarah turned to leave. “And I must free her.”
“You do not believe –” he asked.
“No! You can’t expect me to just believe some prophesy…” she said.
Marion placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Come, I will give you proof.”
She followed him out of his room and down a hallway toward the West Wing of the castle. Just before they reached the Great Hall, they entered an adjoining hallway that Sarah must have missed earlier that morning.
It led to the stables.
Once they arrived at the stables, Marion gave Sarah a heavy woolen coat complete with a hood to protect her from the cold outside. As she wrapped it around her, she thought of Amana and the ugly green coat.
A servant page saddled the danker beast for her; Marion required no saddle. He simply threw one huge leg over the beast. His size seemed to make the beast erupt in protest followed by a series of moans and onks.
Marion said to the servant page, “Tell Kalah that Sarah and I have gone for an afternoon ride, we will return before evening meal.”
The boy nodded and went to lift the doors. They guided the danker beasts closer to the door and watched as the stable doors rose.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they were now out of earshot of the servants. She gathered that Marion did not like speaking in front of them.
“To the Antiqk Oracle,” he answered flatly.
“Where is it?” Sarah felt the icy breeze slip through the hood’s protective layer and into her ears. The weather was so cold, her nose burned. The rawness of the morning had not melted off under the afternoon’s sun.
“Not far from here in the eastern section of the Northern Forest.”
Marion, shirtless and wearing only his tinted glasses, black leather pants, and boots, did not acknowledge the frigidness of the weather. Again Sarah wondered about whom exactly were Marion and Kalah.
She knew they were brothers. Kalah had admitted that the night she and Marion arrived at the castle. They were both Minister Knights of Souls, but how did they arrive on Veloris? How did they become Ministers? Did Queen Zoë recruit them? If so, what planet did she find them? Why was there so few of them?
They were headed towards the Antiqk Oracle where the scrolls had prophesied her birth and her purpose. But Sarah knew nothing of magic and sorcery. No, she knew little regarding the mythical or the surreal. She only prayed that some how this would lead to Amana’s freedom. She could play along with what they wanted.
“It is not much farther. See even from here you can see the glow.” Marion pointed straight ahead where an almost orange color lit up an area of the forest in an eerie pulsating hypnotic rhythm. Why they had not seen it from the path last night, she did not know.
Sarah could feel the nerves in her stomach began to move about in protest to the fear that had crawled there. A sickening feeling also crept into her throat making her cough.
“Come.” Marion commanded as he whipped his danker beast into a faster trot. “We must hurry, faster.”
Sarah patted her danker beast and hurried after Marion towards the glimmering glow of the Antiqk Oracle.
As they hurried, Sarah felt an overwhelming familiarness tugging at her memory, a memory of being here before as she passed the various trails, trees and frozen lakes on the path to the Antiqk Oracle. Even the air held a certain smell: a mixture of rotting logs, crisp snow and dung that somehow felt like home.
Coaxing her danker beast ahead of Marion’s, she followed the memory right to the opening cavern of the Antiqk Oracle that opened wide, eagerly waiting for its latest visitor. Red flecks of light, weathered stones, intermingled vines of various colors and odors dominated the Oracle’s entranceway.
As soon as she reached the cavern’s opening mouth, Sarah dismounted from the danker beast and again felt the overwhelming feeling that she had been here before. Her danker beast proceeded to back up from the cavern slowly, than faster, until it reached Marion.
“I know this place,” she whispered.
Marion dismounted, too, and walked over to her. “D
o you? I thought you had never been to Veloris.”
“I have not,” she answered before starting up the two stone steps towards the cavern.
Marion silently followed her, for it seemed Sarah was in a trance, she neither looked at him nor waited for him. She simply plowed ahead as if she had no will of her own. It called to her in soft whispers of promise and knowledge; a key to unlock her trunk of questions. He remained just outside the cavern of the Antiqk Oracle. The wind wrestled in the leaves at the mouth of the Oracle.
According to legend, the Oracle only admitted one at a time; two would bring immediate death. Not to mention, the oracle prophesies were the business of the one entering the cavern and for no other.
Sarah entered into the cavern and walked directly to the glowing sphere of the Antiqk Oracle. About the size of a fully-grown melon, the Antiqk oracle resembled the blue spheres that Valek used to capture souls, except this one was six times as large and rested in the huge chiseled open palm of a great hand that rose from the ground. This Oracle was made of an orange glass substance and it hummed a rhythm to its pulsating glow over and over again without pause. It sounded like, “Come, come, come.”
It seemed to call to her, to beckon her to touch it, to “come” into its atmosphere of unlimited knowledge of the past, the future and the unexplained. Come to know herself.
Come.
Sarah placed both her hands on the oracle and the sphere began to blink faster and faster, spinning all the while, spewing answers as instantaneously as she asked them. Some answers came before she even consciously acknowledged the question. Rapid fire like bullets of awareness resounded through her psyche and lodged in the orifice of her mind with such force and impact that after what felt like a few minutes, she physically collapsed to the unyielding floor.
Chapter Six