The Halfblood King: Book 1 of the Chronicles of Aertu
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“It certainly is a long journey,” Hadaras agreed, “but well worth it. Dhargul is a sight worth seeing and very few non-dwarves are permitted entry into the city proper.”
“How is it that you are so well known here, Grandfather?”
“I did a favor for King Faergas Goldhammer, long ago. He is still quite grateful for it.”
“What did you do for him and why do they call him ‘Goldhammer’?”
“As for your first question, my boy, I helped rid him of a minor case of demonic possession,” Hadaras explained. “He is one of the few individuals alive who know my full identity. As for your second question, he has a gold hammer. He says he prefers the heft of it for fighting mountain trolls, which he still enjoys doing, on occasion.”
“He still goes out and fights trolls himself?” Aleron asked. “Isn’t he too important for that sort of thing? I mean, what if he gets killed?”
“Aleron, my dear boy, what I am about to tell you, I hope you take to heart and never forget. A king who styles himself too important to himself defend his territory and people, is no longer a king in truth. The king exists for the people, not the other way around. The kingdom belongs to the people and the king belongs to the kingdom and thus the people. When a ruler believes that the kingdom and people exist for his own benefit, he becomes a tyrant and the people eventually overthrow tyrants. No one person is indispensable, not even the king.” That left Aleron to ponder the words of his grandfather, quite possibly the oldest and wisest mortal being on the face of Aertu. He recalled the histories of some other nations, such as Ebareiza, whose kings and emperors faced regular usurpation over the ages. “Look, here’s a place to rest now.” The dwarves quarried away a spur of the mountain, leaving an area over thirty paces across. Fast growing grasses and shrubs, specially bred by the dwarves for this purpose, provided much needed forage for horses. Hadaras led them of the path and they dismounted, picketing the horses alongside the most recovered looking sward. “This would be a good place to camp, but it is too early in the day for that. There will be other opportunities further along the path.” The builders also carved several alcoves into the face of the mountain, as well as a larger, covered stable area.
The tremendous amount of effort expended by the dwarves to build this road and the way stations along it was mind boggling to anyone who took the time to think about it. This fact was not lost on Aleron, who asked, “Grandfather, how long did it take the dwarves to build this road? It seems like an awful lot of work.”
“This being the major artery between Dhargul and Arundell, the dwarves have developed this route more than others,” Hadaras answered, “and if I recall correctly, it took them well over a thousand years to establish it to the point you see today.”
“A thousand years…?”
“Yes, but bear in mind, the route was established much earlier and what you see now is the result of improvements. This section of the trail used to follow the river and then climb steeply out of the valley at the falls. This gradual climb took centuries to carve into the cliff face. Dwarves build nothing shoddily, so once they build a road, they spend very little on its upkeep and it endures for thousands of years.”
“That’s not the way men build, is it Grandfather?”
“No, unfortunately lad, men, being the short lived creatures they are look for quick results and don’t often build things to last. There were exceptions of course, like the monuments of Cop and the royal hall at Arundell, but nothing built on Aertu can match a dwarvish structure for longevity.”
“How about elves, how do they build?”
“Elves build for beauty. We care not that it will not last forever, for we value the aesthetic above all else. Our structures are quite durable, nonetheless, but no match for those built by dwarves.”
“Thank you, Grandfather.” Aleron seemed satisfied with the answer. “I’d like to look around a little, if that’s all right.” Hadaras nodded in affirmation and Aleron wandered off to explore the shelters and stables. He found the manure heap, next to the stables. It was obvious that someone came through regularly to clean the area and the manure likely used to fertilize the grass and shrubs. A raven flapped in, taking roost on an outcropping overhead. Aleron looked up at it and it in turn, eyed him quizzically. Thinking little of the bird, Aleron decided to practice magic while they waited. He did as Hadaras had shown him and projected a thin beam of blue radiance from his hand, using it to reduce a stray stone into precisely spaced slices, like a loaf of bread. He found that he could feel the measurements through the power he wielded. He tried to do the same to another stone with the red power, but found the precision was not there. The stone split violently and haphazardly and he soon had a small pile of rubble where the stone once was. He then picked up one of the wafers he made and held it in his right palm. Around the stone, he generated a blue glow, while in his left palm he produced red. Closing both palms around the disk, he focused on a cliff wall facing him from across the valley and visualized the disk striking a point on the rock face. In a flash of maroon light, the stone shot across the valley, to the point Aleron focused upon. He saw a puff of dust and several seconds later, heard the crack from the impact.
Hadaras looked up from his repose on the finely crafted stone bench he chose to lie on. “Easy boy, you don’t know who might be here in these hills to witness. Be careful.”
“Yes, Grandfather, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
A voice cackled behind him, “Indeed, good advice my grandson gives you.” Aleron whipped around to see the raven had hopped down to wall of the refuse bin. “I haven’t seen the likes of that in many an age.” As Aleron’s jaw dropped in disbelief, the black bird continued, “Why don’t you try mixing all the colors, like I showed you.” The bird underwent a transformation before his eyes, going from black to luminous white. Without another word, it took wing and shot impossibly fast up the cliff face and into the sky, dwindling to a point of light before winking out.
Aleron rushed to his Grandfather and in a shaky voice asked, “Did you see that?”
“See what? You were just flinging stones and I closed my eyes for a quick nap,” he replied.
“That raven just spoke to me.”
“It spoke?” he asked, sitting suddenly upright. “What did it say to you?” He knew that aelient could take many guises and not all were benevolent.
“It said it hadn’t seen anything like that for many an age.” Hadaras looked even more worried and Aleron continued. “Then it said that I should try mixing all the colors, like ‘IT’ showed me to.”
“As if it were the source of the dreams you were having?”
“I think so, Grandfather, then it changed its color to white and flew off.”
‘You’re saying it became a white raven before it left you?” Hadaras asked, sounding more excited.
“Yes, it was definitely still a raven, just white and glowing, sort of. Is that something important?”
“The White Raven is a symbol for the Allfather, the world over, so yes, it’s a little important. And it’s good news, considering what the alternative might be.”
“What would the alternative be?” the boy asked.
“The alternative would be a spirit, good or otherwise, there’s no way of knowing, but by all accounts, the White Raven is forbidden to all but the one, under pain of utter destruction for any imposters. You may have just been visited by the Creator, my boy. Now, the only question is why?”
“Um, Grandfather, he said one more thing, that might seem a bit odd.”
“What was that?
“He said that his ‘grandson’ gave me good advice, meaning you Grandfather.”
“That must be some sort of riddle.” Hadaras asserted. “We are all his children and he is a notorious riddler and trickster when he takes on the raven form. Grandson is an odd way to put it, but I wouldn’t worry overmuch,” he assured Aleron, though he was in fact troubled by the odd affirmation. Why would he say ‘grandson’, when we
are all equally his children? He would pose this to Jessamine, when next they spoke.
“Maybe I should try mixing them now, like he said to do?’ Aleron offered.
“Maybe you should,” Hadaras agreed, having trouble believing he was having this conversation with a lad barely fifteen. Touching the sword triggered something and the raw power that Cladus foresaw was rapidly coming to the fore. I need to make a strong effort to keep this boy on the straight and narrow, lest he become a bane, rather than a boon to the people of Aertu.
Chapter 17
Zorekday, Day 30, Haymaking Moon, 8760 Sudean Calendar
“By the way, I’m curious if you have tried mixing the red and green?” Hadaras inquired, as they prepared for their experiment.
“No, Grandfather, I haven’t. Why do you ask?”
“With light, a mix of red and green is perceived by the eye as yellow, but yellow light exists by itself in a pure form as well. I know that the healing energy is a pure form of magic, so I wonder what the mix of red and green power would be and how it would appear.”
“I haven’t really used the green for anything yet,” Aleron mused. “I remember from the dreams that it was for making things grow and the red is from things that are dying.”
“And the blue comes from things that are living,” Hadaras finished. “I believe that the green feeds life and the blue is fed by life, so they are somewhat related. The yellow relates to green as well, in that it mends life. I think this is why we perceive them as colors, in the positions of the spectrum that they are. If you look at a rainbow, blue and red appear at opposite sides, with green and yellow between. It would be interesting to see what red and yellow produce as well. Let’s go try some things out, shall we?”
“I’m up for it,” Aleron agreed, “but what should we try it on?”
“It should be something alive, since most of what we’re working with affects the living. Let’s play with the shrubbery.” Hadaras led the way to a group of bushes, well away from the horses. “Try these, to start.”
Aleron concentrated and like before, pooled the red and green energies in each palm and then brought his hands together. When he opened his palms, he held a pool of golden energy, which felt fundamentally different from healing magic. He let the color wash over the first bush. It glowed golden, then faded. Nothing about the bush seemed to change though. “Maybe they just cancel each other out,” Aleron guessed. “It didn’t seem to do anything.”
“Let me check,” Hadaras said, as he coiled his senses about the plant. “In a way, you are right Aleron. They did cancel each other out. This plant is neither growing nor dying. Though it appears to be alive, it gives off no life force. You placed it in some sort of stasis.”
“What should I do, use healing to bring it back?
“I don’t think so, since it is not injured. Try growth instead.” At Hadaras’ instruction, Aleron generated a green radiance that enveloped the bush. “That was it; it’s alive and growing again. Now let us try something else. They attempted several other combinations. Green and yellow proved unsurprising, leading to healing and growth, the same as they would if used separately. Red and yellow yielded an orange energy that caused sudden death, without the destructive aspect of the red alone. Blue and green together caused rapid but orderly growth, the bush acquiring the appearance of a groomed garden specimen. None of the colors or combinations could help the one they killed with orange, until they tried blue and yellow. It produced a green hue, which led to no growth in the live bushes, nor to any other reaction from the plants. After examining the plants and finding nothing out of the ordinary, Hadaras suggested, “Try it on the dead one Aleron.” Aleron complied and bathed the wilting bush in the green radiance. They waited a moment and Hadaras exclaimed, “It’s alive! You did it boy! You brought a living thing back from death.”
“Is that even possible?” Aleron asked, shaken by the revelation.
“Never before,” his grandfather stated, more gravely than before. “This brings up a lot of questions.”
“What sort of questions?”
“Questions like what the Allfather’s intent is, for allowing these powers to be placed in the hands of a mortal,” he explained. “I think we should get on with the final mix now and see what it does. We could play forever with combinations of three, but I think it will be easy to predict the results. Let’s see what white magic can do.”
“All right, Grandfather,” Aleron agreed and he began to concentrate again. He drew blue from within and red from the soil all around, yellow from the bedrock and green from the sky. The four hues blended in his cupped palms, forming a blinding white light. He let it flow onto the bush he resurrected and it glowed with white radiance, but no other reaction took place.
“Wasn’t this one a transformative magic?” Hadaras asked. “Maybe it needs a visualization to do anything.” He could sense no changes to the shrub, despite its saturation with the strange power. Aleron thought for a moment and formed a picture in his mind of the rose bush Jessamine maintained outside the door to their cottage. In a shimmer of white light, the bush veered into the form of a rose bush, the light then fading. “Well, isn’t that something?” Hadaras stated at the sight of the rose bush and it’s bright orange blooms. “What I sense from the bush, is that it still thinks itself a locust, even though it looks like a rose. It even has the proper number of leaflets, the thorns look right and the flowers appear correct as well.”
“I think it’s because I looked at that rose bush of Jessie’s every time I walked into the house, Grandfather,” Aleron offered. “I had a pretty detailed image of it in my mind.”
“That makes sense, but it’s still locust, even though it looks like a rose on the outside. It’s likely because you never felt through a rose, only seeing it from the outside. Try the growth magic on it and see what happens.” Aleron did as he was told and when the green energy flowed into the rose bush, a new growth of locust twigs erupted from tips of its branches. “That’s certainly an odd looking bush. In good time, I’m sure it will return to normal on its own, but perhaps you should turn it back to locust now.”
“I think you’re right, Grandfather. Anyone else seeing this is bound to realize something is afoot.” Aleron, once again, conjured the white energy and returned the bush to its normal conformation, then had a thought. He reached into the pocket of the vest he wore over his chain and his hand closed over the silver coin there. He turned his awareness to the coin, attempting to feel the essence of the silver itself. Then he picked up a pebble and in a flash of white, held a lump of silver in his palm. “Here Grandfather, it seems to work on things not living, as well.” He handed the nugget to Hadaras and said, with a grin, “It looks like we’ll never have to worry about money.”
Hadaras took the nugget and replied, “Very impressive…the transmutation of minerals has never before been achieved, but then again, neither has the restoration of life, so this is a great day for firsts. However, we must be careful of what we do with these newfound powers of yours. Imagine what would happen, if you were to make gold as cheap and commonplace as stone.”
“What would be wrong with that, Grandfather? Then everyone could have all the gold they wanted.”
“And all that gold would be worthless,” Hadaras continued, “and all who had wealth in gold would suddenly find themselves destitute, while those who held inventory in goods would become the only wealthy ones. Kingdoms would no longer have the funds to pay their workers and soldiers. Governments and economies would collapse. No, let’s keep what is precious, that way.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” the boy conceded. “That wouldn’t be good at all.”
“No, it would not,” Hadaras agreed, “and when you are blessed with power, you must think through all the possible repercussions of what you do with that power. What may seem like a helpful kindness could unleash unforeseen chaos in the future. And another thing, I think you should avoid the green energy for the time being.”
“I think it may prematurely mature you, just as the yellow inadvertently heals you as you wield it. Though you may think you want to be a grown man, I don’t believe you would enjoy being a fifteen year old grown man.”
“Why would that be so bad?” Aleron inquired, thinking it wouldn’t be bad at all to be grown.
“Making eyes at a fourteen year old girl doesn’t go over as well if you look twenty five, lad.”
“Oh,” Aleron replied, Eilowyn suddenly coming to his mind. He missed her and was often saddened by the thought of not seeing her for over a year. He was sure she would find another suitor before that time. How could she not, the daughter of the Steward, beautiful and with all those young noblemen in the city. “Grandfather, how long am I likely to live,” he asked.
“Halfbloods like yourself typically live over three hundred years, some much longer. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering, Grandfather, how I’m going to find a wife when I am grown,” he revealed. “There are not a lot of halfbloods around anymore and I will outlive a normal girl by hundreds of years.”
“There is no easy answer for that question, my boy,” his grandfather conceded. “I have outlived three wives and ten children. It is no easy thing to see those you love fade and die, but you move on with your life. I take comfort in the knowledge that they have all returned to the halls of the Allfather, where they will dwell forever in comfort. Believing one serves a higher power and purpose helps one to move on.” Hadaras watched his grandson, as he digested the words just spoken. The late morning sun shone on the boy’s handsome face, as his concerned expression was replaced by one of stoic resolve. Being forced to grow up fast, this boy is. It’s difficult for him, but necessary. We will need a strong man on that throne, sooner rather than later.