by Nelson, J P
Every day he would look at his wall and contemplate potential strategies, lines of attack and what not. I never ceased to be amazed at the detail he had put into his project.
When I told him my story of the Shaman Lady he was very disturbed, far more than I thought he would be. He paced around his quarters chewing his jaw, then looked at me and asked, “Is that everything? You’ve left nothing out?”
“Nothing,” I replied. I had laid it out in explicit detail, from the pace we were walking, to my noticing the shadow, how I walked to her and her exact words and tone. I had even described the smell.
“Just who is Wihlabahk?” I asked in exasperation. It wasn’t a question to which I expected an answer. Many times we had gone over the subject, what I could remember from my experience with Meidra, and more. The answer was always the same, no clue.
Hoscoe just chewed his jaw and looked at me with that penetrating stare on his face. Then he stopped and solemnly said, “I am not entirely sure it is some-one … or even some-thing …”
We were in his quarters and I sat down on one of his chairs, “What do you mean?”
He shook his head, continued walking and it seemed he was on the verge of an answer, but not quite.
Wincing his mouth, he said, “I do not know.”
I have to admit, though, as difficult and eluding as the problem was, I enjoyed watching Hoscoe think; and there was a lot to think about.
“Look,” he said, “none of this makes any sense. If the cognobins were truly centered out of the old Minotaur ruins, there would be much evidence of occupation there. If Xiahstoi has returned and is leading this force, logic would determine he would want to reclaim his old kingdom.
“But there is no occupation,” Hoscoe pointed and circled his hands around the old ruins, “here, or here. I say this is rubbish. Unless Xiahstoi has been sleeping for over 2000 years, he was slain, or disappeared around 3187-3188 ED. The story has it he was slain by Km’Jhai.”
‘Km’Jhai,’ I thought, ‘wasn’t he one of Oshang’s son’s?’
I was about to ask, but Hoscoe was pacing and staring at his wall map, and as I was opening my mouth to voice the question he said, “In any case, I wager he was either elf or D’Rhoatna Ieshintow,” he paused and glanced at me, “D’Rhoaw, or what most human cultures call Drow, if you will. Th’Khai believed he had advanced into the Lords of Darkness of Xibalba.”
Hoscoe looked at me again, as if he were delivering an expose in a classroom. We had talked about things before, but not like this. He was saying things I had never heard of and momma had taught me a lot. I was astounded. How much did he know? How much had he learned from Th’Khai? It was as if he didn’t realize he was saying so much and was thinking out loud.
He talked as if he wanted to tell me so much, but was holding back. For what reason? What and how much was in his Tome of Memoirs?
I was about to again try to ask about Km’Jhai, but without pause Hoscoe continued, “From Xibalba, Th’Khai believed Xiahstoi came here, to this land, and slew Set, who was the son of Zapcana, who in turn was one of the Five Heads of Tiamat.”
He turned back to his wall and crossing his arms, began stroking his goatee and spoke as if lost in thought. I waited to see if he had quit talking for a minute, then once more tried to ask my question as he suddenly continued while still staring in the wall, “But it does not matter if he were elf, Drow, or a sprite from under a mushroom patch. Xiahstoi was represented as a god of death. During his era he was wanton and bloody. His people killed for sheer pleasure … and,” Hoscoe looked at me with a serious and stern expression on his face, “they did NOT take bodies away with them. Bodies were mounted on X-shaped crosses for all to see.”
He walked toward his coffee pot, made a cup for himself, and then almost as an afterthought offered me to come make a cup. Rising up, I went to fix myself a mug of the strong coffee and he continued as he paced, ever staring at his wall. I was now trying to remember what my question was when he added, “The name Xiahstoi has not been uttered in centuries, and then only as a historical reference. No, the name has been drudged up for a fear tactic. And it has worked.”
I sipped my mug, sweetened with molasses, and gave Hoscoe my full attention.
Glancing at me, then back to the wall, Hoscoe continued while pointing to a specific point, “Chitivias is convinced Xiahstoi is going to come from these ruins, and lay siege to his city.
“No, something else is in the air. Something bigger … much, much bigger …”
I asked, quickly, this time, “What would Meidra have to do with it? Isn’t she a goddess of some kind?”
“That,” he answered, “is part of the overall problem. Leading armies is not, and never was, part of her forte. She has historically always been a seductress, a manipulator. Nor am I sure your antagonist was the original Meidra. If she indeed was, then she is very, very old. Or, she has found a way to cheat death.”
Stepping back from his map, he almost stumbled on his divan on the other side of the room. Irritably righting himself, he tilted his head and squinting his eyes Hoscoe seemed to be trying to put his drawing into a different perspective.
“Meidra first appeared in lore about 4513 ED as an adolescent nymph. I saw a painting of her, quite attractive, actually. But she did not look like an elf.” Hoscoe talked as if he were speaking off hand, as if this were a casual side conversation. His main attention was the wall. Yet he continued without giving me any more direct notice. “It is possible she could be of a long lived species, although they are disappearing fast. Even elves do not live as long, any more.
“Elvin life spans have diminished by 10% every 1000 years. Eayah, now, he is a different story. Th’Khai had ideas about him. He had a theory, but would never discuss it. And he had too much more to teach for me to get caught up in it …”
‘I thought, How many people am I going to be around or hear of, who keep holding things back?’ It was frustrating.
He slowly walked back up to the wall, placing his hand against the carefully drawn map; he ran his fingertips across his drawing as if he were caressing it. Continuing he said, “She may not be anymore a goddess than you or I. It is all relative, actually. A god or goddess can be anything, anything at all. Anything worshiped can technically be a god. It does not need to be an intelligent anything, or even alive.”
He began lowering his voice into a mumble then, “I knew a man whose god was his hair. When it turned prematurely gray he hung himself. And then there was …” Hoscoe began speaking so quietly I couldn’t make it out, which is pretty quiet, but I could see his lips moving as his movements became slower and slower.
Walking over to watch, I saw him suddenly stop his fingertips at the edge of the map, and then he looked far up the wall onto the bricks and touched uncolored places here and there. His eyes and facial expression changed as if he believed something suddenly made sense.
Looking to the opposite wall, he then looked down and asked me to grasp one end of his divan. So we picked it up and moved it around into the middle of his quarters. Hoscoe then stood staring at the empty wall and I was beginning to wonder if the cord of his sword handle was beginning to unravel.
With one hand on hip, his other holding his coffee, and staring at the empty wall he said, “We have been formally invited to attend Princess Tancine’s Birthday Ball. She turns sixteen three weeks from tomorrow …”
I was stunned, a birthday ball? We had just been talking about cognobins, Xiahstoi and Meidra. And we still hadn’t gotten around to Wihlabahk. I wanted to keep talking about this important stuff.
What would I do at a Birthday Ball?
Over the last few months I had barely gotten used to hanging out at Baldwin’s, and the place could only hold a couple hundred people when packed. Usually forty or fifty soldiers might be in there of the evening, on average. Likely most of the people in the city would be at the event, and I hadn’t even seen the whole city. It took most of a day just to walk the outer wall perim
eter.
Still focusing intently upon the empty wall, Hoscoe added, “… and you have been asked to perform.”
With that my breathing went still.
He sipped his coffee, shrugged his shoulders and said, “It is alright. I told them you would love to.”
I starred at Hoscoe dumfounded. He took a moment from his blank wall to glance at me and say, “You have a lot of practicing to do. I suggest five songs, and that one about Blue Roses should be one of them.”
His expression was incredulous as he stood there looking at me, “What are you waiting for?”
Motionless, I watched him go to his desk, pull out drawing quills and some vials of color, and start to sketch big, broad lines on his polished wall. Without pause he said to me, “You can forego sword training, but not the strength regimen,” he stopped suddenly and turned, pointing his quill and raising an eyebrow at me, “but only until the Ball engagement is completed.” Hoscoe acted exasperated, “Young people, will do almost anything to get out of work.”
His strokes were broad and I saw an outline of the whole continent of Aeshea start to take shape. I very much wanted to stay and …
“Practice,” he instructed sternly. As I reluctantly turned for the door I paused and hesitated with the door half opened. Suddenly I remembered my question about Km’Jhai. Glaring at Hoscoe I saw him pause with brush in mid-movement, poised inches from the wall. After a long moment he slowly turned his head my way, tilted his head forward, and looked at me from under his eyebrows, “Yes-s-s?”
“Never mind,” I said. I would ask him later. Shaking my own head in frustration, I stepped into the hallway and closed the door. And then it really settled in, I was going to play for a large group of people … Mon’Gouchett.
Chapter 36
________________________
STEPPING INTO MY quarters, I sat down on my bed and leaned back against the wall. Glancing over to my corner chair, I fondly looked at my personal guitar, which rested in the seat awaiting my touch. Just a few hours ago Ander and I had been joking about me playing before crowds of people, and now … I was going to play for the princess … for her birthday, no less.
Goose bumps were raised on my arms in thought of it. Apprehension? Yes. But there was an excitement there, too. I was startled at the sudden realization that I wanted this, was already embracing this opportunity to rise up, to meet this challenge head on.
Why? What happened to the scared boy who couldn’t summon the nerve to jump into the rapids with Jared? Where was the timid soul, so full of anger, yet hesitant to strive for freedom? Was I growing up? Or was it something else?
I thought of Hoscoe, Ander, the rest of my chums, the common soldiers who listened to me play at Baldwin’s, and the fellows who risked their lives to save mine. Could just having people around you, who believe in and support you make such a difference? If Jared asked me today to jump, would I?
Getting up and walking to the chair, I picked up my guitar and propping my foot on the seat, softly strummed a few chords in the key of D. Smiling, I began to think what songs I knew which might be nice for a sixteen-year old princess’s birthday.
Yes, I thought, I would jump. I might drown, I had no idea how to swim, but I would jump. ‘This one,’ I thought, ‘is for you, my brother. I hope you are doing well, wherever you are.’
___________________________
By Dahruban dating, it was early fall of the year 473 Yuban, but elvin calendars recognized it as 5133 ED. In Keoghnariu they were celebrating their twenty-second year since coming together as a kingdom and the formal crowning of Chitivias. But no matter what dating system you used, it was a time of major changes throughout the world, some for the better and others …
In Dahruban, the composer Aviudel dan’Noyetts had just completed his sixth symphony, arguably the grandest musical piece of the era. Sail north from Dahruban, across the Alburin Sea, and you will eventually come to the Kingdom of Chequor. The politics there was so bloody, this year alone there had been four rulers on the throne. And no one was taking bets on the thirteen year old girl, under crown at the time, making it to the end of the year.
Foh Ch’ua Llou of Pahntikki Island, just off the western coast of the Rok’Shutai continent, which is south of Aeshea, had been trying to find a better way to preserve food … and instead came up with a substance which is highly explosive.
Acclaimed artist and sculptor, Gohnshier Shingo Mahtoya, was in his seventh year of work at the Ufhatol Castrom. The Ufhatol Castrom being a huge structure of stone recently built by King Zeuxo II, of the island realm of Bhuat-che, in honor of its upcoming 2500 year anniversary as an independent nation. Once finished, Mahtoya was already contracted to travel north and east to Montelbahn Castle in Vedoa. There he would paint collages and portraits of the royal family and their history.
Philosopher, actor and sometimes duelist, Robanno Allena, recently had settled in the port city of N’Ville, where he could gaze at the ocean and write his masterpiece, “Ode to the Forgone Soul.” At the same time, the Church of Eayah’s Circle of Bishops, declared that historians had been demeaning to Eayah. Therefore all literature must be abolished, save for the Eayahnite Bible.
Surprisingly, one of the Three High Priests, Logan of Xenias, stepped forward and spoke against the declaration. This played hob within the Circle and caused all sorts of ripples throughout the church.
But the actions of people weren’t the only things happening. The planet itself was talking. Storms were becoming worse, hurricanes beyond memory were sweeping the oceans. The island chain of Famatsu-Tonte was wiped clean by a tidal wave, sending more than forty-one thousand souls to the oceans depths and obliterating an entire culture.
An exploration and hunting party in the Genoal Plains, that vast expanse west of the Melphashic River and Norder-Sau Trail and bordering the Hoshael Mountains, were making camp and witnessed a volcanic eruption far into the Hoshael peaks. Massive land-quakes began along a fault line in the northeastern corner of Aeshea. On the southern coast of the southern continent, Lh’Gohria, six hundred and seventy miles of ocean shoreline literally fell into the Mon’Cique Ocean during a disastrous quake, taking with it four towns and the important trade port of Del’Ton.
South and east of Rok’Shutai, a large land mass was rising up from the ocean. Some were claiming this was the fabled Isle of Altis, lost thousands of years ago with an enormous magical culture.
And all of that was just this year alone.
Within the last ten years more things had been invented than perhaps any time in history, more things were being discovered, and even the way people were being governed was changing.
Anybody, any age, could lose their head on the block in Vedoa for all sorts of offenses. In Stafford, you could get away with anything you had the money to pay for, or connections. N’Ville was somewhere in the middle.
In Dahruban you could be put into the Coliseum for crimes of violence, but in Malone public executions were long and drawn out and included a profound trial. Not once, since immediate hangings were abolished in Malone, and the lethal process switched to public execution, had anyone been put through the trial process and ever found innocent.
Chazon was now king of Gevard, with Lord Herrol appointed as his commanding general.
Off of Cape Faldahlon, two sailors who had gone looking for the broken lands of Dalshinju three years prior aboard the twenty-six man caravel, Horasheo, were found adrift. Both men claimed to have been shipwrecked for forty years, and their age showed it.
Vedoa had launched the world’s first submarine, reportedly powered by men in seats pedaling a big propeller in back of the vessel. The submarine had a special nose for battering vessels from below and could stay submerged for an unknown duration. At the same time, Captain Jann Raul Jha’Ley, commissioned by Vedoa as privateer against the country’s many seaborne enemies, was building a reputation as a most formidable opponent; his string of victories having surpassed all on the Ocean of Mon’Cique.
/>
A young woman named Olisia built and flew a balloon, with a basket underneath which she rode, five hundred and sixty-two miles from the Kadmus Islands to Lh’Gohria.
It hadn’t been all that long ago that I, myself, had been part of an historical event, the opening of what was now being called the Chamberlain’s Highway. Why the Chamberlain’s, I never got that one, but that’s what they were calling it. Quite literally, Jared and I had been the ones who hammered the last obstruction of rock out of the Sahnuck Pass. Ten months to the day, Yank & Thad Freighting Company became the first to successfully make the run from Dahruban to N’Ville.
They endured four attacks and two narrow escapes. Their cargo; several rolls of cloth, a bag of apples (to prove they would or wouldn’t spoil, which they didn’t), and a sheaf of mail. One of those letters included a bank draft and letter from Magnate Copius dan’Shalleen, granting the YTF Company the right to make purchases on his behalf.
After Hoscoe left Teamon, Whitney led the way back to Kynear to take Hoscoe’s letter to Bernard via shortcut known by Trap. Along the way, they happened upon a horde of yellow painted, religious radicals planning to make a mass attack upon Kynear. The Cult of Phalquas has been growing for some time, and now they had decided it was time to force their religious views on the territory at large.
It seems there are several religious groups who believe the great stellar alignment, coming in the next thirty to thirty-five years or so, is going to bring a new era in deities. Most believe this phenomenon is what’s causing the natural disorders, for sure. But like many others, the followers of Phalquas believe he is going to be the next all-powerful god.
Convinced the power of Phalquas would protect them with holy armor; these warriors were going to fight unclad. Their numbers were close to one thousand, so Whitney, who was known in Kynear, took a fellow soldier, named Solly, and rode the final miles to Kynear.