by Steve Barker
“Oh, Hollyglade, I’m so sorry to hear that. Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. It’s been ten years. I had a sort of family here in the city. We made the best of it.”
“You sound so strong minded, sure of yourself. I’m amazed that someone who went through that is as well adjusted as you seem to be. You say that the decree was originally just for Magnaville, and then expanded. How long ago was the expanded decree made?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m entirely sure of myself. Sure of some things, less of others. I don’t know exactly when the decrees were made, but I started getting turned away from public houses and being passed over for work, around two weeks ago. I was headed south. I have never left Loria, and thought I’d visit Sudara.”
“You do not fear to enter Sudara in it’s chaos?”
“Precisely. No one to issue decrees.”
Jeron remained silent for a while, and Hollyglade did not interrupt him, instead taking the time to feel about her cell some more. She discovered that there was a set of steel bars at the side facing where the sound of Jeron’s voice came from. She felt each bar, looking for the door, and the lock, hoping to find a way to pick it and escape. She was puzzled when she found no hinges, lock, handle, or any other type of variation in the bars at all. In her confusion over the lack of a door, she felt each of the bars again, and found herself perplexed with the construction of the cell.
“Jeron?”
“Yes?”
“There is no door to this cell. How did I get in here?”
“That I have not seen. When the last girl I shared this space with was brought in, as with you, I was rendered unconscious and did not witness either of you being placed in, or removed from the cell. I would hazard a guess that it is some work of the Sorcerer's magic. He worked some sort of magic upon me also. He forced me to move from the back of my cell, and walk to him at the bars. He then compelled me to place my hands upon the bars while he took some of my blood.”
“He took some of your blood? Did he drink it? I have heard of creatures that look like men, that feed on the blood of men, but I just assumed they were stories made up to scare children into staying in bed at night.”
“He did not drink it. He poured it into a vial of some kind, wherein there was a dark liquid. When the two combined, the result turned white. This seemed to give him some sort of satisfaction. It gave me a dreadful disquietude.”
“He obviously wants you for something. And me also. I just wish that I knew what, so that I could at least try to conceive a way to fight it.”
“Well then, we must educate each other about who we are. Maybe then we will find some commonality.”
There was something about Jeron that put Hollyglade at ease. Perhaps it was because he was a person she had heard about, and therefore felt she knew in some way. Maybe it was that they now shared a common ordeal. Perhaps it was that he seemed much like his father, a King who was loved by everyone for his just and benevolent rule. Maybe all of that, and more. She did not care. He was in this with her, and she decided to put faith in his apparent honesty.
They spoke for hours. Each telling each other of their upbringing, family history and the events that led them to their present confinement. Each asking questions to follow lines of thought around theories developing from the stories they shared. They agreed not to give up, and were both energized by the pursuit of a common goal, even if the goal was unclear. Though it was difficult, she told him about dGerrie, his brotherly love for her, his attempt to rescue her, and his death at the hands of The Dancer.
“Alright, so let me recap this, from now backwards,” Jeron offered. “You were brought here sometime in the last day, or what feels to us like a day. You were captured by a bounty hunter who was hired by the sorcerer and backed by Harford. This bounty hunter had hired your friend, dGerrie, who did not know it was you they hunted, and you did not know it was he who was among the bounty hunter’s men.
“In the pursuit, this bounty hunter caused a fair amount of collateral damage, including taking the life of your adoptive brother. Prior to that, you had been working for the past several years training beasts of burden and otherwise working with animals, in the general area of north-eastern Loria. This was fine until you were forced to head south by Harford’s decrees.
“Before that you had grown up in Magnaville, in the Red Lanes, with dGerrie and some other orphans, making the best go of it you could. You arrived in Magnaville as a refugee of the Great Destruction, as many children did at that time.
“Prior to the Great Destruction, until the age of five, you lived with your parents in a farming village along the West Way, which was destroyed in the event. Your parents were an Elvish man, and a Giantish woman, both of whom bore the gifts of their race. Have I recalled it all correctly?
“Yes. I think you’ve managed to get it all.”
“But I feel something has been left out.” He paused to chose his words and phrase his question delicately. “You haven’t spoken of your gifts, other than to say that you have them. As the Crown Prince, I was educated from the time I could speak, and part of that education was the histories of the Elder Folk, which included studying the rare mixing of races. I remember quite clearly, that there is a well studied, though infrequently documented rule of nature in such breedings.
“And that is, that a child born of a pairing between Elder Folk and humans results in a healthy child, but one that does not possess the gifts of the Elder Folk. The child’s subsequent descendants would also be void of the gifts of the Elder Folk. It is also well established that pairings of two Elder Folk from different races produce offspring that are unable to thrive once born, if born at all.
“So Hollyglade, how did you survive to, and beyond your birth? And how did you survive the Great Destruction? I believe if we know the answer to these questions, we may know why the sorcerer wants you, which may give clues to why he wants me, and therefore some clues as to how we may fight him.”
She sat for a moment to contemplate how to answer. Her father had explained some things to her, but only at a level that a five year girl could understand, and so the answers she could offer now, parts of which she was sure she had forgotten, were vague at best. She decided to offer them anyway.
“Well, listen, you must understand that the only explanations I was given were from my father, who though he possessed the Elvish gifts, was still but a farmer. And the only reason I was given any explanations to anything, was because I was being teased by other children. So what I was told was meant to cheer up a five year old girl, and not to enlighten a scholar.”
“It’s alright Hollyglade, it’s what we have.”
“Well then,” She took a deep breath to gather her thoughts and bring forth the memories. “my father told me that I was a miracle. I occasionally asked him what that meant, and he usually told me that the gods blessed us by keeping me alive, but when I was five, he did tell me that what he meant by that was that the gods gave him the ability to keep me healthy.
“He explained it something like this: He said that all creatures are made of the elements. Made of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. He said that people are incomplete until they are born, because while we are in our mother’s womb, we have only the water in the womb, the fire of her warmth, and the dust of the earth we were constructed from. The fire and water begin to combine with us to make us whole while we grow in the womb, and the air finishes the job when we are born, making us whole.
“He said that when two different Elder Folk try to have children, the children grow too fast in their mother’s wombs, and the air doesn’t come soon enough to finish the job, so the children fall apart before they are completed. When I asked him why I was different, he told me that he had used the gifts the gods had given him to hold me together, until I met the air and it finished the job of building me. He told me that doing so had made me strong, and that I would have many gifts. He told me to always use them to help people and to be a good person.”
She stopped for a moment as a tear began to roll down her cheek as the memories of her parents became vivid once more. “But I did not use the gift to help others. I did not know how. I only used it to kill. And so I have sworn off that power. I have only used a touch of it for warmth from time to time.”
Jeron sat pondering all he had heard. Having studied some of the laws of magic, and the science of the world, what she had said about her birth, and formation in the womb made sense to him. He could see why none of the Elder Folk had been successful at producing children in the past.
“Hollyglade,” he began, “I believe I know what makes you special, but first I must ask you what you meant when you said you used your power to kill. Trust me, when I say that I do not judge you. I only wish to gain knowledge to help us.”
“I have never told anyone what I did. No one. Not even my closest friend.”
“You must share it. You must unburden yourself.”
She sat silently for a moment contemplating what to say, how to say it. It was a secret kept for most of her life, words she had never uttered aloud to anyone. Keeping that secret, and hiding the power within her, had been such an integral piece of her core identity for incredibly long. She knew that sharing the truth could likely serve a purpose, one that may lead to her salvation, and that of the Crown Prince of Loria, a seemingly good and honest man. She fought to convince herself that this was finally the time to unburden herself of that dark secret, to share with someone who she truly was, the good and the terrible. Without fully deciding to do so, she spoke.
“Alright,” she sighed “It was me. I caused it. In my anger, I released my power.”
“Caused what?”
“I caused the Great Destruction.”
Jeron’s jaw dropped and he let out a quiet gasp of disbelief.
“How? Why? Wh...?”
“Some men came to the village looking for me. I mean I didn’t realize they were looking for me at the time, but they were. They killed my parents and tried to take me. In my fear, anguish, and anger, I lashed out emotionally. I thought I was just screaming and trying to struggle away from them, but the power just came out. It just came out. I could not control it, I could not focus it. I was a five year old girl who was just overcome with grief, despair and ferocious rage.
“The power just went everywhere, and in a fraction of a moment, everything was gone, burnt, destroyed. I just sat there, next to the burned bodies of my parents, of our whole village. I sat there just sobbing in anguish for days until a trader came through and took me to the capital. I was so exhausted, thirsty and hungry, that I didn’t even say a word. I was delirious, and incoherent. My clothes had been burned away, and I was cold and confused.”
Jeron waited and organized his thoughts before replying.
“Hollyglade, I am sorry that you had to endure so much pain, loss, and hardship in your life. No one deserves that. My heart breaks for you.” He paused and sat under the weight of his empathy for her, wishing there was some way he could change her past and take away her hurt.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment.
“I think I know why the sorcerer wants you. I think it’s obvious, now. He wants your power. There can’t be any other explanation. I’m not sure what he plans to do with you or how he plans to use your power, but he wants you for that.”
“I can’t see how it’s of any use to him. It’s my power, and I can’t use it. Or at least, I don’t know how, and so I won’t”
“I don’t know either, but he must have some plan. Maybe he’s going to try to coerce you, or control you. We both know that he can do that to us on some level. Maybe he has a way to do it on a deeper level also. The old tales about the sorcerers who lived before my grandfather’s time say that the sorcerers craved power, and that it was the undoing of their kind. They were once plentiful in the known land, and most of them served their Kingdoms much the same way as priests serve in the Temples now. But the culture of their order changed when some of them began to crave greater power, and they departed from service, and sought instead to rule.
“The books say that it was their infighting that lead to the downfall of their sorcerer society, as many of them killed each other trying to control the world’s sources of power. This one must be one of the few survivors believed to have escaped the infighting. Or, at least, he is from their line.”
“Maybe it’s true. But I won’t let him have my power,” she maintained.
“Good. Don’t let go of that determination. You said something else about using your power for warmth. What did you mean by that?”
“Oh, well the one thing I can control is heating up rocks. I can hold them and push some power into them to make them warm. I very rarely do it, and only to have a hot rock to sleep with on a cold night, or to cook on stone when there is no firewood.”
“Hollyglade!” he exclaimed “That’s it! You can get us out!”
“What? How?”
“The floors and walls are stone, and the bars are metal. You can melt the bars!”
“No I can’t. I have tried heating metal. It doesn’t work that way. I’m not putting heat into the stones, I am putting in power, and then the heat comes out. If I do it to metal, I get burned. Hot rocks don’t burn you like hot metal.”
“No. Don’t touch the bars, touch the rock. Heat up the metal by heating up the rock that it touches. That way you won’t get burned!”
She thought about it for a moment, and then decided that it made sense.
“Alright. I’m going to try, it’s not like I have anything else to do.”
She felt the bars again, and traced them down to the floor. Placing a hand on either side of one of the bars and closing her eyes, she focused on the stone. Power began to rise in her, and she began to breathe deeply, trying to relax in order to focus her mind on the stone. She concentrated on her fingers and palms, on the texture of the stone, and on her contact with it. She could feel the power flow out from within her, down her arms and out through her hands. The stone began to get warm.
“Woah!” gasped Jeron.
As she continued to let the power flow from her, she opened her eyes to see the stone had begun to glow. In the low light she could see around the stone prison where she was confined, and she could now see Jeron across from her in a cell much like hers. His face was lit with amazement, as much as the by glow of the stone. She could see his disheveled black hair, which flopped over a face that appeared gaunt from malnutrition. His face was covered by his coarse and bedraggled beard, and his eyes were slightly sunken though they stared at her, widened with amazement. He wore travelling attire, though it appeared timeworn and threadbare, and his feet bore no footwear.
She looked back down to the point where the metal bar entered the stone, and saw the metal had begun to glow slightly as well. Just then, a loud thunderous boom, accompanied by the shaking of the floor resonated around them. In shock and surprise, Hollyglade lifted her hands from the floor.
“What was that? What did I do?” she gasped.
Another boom hit, and the walls shook ever so slightly.
“That was not you,” replied Jeron as he stood up. “The siege has begun.”
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
The pounding continued with regularity, and both Jeron and Hollyglade felt a sense of urgency growing.
“Hollyglade, you must keep trying, if you can. The siege may be the distraction we need to make our escape,” pleaded Jeron, his voice growing disquieted.
“I’ll try,” she agreed, as she placed her hands back upon the stone. The continuing sounds of the bombardment unsettled Hollyglade and rattled her concentration with every shake of the walls. Again, she closed her eyes and tried to block out everything but the feel of the stone, and her connection to it. Once more, she felt the power begin to flow into the rock and create heat. As she opened her eyes, Hollyglade saw that the stone and the metal of the steel bar were both glowing even more hotly now. Watching the metal closely to see if it would
begin to melt, she tried to push her power into the stone faster. The heat of the rock was beginning to hurt her hands, yet she persisted, knowing that this was her best, and likely only, chance to free herself.
As the metal bar began to glow more brightly, Hollyglade’s confidence returned.
“I think I can do it!” she exclaimed.
“Good! Try pushing on the bar above where it is hot to see of it will bend.” responded Jeron, encouragingly.
She stood up, paying attention to the ceiling, and pressed a foot against the bar, pushing as hard as she could. To her surprise, the bar began to stretch where it was glowing with heat as it bent outward.
“It’s working!” Jeron cheered. As he let out his excitement, they both heard the latch on the door to their prison open. As the door swung in, Hollyglade stepped back from the bars of her cell in fear of what might come through.
With black robes covering him from head to toe, the sorcerer stepped into the room, and turned to Hollyglade’s cell.
“Well, well, what have we here?” marveled the Sorcerer with a disturbing timbre. “So you can use your power. Impressive, for someone unschooled in the thaumaturgical arts. I would be quite interested to see what else you know, but I’m afraid we do not have the time for such indulgences. Come.”
He raised his hand to her, and Jeron saw her eyes roll back in her head as she collapsed on to the stone. Jeron was filled with a mix of dismay and fury as he grabbed hold of the bars on his cell shouted at the sorcerer,
“Leave her alone! What do you want with her? She’s done nothing to you!”
The Sorcerer did not turn as he spoke.
“My dear prince, you shall find out soon enough, for you shall join us shortly. Be patient, and all shall be revealed.”
With a snap of his fingers, the sorcerer signalled for the guard to enter the room. Once the guard was present, the sorcerer raised his hand toward Hollyglade’s cell and chanted something quietly. As Jeron watched, the bars of the cell stretched and bowed to form an entryway through which the guard stepped into the cell. Once in the cell, the man picked Hollyglade up off of the floor, and hoisted her onto his shoulder. Turning and stepping back out of the cell, the guard exited the room.