The Never King

by James Abbott

  When they reached the shoreline she stood up next to Birgitta, who started flattening her hair with her fingers.

  ‘You seem nervous,’ Elysia said.

  ‘No, little sister,’ Birgitta replied. ‘Perhaps a little anxious.’

  To see the normally unflappable older sister like this was infectious, and now Elysia began to felt unsteady at the newcomers’ approach.

  It wasn’t long until the travellers came close. They were mostly riding on horseback; but three of the animals were clearly wolves not horses, and a woman was riding one of them. There were broad-shouldered men with swords among them, but Elysia remained calmly waiting.

  The wolf-riding woman commanded a halt and only three men dismounted alongside her. The four strode along the shoreline towards the two sisters. Two were tall men who looked as if they were professional soldiers, one was thin and nervous-looking, and then there was the black-haired woman who, in warrior garb, looked every bit as formidable as the two tall men.

  Birgitta walked forwards to meet them.

  ‘My lady. Queen of Dacianara.’ Birgitta paused. ‘I am so glad you all came.’

  The queen placed a hand on Birgitta’s shoulder and the two embraced as if old friends.

  When Elysia examined the newcomers she noticed the soldier who had two swords sheathed behind him was staring at her with an intense look that was a combination of shock and fear. She scowled back. He was nearly as old as Birgitta, with dark brown hair that reached his shoulders, and a strong, slender face.

  The man muttered one, breathless phrase: ‘You . . . Lysha?’

  Elysia frowned at him.

  Birgitta suddenly stepped between the two of them, ‘Xavir of Clan Argentum. You may wish to temper your hatred of the sisterhood.’

  Xavir replied but his gaze remained fixed on Elysia. ‘I had good reason to hate you all. All but one.’

  ‘Well, now perhaps it will be all but two,’ Birgitta sighed, shaking her head as she patted Elysia on the shoulder. ‘Xavir, allow me to introduce to you to Elysia.’ Birgitta bowed her head. ‘Your daughter.’

  *

  ‘I’m sorry I never told you,’ Birgitta told Elysia, as if struggling to find the right words. ‘But he was in Hell’s Keep. By the source, I never dreamed you would meet. And you always felt so different from the others. I didn’t want to compound that.’

  Elysia ignored her, still trying to gather her thoughts. Birgitta had ushered her and her supposed ‘father’ into the watchtower, whilst the others remained by the sisters’ camp. Elysia was hunched up slightly, staring only at the shoreline.

  ‘Xavir, you obviously remember Lysha,’ Birgitta continued. ‘I am glad of that. She deserved to be remembered.’

  The warrior closed his eyes for a moment and let tension fall from his shoulders before opening them again. ‘You knew her?’ His words were tainted with anger.

  ‘For a while,’ Birgitta replied. ‘We were friends. Though I was older than her.’

  Xavir looked at her fiercely. ‘You speak of her as if she was no longer here. Explain.’

  ‘Lysha was allocated to your clan to study under Valerix. And I believe Lysha and yourself engaged in something of a . . . forbidden relationship.’

  Xavir scowled at her. His eyes straying to Elysia. ‘Forbidden only in the eyes of some.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Birgitta said with a sigh. ‘Some of the sisterhood’s rules may seem arbitrary to outsiders. But then sadness came, didn’t it?’

  Xavir swallowed. ‘Lysha was taken from me – dragged away by other sisters, under the cloak of night. Kidnapped. Stolen.’

  Elysia looked at Birgitta in surprise. How could she not have told her any of this?

  ‘By the time I even knew what was going on, she and the other witches were miles away. I heard her screams, in my head, through my dreams. It was as if she had projected them there. Even now they come back and blend with all my other madnesses. I searched for her for three days and three nights. I even travelled to your foul isle but no one would let me in. I would have torn down the walls if I could have done.’

  ‘I understand. Lysha was no one’s property,’ Birgitta replied, ‘but you are right. She was taken from you.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Xavir demanded. ‘She does not live. I can tell from the look on your face.’

  Birgitta’s expression was full of sorrow.

  ‘It was a tragedy,’ she said sadly, ‘and one of the sisterhood’s greatest failures. What you could not have known was that, when she was taken from you, she was with child. Your child.’ She gestured to Elysia. ‘This child.’

  ‘Tell me what happened to her,’ Xavir muttered.

  ‘You have to understand that the sisterhood has its own ways of breeding. Select men are chosen at the right time, when our scryers deem it so, and only then are the sisters permitted to bear their children. It follows the pattern of the source. To have a child outside of these strictures breaks all the laws we abide by and this caused great concern. But Lysha was strong-willed and refused to let the child be aborted. Alas, during the birth, Lysha was lost to the source. But the child! The child lived and breathed. There was talk of ridding the sisterhood of the baby. Having it adopted. But our soothsayers claimed there were portents that could not be ignored and so the matriarch at the time declared the child a gift from the source and she was kept among us. Her lineage was never to be discussed.’

  Elysia listened in stunned silence as Birgitta’s words pierced her like an arrowshaft. A thousand questions ran around her mind.

  ‘For a while I looked after her. I nurtured her. Only a few of us knew of her true parentage, many of the other sisters did not trust her. She is not like the other sisters. Elysia can use magic, but has little interest in it. Her skills lie elsewhere. She has become something of a warrior witch, like in our legends, but the sisterhood was right to be cautious – here is a young woman they cannot control so easily.’

  After a silence, Xavir unbuckled the huge swords around his shoulders and freed one of the encased weapons from its leather strap. He handed the sheathed weapon to Elysia. ‘Draw this sword,’ he said, without emotion.

  Elysia looked questioningly to Birgitta, who nodded encouragingly.

  She took the resplendent weapon and placed her hand upon the hilt of the blade. It began to glow and, with a noise like a sigh, the blade eased free from its casing.

  ‘It’s true then,’ Xavir breathed. ‘Only those of my bloodline can use this weapon.’

  It was all too much: she dropped the sword from nerveless fingers and ran.

  Deciphering

  ‘Well, what did you expect?’ Landril asked Birgitta.

  Landril, Birgitta and Lupara were seated around the remains of the sisters’ campfire, where the shoreline met a bank of long grasses. The other men had long since meandered up the shore to take in the tranquil surroundings. Xavir and Valderon had been standing atop the watchtower for hours, surveying the lake, while the wolves were dozing in the shade of the old structure.

  Birgitta said nothing in response.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll return soon enough,’ Landril suggested. ‘It’s not as though there’s anywhere to go around here. We’re a long way from anywhere.’

  ‘She needs space,’ Birgitta said. ‘The little sister is forced to reassess who she is and where she has come from.’

  ‘While I sympathize, we do not have the time for such introspection,’ Lupara said. ‘Tell me. Is she any good in a fight?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Birgitta assured them. ‘Though it concerns me a little, she’s got the potential to be better than any sister I’ve known in combat, if indeed that is a thing to be celebrated. Those of the matriarch’s cabal had many words with me about her over the years. They think she harkens back to a time in the past where sisters were wilder and more aggressive. Warrior witches, they were known as in the Seventh and Eighth Ages. I was asked many questions about her development. She was not interested so much in memorizing lines f
rom books, like many of the others; instead I took her out into the forests to learn the old arts. And she adapted quickly. I may have done the wrong thing, but she learned and she enjoyed. Elysia did not know about her background, and about what the sisterhood thought of her. She does not use the witchstones in the traditional manner, and that worried the matriarch.’

  ‘And you can use them well enough still?’ Lupara asked with a gentle smile.

  Birgitta winked. ‘I’m not quite ready for my funeral pyre, thank you very much.’

  ‘You two have much history together,’ Landril observed. ‘You appear as old friends.’

  ‘We are,’ Lupara began. ‘Birgitta was one of the sisters who was assigned to my people.’

  ‘Rare for a Dacianaran to take one of us,’ Birgitta said, ‘though I suspect it was as much the matriarch’s doing to keep me out of trouble as it was a way of building bridges between our two peoples. Alas, when Lupara chose exile, I had to return to the sisterhood, where I became a blue robe. A tutor to the younger sisters, as is the way of those who return. From thereon I continued to keep an eye on Elysia. It was wonderful to see how the girl had grown. Now she’s a woman, of course. Seventeen summers – can you remember what it’s like to be so young and healthy? Quiet, thoughtful, and devastating with weapons.’

  ‘Do you think it was right to bring her to Xavir?’ Lupara asked.

  Landril had been astonished at the revelation that Xavir had a daughter, and that she was in fact a witch. Xavir had made it plain that he distrusted magic. Hearing his story, it was now obvious why.

  Birgitta let out a deep sigh. ‘What choice did I have? I need to explain what has happened to the sisterhood, for I believe there is significance to my tale.’ She looked thoughtfully into the distance. ‘I understand why Xavir hates us. I am no moralist, but he does not seem to be a man who loves often. To have the only woman who touched his heart taken away without a goodbye . . .’

  ‘Well, we cannot know his mind,’ Landril said.

  ‘No indeed,’ Birgitta replied. ‘Now tell me: what are we to do from here and what is the plan? We have none, it should be said. We needed to get away from the sisterhood.’ She explained about the movements to deepen the allegiance with Mardonius, and that a dozen sisters had fled in the night in protest.

  ‘We share a common dislike of Mardonius,’ Lupara said.

  ‘Dislike?’ Landril waved his hand through a clump of grass to one side, beheading a few stems. ‘A whole book could be written on reasons to loathe that evil bastard’s existence.’

  ‘You and I,’ Birgitta announced, ‘will get on very well.’

  Landril explained about the path from Baradium Falls to the Silent Lake; about how Xavir’s incarceration and the fall of the Solar Cohort was to clear the way for Mardonius to take the throne. Mardonius became king, instead of Xavir, and Cedius’s honour was tarnished the day the Solar Cohort was shamed. He’d never been the same afterwards. Landril revealed the names of those involved and that they were the next destinations.

  ‘And Xavir is to lead this army?’

  ‘No,’ Landril said, leaning back on his elbows. ‘Valderon will lead. He was an officer in the First Legion, many years ago. Xavir has no appetite to be at the head of an army again – those days are behind him. He does want to kill Mardonius, for all the man did to the Solar Cohort and all the innocents he has since slaughtered. But our first step is to get the resources we need to build the army.’

  ‘He is still dressed as if he’s in the Solar Cohort,’ Birgitta said.

  ‘Cedius himself presented me with the items. I am not sure he ever truly believed the Solar Cohort were to blame for the tragedy. And he truly viewed Xavir like a son. He gave me the Keening Blades to look after. I took them with me to Dacianara for a short while, before I too left for the good of my people. Baradium Falls was such a low time.’

  ‘He seems a changed man from the one I heard described in the legends,’ Birgitta commented.

  ‘Time changes us all,’ Lupara said with a smile. ‘And the world has changed with us.’

  ‘That it has, Lupara, that it has,’ Birgitta said. ‘But certainly not for the better.’

  *

  As the light began to fade from the sky, Landril was proved right. Elysia returned to the camp.

  The campfire was burning once again on the shoreline, and everyone gathered around it; free men, sisters and queen alike. Elysia said nothing upon her arrival, though the voices around the fire went quiet for moment. Landril watched her take her place alongside her mentor without a word. Birgitta gave her a tentative smile and handed her a strip of dried meat. Xavir glanced at her only once – a lingering, painful look – but then returned his attention to the fire.

  With sharp features and raven-black hair, Landril thought she was a pretty girl – if one was into that sort of thing. He noted the stares from the other men and thought it worth advising them to steer clear from any tawdry comments. Goddess only knows what Xavir would do to them . . .

  Eventually Valderon asked the young sister about her bow and her apparent ability to bend arrows. She replied politely, ‘I have trained for about half as long with swords, too, but it is with this bow that I feel most comfortable.’

  ‘Such a skill will come in handy,’ he said, indicating the weapon she had placed alongside her. ‘Who crafted your bow?’

  ‘A man called Dellius Compol,’ she said, glancing to Birgitta for confirmation she had got the name right.

  A couple of the men gasped. Even Landril was impressed.

  ‘A Compol bow?’ Valderon said with respect in his voice. ‘A valuable heirloom. He was a contemporary of Allimentrus, wasn’t he Xavir?’

  Xavir gave only a nod.

  ‘By the Goddess,’ Valderon said, ‘now that was a great age of weapon-smiths. You won’t get anything like that forged today.’

  ‘I did not know much about it,’ Elysia said. ‘It appears there’s a lot I didn’t know.’

  Birgitta raised an eyebrow at the comment, but said nothing.

  ‘It shoots well enough, though,’ Elysia continued.

  ‘Better than most other weapons, I’d wager,’ Valderon said with a grin.

  Elysia smiled shyly back.

  Landril reached into his satchel and produced the strange piece of armour that he had brought from the attack on the people of Marva. ‘Talking of skilled weapon-smiths, is there any chance one of them could have made something like this?’

  ‘Now, what have we here?’ Birgitta asked.

  Landril tilted the armour in the light of the fire, so that Birgitta could take a better look. ‘Took it from our attackers. Been trying to fathom this writing ever since. You know, I can understand at least two dozen languages, but . . .’

  ‘Here, let me have a look,’ Birgitta said.

  Landril was reluctant to hand over the item, but reached across with it.

  ‘Now then . . .’ Birgitta leaned nearer the fire. She appeared confident in her assessment, nodding to herself. ‘Yes, I believe I can make out some of these words.’

  ‘You can?’ Landril knelt up alongside her.

  ‘You see,’ she continued, ‘I have the advantage of having experienced some similar script to this only recently.’

  Birgitta told of the sisters’ journey from Jarratox, and of the incident in the village of Dweldor. She explained at great length the horrors and of the strange presence that had made itself known to the locals.

  ‘Elysia here fired the arrow that trapped the creature,’ Birgitta concluded, ‘but we left it up to the villagers to decide his fate.’

  ‘And you say you saw this script upon the walls?’ Lupara asked.

  ‘Scratched in the dried blood of the house. By the source, I think whoever, or whatever, created that mess was far more of a menace than the being we caught in the forest, who seemed like a simple warrior. But this script here –’ she handed it back to Landril – ‘is of the same kind.’

  ‘What language is i
t?’ Landril demanded.

  ‘He’s an impatient sort isn’t he?’ Birgitta chuckled, nudging Elysia. ‘Now, the reason you – and for some time, myself – couldn’t understand it was that you were thinking of languages of this continent.’

  ‘I can speak others.’

  ‘How far away, though?’

  ‘The Balanx; the Blood Isles; beyond maybe.’

  ‘Not far enough. Have you heard of the Voldirik people? That’s what language I think this is.’

  ‘By the Goddess,’ Landril said eventually. ‘What is such a script doing here? Their lands are almost mythical . . . I mean, many scholars even dispute their existence. I have read some very old texts concerning those who have travelled their land, but one never quite knows if it is truth or fiction. It was said by the historian Mavos that during the Second Age, the cult nation of Irik fled its shores and established a new realm elsewhere, and that they became what was later recorded in the Sixth Age as the Voldirik people.’

  ‘It is indeed a most mysterious question,’ Birgitta said, leaning back next to Elysia. ‘How did their script, on their armour – on their people – end up on our continent?’

  Landril inspected it once again. He smiled, slightly, as with Birgitta’s information he was able to make out at least one of the words. ‘With that in mind then . . . this looks like an archaic spelling of “castle”, if one went by the origins of their language from Irik. And this word, the long one, appears to be some kind description of numbers.’

  Birgitta furrowed her brow. ‘I have read similar texts to you, and I believe in the Irik origin myth. I understand parts of that classical language structure, and I spotted a few things on this armour. Mostly about where the warrior – whoever wore this – came from. I believe the armour itself quite literally tells their story.’

  ‘I wonder if each one would be personal to the figure wearing it,’ Landril suggested. ‘Deeds done in war. Their origins. Either way, this goes to show that whoever wore this armour – whoever came into that village to cause havoc – they are not mere savages. They are people of some considerable culture.’