Mantle: The Return of the Sha

by Gary Bregar

  “I will do my best to take it back,” Zander said, thinking the advice to be obvious.

  “Tell me oracle, why would the inflock choose Balki Touro for such things? It is only by chance that I happened across him in Maske. Many things had to fall into place for him to be in a position that would be of an advantage.”

  “Majesty, Balki Touro is descended of Barth on his father’s side—a man cursed in the last Mantle War, to produce heirs of dark will. It was Barth who also carried the inflock out of Skite lands and into Forris. That curse, along with the inflock, slept through time, until eventually they both landed with Balki Touro. It was Balki who the curse first took to; none of his ancestors apparently having fit the requirements. The inflock awakened once it had drawn enough strength from him.

  “The circumstances for your meeting might have been by chance, but he would have found you soon enough.”

  “So he was a traitor from the start,” Zander said.

  “Yes, my king, but there is one other thing that I have seen, that you must know, although I suspect you may already.”

  “What is it?”

  “Balki Touro carries with him the power to cloak—something that hasn’t been seen in many years and is very rare.”

  Although Zander might have been shocked by this, he wasn’t surprised in the least.

  “Yes, I suppose that I did know, but I did not recognize it at the time,” Zander said, feeling guilt.

  “Nor would there have been any way that you could have known,” the oracle said. “That, my king, is the danger presented by those who cloak.”

  “Yes, I suppose that is true, oracle. I could not have been certain,” Zander said. He knew this, but appreciated hearing it.

  “Do you have any other advice on the matter that you can share, oracle?”

  “None more for now, Majesty, but I will keep all ears and all eyes alert.”

  Zander started for the door, then stopped and turned back to the oracle, who was now taking his seat at the table.

  “Oracle, there is one other matter, about which I would seek your counsel.”

  “Yes, my king.”

  “It is of Lizabet Abbot, the queen’s sister.”

  “Yes, she is the girl who brought back your expression, is she not?”

  “Yes, but there is something else. She has stumbled upon a door in the old part of the castle, a door which only she can see. What do you make of this?”

  The oracle immediately stood up from his chair and his eyes were so wide that Zander thought they might fall from the old sockets that held them.

  “You’ve seen it, Majesty? The door?” the oracle asked with urgency.

  “Yes, I’ve seen it. What is the matter?”

  “Did you walk through it?”

  “Yes,” Zander said. “It opened to a staircase that led to a dungeon of horror.”

  The oracle turned toward the purple drape and motioned to the king to follow. “Come, let us look into the matter. You will be needed for this.”

  Zander followed and could hear the oracle mumbling under his breath, “It can’t be…simply can’t be! Is it possible?”

  When they entered the room behind the purple drape, Zander saw that there was a large glass bowl resting on a stone pillar. The bowl was a dark amber color and spanned nearly two feet across, but Zander thought its depth to be no more than the tip of a finger.

  The oracle walked around the bowl so that he was standing on the opposite side, across from Zander. He took a silver pitcher from the shelf behind him and held it with both hands against his chest. Closing his eyes, he mumbled words in a language that Zander did not recognize.

  When he finally opened his eyes, he held the pitcher out and began slowly pouring a clear liquid into the bowl. It appeared to be water, but Zander quickly noticed the way that it was falling into the bowl. It didn’t splash or crawl up the sides as it was hitting the base. Instead, it landed smoothly and held its position so that when the oracle was done, not a ripple could be seen. To Zander it looked like clear glass.

  The oracle held out one finger just above the clear, still liquid.

  “My king, you are firmly connected to Lizabet Abbot. It is both of us who must ask for a reflection.”

  Zander understood and held out his own finger as the oracle had. The oracle then nodded approval.

  “I will tell you when,” he said. There was no toothless smile now, only a look of serious concentration.

  The oracle took his finger down and gently touched the top of the liquid. Ripples went out in all directions in a perfect circle—spreading out in slow moving waves.

  He then nodded to Zander to do the same. Once he touched the liquid, he watched as the rippling waves created by his own touch collided with those created by the oracle. Once all of the ripples had reached the edges, the liquid immediately became still again.

  It was then that the oracle closed his eyes and began mumbling words under his breath. He took both hands and made slow circling gestures over the bowl, and as he did, a single large bubble emerged from the liquid. It grew until a liquid dome covered the bowl entirely. The oracle then opened his eyes, and pulled back his hands. He continued to mumble words that Zander didn’t recognize until smoke began to form inside the bubble. The smoke collected until the entire bubble was filled and appeared almost solid.

  As Zander stood in awe, the smoke began to emerge from a small hole at the top of the bubble. It billowed up and then came together to form the impression of a face.

  The oracle continued to speak in the unknown language, and Zander saw that the face in the smoke was speaking as well, although he could not hear it. After a few moments of this conversation, the oracle bowed his head slightly at the smoky figure, and then closed his eyes once more. The smoke immediately returned through the hole in the bubble and disappeared, bringing the bubble back down to settle as liquid within the curve of the bowl.

  When the oracle opened his eyes, he walked quickly back to the other room. He began pulling scrolls out from their places on the shelves. He was frantically searching for something, and when he finally found the scroll that he was looking for he unrolled it and sat down in his chair. Zander had returned to the other room as well, and watched as the oracle read the scroll. When he was finished, he only sat in silence for a moment before uttering the words,

  “She is a sha.”

  He spoke so low that Zander was struggling to hear him. “A sha—what is a sha?”

  “A blue witch, Majesty,” the oracle replied. “She is the embodiment of good—evil’s opposite. A blue witch has not been known anywhere in Mantle in untold years. Majesty, a sha in Forris is good fortune for your side, to be sure.”

  King Zander tried his best to process this. He had never heard of a sha or a blue witch, but if it meant an advantage, as the oracle was suggesting, he was glad for it.

  He now thought back to his conversation with Dicen. He had described a world in which good and evil would balance as if on a scale—at least that was how he had thought of it. Now he wondered if Lizabet’s very birth hadn’t caused the scale to tip so drastically to the favor of good that it had resulted in Menagraff’s return.

  “Tell me, Majesty, of her reaction upon learning of her sister’s abduction,” the oracle said.

  “She was angry and demanded that she accompany us to fight for her return. I refused, of course.”

  The oracle contemplated this for a moment before saying, “You must take her. She could quite possibly mean the difference between victory and defeat—although I know not how.”

  “I cannot possibly bring a child on such a dangerous mission as this!” he said, thinking the old man had lost his wits.

  “Majesty, she will become more than you know—more than she knows herself, for that matter. She will become a great warrior…I have been told by the reflection.”

  Lizabet, a warrior? Absurd!

  As if reading his thoughts, the oracle continued, “Lizabet Abbot is no ord
inary child—far from it. She may appear as a child to you, but her line is old, ancient even.

  “Although she may not show signs of it, your very own wife carries the blood of a sha in her, as well. That is not to say that she is a sha, but she may carry some gifts of the bloodline. You would be wise to consider Lizabet Abbot, at least, to be among your most valuable weapons.”

  “And there is no way around her coming?” Zander asked. “With respect, oracle, I do not see her as the warrior you describe.”

  “No, my king, there is no other way. She is part of this whether you accept it or not.”

  Zander relented and said no more on the subject. He had no intention of taking Lizabet with him to fight the Skites. She was a child and, more than that, she was Bella’s sister and Bella would never forgive him.

  The oracle turned toward one of his many shelves and thumbed over the ends of the books, searching for the one that he had in mind. Finally, he pulled a rather large book from the shelf and blew the dust from the top of it. He walked over to Zander and handed it to him.

  “Here, give her this and press her to read it. Do not tempt destiny with this one, Majesty. I beg of you do not tempt it.”

  Zander took the book from the old man and stepped back.

  “Very well,” he said. “Thank you for your service, oracle,” he said as he left. He wanted out of the cramped space of the cottage, but mostly he wanted fresh air. It was ten minutes’ ride before he would find it.

  ****

  When King Zander awoke from a restless sleep that he had forced, the sun was not yet up. He dressed and left for Lizabet’s room, the book from the oracle in hand. They would be riding today to make their rescue and possibly directly into war without a moment’s notice, if they failed in their attempt. As he walked to Lizabet’s apartment, he thought about what the oracle had said.

  A blue witch…a sha.

  He suddenly felt himself feeling nervous to talk with her, as if she had changed somehow. She hadn’t changed, though. She was still Lizabet Abbot of Terra, sister by law to the king, but he felt as if something had shifted. Something about the knowledge of her and what she was had forced him to think of her differently.

  When he reached her room, he was glad to see that there were guards standing on either side of her door. He knocked and was greeted by a maid talking in a low whisper. He instructed her to wake Lizabet and stepped into the sitting room of the apartment.

  When Lizabet emerged from her room, she was dressed in a robe and looked as if she had not slept.

  “Majesty, what brings you here?” she asked. “Is there word of my sister?”

  “No, I’m afraid not, but we ride at sunrise to save her and return her here to Obengaard. And I swear to you that I will bring her back.”

  Lizabet looked into his eyes closely. She saw nothing but determination and knew that he would do everything in his power to rescue her. But she also felt something else—a feeling that she would be caught up in the conflict herself, and she thought that she saw that same feeling in the king’s eyes as well.

  “I came to talk to you of another matter,” Zander said, still clutching the book.

  “Have you decided to allow me to go with you?” Lizabet asked with sternness in her tone.

  “No I haven’t, Lizabet. You must understand that I cannot allow it. Your sister would never again look upon me with love in her eyes. She would carry her anger to the grave and you know it,” Zander said, with frustration, but also with some sadness.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’ve come on behalf of the oracle,” he said, and Lizabet’s eye’s brightened a bit. “He wishes you to read this.”

  Lizabet took the book and examined it. There was no title and no indication of its subject, so she looked at Zander and asked,

  “What is this about? Why would the oracle have me read this?”

  This had been the moment that Zander had been anxious about. He had debated several different ways to say it, but arrived at the simplest.

  “Lizabet, he believes you to be born a blue witch…a sha—from a long line, he says.”

  Her mouth fell and she let out a slight gasp.

  “Know that these things uttered by the oracle are not set. He could be mistaken, although he seems certain. Holding truth, I’ve never heard mention of a blue witch, or a sha. The book may explain it.”

  “I have,” Lizabet whispered. “I’ve heard of such things.”

  Zander’s expression turned to one of surprise.

  “My aunt spoke of them often before she passed,” Lizabet said. “She said that there hadn’t been a true sha in Mantle for generations. She also said that she never cared much for the term blue witch, and I never understood why it bothered her so—until now. It bothered her because the sha were of her own line. It had passed over her, as it had so many other women in her family, but the sha were of her line, nevertheless.

  “What the oracle says is true, Majesty—I know it as sure as we are standing in this room, and I believe that you know it as well. I think you knew it the moment our eyes met and your smile returned. You may not have known then, what it was, but you knew something all the same.”

  Zander thought about this for a moment before realizing that what she was saying was entirely true. He had felt something about her when they had met. It had been a wonderful feeling unlike any other, and he thought now that he should not be so surprised at the oracle’s diagnosis. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he saw the signs—not only the return of his smile, but also the door, and her friendships—a chicken and a Loper, among others. Yes, it had all been laid out before him.

  One other thing that had not struck him until that moment was that any future heir to the throne of Forris would also carry the line of the sha. This realization brought him a flicker of joy to an otherwise grim couple of days.

  “Well then, Fathers help you to understand your strengths, Lizabet,” Zander said. “Read the book and tell Steed of any change in your ability, if such things would be revealed to you, that is. He will send word to me and I will decide then if you should be sent to join us. I’ll offer that promise, at least…a consideration.”

  “Thank you, Majesty, that is all I ask. I will read the book,” she said.

  And she would read the book eventually, but she would not wait for his consideration. She had other plans in mind.

  Journey

  THE DEPARTURE OF King Zander with fifty thousand men was not to go unnoticed. The farewell send-off was simple but well attended. People lined the streets on both sides along the route that the army would take to the main gates of the city, and then lined the road that led toward the east.

  They had no tradition for sending their men into battle—there had never been war in their lifetimes. So they threw flowers onto the streets for the men to walk over. Some spectators handed flowers to the men themselves, but what one would see if they took a wider look would be women and children standing silently in groups. They would see the elders standing quiet, seeming to wonder how they had made it through so much of life in peace for it to all come to this.

  ****

  King Zander rode with his men east toward the Outlands and where they expected to join the scouts who had been dispatched to track Balki and the queen. It was on the second day of their travels that Zander had received troubling news from the scouts.

  They had reported that Balki and his hostage had been lost—possibly. The Eagles had lost them when they had eyed duplicate visions of Balki separating into different directions. It now appeared that nearly a dozen versions of Balki and Bella had been spotted on various routes leading toward the Outlands—and Skite.

  The scouts had confirmed the Eagle’s report when they began to see identical tracks leading in different directions. They had broken into groups and begun following the versions they suspected, as well as they could, but they had no way of knowing if they were following an illusion or not. In one case, the tracks led them in
a small circle, and another time they had seen what they thought to be Balki and Bella when suddenly the figures disappeared momentarily in a shimmer that looked like rippling water. They had realized then that they had been following a decoy. Now they sat waiting, realizing that they were accomplishing nothing.

  King Zander was furious. He began yelling at his captains and generals with equal harshness. It wasn’t their fault, he knew—but they were present and the scouts were not. And even if the scouts would have been there, it still would not have been their fault. He knew that as well. This was the inflock’s doing and now he must decide how to proceed. He would not entertain the thought of dividing his armies. That may be precisely what the inflock was hoping for. He would meet the scouts at the place where the tracks divided and decide then how best to proceed. For now, he could only hope to all the Fathers that Bella would be safe.

  ****

  Bella awoke to darkness and musty heat. A burlap bag had been pulled over her head and a drawstring held it around her neck. When she opened her eyes, she could see tiny rays of light pouring in through the pinholes in the burlap.

  It was both scorching hot and dusty in the bag. Muddy sweat from her brow was running into the corners of her eyes, so she kept her eyes closed tight. She would eventually drift away—back into a half-sleep, only to awaken again a few hours later.

  She knew she was on a horse, and she thought she had been strung over the horse for a very long time. But she had no conception of time. She had drifted in and out of consciousness so many times that her memories seemed blurry to her. She did know that she had been taken by Balki Touro—that much she was sure of. But as to his motive, she could not guess. He had taken something from below Zander’s throne, but surely it had nothing directly to do with her. After all, she had not lived at Bannister Castle long and had been queen for even less time, so what could it possibly have to do with her?