“I am glad.” The voice was a hiss in his ear and he stumbled aside, hitting his shoulder against the soft wall with a squelch. His heart beat so loud, it filled the chamber with rapid, pulsing percussion.
“I am going to take something from you,” the voice spoke over the sound of his heart. “Something you do not even know you have. You are going to give it to me.”
Sweat trickling down his face and falling into his eyes, Trinian gasped, “I will give you nothing.”
“You are strong: stronger than any man who has ever been before me, but even you cannot resist a god. You will succumb. It has been foretold, by those who cannot lie: the prophecies are clear.” Then icy fingers, without substance, probed his mind, like a carnivore probing dead flesh for a choice bone. The dead cannot push away the prober. Gradually, the soldier’s defenses fell away. Soon, he would be nothing more than a mindless, pathetic slave.
His mind thrashed against the probing hands, weak and useless, and he wondered how anyone had energy to fight death…but that thought was his salvation. Memory - swift, impulsive, unpredictable – rose with bright image in his mind. Like a summer breeze stirring dying, frozen grasses, blowing open the cobwebs strung between them, a vision rose in Trinian’s memory.
Death, that specter all men face with terror and finality, had taken Trinian’s own father too young, but it was not the final deathbed moment that came to him now. It was a few weeks before, when his father had begun to struggle in his labors, and was leaning heavily on a plow, his heart beating rapidly from a slow, wasting illness. Trinian remembered standing beside his father, his heart wrung with sympathetic, youthful grief, when suddenly Viol, the littlest sister of the family, unaware of her father’s struggles, had run to him across the field. Trinian was about to warn her not to tackle their father, but his tongue fell silent when his father ran toward her and, with superhuman effort, received her into his arms and lifted her high into the bright summer air, her brown curls whirling in the wind, her gleeful laughter bringing a joyful smile to his dying heart.
With the smallest gleam of hope, the son remembered that moment now, the strength that love brought to a dying man, and he cried out to the dead with desperate breath. “Help me, father! Grant me your strength!”
A surge of power consumed his veins, filling him full with life and light, clarity and determination. With a heave, he hauled up his leaded, weighted feet from the ground and flung himself against the great bronze doors that shut him in.
They parted. He stumbled through and, to the wails of Power behind him, ran back the way the beasts had carried him, groping through the wet and slippery corridors, and fleeing that terrible, wretched wrath. As in a dream, he heard shouts and angry cries behind him, but he ran with all his strength, and they were a confused muddle. He never clearly knew how he lost them. After a long while, he came out into the dark night of the mud-paved land.
Trinian ran on. He ran over the muddy ground, slid and fell, got up again and kept on running. How long this went on, he could never say afterwards. He ran on fear, and when it seemed there was no adrenaline left to fuel his desperation, a giant bird, like a miracle, alighted beside him, scooped him onto its back, and flew him back to Gladier’s home.
7
Confused Identity
Cool air wafted through the glen in the border wood, kissing the early sunlight streaming between tall, green branches. Only the door hanging open on its hinges showed any sign of the previous night’s invasion. The valley was sparkling and undisturbed.
Inside the hut, however, Gladier stood stern before Trinian. Still wet and muddy from his journey, the soldier shivered in a blanket in the deep armchair.
“What is your family name?” the wizard demanded.
Even Lady Adrea was still shuddering from the shock of the night. It had been horrible for her to wake and find the door ripped off its hinges and her companion gone. Gladier, on rising, had immediately sat down before a bowl of shallow water and found Trinian with his mind. He had seen everything from a distance, as if in a vision, and point by point, he had related the action to her. She had listened in dumbfounded confusion to each event, and now that it was all over, she understood it no better.
It was a garanx bird from Gladier’s forest which had come to Trinian’s rescue. As soon as the young man broke free from the fortress, Gladier called upon the magical creature to fetch the man at full speed, and the faithful beast brought the waning fugitive promptly back to its master.
Gladier loomed over Trinian and fixed his piercing eyes upon him, as if to ascertain his fate with a penetrating glance. Now he asked again, “What is your family name?”
Trinian took a deep breath. “Nian.”
“Not anymore. I think it is Adalam.”
Adrea glared at him, her heart pinching in teased hope. “You cannot say that unless you have proof. You cannot!”
Gladier looked at her and there was excitement in his old eyes. “I did not hear what went on in that chamber, but I saw. I saw enough to offer that name as a very possible option. In fact, I don’t see how it cannot be true. No untitled, simple man would be wanted by the gods, and no man less than a king or wizard could have stood like that before a natural god in his full might.”
Adrea shook her head and paced quickly in anxiety, hope, and dread. Trinian looked back and forth at them both, trying to process their conversation. Though he was usually quick witted, his mind had just suffered a tremendous ordeal, and he was not able to comprehend their drift.
“Are you saying,” he asked in doubt, “that I am descended from Adalam?”
“Yes! You are the heir to the throne of Drian.”
Adrea exhaled angrily, and Trinian fell back into his chair. Gladier, unperturbed by their disbelief, went on; he turned on Adrea and advanced towards her, accenting each word as he advanced, and she backed up beneath his gaze, clenching her fists. Her anger rose from masking the fear she felt at the very likely chance that Gladier was wrong: that he was raising their hopes for nothing. “You know it must be true,” said the wizard. “You know we must investigate. This young man is very likely our salvation. Even the gods fear him.”
And she looked at Trinian, sitting pale and helpless and confused. And she looked into the Wizard’s eyes and the hope there was overwhelming; she began to soften, to hope with him – but then her heart closed resolutely and she stood tall in her short height. She refused to entertain false hope without proof and she told him so.
The old man, to her surprise, nodded his head energetically. “Yes, yes,” he cried excitedly. “There is not enough proof. The proof of one natural god, haunting his own land, is hardly enough. There is much to do, much to discover. More prophecies will be fulfilled before we know for certain. We must tell no one until we have irrefutable proof. This is not a matter, my children, to be taken lightly. This is the sort of intelligence that leads to wars.”
There was much to think on and the future stewardess and wizard kept at it a long time, so that it was not until a half hour later when Adrea finally wandered out of the hut to speak with Trinian. She found him leaning against a large tree, his straight shoulders drooping, and his eyes glaring into the dark forest. No longer did he stand upon his noble, soldierly grace, but had collapsed: deflated, confused, and frightened, and though his blue eyes and light hair reflected the depth and light of the sky, his brooding silence mirrored the heavy hush of the wood.
“You have said nothing.”
He shrugged in response. Stridently, she placed herself beside him, her strong command battling his tempestuous silence. “Say what you are thinking,” she ordered.
As a good soldier, he obeyed, though slowly: “Too much and not enough. All my life, I knew what was expected of me. I was supposed to be a farmer – it is what my father wanted, but I always knew it was wrong. When he died I tried to please him for a time, but I was not meant for the fields, and I knew it. My mother knew it, and gave me permission to leave home, to leave the farm
in my brother’s hands, and find my place in the world. So she said, but I did not have to find it. I knew! I knew I was meant to be a soldier! I knew it since I first caught sight, as a boy, of their beautiful splendor. To fight for honor, glory, and my city – I was born to protect and build!”
She nodded, and her heart went out to him. She understood, entirely, the drive to protect and build Drian. “So was I. I knew it, my father knew it, and what was better, I was born into it. Fate selected me, of all the world, to rule Drian and preserve her for the coming king, and I would give my life for her. Would you do any less?”
He hung his head, stung by the truth of her words, understanding that if he would die for Drian, he must live for her too.
“What do you live for?” she demanded loudly.
Trinian whirled to face her and declared the age-old mantra of a soldier of Drian. “To fight injustice, unite the kingdom, protect the innocent, and preserve the realm for the coming king!”
“And what if the king has come? What if you are him? Then what would you live for?” she demanded again.
“To end injustice, unite the kingdom, protect the innocent, and serve my people!” He answered without a thought. All at once, in a rush of air, the answer had come to him, as if it were programmed into him long ago, before he was born, before he was soldier, before he could question his destiny, and in that instant, the brooding darkness evaporated.
“What if I am the king?”
“And what if you are a soldier? Nothing has changed. Whether I am stewardess or maiden, I will live for my city. And whether you are king or soldier, you will do no less. When we first met I thought – well, it does not matter what I thought….I was wrong. Perhaps you are the answer to our prayers.”
“When we first came to the wood,” he told her suddenly, his voice hushed in awe, “I felt a rush of expectancy, as if something unspeakably wonderful had happened in this place, and would happen, and was happening all around me. My heart quickened with a deep yearning to dive into its happenings, to find my destiny, to pursue the future. I caught the keen scent of spruce and pine, saw every detail of the needled branches, and heard happy sighs of the wind through the trees, and all at once, I was on fire for adventure!” He looked at her with shining eyes. “This is the adventure!”
She was gripped by those eyes, and she suddenly saw how wonderful and magnificent was the man behind them. Any thought that he was a man of shallow thought or superficial purpose fled from her mind, and she became his strongest advocate in that moment. All at once, she knew, despite the need to find firm proof, that he was the long-awaited king of Drian, and her heart knit to his, as though she had just found a missing part of herself.
She opened to him as she had never done to anyone before, and leaning forward, told of her experience, “I felt something too: a dark presence, a descent over my heart as of pure evil, and it terrified me. If we both felt the future, then Trinian, it is both wonderful and terrible. But if we dare to face it, then perhaps Gladier’s golden age will come to pass.”
His eyes shone still, but he sobered a little bit, nodding and reflecting, and said, “What a responsibility for one man!”
Adrea planned to return to Drian the next day, and Trinian was eager to plunge back into his normal life. He wanted time to grow accustomed to these new ideas, and yearned for the familiar routine of drills and training and the army. But Gladier advised, to the soldier’s dismay, that he remain in the wood and learn more about Drian’s history, the gods, and the kings of the past. He told them there was much work to be done, and Trinian must remain to do it. The young man was impatient, but he could not argue with Adrea when she gave her agreement, so he was forced to remain to face the looming, threatening future.
Thus he accompanied her Ladyship until the palace was in sight, for her protection, then turned back toward the Wizard, and she was left to enter the gates alone. As she rode through, she noticed an immediate change: the streets were full of people, the market was active, and the children shrieked, ran, and played in the yards. The people of Drian had returned to health. Her heart soared in relief as she hurried to the palace to see Faring, and she wondered if this was another prophecy fulfilled. She said nothing to anyone of Trinian’s encounter with the god, but told her father all she had learned from Gladier about their country’s history. She even said that he may well be a Healer from days gone by, and that, in light of that information, she said, Trinian had remained with the old man, to learn as much as possible.
“You traveled back here alone?” he stressed in disapproval, ignoring her when she assured him that Trinian had accompanied her to the gates. “I do not understand why Trinian did not return with you,” he continued. “If this Healer has no more power, then what is the good?”
“Please, father. Trust in me?” Her blue-violet eyes quietly asked for his belief, and he was surprised into looking at her thoughtfully a moment. She was changed, though he knew not how, but it was a good change. She was quieter somehow, calmer, and he nodded his hale head.
For the next several months, Trinian kept close contact with her ladyship, often meeting her couriers at the edge of the forest, sending back letters of his training at Gladier’s hand, his history lessons, and the search to discover his heritage. All of this Adrea kept to herself, mulling it over, waiting for the time when proof would arise, Trinian return, and together they would reveal all to her father. She was beginning not only to believe, but to be joyful – Trinian, she treasured the thought in her heart, would be a king to rival all kings.
8
Prophecies Fulfilled
Three months passed as Trinian took up his abode with Gladier, learned by his side, and grew ever more in wisdom and manhood. And as the weeks turned to months, a change came over him; he was not grown, but he stood taller; he was not so much handsomer as more thoughtful and intelligent, which brought a light of sharp definition to his visage. If Adrea had met him now for the first time, she would not have thought him just a pretty face.
It is easy to wait a month for change to come, for an answer to appear, or for a gamble to pay off. But enter into the second month, and the human heart grows restless, waiting for and demanding impatiently that the fulfillment come to the indefinite deferment. And when the third month has come, though it is in fact the amount of time after which we most often see progress or find an answer, yet it is the most torturous of periods, and the most reviled, and it is in this time that we often fail to find the patience that has borne us through until now. And so it was for Trinian. He tossed and turned in the night on the window seat, frustrated that in all this time they had found nothing to prove his identity. While he grew everyday in his knowledge of politics, history, and government, he still had no idea if he was the king. Gladier said a prophetess would arrive soon who would confirm his identity, and that would be the final proof, but how long would he have to wait? And, most torturous of all, what if he was not the king?
Gladier’s teachings drummed like a melody in his mind, and the questions the old man taught the young swirled unanswered in a thick, muddy turmoil. He wanted answers, but they were life-lived questions. What does it mean to be a good man, or a good king? Trinian wanted the answer now; and in many ways, he thought he had it. But he only knew the abstract formulas: to be fair, just, patient, and stern. To be heroic and self-sacrificing, loving and objective. But he would not know the true answers until he had lived life, for they were life-lived answers.
The god of Karaka, reasoned Trinian, was evil, and sought to possess the world for himself. He cared not for peace or the good of any but himself. If the god wanted to possess him and claim the kingship, then Trinian, to be a good king, could avoid that fate by being nothing like the god; he must care for others above himself, for the world above his own interests. He must be unflinchingly the god’s opposite. Where the god of Karaka was evil, he must be good; where he was tyrannical, he must be merciful; and so, Trinian believed, it would be his righteousness that wo
uld hold the evil of Karaka at bay. If only he was the king!
He tossed hotly about the bed. It was no use theorizing – he was not the king. Not yet, and perhaps never. How long should he wait to learn his fate?
Eventually, unable to sleep, he rolled out and crept into the night. He stalked through the woods, his bow at the ready and quiver slung over his back, his shoulders broad and his legs sturdy and long. His chest was not thrust forward like a soldier’s, but flat and lean like a dancer’s, and the muscles were firm beneath his light cotton shirt, and he wove through the forest more as a silent companion of it than a predator. The night was alive here in the country; the stars shone bright, not yet dimmed by the approaching dawn. Leaves rustled and twigs cracked, the pine scent was strong upon the air, and hesitantly, the forest prepared to awaken.
A pool of light illumined a small hollow five yards from where Trinian made his quiet way, and as he approached, he saw the black head of a doe. Even as he drew his bow to make the kill and return somewhat fulfilled and master of himself to Gladier’s hut, he noticed that there was something unfamiliar about this creature. Squinting his sharp eyes, he saw that it was not a doe at all, and he stopped short in surprise. His prey moved its head, and it was a woman’s hair cascading over her back in long, twisted tresses.
“You are no doe,” he said gravely, almost to himself, and the woman started up in terror to flee from his voice. “No, stop!” he called. “I am sorry to have frightened you. Please stay.”
She stopped, her head turned away from him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She answered without turning, and her tone was as gentle as a dove’s – it rang like bells, and was as powerful as the purring roar of a lion. “I am the spirit of the wood.”
Her cryptic answer made him smile, taking her words as a mere fancy; but then he frowned, for she did indeed have the air of a spirit about her. And yet she looked mortal. “Why are you here so early?” he asked.
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