by Dan Bilodeau
But what he thought was irrelevant. Even mentioning the prophecy was forbidden by the Andals. And here was Hadrian, singing about it in the open for anyone to hear. Why Hadrian had allowed his head to get filled with all these fantastic stories was a mystery to Dal.
“That’s a dangerous song you’re singing,” Dal said as he approached the old man.
“Why, young Dalziel, how good to see you. How’s the farming these days? I suspect about as good as my singing.” He chuckled and the children laughed.
Dal felt his face color. “It’s going great, thank you, and at least I have a farm.”
“That you do, lad, that you do.”
“Hade, I really have to ask you about something.”
“In time, Dalziel. Let me finish my useless stories, as you like to call them.” He hopped down from the fence, displaying remarkable agility for a person his age.
“Who wants to hear about Luan?” Hadrian asked. He received uproarious approval, as none of his audience could have been older than the age of ten. Dal tapped his foot impatiently because, knowing Hadrian as he did, these stories would take a while. He placed his hand in the pocket holding the stone and nervously tapped his fingers against it.
Soren gave Dal a sly grin and sat down amongst the other children. He loved hearing about the heroes of old and the Scion of Dio, the great Luan, and Dal was all too aware of this. Still.
“You too? That’s great.” Dal rolled his eyes and reluctantly found a place to sit as Hadrian began his tale.
“A thousand years ago, there was a man named Luan. He was a simple fisherman from Leath, and he had eyes as blue as the sea. But even though he was of humble birth, he was able to control a person’s mind with just a look, and he could level a man with his stare. And while he was fair, he was fierce toward those he deemed his enemies.”
“At the time, Ibernia was oppressed by the warrior kingdom of the Woads. They covered their bodies in dirt and blue paint, but other than that they looked surprisingly like us. They were a fearsome people who used axes and bows, and they outnumbered us many times over. But back in those days, we were able to hold our own because of the deep magic we controlled. And we had Druids, too, who unlike those in our midst today, possessed even more powerful magic.” Hadrian had a far-off look.
“Because people believed in Dio, the Druids were able to use magic according to His will, and He rewarded that belief with plentiful harvests. Always remember, when Dio is pleased, Ibernia blossoms with colors that are breathtaking to behold. Dio was pleased then, and the Ibernians began to push back the Woads.
But the Woads changed their strategy and began a campaign to exterminate the Druids, who were easy to spot on the battlefield and vulnerable while performing spells, since they were also mere mortals. Once the Woads took care of the Druids, they were certain they could defeat the Ibernians with ease, since we had only wooden weapons and farmer tools, and their steel arms were far superior to what we could conjure up without magic--”
“Where does Luan fit in?” a child interrupted. The old man smiled.
“As you all know, there are several long-forgotten holy books that were inspired by Dio many eons ago. The master Druids of that time pored over the texts and determined from the writings that the five earth elements of earth, air, water, fire and spirit could be harnessed. But because of our human form, no one person could control the power of all five. Dio acceded to the Druid’s reasoning and created five stones and hid each one somewhere in Ibernia.”
“Why’d He do that?” the same child asked. “Why didn’t He just give us the stones so we could fight our enemies?”
“Because, my dear boy, the Scion of Dio had to find the stones, as prophesied about in the holy texts, and he and four companions would each use a stone to become mighty warriors--the Seraphs. The Druids determined that Luan was that hero, the Scion, and aided him on his quest to find the stones. And he and the four other Seraphs found them, and that’s why we are all here today.”
“What’s a Seraph?” another child asked.
“This is my favorite part,” Soren whispered to Dal. In spite of himself, Dal felt himself hanging on Hadrian’s every word.
“Dio’s five holy warriors were the five Seraphs, and each used a stone to conjure up his or her element. Although they were just men and women, each stone provided for a set of armor unique to the wearer. And the stone representing the element was the centerpiece of the breastplate, for all to see. The suits granted the Seraphs great endurance and agility, making them capable of wielding incredible weapons. But the armor didn’t make them invincible.
“So to make the Seraphs more difficult targets, they were also provided with wings. Although their wings couldn’t support much more than their body weight and the armor, they were still capable of great feats. The Seraphs could soar above the treetops and be anywhere in moments. Consequently, not just their magic made them a deadly force, so did their speed. They were shooting stars from heaven all right, and Dio help anyone who got in their path.”
“There were girl Seraphs?” Soren asked. Dal was surprised his little brother had never heard that part before.
“Aye, there were, my lad. Catriona was the Seraph of Water and Alonia was the Seraph of Spirit. And what mighty warriors they were.” Hadrian looked to the firmament. “That they were.”
“Aw, come on,” Soren said, “girls can’t fight.” Dal smacked his brother.
Dal thought Hadrian was going to explode at Soren. Instead, the old man simply gazed at him with his keen brown eyes seeming to dance. “And why do you think that, young master Soren? Does a woman feel injustice any less than a man? Or love her friends and family any less? I believe you will find, my dear boy, that how one fights is much less important than why one fights. Being male or female has nothing to do with it.”
Dal sensed that his brother remained unconvinced, as he too wasn’t so sure Hadrian wasn’t saying this just to keep the girls in the crowd content.
Glancing around at the children, Hadrian said, “My, my, I’ve taken up enough of your time, young sirs and ladies.” His declaration was greeted with groans from his still quite rapt audience. “That’s all the history these old bones have for you today, I’m afraid. May Dio bless you all and keep you.” He looked over his flock one last time, winked at Dal, and the children went their separate ways.
Alone now with Hadrian and his brother, Dal asked, “If Luan was the Scion, how come we were invaded again?”
“You know the answer to that, young Dalziel. We have sinned against Dio since then, and fallen into wickedness. We have offended Him by being skeptical of His power and denying Him as our creator. We go down our own paths instead of yearning to learn His will. That’s why we can no longer have the power to use magic. That’s why Dionists believe He sent the Andals to punish us.”
“But is that what you believe?” Nothing in the world seemed more important to Dal at that moment than Hadrian’s answer.
“Time is short, and I have a date with the woods tonight,” Hadrian said, his eyes dancing again. He began walking away from Dal and Soren.
Disappointed at not getting an answer, Dal yelled for him to wait and ran up to him. “Can you tell me what this is?” He pulled the stone out of his pocket, its color pulsing to the rhythm he could feel as he held it out in front of him.
Hadrian’s brow furrowed as he looked at the stone, then his eyes narrowed. “Where did you find this?”
“At the fire pits. I was playing with Soren, and I found it in a niche in a wall, kind of like someone put it there. Is it worth anything?”
“Young Dalziel, it’s the most valuable thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?” Dal’s heart raced. “How much is it worth?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid.”
Dal did a double take. “But you just said--”
“I said it was valuable. I wasn’t speaking in monetary terms.”
“What do you mean, then? I’m tired of your ridd
les.”
Hadrian squared his eyes up with Dal’s and became even more serious. “It’s a Seraph stone, lad.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“You must,” Hadrian said, with more than a hint of urgency.
Dal shook his head. “Whatever you say, old man. Just do me a favor and find out if I can get anything for it.”
“But Dalziel--”
“But nothing. I’ve had enough of your stories for one day. You say the stone is the most valuable thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s not worth anything.”
“You’ll learn in due time. Just promise me you’ll keep it safe. It’s very precious, just not in money.”
So much for solving his family’s financial problems. The old man had clearly lost it, but to appease him, Dal agreed to watch over the stone. He didn’t try to hide his disappointment, though, and lowered his head.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, my boy.” Hadrian placed his hand on Dal’s shoulder. “Don’t mind the prattling of an old coot like me. Just be certain not to lose the stone or let anyone else have it.”
“I won’t. Sorry for snapping at you. Things have been a little rough lately.”
“I know. How’s your mother doing?”
Dal didn’t know why, but he could always confide in the man. “Not too good. She seems to have become worse. She never got over my….” He couldn’t finish.
“Your father's dying in the rebellion.”
“Yes, since the…since my father died.”
A decade later, those words still carried too much weight for him to bear. He could feel his eyes welling up and desperately wanted to change the subject, but the next thing he thought about was the Conscription, so all he could say was, “Soren and I have to go do the chores,” and both boys ran down the road, toward their farm.
Hadrian had felt a pulsing coming from Dal, not the stone. Now he knew why. Great Dio! Right under my nose! Could it be? Had the legendary times come again? And while the boy wasn’t ready, he would soon have no choice. Then he would believe, of this the old man was certain. He walked into the woods, a million thoughts seeming to rattle around in his brain.
THREE
A Seraph stone. The old man was playing with him, perhaps trying to pick up his spirits, since he, like everyone in Quork, was only too aware of Conscription Day.
Dal had a lot on his mind as he stood by the kitchen window, which framed a wide panorama of the land in back of his house. Despite his dreary opinion of the current state of farming, he had to admit that the scenery was beautiful. Under a clear azure sky on this day, vibrant, green rolling hills dominated the landscape. Red and yellow flowers had popped up here and there, reminding Dal of the annual flower festival in Quork, four miles to the southwest, where almost all commerce in the province took place. Unfortunately, it was also where the Andals maintained a strong presence, and the festival was one of the few traditions they allowed the locals to continue to enjoy.
Dal was taken by just how blue the sky appeared that afternoon. He could stare at it for hours. And he was particularly fascinated when he spotted birds twirling and seeming to dance with the air, on their terms. Dal would give anything to have that ability, that freedom.
Dal quit daydreaming and leaned against the stone wall in the kitchen. In comparison to most houses on Ibernian farms, Dal’s was a mansion. It had three bedrooms, almost unheard of in this part of the country. And while his mother cooked on a brick oven situated in one corner, an excellent set of utensils hung overhead. The room usually smelled of roasted potatoes or turnips, along with whatever the boys could trade for at the market. Today, the aroma of meat filled the room, but this was no longer a good thing. When food grew scarce, as it had recently, Dal’s family had to turn to the cows. Only four were left.
In the middle of the kitchen stood a large, sturdy wooden table Dal’s father had built, along with two benches on either side, made from the same tree. Dal’s father had been good at whatever he attempted. He was thought to have some crazy theories about growing crops. At least everyone thought he was crazy until his fields yielded three times as much as anyone else’s. Everyone had sought his secret after that, but he had never revealed it to anyone, at least as far as Dal knew, including him. Whenever he thought about this, it made him angry.
The current crop failures worried Dal, but not as much as the possibility of more earthquakes, which was strange because they had never occurred in Ibernia, at least that anyone could remember, until five years ago. The first one was small, not many people were hurt, and there was little property damage. But the earthquake last year had been substantial, and several people from Quork had died as a result of it and many buildings were destroyed.
With everything going on, Dal’s mind was racing, and his thoughts returned to his father. Dal had heard the story several times of how his parents had met. Both had come from farming families, but his mother was from north of Quork and his father from east of town. He was heading to the marketplace by himself when he took a shortcut and got lost. He got his leg caught in a snare meant for a wolf and was howling in pain when Dal’s mother came upon him.
She released the snare and dressed his wound, which was appropriate, since she was the one who had set the trap in the first place. Some farmers, including her parents, had been losing livestock to wolves living in woods near the town, and she had taken it upon herself to get rid of them. She had helped Dal’s father walk back to his farm, and two months later the two were engaged. Dal didn’t know how to explain it, but he had always felt joy in their home as a child. His parents hadn’t simply been husband and wife, they had been best friends.
His mother came into the kitchen. A tall, thin woman, she had light brown hair that hung just past her shoulders and nimble, strong hands from working on a farm all of her life. She had been spending more and more time lost in her own thoughts recently, and Dal worried about her. It had been ten years since their father had been killed in battle, a battle in which he shouldn’t have been fighting, at least to Dal’s way of thinking. His place was on the farm with his family.
He had fought alongside many other farmers who were trying to drive the Andals from Ibernian soil. But when he was killed, none of the locals were able to give him a proper burial. Instead, his body had been tossed in a mass grave with other Ibernians who had been slaughtered. The damn Andals.
The Andals were a culture of marauders who came from across the Neptar Sea and subjugated races until they bled them dry of their spirit as well as their land. They had beaten down the Ibernians, until in an act of desperation the people revolted. But they were crushed thoroughly and without mercy, and the Andals continued depleting Ibernia of its resources and its young men.
Soon, Quork became less a city and more a network of farms, but that didn’t stop Andal patrols from coming through and antagonizing the local population. Thankfully, the tight scrutiny had lessened during the past couple of years. Quork was just a bunch of broken-down farmers at this point, and there was no need to watch them as closely any longer. The rebellion that killed Dal’s father had broken the soul of Quork and of Ibernia itself.
It had also destroyed his mother’s spirit. She was now withdrawn and nothing like Dal remembered her from his childhood. She used to laugh and sing frequently, and she had rocked him to sleep every evening. Now, he could hear her weeping at night, a sound that seized Dal by the heartstrings. He felt helpless to comfort her; there were no words he could say. But worst of all, in her sleep she would sometimes call out his father’s name. This tore up Dal inside. It also made him think about his father, which angered him. Unfortunately, a lot of things angered him these days. He often had to force himself to keep his temper in check, especially around his brother, for whom he didn’t want to set a bad example.
Dal was finally able to get his mind on a pleasant topic. He had just gone through another growth spurt and was now tall for his seventeen years. Both he and his brother had inherited their dark b
rown hair from their father. While Soren wore his long and shaggy, Dal kept his short. He had striking blue-gray eyes. Or so some girls from Quork had told him. But he didn’t care if they liked his eyes or not, because whenever he saw Deidre, the girl from the neighboring farm, only what she might say mattered to him.
She had gorgeous brown hair. Usually it was straight, but sometimes it curled in the summer months. She was tall, with angular features and a small, thin nose. Her eyes were brown and deep. Her tanned skin glowed in the sunlight and her lips were made to be kissed. Too bad Dal had never worked up the courage to try. She always smelled like the lavender in the marketplace. He wasn’t sure if he loved that smell for its own sake or because it reminded him of Deidre. Either way, he always associated her with that fragrance. Deidre also happened to be a great shot with a bow and arrow, maybe the best in all of Quork.
Dal’s mother came up to him. “Love you, Ma,” he said and gave her a hug to release his tension. She hugged him too, but her eyes were fixed on the open window. He sighed inwardly. “I’ll get started on my chores.” She didn’t respond, but Dal was encouraged by her brief physical show of affection. Small miracles.
The air had taken on a new smell, that of rain. He could feel the dampness creeping into the house, cooling the kitchen. It wasn't going to be fun working in the rain, but what choice was there? Time to get as much done as he could before dark. And maybe it would keep his mind off the Conscription tomorrow.
Dal called out to his brother. “Soren! Where are you?”
“Right here, maggot mouth.” He came up behind Dal.
“The joke is on you, brother. You’re weeding today.” Soren frowned and Dal smiled.
Soren weeded ahead of Dal, who planted potatoes every time he cleared a spot. He hadn’t set many in the ground when he felt the first drops of rain. He ran his hand through his hair and glanced up to see that the skies were ready to open up. The crops could use the water, and this might help the yield and provide more food for everyone in Quork. At least the Conscription, in which every male was enlisted from the time he turned fifteen until he was nineteen, helped decrease the number of hungry mouths. Dal dropped his bag of seed potatoes, ashamed at the thought he'd just had.