by C. K. Rieke
“I can tell you are preoccupied about the curse still,” Veranor said, with a small smile creeping across his lips. “What this text says next will answer your question—”
“With the death of the last Great Dragon, Gorg had fulfilled his quest, saved the lands, and pleased the will of the gods. Once Gorg and his highest-ranking knights went to see the gods, to proclaim his victory, the gods showered him and his men with praise. They proclaimed him a High Knight of the Gods to be praised for a thousand years . . .”
Lilaci wanted to hear more, she wasn’t out to slay a dragon, but she’d been given a mission very important to the gods. “Is there more?”
Veranor smiled wide, and continued reading—
“The High Knight Gorg was given a sword that was blessed by the gods. Dânoz himself gave the blade to him. Once Gorg grasped the sword in his hands, he found his hands turn to stone, and as the stone crept up his arms, to his chest, and onto his whole body; with his last breath he mouthed the words— ‘My service is done’.”
“You see—” Veranor said, as he closed the book and sat back in his seat. “To wield the light of the Sanzoral, and to become a High Knight is the greatest honor one can receive from the gods, but therein lies the curse— the gods are greedy and power hungry. They do not like to share their power. So, once given, and once the deed is accomplished, they wish for their power back. They also are vain, they wish to keep their heroes for eternity, and what better way to do that, than to keep their mortal hero eternal, as a statue. A statue created at the moment of their hero’s greatest moment, physically and spiritually.”
“They’re going to kill me?”
“Yes,” he said. “That is the curse of the Sanzoral.”
I’m going to die at the end of this? After I capture the girl, I’m going to be turned into a statue to sit in the halls of the gods in Arralyn?
“Now what do you think of your gift?” Veranor said.
“I know I’m here to please the gods, and do their will, and if they want me to become a statue that remembers me for one thousand years, then I am honored to please the gods with my servitude.”
“You have been given something so powerful, it hasn’t been seen in over a thousand years,” he said. Then he paused. “You know— at first I wanted the Sanzoral for myself, I’ll admit, who wouldn’t want that power? But now— I see the benefit of being the master of the one who wields the Sanzoral. After we’ve completed this task, you will be honored in their halls for eternity, and I’ll become honored here in Voru. I’ll live a life of lavish means, and unlimited wealth and power. This is good Lilaci. This is good for both of us.”
“Veranor, it is my destiny to serve you and the gods. If I’m to play a part in your honor, then I’ll give my life for your guidance.”
“This is it, Lilaci,” he said as he walked around the desk and to her side. Then he walked up behind her, and wrapped his hands around her waist and stomach. “This is what it’s all come to. You are my greatest champion, but now I see your destiny was never to walk with me to the depths of old age.” She felt his nose creep along her neck, smelling her, it made the hairs stand up on her neck and arms. She wanted to pull away, but couldn’t. “You are going to become a historical figure of the gods, and of the Arr. And I’ll be known as your creator, I’ll become one of the richest and most famed people throughout the sands, and its all because of you.” He crept in and kissed her neck gently. Lilaci wanted to wince, she wanted to pull away, but it was useless, she was completely under his spell. “Now I see the great irony in all of this. The great pupil was never meant to surpass the teacher. No, the pupil must die so that the teacher may rise, and become more powerful than all before, or after him.” He kissed her neck again, and that time she felt his slithering tongue against her skin. She felt his arms wrap tighter around her waist. She wanted to vomit, she wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but she just stood there, like a doll, with her strings held up by a man, a man who had pulled her strings ever since she was a little girl. In a way, she was still that same helpless girl. “We are going to change these lands, Lilaci. Together . . . we are going to change everything.”
Chapter Twenty
I am going to find the girl, bring her back to the gods, and when I am done with my mission, they will kill me and take me as a trophy eternal. If that is the will of the gods, then let their will be done. If I am to be a sacrifice to the great ones, then my death will bring honor to my master Veranor, all Lu-Polini, and to the gods themselves. This is what my master wants most, and I will give him what he desires.
Back in her private quarters the following evening, Lilaci bathed in a sweet-smelling lathered lotion, brushed her hair in front of her face-sized mirror with an elaborate display of exotic flowers of all colors cradling the mirror. The flowers had appeared in her room the day after she’d arrived back from the palace. They must be a gracious gesture from Dânoz and the others, or a departing gift— like the floral display at a funeral parade. The one sad thing about my parting from this world, is that I feel as if none will mourn my loss. But what of it? Why am I worth mourning? All I am is a servant of the gods now. I kill in the name of the holy. I do what must be done. Have I killed good men? That isn’t for me to decide. Am I even worthy of sacrifice to the gods? Why am I worthy of being honored with this power I’m unable to wield? I must learn to use this force before I set out into the sands to find this girl, as to please the gods.
Lilaci sat at the edge of her firm mattress, stuffed with duck feathers. She looked down at her hands, callused but clean. Her fingernails were smooth and unchipped, rare for a fighter, but she had a sense of pride about her nails, as if they were proof of her capabilities. She killed, and remained unscathed.
Looking around her room, she saw the stone walls dimly lit by candlelight. She focused in on a corner of the room, slunk in the shadows by the side of the reddish-tinted dresser. Taking two sturdy steps she moved the dresser slightly away from the corner and knelt to reach her fingers down towards the shadow. Clasping her hand in the darkness, she withdrew it and went back to sit at the foot of the bed.
Holding her closed fist upright before her, she slowly uncurled her fingers to reveal in the candlelight a light dusting of fine sand. She tilted her hand left and right, watching the sand roll down each side like the winds pushing their will onto the great dunes of the Arr. Then her hand went still and flat.
She grabbed the candle from the wall to her left and held it close to the sparkling and shimmering sand. “I have the Sanzoral,” she whispered into her hand. “You will obey me.”
Staring into the sand, she tried to feel something, anything different. She tried to focus in on the fine grains of sand, she watched their reflections in the firelight. As soon as she felt something, it faded. Focusing again, she tried to extend her mind into it, commanding it to move, to follow her instructions. Then— she tried again, feeling for it, reaching her mind out, opening up to the Sanzoral, waiting for it to give her a sign.
Her hand moved from side to side, letting the sand shift and wane. She grew frustrated with her lack of feeling about anything new or different. “Where is this Sanzoral? How am I to come to use it? They gave me no instruction, and how am I to learn to wield its power when none others in the land harness it? That must be the curse of the Sanzoral, not one to teach its power, and once one wields it, the gods reclaim it, and them.”
Her fingers separated from each other, and she watched the golden sand drift to the floor, like watching the slow time of an hourglass crawl by. She thought about time then. How long have I been alive? The years escaped me long ago, it feels as if my only life has been lived here, under the tutelage and guidance of my master. Ever since I was brought here to learn, to train— I have a purpose, my life has meaning. Thanks to Veranor. Thanks to the Great Gods. Yet— I feel that there was something before this place. I was a child once, but all I can remember is pain, and sadness. At least here, there is none of that. Here, I am Lilaci, B
earer of the Sanzoral, Assassin of the Sands, and Weapon of the Gods. This is my home.
“Are you ready?” Veranor’s gruff voice came from the other side of the closed door to her room. In the darkness, the frame of the door was illuminated by flickering candlelight.
“Yes, master. One moment.” Lilaci lit the candle on the table above her head, on the table next to where she lay in the dark.
It’d been three days since she’d met the gods, and was bestowed with their gift. Veranor had told her the day prior that the king and queen wished to have a progress report of sorts. Lilaci was still unable to wield any magical power that she could see or use, but she had faith in the gods, that they would show her the way, and give her the power to use this ancient gift. After all, they said she was special.
She dressed in the warm light of the candle. They’d have to travel out onto the roads of Voru to get to the palace again, so she’d be expected to wear something to cover her head, yet something worthy of meeting with the royalty of the kingdom. She brushed her hair back, tied the top part into a bun that she stuck the wooden pick through. There was a thin, dark-linen top, sleeveless, with a hood of many folds she put on. She pulled on a pair of tan pants, and her black leather boots. Lastly, she wrapped a crimson-colored sash around her waist, a telltale sign she was an assassin of the royal crown.
Her fingers wrapped around the latch of the door, and it opened inward. Veranor’s eyes scanned her outfit, and gave a slight nod of approval. He moved to the side to allow her to step past, and she left her room, and they both walked down the long hallway together until they reached the iron-clad door to the streets of Voru.
He pulled a ring of keys up from his belt, fingered through them, scanning them in the candlelight, slipped one into the latch, and with a pop, it opened. A blinding, bright light filled the corridor. Directly in front of them on the horizon was the golden rising sun. As it rose, and rippled from the heat, the round orb of sunlight perfectly framed the palace ahead. It’s high towers and glass glimmered in a golden hue from the sun’s light. The magnificent statues of the gods were silhouetted by its beauty.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?” Veranor said.
“Yes, master. It is.”
“Have I ever told you when the palace was built?” he asked, as they began their walk towards it.
“I don’t believe so, I think I would recall that knowledge.”
“The mages tell me it is over two thousand years old,” Veranor said. “It has stood without a single siege since its construction. Can you fathom how long that many years is? We will live a fraction of that time, and the palace will still stand. Do you remember what I taught you of the Arr?”
“Yes, the Arr is as old as time. It is the origin of man, this was the first continent. Before man, the lands flowed with streams of fresh water, and food was bountiful.”
“Yes, go on—”
“Before man, dragons cursed the lands. They roamed the sky, and hoarded precious stones and jewels. They constantly fought with one another, and scorched the land, and blocked out the light of the sun, there were so many of them.”
“Yes, Lilaci, and we have the gods to thank, that the threat of the dragons is gone.”
“The man Riverend took the last of them with him, looking for a rare stone many years ago. They say he was half-dragon. Born on the day the great dragon Kôrran was slain. Do you think he found the stone they were after? In the lands to the west?”
“Psst. Riverend was no more a dragon than I am a young girl. That’s the thing about history. When time has its way with it, it's so twisted and worn, its but a shred of what the truth truly was. Most stories have a hue of truth, but most are fill-in-the-gaps fluff, and propaganda.”
“What is propaganda, master?”
“It is what we’re told, to make us think a certain way,” he said. “Or to make us act on something for a purpose.”
Lilaci wasn’t sure she understood.
“Look, what if I told you the sky would turn dark tomorrow? And would forever be that way? And who is to blame for it? The sandworms— they are going to turn the sky dark for eternity out of their own hatred for the light? What would you think?”
“I think we should kill all of the sandworms,” she said.
“Exactly, that’s an example of propaganda. Making you think you should kill all of them might go back to someone else’s hatred of the sandworms. You have never seen one, correct?”
“I’ve never seen a sandworm, no. I’ve heard they’re quite nasty creatures though.”
“They’re nasty indeed,” he said. “That’s a good word for them.”
They arrived at the palace shortly after, and entered into the Fourier, decorated with the exaggerated paintings of the royal family. Instead of traveling straight through the palace to the royal throne room, they made a right, heading up a block of stairs and back around left again to a great hall.
It appeared to be a courtroom of sorts as they entered. Straight ahead she saw the king and queen seated, high above in a podium. The room was lit by a large skylight at the very top of the round room. As they walked into the center of the room, decorated with long tapestries with the royal emblem, three sand dunes with the red sun at its center.
To the left of the royal pair were over two dozen well-dressed lords and ladies, Lilaci guessed from their well-groomed hair and makeup. To the right of the king and queen were a collection of stoic mages, all with their black and red tattoos down their arms and necks, and each wore the ivory necklace. Lilaci winced at the sight of them. She turned back behind her to see the gallery hall was filled with many others, maybe even a hundred she guessed, they were all well-dressed and well-mannered. They were here to see the show that was Lilaci, the Weapon of the Gods.
Chapter Twenty-One
“All rise,” a knight of the king heralded to all in the room. The silence in the room broke with the rustling of heavy oak chairs moving along the marble floors. Lilaci looked up to see the king was the last to rise. With a motion of his hands moving downward, everyone in attendance sat, save for Lilaci and Veranor, who stood center stage in the arena, in the round room. The skylight overhead poured bright beams of sunlight down directly on her head.
“Thank you, Veranor,” King Gofgenden Serinaas said, down to Lilaci’s master. Veranor bowed low, pulling his long cloak’s tails behind his back, as for them to not touch the ground.
“Your Highness,” he said, and crept out of the sunlight, leaving Lilaci front and center to the crowd, alone.
“My servant, Lilaci, servant of the gods, the hand of the gods. You have been gifted with a power unseen in the ancient lands of the Arr in two lifetimes of man,” the king said.
There was a general bustling in the crowd behind Lilaci.
It sounds like the people in the stands back there didn’t know. The king must be putting on a show for them. From their reaction, it sounds like they know what I possess, before the king even had to say what it was. Lilaci looked over to her right. I don’t trust them being here, I’ll never trust a mage for anything, ever. I know that blank stare they carry, empty shells they are. All they care about is power and pain.
“Yes,” the king proclaimed. “This young woman has been given the gift of the Sanzoral. The first to wield the violet light of the Sanzoral was Gorg, greatest champion of the gods and conqueror of the Knights of the Whiteblade. He was the commander that smote the Great Dragon Kôrran, ending his legendary wrath, and eventually saving these lands from all the flying beasts.”
“Halen Sisen,” the crowd repeated with a thunderous bellow, and their voices echoed within the walls of the round room.
“We have invited you here today to witness history,” the king said, his voice strong and powerful. “The gods themselves have gifted the legendary Sanzoral upon one of the Lu-Polini, the greatest champion of the revered Commander Veranor, and a truly deadly beauty: Lilaci the Lazarine.”
The Lazarine? They’ve named me after the purple f
lower with its specks of gold? The Lazarine is where the poisonist derive their most potent toxin, the Lazūr. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult to my name, not that I have a say in the matter. This is all so surreal, I don’t even know why the gods chose me in the first place. As a trained assassin, this not a fame I enjoy. The shadows are my territory, not the light.
The king stood in silence, and the rest of the room followed his lead. Lilaci heard a light shuffling heading towards her. It was the sound of feet in cloth shoes rustling towards her from the area underneath the royal couple. From out of the shadows came a solitary mage. He had his dark cloak over his head, but she saw the black and red tattoos of symbols in a foreign language on his hand and arms. Carrying a bowl with him, he walked up to Lilaci, her body tensed as she looked into his pale, empty brown eyes.
He laid the bowl on the pedestal before her, then turned, and walked back into the shadow from where he came. Lilaci peered down into the clay bowl, it was painted with vibrant turquoise and orange pigments. In its center was a mound of fine, glistening sand in the light of the sun, around a half dozen handfuls worth. She stood there, looking at the sand, with thoughts of what was about to come running through her mind.
The king is trying to put on a spectacle of my new ‘power’. But, I don’t have the faintest idea of how to control it. There are a lot of people here, and the king is not known for his forgiveness and understanding. I’m going to have to do something here. I don’t have a choice, this has to be done. I must use the Sanzoral.
She looked up at the king, who stood, watching eagerly. To his left the queen shifted forward in her seat. Lilaci looked over at the two rows of mages, and their empty eyes. Then, she looked over to Veranor, who simply gave her a slow nod. There Lilaci stood, the entirety of the room waiting for a show.