Warper: Echoes of Etangria

by Riley Tune

  Jolin gestured for us to sit down at the table, and we all did. He stood beside Remy. “This is-” “I know who he is,” the old woman sad quickly. “There isn’t a person in the Prime Sovereignty who doesn’t know the head of the Thorne family. Especially after what his blood- thirsty sister pulled only months ago.”

  Remy dropped his head a little at this. “Yes.” Jolin said as he moved from Remy to the person sitting beside him. “This is Ms. Vida Orax. She has many functions in my Kingdom, and has proven time and time again to be of-”

  “Orax.” The man called Asa said. For the first time, he stopped looking at Jolin and turned to Vida, with a smile on his face. “Well, isn’t this a surprise.” Vida glared back at him. “Hello, Asa.”

  I turned to her slightly. She caught my eye and then quickly turned away. How did she know him? Jolin seemed to be catching on, as he let out a slight sigh and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “I assume she was in your employ as well?”

  The bearded man, turned and swaggered over to our side of the table. “Well, she was but not in this form,” he said as he moved his hand up and down. “It’s no secret, I employee many people of many talents for the kingdom of Galcon. Mainly assassins, but once in a while a softer touch is needed. A person with her talents can accomplish much.” He looked from Vida to Jolin.

  “I don’t need to tell you that though, do I, King Jolin ?. Keeper, you have worked for me too when you were a Tongue for hire.” “A long time ago,” Jolin shot back at him through clenched teeth. “Well, still we have a history.” Asa smirked as he turned away from Jolin, and looked at me.

  “The only person we don’t seem to know here is this one.” He looked me up and down then stepped back from me slowly. “Seeing as how he is dressed I can take a guess what he is,” he said.

  Jolin swallowed slightly. The old lady and Asa were both looking at me with eyes that seemed to pierce through me. They knew. I could tell it. I could feel it. Jolin didn’t have to even say the words. “This is Mr. Lox Norcross.” Jolin said as he walked away from us.

  “This is him?” The old lady sad with a tut. “The Warper the people of Kingdoms are talking about?” She laughed in my face so hard that she spat in my direction a little. “I have shoes older than him, and boots bigger than him.”

  Jolin ignored her. “Royal Court, as you may have guessed, these charming two people before you are Sumina and Asa. The Queen and Prince of Galcon.”

  “Are there going to be anymore random people coming in or can we get to what I came here for?” the Queen asked. “Keeper knows, I don’t want to stay here longer than I need to.” Jolin sat down beside Remy at the table.

  “Yes, your majesty, what was the purpose of this visit?” The Queen’s eyes grew wide at Jolin's question. “What is the purpose?” she shouted as spit flew from her mouth again. What a nasty habit. “Mother,” Asa said as he tried to calm her down by patting his hand on her withered arm.

  “Idiot boy of a King,” she said. At these words the guards in the room drew their weapons. Remy swallowed loudly. Fighting never was his area of expertise. While fear danced on Remy’s face, delight stretched on Vida’s from ear to ear.

  With a speed I couldn’t have known he would have had at his age, Asa leaped from his chair, onto the table, and had his staff in hand ready to attack any guard that came close to the table.

  “Stand down,” Jolin said to the guards in the room. “Queen Sumina, intended no disrespect. She is still getting used to my position. It’s okay.” The guards in the room looked at each other, and slowly put their weapons away.

  Remy and Vida both sat still as the events seemed to calm down, while I out of instinct had my hand on my blade. “No matter what is said, for your own safety, do not touch your weapons again.” Jolin said to the room at large.

  For their own safety? Surely, he didn’t think the Prince could defeat them all on his own.

  “Well it seems the King can make good decisions,” the Prince said, as he still stood on the table. Jolin didn’t respond. Instead he looked up to the Prince on the table, clasped his hands and leaned back in his chair.

  Asa slowly turned and pointed his staff to Jolin. “I could kill your precious guards, and your little court in minutes. Saving you for last, and claiming this horrible Kingdom for Galcon right now.”

  His eyes had a glint to them as he spoke of his acts. What was once a passive face, now was home to a sneer. A sneer that was on the Queen's face too. Then, Jolin in return smiled. This seemed to catch the Prince off guard as his sneer faded and his face became placid again. Then he looked at me.

  Apparently, for one reason or another, he had forgotten that I, a Warper, was in the room. He put his staff down and stepped off the table, then returned to his seat. “Mr. Lox, could you keep an eye on the Prince? He is prone to have outbursts such as the one he just had. He suffers from bursts of anger, just as the Queen suffers from acts of aggression.”

  I could tell, that already I didn’t like the Queen or her son. I decided to take Jolin’s request to heart to prove a point if nothing else. In that second, I warped. Disappearing from my chair and appearing directly beside the chair the Prince sat in. As I appeared my dagger was already drawn.

  The Prince didn’t flinch, nor did he look at me, but I was sure he wouldn’t be getting on the table anymore or making threats. Now a wide smiled was on the faces of both Remy and Vida.

  Jolin leaned on the table, and looked at the Queen. “Now your majesty, why are you here, in my Kingdom?”

  7

  At these words by Jolin, spit began to fly once more. “You say your Kingdom as if you didn’t snatch it from the hands of greater men than yourself. Men with higher nobility,” the Queen said. At this Remy slammed a hand on the table that caught the room by surprise.

  He had been so quiet so far. Likely because he had embarrassed himself by speaking too much as we arrived, but this display of aggression was unexpected. “Jolin has just as much right to the throne as I myself or anybody else. His family-” “Was stripped of their nobility and then ran away,” the Queen said, as she interrupted him.

  “Can we get to the point, please?” Vida said with a little groan as she massaged her temples for a moment, and then began to tap her fingernails on the table.

  The Queen gave Vida a glare. A glare that Vida didn’t avoid. The amount of hate between these two was almost palpable. They locked eyes for a moment and then the Queen addressed Jolin. “Whatever it is you are doing to the Kingdoms, I want it to stop now.”

  “Excuse me?” Jolin said. For a second I felt his power pulse through the room. I wasn’t sure it was a reflex of his for when he didn’t understand something or if it naturally happened when he was seeking answers. Either way, for a second he had let his power go, and then it stopped.

  Asa began to fidget slightly at that exact moment. I wonder if he had felt the power in the room for that instance, too.

  “I don’t make a habit of repeating myself, but this once, I will,” the Queen said as she turned in her chair to face Jolin directly. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing.” Jolin sat and with a twisted face, looked at the Queen. His mouth moved slightly, but no words actually came out.

  I could see his posture change from relaxed to rigid as his open hand became a balled fist. “Your Majesty,” Remy began but Jolin looked at him and shook his head. Remy stopped talking instantly.

  “Your Majesty, just what is it that you think I am doing?” The Queen didn’t answer, she instead looked at one of the guards closest to her and spoke to him as if he was a child. “Bring me some water, and be quick about it. All this talking has made my throat dry.”

  “That or all the spitting you're doing, has,” Vida said under her breath. I think I was the only one who could hear her, and I fought to control my laughter.

  The guard, an older man with olive- colored skin and a patch over one eye looked at Jolin, who slightly nodded his head. The guard le
ft the room, only to return minutes later with a pitcher of water and several glasses, all on a golden tray that he sat on the table.

  The Queen snapped at her son, who began to pour her some water. “Here you go, mother,” he said, as he gave the glass to her. She drank it slowly while the room at large waited for her to finish.

  Her lips smacked as she drew the cup from her mouth and looked at the remaining water in it. She even put the glass to her nose and inhaled deeply. I wondered why she was smelling it? “Even the water in Thera seems to be changing. It tastes awful.” “I suppose that’s Jolin’s fault as well,” I said. Sitting in front of me I could see Asa’s shoulder rise and fall some. Apparently, he didn’t like people addressing his mother this way. I had had enough of these two and their lack of respect for Jolin, us, and our kingdom.

  Despite Asa’s emotions, he didn’t move or make a comment. “It very well could be, boy,” the Queen said to me as she placed the glass back on the tray.

  “For a long time, Emperor Nal and his rule, was the law of the land. People worshipped him almost as a chosen one given the highest gift from The Keeper. The people, never questioned his laws, or any of the wars he started. Then, your new King comes along and kills the un-killable.” Jolin shifted in his chair slightly, and avoided the Queen’s eyes for the first time.

  “Then, you kill the Thorne girl.” I turned my gaze to Remy who didn’t even react. “Once she was out of the way, you somehow convinced her brother that you were a better man to lead the kingdom than he. You clinched your grips around the crown while at the same time making him your lapdog.”

  Thankfully, Remy seemed more balanced with his emotions than Vida or I. Had these words been said to us, a reaction would surely follow. More so with Vida than myself.

  “Then, these orbs began to appear. Killing people, putting them into deep sleep, making them dead to the world, but still alive. I honestly don’t know if that’s any better than instant death but it’s happening. As of yet, none of those who have been put to sleep by these orbs, have survived.”

  “I don’t understand your point, your Majesty,” Jolin said as if he were looking for the correct words to say. “Let me finish,” the Queen replied. “Then to out of all of what I have said, now the snow and rain have both stopped. Something I have never seen in my lifetime. Only to be replaced by falling orbs. Orbs that seem very similar to the orbs that are killing people of the Kingdoms. So, however you killed the Emperor, an immortal man chosen by The Keeper, I don’t care.”

  This would be much easier to explain if she and her son knew the truth, about how the emperor was really returning from the dead. She didn’t know it wasn’t real. Very few people did. Had they known his wife, the Empress, was changing normal people to look like the previous Emperor while making them take his place, they would know that what we accomplished wasn’t so difficult.

  So, in her eyes, Jolin, like him or not, had done something that seemed to take a large amount of power to do.

  “These orbs, that are killing the people of my kingdom must stop,” she said gently. Hearing her talk in a soft tone made me shiver inside my cloak. “I don’t even care if you don’t stop it in all the Kingdoms, but you will stop it in Galcon.”

  Jolin shook his head. “I agree and have my people, my best people, looking into what could possibly be causing these things to appear.” “Don’t lie to us,” Asa said suddenly.

  Jolin shifted his gaze from the Queen to her son. “Lie to you?” His face turned in a grimace. “Lie to you about what? I do have my people looking into it. This is hurting Thera as well.”

  The prince began to slowly spin his staff through the ends of his fingers. It was the only part of him that seemed to move. “We, the people of importance in Galcon, believe this is all a plot for you to take our kingdom, just as you did Thera. After all it served as a home to you, also. The fact that you killed the emperor, seized the throne, and then these random orbs appear, all in such a short time, leads many to believe that you are behind it all.”

  “How would I even be able to do that Mr. Asa ?” Jolin asked. “It’s Prince Asa.” he responded back to him quickly. “We are not sure. We suspect, that all along you have had some sort of rare gift. That you may have been blessed by The Keeper in more ways than simply being a Tongue.”

  The room was silent for a moment. “Regardless of how you do it, it will stop. You can keep your title, you can even keep the orbs falling, but you will stop the random deaths of people in our kingdom. Or else.” I looked down at the Prince in front of me and then to Jolin. Vida and Remy glanced his way too. Even the guards around the room seemed to be wondering what was about to be said.

  “Or else? Or else what?” Jolin asked, a little louder than expected.

  “War,” the queen said quietly. The room felt oddly cold at that single word. Surely, she couldn’t mean what I thought she was saying. There hadn’t been a war in years, since the Emperor’s first death. Sure here and there, large battles had been fought between large amount of guards from different kingdoms, but never a war. Never a full kingdom versus kingdom war.

  “Your Majesty,” Jolin said to the Queen, but this time she held her hand up and drank a little more water. “You see what I just did?” Jolin looked at her with a slack expression on his face. For that matter, most of the room did.

  She used her fingertips to dab at the corners of her mouth and removed the excess water from them. She sucked her cheeks in and shook her head slightly. “I took in that horrible water, even though I hate the taste. Yet, I was thirsty. I needed a result, and while the way to that result isn’t ideal, then end result is all that matters.”

  She clasped her hands in front of herself. “I never even wanted to be Queen.” Asa looked at his mother with his eyes wide. “I am perhaps the best leader my people have ever had, yet I never wanted the role. I’ve been the wife to four kings, all of whom have died. I finally decided to just do the job myself. It’s worked out for me so far, but I hate it. Everyday. Keeper give me strength,” she said as she looked up.

  “I wanted to be a baker. It was the only thing I was good at as a child.”

  Jolin narrowed his eyes, “I don’t think I follow.”

  “I wanted to do something else, but when faced with my own personal wants over the needs of the people of my kingdom, I will select the needs of my people every time. Every. Time.” These last two words were punctuated by her withered finger poking the table. “And that’s what I must do now. I don’t want a war, but I know we have a larger, stronger army than Thera, so make no mistake, we will win. That being said I will give you a way out.”

  “A way out?” Vida asked. The Queen acted as if she didn’t even hear her. Asa turned and looked at me, then slowly stood up from the table and walked to stand beside his mother's chair. He extended his hand to her, which she grabbed and slowly dropped down out of her chair, and stood by his side.

  “Five days. I’ll give you five days to consider what I have said. If the orbs do not stop killing people in my kingdom in five days then I will unleash the entire force of Galcon on Thera. Every soldier, every warrior, every assassin, and every spy in service to Galcon will be set free among you. Thera will fall, and become ours. Make the right decision, or Keeper as my witness I will make it for you.”

  Jolin stood from the table so quickly, that he almost ripped his cape as he turned to watch the Queen and Prince of Galcon walk away from the table. The meeting was over apparently, and we were given an ultimatum. Remy stood from his chair and Vida came to my side.

  She was visibly red in the face, with her teeth clenched, but her eyes looked glossy. She gently grabbed my injured hand and held it, as we watched the guards stand at the door and wait for the Queen and Prince to reach them.

  “Would it be so bad if we just killed them now?” Vida said to me in my ear. I looked at her and saw that she was deadly serious. “I could take her shape, and then control Galcon in her place,” she
paused as she thought. “No, she is too old. We could say she died, and I could take Asa’s form and then rule as him.”

  “I love you, but you are insane.” I said to her with a slight smile. “No, we will figure this out. I hope for the sake of Thera.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Jolin shouted. They continued to walk, oblivious to his shouts. As the guards opened the doors, I could feel my heart sink as I saw who was running in our direction.

  Her hair was all over the place as she ran. Eyes and face red, with tears that made her cheeks seem reflective. The Queen and Prince looked at her slightly and shook their heads as my mom ran into the room and pass them.

  “Lox, Lox,” she screamed as she grabbed me by my cloak. She was sobbing uncontrollably, and I couldn’t make out the words she was saying. Remy and Jolin, having forgot about the visitors from Galcon, turned to us and watched as my mom slowly slumped down to the ground and continued to cry at my feet.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked as I grabbed her by her arms and helped her up. “I- I” she tried to speak but couldn’t. Tears continued to fall from her eyes and ran into her mouth. I had never seen her this way.

  “Calm down and tell me what’s wrong.” I said to her sternly. “Kula and Luka.” At the sound of their names, I couldn’t breathe suddenly. “Are they okay ?” Vida asked. Her voice was higher than normal.

  “The orb. It came from nowhere and wrapped them up.” my mom continued as she sobbed. I could hear Jolin take a deep breath. “Are they?” Remy said slowly. I glared at him. It was a valid question, just one I didn’t have the strength to ask.

  She shook her head. “No, they are in the deep sleep.” My mom looked up to me, talking between gasps of air as she cried. “Save them, Lox. I don’t care how, but I can’t lose them. Not my babies.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. “I will, mom. I will.” I whispered to her in her ear, and I meant every word I said. Even if I had to kill a god, I would save my family.