The Legacy of Tirlannon: The Freedom Fighter

by Daniel Gelinske

  Daecrynn gazed at Kethral, frozen. “Are you sure? Fidralinia is burning because of me!”

  “Listen, milord,” Kethral insisted. “It would be no different than when we were raising you as a rogue house, our sole purpose being to protect you, and prepare you for your duty. It has been an honor, your majesty.”

  “I have yet to be crowned,” Daecrynn said lowly. “And to be honest, I am not sure I even want that, when the time comes. I shall fight with my soul if need be, to free Tarligean—but I do not want to rule it.”

  “You sound like your father,” Kethral commented, betraying exasperation. “Even now, you are the High Prince, and you are the rightful Lord of this realm. My suggestion—milord—is that you get used to the idea of wearing that crown, holding that scepter, and sitting in that chair.”

  “Yes father,” Daecrynn sighed in resignation.

  “No, Daecrynn. You are the son of Meldehan Tuvitor—the … the last surviving descendent of the first Kestiel—the man who made your sword famous! That is not an honor for which I am worthy.”

  “But it is—and then some! You were not even my blood father, but you raised me as your son. I owe a great debt to you and your House. Yours is the most honorable in Tarligean—and it shows!”

  “Thank you milord,” Kethral said joyfully.

  Daecrynn embraced Kethral, and then said to him, “I have to leave now. Alone. I will be invisible to all until the day Madrocea’s grip on Namakiera has been removed completely. On that day, we will march to Andriel.”

  “You have my faith, son,” Kethral affirmed.

  VII.

  The Silver Willow

  “It is a Taergeni virtue to find merriment in the midst of foulest circumstance.”

  --Andron Medaccae

  Nadali and her companions arrived in Namakiera an hour after sunset the next day. Calwain took them up into the Nali culvert where a walkway ran elevated just over the river’s bank. He guided them into a set of tunnels that ran between the pipes of the city’s sewers, with many chambers built into storehouses and meeting places as a contingency against occupation long ago.

  Wide murals were painted in the walls, with paints of colored crystal and stone, depicting a picturesque elvish city with crystalline towers below a lavender sky and a blue sun. Etched Fen’yi inscriptions told the tale of Anda, and a great ship called the Mitheldia that sailed to this place when unspeakable evils were unleashed on that lost city, tens of thousands of years ago.

  “They say this city was built on the ruins of that vessel,” Calwain commented.

  “Goodbye fair Anda,” Kalrys sang lowly.

  “And nobody knows where Anda was,” Calwain remarked. “I would guess it lied beyond a hidden road, probably north of Tanathiel. There are merchants who tell tales of crystal towers.”

  “They spin tall tales to embattle the boredom of their journeys,” Nadali scoffed.

  Kalrys remained silent on the matter.

  Passing by an arsenal of bows, swords, and chainmail supported with small plates bolted on for extra protection, Calwain spoke again.

  “As you can see, we are ready to fight. We await the words of the Elders of Tuitari, Mindule, or the Son of Meldehan himself, should he truly be alive,” said Calwain.

  “He is alive,” Nadali divulged, before covering her mouth nervously.

  Calwain turned around, and looked her in the eye. “Have you seen him?”

  “I don’t,” she stuttered. “I found the bounty of a Madrocean carrying a bounty posting on his name, two days ago.”

  Calwain shrugged. “I understand—but be very careful who you tell that tale to. There are ruthless bastards about—Cirethian and Madrocean. Even among the Taergeni, there are spies, I’m sure. They seek leads, and surely you’ll be questioned.”

  They climbed up a set of stairs, and walked through a large chamber with a table and chairs that looked something like a meeting space. They passed through a cellar filled with kegs and barrels that smelled of long-expired ale. They passed through a small room with a desk and chair, then through a door into a bar filled with people, mostly Taergeni.

  There were a set of tables laid about in a circle, and amidst them a dreadlocked bard played the tri-flute while tapping his foot to a wild rhythm. The bar was lit by torches and a candle chandelier suspended in the air by a silver chain. The floor was stone, and in some places bloodstained. The walls and bar were crafted of red grained wood etched from end to end with carved graffiti.

  “Welcome to the Silver Willow,” hailed Calwain. “Dinner and ale, lodging and service are on the house the first night. After that, you earn your stay like everybody else. Have your fill of ale and eat up! I will bring you the keys to your suites after we’ve finished re-stocking our inventory.”

  Nadali curtseyed, and replied, “Thank you very much, Sir Calwain.”

  Kalrys smiled broadly. “Your hospitality is appreciated!”

  Nadali approached the bar, with Kalrys following shortly behind. She slipped through the small crowd at the bar, and pulled up a seat. Kalrys sat to her left side, and shouted for the bartender.

  The bartender was a chubby elven woman named Tai’issa. She was visibly pregnant.

  “Hulitai strangers, welcome! Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I am Eliana, and this is my companion Kalrys,” Nadali greeted her, dropping a bright gold coin onto the bar. “Calwain said something about food and ale being on the house for the night, but I can’t do that. You can keep this as a tip, at the very least. ”

  “Friends of the Silver Willow,” Tai’issa smiled. “What is it you’d like?”

  “Well, I’d like a pint of stout, preferably Old Andule if it is available here,” requested Nadali.

  “I could use something heavy on the stomach, seems like an eternity since the last time I had real food. How about a plate of kri’ayolas and a guinea hen,” Kalrys asked, as he dumped a small pile of Taergeni silverleaf coins onto the bar. “And a mug of Old Andule Red too, please?”

  The bartender crossed her arms bemusedly. “The ale I can do, but the only food we have this late is bread. We serve breakfast at dawn though.”

  Kalrys beamed in her direction, visibly flirting. “Even better! I’ll take the bartender and the bread.” He paused, wincing nervously. “I’ll take the bread and the ale, bartender!”

  “Of course,” she replied, turning toward the ale kegs.

  Nadali elbowed Kalrys in the side. “She’s pregnant for Starwind’s sake!”

  Tai’issa moved down to the side of the bar closest to the entrance, where the crowd was densest, taking orders from the patrons. She poured ale for Kalrys, Nadali, and a few other customers and served Kalrys and Nadali a basket full of warm bread.

  “So where are you from?” Tai’issa asked as she poured the other customers their drinks. “You sound Fidralu.”

  “No, we’re from northwest of Fidralinia, deeper in Andule,” Nadali replied. “A village too small to be named.”

  “Yes, cluster of six houses surrounded by vineyard,” Kalrys added. “And an abandoned trading post.”

  Tai’issa smiled and replied. “I have never been out there. Farthest north I’ve ever been is where Andriel-Nali Road meets the edges of the Everwood. I’ve never been out west.”

  “It is beautiful out there,” said Nadali. “We left because of what we heard happened in Fidralinia and didn’t want to be in the path of invaders.”

  “Oh,” Tai’issa paused. “That’s the third time I heard about that today. They say there was an uprising in Fidralinia. The fires are still visible from the west gate. I don’t think I’ve met any first-hand witnesses yet, but there are a lot of rumors!”

  A scruffily braided walnut-haired elf scaled the bar and stood upon it as a podium, as a group of elves slammed their mugs loudly against a table.

  “I have an announcement, and an observation,” the elf declared with authority. “The City Crier—the voice of the Imperial Regent has informed us th
at Lord General Avos Mortuusa himself has come into Fidralinia to crush an insurrection! It was said that the standard of the High Kingdom was raised before the battle began. King Threis has taken his scepter!”

  “To King Threis!” the elves at the table shouted. The crowd raised their mugs and cheered.

  “Cellan!” Nadali shouted over the crowd.

  The elf standing on the bar turned and faced downward in Nadali’s direction. His eyes widened momentarily in recognition. He turned and bowed to the crowd before slipping into it. In moments, he slid through the crowd to stand directly in front of Nadali. He stretched out his arms, and greeted her with a tight hug.

  “What… happened in Fidralinia?” Cellan stammered. “Were you there? Let’s go for a walk!”

  Nadali looked to her side, back toward the bar and here ale. “There will be more when I come back. Kalrys, try not to get lost.” She leaned to whisper into his ear, “And she’s pregnant! You probably don’t want to share the baby.”

  Kalrys groaned, “I know milady, I’m just being friendly. This is a new town, and—“

  “Don’t get lost.”

  She turned, and led Cellan through the crowd by the hand. They pushed through the heavy redwood double doors of the front entrance. They hurried past a bard singing in front of the bar with a basket laid down with a few coins. Beyond a narrow alleyway through the moonlit stone streets, there was a small public garden, with four standing stones at the cardinal directions in the center. They sat at a bench.

  Cellan grasped Nadali’s hand gently. “A lot has happened in the last few weeks. The Madroceans don’t know how to defend this city, and they’re making a lot of mistakes. We’ve been setting up probe missions, mostly in the guise of pranks. I need to know what has happened in Fidralinia. If this is war, then may need to start the next phase.”

  “I was spirited out of the palace as it went up in flames behind me,” Nadali recalled. “The Empire sent in the Legion of Kanaid. My father wore his crown and raised the Ki’ronyx. This is most certainly war.”

  “I am relieved that the reign of Governor Mogran is over,” Cellan joked, as he playfully leaned into Nadali, his hands resting on her hips.

  “So how many pints have you put away tonight? Seven? Ten? You smell like Kalrys’ basement!”

  “You’re one to talk!”

  “I have barely sipped on my first pint. I haven’t had any time to drink any more!”

  “I was talking about last Harvest Festival!”

  “Oh that night was fantastic.”

  “And the way you danced,” Cellan trailed off dreamily.

  “And now you command the resistance,” Nadali said, visibly impressed.

  “Not quite. There are three of us.”

  “Oh?”

  “There is Calwain, and—“

  “I met him,” Nadali added.

  “Alrain,” Cellan continued.

  “Talryn’s son?”

  Cellan nodded.

  “Are you ready?”

  “I am a little bit tense on this matter, yes,” Cellan confessed. “But I’m not going to back down when the time to fight has come. I don’t think there is an elf in Namakiera who isn’t ready for a fight. I just hope that we’re ready to win.”

  “I spent the last year bored out of my mind, working as a wall guard while I dreamt of being out on the field, defending the land,” Nadali recounted

  “And Threis actually let you join the militia,” Cellan said, baffled.

  “He’s seen me fight,” Nadali said proudly. “He’d be foolish not to give me a sword.”

  “Yes, you’re feisty in a spar,” Cellan said playfully. “Perhaps we can spar again.”

  Cellan leaned in to kiss Nadali. She froze in her tracks, and gently placed her hand on Cellan’s chest.

  “Not yet,” Nadali said, freezing in her tracks. “Though our souls be intertwined, I cannot complete this union,” she said in both sadness and surprise. “Our story isn’t ended, but…”

  “I understand,” Cellan sighed. “It is good that Kalrys—“

  “Oh, not him!” Nadali protested. “He is an oaf and a letch. He only respects me because my father gave me the permission to run him through at my leisure—and he knows that I can.”

  “Whew,” Cellan exhaled. “But then, who?”

  “Tell no one,” Nadali whispered.

  “I’m intrigued now…”

  “Daecrynn Tuvitor.”

  “Oh,” Cellan said, slouching back. “So the stories are true.”

  “And he is coming to Namakiera.”

  “A son of Meldehan will again sit in Andriel,” Cellan said, placing his hand on Nadali’s knee. “May he cherish you as you deserve.”

  VIII.

  Cardalia

  “Metka Kinatos, Wisdom and Balance,”

  –Atlas the Great

  Far south of the green lands of Tarligean, a large flourishing urban center sprawled over the landscape. Overhead, the sky was blue, with streaming cirrus clouds, and the sun shining bright rays onto the city below. Buildings spanned the valley, with many columns of white marble. A single true pyramid covered in white marble tiling stood high over the horizon to the northeast.

  A large library was built upon a hill surrounded by the green foliate and many steps and streets of the surrounding city. Its high ionic columns and encircling marble steps only covered but a portion of the hilltop upon which it was built. Around the library, robed men ventured about the greenery surrounding this center of thought and reason, the University of Haramy, named for the Madrocean god of Knowledge. At the front entrance to the academy, a soldier in black banded armor stood at guard position, carrying a short metal staff, called a lightning wand in less developed regions.

  Deep below the University’s library, large dimly lit catacombs housed a trove of scrolls, books, plates, and tablets. Narrow corridors with walls covered from floor to ceiling in shelves. This was the second largest repository of knowledge in the world, with archives dating back tens of thousands of years. Deep in the labyrinthine archives, a white haired man held a glow orb in his hands, seeking out the secrets of an almost forgotten age.

  At the end of a hallway was a dead end holding eight shelves. He dropped to his knees to withdraw a simple scroll written upon an archaic form of cloth, preserved with ages-hardened sap. The language was a distant ancestor to the Taergeni tongue, called Fen’yi. His eyes sifted through the words written carefully in back ink upon the scroll. He stopped. He enunciated the words on the scroll with his lips.

  “The last of the Bard Kings, sons of Tu’fayator will carry the sword not of his father, but the Sword of the Telestani. His reign shall end with the desolation of all kingdoms.”

  The elder sage coughed, not from the prolific dust in the catacomb, but from shock.

  “His reign shall end with the desolation of all kingdoms,” Osordo said aloud.

  Osordo looked upwards, facing the dull gray stone ceiling outwardly, and in his mind facing the cave at Witches Peak. Touching the black crystal in the center of the medallion around his neck, he focused his inner eye closer. In his mind, the cave was empty, as the guardian had abandoned it. The sword case was empty. Osordo returned his vision to the ceiling above him, and to the shelves ahead of him. He turned and ran through the catacombs to the stairs leading up into the Library’s basement.

  Rushed, he bumped a student with an armload of scrolls. The student dropped the scrolls and began to pick them up, apologizing to the older man.

  “I am sorry master,” the student exclaimed.

  “The Younger must not sit in Andriel. We must maintain our power over Tarligean if the world is to survive!” Osordo exclaimed a panicked voice.

  The student shook his head, gathering the last of his scrolls. Osordo dashed up four more flights of stairs to his personal level of the University, where his scrying tools were located. A great ball of crystal sat in the chamber of a circular room with sigils placed at equal intervals surroun
ding the crystal. He touched the ball, and focused outwards. He focused his mind on the son of Meldehan. He had watched him in the past, but his head was now filled with blinding pain as the image of a sword lunged between his eyes. He dropped to his knees, wailing in pain. He paused to gather his thoughts, and decided to observe his half-sister, Princess Chesreya Tuvitor. He saw the sword elsewhere, and as he focused on her, the sword turned to attack his mind again. He pulled his mind away, and saw a vast forest.