by Philip Blood
Elizabeth concentrated her meager remaining power and felt for the presence of the Darknull down their back trail, and then her shoulders drooped as the approaching Darknull confirmed the reality of Drake and Gustin’s end. She turned to Hetark and placed a hand on his forearm, “It comes for us Hetark, and I don’t have the power to stop it this time,” she told him simply.
Hetark quickly strapped the pack holding Michael onto Elizabeth, and then he put out his interlaced fingers and made a step for her to climb into her saddle. “Here, mount up.”
Elizabeth got onto her horse, but looked down at Hetark and said, “We can’t outrun it Hetark, it is still too far to the school and the creature is coming too fast.”
“I know Elizabeth; it was Drake and Gustin’s turn first, now it is my turn. I will delay it while you continue toward the school,” he explained. He was calm now that he finally knew what he could do to save her and Michael.
“No Hetark, I cannot let you do this,” she pleaded.
“Don’t waste Drake and Gustin’s sacrifice, milady, they died to keep Michael alive, so ride!” Hetark reached up and slapped the horse on its rump and it took off at a gallop which effectively ended the discussion.
Elizabeth looked back once over her shoulder and saw Hetark resolutely watching her ride away. Then she bent low over the horse’s neck and held to its mane while urging as much speed from the running animal as she could get.
Hetark did not have long to wait, he had just finished lighting a hastily constructed fire and some torches from his pack when the Darknull swept down the forest path coming fast.
When Baron Qyrmswav saw the brave knight waiting with his fire and torches it was not amused. “Is there no end to these worthless knights who are willing to face me?” The creature asked rhetorically.
Hetark heard the thought within his mind and answered, “We will fight until you no longer seek to harm the good souls of this world. Be gone, destroyer of life, depart back to your world.”
“I do not take my commands from any mortal, and if I had the time I would make your soul scream, but don’t fear, I will return to take retribution for your impudence!” Without a further thought, the Baron swept by Hetark, intent on following the path of the fleeing Elizabeth and Michael.
“NO, turn and face me you cowardly monster, fight me!" Hetark cried out as he ran a few steps after the disappearing creature.
But the Darknull raced on down the path out of sight, seeking the wounded Kirnath sorceress and her child. The Darknull could feel the closeness of the powerful auras of the Kirnath Adepts ahead and it knew it had to catch the wounded Elizabeth before she could reach the protection of the other sorcerers.
Elizabeth slowed her horse to a halt and dismounted. She could feel the evil presence of the Darknull coming swiftly up her back trail and she estimated that it would reach her in only a twelfth of a bell; not enough time to reach the safety of the school.
Quickly she took off Michael’s pack and started to tie him to the saddle. She would send him on to the school alone and trust to her fellow Adepts to find his strong aura while she stayed and engaged the Darknull.
As Elizabeth pulled the leather straps tight her eyes came to rest on the palm of her hand. The faint oval shaped scar of the aurora stone caught her eye. It was the scar from that day a little over a year ago when Michael’s strong aura had blazed forth from the aurora stone. Her scar matched the one on her son’s chest exactly. It took her mind back to his day of birth when Jatar had been alive and they had been so happy.
Her exhausted mind was trying to tell her something, she trusted her instincts, so she closed her eyes and relaxed to let her thoughts drift back to that day. She had been talking to her husband about Michael and the results of the aurora stone test...
…imagine the things he can do; our hopes and dreams of uniting more of the kingdoms into a coalition will have an even better chance. The necromancers will have trouble opposing his moves, and I doubt they will even be a serious threat. With proper training, he’ll be more powerful than any Adept alive.
Finally, she saw what her tired mind had been trying to tell her; with proper training the power Michael had would handle any Darknull creature, but he didn’t have the training, not yet. She had the training to defeat the Darknull, but her power was completely used up for the moment. If she could but wield Michael’s power she would be a match for the Darknull. After another quick check on the creature’s progress, Elizabeth found she had little time left to decide.
She spoke to her young son though she knew he could not understand her words, “Michael, I need to do something dangerous to you, if it works we will be safe to reach the Kirnath School. If it doesn’t work I will die and you will either go with me or be aura crippled for the rest of your life. It is dangerous to pull the amount of life energy I need from a one-year-old child. Normally it would kill the child, but you have the strongest aura I have ever seen, so it might not harm you... I just don’t know. Children’s auras are not fully developed yet, and though we know your potential is incredible, this would be very dangerous. I will need a lot of power because I am very weak. I wish you could help me decide.”
Michael looked up into the face of his mother and reached out to grab a handful of her hair. He pulled it through his fingers, feeling the softness of the strands and then he smiled.
Elizabeth took this smile as an omen and made up her mind.
Quickly she tied her horse up securely to a sapling and then looked for the largest tree she could find. She sat with her back to the tree with her son in her lap and placed her hand under his tunic. The scar on her palm sat directly over the matching scar on his chest.
While the wounded sorceress waited she went over in her mind what she must do: “Wait until he is close, too soon and he will sense the power and stay away. I must overcome my fear and wait until he can no longer escape. Great G’lan, I plead to thee, help me channel Michael’s aura correctly. Please help me for I must not use it all or he will die, yet I have to use enough to get rid of the Darknull for good. I will only have one chance, so I ask for your help G’lan.”
As she finished her prayer the foul Baron arrived.
The Darknull slowed to a crawl and located Elizabeth by the glow of her weak aura and Michael’s young one. Quickly the Baron evaluated Elizabeth’s condition and it knew it had the sorceress, so it spoke in her mind, savoring its victory over a Kirnath, “So Kirnath, the chase is finally finished. The difficulty in obtaining your spirit will make it even more satisfying. Too bad you are so weak, I feel a little cheated that my meal is so small. Oh well, sometimes quality is better than quantity. Besides the aura of your child will be quite a nice dessert.”
“No! Elizabeth cried out in emotional pain and struck the Darknull Baron with a bolt of light blue energy from her hand. She nearly passed out from the effort.
The Darknull pulled back as it remembered the recent pain when Elizabeth had struck with her powers, but when the incredibly weak bolt of energy merely singed slightly the Darknull laughed and said, “Is that all that the mighty Kirnath Sorceress has left to avenge the destruction of her fine protectors? They fought well, but you must have known that you sent them to their death. I see from your aura that I spoke truly; it pains you and that pleases me.”
“Spare my son and you can destroy me,” Elizabeth said, knowing that it would not take the bargain, or keep it if it did, but she hoped to bring it in closer with the conversation.
“I would have made that bargain, which I offered before, but now it is too late. I expended my energy to obtain your power, and so your offspring must help to replenish my power. I will eat him, right after I eat you!”
The Baron let its body flare out to completely envelop the two mortal auras before it, but Elizabeth had been waiting for that moment.
The sorceress drew on the link she had set up through her palm on Michael’s chest and aura power surged up through her hand into her body. It was power beyond her experience. The aura
power filled her completely and her wounded spirit was healed, yet still more power came forth from her son. Elizabeth did the only thing she could, she directed it forth out of her body through her other hand as fast as she could let it flow.
The light that flashed from her hand was blinding and it struck the surprised Baron’s unprotected center. The evil creature of darkness screamed and tried to run, but the power followed the conduit through Elizabeth and on into the Baron’s body. The energy immediately surrounded its entire form.
Elizabeth tried to stop the raw flood of power, tried and failed.
Michael’s untrained aura kept pouring out of him and if Elizabeth had not emptied it into the Darknull it might have burned out her mind. She tried to stop, knowing her son would die if she didn’t cut the flow and his spirit was exhausted. With a convulsive jerk, she managed to yank her hand away from his chest and the power cut off. She sought her son’s soul and found it, barely; she leaned down in concern and found that Michael was still breathing.
With her son’s life confirmed Elizabeth looked up in time to see the white energy of Michael’s aura dissolving the Darknull’s body. It shrank smaller and smaller as the white aura energy consumed its dark ethereal body. The Darknull’s screams of pain went on and on within Elizabeth’s mind as its darkness was obliterated by the light. Eventually, it was completely destroyed and gone forever, and its horrid voice was finally silenced.
Elizabeth stood up with her spirit completely healed. Now that the threat of the Darknull was nullified she inspected Michael’s spirit for further signs of damage. Elizabeth found that he was physically healthy, but his aura was almost completely gone. It hardly registered to her Kirnath senses. Elizabeth searched frantically and finally got a faint glimmer. His aura had been used up to a point where his spirit was severely damaged. After a frantic moment of inspection, she was relieved to discover that although his spirit was damaged she believed that he would heal and his aura would likely return to normal, though that might take a long time.
She put her son back into his carrying pack and mounted her horse. Then she headed for the Kirnath School deep in thought about Michael’s recovery and future.
Elizabeth decided there were two things she must accomplish: one was to keep Michael safe and raise him with the proper instruction in the arts of the Kirnath and the second was to meet with the loyal subjects that had fled Lindankar. Presumably, some of them would follow the directions in her note that Becaris had delivered. She had promised to have the resistance started and waiting in one year’s time. Her problem was that these two things were mutually exclusive.
The place for Michael to receive the proper training was at the Kirnath School, but he also needed her guidance. On the other hand, the resistance would need a leader who was mobile and ready to lead them into danger, not exactly the role of a mother raising a son in safety.
Another problem, if she and Michael stayed at the school then the necromancer would send assassins; he could not afford to let the heir to his stolen throne live. Eventually, one of these assassins might get through and kill her son. Even with the skills of the Kirnath the threat of an assassin was serious if the target could always be counted on to be in one place. Yet she could not take a one-year-old child into running battles, or into the atmosphere of the men, she would need to contact to begin her revolution.
Elizabeth fingered the small round hoop in her ear lobe and realized that it had been days since she had last spoken to her grandmother. She wondered if that wise old woman could help her granddaughter solve this dilemma. Within her mind Elizabeth spoke to the imprint of her grandmother contained in the secret family heirloom she wore, a cathexis earring pierced through her right ear: “Grandmother?”
Within her mind, she heard the voice of her grandmother's imprint respond: “Yes, Elizabeth?”
“What do you think I should do about this problem?”
“I see it this way, your first duty is to your son no matter what else; agreed?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied.
“He must be kept as safe as possible. Let me ask you this… if you stay with your son at the school will he be safe?” the old woman posed.
“No, assassins could get to him,” Elizabeth answered truthfully.
“If you take him with you to fight he will be in danger, correct?”
“Yes Grandmother, so it looks as though I will have to take him far away and forget the resistance, and the promises I made,” Elizabeth replied, her spirit downcast because she must abandon the people of her country.
“Will that make him safe in the long run? If you take him away and he doesn’t get the proper training in the use of his power, what of his safety then?” asked the voice of the old woman.
“But that leaves me no choice at all, Grandmother,” Elizabeth complained.
“No, it just leaves you with a difficult choice. I see one way; if he were to grow up at the Kirnath School secretly, under another name, without knowledge of his station in life, he could be fairly safe,” the wise old imprint reasoned. “No one would know he was there to harm.”
“It wouldn’t work, everyone at the school knows me. Spies will be watching the school, knowing that I grew up there makes it an obvious place for me to flee; I would be recognized,” Elizabeth refuted.
“You would be if you stayed, but if Michael is there without you and unaware of whom he is, he just looks like any other child. His face is not known to anyone. If you were not there he would not be recognized and you could go to meet Lindankar’s loyal retainers and begin the resistance,” the voice within her head stated, unfolding her plan.
“I cannot leave my child to be raised without the guidance of the only parent he has left. I cannot!” Elizabeth replied in anguish.
“Who said anything about leaving him without the guidance of his only parent?” her grandmother replied instantly.
“But you said I could go to start the rebellion,” Elizabeth replied, calming slightly.
“You must be tired granddaughter, think. How can you be there to give the guidance of a mother and not be there to be recognized? I’m advising you now, yet I doubt anyone would recognize me since I’ve been dead for ten years now,” the voice of the imprint prompted.
“The earring, I have worn this cathexis object for the ten years since your death; it will have my complete imprint by now! If I left the earring pierced through Michael’s ear I could speak to him and guide him through his growing years, at least until it was safe to come back myself. I would be there with him, but Grandmother, the real me would not be with him to see him grow. I would be without my child,” Elizabeth realized, and her heart throbbed with the pain of that thought.
“It would be a terrible sacrifice, I know, but remember Elizabeth that he would not be without you,” she reasoned with her granddaughter.
“How can I leave him unguarded? He will not know his true identity! He would be alone except for my voice in his head. Oh, Michael, what am I going to do?” she keened to her son.
“You do what has to be done, Elizabeth. As you well know from your teaching, the time comes when difficult choices must be made. These evil creatures attacked your family and they destroyed your husband and tried to destroy you and your child. They took everything from you to use as they see fit, including the body of your husband. Everything that stands for what is right in this world calls out for justice. The people of Lindankar are waiting for your guidance and the eventual coming of your son. With Jatar gone you are the rightful ruler of Lindankar until Michael comes of age, so lead them, as is your duty.
"Of course, your duty as a mother comes first, but here you have an avenue of choice that allows you to fulfill both obligations. To do so you will have to live with the pain of not seeing your son grow, but remember, though you will have no knowledge of teaching him, he will have the complete benefit of your teaching. You will raise him and he will know you as his mother, through the cathexis imprint. It is our family's greatest tre
asure, use it now as it has never been used before!” her grandmother urged.
“You’re right, I was being selfish. Michael will be safer here without me and my people need me to lead the fight. He needs the instruction of the Kirnath, and through the cathexis earring I will guide him from within as his teacher and his mother,” she stated as she finalized the difficult choice within her mind.
“A mother is always a teacher,” her grandmother added.
“You’re right again and I thank you for your wisdom, Grandmother. I will further ensure his safety by blazing a false trail away from the school. Who would believe a mother would leave her child? Where I go they will believe Michael goes,” Elizabeth's mind ran over the details of her new plan, trying to think of everything she could to ensure her son’s safety.
“He will be safer there than anywhere else since no one, including Michael himself, will know that he is the heir. A peasant’s son is his best cloak of protection, perhaps one whose parents presumably left him on the doorstep of the kind Kirnath teachers,” the imprint of her grandmother advised.
Elizabeth saw the wisdom of her grandmother’s suggestion.
“The adepts will do the standard test for aura potential when he is first taken in, but because I drained his aura against the Darknull he will not be recognized as having any special ability at all. That’s perfect because no one will suspect he is Michael Ardellen. After the aurora stone test, everyone heard that my son had a strong aura. I even sent word to the school about my son’s potential power. With my imprint there to help him, this deception will work. I’ll do it Grandmother, but it won’t be easy leaving my son.”
“I know, daughter, but I know you are strong enough to handle the burden.”
“I hope so, Grandmother, I hope so.”
The city of Tarnelin was in mourning. A proclamation from Lord Jatar Ardellen had been issued detailing the deaths of Lady Elizabeth and the young heir Michael. The celebration had turned into stunned sorrow. Heralds read the proclamation on street corners or from the town squares and from the steps of the palace.