Wings of Light Special Edition
Page 1
Wings of Light
Prophecy of Ages
Lloyd A. Baron
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© 2011 by Lloyd A. Baron. All rights reserved.
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First published by AuthorHouse 11/11/2011
ISBN: 978-1-4670-0722-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4670-0723-8 (ebk)
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Acknowledgments
This book is the start of a project I have spent years in planning. It would be simple to just say thanks to everyone and leave it at that but there are a few people who have been so helpful in the making of this book that I want to name them. It would never have happened without the belief of my family. Thank you Mother for your words of encouragement and Father for your guidance. I would like to thank Matt for helping me with the tech side of things. Words I can do, computers I’m not so bright with. Ben (Wit-Woo) for providing me with food so that I could make it through the editing, without you I would have starved. Plus all my other friends for putting up with my years of rambling. Thanks to Sid for letting me use his name and also to Jess for the same reason. I would also like to say thanks to everyone who has ever listened and given feedback. Katie, Natalie O, Natalie W, Sigourney, Amy K, Lee (Cuffy), Frankie, Sarah, Adam F, Mark, Sam, Kerrie, Aidan and everyone that I have missed out. There are lots of you. I would like to thank Josh for the use of his sword and Izzy for something (she would moan if I didn’t add her).
Lasatly a list of people who helped me out by supplying me with something I needed to get through the many hours of editing, Coffee. So thanks to Nero Boy (Tom), Short Red (Rosie), Posh (Luke), Blondie (Conor), The Northern One (Mike), One of the Girls with Glasses (Plamena), The Boss (Helen) and “You Have a New Hair Colour” (Miles)
With all my heart
Lloyd
X
Wings of Light
PROLOGUE
IT BEGINS with a BREEZE
PART ONE
DARWIN’T’S DREAMS
DANLYNN
A HAND or a CHAIN
THE WELL
LAY of HANDS
KNOWLEDGE
FOUR DREAMS
RIOCHALD’S FURY
A KILLING in the ROAD
BRAY
HAKAMEN NEEDLES
TWO WEEKS of TRAVELING
A MOVEMENT of DARKNESS
NINE SWANS
THE DEAD RISING
PART TWO
THE JEWEL of ATLANTIA
THE QUEEN and the SCULLION
UNDER FIA'S GAZE
MAKING GOOD a THREAT
A PLACE of LIGHT and a PLACE of DARKNESS
A HOLY GIFT
THE QUEENS CHILD
PART THREE
CAT
A STORY
GIFTS
CLOTHES
GUESTS of the QUEEN
A TRUE HEALER
TAK’ARSHI
SWORDS, DREAMS and FLOWERS
A WEEK in GALVALOU
The PRINCESS FALLS
WHAT is on the INSIDE?
The SHRINE of BONDING
GIVING in to DARKNESS
SAVING a LIFE
PASSING the TORCH
The DECIMATION of GOSSA-MESA
FROM a STAR
GLOSSARY
PROLOGUE
IT BEGINS with a BREEZE
Emptiness. Nothingness. A vast space with no beginning or end, as bright as pitch and as dark as the burning sun. A chasm stretching as far as a human eye can see though taking up as little space as can fit in your hand. An abyss full of blinding light and smothering black between the worlds of Gods, men and beasts where no time and all time begins and ends. Silence exists like a howling roar as deafening as a screaming mute, talking of nothing and speaking no sound; as solid as air and thick like water and as impenetrable as stone. The Void stands lifeless.
Something moves in the dark, cold empty light. A watcher.
It is here within this pit, this rapturous hole that the whispers begin. Churning like a summer’s breeze and as cold as the mountains’ snow. A hush of voices softly screaming a warning. A warning of something that has stirred within the nothing, made into something that is still only emptiness. A breeze stirs from the Void, piecing the thin veil between worlds and shifting time. The wind blows and plunges through the thick nothing into the night of a sleeping world. Down across sweeping meadows, stirring not a single blade of grass, high into the night air touching the wings of seabirds without them feeling, and over the crystal ocean, disturbing none of the sails of a mighty armada as it passes them by. It blows across rolling waves, touching the spray from a shore-bound vessel, lifting back into the night sky to stare in wonder at a bright star shining in the east. Across flat green plains and fields of dancing flowers, it moves, searching. A village emerges from behind a hill, a small settlement of river-stone walls and thatched roofs, snuggled in the hills like eggs in a nest. The breeze sweeps low, grazing the grass covered hilltop as it spirals down into a small, high-walled garden.
Mainiry Sykt peers into the lens of her microscope, an ingenious invention she had picked up from Chamblid on a visit there with her employers, and gasps. On the glass slide is a drop of Elvin blood. Clean Elvin blood. She grabs at a pile of hastily scribbled notes and rushes over to the chalk boards lining the side of her house. She rubs part of an equation away with her cuffs, taking little care for her finely cut silk dress which she had not removed after the late King’s birthday anniversary. Glancing at the hand-scrawled parchments, she fills in the blanks. She steps back from the chalkboard and surveys her findings. “Yes, it seems to fit,” she mutters to herself as she begins to recheck the work.
An illness had swept across the Elvin nation so swiftly and with many of the sick dying within days of the first symptoms presenting themselves that a team of healers had been called to the Royal House of Karalgil. The first to fall ill were farmers and traders, spreading from the countryside into the towns and cities. On the first day it seemed no more than an epidemic of the common cold, only affecting the Elvin race. On the second day hundreds had died, and by the third this had risen into the thousands. Tests had shown that it was a poison of the blood which within the turning of three moons burned the internal organs of the victim as if it were acid.
Mainiry had been head of the team, leading them with her vast knowledge of science and technology. They were all dead now, having succumbed to the sickness. She was the only human on the team, and that fact alone had just saved the remaining Elvin nations.
She steadies herself on the workbench and lets out a shuddering breath, smiling as she does so. She had feared that this cure would not be found in time. “I better begin making more.”
The door to the cottage creaks open and
a cold draft flutters the papers on her desk. She rubs her arms as the brisk wind sweeps across her. For a brief moment she imagines hearing a woman’s voice float to her in the breeze. She hurries to the door to close it, but as she does something out in the dark garden catches her eye. She strains her eyes to see better and gasps when she realizes what she is looking at.
A shadowy form melts from the darkness and lunges at her, bumping into her, but she shoves it back and slams the door, locking it. Mainiry staggers into the healing room and collapses, blood flowing like a river from a knife wound in her side. Though she glances around the room, she can only see darkness. She screams with terror and frustration, knowing she is about to lose the fight for her life. As her life drifts away from her she draws comfort from her surroundings.
The medical center had been her greatest triumph in life and she is proud of everything she and her team had achieved over the many suns since she set it up. Healing had been her passion since she was a child. It started with helping a friend with a cut knee at the age of five and had developed into an infatuation for stopping blood. By the time she was eighteen she had her own medical practice in her village which grew with each passing sun until she was able to move it to the city where it is based today. Yet this isn't her medical center. She blinks away the memories and tries to concentrate but she cannot.
Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth, she coughs, speckling her fingers. Why now? She drags her failing body across the dusty floor, leaving a pool of dark fluid behind. She desperately reaches a shaky hand up to the desk to grab a bottle of tonic that might slow her heart enough for her to contact her neighbors so that they can take the cure to the King. Alas! Her fingers only manage to grasp at the air.
The window of her workroom shatters and a lantern is flung into the room. A blaze erupts as the glass breaks and oil sprays across her notes. All her work, the cure, the Elves. She stops breathing and slumps down in her own blood. The last thoughts passing through her mind are bitter ones. She was killed so that the Elves would die.
The wind lifts from the small farmhouse in the hills, from the grassy meadows all the way into the city where the simple houses are replaced by stone giants and the dirt roads are paved and candles burn in lamps like thousands of fireflies. Across the rooftops and deep between the buildings, the dark allies and the bright streets it moves like a ghost soaring higher and higher into the night. The veil tears, and time shifts as the land drops away and the ocean replaces it.
Angels swoop into the night sky. Their huge white wings taking them away from a tower which rises from the waves. One of them clutches a baby to his chest. He passes through the searching wind and glances back as if he could sense its presence. The wind dives into a window and down a long corridor.
Sahwin Nu’Veli Strides down the long corridor leading from the courtyard into the main building of the palace. She had seen small lights in the sky and mountains off the shore to the west. They could be anything, but instinct tells her otherwise and she is heading to her chambers to prepare for a possible assault. She is also wary of a feeling deep within her heart, a feeling she recognizes yet somehow cannot remember. She has felt it before when she was in the company of her former partners; reason enough to feel this slight panic, for if they are close then those lights...
She shakes her head with annoyance at herself. If they were close then her very thoughts could betray her and give them a weakness to exploit. She passes through a set of doors and slams them shut behind her, smiling at the incredible echo which rushes ahead of her. She quickens her pace slightly, her red gown embroidered with gold vines around the hem flowing behind her. Today is very important and deserves her finest dress. Stopping briefly at a stand mirror, adjusting her blond hair tied back in a net of moonstones, her favorites, she takes in her beauty. Eyes as pale a blue as anyone has ever seen, shine dangerously. Her mouth twitches into a giddy smile, dimpling her cheeks and wrinkling her petite nose. Oh yes, she is very beautiful. One last touch of her hair, pulling a curl behind her ear, and she is back to striding the hall. The Castle of Shadov Hangul is always in the dark, and this morning is no different. Only a few of the wall lamps are lit with small almost extinguished flames. Since the servants had left there is no-one to do the simplest jobs. One of her Clan has to deal with lighting the hallways and her apartments, which mostly end up being abandoned or only half-done. She has to control her displeasure over the lack of light. Her clan has enough to do protecting the castle to worry with tending to a few candles. But it still angers her that she has been disobeyed, again. That is happening too often of late. Am I losing control of my Clan? She shakes the thought from her mind.
The east corridor has even fewer lamps burning along it, and she lessens her pace, unsure of her footing. Many of the corridors have furniture lining the walls, which all too often get pulled out into the walkway and she will not spoil her regal walk tripping on a chair leg. It would be simple to use her power to summons a ball of flame to light her way, though why should she have to? Her stride becomes a stalk as she turns into the South Hall and discovers that it is complete darkness. Anger bubbles up and she clasps her hands to her skirts, balling them into fists. This is unacceptable. Light blossoms from between her fingers before she realizes that she has summoned it, and she releases the power. This is not acceptable, but lashing out is not the answer. She takes a deep breath and settles into a sort of calm. Her stalk continues. The West Corridor and the North Hall also lay in complete darkness. She affects not to notice. She could be a Queen strolling through gardens on a spring morning. Or she could were it not for the stalk. She stamps into the King’s Chamber, a large entertaining hall outside the Throne Room and stops. Two large men clad in black robes stand either side of the double doors, quarterstaffs raised across the gilding on the heavy doors as if protecting them. The sight of her makes both of them flinch. That is what had caused her to stop. Her Clan is fearless of everything; they would not have looked worried even for the brief moment these two men had.
“Who are you?” She demands in her most cutting tone. It has the desired effect. Both men suddenly look uncertain of themselves, exchanging quick glances. The tallest one on her left has dark eyes, like all of her Clan; but the one on the right has grey eyes, impossible for one of her creations. “I said…” both staffs thrust into her stomach and she doubles over in pain. Pain, impossible. Before another blow can land upon her, she summons the power. A glow of yellow light leaps from her palms, invisible to her attackers. The air shimmers and then collapses around her. Without the protection she would have been crushed. The startled yells of the two men end abruptly in a shower of blood that speckles her face and dress. She rises with a muffled grunt, hands pressed into her stomach. The bodies on the floor are unrecognizable as human, no more than two piles of crumbled bone and crumpled flesh. She wipes at her face in disgust, smearing the blood without removing it. Whoever planted those two at her door would pay, and whoever it was is probably inside. She fixes her hair before using the power to open the doors. A gust of wind meets her and she hesitates as an odd feeling creeps over her but it passes with the draft and she pulls on her power and glides into the room.
The wind spirals around and blasts back the way it had come, sweeping the flowing gown of the Sorceress and causing her to stagger. The blond woman puts a hand to her hair to hold the moonstones in place at the same time as calling lightning to her other hand. The castle twists as the world condenses and night flickers into day. The tower, with its crashing waves and shifting shadows are replaced by a patchwork of green fields and farms.
The wind drops low and caresses a man on horseback; stirring his cloak enough for him to reach back to settle it. As the wind pulls the veil of worlds apart she sees him topple from the mount, flailing his arms and legs as he does so.
Grassy hills becomes a grand, well-lit hallway full of servants going about their daily business of dusting and replacing rugs that have been beaten, and lifting those that a
re next to be worked on. The wind rises to the top of the hall so as not to disturb the insignificant stirring of these people, and rushes to find the room it desires.
A serving girl with long wavy red hair to her waist looks up as she passes and frowns at the chandelier as the flames all stutter and then return. She adjusts the weight of the tray she carries and moves in the same direction as had the sudden breeze.
***
Maddox’est watched the Dark Clan and the Angels fight Sahwin from the safety of the Death Waste, given its name by the total absence of living creatures. Standing in that desolate place, he had witnessed the battle of an age and been disappointed with it. Raid after raid, wave upon wave, soldiers had entered the domain of the Sorceress and had failed to bring her to her knees. He had placed a spell upon her to reduce her shielding magic to nothing; one shot was all it would take. But something had gone wrong, and the spell was torn from her and her power returned. Maddox’est stayed until the sun began to rise from behind the Gruber Range, using the last of the shadows and night to travel away from that bleak place.