by Brian Fuller
But the most important nobles and aristocracy from the three kingdoms had finally met him during the summer. Her own mother undertook the journey to assess her future son-in-law and to negotiate on behalf of Rhugoth about the wedding and the transfer of power to the Ha’Ulrich at the appointed time. King Filingrail of Tolnor also attended. The Church of the One planned a great festival and presentation for them so they could meet the Ha’Ulrich for the first time.
The Chalaine could not help but think that the Rhugothian aristocracy was nervous that an unknown boy, one rarely seen, would—by prophetic right—take ownership of their lands and command their armies. Her mother would bring them a report. The Chalaine had begged to go on the trip—she was to marry the Ha’Ulrich, after all—but they had forbidden her to do so. They said they could take no chance of exposing her to the danger of a trip through two Portals and the long road through Aughmere. She knew they were right, but she desperately wanted a face to go with the name, an image to dote upon and anchor her desires to.
She loved to daydream about her wedding day, dancing in the Hall of Three Moons, ancient and elegant, with the most powerful man on Ki’Hal. Upon their marriage, he would reign as High King over all, and she would sit at his side, Queen and wife, until she birthed Eldaloth and he again ruled Ki’Hal as he had anciently. The Chalaine knew her handmaiden was right—however the Chalaine might miss the tortured game of love, she would have such bliss as most women would never know.
She reminded herself that even with an arranged marriage, she would still need to woo him, make him feel important, support his decisions, encourage him in his manly endeavors, and comfort him tenderly at his losses. Long years of careful breeding had fashioned her the most beautiful of women. She felt confident Chertanne would want her and love her better than any man had loved any woman. She could hardly wait to see what Chertanne would send as a token in return and what report her mother had for her. She hoped he would at least send a letter.
To distract herself from the wait, the Chalaine decided to use the Walls. Long ago, Magicians created the Walls with which the Chalaines could divert themselves by looking magically on any vista they wished in and around Mikmir, the capital city of Rhugoth. All the rooms in her bedchamber were enchanted to this purpose, and, by concentrating, she could travel to the town square, the castle gardens, or the nearby hunting grounds of the Regents. The people she watched could not see her, and she could not hear or interact with them, but watching the unsuspecting citizenry had taught her to have compassion and love for them, as well as shown her a number of other things she thought her mother might object to.
After watching some performers in the market, she released her concentration. The images faded and she settled on a nap to pass the time. Even this, however, she approached with trepidation. Two reoccurring dreams, one a converse to the other, had started the day her mother left in the spring. Every time she closed her eyes they came, and in those dreams she was always running.
Everyone, it seemed, took her dreams seriously, and when others asked her what she dreamed of—and the Prelate and the Mage Ethris regularly did—they would have her describe what she dreamed with precise detail from start to finish. But she told no one of these latest dreams and wouldn’t until she could make better sense of them herself.
For one, she hated the way Ethris stared at her with his engulfing eyes and shook his head or said “mhmm” as if he somehow knew more about her dreams than she could fathom. She feared that he did and hated it. For another, her dreams were her own. She developed a habit of saying nothing of her dreams until she had puzzled over the odd images for herself and arrived at some conclusion, but the two dreams she dreamed now were a paradox that were simple in imagery and symbolism but contradictory enough to thwart any grasping of their meaning. The fact that they had started when her mother left gave her reason to think them special or at least that their meaning was somehow tied to her departure.
As she laid her head upon finely embroidered pillows, safe within the confines of her veiled bed, she sensed the dreams coming in a way she never had before. The images flashed in her mind before she closed her eyes. And when sleep came, she was running.
The first dream started pleasantly enough. Her breath steamed from her as she sprinted down a narrow track through a stand of yellowing aspen. The damp ground smelled sickly sweet with fresh autumn rot. Leaves fell about her hair and shoulders as she moved beneath the thick trees, and at times a soft but chill breeze raised bumps on her skin. Ahead of her the sun sank over tree-draped mountains, weak as it always was when summer ended, but friendly and inviting nonetheless. Since her mentors and masters never let her near any place so remote, wild, and beautiful, she thrilled at everything she saw and smelled. The pleasantness, however, stopped just as she started to immerse herself in it.
All at once a flood of terror drowned her, suffocating her heart and her will as she negotiated the path. She would notice then that she wore a plain gray dress, tattered and stained with blood. She ached as she ran, sore and weary, to flee from someone or something behind her. She would turn her head and only catch fleeting glimpses of her pursuer. He never ran, just walked, and no matter how fast she churned her legs, he stayed effortlessly behind her, face dark within a cowl and unseen eyes boring into her body with unspeakable intentions. His clothing, a darker gray, was also bloody and torn. She could not escape him, and the dream ended with her tripping and falling. She looked up and he stood at her muddy feet looking down, face lost in the abyssal cowl. The whole twisted scene, a convoluted mass of beauty and horror, left her shaking, sweating, and cold.
And then the next dream started. Again, she was running, but through how different a scene! As before, she ran on a narrow path through a stand of aspen. What season it was, however, she could not tell, as a thick shroud of gray ash blanketed tree, meadow, and mountain. Fast moving, roiling clouds dumped the ash in heavy flakes upon the world in a perverted mockery of winter. Ahead of her, she could see a thin strip of sky between the clouds and the horizon, and, as she watched, the sun dipped into that space and cast a fierce red glow across the sky, transforming the path she traveled into a road descending into a great cauldron of blood.
All about the path men lay dead, half-buried in the downpour. Arrows protruded from backs, and hacked limbs lay short distances from the bodies they had been severed from. The sounds of battle and the screams of the combatants assaulted her from every side, and fell voices howled in victory. Children wept for slain fathers, women for slain husbands, before horrifying creatures of every description slunk from the woods and killed the mourners.
But rather than feeling full of dread or sorrowful as the scene prompted, her heart soared with joy. Not all her steps were to run. Sometimes she skipped or twirled about, kicking up ash that never fell on or stained her beautiful gown of red and gold. She sang to herself as a girl in love does, for before her, somewhere in the distance, he waited. There was no face or name to attach the love to, but there didn’t need to be. For a certainty, he waited, and while the land about her fell into destruction and despair for reasons and through powers she couldn’t fathom, she cared not. Ki’Hal and all the races and creatures that lived upon it be damned—he waited. She would come. Nothing else mattered.
And that last part, the very last part, disturbed her more than the odd imagery, the relentless pursuer, or the unnamed love. Everyone entrusted with raising her had ingrained within her heart and mind an unwavering care for Ki’Hal and its peoples. She knew that but for her and the Blessed One, the workings of Mikkik would destroy the world, perhaps as the last dream depicted. She was bred to be the vessel that would prevent that from happening. The thought that she would throw aside her duty and condemn Ki’Hal to destruction to satisfy her own yearnings disgusted her and set her to trembling.
There was no sense in it. Her love for the Ha’Ulrich was to provide the end to war and bring peace. Her pursuer, she reasoned, was the Ilch, coming to rend her. The
unnamed love, she assumed, was the Ha’Ulrich. The results, however, were switched. Her death brought salvation; her life and love, destruction. Perhaps, she thought, the dreams are the work of the Ilch.
She woke, and the unusual power of the dreams crushed any need she felt to sleep further. She touched the Walls, concentrating on the dock, hoping to find that her mother had at last arrived. Around her, the Kingsblood Lake emerged into view as lifelike as if she were actually there. The early afternoon sun rippled on the waves, reflecting the watery dance on the hulls of many great ships—ships of nobles and merchants—that waited in anticipation of the arrival of the Defender, the First Mother’s vessel.
Among the great vessels floated smaller rafts and fishing boats, and the Chalaine smiled. She could see the common folk, carefree and happy, swimming and laughing and lounging around. Floating next to the Thorn—Regent Morgan’s behemoth pleasure craft—was a raft packed with tan, shirtless boys in ragged pants playing some game where they tried to throw each other off their rickety rafts into the water. The Chalaine giggled—something she rarely did—at their antics.
She longed to be like them, unconfined and unconcerned, but such longing only awakened a sense of impatience and dissatisfaction within her, feelings she’d tried to crush many times before. She knew she was more like the well-dressed Regent’s sons, Alamand and Jorrick, who stood at the rails of the Thorn observing as longingly as she was the rowdy contest below. She imagined that they, too, secretly wished they had the courage to throw aside propriety and plunge headfirst into the mess of life they were protected against.
She had watched for some time when, to her delight, the Defender sailed into view. It tacked forward quickly on the stiff afternoon breeze, and before long her mother, along with several lords and ladies, debarked. Before the First Mother could step off the longboat and onto the pier, she was surrounded by aristocracy and Churchmen alike, the Prelate himself among the throng. Her mother spoke to them briefly and boarded her carriage.
The Chalaine let the Walls fade. Donning a veil, she opened the door and passed through the maze to the Antechamber of the Chalaines, chatting with Dason for over an hour until her mother and her bodyguard, Cadaen, came in. The Chalaine couldn’t help but notice the weariness on her mother’s face as they embraced and made small talk about the journey.
“And what is he like, Mother? You must tell me everything.”
Mirelle smiled understandingly. “I’m afraid there is not much to tell. We barely saw him, and I have several urgent meetings to attend to.”
The Chalaine tried to push aside the disappointment. “And did you give him the veil I sent?”
“Of course I did, dear.”
“And. . .”
“And what?”
“Did he send anything in return?” The Chalaine could barely control the desperation in her voice.
“I am afraid not. He was touched, to be sure. But the custom of a woman’s token is not practiced in Aughmere.”
The Chalaine groaned in frustration. “Can you at least tell me what he looks like?”
“I will, but you must promise not to pester me anymore. As I said, we barely saw the Ha’Ulrich and anything I say about him is conjecture, save his appearance. He is not as tall as depicted in the tapestry. He is the same height as you are. He has blond hair and blue eyes and wears rather expensive and somewhat ostentatious clothing.”
“But what about. . .”
“No, Chalaine. No more questions. Come. Give me another hug and be content.”
The Chalaine hugged her mother again, not bothering to hide her dispiritedness. Her mother did not seem to notice. Dason and Cadaen bowed to the First Mother as she left, and the Chalaine stood rooted in her spot in disbelief.
“Not quite enough information for you, your Holiness?” Dason asked, voice not quite concealing a hint of playfulness.
The Chalaine turned to face him. Dason, son of Duke Kildan, Lord Protector of Tolnor, was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on. He was refined, witty, and absolutely pleasant at every occasion. However, the most delightful thing about Dason was that he was thoroughly Tolnorian, and at the heart of every Tolnorian she met was a foundation of honor that supported a solidity of character rarely seen in Rhugothian sophistication. Why Fenna would even consider the snobby Kimdan over Dason baffled her.
Dason had entered the Dark Guard at nineteen, easily the best sword fighter at the Trials. Pureman Abelard, their Court Librarian and Historian, told her that Dason was the youngest Protector a Chalaine had ever had, acquiring the honor at the age of twenty-two. He only recently turned twenty-four.
For a year and a half, Dason had watched over her during the day. His smiles and bright personality lifted her, and whatever flattery he could offer her he did. The Chalaine tried her best not to enjoy it. In the absence of any knowledge about the Ha’Ulrich, the Chalaine often placed Dason in her imagination in his stead. For if the Ha’Ulrich was to be the best of men, then it followed he would be a lot like Dason.
Of course, now she knew that unlike Dason, the Ha’Ulrich was blond. Dason had dark hair, which set off his stunning blue eyes. Blond hair and blue eyes, however, still played well on a man’s face. Geoff, a famed bard she’d seen perform twice, rivaled Dason in looks and had long hair the color of wheat stalks at harvest time. The Chalaine shook herself, realizing that thinking about the excellent qualities of men besides the Ha’Ulrich was not appropriate. She chided herself and turned back toward her quarters.
“I will be content, Dason,” the Chalaine replied, finally. “It is quite possible she wished to address me privately on the matter.” The Chalaine hoped, rather than thought, that this was true.
“If it is of any consolation,” Dason offered, “my sister Melina didn’t see her husband at all until she and he stood before the Pureman, betrothed and married on the same day. You will have several months to acquaint yourself with your betrothed before actually wedding him.”
“And are they happy?”
“Who can tell? They have as much chance as any to find happiness.”
“As much chance as any?” the Chalaine replied, laughing. “I suppose Tolnorian nobility is used to blind marriages for political expediency. Such things went out of fashion here in Rhugoth generations ago. We believe men and women more likely to find happiness if they are afforded the opportunity to know each other and end or continue the courtship based on what they find.”
“Sounds dreadfully complicated to me, your Highness,” Dason remarked. “Seems such a course of action would lead to a great deal of distraction and wasted time.”
“Now you’re sounding like an Aughmerian,” the Chalaine returned mirthfully.
“Highness!” Dason gasped, horrified. “That is an insult indeed! Aughmerian notions of women and marriage are so benighted that to call them uncivil is grossly understating the case! The Ha’Ulrich, however, is no doubt much different.”
“I am sure he is, Dason, and I apologize for my remark. It was in jest. I know you hold women in the highest regard. Whatever woman you give your heart to will be fortunate indeed, whether she has the privilege of knowing you beforehand or not.”
“Forgive me, Holiness. I hope I did not respond too fervently.”
“Do not fret, I was teasing you and hoping for a vehement reply.”
“To what end, Holiness?” Dason asked as they entered the maze that served as a barrier to protect the Chalaine’s apartments. They both knew it so well they didn’t need to think about where they were going.
“My own amusement. A bit unladylike by Tolnorian standards, I imagine.”
“I should hardly judge against you. You are the most perfect woman I have ever known.”
The Chalaine blushed beneath her veil and prayed that the Ha’Ulrich would be so forgiving and complimentary—and cut such a handsome figure in uniform.
“I thank you for your gracious compliment, however undeserved,” the Chalaine replied. Dason ran forward in f
ront of her and blocked the way. The Chalaine stopped, startled at the earnest look on his face.
“It is not undeserved, My Lady,” his face was pained. “You are beautiful and kind, the two best virtues to find in a woman. How am I supposed to find a woman and be satisfied when I have to compare her to you day after day? No. I am determined I must forgo any thought of women and wooing while I am in your service. You are the Chalaine, the best of women. I will protect you as long as I am able to draw sword.”
He took her hand and kissed it. The Chalaine found it hard to breathe.
“Please, Dason,” she stammered. “Do not be overcome and do not make too much of me.”
She started forward again and he fell in behind her. The resumption of this normalcy helped alleviate the strange knot in her stomach. “I have a title and a work to do. Besides those, I am just as other women and in many respects their inferior. My mother is the more gifted leader, Lady Fairedale more cheerful. No! Do not protest. Once I wed and bear the Holy child, my beauty will fade and I will take my place with other women, and a passerby will hardly notice me as anything out of the ordinary.”
As she said it, the Chalaine realized she looked forward to that anonymity a great deal—if she was ever afforded it.
“Say what you will, Holiness,” Dason said, voice subdued. “You will never convince me another woman’s virtues are greater than yours.”
The Chalaine bit her lip, grateful that the door to her room was in view, and standing on the threshold was Eldwena, her night handmaiden. She had already dragged a table and chairs out into the hallway. Unlike Fenna, Lady Eldwena Moores had served as the Chalaine’s handmaid since the Chalaine was an infant. She had five children of her own, and some still thought she should give up the post for their sake, but since the Chalaine would be married soon, she begged to remain in service until that day.