Enchantment's Reach (Book 1)

by Martin Ash

  Orbelon's personality was one of extremes, a conglomeration of quirks and idiosyncracies, overlaid with an arrogance and an air of superiority which Leth found grating. Orbelon paid no deference to him as King. He would happily humiliate or make fun of Leth, though at other times he might show sympathy or humour, and on occasion was even downcast and apathetic.

  Over time, though, Leth began to understand why Orbelon might be the way he was. Leth became less inclined to criticism; Orbelon confided more. While Orbelon's attitude was still irksome, Leth resolved to bear it largely in silence.

  Indeed, he had little choice. He was obliged to be ever alert to Orbelon's beck or call, something he found barely sufferable, and for all the knowledge he gained he never became entirely comfortable in the strange creature's presence. The very fact of Orbelon's existence was something which in many ways threatened Leth's own.

  The things Orbelon told him ultimately laid a further weight upon his soul. The history of Orbia was related to him in a way he had never heard before. The nature of Enchantment and its god-beings was unfolded, piece by piece. Leth marvelled, but was filled too with foreboding. The more he learned the more he came to feel his place and the place of his people to be insignificant in the shattering light of a callous and unforgiving universe.

  And he could counsel no other, being bound to silence. To reveal anything would have been to invite suspicion and investigation. Leth was coming to an understanding of what Orbelon really represented. Were the blue casket, and consequently Orbelon himself, to fall into the hands of others, or somehow be destroyed, Enchantment's Reach would surely suffer a disaster too terrible to contemplate. Orbelon made King Leth realize that he was invaluable, and he played upon this. Leth felt that his own power was waning under the influence of this enigmatic ally. Haunted by the fear that Orbelon might yet have hidden designs beyond and above his declared aims, Leth grew gradually more sombre with every passing day.

  Orbelon held a hook ever baited just beyond Leth's reach. Thus Leth left him always on the brink of discovering some knew secret, avid to return for more. Initially it had been the mere baffling fact of Orbelon's existence that drew the King of Enchantment's Reach. After his coronation he had gone at the first opportunity to his study and taken the blue casket from hiding and attempted to open it. But to his dismay the casket was firmly sealed.

  Had there been a mistake? Had he somehow misheard or misinterpreted Orbelon's first instruction? Leth returned to the casket later the same night, stealing from his bed while Issul slept. But to no avail.

  He had pounded the floor of his study till the early hours, gripped in near frenzy. Fearing that what he had so newly gained had now been lost he had taken up the casket again and again, but it continued to resist all his efforts. Eventually he had returned it to its hidden compartment and departed.

  The following evening had told a similar tale, as had the next. Leth, defying earlier instructions, had then attempted to speak to his mother, Queen Fallorn. But she had been sharp, refusing to respond to any mention of the casket. She had professed herself weary and retired early to her bed. The next day Leth had learned of her illness.

  Two further efforts to open the casket met with failure. King Leth felt that he lived in a nightmare. Could he have imagined what had happened? Surely he was not capable of conjuring anything so bizarre? Fallorn had given him the casket; he had spoken with her about Orbelon. Or might that have been imagination too? Was his mind diseased?

  On the morning following Queen Fallorn's death Leth, bowed down with grief and confusion, had shut himself away again in his study. He sat alone at his desk for some while, barely mindful of the casket, his thoughts on his life past and the way it must change now with the loss of the mother he loved so dearly. He had little time, for his day was filled with meetings, petty adjudications and other duties of state. He raised himself heavily from his chair and went once more to the hidden compartment in the wall and brought out the blue casket. Returning with it to the desk he had found to his surprise that the hook slipped easily from its catch.

  Leth's heart had skipped a beat. He raised the casket's lid.

  As before, there was a blinding flash, a dazzle of blue. Leth quickly closed his eyes, taken less by surprise this time. When he opened them again, blinking, he had found himself once more in the vast walled blueness that was Orbelon's indefinable domain.

  It was as before. The watery blue seemed to extend forever, yet simultaneously its towering walls were all about him. Leth could not explain this paradox. It was enough that he perceived it, as though his senses worked on another, wholly alien plane. All he could do was accept.

  The blueness was empty and terrifyingly silent. Again he had been aware of nothing but the roar of his breathing, the blood surging through his veins, the creak of sinew and joint as he shifted stance. Into his mind had leapt the notion of the casket, the Orb, being a prison. An unnerving sensation had gripped him, and he spoke out, "Are you here?"

  There was no reply. Leth turned, slowly scanning the empty distance.

  At last, a sound. A faint, uneven shuffling, far off, barely audible. Leth strained his eyes, peering into the unrelenting blue. The sound became slightly louder and then he saw the bent, hobbling figure, far off, approaching slowly out of the blue obfusc, his staff tapping upon the ground.

  It took an age for Orbelon to reach him. When he did he stood a short distance away, leaning upon his staff. His face and much of his form were obscured as before by the bulk of rags wound about his head and shoulders.

  "I have the Crown," Leth had said, and held forth the bejewelled golden Monarch's Crown of State which had been set upon his head for the first time only days earlier.

  Orbelon was silent. He seemed to be scrutinizing the Crown, though he had come no closer and made no attempt to touch it or take it from Leth. Then, at last, his bundled head began to nod slowly.

  "Good," he said, then turned and began to move away.

  "Wait!" Leth cried in complete dismay.

  Orbelon did not pause. Leth stepped towards his retreating back, but strangely, as before, he found himself no closer to the ragged creature.

  "Orbelon, wait! Is that all?"

  "What else? You came, as I asked." The crooked figure had shuffled on.

  "My mother is dead." Leth did not know why he said this, except that the pain of it was dominant in his mind. But it had an effect. Orbelon hesitated in his step, just for a moment, though he did not turn around.

  "It proceeds," he had said in a low voice, and resumed walking.

  Leth stood alone. "Is there nothing more?"

  "We will talk again. Be alert for my summons."

  Orbelon raised his staff. Leth, blinking, had found himself at his desk, staring at the closed blue casket.

  II

  "Be alert for my summons."

  In fact many weeks were to pass before Orbelon again summoned the King. During that time the first reliable reports concerning the Karai conflict had begun to filter through to Enchantment's Reach.

  Information to date had consisted of little more than rumours or second- or third-hand accounts of some kind of uprising in the Karai capital, Zhang. Now a more detailed picture had begun to emerge, of conflict and bloodshed involving the Karai royal family, and events escalating into a bloody civil war. Domestic issues of this kind were generally of interest but not necessarily major concern or alarm to other nations of the Mondane or Enchantment's Reach, but when it was among the Karai it was a different tale. They had always been thought immune to civil conflict, by virtue of an unusual social structure and fierce national pride. The idea of bitter, bloody rivalry among members of their royal family would previously have been deemed implausible.

  Then later, more disturbingly, there came news of a vast Karai army on the march just beyond the borders of its homeland.

  The origins of the Karai were somewhat obscure. Pale-skinned and inscrutable, they had once had a reputation as a proudly independen
t sea-faring folk who had settled in what was now their accepted homeland several centuries earlier, driving out the indigenous tribal communities with much blood though comparatively little meaningful resistance. They had then adopted a policy of virtual isolationism which had largely persisted to the present day.

  Their strange and rather forbidding physical features and love of fighting caused the Karai to be regarded with wary suspicion by their Mondane neighbours. Merchants and traders, permitted entry to into their lands, brought back stories of a proud, aloof race, with a near-fanatical devotion to both family and monarchy. All Karai were held to have descended from one original pairing, and theoretically at least, every individual member of the Karai nation could trace his or her lineage directly to the incumbent monarch, and thence to the founding parents of the Karai people.

  From where they had come before settling in their new homeland was not known.

  No matter the fears of their neighbours, in the centuries since their arrival on the southern shores close upon mysterious Enchantment the Karai had remained within their borders, keeping to themselves and troubling no one.

  The latest reports, then, had caused urgent speculation. Violent confrontations between Karai royalty and ensuing civil war went against their most sanctified traditions, the very core of their social structure and constitution. What could have brought about such upheaval? The reports of the marching Karai army sent nervous tremors across the continent. King Leth had immediately charged his Lord High Invigilate, Fectur, with the task of gathering intelligence as a matter of utmost priority.

  *

  It had been spring when Leth was crowned. The days passed, drew into a hot, sultry summer. Leth thought often about Orbelon, wondering in what manner his summons might come. Frequently he examined the blue casket, hoping to find it unsealed, thinking he might somehow have missed its strange inhabitant's call. But always it was the same, the casket was fast, and little by little, with so many other concerns to occupy him, Leth had found Orbelon less frequently occupying his thoughts.

  The Far Flame, one of Enchantment's Reach's dominant factions, introduced a motion for the reversal of King Haruman's Deist Edict. Leth was aware that, to a great extent, this was a means of putting his new kingship to the test. The leaders of the Far Flame were not so naive as to imagine they could gain a full reversal - the Deist Edict had become fundamental to social order throughout Enchantment's Reach. Nonetheless, they might be expecting concessions or backsteps on certain clauses, none of which Leth would have been happy in giving.

  It was an important issue which required delicate and precise handling. Inter-factional disputes had been largely put aside during its debate, so that the Far Flame came to the table with the active support of numerous of the other sects and factions. It was, in effect, a majority assault upon Leth's government.

  After consideration and counsel King Leth had resolved to deal decisively and summarily with the issue. In consideration of this he passed instructions to senior officers of the militia and security cadre to put city troops on high alert, ready to instantly quell any unrest that might follow as a consequence.

  King Haruman had instigated the Deist Edict almost two centuries earlier. At that time the throne had come under unprecedented threat from internal forces, namely the most powerful of the sects and factions. Worship of the various gods of Enchantment had reached a pitch. The factions, vigorously promoting the supposed desires and objectives of their individual deities, exerted an ever greater influence over the populace. Intolerance and fanaticism were growing, widening divisions fragmenting the greater community, and civil unrest reached dangerous levels. King Haruman faced a growing instability which, if not curbed, threated the Crown itself.

  Haruman therefore decreed an absolute ban upon the worship of specific deities, namely those believed to dwell within Enchantment. Construction of temples and shrines and other places of worship was prohibited; those already in place were torn down. Lodges were permitted, but no sect or faction might conduct ceremonies or publish notices or pamphlets which encouraged worship of one or more of the gods.

  This was not achieved without serious dissent. The government was gravely split and for a while Haruman faced rebellion within the army. There were riots in the streets and bloody clashes with the sects. But the King held fast, addressing massed crowds in person, sending out dozens of official emissaries and posting notices about the great city-castle and in outlying towns and villages, ever exhorting the people to understand what damage such worship had caused and threatened to cause in the future. And he established the Arcane College, a centre for study in matters both spiritual and mundane, devoted to the unbiased search for knowledge, truth, understanding and wisdom.

  The Arcane College existed in mutual exclusion to the sects and factions. No member of the College might be simultaneously a member of any sect, and vice versa. The most brilliant minds from Enchantment's Reach and beyond were encouraged to take up lodging in the capital and take advantage of the unique research and educational facilities the Arcane College offered.

  Haruman won the day eventually, though not without the imprisonment and execution of several militant faction heads. In one fell swoop he had halved the power of the factions, and the gods of Enchantment - or their self-styled ambassadors, at least - lost their stranglehold upon Enchantment's Reach.

  Haruman received dire warnings that his insult would surely bring down the wrath of the gods. His successors received similar predictions and every monarch since his time had had to contend with his legacy. Every ill that beset Enchantment's Reach, large or small, was ascribed to godly vengeance. But the Deist Edict remained in force despite all attempts to have it repealed. Now, at a time when faction-based influence over the populace was greater than at any time since Haruman's day, it was King Leth's turn.

  Fittingly, Leth had chosen to meet with the leaders of the Far Flame in Haruman's Hall of Wise Counsel. He was accompanied by his closest advisors, Lord Fectur and Pader Luminis among them. With the Far Flame were high-ranking representatives of other factions: Astress, Vestal Guardian of the Children of Ushcopthe; Chandiston, the obstreperous High-Secretary of the Mark of the Golden Thought; Grey Venger of the True Sept, and others. It was an ominous development.

  Ecric, Deacon of the Far Flame, had put forward his case in an accusing tone, stressing that he spoke for all gathered before the King. His line followed more or less the expected pattern: the Deist Edict was an example of unlawful legislation by the Crown against the populace; a ban on religious worship was a ban on individual freedom, a sure mark of repression; the people should have the right to worship whenever and howsoever they chose; to deny the gods their due obeisances was to invite their retaliation; the illustrious King Haruman, for all his many virtues, had yet been short-sighted when instituting the Edict, failing to take into account the possible long-term consequences. And so on.

  When all had been said, King Leth had waited thoughtfully for a short while. Then he stood and evenly delivered his reply. "When my great ancestor King Haruman instituted the Deist Edict it was not to oppress or restrict the citizens of Enchantment's Reach. It was to free them. It was not to bring down the wrath of the Higher Ones upon us. It was to free us of them also. Haruman perceived that the forms the many religions had taken were based almost purely on fallacies, misplaced ideas, unfounded notions of what the unknown gods of Enchantment might be. He saw that religion had become, not a genuine source of succour and hope, but a means of manipulating and enslaving minds. A power base from which unscrupulous persons might grow wealthy and powerful while disrupting society to their own ends and undermining the power of the throne. You, my honourable, loyal subjects, are, I know, sincere in your aims and would actively revile such practices."

  He paused a moment to let his words sink in. Ecric spoke up. "Your Majesty, King Haruman denied the gods on the basis that their existence could not be proven. We disagree. The gods are known and must be openly acknowledged." />
  King Leth had shaken his head. "King Haruman denied the practices that had burgeoned in the names of the Higher Ones. He did so on the grounds that it was demonstrably human will that was at work, not the will of deities. He did not deny the gods, he denied that we have reliable knowledge of them. Lest you have forgotten, let me quote my illustrious ancestor." He waited, gathering his thoughts, disregarding the indignation on the faces before him. Then, in sure and fluent tones, he had delivered the famous speech given by King Haruman upon the introduction of the Deist Edict: "'If religion entails the substitution of blind belief in the place of a genuine search for truth and understanding; if religion insists upon attributing to forces we know almost nothing of the qualities, attributes, desires and predilections that are our own; if religion will knowingly permit peoples to take up arms in the name of a deity it can have no direct knowledge of; if religion will give form and voice to a deity or deities, in ignorance of the deity's true nature; if religion will do any or all of these things, then let us have nothing of religion. It can only do us harm, swamping us in a murky sea of ignorance when we would choose to travel widely in the clear light skies of Truth, Knowledge and Wisdom'".

  With that King Leth had added pointedly, "Your request for a revision of the Deist Edict is denied. I thank you for coming here today and making your views known. Lesser petitions may be left with my advisors. They will be given full consideration and my judgement delivered to you in due course."

  He had turned to leave the Hall. A voice, harsh and raised in anger, rang out. "You are a fool, King Leth!"

  Leth swung around, found his accuser. It was Grey Venger, the man who would later attempt to assassinate him, and whose two sons would die as a consequence. There was stunned silence in the Hall, that anyone should have dared speak so to the King! Venger's face was darkly set. "The gods are known. They are preparing even now. You will see proof soon enough, when they are ready."