by Candy Rae
Instead, he had circled, watching. There was something different about this Dglai and it had taken him a while to work out what that was - realisation hadn’t come until Quia had killed the kura and dragged the carcass back to the cave.
This was a female, her shape was different from that of the males he had seen and more importantly, the scaly ridges down her upper back were missing. The hide and shape of a female Lai was likewise different from the male with smoother skin and no ridges.
Haru had considered the problem and decided to land to confirm his suspicions before he called in his fellow Lai.
He landed as quiet as he could and stood outside the cave. He could smell the young.
This changed everything.
Back under the trees and out of sight and smell of the female Dglai he settled down to ponder his next move.
He could not kill her. Somehow, contact must be made. A long time ago the Lai, the Dglai and the other rtaths on Diaglon had co-existed, had lived together in peace and relative harmony. Could this not be so again?
He didn’t think that many of the inhabitants of the other countries would understand why Haru was about to do what he was about to do except perhaps the Lind, most of whom were beginning to accept the concept that one day they and the Larg would be as one again. This forgiveness of the Lind for the Larg wasn’t shared by the humans although those vadeln paired understood though they might not yet condone.
Haru decided on his next move.
The female Dglai must be made to understand that she and her young were free from all retribution, that they were safe here. He had to find some way to gain her trust. But how?
As Haru planned how he was going to accomplish this, Quia slept on, having decided that the sounds from outside the cave had been made by one of the forest animals.
Haru made his way out from under the trees. He took to the air, his sharp eyes looking for traces of the herd of forest kura he had spotted earlier. It did not take him long to locate them, the herd was browsing at the edge of the tree line at the top end of the valley.
The Lai were consummate hunters and he brought down two of the creatures in rapid succession and long before the rest of the herd, bleating with fright, galloped back under the trees as fast as their short legs could carry them.
Haru ate one of them. The other he gathered in his forearms and sprang aloft.
He made his way back to the cave and hovering above the entrance, let go of the carcass. It fell to the ground with a loud thump and a tangle of spindly legs.
Inside the cave, Quia nearly expired with shock. Her babies woke again and began their mewling chant. They were hungry. She would have to go hunting.
She glanced over to the cave mouth and sniffed. Meat! Fresh meat! She could smell the blood. The babies smelt it too. The largest and most adventurous one began to crawl towards the entrance. Absently Quia placed her foreleg on top of him, crooning with gentle sharpness, trying to make him understand that the situation was dangerous and that he should stay with his clutch mates.
The baby growled but obeyed her, for perhaps a nano-second before squirming out from her restraint.
Quia stood up and rushed to the cave entrance. Despite her entreaties the six little fledglings staggered after her, too hungry to think about heeding her warnings.
Outside, Haru waited, some lai-lengths away. He was lying down, wings tucked in, his head low, trying to make himself look as unthreatening as he could.
Quia’s green head emerged out of the gloom of the cave. She saw the carcass, she also saw Haru. Her nostrils flared.
With squeals of delight the six little ones pushed past their mother and ran towards the carcass, short tails wagging, eyes bright with greed.
Haru did not move. He made eye contact with Quia and held it, willing her to believe that he was not a threat to either her or her young.
As the babies ate, their hardening fore talons making easy work of the underbelly, Haru and Quia continued to stare at each other.
Only when the babies were finished and stomachs bulging with food began to play on the level patch of ground outside the cave, butting at each other and flapping their stubby wings, did Haru speak.
It took Haru a long time to make Quia understand but Haru was patient. He repeated himself again and again until at last he saw acceptance in Quia’s eyes, acceptance and gratitude.
“I will stay here and guard you this moon time. At sun up I will hunt for you again then I will go and tell Velku that you are here.”
Quia was apprehensive.
“Fear not,” said Haru, “neither you nor your ltsctas will come to any harm. You will stay here for a while and when your ltsctas are able to travel we will take you to the mountains of our home. You will be welcome.”
“Why should you welcome us?” she asked.
“Because that is how it is,” was Haru’s enigmatic reply. “Why should your ltsctas be punished for the evil of their forefathers and foremothers? They are innocent of blame.”
“And me?”
“You are their mother,” he answered, as if this explained everything.
“I am to live?”
“You will live,” Haru confirmed, rising to his back legs. The six little ones stopped their play and gazed at him out of their wide green eyes. “You will live and bring up your young among us. We are not so very different, not really, the Dglai and the Lai, not where it matters. Will you come?”
“I will.”
Haru began to wonder what the offspring of Dglai-Lai parents would be like once the fledglings had been integrated into the Lai culture, green, gold or a mixture of the two. He rather thought the latter.
The six little babies began to play again, watched over by a relieved mother and an indulgent Haru.
He was very careful to keep his tail as still as possible, remembering the days when his own young had been born. They had thought of their father’s tail as the most wonderful plaything imaginable. He still had the scars to prove it.
All was well in Haru’s world.
* * * * *
Chapter 11
Second Month of Summer AL 609 - Vadrhed
Danal
“Do you think Tala and Chizu knew before they died? asked Grainne of Danal.
“That the Larg were fighting against the Dglai, that they no longer wished to fight the Lind?”
“Yes.”
“I think they did. They must have seen what was happening as they flew south.”
One day he would talk about it, but not yet, let the pain of loss heal first.
“We’ll never forget them, will we?”
He smiled, his eyes gazing into the distance, past the distant trees and the hills and into the sky.
“Live, live in peace and joy and harmony. I wish you happiness. Do not fail me.” These were the words that Chizu had said to Danal before he and Tala had left for the Ammokko.
The words appeared to whisper at him with the wind before they faded away.
He wrapped his arms round Grainne and watched as the peace delegation from the new Largan wound its slow way up the hill towards Vada.
He would not fail Chizu and the others. Together all the species on this wonderful planet would work together to make it one to be proud of. There were troubles ahead, of that he was in no doubt, but there was a chance now, a chance for lasting peace.
“I will not fail you,” he vowed.
Perhaps it was fancy but he knew the spirits of Tala and Chizu understood. The wind eddied round him and Grainne in benediction. Tala and Chizu were still with them, not in any physical form but he was sure they would continue to watch over them, now and forever.
* * * * *
Chapter 12
Postludes
Isobel
The remains of those who died at the Cocteau manor were buried together on the orders of Duchess Tamsin.
A few of the deceased, those who could be identified as members of the ducal family were buried separately, notably Du
ke Pierre whose partly eaten body was interred in the mausoleum known as the ‘Duke’s Vault’.
The tower where Isobel and Katia had died was a pile of broken and fire darkened stone. After much soul-searching Duchess Tamsin decided not to disturb the ruin to look for the bodies underneath. Instead, she ordered that the blast site be tidied up and a cairn erected over the rubble. It was painted white, as a representation and dedication to both the courage and innocence of those entombed within.
Archbishop Tom Brentwood presided over the Service of Remembrance.
King Elliot also attended the service; it was only one of the many he went to during that long year after the war. Every year after that he went to the cairn to remember the girl who had once been his betrothed.
Although Isobel hadn’t lived to become Elliot’s Queen, she wasn’t forgotten, nor was James. Elliot remembered the good times with James, when they were children and during their last months together. He tried to forget about his friend’s desertion.
Duchess Tamsin governed the duchy for ten years until her son Charles came of age. She retained her seat on Conclave for a further three.
Charles married and he and his wife, a Baron’s daughter, had three children, thus preserving the ducal bloodline. Tamsin’s daughter married Baron Charles Karovitz, grandson of the General who had fought the Larg in Brentwood during the war.
Tamsin’s youngest, Estelle, born after her mother’s rescue from the cellar, married Prince Pierre, the little boy, second cousin of Elliot, who with his mother and baby brother had been imprisoned on the upper rooms of the Old Citadel by Prince-Duke Xavier.
As for the others who had known Isobel in life, most of them were dead but Anne, the Kellessa who had been appointed as her senior lady-in-waiting, who had prepared her for and accompanied her during the service when Elliot and Isobel had made their sacred vows, she held the same position in Queen Zilla’s household, guiding the young northerner through the first months before deciding that the secular world was no longer for her.
She joined the Thibaltine Order in AL 610 and died within its walls nine years later.
* * * * *
Hilla
The war cemetery situated to the north of the ridge in the Duchy of Duchesne is a sad, yet beautiful place, with ordered lines of stone grave markers, each with the identity of the person lying below chipped out in large letters.
It is a place of peace, where the allst trees grow, swaying in the breeze. It is covered in flowers, except on the paths. In the summertime the heady scent of the dalina flowers fills the air.
Many people visit the cemetery.
There is a permanent staff of gardeners employed there, paid for by the Crown with instructions to keep the acres in a pristine condition.
Wilf Taplin, the Warrant Officer who commanded the Garda Officer Trainees at the ridge and had watched so many of them die, spent the last years of his life here in a small cottage. He was unable to put the trauma of the day behind him. Not all the casualties of the war died on the ridge, or in Brentwood, or at Fort. Wilf Taplin was not the only one haunted by the memories and who gravitated back to the area, unable to move on.
Hilla Talansdochter’s grave is just one in a long line of Garda graves situated in the western part of the cemetery, the only thing differentiating it from the others being the profusion of flowers growing around and over it, for this is the grave of the triplet sister of the Queen and she plants a dalina seedling every time she visits.
In the same row lie Hilla’s friends, Dolvin Annson, Paul Farquer and Jen Durand.
Queen Zilla’s friend Maura is buried in the next row and her brother Zak is buried in the corner of the cemetery dedicated to the Militia of Dunetown.
The Queen visits these two graves as well but it is the grave of her triplet sister where she cries.
She talks to Wilf Taplin when she visits and they comfort each other.
* * * * *
The deaths of Zak, Hilla and Tala left their parents, Talan and Zanda with a dilemma.
They returned to Dunetown after Elliot and Zilla’s wedding. Although Elliot and Zilla had invited them to make their home in Murdoch, they had refused. Neither felt comfortable with all the pomp and circumstance.
As the years passed they began to wonder what would happen to the inn when they became too old to manage it.
To leave it to Zilla was out of the question and Rilla wasn’t interested. In the end, they decided to bequeath it to their oldest daughter Zala and her husband Matt. It was their eldest son Mathieu who travelled south to Dunetown in the summer of AL 628 to take over. Mathieu had proved to be not even a fifth of the merchant his father was and was eager to put merchanting behind him. By then Talan was dead. Zanda bowed to her youngest daughter’s entreaties and left for the southern continent.
She spent her last years in one of the dower apartments at the palace at Fort, enjoying the company of her royal grandchildren. She died in AL 638, a very old lady, not long after the birth of her youngest great-grand-daughter Princess Mary.
She was also a frequent visitor to the graves of Hilla and Zak.
* * * * *
Tala
No one found a single trace of the bodies of Tala and Chizu.
There is no memorial marker where they died destroying the Ammokko.
There are many memorials elsewhere, the biggest being at Settlement, beside the one of Jim and Larya and above where the Battle of the Alliance was fought in AL 2.
The one of Tala and Chizu is every bit as big.
Both stand as benevolent sentinels, looking over the Island Chain that was once the route of the Larg when they attacked the northern continent.
The fortifications near Settlement are being dismantled and the route to the southern continent is being opened up. Plans are being made to build bridges to connect the islands. Some people have begun to make their homes on the biggest. Inns are being built to cater for the rapidly increasing trade and holiday traffic between the northern and southern continents.
Foremost of those campaigning for the development of the Island Chain is one Horatio Anders, once head Councillor of Argyll and who was forced to resign his office shortly after the war. The reason behind his resignation is very hush-hush but everyone knows it is because he refused to believe in the Lai and the Dglai and had actively tried to stop Argyll getting involved in the war. He is still not the most popular of people but he is getting things done so many are beginning to forgive and forget.
Not so his son Julean. He is ashamed of his father’s role and embarrassed about staying behind at Stewarton in safety when his friends fought in the war. Recent reports say that he has taken to drink and is often to be found drunk as a lord in the cheapest taverns in the city.
The other memorials to Tala and Chizu are dotted around, in Stewarton, Port Lutterell and elsewhere. There is a large one at Fort in the Kingdom of Murdoch. There is a very beautiful one at Dunetown, her birthplace.
There are, as far as we are aware, no memorials on the other northern continent where live the Lai. Like the Lind, they see no need for such edifices and seem to find it strange that we do.
Tala became for a time the most popular name in Argyll and many girl children continue to be named after her.
* * * * *
The Lord Marshall
Now that the war was over and the desert safe to travel in, Baron Philip Ross, the newly appointed Lord Marshall, led a troop from one of the mounted regiments into it, following the path that he, Danal and the others had taken on their quest to find the power-core.
Jilsei, who had carried Philip into the desert, went with them.
Their task was to find the bodies of Derek and Denei.
It was Jilsei who located them using that uncanny knack of the Lind. They always know exactly where they are.
The two of them were lying where they had been left, under a thin layer of sand that had blown over and gathered. The dead Larg lay to one side.
Philip and h
is men buried Derek and Denei together and the Larg in another grave.
A cairn of soft desert stone was piled over Derek and Denei and Philip cemented into it a small bronze plaque that he had commissioned before they set out.
There they lie to this day.
Philip spent the rest of his life in royal service, dying aged fifty-one in AL 622. His wife Anne and their four children survived him. It was his daughter Anne who married Walter Merriman, Derek’s younger brother whose identity Elliot had ‘borrowed’ during his sojourn in the northern continent.
Derek would have liked that - to know that his brother was married to the daughter of the man he respected and admired.
* * * * *
Elliot and Zilla
Elliot and Zilla’s marriage was a long and happy one.
They had five children, three boys and two girls.
Hilla was the eldest and was born in AL 610. She married one Kellen James Taviston, grandson of the Kellen Martin Taviston who had been Head of Protocols at the palace during Elliot the Eleventh’s reign and during the first nine years of Elliot the Twelfth’s. They had four children, Hilla, James, Zala and Zak. It was not usual for a Princess of the Blood to marry a mere Kellen but it was a love match and Elliot overrode all objections with a firm but benevolent hand.
Elliot and Zilla’s second child, the Crown-Prince, they named Elliot. He was born three years after Hilla. He also married a lady from a non-ducal house, the eldest daughter of a Kellen, Thanessa Alison Tanon. They had three children. Elliot succeeded his father as King Elliot the Thirteenth in AL 647 when he died after a short illness.