The War Queen

by Jane Merkley

  Athenya was still ruled by a king; the eldest son inheriting the father’s throne. Not because leadership was ever effective that way but because it was hard to tell five hundred generations of kings that they were wrong.

  Blindvar and Ruidenthall had already dealt with that mess and fought its freedom driven wars with the end result finally being that the State Head would go through a vote every three years with others to compete for the position. That way if the leader was terrible, they only had to endure three years of discomfort, and not five hundred.

  Altarn was aware she risked being thrown into Athenya’s old castle dungeon for trespassing onto Luthsinia’s territory, since Lord Byrone and herself were warned by Luthsinia’s King that they were not allowed in his land because of Altarn’s call for war. But at least that she had a backup plan for. She had told Jasper that if she was not back home before her next court date, to come to her rescue.

  Up ahead, the start of a red brick road sharply ended the dusty road they were currently traveling. Driven into the ground exactly even with the red brick was a large sign which read in crisp blue paint: ATHENYA.

  Eight hooves clapped loudly as they connected with the brick and instantly the dust she had been inhaling vanished in a refreshing clean breeze.

  Small dwellings and an old dinner house met them first as they came into Athenya’s suburbs. They traveled slow as children darted in front of them on their way back from a schoolhouse barely noticeable through the grove of trees caging it.

  Old country men and women rocked lazily on their porches, smoking and weaving both. They waved to them as they sauntered by.

  Houses grew closer together the deeper they came into Athenya, closer still so the houses eventually became one very long building with many doors and shops peppered in-between.

  A clothing shop displayed brightly colored dresses through a large window facing the street and food vendors were waging war with flies. It would be wiser to keep food inside on these still lingering humid summer days but they had discovered that they received more business from travelers if they could remain on their horses to buy their food if they were in a hurry.

  The brick road flowed mostly in a straight line toward the old gray stone castle still surrounded by a moat where the king and his predecessors still lived. Weather had not been kind to the chipped and worn facing but the twelve still standing towers were still intimidating, bannered brightly each with a past king’s symbol which snapped stiff in the wind blowing at their height.

  The road widened into a massive red brick square surrounding a large blue marble statue in its center of a saddled horse without a rider. The copper plaque at its base memorialized those who had fallen in Luthsinia’s last war with a promise to never war again.

  Altarn bit her lip, knowing that once she asked the king for his help, his answer would be for her to read the plaque in the square.

  Musicians and dancers trying to earn coin surrounded the statue. Pigeons wobbled eagerly in food comas as individuals tossed them handfuls of cracker crumbs. Couples held hands as they walked around the square, taking time to note the flower boxes exploding with blue, orange, red and white. Just beyond the farthest edge of the square roared the river which had been coaxed around the castle for a moat. A drawbridge connected the square to the yawning open gate of the castle’s outer wall and by the look of the metropolis growth of moss on the underside, it had not been lifted in years.

  The sun had already set and revealed a hot orange glow in the last days of a summer sky. Altarn’s heart clenched as she faced Torren and forced a smile. Now was the time to break his heart, and there would be no easy way.

  “With deep regrets, this is where I must continue on my own, Torren.”

  He turned in his saddle and his blue eyes were sad, catching the sunset’s glow in them.

  “I cannot express my deep appreciation to you for accompanying me and rescuing me from two dangerous situations. I hope you will accept my coin for payment, because I have nothing worth more on me.” She began to dig around in her purse but was stopped when Torren’s rough hand closed over hers. She looked up and caught his eye with that same sadness that made her heart sore.

  “I don’t want you to pay me back.” His hand tightened over her fingers. “I want to get to know you better. How are you getting back home? I’ll be damned if you go back by yourself. Some towns are not daylight apart. I want to accompany you.”

  “Torren…” It was a bad idea to have let him join her on this travel, but if she hadn’t then she wouldn’t have even made it to the second attack he had also saved her from, despite that she wanted to believe otherwise. Should she reveal herself now and get it over with? But his reaction couldn’t be gauged. He might expose her too soon so she may not even get the chance to cross that bridge. But if she let him accompany her home, she would have to reveal herself at that time with the possibility that she might have to hold him captive so he couldn’t go tattling to his Lord and incite him into war sooner.

  This was all so bad and she had to swallow to keep her voice steady. “Torren… if my Lady finds out I’ve been courted by a Ruid in sight of the coming war –” But she didn’t have to finish her lie. Torren’s attention had turned down the road they had just come. A storm of crashing hooves from five riders were thundering toward them.

  Altarn’s heart leapt into her throat. The symbol of her house blazed on each of the rider’s chests and on the saddles. They had traveled in full regalia to be untouchable on the road, which could only mean they needed to travel in haste, and still in haste they looked.

  Altarn panicked but was certain she had sent a bird in the proper time frames. Had a bird not made it home because of one of the billion fates that might fell a bird and Jasper got anxious and assumed the worst?

  They were charging across the square, scattering civilians and dancers and earned the curious stares of Athenya’s guards when Jasper happened to look Altarn’s way.

  Jasper was in the lead and reared his horse to the right toward her, the others following like a rushing monster, halting the horses in a flume of sparks from the shoes. The horses foamed at the mouth from lack of water.

  Jasper dismounted. She had never seen him in full armor before. “Lady, something terrible is happening to Blindvar!”

  Altarn flinched at the title. Jasper was sure to keep his voice low, if still shaky, to prevent curious eavesdroppers who were hovering at the edges. He was still aware that the male stranger next to Altarn could hear, but it was a hazard that could not be avoided.

  Her heart was already racing at the news she was about to receive which was apparently worthy of five of her finest guards racing all their might to find her and then blow her cover. Obviously what they had to say shadowed the importance in keeping her identity secret.

  “Kyree,” Torren’s voice was slow and uncharacteristically dark, “What’s going on?”

  Altarn ignored him. She dismounted and met Jasper halfway.

  “My Lady.” Jasper struggled to keep his voice low enough for just her. “Blindvar has been attacked.”

  Bile welled in her throat. “Byrone was watching and waiting for me to leave! I was right! My court wouldn’t believe me!”

  “Kyree?” Torren’s voice somehow penetrated her rage.

  Jasper looked over her shoulder. “Who’s that?”

  Altarn collected her calm and turned to Torren. It was clear now who she was and Torren deserved to hear it from her. She just wished it could have been in a more controlled, predictable, and less public setting.

  She calmly clasped her hands in front of her, surprising herself in the face of news that had just officially declared war. “Torren… I cannot keep this secret any longer. I am Lady Altarn Shadheing, State Head of Blindvar. I traveled in disguise to ask for Luthsinia’s aid in the coming war, but I am too late, it seems. Your Lord has already launched an attack on Blindvar. Strange how you, being his soldier, were not told.”

  She measured his exp
ression for his reaction. He stared blankly at her, but his eyes changed to a strange clarity of blue. His face did not move, but the weighty chill that settled over him was obvious. It settled over her to, and it bothered her and she did not know why. He dismounted opposite her and she heard vomiting noises.

  She sighed regretfully and turned back to Jasper. She could only imagine the kind of shock she had just given Torren that would warrant such a sickening reaction. “When?”

  “A day and a half ago. Their ships anchored on our shores –”

  “Wait, Byrone sailed around?”

  Jasper held up his hand so he could finish. “And they surged outward toward Niesh, slaying people if they got in their way. Luckily, the rangers in your employ were paying attention and knew the ships were an oddity and so warned the town. Most of the town fled or hid. ”

  Immense pressure weighted on Altarn’s arm. In her shock-numbed state, she didn’t feel it. It wasn’t until that pressure forced her three steps backward that she noticed at all.

  “Altarn,” Torren’s voice was thick as syrup, sending a chill up Altarn’s spine by the weighty way he said her name. “We need to talk.”

  She ripped her arm from his hand, earning his dark glare from eyes that were storming. “I’m sorry this has happened, Torren, but I could not reveal who I was to you sooner for my protection. You have to leave now. I cannot be with you anymore. And whatever you have to say is not more important than what I am dealing with right now. I don’t know why your Lord has started this war without your knowledge.”

  She turned sharply from him and marched back to Jasper. “What defenses have –”

  Torren grabbed her arm in a vice again and wrenched her painfully around. Jasper drew his sword in song with the four other accompanying guards. Altarn shot Jasper a look that stalled him.

  “This is more important than what you are dealing with!” Torren’s tone was dark, his eyes sharp, his shoulders tense and hunched and she wondered if he hadn’t grown three more inches. His whole demeanor was changed and she now couldn’t connect to him the carefree man he had been five minutes ago.

  “Let go of me!”

  “That is not my army attacking your state!” he barked. “So if someone is attacking you then we are both in trouble.”

  Altarn ripped her arm free. “How do you know it’s not Byrone’s army?”

  His eyes turned blue flame, contrasting against his pale face shining with sweat. She watched his adam’s apple bob deeply in a swallow before he spoke.

  “I am Lord Byrone.”

  Altarn held his eyes for a long measured moment, blinking once as cold sweat burst at the back of her neck.

  “Ya?” she asked in a voice that was awkwardly high pitched and shaking with dread. “Pr – prove it.”

  When he dug into his pocket, her stomach clenched and she wanted to vomit too, and when he pulled it out and shoved it in her face she had to take a deep breath to stop herself from fainting. On the stamped face of the copper coin Ruids use for identification were the deadly words:

  Byrone D. Morrendrake

  Lord of Ruidenthall

  Her eyes blurred before she could read his date and place of birth which were also embossed on the coin. His kiss burned on her lips, the feel of his chest against her back as she rode in his saddle chilled her to her bone. With great fortitude, she did not vomit. She swallowed it instead.

  They did not hear the initial screams of civilians around the square. For a brief moment, Altarn couldn’t remember where she was. When they finally both looked up, a swarm of Athenya guards had surrounded them. Their captain stepped forward. “Our King just received a messenger saying a war has erupted in Blindvar and everyone who is not Luthsinian will be detained pending investigation. Show me your identification.”

  “You will do no such thing!” Altarn shrilled, her real voice gone from her, replaced by one that was full of dread to her core. “I am Lady Altarn and I have come to seek an audience with your king. I then need to return to Blindvar since I am clearly absent in the face of this war happening in my state!”

  “Lady Altarn you say? Then you will certainly be detained for trespassing onto mutual ground. You’ve been notified of this order. And you, Ruid?”

  Byrone’s Ruid tattoo curled nicely down his arm out of his sleeveless shirt and there was no mistaken where he came from and where he did not belong.

  “My name is Torren.”

  “Hand over your weapons, Blindvar,” the guard said to Jasper and his men. “You know the rules.”

  Altarn caught Jasper’s gaze whose eyes reflected helplessness as he passed his sword to Athenya’s guard.

  A young guard approached Altarn. “Stand back to back you two.”

  “No!” Both of them shouted. But upon their protests, six more guards swarmed around them, asking in their eager stances to say no again.

  She stiffened, squeezing her eyes shut. The cuffs pinched her wrists behind her back and she balled her fingers into fists so as not to touch Byrone who was bound in the same contraption behind her. It was to lessen the odds of escape. One could not run fast enough to escape while dragging another body behind them.

  When Altarn’s guards were likewise paired and shackled, the odd one shackled to a horse, the group was hustled across the square and over the bridge into the castle.

  Bridge of Faith

  “How?” Priest Herten was slumped into his customary chair, holding his mug of morning tea to warm his old, chilled hands.

  The sixteen year old boy touched Herten’s arm gently. “By re-birth. I can only touch this mortal plain if I have a mortal body to do it. The only way to get a mortal body is by procreation.”

  “So you…”

  “I was born sixteen years, three months, and two days ago. My parents only knew they raised a boy who had an affinitive desire for the church.”

  Herten dropped his eyes to the floor, working the mug in his hands in a circle, his heart full of questions but not knowing which ones to ask. “So what did Huilian do to make you follow him?”

  The boy released his arm, and his wooden chair groaned as he leaned back. “Huilian desires to be a god, which is not denied him after he completes his learning, for all of us continue to learn once we shed this mortal frame. But he was impatient and thought there was no more for him to learn. This is the only lesson Huilian needed to learn, that he still needed to learn as long as he existed. He was patient in his request to see me, and when I finally invited him into my home, he told me he was ready to be a god. I told him he was not, because those who self proclaim they are ready, were never ready. He became angry, and told me he’d prove he was ready and dashed away. I followed him, knowing exactly what he was intending to do. He fled Velmashyn, and I followed. We landed about the place that you already know – the earth does shudder when touched by a god. Huilian broke himself into five pieces, for we are only souls in Velmashyn. Contrary to popular belief, I can do many things but I cannot compel a soul to do my will. Only Huilian can gather his pieces together again to make himself whole. But I see the question in your eyes, Good Priest. Why not kill the individual pieces? Souls are complicated. A soul never dies, just relocates. Second, as long as there is a single sliver of soul existing, it can regenerate itself. Of course that regeneration is another complicated topic entirely. So as soon as I could relocate one piece of soul, it would cause another to regenerate, and each piece was far too spread for me to relocate all at once. So I had to resort to biding my time and wait until Huilian had reconstructed himself so I could relocate him all at once.”

  Gildeon stopped. Herten heard the boy drink deeply from his chosen beverage.

  “But what other questions?” Gildeon continued. “If I told you everything in my mind, it would take years and I still may not say what you desire to know.”

  “Why do you have to have a mortal body but Huilian does not?” Herten was aware Chalyn was also in the room, but he had apprenticed the boy for many years and alread
y knew all this.

  “Huilian has a body. Well, five of them. He stuffed a chunk of his soul into various creatures about the place that he fell; a bird, a bug, a deer, a snake, and that newborn baby girl. A body doesn’t necessarily have to mean of flesh and blood. A body is simply an encasement to harbor the soul, because if the soul touches earth, the earth will absorb it and start the soul on the cycle of learning again. As he gathers his pieces back together, I imagine he has constructed for him such a body. It could be anything, really.”

  “So he came to earth to gather a following that would worship him?” Herten guessed. He sipped his chamomile tea.

  “Correct. Since I am on this earth with you, I cannot see like I did in Velmashyn. Even I don’t know if he’s been successful. The vessels he used to harbor his soul might have died and released his soul already. But I dare not leave until I know for sure, because only I can relocate Huilian, if he doesn’t change his ways and do it himself peacefully.”

  “I have a question, actually,” spoke Priest Chalyn. “And forgive my boldness in asking… but… your worshipers believed you fell. More like, fell out of your glory, and you stopped answering prayers… Why would you let the people who love you continue to believe that?”

  There was a pause, and Herten almost felt tension build in the small room, but he was wrong because when Gildeon spoke, it was full of light. Herten could feel him smile as if he had finally finished a great quest.

  “I stopped answering prayers because people stopped praying. And I’ve told you the truth, I did not fall, I followed. I could have given warning, could have done something different and sent another angel to do the job. But I was remarkably curious to see how resilient faith really was. If you know something to be true, are wholly converted because you have received witness it is true, you don’t just stop knowing it because it took an unexpected turn. That’s what faith is. It is a bridge from one witness of things that are true to another. This one was an exceptionally long bridge. Those who walked the bridge knowing it was still affixed somewhere at the end will be rewarded in Velmashyn beyond those who gave up after the first quiet prayer.”