by B J Hanlon
“Sleeping.”
“Politically I mean.”
She took a moment and closed her eyes. She seemed to be going through something in her mind. Then she spoke. “The kingdom was in a civil war, the scum rebel leader Restican found a way to be silence our talent with a large black stone… some had said it from the heavens.”
“Like the one you have. We call it a wan stone. How did you get one?”
“My father’s spies captured a handful from the enemy, this was among their things. He had academics study them to see if we could beat its power.”
“Your father included you in his war plans?”
“For the most part…” She said nodding. “I was the future queen and a magus.” She looked at him. “What do you think we sat around sewing doilies all day?”
Edin opened his mouth and then shut it.
“The traitor Restican said it was a gift from Vestor to rid the world of magecraft. High priests at the Vestion backed him and proclaimed it truth.” She sighed. “They and the Duke’s followers stirred up so much hatred for us with the mundane folk. Most likely because they were beneath our kind.” Arianne took a drink from her ale before lowering her chalice into her lap.
“My father tried to keep some of the details from me, there was much death. Thousands of people died. Mundanes and mages in great battles. The last I heard was that the Citadel in Vostine was sacked and the elves rose up. They have mages too you know. Though their race has ways of damping magic and were always a threat. I wouldn’t be surprised if that traitor was in league with them.”
Edin didn’t know much about these things and so little about the elves. Like most people, he thought their race to be a myth. Heck, he did as late as a week or so ago. But if the elves were allies with the rebels, why did they go into hiding? He guessed it was a question she couldn’t answer.
“My father sent me with Master Lorno to this keep. It is a secret, a place for quiet contemplation and no court business. My parents promised to come soon.”
The grand plaza below didn’t seem to agree but Edin just stared at Arianne not saying anything. It wasn’t his place. Her soft ivory skin seemed to radiate in the fire light. She shifted in her seat and stuck a leg underneath her. As she spoke her hand fiddled with her hair while she gazed into the flame. There was a grace to her in that moments. Suddenly, she didn’t act like the snobby princess, she reminded him of a girl.
“Then what happened?”
“I was here a few days, a week at most with my handmaiden, some servants, and the master. A hawk arrived, a message from my father. I begged to know what it said but no one would answer. Two days later I remember having breakfast and then I felt tired. I fell asleep and then woke. No one was around. It was weeks. Three maybe four… I lost track of it…”
She turned toward him and pulled her free knee up to her chest, wrapping her arms around it. “Then you showed up… a person… I wasn’t sure if there was anyone left in the world. I thought that maybe the war destroyed mankind.”
Any doubt that she was telling the truth left. He’d heard enough stories and lies from the men at the tavern to know the difference.
“Please tell me what happened to my father,” she pleaded.
Edin sipped the ale trying to break from her gaze. Her soft upturned nose, thin lips and high cheek bones made it difficult. His heart beat faster with her stare as his palms grew wet.
“The histories say,” Edin started. How could he call her life history? To her it was recent, weeks ago. “The Great Rebellion succeeded. King Alcor Bestavienne, your father, was captured along with his entire court. The Master Magi Lorno was captured near the Great Cliff. I have never heard of this Tilliac.”
Edin swallowed and took a drink, it suddenly didn’t taste as good.
“Then what happened?”
“They were all executed… Including you.”
Tears welled in her face but she stifled them. “It’s not possible… you’re lying. No mundane army could’ve overthrown the kingdom,” she said.
Suddenly, he felt a gust of air press him back into his chair and spilled ale onto his hand. The gust stopped almost immediately. Edin took a breath and licked up the drops.
She stared at the fire, her face a bright and sad red. A single tear rolled down her cheek and dropped absently to the rim of her chalice.
Edin pulled off his necklace and looked at the two gemstones. They glittered. He took both off his necklace and set them on the table between them.
“These were your father’s, right? From the crown?”
She turned her head slightly and stared down at the blue and yellow stones and wiped her eye.
“Thank you, this is the Blossom Stone,” she picked up the sapphire. “And this is the Sun Stone. They were meant to signify growth and life. They were in the King’s Crown for thousands of years.”
She grabbed the pitcher and poured ale in her chalice before taking a deep drink in the most un-lady like fashion he’d ever seen. Trickles of the brown liquid poured from the sides of her lips and dropping onto her formerly pristine blouse. It clanged empty when she set it back down.
“I’ll grab another pitcher,” Edin said standing.
She shivered slightly, he wanted to put a comforting hand on her shoulder like Grent, Dephina, or Master Horston would’ve done. He hovered his palm over her for a second then pulled it away.
On the way back down the stairs he thought about all she would’ve seen. He hadn’t told her about the purges of the magi how their kind were hunted like animals. It’d be too much for her. What if they were the only two mages left in all Bestoria?
At the first floor landing he heard wind moaning from the floor below. Something he hadn’t heard before. Edin ignored it and filled the pitcher again.
Back in the room, Arianne hadn’t moved and he filled up both of their cups.
“I’ve heard of hibernation, a spell some mages possessed but…” she said, “could I have really been asleep, alone in this place for that long? Things decay, right? The food, the books, my bed… this ale. It all looks the same as when I laid down.”
Edin took a drink from his tankard.
Arianne picked up her golden chalice and stared at it. “I’m not worthy of this anymore, am I? Give me yours.”
Edin raised an eyebrow.
“Are you too good to share your tankard with me?”
He handed it to her, she drank and then refilled the tankard with the ale from the chalice. “I’m not a princess anymore.”
“Yes, you are,” Edin said. It was the first thing that came to his lips.
She handed him the tankard back. “Thank you.”
They sat silent for a long time. Edin refilled the pitcher a few times and his head started getting foggy. He didn’t want to leave her alone. Despite what happened to him in the last few months and even the hours in her ‘care’… it was nothing compared to what she went through. Arianne’s entire world was destroyed. Everything.
“I’m going to sleep,” she said quietly. “You can stay in my father’s… the king’s chambers if you wish.”
Edin stood. “Thank you, Arianne. But I’m no king. I’ll find more appropriate quarters for a commoner.”
She smiled up at him. “Please don’t leave tomorrow. You’re the only person in the world I know.”
This time Edin didn’t care, he rested a hand on her soft shoulder and smiled. She put her hand on his and offered a sad one back. Her eyes were still red, but she wasn’t crying. She looked strong. Maybe she’d cry when he left, but not in front of him. She was a dignified princess after all.
Edin found a set of smaller but still comfortable rooms on the far side of the king’s chambers. They had antechambers as well, though about half the size of Arianne’s.
Edin glanced into them, finally choosing the one in the middle. Unlike the others, this one didn’t seem like the last occupant would be showing up soon. The desk was tidy, books sat in shelves, and cabinets were sh
ut. Through it was another bedroom. Edin shoved a few logs into the hearth and gazed around. There was a canopy bed, a wardrobe, and a couch in front of the fire. A painting of the king and his dower wife hung above the mantel.
They made him feel uneasy. He felt like the ancient ruler was eyeing him up either for execution or enslavement. Edin couldn’t sleep with those two looking down on him. Would it insult her if he flipped it around?
Edin went to the wardrobe and found a sleeping gown. After sliding a chair near the hearth, he got onto the mantel and hung the gown over the painting.
After shedding his clothes, he laid under the thick blanket. The warmth from the ale and the first actual bed since Frestils, were enough to put him to sleep quickly.
5
A Bad Trip
Sunlight poured in from a window high above him. It was cloudless and empty. A light blue sky that seemed as peaceful as it did vast. It was probably around midmorning when Edin lazily pulled himself from the comfortable bed and made his way to the hall of paintings and statues.
His head hurt from the ale and his stomach growled. He looked down the corridor to the princess’ chambers. The door was shut.
He wanted to be quiet but all he could think about was coffee and food. Feeling like the thief she’d claimed him to be, Edin crept downstairs to the storage rooms and the kitchen. He didn’t know how to make coffee so he grabbed fruits and meat and found even a large brick of moldy cheese. He feasted but, without any water or coffee, Edin washed it down with ale. He sat comfortably, with his feet up on a small table that held many knife wounds from past meals.
In the kitchen, he felt much more comfortable, there was less of a pompous feel there. Though he still felt like a trespasser. Maybe he could make breakfast for Arianne? It was a quick thought, but he wasn’t much of a cook and pushed it out of his mind almost instantly.
After eating, he left. He was curious and still hadn’t heard a sound from the floor above him. He went through the front door and into a large courtyard, the same one from his dream....
It was easily the footprint of the manor with ornate geometrical paint on stones the shapes of squares and rectangles. The lines and the tiles fit perfectly. There were chest-high walls lined with benches and planters that somehow grew plants. The walls clearly weren’t meant to keep people out. The mountain did that. These seemed to keep people from stumbling over the edge and plummeting to their deaths. He spotted posts, tall and thin with wicks on them like candles.
At the far end of the courtyard, he saw a stone door built into a thin but tall peak of chipped granite. Edin glanced back toward the building he’d been in. It was a keep and beyond it, another tall peak. The courtyard and patio straddled some ridge like it was a saddle.
Edin walked around a fountain, two large bears, spewing water. Moving to the western wall according to the morning sun, he stared out over the landscape. In the daylight, it was just as breathtaking if not more.
Far off, screened between peaks, he saw a lush green valley. It had to be twenty, maybe thirty leagues away. The elven valley?
Again, from this location, everything but that single vale and the potted bushes looked dead. No trees, flowers, or even scrub brush grew wild.
The keep itself wasn’t that impressive. The highest point of the main structure seemed to be only fifty or so feet above his head and they were two turrets. One above the stairwell he just exited and another on the backside of the keep.
He moved back toward the door when he felt a tickling in his joints. It felt cool, almost cold and for the first time since Frestils, he knew he had nowhere to be. It was his body that yearned for the release of energy. Not the talent but the ecstatic endorphins from exercising.
He began with the Oret Nakosu which helped loosen his body and hopefully shake off some of the rust. It had been weeks since he actually trained for training sake… since the last night with Horston and Grent.
He pushed all thoughts from his head… or tried to. The image of his companions riding to their deaths was burned into his mind. The Por Fen monks murdered his friends. They murdered his family.
Edin pushed harder in the exercises and pictured Merik’s head and what he’d do if he were within a sword length or two.
Forget the mystical Isle of the Mists.
Edin gritted his teeth and grabbed his sword. He trained, sweating worse than a farmer during a noon harvest. He wanted to—needed to—get back at them. At the entire Por Fen. He was a warrior, a man, and he could slay them all…
Then he remembered his mother… she made him promise. He swung again and heard the swish of the blade through the air.
He promised to go there. To be safe… but he didn’t promise to stay. Edin added the broom handle. It was awkward and it didn’t have the bend the quarterstaff had but he kept going. Edin ignored the pain when he’d catch himself in the shin or on the back.
Finally, he took one in the thigh and heard a soft chuckle from the keep. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a figure in all black standing at the door.
His mouth was dry, though his hangover was gone.
Arianne sauntered toward him. Without the tears, her gray-green eyes seemed to draw his gaze. A part of him never wanted to look away.
“Wielding a sword and staff together… that’s odd,” Arianne said, her tone was haughty and proud. “I’m not sure who taught you that, but it looks awkward and gangly. You may be able to beat a child in battle… maybe.”
“I’ve defeated seven men with these weapons,” Edin said. The men were farmers and they were drunk, but he didn’t include that detail. Besides, who was she to tell him how to fight? Just because no one did before, didn’t mean he couldn’t master the twin weapons.
“I have seen some magi wielding swords as easy as a terrin. Some can even increase their speed and perception of the world. But they also are masters of their talent. You are not.” She paused and looked him up and down.
“Your own sigil is a sword and a staff… the cavern where I found the sapphire held a mural depicting a mage wielding both.”
She shook her head, “a staff can be used as a physical weapon as well. It must be strong, but also flexible. I’ve seen masters make ironwood bend like it were a blade of grass. A mop handle is only good for a maid.”
“It’s a broom handle.”
She sighed, walked to him and took it then tossed it carelessly to the side. Suddenly, a wind picked up and the stick began to rise and twirl as if it was skidding across a lake of ice. A moment later, it flew over the side of the wall and far into the distance.
He watched until it was just a speck in the distance carried by her wind. Edin turned back, he didn’t know what to say except that was his…
But Arianne abruptly turned and sauntered back toward the keep. She slipped off her shawl and picked up a staff that was leaning next to the door. It was a light wood, almost white. “This is a tarix wood staff. Though it is not enchanted, it is a powerful weapon.”
“Tarix wood?”
“Like ironwood but less stiff. Good for training.” She took a stance with the quarterstaff, it looked like horse rider stance. She held it in front of her and perpendicular to the ground. Suddenly, she whipped it around in quick movements, spinning and leaping through the air.
Like she had said, it bent easily before snapping back into shape with the throng of a low string instrument. It cut through the air faster than a normal sword strike.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Slowly, he moved to the bench. The way she moved was a perfectly formed dance, as well rehearsed and as perfectly executed as anything Dephina had showed him with her knives. At one point she jabbed one edge of the staff into the ground and vaulted head over heels nearly cartwheeling above an imaginary foe.
He was sure she used her power to help her almost fly. Did she fly? She was more than fifteen feet off the courtyard before landing with grace and ease in the same horse stance and the staff in front of her. She bowed to no one and s
trolled over to him with a coy smile, clearly proud of herself.
The sun glinted off her sweaty arms giving her an aura that reminded him of goddess paintings.
Arianne snatched his tankard took a drink and her smile dropped as she spit it out. “You’re still drinking ale? I didn’t think you a man who fell to the mug.” She looked at him as if he was a lowly mouse caught in the royal cheese house, if there was such a thing.
“I couldn’t find any water,” Edin said. “I was thirsty.”
She raised an eyebrow and looked toward the fountains. A moment later, her face went slack as if remembering something she’d rather not. “Come, let’s get some breakfast. You will squeeze oranges for juice.”
“Why me? I’m your guest…”
“My intruder.” She said.
Back in the kitchen, they raided pantries. Between the two, they could fry up eggs and cook a bit of meat. She found bacon and ham. The food seemed to have been preserved by the same form of magic that kept her asleep. He wondered if thousand-year-old chicken eggs tasted any different. What about the chickens themselves? Could they fly back then?
They didn’t taste different and according to Arianne, they didn’t fly either. The two of them ate at the disfigured table and drank some of the orange juice.
Nearly done and feeling rather good about himself, Arianne decided to say. “You really need to wash.”
Edin swallowed and found an uncomfortable awareness of his own stench. It was bad.
After the meal, Arianne escorted him to a bathing chamber on the second floor.
She lit a flame and told him to wait for a half hour before turning the metal knob over the ornate bathtub.
Water flowed out from a bronze tube and splashed into the bottom of the alabaster claw-foot tub. Steam rose and he decided to let the moist air flow around him.
Completely nude, he saw the door opening in front of him.
“I brought some…” Arianne said.
Their eyes met and her face flushed. “I’m sorry.”