Chapter 27
The King of the Mark

And now I got a head full of better off dead
I followed down them steps and slept in the wrong bed
If I had a breath of self-respect left
I'd set fire to the bedspring to help it catch wreck
Let these ashes represent the mattress
Director left the set but nobody told the actress
So she's still actin' as if we scheduled a practice
And my soundtrack is compromisin' her theatrics
-Atmosphere

A candle waved by the window as three shadows ran across the floor. It was one of many candles put up in the room. A younger Henry, Mark, and Marisa were running around the floor, laughing and playing some form of a game. Marisa and Mark were eleven and Henry was ten.

Nick was watching from his seat, keeping an eye on them. It was almost comical, thinking of Nick as a parent, for he wasn't much older than the rest of them. That he won custody at all was a miracle in itself. But there hadn't been any other relative that had wanted the then young Marisa and so custody was given to Nick. Luckily, by the time he had received Marisa, he was of a reasonable age to take her; she hadn't been the infant anymore that she was at the time of Chriso's death.

It might have explained why Marisa and Nick's relationship resembled that of siblings far more than it ever had of uncle and niece. And probably better that way; with the antics that Nick was often to pull, it made no sense as to why he ever had the right to put any restrictions on her. So he played the roll of the overprotective brother and she accepted this. It worked, oddly enough, and there was never any dispute that it was Nick who did raise her, while never raising himself.

But even in the beginning, Handal (a long friend of the Ikons and closer friend of Nick's after he sent Nick out on his adventure with the Brass) knew better than to blindly trust Nick, as responsible as he still seemed to manage with Marisa. And so he sat there, in his own chair, watching the three play and the forth one watch.

"Handal, you really needn't have spent the night, you know," Nick told the wizard from where he was sitting. "I could've watched them on my own."

Handal smiled softly, knowing that Henry's parents would have never let him attend these if it had been only Nick supervising. "I'm glad for your confidence, Nick Ikon, but I wish my own could only match it," he responded, a glint of humor in his eye.

Nick laughed and told him, "And you think this whole thing isn't odd? An old man watching three kids? I should be the one keeping my eye on you."

Handal smiled further. "Three kids? Don't count yourself so old quite yet."

Nick rolled his eyes and returned them to the other three. Handal watched them as well. Even then, he could tell there would be one more. Why, he could never remember. Just at that moment, he knew.

Mark came running up to Handal at that moment, panting. "She's trying to hump me, Handal! I swear!"

Handal laughed, as did Nick. "You're passing up the opportunity?" the curly, blond haired boy asked from his seat.

Handal simply lifted Mark onto his lap. A thought crossed Mark's mind. "Could you tell us a story again?" he asked as the other two approached as well. Mark always wanted to hear old stories and he somehow managed to seem even younger than he was when asking about or listening to them.

"Sure," Handal responded. But before the wizard could start with a story, Mark was asking questions.

"Do you think those stories could ever happen again? You know, in our lifetime?" was one of the many questions discernable in his stream of speech.

And Handal's face clouded over, his mind thrown into thought. The others fell quiet. "Yes," he murmured slowly. "It's possible." He smiled to the young Mark, saying, "One would hope not, but who is ever to know these things? Not I, my dear Flute, not I."

"Well, with my good looks –" Mark started, pointing out his chest in a fashion that Andrew (had he known Mark then) might've admired.

Handal started to chuckle merrily, cutting Mark off. "Do you really think that will count for anything?" he asked, still merry, completely missing that Mark had been making a joke. "They were dark times, Mr. Siermon, very dark times. And it was not looks or being well-liked that got anyone anywhere. You can only count on those worth trusting, in those times – no one else. And those worth trusting were those pure of heart, noble and honest, and those with will and energy that was put up for sacrifice to reach their goals." Handal shifted the then perplexed Mark on his lap, Mark's green eyes flashing with wonder from the candlelight as he gazed upon the wizard's face.

"I laugh, so many times, when I see what people value now. They would not have served them well, then. Only those who were devoted and saw a person by their character, rather than by anything else – they were the ones who led our armies, and our world, out of ruin. Only a group who trusts and counts on each other can possibly hope to achieve what those men and women of old achieved."

XXX

"Handal?" Strider said softly, as if the figure in white might attack with fury once again, if provoked.

A bit of clearness and kindness returned to the then steely gray of the man's eyes. "They used to call me that," he murmured, trailing off in thought. The tips of his lips upturned. "Yes…Handal the Legato."

He looked at them all and spoke words with calm assurance: "I am Handal the Composer, now. It is appointed to a wizard of the Council of Wizards who has a mission to play in something big. And, my friends, as you all know, we now face something quite looming."

Not waiting for a response from fthe others, Handal took off in a direction of the forest. "Handal!" Strider called out, getting more and more perplexed. "Do you even know where you are going?"

Not turning behind him, Handal simply responded, "I know this forest like the back of my hand." As he continued, more and more sunlight poured in. At last, he entered out onto the plains again. With two fingers, he let out a sharp whistle. The other five looked about, unsure of what to expect. And then, over one of the hills, came up an all white horse, charging over the fields. Michelle, who had dealt with horses, was impressed. "Exigir is his name," Handal told them. "Leader of the horses of the Mark." He chuckled. "I 'borrowed' him from King Prince of Norr-on as a way to wake him back up to what was going on around him. I doubt it left the impression I hoped for."

XXX

"Oh, work, why don't you?" Chelsea muttered, beating lightly the backside of her iPod. She rubbed it harder to see if the battery would come to life.

It was drizzling softly. A makeshift tent had been propped up, though very few went beneath it. Most sat out in the rain, with or without something over their head.

Chelsea rubbed the back of her iPod harder. "Don't leave me bored, now," she said once more.

To her right, Laura sat as well, listening to her own iPod. Over the sound of her own music and the hiss of the rain, she hadn't noticed that Chelsea seemed to be facing the conflict of man versus technology. After a final, irritated sigh, Laura happened to glance over. She saw Chelsea tuck her iPod away and gaze out gloomily into the rain.

Hesitating for a moment, she got up and walked over to the Bass Clarinet (and should-have-been drum major). "Wanna listen?" she asked, indicating her iPod.

Hesitating as well, Chelsea glanced at the iPod several times. "Yeah," she told the Flute.

Laura sat down on the log next to Chelsea and offered her an earphone. "What do you want to listen to?" Laura asked, swimming through her artists list.

"How about that?" Chelsea asked, pointing to A. F. I.

XXX

In bursts of speed and rushes of air, the six pelted by horseback upon the fields. "Tell us," Strider shouted as they kept onward, "of what you know. Are Melissa and Henry alright?"

Handal didn't respond for a moment, keeping his eyes on the plains. Every so often, it seemed, he had to rear Exigir back, so that he didn't gain such a length ahead of them due to his speed.

"The Nyre-dwellers are fine. I cannot sense where they are, in a sense that anyone of us would like, but I can sense them. That is always a good sign. They are alive and well. They are somewhere in the forest that we left, or near its proximity. And they shall be the stones to start the avalanche, be certain. Ah, may Rowumell not walk far from home!"

Strider gave the wizard a glance of recognition. "You still speak in riddles, my friend."

Handal seemed to be woken then. "Riddles? I was talking to myself. Foolish, I suppose, given you had asked a question. Forgive me, Sire Brask. Yes, now, and what were we talking about?" Before Strider could respond, Handal exclaimed, "Yes! That was it. Well, the best way to address that is to address Rowell.

"You see, by now, he knows of us. Undoubtedly, he knows of us – our number and the instruments we carry with us. However, thanks be alive, he knows not our purpose. He assumes, for it is the most logical next move by his reckoning, that we will head to Mithnel Goldrenad. And this would, indeed, be a great blow to his power. However, he has this notion that, at some point, a great adversary will emerge with his ring to challenge and wage open war with him. This is his great fear." Handal laughed as he checked Exigir's main and neck as they rode, patting him roughing. The wizard rode with no saddle; that Exigir had been tamed by someone outside the royal line of Norr-on was pushing luck enough.

"But Rowell is foolish. That no one seeks to dethrone him in open war never has crossed his mind. In fact, he is bent on believing that we wish to replace him after removing him from power. That we wish for his position to be vacant for as long as time will allow us in this world is an unconceivable notion for him.

"This, of course, works for us. By believing that war will be set, he has let loose his armies instead of keeping them within Miseri. Now, Marisa has a chance of penetrating those lands. However, I fear, Mithnel Goldrenad will suffer blows in the coming storm.

"All the while, Rowumell does not realize the danger he faces. For, he has joined the lines of Rowell; a traitor, indeed. And so he does not realize, for he seeks the Valve, as do many these days. He did not know what his orchs carried. And he wondered and worried. Being so, he followed to watch and spy, but he arrived too late. What he found scared him. His mind is constantly on the Valve Ring, so that his first thought at the view of his army's demise was that Prince, Lord of the Mark, may find it and learn of its power. So, he tears back to Miengard to double and triple his assault on Norr-on. The fool. All the time, there is another danger close at hand. He has forgotten Eddie."

Andrew rode up to them at this point. "Less talk; more sex!" he barked in his quasi-serious way.

Strider smiled. "I like this kid." He then turned his attention back to Handal. "You speak to yourself, again. I do not know of Eddie."

"In time!" the wizard protested. "In time. We come now to the gates." They hadn't measured the distance they had traveled and their only means of knowing was the weariness and refusal to bend that their bodies told them. They dismounted and viewed the city with its walls of metal.

"Aaromer spoke right when he questioned a percussion king upon a Brass throne," Emily said, gazing at the doors.

Handal turned his attention to them. "I ask you all, in the greatest tone of direness that my chords can provide, do not speak words that may endanger us. The mind of the king is ill and poisoned by a spy of Rowumell. He is wroth and is already disgruntled with let alone my name, forget my presence. Rowumell knows what I can do. Let me lead."

"Have we ever done otherwise?" Victoria asked him knowingly. He gave her a soft nod as he turned to the gates.

"What's that read?" Michelle asked, indicating writing upon the doors.

"It's in Tongue of French horn," Emily told them. "A poem. It talks of Gary Ergoff, one known well in Norr-on legend. He was a great horse rider and an excellent player, excelling in pitch, range, and articulation. 'May his melodies forever transcend the scales in our hearts'. So they still say in the evening."

It was then that they were besieged by guards. "Who are you and what is your purpose?" they asked in their own Tongue in wonderment, but obvious alarm.

"Why do you talk in such a Tongue? I can speak it but still I ask: why do you not talk in the Common, as is custom of the West?"

The men glanced wearily amongst each other. "It was ordered upon us that we talk in this Tongue and that none who could not speak it could enter, lest they be men of Goldir."
Strider glanced upon them as well. "Did not Aaromer, the Third Marshal of the Mark, give news of our coming? We met him on our way." He made an obscene motion to one of the guards while the others weren't watching, unsettling the guard.

"If that be so," one of the guards responded, "then I'm sure your coming must've been known. It was only two nights ago that Skewervalve came to us and gave us these orders by charge of King Prince."

"Skewervalve?" Handal asked immediately, looking hard at the guard. "Say no more! Our errand is not to Skewervalve, but to the Lord of the Mark himself. I am in haste."

The guards seemed to hesitate. "And who are we to say has come?" one finally asked. "And what to say of you? You seem tired yet there is fight reserved yet in you."

"Well do you observe," Handal told him. "I am Handal, newly now Handal the Composer. I have returned. Here beside me is Mark son of Dave, the heir of Kings. Here also fis Andrew the Alto Saxophone, Emily the French horn, Victoria the Bass Clarinet, and Michelle the Flute, our comrades. Tell Prince that these await him and that we seek speech with him. May he not turn us away."

"Strange names you give," the guard told him. "It shall be done. We shall see what the King of the Mark shall say."

After the guard had left, Handal murmured, "Not the King, no, if Skewervalve stalks within those halls."

The guard soon returned. "Follow me," he told them. Prince gives you leave to enter, but any weapon that you bear, be it only a staff, you must leave on the threshold. The doorwardens will keep them."

As they approached the doors to the hall, the doorwardens asked, as was expected. Emily gave her axe, Andrew his hammer, Michelle her bow and arrows, and Victoria her sword. Handal handed his own over, as well. As Strider gave over his clarinet (much to the surprise of the doorwarden), he told the man, "I command you not to touch it, nor to permit any other to lay hand on it. It is the Clarinet that was Broken and has been made again. Nekclar first wrought it in the deeps of time. If you care for the safety of your world, have none touch it, for its loss will carry a far worse fate than wrath."

As they tried to proceed, the guard kept them still. "You're staff," he said, motioning to Handal.

Handal sighed. "Prudence is one thing but inhospitality is quite another. If I have nothing upon which to lean, I say, Prince will have to see me out here, than in his hall."

Strider laughed. "Would you part this man from his support? You don't want to know where it's been. Come now, let us enter."

The guard looked them over. "In the hand of a wizard, a staff may be more than just a walking stick. But I trust you, as a group, to bear no evil. You do not seem offending. I shall let King Prince deal with me if otherwise."

The group entered the hall. It was dark. At the end of it sat a golden chair. And in that throne sat the king. He was of Indian decent and seemed shriveled as he sat there. He had grown a beard and seemed far older than he ever should have been at this point. His beard, which reached down to his lap and almost seemed to flow, was a pearly white. He seemed to strain to keep his eyes open, as if the task of staying awake was near to impossible.

Behind the king stood a young woman, dressed in white. At the feet of the king, upon steps that led to the thrown, sat a man, a short, black walking stick of his own by his side adorned at the top with a white stone carved in the shape of a viola.

Handal strode forward, exclaiming, "Hail, King Prince of the Mark! I have returned. A storm comes and friends should hark to each other in these times of need, lest they all fall to ruin."

The man at the king's feet rose. In his youth, he may have been tall. Now, he required the walking stick's use.

"I greet you," he said simply, acknowledging the wizard as one does the ground, "and maybe you look for welcome. However, Master Handal, you may not find it here. You have only brought woe to these halls and left unending stress upon the poor king's head. Our sire tires of your voice, if you really must know. When I had heard that Exigir had returned, I rejoiced, I must confess. Without rider only added to my joy. And yet you had left your mark – he could not be re-tamed, so that we had to let him go. And found him again, it seems you did. So when Aaromer brought news of your death, I thought at last our people have seen peace. But it seems I was wrong yet again." He seemed to let those last to words drop off his tongue slower than the rest of his speech. The disdain and contempt carried easily to fill the entire hall.

"Here you come again! And with more ill news. Oh, spare us the garble, could you surprise us just – this – once?" Handal gazed at the mocking face and gave no emotion to reward the man's wordplay. After a bit of silence, the man sighed and turned brusquely away.

As he neared the thrown of the king, a hand, fragile as it was, reached out to stop him. Fixing his eyes on Handal, the king asked slowly, "And why should I welcome you, Handal…Stormcrow…?"

The other man learned near the ear of the king and said, "You speak justly, lord." Straightening as best he could, the man made his way back down the short steps, his cane clicking on the stone floor. "It is not five days that tidings came that your right-hand, Second Marshall of the Mark, was slain on the West Marshes. We welcome no more tidings such as these. We know what awaits us. Precautions have been made.

"You wish to aid us? Horses, swords, men! This would have been aid. Instead you show up with five companions in tatters, and you yourself the most beggar-like of the six!"

Handal looked upon Skewervalve, amused, and the man seemed to shrink back upon his stick. "It seems that much in your halls have changed in these days of late; no longer are they lighted and permit a warmth to greet the stranger. Have your messengers not given their names. The lands of Norr-on have not received guests like these in many ages. These passed through Keeremp-ierkay; their garments still last only because they were received in that ancient land."

"So you alley with that evil land?" Skewervalve slithered. "Ah, I knew better than to trust where you tread."

Emily started her way forward, but was held back gently by Handal. He smiled at her lightly, then faced the thrown once more.

Handal uplifted his staff and took a step forward. His robes seemed to shine brighter as the fires within the hall dimmed, casting away what little light was in those halls.

"You are a fool, Skewervalve! I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with the likes of you!"

The wizard raised his staff higher, yet again. In the gloom, they heard the hiss of Skewervalve's voice: "Did I not counsel you, lord, to forbid his staff? That fool, the doorwarden, has betrayed us!"

There was a stunning flash, and then silence. Skewervalve sprawled on his face.