I'm sorry, I didn't write more in such a long time. I had to do my A-levels
as well as move to another town to start studying at university; so I have
enough excuses to last even two more months! Anyway, here I present the
work I have done in these last 3 days of excessive writing sessions. (It's
really amazing, how much more time you will put into writing if you don't
have a TV in your new apartment.) I have also rewritten parts of the
earlier chapters. I hope things are more comprehensible now: like, why
exactly did Steven's father send him to the City of the Gods instead of
Corus etc. I think, I've taken a liking in thinking up political or social
facts for Tortall. I'm sure, you will realize this not only in the whole
'Steven-matter' in chapter, what is it? 2?, but also in this very chapter,
which in fact is two chapters put together. I hope you like it! ~ Regen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6 (The Rogue, his mother and - your bonus - a real seer, who unfortunately doesn't really last long. To perfect the drama, there's also a lot of sorrow, despair and patriotism.)
It was cold, so very cold when she woke up. Her face and hands were numb and her teeth were rattling. Alanna opened her eyes slowly, blinked a few times and then realized that she was lying on a soft bed with two blankets covering her shivering body.
The room she was in looked rather homely - with solid wooden chairs, table and cupboards. Flames in an oven on one side of the room send their flickering lights darting over every surface. Secretly, Alanna wondered how it was possible for a room to be so cold in temperature while so warm in outlook.
"Cold." she whispered and started an attempt to gain a foetal position in which she would not lose as much warmth. She stopped this attempt however, when she realized that somebody had put pillows underneath her legs. Her feet were lying higher than her head. But why.
'Shock.' a part of her mind said. 'You've had a shock. That's why you're feeling so cold, too!'
"A shock." Alanna repeated slowly. Somehow she did not know why she would have had a shock, though. Thinking deeply, she scratched her nose, but was back in reality at once, because scratching hurt. Another reason was that obviously some slimy substance covered the skin on her face and hands. Alanna sniffed at it.
"Aloe." The part of her brain reserved for healing knowledge was working hard now. Shock, Aloe,.. red hands?
Suddenly the girl remembered most of what had happened: Maude, two men on the streets, magic building up. And then. fire, possibly. (A/N: someone told me, if you fainted you didn't have any remembrance of at least some seconds before. Cause you can't build proteins so fast and proteins is what recollections are, actually.) But. where was she now?
Slowly, Alanna moved to sit on the edge of the bed to get nearer to the fireplace. All the while she tried hard to ignore the obtrusive blackness that attempted to conquer all of her view for a few moments.
"So, you're up again?" a dark, warm voice suddenly asked. When Alanna moved to locate the voice's offspring, her eyes fell onto a muscular figure leaning at the wall near the doorway. It was the man from the streets, the one who had been talking about ears. Pretty ears.
Alanna's muscles flexed when she wondered if he was some kind of pervert. In the convent, lesson: 'what a future husband might be like and how to please him', the ladies had learnt that some men were sexually fixated on special limbs or cloths. And of course that a wife had to accept these kinds of weirdness in her husband.
Alanna had always thought this a bit creepy. After that lesson, she had - for 23 nights in a row! - dreamt of her best friend Steven asking a fellow ladies-student in a bride's gown to let him lick her thumps. And that student had just sort of ripped off those fingers and given them to him while the blood was flowing down the whole hand and Maude had had to try and stop the blood loss.
Alanna shook her head to clear it and looked at the man in front of her. She meant to ask where she was, what had happened, but what came out instead was a slightly slurred "You're not after my ears, now, are you?"
The man - his name was George, Alanna believed to remember vaguely - let out a lazy laugh, which relaxed her at once. "No, I'm not. We meet for the first time, and you're already expecting me to cut your pretty ears? You don't even look like you're one of my people, lass." He pretended to eye her carefully. "But you never know. what's your name, and where do you come from?"
Amused by his playful interrogation, she answered shortly, matching his playful tone: "Alanna. City of the Gods, originally Trebond. You?"
"Alanna?" He seemed surprised about something. But why? Sure, Alanna wasn't a name as common as Eleni or Helena. But still, there was no reason to be so surprised about it, Alanna thought. Perhaps he had somehow heard about her. But.. No. The thought amused her. It wasn't like she was famous, though she might have been if only her father.
"I should've known." The man interrupted her thought with a slight grin. "That explains a lot."
Alanna, who didn't like being in the dark about anything, shot him a look. "Pardon?"
His grin widened. "I have the Sight. It usually helps me in my business and life. Today, it told me to go easy on Harry and be nice to a pretty redhead in the streets. And look, where it got me: I'm in one room with the famous Alanna of Trebond who has a gift for both healing and fighting and is about the only noble lady who obviously doesn't mind being dressed as simple as a common girl in Corus."
"And who doesn't take shit from anybody." Alanna added in a tone that made it clear that he should explain. or else!
"I beg your pardon, milady." His grin didn't waver in the least. "The name's George Cooper, and I believe that we have a mutual friend. Bart the Knife's his name."
"You're George Cooper?" Alanna interrupted him, ignoring all the rules of politeness one had ever tried to teach her. This was way too exciting. "You're not his friend, you're his boss." she accused him. "The Rogue himself."
George frowned lightly. "I didn't know, he had told you about his. work. He must trust you even more than I thought he did."
- "So the girl's up?" a female voice suddenly interrupted George, who was still standing in the doorway.
Behind him, there was a middle-aged woman in simple clothing, who leaned lightly on a crutch. Her hair was chestnut-coloured with only one or two streaks of white in it. The eyes that looked at Alanna were hazel and warm, though hard lines framed them as well as the smiling mouth. There was such likeliness between her and George, that Alanna at once suspected them to be mother and son.
"I am Mistress Cooper, the mother of this good-for-nothing boy. I've been looking after your injuries. You've merely suffered light burns on your face and hands. I don't think you are going to be scarred, if you use the balm I am going to give you."
Alanna restrained from telling George's mother that she wouldn't need the balm, that she could make some on her own. She didn't want to hurt her pride; with the expensive balm (especially expensive in a time when medicine was in as short a supply as now) Mistress Cooper was probably trying to make up for the hurt Alanna had indirectly received through her son.
The woman neared Alanna with a small vial, which probably held the balm she had mentioned. When she tripped on her short way to the bed, it became obvious to Alanna's trained eye that Mistress Cooper had to use her crutch because of exhaustion, not because of some leg injury.
"You should be resting, not moving around." The words slipped out of her mouth before Alanna even realized it.
The corners of the woman's mouth quivered slightly. "Has George paid you to tell me that? I'm a healer-woman, girl. I know my own limits."
Alanna sat up a bit straighter at that. The woman's ranking was higher than her own; and although the healers didn't really give much about a formal hierarchy, an apprentice had to pay respect to those who had more of experience.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't realize you were /Healer-woman/ Cooper. In Willow Street, if I'm right? I was sent to you from the Palace. I was told that you are also a dealer in herbs and would be able to supply us with the plants we are in need for. I have got a list of the ones we need."
-----
.
George had left shortly after the two females (can't say women; after all, Alanna's only 13!) had started discussing the list of herbs, excusing himself with some business he had to go after. Alanna wondered if that 'business' had anything to do with Harry's ears - as weird as that sounded even to her. But soon she got too busy to be thinking about anything other than herbs as she helped Mistress Cooper readying the packs of herbs to go to the palace.
- The news reached them minutes before tenth bell, roughly three hours after Alanna had awoken at Mistress Cooper's. They came to them in form of a red-faced, bald man who rushed through the streets in panic. Frantically screaming, he broke down in front of Mistress Cooper's neighbour's door. Soon a small crowd, including the two healers, formed around the man.
"He's dying! Death, death, everywhere! Our sinful lives are coming down on us! The Gods have turned away from us! He's dying now, too. Dying! Dying!"
The man's words drowned in a sea of tears, while Alanna's short-lived illusion of a peaceful life came to shattering halt. She'd just about forgotten the reason for which she had been standing in the cosy, dimmed cave full of herbs. The disease. It had still been there. It didn't take breaks nor did it know mercy. For all she knew, it could already have claimed the king or - her heart ached at the thought - her brother.
Compassionately she bowed down to the man to offer him her help - may Maude say what she want, Alanna didn't intend on letting anyone die without a fight. But the man denied her help even before she could offer it. (That's a hint. Well... not important. You'll See.)
"No, no, I don't need your help, no one will be needing help anymore! It's him! Our future is dying!" the man screamed again. "There is not one healer left in the whole of Corus who could help him now! They are all weakened, helpless. He will die, and our land will fall into the hands of the Sorcerer! The Orange Demon! We all shall go down with him! I know it!"
The man was obviously going crazy with pain. Alanna desperately wanted to help him.
"But who is dying?" she asked. "Where is he?"
"Our lord." His voice suddenly became less shrill; it became calmer as if the man had finally found the will to accept whatever fate held. He spoke like a herald, announcing the Gods' will. "His royal highness Prince Jonathan lies on his deathbed at this very moment."
The crowd around the man gasped, just before his eyes clouded, their once green colour fading to the misty grey of a true seer.
"Even the Gods cannot see what is going to happen now. This is a turning point. Two ways to chose and one to go. Exhausted healers can't do the task. Might as well give up before starting! The future will end like it is. Or perhaps there is a way? Is it up to many to /hinder/ the one from immediate success, for he cannot be stopped just now? Violet fire . But, this.. Ah!"
With a last groan, the bald seer, suddenly aged threefold, closed his eyes and let his head sink to the ground. (Very Hollywood-style, if you ask me!)
"He tried to See too much. He used his life-force to See and died." Mistress Cooper whispered. "May the Gods save us all, the Prince's life is in jeopardy!"
The people around them quietly drew the sign against all evil in the air or started to pray.
- Prince Jonathan was an only child, and therefore the only rightful heir to the throne of Tortall. Although his father, the King, didn't allow him much of contact with the common people, there was not one week without a new rumour about the Prince's pranks or love life going round in the City. He was a lively young man, but still very responsible when it came to his duties as a Prince. The people liked that in him.
Sure, there existed a Duke Roger of Conté, the Prince's cousin. He was next heir after the Prince. But he was neither very well known in the people nor did he seem very nice. He was a powerful sorcerer who had travelled just about the whole known world. But he wasn't someone to sympathise with. He was just too slippery (is that the right word? My dictionary isn't really very informative here), too perfect. Somehow he didn't seem human; he had no flaws, no enemies, no vices! No one, especially not the people of Corus, wanted a perfect doll as a king. They wanted a human! They wanted Prince Jonathan.
"My Gods!" a woman suddenly started to scream at the sky. "Is there truly no hope? The Black God took my daughter, but, Mother, don't let him take our country's future!"
"Perhaps it is the Gods will? Perhaps the Prince just isn't meant to be king?" A tall man in a nightshirt asked uncertainly.
"Maybe the Seer was wrong." Another suggested. "Maybe there is still hope. There has to be at least one healer left at the Palace. They've got the best healers of the whole land!"
"No." Alanna quietly said. All heads turned towards her. "Yesterday there was a new break-out in the Palace. The healers used all their powers to try and heal those infected. Not one of the healers in the palace nor in the city of Corus is in any condition to be helping anyone anymore."
With that she turned and got back into the house, only to reappear a few moments later with some small bags of herbs in her hands.
"Mistress Cooper." She addressed the healer-woman who was silently staring at the dead Seer's body at her feet. "I will make sure that you will receive your payment for the herbs, but right now I have to make sure the Prince gets all the medicine he needs. . Goodbye."
Alanna turned on her heels and ran back to the Palace as fast as possible. It wasn't very difficult to find the way, as the Palace stood on a hill above the City and could be seen from any place inside Corus.
- The screams of sorrow and pain had suddenly declined to make way for a different prayer as the people realized the approach of a greater misfortune than their own private disasters. Men, women and children alike stepped onto the streets to face the high palace-walls. Their lips moved in- sync in silent prayer:
"Gods, save the Prince!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6 (The Rogue, his mother and - your bonus - a real seer, who unfortunately doesn't really last long. To perfect the drama, there's also a lot of sorrow, despair and patriotism.)
It was cold, so very cold when she woke up. Her face and hands were numb and her teeth were rattling. Alanna opened her eyes slowly, blinked a few times and then realized that she was lying on a soft bed with two blankets covering her shivering body.
The room she was in looked rather homely - with solid wooden chairs, table and cupboards. Flames in an oven on one side of the room send their flickering lights darting over every surface. Secretly, Alanna wondered how it was possible for a room to be so cold in temperature while so warm in outlook.
"Cold." she whispered and started an attempt to gain a foetal position in which she would not lose as much warmth. She stopped this attempt however, when she realized that somebody had put pillows underneath her legs. Her feet were lying higher than her head. But why.
'Shock.' a part of her mind said. 'You've had a shock. That's why you're feeling so cold, too!'
"A shock." Alanna repeated slowly. Somehow she did not know why she would have had a shock, though. Thinking deeply, she scratched her nose, but was back in reality at once, because scratching hurt. Another reason was that obviously some slimy substance covered the skin on her face and hands. Alanna sniffed at it.
"Aloe." The part of her brain reserved for healing knowledge was working hard now. Shock, Aloe,.. red hands?
Suddenly the girl remembered most of what had happened: Maude, two men on the streets, magic building up. And then. fire, possibly. (A/N: someone told me, if you fainted you didn't have any remembrance of at least some seconds before. Cause you can't build proteins so fast and proteins is what recollections are, actually.) But. where was she now?
Slowly, Alanna moved to sit on the edge of the bed to get nearer to the fireplace. All the while she tried hard to ignore the obtrusive blackness that attempted to conquer all of her view for a few moments.
"So, you're up again?" a dark, warm voice suddenly asked. When Alanna moved to locate the voice's offspring, her eyes fell onto a muscular figure leaning at the wall near the doorway. It was the man from the streets, the one who had been talking about ears. Pretty ears.
Alanna's muscles flexed when she wondered if he was some kind of pervert. In the convent, lesson: 'what a future husband might be like and how to please him', the ladies had learnt that some men were sexually fixated on special limbs or cloths. And of course that a wife had to accept these kinds of weirdness in her husband.
Alanna had always thought this a bit creepy. After that lesson, she had - for 23 nights in a row! - dreamt of her best friend Steven asking a fellow ladies-student in a bride's gown to let him lick her thumps. And that student had just sort of ripped off those fingers and given them to him while the blood was flowing down the whole hand and Maude had had to try and stop the blood loss.
Alanna shook her head to clear it and looked at the man in front of her. She meant to ask where she was, what had happened, but what came out instead was a slightly slurred "You're not after my ears, now, are you?"
The man - his name was George, Alanna believed to remember vaguely - let out a lazy laugh, which relaxed her at once. "No, I'm not. We meet for the first time, and you're already expecting me to cut your pretty ears? You don't even look like you're one of my people, lass." He pretended to eye her carefully. "But you never know. what's your name, and where do you come from?"
Amused by his playful interrogation, she answered shortly, matching his playful tone: "Alanna. City of the Gods, originally Trebond. You?"
"Alanna?" He seemed surprised about something. But why? Sure, Alanna wasn't a name as common as Eleni or Helena. But still, there was no reason to be so surprised about it, Alanna thought. Perhaps he had somehow heard about her. But.. No. The thought amused her. It wasn't like she was famous, though she might have been if only her father.
"I should've known." The man interrupted her thought with a slight grin. "That explains a lot."
Alanna, who didn't like being in the dark about anything, shot him a look. "Pardon?"
His grin widened. "I have the Sight. It usually helps me in my business and life. Today, it told me to go easy on Harry and be nice to a pretty redhead in the streets. And look, where it got me: I'm in one room with the famous Alanna of Trebond who has a gift for both healing and fighting and is about the only noble lady who obviously doesn't mind being dressed as simple as a common girl in Corus."
"And who doesn't take shit from anybody." Alanna added in a tone that made it clear that he should explain. or else!
"I beg your pardon, milady." His grin didn't waver in the least. "The name's George Cooper, and I believe that we have a mutual friend. Bart the Knife's his name."
"You're George Cooper?" Alanna interrupted him, ignoring all the rules of politeness one had ever tried to teach her. This was way too exciting. "You're not his friend, you're his boss." she accused him. "The Rogue himself."
George frowned lightly. "I didn't know, he had told you about his. work. He must trust you even more than I thought he did."
- "So the girl's up?" a female voice suddenly interrupted George, who was still standing in the doorway.
Behind him, there was a middle-aged woman in simple clothing, who leaned lightly on a crutch. Her hair was chestnut-coloured with only one or two streaks of white in it. The eyes that looked at Alanna were hazel and warm, though hard lines framed them as well as the smiling mouth. There was such likeliness between her and George, that Alanna at once suspected them to be mother and son.
"I am Mistress Cooper, the mother of this good-for-nothing boy. I've been looking after your injuries. You've merely suffered light burns on your face and hands. I don't think you are going to be scarred, if you use the balm I am going to give you."
Alanna restrained from telling George's mother that she wouldn't need the balm, that she could make some on her own. She didn't want to hurt her pride; with the expensive balm (especially expensive in a time when medicine was in as short a supply as now) Mistress Cooper was probably trying to make up for the hurt Alanna had indirectly received through her son.
The woman neared Alanna with a small vial, which probably held the balm she had mentioned. When she tripped on her short way to the bed, it became obvious to Alanna's trained eye that Mistress Cooper had to use her crutch because of exhaustion, not because of some leg injury.
"You should be resting, not moving around." The words slipped out of her mouth before Alanna even realized it.
The corners of the woman's mouth quivered slightly. "Has George paid you to tell me that? I'm a healer-woman, girl. I know my own limits."
Alanna sat up a bit straighter at that. The woman's ranking was higher than her own; and although the healers didn't really give much about a formal hierarchy, an apprentice had to pay respect to those who had more of experience.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't realize you were /Healer-woman/ Cooper. In Willow Street, if I'm right? I was sent to you from the Palace. I was told that you are also a dealer in herbs and would be able to supply us with the plants we are in need for. I have got a list of the ones we need."
-----
.
George had left shortly after the two females (can't say women; after all, Alanna's only 13!) had started discussing the list of herbs, excusing himself with some business he had to go after. Alanna wondered if that 'business' had anything to do with Harry's ears - as weird as that sounded even to her. But soon she got too busy to be thinking about anything other than herbs as she helped Mistress Cooper readying the packs of herbs to go to the palace.
- The news reached them minutes before tenth bell, roughly three hours after Alanna had awoken at Mistress Cooper's. They came to them in form of a red-faced, bald man who rushed through the streets in panic. Frantically screaming, he broke down in front of Mistress Cooper's neighbour's door. Soon a small crowd, including the two healers, formed around the man.
"He's dying! Death, death, everywhere! Our sinful lives are coming down on us! The Gods have turned away from us! He's dying now, too. Dying! Dying!"
The man's words drowned in a sea of tears, while Alanna's short-lived illusion of a peaceful life came to shattering halt. She'd just about forgotten the reason for which she had been standing in the cosy, dimmed cave full of herbs. The disease. It had still been there. It didn't take breaks nor did it know mercy. For all she knew, it could already have claimed the king or - her heart ached at the thought - her brother.
Compassionately she bowed down to the man to offer him her help - may Maude say what she want, Alanna didn't intend on letting anyone die without a fight. But the man denied her help even before she could offer it. (That's a hint. Well... not important. You'll See.)
"No, no, I don't need your help, no one will be needing help anymore! It's him! Our future is dying!" the man screamed again. "There is not one healer left in the whole of Corus who could help him now! They are all weakened, helpless. He will die, and our land will fall into the hands of the Sorcerer! The Orange Demon! We all shall go down with him! I know it!"
The man was obviously going crazy with pain. Alanna desperately wanted to help him.
"But who is dying?" she asked. "Where is he?"
"Our lord." His voice suddenly became less shrill; it became calmer as if the man had finally found the will to accept whatever fate held. He spoke like a herald, announcing the Gods' will. "His royal highness Prince Jonathan lies on his deathbed at this very moment."
The crowd around the man gasped, just before his eyes clouded, their once green colour fading to the misty grey of a true seer.
"Even the Gods cannot see what is going to happen now. This is a turning point. Two ways to chose and one to go. Exhausted healers can't do the task. Might as well give up before starting! The future will end like it is. Or perhaps there is a way? Is it up to many to /hinder/ the one from immediate success, for he cannot be stopped just now? Violet fire . But, this.. Ah!"
With a last groan, the bald seer, suddenly aged threefold, closed his eyes and let his head sink to the ground. (Very Hollywood-style, if you ask me!)
"He tried to See too much. He used his life-force to See and died." Mistress Cooper whispered. "May the Gods save us all, the Prince's life is in jeopardy!"
The people around them quietly drew the sign against all evil in the air or started to pray.
- Prince Jonathan was an only child, and therefore the only rightful heir to the throne of Tortall. Although his father, the King, didn't allow him much of contact with the common people, there was not one week without a new rumour about the Prince's pranks or love life going round in the City. He was a lively young man, but still very responsible when it came to his duties as a Prince. The people liked that in him.
Sure, there existed a Duke Roger of Conté, the Prince's cousin. He was next heir after the Prince. But he was neither very well known in the people nor did he seem very nice. He was a powerful sorcerer who had travelled just about the whole known world. But he wasn't someone to sympathise with. He was just too slippery (is that the right word? My dictionary isn't really very informative here), too perfect. Somehow he didn't seem human; he had no flaws, no enemies, no vices! No one, especially not the people of Corus, wanted a perfect doll as a king. They wanted a human! They wanted Prince Jonathan.
"My Gods!" a woman suddenly started to scream at the sky. "Is there truly no hope? The Black God took my daughter, but, Mother, don't let him take our country's future!"
"Perhaps it is the Gods will? Perhaps the Prince just isn't meant to be king?" A tall man in a nightshirt asked uncertainly.
"Maybe the Seer was wrong." Another suggested. "Maybe there is still hope. There has to be at least one healer left at the Palace. They've got the best healers of the whole land!"
"No." Alanna quietly said. All heads turned towards her. "Yesterday there was a new break-out in the Palace. The healers used all their powers to try and heal those infected. Not one of the healers in the palace nor in the city of Corus is in any condition to be helping anyone anymore."
With that she turned and got back into the house, only to reappear a few moments later with some small bags of herbs in her hands.
"Mistress Cooper." She addressed the healer-woman who was silently staring at the dead Seer's body at her feet. "I will make sure that you will receive your payment for the herbs, but right now I have to make sure the Prince gets all the medicine he needs. . Goodbye."
Alanna turned on her heels and ran back to the Palace as fast as possible. It wasn't very difficult to find the way, as the Palace stood on a hill above the City and could be seen from any place inside Corus.
- The screams of sorrow and pain had suddenly declined to make way for a different prayer as the people realized the approach of a greater misfortune than their own private disasters. Men, women and children alike stepped onto the streets to face the high palace-walls. Their lips moved in- sync in silent prayer:
"Gods, save the Prince!"