Chapter Eighteen: Pieces on a Board
Startled, Klad was the first to react, rushing forward and embracing Aki with a fierce hug, further startling Jakk and Bane. They had never seen so much emotion from the knight.
"You're alive," Klad said breathlessly. "Are you well?"
Though her skin was drawn, she smiled. Warmly.
"Well enough to meet you."
Elles spoke.
"You are all here now. Good. My greetings to you, mage Akian Arkyas." Elles bowed to her.
"Greetings, Prince Elles. My apologies for my haste."
Her cordial tone had a sting to it, a touch of frost that Jakk could not shake off. She looked different too. Regal, more as a queen, though a sick one. Her face burned with an unnatural pallor, a flush that could be a fever. Her white mage's robes were gone, replaced by a handsome scarlet linen cloth that set off her pleated clothes, the clothes of Elflanders.
Another formal greeting occurred between the princess of Coneria and the Prince, with a deeper and longer bow made by Emian Taylas than the others. Perhaps it was because it was he who doubted she was a princess, or perhaps it was because he had no wife.
The prince bade them to sit, retiring to a chair in the middle of the chamber, as the chandeliers gave off both of sense of light and heat, illuminating the black wooden table, polished to reveal an ancient scene carved onto the table top, of ships flowing with the waves of the Aldi, guided by the most beautiful woman Jakk had ever seen. It was the water Friend, Alanni.
"You have heard the stories and rumors. Gaia's foundations rumble with discontent and malice, as the four fiends have been loosened from their orbs, to bring this world into another darkness. You four, young souls immersed by our guardians, the Tari, have been chosen to lead the struggle to save Gaia."
Elles put his hands on the desk, opening his palms toward the four.
"This you know, in your hearts, though you have trouble believing it." His eyes flickered to Jakk and Aki. I have put bluntly enough for you now, and I hope you understand what you are endeavoring. Understand this, my friends: though you four lead the world in this battle, many, including my kin, wish to deny the truth. For even the immortal, the Last Battle between Friend and Fiend is a fable, a myth too long to remember. But it is not fable any longer."
A silence followed, like the one that had struck them during their meeting with Luhkan.
Klad responded first.
"This was not the response anticipated, nor the one Luhkan thought we would receive," he replied with nervousness.
Ellya exchanged a genuine smile with his brother, and Taylas grinned too.
"Luhkan? This was exactly what he intended, Ryar of House Haasions. Though you know him by lore-master, he is more than that: much more. A great mage by his own account."
"But he told us that the Prince would tell more of what concerned the Light Warriors with the Prophecies." Jakk stammered.
The elves darkened. "The Prophecies?" Elles repeated. His eyes seemed far away. "The Prophecies are just that: predications of what is to come. It does not have to always come true, and there are some things in that book that are best left not to come true. Thank the Tari many have not been fulfilled. They will not guide you."
He stopped, musing over his words.
"No where is it said that the Light Warriors would restore the Prince of Elfland to his throne," Elles concluded.
"But then, what do we do?"
"Come with me."
The courtyard of the Palace bustled with activity.
The gardens, once pristine, once echoing the twinkling sounds of water splashing onto white marble, were now filled with the anguished groans of the wounded, fresh from the battlefields. Flowers were trampled by boots and hooves, as elven scouts mounted their steeds and sped off, eager to locate the enemy's next movements.
Men, bearing the emblem of the First Lord, rushed past the party, pausing only to bow briefly to Taylas and the Elves. Men who hunted not a day ago.
"Thinks have changed," Bane muttered.
"Yes, they have. We are late in our preparations for war, and we must fortify ourselves before this evil can assail us." Ellya gestured to the Elfland palace itself, three glimmering spikes of marble and stone rising out of the forest, surrounded by many smaller towers. The palace dominated the city skyline.
On one tower, reaching into the sky, men and elves in scaffolding worked like ants scurrying back and forth. They removed, carefully, the stained glass with bars of iron, good for archers, while others reinforced the wall with stone and mortar.
Retainers holding the reins of horses came towards them, dressed as elven scouts, long slender ears hidden beneath hoods of sea blue, capes masking long swords hidden in the waves of lethean clothing. Solemnly, one of the attendants stepped forward.
"My prince, I urge you not to go alone, without an escort. Trolls, however lacking in intelligence, have been known to ambush..." Elles silenced him with a wave, and the retainer bowed his head and stepped back.
The Prince mounted on a steed casually, jumping on lightly, while his servants helped Klad, Jakk, Aki, Bane and Sara. Ellya and Taylas looked on.
"You're in charge while I'm gone, brother," Elles said. The younger elf bowed slightly. Taylas returned Elles's nod, and then smiled to the other humans. "You'll not see us in a while," Taylas said, his hoarse voice still grim, "but you five will be in our thoughts. May the fortunes of men and elves be upon you."
Elles smiled, speaking in his own tongue to them. "Alkaleth al Betar enya takmali."
The six urged their mounts on, under the cover of the darkening sky. And again, as they did at the Dream Castle, they sped off, their destiny on the path, an elf as a guide. Ellya's words would be the last fair speech they would hear for a long time. A quest, to unite as one, with a common goal, was over. A journey would begin.
Death was an easier option than what situation Commander Taxu Bes'tan was in. A month now since his city was besieged, by the King's Own--the King's Own! They had surrounded Tranmankand's stone gray walls and forced the city garrison and citizens inside. A month since anything from the outside world had been heard. Tranmankand's isolated position in the Sind Desert meant it depended on trade by caravans for its survival, but the caravans were gone, and whatever was going on in the world was unknown to his people.
Whatever hastily assembled men on horseback that could be summoned to ride to Pravoka were lost. Only the stone walls, stones hauled by Conerian ships and put together by Conerians, and the Tranmankanders--Conerian settlers of long ago--stood against an army of twenty-five thousand Conerians. Madness! How could Coneria attack Tranmankand, the city that stood between civilization and the wild? It was once their own, a proud fortress against the lingering evils of the North. Bes'tan did not believe it.
And he would find out who was attacking his city.
A fierce cloud of sand blanketed his face, causing him to wince and close his eyes while he rode on the ostrich. The creature's eyes fluttered and opened again, protected by those long eyelashes. The animal, the only dependable source of transportation he could rely on, paced steadily over the raging sandstorm.
A week it had been, since he had silently stole away from the city, leaving only a young lieutenant as its replacement commander. He had told the young man the truth in why he was leaving the city--in a way. The only Tranmankand could hold out was through outside aid, and only the intervention of the Commander of the Guard could successfully bring in help from the Eastern city of Pravoka. Only he wasn't going east. He was going south, to Coneria.
It had take several days for Bes'tan to reason it out. But in the end, it turned out to be a decision on intuition: it could not be Coneria that was attacking Tranmankand. There was something strange about these men who were besieging the city, something not quite right. He knew about Conerians, he had been to the Dream City once; they were proud, almost arrogant, but they had a sense of unbreakable honor and trust. These men, though they wore the same uniforms and armor of the King's Own, were not this way. They were grim and vengeful, with a purpose to destroy the city and salt the grounds. And at night, it seemed like tiny fingers with sharp points on their bodies, much like sand-imps, moved out and about in the camps of the army. Perhaps they were just apparitions, but these men, they were definitely not Conerian.
Bes'tan yanked on the reins, and the ostrich stopped, biting hard on his gloved hand. He had yanked on it too hard, and apologized to the animal. He wanted to look at the odd terrain. The desert was gone. It was like a dividing line between green and yellow, as the sand, suddenly there, had given way to green grass, as if there was no sand at all. But it was because the Sind Desert was expanding, and the grass would soon be covered by the lingering sand storms. Already, from the north, the wind shifted and blew the sand closer to the Dream City. He was almost there. Only a few more leagues to the river, and the bridge, and he, Commander Taxu Bes'tan, would go into the Conerian Castle himself to ask for help against the army.
A long file of cavalry, knights in silver on tall, brown horses, rode at the back of procession. In front was a woman on a black horse, her beauty veiled by a shroud of black. Makery Asuion, Commander of Amladorian Armies, watched the sea of men, all dressed in the Conerian gold and blue, of the King's Own, spread out over the desert sands, surrounding the city. It was beautiful, he reflected. To be able to fool these sand-people into thinking that their own protector, Coneria, was attacking them.
The woman dismounted, her veil still on as the twenty some knights followed her, their armor clanking as they got off their steeds. Their visors were down and each moved in a strange way, mechanically and without any fluid movement expected of humans.
Before Asuion could question anymore the woman spoke.
"What will the city fall?"
"Soon lady," he responded, bowing low though she had not acknowledged him. It was the Fiend of the Earth he was talking to, and to displease her was...suicide. "Very soon. Tranmankand will fall, and its people will be converted to hate Coneria."
The plan was simple. An army besieged Tranmankand, thousands of men and a host of hidden Imps to way lay any unwary travelers that came too close to the siege. The Amladorians had the dress of the King's Own, an elite unit of Conerian Knights, to fool the Tranmankanders into thinking it was Coneria tha was attacking them. Warriors from Tekam, a ruined kingdom that had been a perpetual ally of Amlador and the Fiends would break the siege, scattering the Amladorian army back to their hidden fleets, while Tekam freed Tranmankand to form an alliance with Amlador and Tekam, to forever hate the Dream Kingdom.
It was a plan of deception, and brewed by the Fiends themselves. Asuion knew he was just a piece on the board, being moved like countless others to the eventual battle between Tari and Alatari. But unlike the last war, there was no Tari to fight, just their legacy, slowly dying in the faltering city of Coneria, its last hope placed in the Light Warriors. The Tari were gone, their belief to harmonize with four elements an old philosophy. nothing more. No civilization would live in harmony with its surroundings! They needed to manipulate the elements, to use them for their own needs. To survive. It was something that the first kings of Amlador and Tekam were told to by the Fiends. To them, the clash between Tari and Alatari was not based on good and evil; they did not exist. The Fiends sprang out of the Friends' hearts out of necessity, because they knew something was missing from Gaia. But instead of embracing the aspects of the Fiends, they clashed. It was a clash of ideology, of philosophies, of whether to use the elements or to live in harmony with them. Only in the end, man must inevitably use his surroundings. In the end, the Fiends would prevail.
Lich's hidden eyes surveyed the fake Conerian host, as she looked at the hundreds of tents sprawled in the desert ocean, all of them swaying slightly as the wind puffed.
"My lady, my men have voiced some concerns about the amount of wind-"
"Wind does not concern me. My brother plays with it, and it is not under my control. When do the Tekaman soldiers come?"
"Their approach is in the north, and they have complained about the sand that infests their boots and clothes," Asuion hinted quietly.
The veil hiding those lips, a perfect full red, shifted and flew off, revealing half of the Fiend's face. Asuion gasped. Besides the lips, there was nothing. No flesh, only clean bone. The beautiful woman he imagined was...the flesh grew back, warm white tones permeating her face until there was a face to look at. Slowly, the woman lifted her veil completely. The flesh around her eyes grew back, as she stared at him with dead brown eyes, as if nothing had happened.
"The sand will protect your troops from any unexpected surprises. You do not wish Coneria to see what you are doing to their Northern City, do you?" She pursed her lips sweetly. "Trust in me, as your ancestors have."
Asuion knew why the knights behind her did not lift their visors. Somehow, he imagined them being a thousand times worse.
The candlelight reflected the ivory of the qiess pieces in an odd way, making the abstract faces animated. Queen Jane of Coneria smiled as she moved her piece to an elegant capture of her husband's knight. Lyr's brows furrowed in concentration, and hesitantly, he moved another footman to the next square. Jane skillfully moved her main piece, the queen, to capture his other knight.
"Blast, woman!" Lyr said, playing chiding her as he smiled. He had remembered playing this game during their courtship, and she, a daughter of the Consul of Pravoka, was skilled at diplomacy as much as the game. He had always told his queen he let her win. It was not true. "Your tactics astound me."
She smiled, that same sweet smile that had made him love her for the past thirty years. "All the better to protect my king."
Lyr nodded, looking at the remaining pieces. He group the last knight by the mage, while she completed her move. The jester joined the knight and mage, while Jane moved her queen to another square. His other mage joined the three, completing a four point, a standard defensive procedure.
"It feels sometimes, that we are being used, as pieces on a board, and something greater is moving our direction. Even the Light Warriors are nothing more than pieces, as they are moved from place to place." A great weariness suddenly took him. Wherever those youths were, he felt they were still being moved around like pawns. Was it possible for them to break free? Jane laid an reassuring hand on his.
"If they are pieces, they are moved by the souls of our Creators. While they continue their journey, we must continue ours," she said softly.
A knock interrupted them. "Your majesty? There is an urgent matter to attend to...an unexpected guest."
"Bring him in," Lyr said.
The door opened, admitting a tall man with a heavy cloth wrapped about his face. His clothes marked him as a soldier, a northerner. They were dirty, ripped and torn from grit and wear. He unwrapped the cloth, and bowed.
"I am Commander Taxu Bes'tan of Tranmankand."