Legends of Luternia (2 page)

“Barty, please get out of our way,” said Ulrik.

“Anything to please your majesty,” he mocked, taking off his plumed hat and bowing before him, laughing all the time.

Ulrik moved past him, entered the tower, and followed the apprentice up the stairs to the top. With each step small bones crunched under his feet: bones of rats, squirrels, small birds, and strange ones he didn’t want to recognize. Slime oozed from the walls and though he stumbled once or twice he refrained from reaching out to the walls for support. A reek of decay bore down on him, increasing with each turn up the spiral staircase.

“Wait here while I inform my master, the Royal Mage and King’s Counselor, that you are here.” said the apprentice as he exited through the green-streaked bronze door. Ulrik had the urge to tell him to run away, to go back to where he came from, to escape from this tower of death. But it wouldn’t do any good, because this boy found more hope as the apprentice to a “Royal Mage and King’s Counselor” than as an impoverished farmer’s fourth son.

“You may enter,” commanded the apprentice, pushing open the door with a flourish as if to show off a great prize newly discovered.

The evil in the Mage’s chamber exceeded that of the staircase seven-fold. The tower retained the night’s darkness, despite the brightness of the morning. Odd sounds of skittering haunted shadowy corners. Flies swarmed so thickly over something hanging from a chain that the lump took on a new life. Ulrik retched at the smell. He stood in the doorway for several minutes, holding his stomach, until the Mage emerged from a darkened corner.

“Come in, come in,” beckoned the Mage. “My new apprentice should never have left the crown prince out in the hallway. Excuse him, he is new and has much to learn.” The boy could be heard whimpering out of sight in the corner from which the Mage emerged.

Ulrik entered the lair slowly, listening to the Mage’s hollow, hiss-like breathing. The Mage had pulled his hood back. When outside the tower, the hood concealed his head. The exposed scalp revealed random clumps of unwashed hair, his jaundiced skin dry as parchment. The Mage’s eyes were vertical slits. His teeth, filed to points, were black around the edges. “Come in, my prince,” the Mage urged. “No need to fear.” He reached out with a mottled, gnarled hand and grasped the prince’s arm, squeezing it hard. “How strong you’re growing. Such a fine body you’re developing, my prince.” He extended the sound of the word “prince” to a hiss.

“My prince,” he hissed again, “your father, our king, is quite ill. He seldom remembers from one day to the next what has happened. The day will come when he won’t remember anything at all. He needs your assistance. All of my medicine and magic here is of no help.” The Mage waved his arm drawing attention to the room. Ulrik wondered what good could rise from this chamber of death. Illness, yes; healing, never.

“Only one hope remains, our last hope,” the Mage said as he pulled the prince toward his face, laying both hands on his shoulders and staring into the prince’s eyes. Drawn into the slits of the Mage’s eyes, Ulrik was eager to hear whatever the creature might say. “The milk of the ioni flower. You, his faithful son, must go. Only one of royal blood may touch the flower and coax the precious drops from it. No one else may touch it. A few drops are all your father needs. But you must go soon. The ioni grows far off in the north and produces flowers only in rare years. All my signs and portents point to this very year. Come, look.”

He led Ulrik to a stone table strewn with fresh and rotting carcasses of birds and small animals. “See here,” the Mage thrust his finger into the entrails. “Observe these.” Ulrik saw nothing. “Smell this,” the Mage grabbed a handful from the table, brought it to his nose, and deeply inhaled the vapors as if fine perfume. The prince gagged.

“It all means one thing,” the Mage continued. “You must go, and go quickly to save your father. You must go in secret for all would be lost if certain enemies knew that King Arnuff’s heir was gone from the castle on this special quest. Here, inhale and learn for yourself.” The Mage shoved a handful from the table into Ulrik’s nose.

The prince ran from the tower, stumbling down the stairs. Only at the bottom did he realize that he had touched the walls on the way down. Slime covered his hands; his clothes stank. He staggered into the middle of the courtyard, doubled over, and vomited.

“What a princely thing to do. You must have had a great time with Mage Almighty,” said Barty who had been waiting for him to come down from the tower.

“You leave him alone, Barty!” Edgar yelled as he hurried over and stood between them.

“Barty! How dare you call me Barty? I am the Royal Duke Bartomeus, Count Patalain, and Hereditary Marshall of the Woldermein. You need to learn your manners, you oaf. That is, if you can be trained. My dogs learn faster than you. You should address me only with my permission and then as Sir!”

Crestfallen, Edgar looked to the ground as he shuffled out of the courtyard, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Barty! Look what you’ve done. Haven’t you any feelings for anyone other than yourself? He was trying to help me,” Ulrik said. He turned his back on his cousin and while still holding his stomach, hurried after Edgar.

“Isn’t that a sight to behold, a retching prince and the castle idiot? You two were made for each other.” Barty said as he walked away, laughing.

I don’t know what to tell you, Uley,” said Helga after he recounted what had happened in the tower. “The odd creature may be right. Or he may be lying. Your father trusts him, but I doubt if any truth can come from that man- if he is a man.” Quiet settled over them until the pot of gruel boiled over onto the stove.

“Oh, dearie! You made me completely forget. Ulrik, did you remember that it’s your turn to take your father his dinner. He’s having a bad day and is dining in his bedchamber.”

With an elegance unsuited to the vulgar fare Helga carefully spooned the gruel into a polished crystal bowl and set it on the center of a silver tray bearing the royal seal.

“Do you remember the great banquets I once prepared for his Majesty? The roast boar, the venison, the baked carp, and once an entire stuffed oxen when he won the war . . . and now all his Lordship can swallow is gruel. At least this is the best that can be made,” She laid a freshly pressed linen napkin to the bowl’s left, to its right lay a highly polished silver spoon that flashed in the noon-day light. After one final inspection, she handed the tray to the prince.

Ulrik found this new role of meal-bearer that the Mage lay upon him embarrassing. The Mage explained that the fewer who knew of the king’s condition the better, and limited the visitors to the Mage, Ulrik and Rupert, the king’s chamber servant.

With the tray in hand, Ulrik carefully made his way through the corridors and stairways leading to the king’s chamber. He had to make three sharp turns that he found especially tricky. He counted the successful passing through each a victory. He had passed the first and was nearing the second when Rupert came to him.

“Oh, let me give you a hand with that young prince,” said the old servant as he hobbled down the hallway on arthritic feet.

“Thanks,” said Ulrik, all too ready to hand the tray over to Rupert’s practiced hands. While it was Ulrik’s time to serve the king, that didn’t mean he had to carry the tray by himself. The pair walked side by side through the empty passage. Taking a deep breath Ulrik said, “Rupert.”

“Yes, young prince?”

“How long have you been serving my father?”

“Oh, goodness me, it’s been a great long time. Back to before your father was king. I was his second squire, you know. I don’t recall what happened to the first, but I was the second. And, if I don’t mind bragging a bit, the better of the two.”

“Then you remember when the Mage came to the castle?”

“Sadly I do. You had just turned three years old when your poor mother took sick. She was powerful sick, sad to say. Don’t know what hit her, but it hit her hard. Sent her right to bed and kept her there. Weak, she was, too weak to take care of you. If it weren’t for Helga, I don’t know what would have happened to you. Helga took you under her wing like a mother hen, she did. And she did a fine job of raisin’ you up right, if I can be so bold as to say.”

“About the Mage . . .” reminded Ulrik.

“Oh, yes. Sorry about gettin’ so distracted. He warn’t called the Mage then. He called himself Behdeti, Healer of Egypt. Had quite the reputation he did, which was why your father invited him here. Seems the regular doctors couldn’t do a thing for your mother. No matter what they tried, she never got much better. Then your father heard of this Behdeti, that he not only could heal the sick, but he could raise the dead as well, and your father commanded him to come, promising a great fortune if he would heal your mother.” Rupert and Ulrik passed the second turn and continued up the first stairway to the landing.

“What happened?” asked Ulrik. “Why didn’t he heal her?”

“I’ll get around to that in a minute, just be patient. Let’s sit here awhile so I can let my breath catch up with me.” said Rupert, taking a seat on the deeply carved bench set along the landing’s wall. He handed the tray to Ulrik, who held it carefully on his lap. He felt the heat from the porridge through the silver tray. The servant took a deep breath and continued.

“Your father may have been grief stricken over your mother but he kept his wits about him (not a bad lesson for a young prince to learn, eh?). He didn’t rightly trust this Behdeti. He made Behdeti swear that he would harm neither him nor his family in any way. Your father went so far as to make him swear by his own god. That oath ceremony was the most terrifying thing I saw in all my days.”

“What kind of ceremony?” asked the prince.

“Not the kind I likes to remember. I was there, in the background, sort of. We was up in the tower, the one the Mage now has taken over as his own. The king thought the tower would be far enough away from everyone else. Are you sure you want to hear this? It gives me the willies to recall it.”

“Yes, I have to know what happened.”

“Well, Behdeti had set all these pots of foul smelling incense burning, filling the place with enough smoke to choke on. Then he takes this reddish stone and draws some kind of circles and stars on the floor and stands in the middle of them. He commences to howl nonsense and shake all over, like he had the ague. Your father stood right near. If he was afraid, he didn’t show it. Then the tower starts to shake and the floor starts to heave. I wanted to run but for the sake of the king, I didn’t. The smoke got thicker and thicker while Behdeti howled louder and louder. Then . . . are you sure you want hear this?”

“Yes, Rupert. Please continue.”

“Then out of the smoke comes this image, this form, this ugly thing. Behdeti bows before it, scrapping the floor with his forehead and all, and calling it Behomet, my Master, my Prince of Darkness. And then- I promise you this is as true as I’m sitting here- a voice comes out of the smoke as plain as day asking what he wants. Behdeti pleads that this demon witness the oath he’s about to make. The demon agrees and says that if the oath be broken Behdeti would be his slave in hell for all eternity. And just to give him a taste, the demon flicked his little finger and a bit of flame flew to Behdeti and Behdeti was thrown to the ground, writhing in agony. Then the demon disappeared and Behdeti stood. He was shaken, I tell you. I’ve seen men shaken in the worst kinds of battle, but that warn’t nothing compared to what he endured. He’d tasted hell and he was scared of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, young prince, is that your Mage, this Behdeti, may be evil as all get out, but he’s scared of what might happen to him if he breaks his oath to your father. He may not do much to help you, but he won’t harm you, not you, nor your father.”

“But what about my mother? Why didn’t he heal her? Why did Behdeti let her die?”

“Ah yes, your mother. Pride finally done her in. Not her pride for she was as gentle and humble as any woman I’ve ever met. No, it was the Mage’s pride. He let her die. He let her die so he could show everyone his power to raise the dead. He left her dead for four days, one more than three, as he bragged at the time. But that was too long. As much as he tried, as much as he chanted, and danced, and poured his bloody potions, she remained dead to the world. That broke your father, it did. For three days he lay on her coffin, motionless. Then, when he did rise to his feet he was a shattered man, not really caring about anything. Not even you, his own son, I’m sorry to say. He went through the motions of being king, but it weren’t like the old days, not at all. Well, we best get on with our duties before the porridge freezes over. Do you want me to bring it in or do you want to?”

“I will,” said Ulrik, holding the tray and walking up the stairs the rest of the way without mishap.

He entered his father’s chamber. Ulrik was only able to approach his father since he had taken so ill. Before the king’s illness, Ulrik observed his father from a distance as a mere member of the royal household in the weekly audiences held in the Great Hall. Each Friday the household members bowed before the king and awaited his Majesty’s nod of dismissal. Twice in eleven years the king smiled at his son, once when Ulrik joined the boar hunt and again when he struggled to wear the king’s own oversized armor.

Ulrik’s entry failed to awaken King Arnuff. Heavy curtains hung over the long windows darkening the chamber. The prince vaguely remembered a time when sunlight filtered through the stained glassed windows and filled the room with bright blues, greens, and reds. All that was long past, a time when his mother tried to catch the colors for him. Gloom now reigned and the chamber bore the faint scent of the Mage’s tower. The prince stepped in, steadying the tray as he walked. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and he made his way to his father’s bedside where he set the tray on the side table.