Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2

C
opyright © 2016 by D.K
. Holmberg

Cover by Rebecca Frank

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L
acertin Alaseth stood
outside the palace, the cool breeze of the elemental ara blowing along his face. The wind here was so different than the bitter, hot air he’d spent the last few months suffering through while in Nara and then Incendin. His warrior sword, a gently curved blade he long ago named Fillian, hung sheathed at his waist. He didn’t know the reason he hesitated entering, but a part of him wasn’t ready to return. Months away from the palace, time when he’d had only one responsibility, had given him a different perspective. Now that was all over.

With a sigh, he started through the garden outside the palace. The entire garden was shaped into existence using water, wind, earth, and fire. Ancient shapers made the design at a time when they still had skills now lost, and had designed it to remind those passing through of the different lands within the kingdoms. There were trees with a shaped breeze meant to represent Galen, the steady lapping of waves from a pool meant to be Vatten, rows of tall flowers for Ter, and the sand and hard rock of Nara. Lacertin avoided all of it, sticking with the path leading through the heart of the garden and into the palace.

Servants moved quickly all around. Lacertin blinked at the activity, much more than he was accustomed to. Many carried linens, hurrying through the halls and up the winding stairs to the king’s chambers, and others brought things like basins of water, candles, and bandages.

The air within the palace had a medicinal odor to it, and Lacertin realized the king had grown sicker than the last time he’d seen him. Then, he’d still had a sense of vibrancy, an air of strength, that made it difficult to believe that he would ever fail. Yet even then, the sickness within him was spreading. Lacertin had sensed it but felt helpless to do anything to slow it. Water shaping was not his strength and had never been. If there was anything he could do with a fire shaping, maybe he would have been able to help. Instead, he was left with a sense of hopelessness; the only thing that he could do to help his king was to follow his command and find the lost artifact.

Would it matter now that he had?

“You are not to be here.”

Lacertin turned to see a compact man wearing a crisp white uniform staring up at him. His long nose protruded from beneath wire-framed spectacles, and his hands were squeezed before him in something that resembled a bow. “Am I not?” he asked with a hint of a smile to Bren. Once, the old master of servants would have recognized him. Perhaps Lacertin had changed more than he realized while he was gone.

“The palace has been closed for the last two weeks. Missives were sent throughout the city—”

“I’m here to see the king,” Lacertin said softly.

Bren’s eyes flicked from Lacertin’s face to his dress, the now-dirty cloak hanging around his shoulders worn nearly threadbare and tattered, before finally settling on the sword hanging from his waist. If nothing else, the warrior sword marked Lacertin as one of the king’s warrior shapers, and that should give him full access to the palace.

“Lacertin,” Bren said. He’d recognized the sword rather than his face, Lacertin suspected. “You have been gone many months.”

“King Ilton assigned me a task and requested that I not return until it was complete.” His hand drifted to his pocket, where the parts of the small golden box rested. Even now, it was incomplete, but he didn’t dare remain away from the city any longer. It was the first time that he had failed his king. “Is he…” He glanced to the stairs leading toward the king’s quarters, watching the flurry of activity from servants making their way up and down.

“He lives, if that is what you ask,” Bren said. He made a sharp motion with his hand and two of the servants making their way down the hall took off into a run. Bren looked back at Lacertin. “Much has changed while you’ve been away. The king no longer rules as he once did.”

No longer rules. That meant that the illness had spread much more than before, possibly enough that Ilton was beyond hope. Ilton would eventually succumb to the illness—his weak water sensing told him that much—but he’d hoped that the water healers would be able to delay it. The healers at the university were master shapers, so if they couldn’t do anything, then perhaps Ilton was farther gone than he had expected.

“Althem rules?” Lacertin asked. He tried to mask the irritation in his voice but feared that fatigue made his feelings toward the prince known. He and Althem had never seen eye to eye, less so with as much as Althem favored Theondar.

“Althem meets with his father regularly for guidance. Most feel that Althem already rules, but he has made it clear that he does so in his father’s name.”

There was a note of respect in Bren’s voice that Lacertin recognized. Surprising, considering the way most felt toward Althem prior to Lacertin leaving the city. Even Ilton hadn’t viewed his son all that favorably, thinking that Ilianna might be the more natural leader. For even that to change, for Ilton to willingly work with Althem, it told him that even more had changed than he had expected.

Possibly, his return had come too late to be of any use.

“Tell me, Bren, where might I find the king?”

“Althem is in—”

Lacertin cut him off with a shake of his head. “Not Althem. I seek Ilton.”

“As I’ve told you, Althem rules in his father’s stead.”

Lacertin nodded. “That may be the case, but it was King Ilton himself who assigned my task. I would have him know that I’ve returned.”

“Lacertin, you know that I respect what you’ve done for the kingdoms,” Bren started, “but Ethea is different now. The shapers are different.”

‘What do you mean the shapers are different? The university remains. The masters are unchanged. There are warriors—”

“Not as many as there were. We’ve lost Roln and Pherah.”

Lacertin clenched his hands. He hadn’t known that either had been lost. “What happened?” he asked softly.

“You… you didn’t know?”

“Word did not spread where I have been.”.

“It must not have, else you would have returned sooner.”

“How?” he asked.

Bren led him down the hall, guiding him away from the main part of the hall, moving him away from the continued movement of the servants, as if he feared what he had to share. His lips were pursed into a thin line and he made no effort to answer Lacertin’s question.

They stopped along the wall of portraits, each one of the previous rulers of the kingdoms. Warriors were expected to learn the names and faces of each, though few took that responsibility seriously. Lacertin had made a point of learning as much as he could about the prior rulers, knowing that he could better serve Ilton in the present if he understood the past. There were hundreds of portraits along the wall, many made so long ago that the paint had long since faded, leaving them barely more than smears of color.

In the thousand years that the kingdoms had been in existence, there had been hundreds of rulers, some for as few as weeks, while others had served for nearly half a century. Ilton had lasted nearly thirty years, but now his reign was coming to an end and Althem would assume the throne.

Lacertin wondered if there was significance to the picture Bren stopped in front of. Chaladon, Third of his Name, had been a fair ruler, but the historians had long claimed that he died before his time. Some claimed assassination while others thought it the result of an uncontrolled shaping.

“I have often wondered if these other rulers ran their household in much the same way as King Ilton. Were they as open as he has been? Or did they run the palace with a firmer hand?” He crossed his arms over his chest as he stepped down the hall, stopping this time in front of Queen Althea. She was a notoriously difficult ruler, using her strength in shaping lead, but with more force than historians now viewed as necessary.

“What are you implying?” Lacertin asked.

Bren glanced up the hall. There was no one around them. “I imply nothing, Lacertin. I merely make an observation.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand your observation.”

“You have always been blunt, haven’t you?”

Lacertin laughed. “I haven’t found any reason for deception and that being a little more forthright prevents any confusion.”

“There are times when it pays to be more circumspect,” Bren said.

“That may be true within the city, but outside the city, in the rest of the kingdoms, there is no need to be circumspect.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps had Pherah and Roln been more careful, they would still live.”

Lacertin frowned. What did Bren imply by such a statement?

Pherah had been his closest ally. Most outside the kingdoms saw the warriors as a unified group, but they were anything but unified. There were warriors like Lacertin, who served the king with what had been called a blind fervor—he considered it a measured devotion—and others who preferred a more calculated response.

Pherah had served Ilton with the same loyalty as Lacertin. Hers came from a different source than his, though. Ilton had always been good to Lacertin and had treated him better than any in his life. Growing up in Nara, he was accustomed to others viewing his people as something less than the rest of the kingdoms, as if he served in any less a capacity than any of the other warriors. Pherah had a different reason for her devotion, but one no less valid: she was the king’s sister.

Lacertin felt a little different about Roln. He was a skilled warrior and had been one of the first to offer lessons to Lacertin in earth and wind shaping when Lacertin learned that he could be a warrior, but he was always distant. There had never been a doubt about his loyalty to the throne, but he was never all that warm or welcoming. Still, Lacertin felt pain at his loss. Losing both Roln and Pherah weakened the kingdoms, but more than that, he worried about
why
they had been lost.

“What happened to them?” he asked.

Bren glanced up the hall again. “Roln investigated a border attack.”

“Incendin?” Lacertin hadn’t heard of a border attack, but that didn’t mean that there hadn’t been one. He’d been so focused on finding the parts of Ilton’s artifact that he hadn’t paid any attention to what Incendin might be doing. Maybe that had been a mistake. What if there would have been something that he could have done to help?

“I’m not privy to such details, Lacertin.”

He laughed again. “Bren, you have served in the palace for longer than Ilton has been king. I think we both know that you know the details. You don’t need to be so secretive.”

Bren smiled tightly at Lacertin. “Not secretive. Circumspect.”

He pushed on a place on the wall between two of the portraits. There was a soft click and then a narrow door swung open. Bren stepped into the doorway and paused.

“You will find King Ilton in his chambers. He is… less accessible… than he once would have been. You have always been a loyal servant of the throne, Lacertin, so I wish you the best of luck now that you’re back in Ethea.”

With the strange comment, he stepped through the door and closed it with a soft click.