The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One) (9 page)

When the task was at last complete, they rested, all soreness and sweat, and then quietly went about gathering stones to serve as a marker.  Considering how much he had disliked Ashel, Andaris felt surprisingly sorrowful.  Perhaps it was because Shamilla’s death was still so fresh in his mind.  Digging the grave had brought it all flooding back, tearing free the scab that had just begun to form over his grief.

Gaven and Trilla said goodbye, each in their own way, taking turns at the gravesite to utter a few parting words.  Trilla went first, kneeling beside the stones, her quiet tears dropping to the earth as she whispered and sometimes gestured back to Gaven.  When she was through, Gaven began to sing in a tone that was low and somber; swiping his sword horizontally through the air while shifting his weight from one foot to the other in what could only loosely be described as dancing.  Most of what he sang was difficult to understand.  Andaris only caught a word here and there--something about friendship and the honor of vengeance.

When Gaven was done, they shambled down the trail with slumped shoulders and bowed heads, almost as if they too were dead.  If they were going to reach Rogar in time they had to move fast, unencumbered by additional weight.  What else could they do?  They had no choice.

And yet…no matter how far they went, and how they tried to justify it to themselves, they could not escape the feeling that they were abandoning Ashel, discarding him like so much unwanted refuse.  Logically, they knew they were doing the right thing.  Ashel wouldn’t have wanted them to lose sight of their goal, especially after having sacrificed himself for the sake of that goal.  Unfortunately, at the moment, logic did little to ease their minds.

Gaven vowed, should he survive the coming war, to return and move Ashel’s body to its rightful resting place within the Tevellin crypt in Rogar, giving him the honor and ceremony a man of his high birth deserved.  After all they’d been through together, it didn’t seem right to just leave him there, all alone in that shabby hole in the middle of the woods, where the worms and damp would have their way with him.  Trilla and Andaris would never know how close Gaven came to turning around.  Will alone propelled his feet forward, enabling him to stay the course.  It took every ounce he could muster.  And that, as anyone who knew him would agree, was saying a lot.

Soon the day dwindled to dusk, so with weary limbs and sick hearts they stopped and pitched camp.  Feeling uncomfortable in the heavy silence, Andaris started a fire and began to prepare dinner.  Trilla clung to Jade, looking desperate and lost, crying into the dog’s fur until her eyes were red.  Andaris wished there were something he could do to ease her suffering.  He hated to see her like this, her usually joyful spirit so smothered by despair.  She was meant for better things.  Sunshine and laughter—not tears.  It was wrong and especially tragic for someone like her.  It was like watching a flower cry, or listening to a robin sing a doleful song. 

When the stew was ready, Andaris ladled it into four wooden bowls.  He handed one bowl to Gaven, placing the other two on the ground in front of Trilla and Jade.  Gaven nodded to him, set his stew to the side, and then proceeded to stare into the fire as though he wanted to kill it.  Trilla didn’t even seem to notice the bowls.  Jade, on the other hand, stared at the food with a ravenous gleam in her eyes, expression suggesting she’d endured many long weeks of starvation.  Even so, she remained in Trilla’s arms without complaint, apparently sensing where she was needed.  Andaris seated himself on a log, suddenly not very hungry.  Gaven fell asleep with his back against a tree and almost immediately began to snore, giving thunderous accompaniment to Trilla’s low weeping.

By the time the fire burned itself out, Trilla had almost stopped crying.  Now all that could be heard from her shadowed form was the occasional renegade sniffle.  Jade cut her eyes from Andaris, to the stew, and then back again, imploring him to help her escape.  He couldn’t believe how patient she’d been.  Most dogs would have wriggled loose long ago.  Jade, however, as he was discovering more and more each day, was not most dogs.

Finding it impossible to sleep, Andaris stood and walked over to them.  Trilla looked up at him with the shyness of a child, eyes filling with fresh tears.  He put his hand on her shoulder.  Never had he seen anything quite so precious.  Her heart lay bare and broken, and she trusted him enough not to hide it.  When he sat in front of her, she released Jade and reached for him, clutching onto him with desperate need.  Unlike Jade, who was now trotting towards the food, grateful to be free, he didn’t mind.

Trilla pressed her cheek against his, her tears flowing warm and salty down his face.  He reveled in her embrace.  He had never had someone cling to him the way she did now.  She was so soft and warm, heart beating next to his, body trembling with unspent emotion.  He tried to give her what strength he had, if such a thing were possible, imagining it flowing into her, enveloping her.  He wished he could stay like this forever, holding her close in his arms, sure that the world could crumble to dust without him even noticing.

The sound of Jade licking her food bowl clean interrupted his reverie.  Andaris looked up and saw her peering at them from where she was curled beside the glowing coals of the fire.  Something about her expression unsettled him.  Was it jealousy he now saw gleaming in those green eyes? 
Weird dog
, he thought, remembering Shamilla’s words:
Spooky if you ask me.  I think I’d prefer it if she’d just act like a normal dog, as is proper.
  Deciding to ignore her, he again closed his eyes and began to lightly stroke Trilla’s hair.  She shuddered in his arms, her grip tightening.

“It’s all right,” he said, holding her close.  “You’re safe.”

The King

King Laris sat in a plain stone throne atop his dais, as he did most mornings, so bored and weary that his mind was beginning to drift.  His grandfather’s throne had been much more elaborate.  Made of solid gold and covered with animal carvings, it had been a thing of great splendor.  The eagle engraved into the chair’s back had been crafted with such realism that it had seemed, especially when viewed from the floor below, ready to burst forth and fly away.

Laris had never liked that eagle, what with its ruby eyes and silver feathers.  It had been far too extravagant to suit him.  He had lived with it for decades out of respect for his grandfather, until one bright spring day about fifteen years ago he’d worked up the gumption to have it removed, replacing it with a throne more suitable to his personality.  Truth be told, he’d never cared much for any of the pomp and pageantry that accompanied his position.  Why even now, at the respectable age of seventy-two, he wasn’t entirely at peace in his role as king.  Battle was where he felt most at ease, wielding his sword against tyranny and evil.  In battle he’d been an artist, but somewhere along the way, as all men must, he had grown old. 

Laris shifted in his high seat, wondering how many eyebrows would raise if he started to use a pillow to sit upon.  A decade ago he would have laughed at the absurdity of such a notion, but today….

His people needed him to be strong.  He had to be strong.  He was grateful he at least still looked the part.  A mane of thick hair grew to the middle of his back, silver rather than gray, a neatly trimmed beard emphasizing his already prominent jaw line.  His shoulders were not as broad as they had once been, though still broader than most.

Yes, he looked impressive enough.  He just wished he didn’t feel so god-awful.  Some whispered it was the disappearance of his daughter that had taken such a toll.  Only Laris knew how true the rumors were.  He blamed himself for her absence, fearing every day he would hear of her death.  The reality of the situation ate away at him like a cancer, sapping him of strength.  If only she would return to him, he could forgive her anything.  Why had he been so inflexible?  He would give everything he possessed just to see her again.  There had been no laughter in his life since she went away.

Laris knew the security of his kingdom was very much in jeopardy.  The Lost One and his minions were massing a loathsome army.  If his daughter did not return soon, there might be nothing left for her to return to.  He knew how selfish he was being.  She was probably safer wherever she was, and yet he longed to see her again, to embrace her once more before he died.

For more than a thousand years Rogar had shielded the lands east of it from invasion, and now, once again, the Lost One was reaching his great arms across the Waste to test her might, preparing to lay siege to that which was supposed to be impregnable.  Perhaps he knew her strength was wavering.  Perhaps he knew her king was old.

Laris cursed the fates for doing this to him. 
Why couldn’t this have happened twenty-five years ago
, he thought,
while I was still in my prime?
  He smiled bitterly.  The question answered itself.  It hadn’t happened because he
had
still been in his prime.  At seventy-two, his grandfather had been stouter than most men at forty.  Laris knew he had not inherited this magical fortitude, and the shame he felt was great.  The most he could hope for was to die without making a mockery of himself, to bear the weight of his armor with dignity before being struck down.

Shortly before Laris’ birth, his father was brutally slaughtered.  After falling from his horse during one of his frequent hunts, he had been impaled through the chest by the pointed tusk of a six-hundred-pound boar.  The indignity of this was not lost on Laris, nor was the tragic irony.  To end like that after having survived so many battles seemed…unjust, to say the least.  They had found him with his back propped against a tree, the hilt of his sword clutched to his chest, the boar dead at his feet.  How he had managed to kill the thing before he had died was anyone’s guess.  “That was just the sort of man he was,” people were fond of saying, which may have also accounted for his expression.  To his credit, instead of his face being drawn with anger, regret, or even pain, he looked merely chagrined, and even somewhat amused.  That was just the sort of man he was.

The king rubbed his aching neck.  After his father’s death, the responsibility of raising him had fallen to his mother and grandfather, the latter of whom had died while Laris was still just a boy.  The king remembered him well.  He had been a stern taskmaster, but quick to give praise when praise was due.  To a boy of six, he had seemed a grand figure indeed—towering above ordinary men, an almost mythical figure with long silver hair and piercing blue eyes, eyes that seemed capable of staring directly into a man’s soul.  His grandfather’s skill in battle had been unmatched, the stuff of which legends were made.  His sword had been like judgment on the field, a striking snake that never missed.  He was the fiercest king Rogar had ever known, a man whose valor had ignited a passion in his people that still burned today.

In appearance, Laris was almost identical to his grandfather.  He feared, however, that his legacy would be far different. 
Laris Danodren IX, the king who let Rogar fall.  
He pounded his fist against the stone armrest. 
Stop it!
he chided. 
You weak old fool!
 
You disgrace his memory!

He sighed deeply and peered about the room, the decor of which--save the throne of course--had not changed in his lifetime.  Thick tapestries hung against the stone walls, each displaying a different period in history, depicting in vivid color the many victories his ancestors had enjoyed.  A suit of armor, complete with shield and weaponry, stood beneath each tapestry--their designs improving over the centuries, becoming more refined as Rogar’s population grew.  Every day they were meticulously polished, until not a speck of dust remained, until they glowed with past glory, standing as silent tributes to the victories above.

Halfway up each eighty-foot-high wall, positioned for defense rather than aesthetics, were four narrow windows.  A shaft of sunlight angled through the western window, shone upon the silvery helm of one of the more elaborate suits of armor, and reflected straight into Laris’ eyes.  He sighed again and slumped further into his throne.  He would have preferred bare stone and candlelight.

The Bony Man

W
ho am I?
the bony man asked himself. 
Why can’t I recall? 
He was lying atop a mound of freshly tilled earth.  He’d been lying there for quite some time, watching the stars fade as the world slowly brightened. 
It’s cold
, he thought. 
But it wasn’t before.  Before it was warm and…quiet.
  He sat up with a groan and looked around, his body exceptionally stiff. 
What has happened?
he wondered.  He was in the center of a small clearing, encircled by lush forest.  Turning his head to look behind him, he saw three tiers of neatly stacked stones. 
A grave,
he thought.
But whose?

Draped over the stones, attached to a heavy silver chain, hung a blue disc no bigger than his palm.  He felt strangely drawn to the disk, so after a brief hesitation, he reached out and picked it up.  Etched into the shimmering metal was an inscription.
  Ashel Tevellin,
he read. 
Magi of the Blue Circle.
 
A conjurer,
he thought. 
This must be his grave
. 
So familiar.  But why
?

He felt connected to the amulet, as though it were a part of him, like one of his hands or feet.  He rubbed his fingers across its smooth surface, intrigued, then turned it over to look at the other side, which was, as he knew it would be, bereft of print or design.

A moment later, almost without meaning to, he put it on.  The chain pulled uncomfortably against the back of his neck, the disc, oddly heavy for its size, hanging against his heart like a stone.  Why did he feel so compelled to wear it?  It seemed a great burden to carry.  He hoped this Ashel Tevellin—whoever he was—did not mind.  He would hate to gain the animosity of a dead man, much less a wizard.

“Ashel,”
he whispered, testing the name out on his tongue.  “Ashel.”  He knew that name, but why?  The answer was right there, just beyond his reach, at the very tips of his fingers, teasing him.  Trying to remember was like trying to catch shadows in the dark.  If he could only stretch a little further, he might be able to…and just like that it was gone, whisked away to some remote corner of his mind.  He rubbed his head and closed his eyes—then popped them right back open.  After taking several deep breaths, he closed them again, amazed to discover that somehow, even with his eyes closed, he could see. 
How can this be?
he questioned.  Everything around him had a vague feel to it, a misty, veiled quality.  Yet it was definitely there.  The trees, the grass, and the grave—it was all there.

Suspecting the amulet was to blame, he opened his eyes, took it off, and tried again. 
No difference
, he thought. 
But if the
amulet isn’t to blame, then what is?

During the next few minutes, he raised and lowered the lids of his eyes dozens of times, endlessly astounded. 
Is it possible this is normal,
he wondered,
and I just don’t remember?
 
But that can’t be right
. 
If this is normal, then how do I sleep?  I was just asleep a few minutes ago.  Wasn’t I?  Though why would I have been sleeping on top of someone’s grave
?
  No, something else must have happened.  Did I know this Ashel fellow?  Was he an enemy, or perhaps a friend?  Did
I
bury him?  And if so, where is the shovel?

As he struggled to piece it all together, an image flashed in his mind.  More curious than frightened, he kept his eyes shut.  In the image, he saw three people walking down a tree-lined path.  Ahead of them, down the trail and around a bend, crouched ten shapelings, vile beasts that served as foot soldiers in the Lost One’s army.  The shapelings snarled and hissed as they lay in wait, fangs dripping spittle and snot, fur bristling in anticipation.

The image filled Ashel with fear.  The three travelers seemed to have no idea what they were walking into.  They looked tired and sad, moving as if the weight of the world rested upon their shoulders, particularly the big man in the lead. 
I must warn them
, Ashel thought.
 
The image, in spite of its stunning realism, remained transparent, a moving wall behind which he could still make out his surroundings.

He soon discovered, if he concentrated hard enough, that he could manipulate the picture with his thoughts.  He was able to, for example, view it from any angle that he chose and, after a bit of practice, even make it three-dimensional.  While moving through the picture, he stopped here and there to examine individual sections, rotated his viewpoint around, and then went on, anxious to explore further.

Wanting to test the limits of his control, he zoomed in on the big man’s face, on his heavy bone structure and set, stubble-covered jaw. 
I know you,
he thought, moving still closer. 
Concentrate,
he told himself, doing his best to ignore the sudden throbbing in his head.  The image began to pulse in time to the throbbing.  He zoomed out from the man and in on the girl.

Much better,
he decided, admiring her smooth skin and large blue eyes.  She was so beautiful that just the sight of her made him smile.  The more he maneuvered the picture around, the worse the throbbing became.  Yet no matter how dire the pain, he kept at it, knowing the answers to his questions were here, if only he could find them.

Aware that he was growing short on time, he zoomed out from the girl and in on the young man behind her, who surprised him by turning towards him as though aware of his presence.  Now with each beat of Ashel’s heart, like stones cast into still water, the picture rippled.

“Ahh!”
he cried, putting his fingers to his temples.  “My head!  Can’t…take….”  A searing light filled his vision, followed by an ear-splitting shriek.  Just before he blacked out, he realized the shriek was issuing from his own lips.