Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (18 page)

Loktaro frowned. “Tell me, so that I won’t be
surprised, how long the hiftnuvin live.”

“The oldest recorded age was two hundred. Most never
reach 180. They are too fragile to live longer yet.” Tych
sat down as if standing the whole time had been the natural
thing to do. “If there is nothing further of military
importance, then let us adjourn.”

Loktaro’s smile returned to his broad face. “Yes, there
is. Two days from now there will be a parade for all of us.
Shortly after that, King Daubert will arrive from Polentak,
the capital. He will wish an audience with us.”

“As I will with him. Now, I will begin to prepare for
the war ahead. My powers need practice.”

Under her breath, Findra said, “And humility.”

Through the power of the Staff of Two Magics, the
three highest-ranking endarils teleported instantly back to
the Hidden Kingdom. They arrived in the courtyard of the
castle, startling a nearby servant. Once the woman realized
who had appeared, she approached. With a deep bow, she
said, “My Lords, something is wrong with Cert.”

Greentree placed her hand lightly on the maid’s
shoulder. “What do you mean, Tyela?”

The red-haired, green-eyed servant said, “She came in
pale as a ghost and crying. I’ve never seen anybody
looking so frightened and upset at the same time.
Something terrible must have given her a start.” Tyela’s
age matched Cert’s and they had been friends for most of
their childhood years.

Morg and Corl had already reached the door to the
throne room and Greentree ran to catch up. They went
through the double doors into the hallway entrance to the
castle and up the stairs to the third floor. Cert’s three
rooms sat immediately above Tych’s. Corl rapped softly
on the door.

A tear-laden, “Who is it?” reached them and Greentree
responded, “Your parents are here, Cert, let us in so we can
talk.”

Footsteps could be heard approaching the door. Cert
pulled it open slowly and turned back to the room. All the
three endarils saw was her disheveled dark brown hair, but
Greentree knew her daughter’s green eyes would be
swollen red from her tears.

Corl stepped into the room and reached for his
granddaughter but she stepped lithely out of his reach and
turned. Her eyes were red indeed. “Stay away, wizard,
you are the cause of all this.”

Greentree and Morg stepped in and quickly closed the
door, seeing that this would take more than the usual
consolation. Corl took a deep breath and crossed his arms.
“What has taken place for you to strike out at your
grandfather like this?” asked Greentree.

“I went to the lake to practice my spell of seeing and
find out how Crat fared in the outside world. At first I
thought my spell had failed because I only saw darkness.
Then suddenly a red orb appeared, which I soon realized
was an eye.” The child burst into tears again. “Some of
the blackness moved and more red orbs appeared and
seemed to rush towards me. I fainted, canceling the spell
and woke when my face hit the surface of the lake.
Somehow I knew that thing destroyed Crat.”

Morg frowned and breathed the deep sigh that meant
that he was about to speak, which didn’t happen very often.
“Cert, Crat destroyed Crat. You saw Rangdor, in his
northern domain. We sent Crat out of the valley in the
form of a mouse and apparently a predator ate him. His
energy, being pure evil, then joined Rangdor’s, as all evil
energy now does.”

Cert clenched her fists, clamped her arms to her sides
and screamed through her teeth. “Why, why do you keep
saying he was evil? I loved him, didn’t you?”

Red anger spread across Greentree’s face. “Only
because he was my son. The only part of him that inspired
love was the way he felt about you. As his twin, you were
the only endaril he cared about.”

“Hold it. I am his twin, therefore I’m pure evil so
destroy me.”

Corl took this one on. “Rangdor split the egg, placing
all the repressed evil present in us in Crat and leaving you
with all the good. You came out ten years apart but only
because of what it did to Greentree’s body for him to do
this. Cert, you are his twin but his exact opposite, in more
ways than being female.”

A pause ensued while Cert stood there looking at them
with heavy eyes. A new bout of tears came on and she put
her face in her hands. In a flash, Corl moved close enough
to touch her and Morg grabbed Greentree’s hand and
touched his daughter. Cert reacted to pull away but found
herself moving rapidly down a perfectly symmetrical
corridor without moving her feet. Two-dimensional
moving images raced by, a blur at their speed.

In a moment they came to a stop and the princess found
herself in Crat’s old bedroom in the castle. Her brother
stood at the window looking out over the village, deep in
thought with an expression of malice on his face.

“Where are we?”

“We are in the past. Watch the bed.”

She looked briefly around her and then looked back at
the bed. Crat stepped away from the window and said, “If
only I had a way to destroy him. That would also make
that wench Lendril unhappy and they would both suffer.”
A flash of light filled the room and a startled Crat joined a
startled Cert in looking at the book on the bed. Its bindings
were old leather and dust flew off of it as Crat picked it up.

“Go and look at it with him.”

Cert looked at Corl. “He’ll see me.”

“No, you are not actually here, only watching through a
very long time tunnel. Go, read what he’s reading.”

She walked over to her brother’s side and looked at the
pages. With a squeal of fear her hand flew to her mouth
and her eyes burned with a desire to flee. She turned to the
other three and noticed the black space in the air behind
them. “There are recipes for poisons and drugs in there.
How did this get here?”

“Rangdor provided it, figuring that he would eliminate
Tych and save him the trouble of doing it later.” She
walked back to them and let her mother take her in her
arms. “Next we will see him use it.”

Greentree released Cert, they all linked arms and
stepped into the black space. This time Cert noticed Corl
concentrating very hard. They arrived in time in the place
where Crat prepared his potion. They watched him offer to
get Tych’s drink, go to the kitchen and place the potion in
the wine. Corl only said, “He would have poisoned Tych if
not for the good influence you provided by being nonjudgmental
and understanding,” and took them to the scene
on the catwalk a few nights earlier.

“This will be fuzzier since it has not yet fully settled
down into the past, but you will see enough.” Cert did.
She recoiled in horror at seeing Crat kill Lendril’s cousin
and smile about it. By the time they had followed him
upstairs and watched him get banished, her stomach did not
sit well and she lost her stomach contents immediately
upon returning to her suite.

She ran to her bathroom and returned a few minutes
later, her face wet with cold water. “You have given me
something to think about and something to clean up.
Please go, I’ll be alright.” Her parents left the room with
one last glance at the suddenly matured endarilan woman.

The next day, Corl went once again to the plateau
above the valley and began the chant to bring Doleof to
him. In time, the dragon swooped out of the cloudless sky
and gracefully planted his humanoid form near the
endarilan wizard. For a moment they exchanged silent
greetings, acknowledging each other’s power.

Doleof asked, “What brings me here this time, Corl?”
“The same thing that always does, my friend. Tych has
become conceited, brash, arrogant, over-confident and lost
all humility. I need help with curing him of these
characteristics. Your advice would be very beneficial.”

Doleof stayed silent for a long time pondering the
situation. “I have heard of a human with great battle
prowess. He killed a sorcerer in one of the human
kingdoms and one of the red dragons fell prey to his blade.
It has been a thousand years since a human felled a dragon.
Perhaps he can give Tych enough of a challenge to make
him slow down and take more time to prepare.”

“How do we keep Tych or this man from dying?”

“We’ll prevent any magic and see that it ends before
death. Are we agreed?”

“Sounds dangerous, but I can’t think of anything better.
I’ll meet you at the camp of Tych’s army tomorrow
morning.”

“I’ll bring the warrior with me. Until tomorrow.” With
this short goodbye, the dragon flew off into the sky.

The castle in the city of Rambestak, the capital of
Rambestar, cut a low profile. It stood only one story,
covering a little more than two acres. The structure
consisted of an interwoven series of rooms, courtyards and
hallways, and the walls had the character of thatching.

To the south of it spread a long, wide field, the trees
only visible as small dots at the other end. In the middle of
this light brown lawn, a tall, powerful warrior led three
horses at once by their reins around a corral. Many other
horses ran, played and ate outside the fenced area, which
was deceiving because a fence also sat just inside the leafy,
green trees on all sides of the pasture.

The man finished the exercises, designed to force the
horses to keep the proper space they would need in battle,
and released them to the field. He wore light, leather armor
designed for riding and tall, leather boots. A dagger hung
from his belt on his right side. On his left hung a very
unusual weapon: a mesh glove of metal which would reach
up to his elbow bore a three inch blade that would only
extend past his fist. The danger of it lied in the ability to
strike with a second blade if his sword missed since the
blade would always be bared when his hand was wrapped
around a sword hilt.

As the warrior walked closer to the fence, a lone figure
stepped out in front of him. The warrior’s left arm wore
the glove and the dagger seemed to leap to his left hand
instantaneously. The dual blades did look formidable, but
the human felt concern that the stranger seemed unfazed.
“Who are you?”

Doleof had taken the form of a dark-skinned man, one
of his favorites when visiting summer climates. “I am
Doleof and I mean you no harm. I know of your skills with
a blade and would not test them. I merely have a
proposal.”

“Spit it out. In these parts, so close to the kingdom lost
to evil, I don’t trust many.”

“If I have heard correctly, you wait patiently for a ruler
to follow, moving from kingdom to kingdom, training
horses, fighting for their armies and joining free armies for
the travel between.”

The warrior looked at him very hard with piercing
black eyes. “Yes, I don’t know how you know all this nor
do I care. Just get to the point.”

“That man has come. He gathers his armies to him now
in front of the city of Crentin. He has, however, grown a
bit over-confident, and I want you to take him down a few
notches, but not kill him.”

A deep laugh rumbled through the man’s chest as he
threw his braided black hair back. “And I suppose, you’re
some kind of messenger. Why should I believe you?”

The laughter ended quite suddenly when a man no
longer stood in front of him, rather a very large gold
dragon. “A former Guard of Buhlaht does not jest. I am
growing tired of cynical humans in my old age and deeply
desire your acceptance without any more skepticism.
There isn’t much time.”

The serious look on the warrior’s face indicated a
realization of the situation’s gravity. Either this dragon
meant to kill him or he told the truth, both prospects
holding great danger. “What race is this leader and how do
you know me?”

“He is an endaril. I learned about you because of the
red dragon you killed. The death of a member of our
species, no matter how vile a member, is noted by all of us.
Now, once again, what is your choice, trust or the end of
Li?”

“I will trust you, dragon, if you tell me my name. Then
I will listen to you and take your orders until you prove
otherwise unworthy of it.”

“Very well, Aquendar, gather your belongings and we
will be off immediately. Leave a note so that you may
honorably discharge yourself of your duties of horsemaster.”

A startled Aquendar sheathed his dagger and started
towards the castle again, or rather towards a small hut next
to the castle. As he expected, a man once again walked
next to him.

Doleof asked, “Why did you draw your dagger with
your left hand?”

“Because I am left-handed. It is part of the reason for
my success, for some of my opponents were unprepared for
it.”

“Ah, yes, I can see how that would be.” They had
quickly reached the hut and Aquendar entered to gather his
things. When he came out, a sword as wide as his hand and
four and a half feet long hung on his back with a composite
bow that stretched from his helmet to the top of his kneehigh
boots. Plate mail covered his body from his neck to
his knees and his helmet covered all but his face, two large
feathers hanging off the back of it. In his right hand he
held a quiver of arrows as long as his legs and his right held
a backpack stuffed with clothing and other assorted
weaponry.

Doleof chuckled. “You could supply an army.”

“I am proficient with all of them. Would you like a
demonstration?”

“No, there’s no doubt in my mind.” Doleof lay down
on the ground face down. “Straddle my neck and get ready
to brace yourself.” Aquendar did this and soon had to use
the strength in his legs to keep from falling off of Doleof’s
neck. “Let yourself slide to the area where my neck meets
my wings and body.” The warrior did this and the
‘shoulder’ muscles clamped his legs in. “The sword has
moved aside but that bow will bring me down.” Aquendar
shifted the bow like he did when riding, with the bent wood
across his chest and so that it lay flat against the side of
whatever he rode. “Better. My magic will keep you on and
let you breathe but don’t panic if you feel yourself slipping.
It will be your imagination.”