Suvon Legends: The Chaos Circles
The Choice
Once in the realm of Suvon, there were two youths on the verge of adulthood. They had spent their childhood together in the village of Enatuh and were as close to each other as any two great friends. Their families were simple farmers and goatherds, but their ancestors were great men with great magicks. Many of them still do practise the Chaos, though their methods were crude as compared to the great days before Collapse.
The kingdom of Asuqaro was rich in landscape, history, culture, languages and religions. Many times as children did little Jaque and Lya had wandered to the Table Cliff high above their mountain village and saw the sun rose from the horizon of a distant sea. And to the north, barely visible at the foot of a green neighbouring mountain range is a white star, sunlight reflected from the crystalline tops of Aqanau, capital of Asuqaro.
One night, the Jaymes clan had a meeting with the Samuels clan in the village hall. Both clans agreed that they saw the relationship between Jaque Jaymeson and Lya Samueldottir is of good nature and arranged that the two of them shall be married and their clans be united. However, the prospective bride and groom had other plans.
The young lad Jaque knew little of the world beyond his simple shepherd life. Often he dreamed that he would leave his remote village for the Capital. He dreamed that he would seek his fortunes as a soldier, to become a person of legends, not unlike the legends before the Collapse. But he knew he could not achieve such dreams as a married man.
The young lass Lya knew more secrets of the Outside than anyone in the village, for she had unwittingly spied and studied her clan's locked manuscripts. Often she dreamed of her inheritance, breaking the old vows of silence and sharing the secrets of the Realm. She dreamed of expanding the lost Chaos skills from before the Collapse. But she knew she could not achieve such dreams as a married woman.
It was barely a week before the wedding. Preparations were proceeding smoothly. The cooks had chosen the meatiest animals for the feasts. The forest gatherers had found the brightest of blossoms. The seamstress took out the most variety of cloths and colours for the couple's dresses. The troubadours were practising their music eagerly. Even the season of spring was ready, bringing a gentle breeze and good light to Enatuh.
Other than the other once hopeful youths, Jaque and Lya were the unhappy ones of the village. They stood together under a tree at the Table Cliff and watched as the people below worked their days with a little more spirit than usual. Only the soft wind of the fifth month was with them.
"Have you decided? Completely?" asked Lya, her gaze was strong.
"Yes, I have."
"And?"
Jaque squeezed Lya's shoulder to avoid looking at her. He kept the tiny white distant city in his sights.
"I will leave Enatuh. No one will know my absence before tomorrow's first light."
He felt her hand clasped on his own at her shoulder.
Jaque could remember the day he first saw Lya, on a white dawn after a black sunset. He was an anyman's son, more than an infant yet barely a boy. And she was wrapped in a white, sheep wool blanket, crying for her mother, a mother, any mother. Jaque took her and carried her to the black and smoky remains of Enatuh, where his father and a friend had almost lost hope of ever finding Jaque.
Thirteen years ago, Asuqaro warred with a larger, greater neighbour, a nation called Uvounuq. Most of the ferocious battles were in the southern valley, but to the hearts of the village, it was still too close. Their homes sat on an all but forgotten pathway into a lesser defensive part of northwest Uvounuq, where the great mountain range was deemed an impassable wall.
Day after day, many people from the battered south walked the grassy, hidden road below the village into Uvounuq. Refugees, deserters, noblemen overthrown, all wishing to escape what they believe are a losing cause. But so fierce was the Duke's will and the skills of his mages, Asuqaro had won the war. The dukedom gained their independence and the Duke was crowed the first King.
In retaliation, the broken and retreating armies of Uvounuq raided and pillaged the small communities as they pass by. Enatuh had not been spared. Though the unwelcome company were not great in numbers, their swords still stained with blood and their torches were always a blazed. Jaque never saw his mother or sisters again after that storm-ridden tragedy. Nor were the birth family of Lya had ever been found.
And it was exactly at that moment of the day, a bright spring morning, over the scene of a waking hamlet and almost a third of the kingdom below them, on the edge of Table Cliff, did Jaque and Lya had said their first greetings and would soon say their last farewells.
"Kennick is stuffing his hand into your ass again, I see," said Lya.
Jaque almost turned his head to look behind him before he understood Lya was trying to change the subject. On one far edge of the village was a farmstead that belonged to a Jaymes. It was his father's, and soon it would have been his. Kennick was supposed to be feeding the chickens that morning. From his vantage point, it seems that his youngest half-brother had been playing the fool with Jaque's own mule instead.
He sniggered, more to himself, and ended with a sigh.
"Never mind him. He'll miss Ned soon enough and Ned will never find out if he could bite the brat's hand off."
And Jaque knew that he himself would miss a lot of Enatuh, especially the one beside him.
Lya spoke as though she had read his mind.
"I'm going to miss having you around, Jaque. You are my brother in heart and I never knew any better friend than you."
She said all that with a straight face and mischievous eyes.
"Then miss me, then. I'll be insulted if you didn't," said Jaque, smirking. "Just promise me that you'll make sure everybody isn't too likely to forget me, either."
Lya gave out a swallowed squeak, and then quickly covered her mouth. She must have remembered how Jaque had always hated that. She quickly recovered.
"Oh, I doubt that. Sudden disappearance of former most eligible bachelor in Enatuh! Carlas and her daughters would leap and weep at the same time."
Jaque cringed his face. The women of Leigham hunt men for marriage and he had been eyed upon since the age of twelve.
She straightened her shawl, maybe because she just wanted something to hold on to other than her basket.
"Your father would be very angry."
Jaque felt a hot pit at the bottom of his stomach. He did not want to think about his father just yet.
"He'll get over it quickly. I think he had been suspecting it. And he has three other sons to redeem himself with."
Three better sons.
"Then my father would get very angry."
The corner of Lya's mouth twitched menacingly, the kind that Jaque had seen all women do to men who got home drunk and singing stupidly, be it a wife, sister or daughter.
"But that's the whole idea, isn't it, Lya? As long as I'm the one who's the bigger disgrace, no one will suspect you had anything to do with it."
Lya's father was not a farmer, but a teacher and the head villager to boot. His influence in the community was strong.
The sun was rising high. The sheep will be needed to move up north, into the cooler shades of the mountain. Jaque picked up his long crook and made a quick pipe with his lips. The excited barks of his sheepdogs answered the whistle and the sheep bleated loudly as they began to move.
"It's getting late. Could you give my thanks to Mother Samuel? They were delicious."
Lya gathered what was left of Jaque's breakfast from the grass and into her basket. She gave him a rare, soft smile instead of her usual childish smirks.
"Whisper to me a secret, Jaque."
"Me?"
"Yes. Just this once."
Jaque took a moment to contemplate this question. It was a game they played, telling each other unnecessary things of what they found about other people and many were simply childish and sometimes untrue. He had outgrown it and it was mainly Lya who spoke secrets.
Secrets. There were many he shared with her. He had told her about the quiet creek full of cherry trees that nobody knows about. He had told her about the birth of his sheepdogs, the reason why Mrs. Jeram's battercakes always taste better, about a Frettson's nightly outings with a Leighamdottir some years back and, his last and most painful secret, about the time when his father decided to remarry.
Yet of all the stories he had shared with her, he never thought to tell her the Truth. Maybe, at first, it was because Mr. Samuel never did, nor did any of the elder Samuels. Maybe they thought Jaque had forgotten about it, being so young at the time, or that Jaque would never tell anyone. And he never did. Not even when the Truth became even heavier to bear.
He scratched his head, trying to think of something, something much more pleasant.
"My secret is... erm, that I know those battercakes you've sent are not made by Mother Samuel at all."
Lya rolled her eyes in irritation. But then, she raised an eyebrow and asked mischievously
"Now how can you tell that?"
That was an easy question.
"Too much flour and honey, and plenty of black brunt sides. Now that terrible cook had made me fat, heavy and in a great need of water. Mother Samu-"
Jaque's words were cut off when Lya threw a whole battercake at him. He barely managed to cover his face as it broke to sticky pieces.
"Why you...! Sitting there, like...! Well, Mother's training is hard."
Jaque tried to get some stray crumbs out of his dark brown head. His shoulder-length hair had always been untamed and none of the strands were at equal length. He always kept it tied back, but many shorter hairs escaped and fell loosely about his face, eyes and ears. He never gave much though about his appearance, but Lya often laughed how he looked like 'that hideous, hairy grassland cat' in the village hall worn old tapestry.
Lya used to never bother about the way she looked either, but it was becoming less obvious as she became older. Her mother made sure that Lya's black hair had been kept very short and neat. During their engagement, she allowed to grow a bit of braid and Jaque noticed that she was becoming very fond of it.
She always had a smaller profile than the other girls, which made her look younger than her fifteen or so years and had secreted recently that she wanted to compensate this by growing thick, shiny locks. Jaque grinned as he thought of how she would react if Mother Samuel decided that her only daughter should be shorn after tonight.
As Lya looked to be too small for her age, Jaque looked to be too lanky. It was a Jaymes trademark to be strong and muscular but he looked more off the Varn's tree. There is very few of his mother's family in Enatuh and none ever came to mid-village. Even as his approaching 19th summers, he was still too bony to work the field ploughs, an honourable coming-of-age duty. He thought bitterly of his eldest half-brother, Reakon, only eight but already brushing down his father's enormous Isna horses.
Jaque shook his head again, more to rid himself that the unpleasant thought.
"Well, all training will be done with once you've done your part. Just don't mess that."
"Still," Lya began, "That's not a fair secret."
"Well, I've said it already, now it's your turn." said Jaque.
Lya looked at the moving sheep, watched as the three sheepdogs, Pat, Mat and Gnat herd them away from the forest edge.
"The... King's Mages-" she said the last word as if it tasted bitter in her mouth. "-they're... they're on the move again. An order had just been issued last month. The message came to my father just yesterday."
The King's Mages. Jaque suddenly felt as if his heart had suddenly stopped. The Mages are on the move. So soon! Perhaps they had remembered something. Perhaps they had remembered what happened to Enatuh thirteen years ago. But even so...! He sucked in his breath and his ears felt as if it would burst to the sounds of his own heartbeat, drumming words into his mind. The Truth, the Truth, the Truth, the Truth...
"Jaque, what's the matter?" asked Lya.
She touched his hand that held the shepard's crook. A feel of warmth came to his wrist, first like a sharp needle jab, then like a splash of water. Jaque unclenched his other fist but he could still feel his own nails driving into his palm.
"I know you're worried. But they won't stop here. Our Home is just too isolated." said Lya.
Isolated was right. But not for Mages. Jaque half-wised she knew what he did. Then it would have saved him the pain of explaining it all to her. But then she would want to escape with him. That he cannot allow, both for her sake and his. She had already discovered her greatest secret, though she had not yet knew what it meant. That he knew, for it would be the secret she knew that will help him leave, yet the secret she did not was the true reason he was leaving.
His heartbeat was still loud in his ears. The Truth, the Truth, the Truth, the Truth...
No. No, he could not tell her, neither her past nor the one memory of two month's passing. The memory when he overheard a conversation between his uncle and Lya's father. A conversation that was not meant for his, or anyone else's ears.
Evenings of the Third Month were always cold, dark, wet and terrible, as if the Lord of Winter was inflicting the greatest of his fury in his last days. On that stormy day, the river that feed the village was larger and faster than ever. Jaque brought the flock home much earlier than usual as the waters grew. His youngest sheepdog, Gnat, had been saved from drowning only to be facing death by freezing.
As his stepmother tried her best to keep the little hound alive, Jaque was outside his father's private room to ask for the limited fire logs. But not the howling winds, the icy wetness of his own shirt nor the urgency of a beloved friend could counter to the temper of Terrence Jaymeson, when interrupted during a personal meeting.
Jaque knew it was personal because, out of habit, he peeked through the bright keyhole and saw the good brandy on the polished table. But it was what he accidentally heard that shocked him more than any sudden dip in the cold Esaqa River.
"Lya will never be my niece."
That was not his father but Finnigan Jaymeson, his father's elder brother and the head of the Jaymes' clan.
"Nor was she ever my daughter," said the voice of Handred Samuelson calmly. "But she was the only child I've ever raised. And the name she carries is my clan's, though her blood never was."
Jaque saw Samuel's pale and crooked old hand reach out for the glass of brandy.
"I am old, Jaymes. Even if I had finally managed to produce a son, the earth would take me before he understands that I created him. I'm putting my clan's future on your brother's son."
Jaymes slammed his empty glass to the table and it gave Jaque a jump.
"Jaque, ahh him. He is a good boy, a very good boy. But he is too much of his mother," said Jaymes. "Gullible, insecure, too quiet, too lazy I say. He had never captured the full interest of Terrence but only I saw him as soon-to-be-troubled."
Samuel sniggered but then it followed by a choking and coughing sound.
"Which is exactly why I choose him for Lya. It will be his faults I needed."
Jaque heard everything even as the house moaned loudly from the storm knocking outside. He heard how Samuel had promised to put his family fortunes under Jaque's name and none under Lya's. He heard how everything owned by the Jaymes should be divided only among Jaque's half-brothers. That upon Handred's death, the other Samuels' would contest for their treasure. And win by twisting the truth of Lya's birth.
Jaque had heard enough that he understood the deal. The Samuels will keep their heirlooms from the one who was never a Samuel and the Jaymes would keep theirs from the one who had failed to be a Jaymes. The marriage between him and Lya was not a union between two clans. It was to isolate two outcasts, one with a difference of blood and the other, a difference of heart.
But all he told Lya was that he wanted to see the world. Jaque continued to use that excuse as a basis for his reason to leave. Lya's reaction was as predictable as any close friend who valued their friendship. She begged him to stay. Although Lya was an outsider's daughter, she had built her heart in Enatuh. She loved her family, though the love was seldom returned. A plan had to be made.
"We'll only have to be much more careful then," said Jaque.
She loved her family. He did not. It would her love, much more than his sudden disappearance that would save and secure her.
"Do you have the last item?" asked Jaque.
Lya pulled out a long sheathed knife from her basket. It was not a usual, working knife, but rather, a lighter, hunting knife, the kind that the forest gatherers used for long trips during the winter. It was old but well used and had once belonged to a Varn. Jaque took the knife and walked over to a large boulder perched precariously between the roots of the huge, old oak that sat on Table Cliff.
"Some help here, Lya?"
The first time she manipulated the Chaos, Jaque had not noticed it. He had thought the woodblocks he was chopping were more rotten than he had seen, but upon closer inspection, it was the perfect wood for burning. He thought he was only getting stronger, but then realized that this easiness in doing the task happened only while Lya was watching. Too much greater easiness.
Lya nodded at him and placed her hand on the hard surface of the boulder. It was flat and squarish, about the height of a sheepdog, but undeniably quite heavy. Under Lya's touch, it rose up slowly, without any other visible means of support. Eventually, Jaque was able to look under the rock and slip the long knife inside a small hole at the base of the tree.
"Alright, thank you Lya."
Lya carefully lowered the boulder and balanced it carefully back between the old roots, as thick as the tree's branches. There was nothing left to do.
"Goodbye, Aellyanette Samueldottir," said Jaque.
He used his free arm to give her a tight hug. She had barely entered her teens, only as high as his chest, but he could feel all of her, how much she had grown, how different she was from him.
"Farewell, Garjaquerin Jaymeson," said Lya, pulling him tighter. Then, she pulled his head down towards her and kissed him deeply. Suddenly, Jaque could not think of anything else. Thirteen years ago, he chose to save Lya. Now he chose to save her again. But at the moment when their lips finally parted, something struck him. Would he have chosen this?
--------------------------
Sudden Appearance
Every morning, Jaque was one of the earliest people to rise before dawn in Enatuh, to bring out the sheep for grazing. He would stay on the grassy hills until late afternoon, before herding them back into their pens and he would continue by chopping wood outside. In the past, it was his stepmother who brought him his meals. Lya took over that duty, mainly because Dydine dottirof Jaymes was now heavy with her fourth child.
The plan was more complicated on Lya's part than Jaque. It would rely heavily on her limited gifts with the Chaos. Her family was to have dinner with the Jaymes that night, to discuss some wedding plans. That way, she could project a perfect image of him, an illusion, to trick others. His illusion would be chopping wood in small area outside the kitchen window. Anybody who looked outside would think that Jaque was busy.
Jaque himself would then take Ned the mule and an axe and go back up the Table Cliff. Once he chopped off one of the oak's roots, the large boulder would fall and rolled away from its place. Supplies such as dry foods, travelling cloaks, the long knife and such things had been smuggled in Lya's basket every time she sent food up the mountains to him. Everything was hidden in that hole under the tree.
"And then what happens next? I wished he would have told me," said Lya sadly.
A surprise, yet gentle knock on her door felt like a bang to her chest in her unexpected state. She accidentally dropped a bucket of hot water into the metal tub, spilling some of the contents out to the side. It was evening time at the Jaymes farm and her family had already arrived and readying themselves for dinner.
"Lya darling, talking to yourself again?" It was her mother's voice.
Lya took a deep breath as she scooped up some water back into the bucket and opened the spare bedroom door slowly.
"No mother, I wasn't. It isn't wise for a lady to mutter secrets on her tongue alone, for ears can be hidden."
Her mother's face beamed. Faerilla Kellingdottir had always been very beautiful, especially when she smiled. She was as very young as her husband was very old when she became a dottirof Samuel, even younger than Lya. The Kellings were famed for producing the best marriage type young women, a tradition that Faerilla intended to incorporate upon the Samuel daughters, starting with her own.
Her mother swept her glossy brown hair behind her. In one hand, she held a cake of herbal soap and some clean cloth while the other is holding on to a large full kettle.
"Come on dear, let us get you cleaned up before dinner starts."
Lya nodded and took the kettle from her mother's hand. Faerilla helped her daughter undress and bathe.
Lya drew in her breath quickly as the hot water was splashed on her bare skin. Faerilla wet the cloth and began scrubbing Lya's back alternately with the soap.
"Lya, you do remember what tonight is, don't you? Fifth day before the wedding? The other reason why we are here?" said Faerilla.
Lya only nodded. Sitting in the hot water with the cold air that creeping between the wooden walls of the bedroom was befuddling her head.
"And that is?" asked Fearilla.
"The Bonding Night."
"That's right, darling."
How could she have forgotten so quickly? In all the while she was helping Jaque for his great escape to freedom, she had given less and less thought about the proper wedding customs she was supposed to be learning. Bonding Night was the first step in the Five Vows, one for each day before she could become a complete wife. She had been going through it all in a daze, while secretly trying to improve her magic at any free moment without her family suspecting anything.
"Lya? I asked if you are nervous."
The memories of Jaque's lips pressing softly upon hers crept up slowly, yet as indistinct as the rising vapours. She pushed it down strongly.
"No mother, I shouldn't be. It is part of the proper rites that each should follow accordingly-"
Faerilla cut her off as she whispered quietly into Lya's ear.
"Imagine Jaque doing his proper rites right now, plunging himself into the cold waters of the river."
The memories in her mind suddenly became too bright. Lya drenched some water to her face a bit too strongly and splashing the drops everywhere.
"Ahh, so you are nervous. Don't worry, I was like you once, dearest." Faerilla chuckled mischievously.
There was no denying, even in Lya's opinion, that some among the Enatuh maidens thought Jaque was too handsome, too thoughtful to simply be a shepherd. There had been rumours that Varns were the direct descendents of the Lost Nobility and Jaque was more Varn than any clansmen to his clan. If the rumours were true, the Jaque would have a chance to go to great heights among Asuqaro's oldest families, just as he once secreted before. If the rumours were true.
Faerilla washed off the soap from Lya's hair with a fresh spurt with the kettle. She had been continuing her babble as though Lya had been listening. But something caught her ear.
"... nervous really, when you've clearly had done it already..."
"Mother!" Lya turned to face Faerilla. She felt her cheeks grew quite warm.
Her mother only grinned wider.
"Well there's no need to turn red about it. I've seen the state how you came back home this morning. A most complete unnatural mess. You and Jaque have at least waited just a bit longer instead of having your own Bonding Day. If you weren’t so engaged to that beautiful..."
"Mother!"
If Lya had been fully clothed at that moment, she would have simply walked out of the room as she habitually did every time Faerilla plunged into one of her fanciful chatters, or simply let her continue on with ever listening a word. For some reason, Lya felt like she needed to set her mother straight about what had happened that morning on Table Cliff. If only she could accurately express what she was thinking through her words.
"It didn't... you think, I mean, you don't think... oh, mother, there was nothing... no, really!"
Yet, the brushes of Jaque's fingers down her back, the strong curve of his arm against her waist all felt like it had actually led to the inevitable conclusion. But it was the pressure of his mouth that lingered on her even as Jaque's sheep dogs intervened with their exited barks and hyperactive exercise.
Faerilla pulled Lya up to her feet and rinsed her off with the rest of the water from the spare bucket, which had already cool and drenched her like an icy shock. Even as Lya wrapped herself around a large towel, she still felt very exposed.
"Oh? And so I supposed you gave him his breakfast, then on the way home you untied your hair yourself and disarray your own skirts and lose your shawl so that he'd be the one to return it?" countered Faerilla.
Lya pulled the towel up to her red face. She forgot about her favourite violet-blue shawl, how Jaque slipped it off her shoulders just as Pat the lead dog was pulling a part of it with his teeth.
"No, mother... Jaque, he... He was... just teaching me... how to kiss."
Ooh, how her cheeks burned!
"Tha... that's all."
Faerilla raised a sceptical eyebrow at first, but then her face softened like she was reminiscing something through personal experience.
"I wish your father had just been a tad as romantic before my Bonding Night."
Romantic? Jaque? Lya had watched him grew to become a man better than his own family ever did. But romantic? Probably the closest thing to it was how he stopped a green grass snake that had threatened to strike at Gemianna Leighamdottir. And ten years later, how that same girl became his first maiden, would dance only with Jaque and no other men at Enatuh’s harvest day or on the Peak Days festivals, and would not let him dance or speak to other girls, including Lya.
Lya scolded herself for letting her mind wander again. Gemianna was already happily married to someone else and would soon be expecting her first child, a Jeramson perhaps, if Channeler Harrietta were right in her guessing. She buttoned the soft woollen brown dress she had chosen while Faerilla dried and brushed her hair. If everything goes just as planned...
A firm knock made by a heavy hand made Lya’s heart skipped a beat. The intruder seemed to be in a hurry, for he (if it was a man) knocked a few more, each made louder, before Faerilla even got to the door.
“We are not ready,” said Faerilla, through the wooden door.
“Please Mrs. Samuel. The matter I need to speak to you is urgent,” answered the deep voice of Terrence Jaymes.
Faerilla looked to Lya with a familiar mix of gaze and nod that said get-dressed-quickly-and-I-will-be-back. Lya brushed her hair a few times before abandoning the brush and walking quickly but soundlessly to eavesdrop from the keyhole. Had Jaque left earlier? Did Mr. Jaymes catch him in the act? The voices of her mother and Mr. Jaymes were low but she could make out snatches of their conversation.
“... will have to be postponed. Even tonight,” said Terrence.
“I don’t understand,” said Faerilla.
“A messenger from Hillway Path had just arrived. His horse had almost fainted with exhaustion and he is no better. Your husband had called for every available clansmen to the Hall.”
“Hillway Path? Oh Terrence, you don’t think?”
“Hadn’t Handred mention it before? There’s no time for the Bonding Night. And bring Lya too.”
On instinct, Lya tore herself away from the door and tried her best to look as if she had been busy and successful with her hair. A few moments later, the door opened to reveal a grave faced Faerilla. Lya tried her best to look innocent despite the uncomfortable boiling hot pit in her stomach.
“Let me do that darling, before you make yourself go bald,” said her mother in a gentle voice.
She took the hairbrush from Lya’s hand. Trying to keep her own hands busy, Lya adjusted the buttons and smoothed the creases on her dress.
Faerilla seemed to be worried. The sudden silence between them only made Lya more anxious, especially since her mother hardly ever kept herself quiet about anything worth telling.
“Erm... Mother?” She tried to start something, hoping to receive something important.
As she had been reading her mind, Faerilla’s response was in a soft tone but it still held a sharp edge to her tongue.
“We’re going to the Hall soon. I’ll see if Dydine would let us pack some bread and cheese to supp in case you’d get hungry.”
It was still unsatisfactory to Lya, but she kept the thought to herself. A lady should not be disturbing her elder’s troubled mind with her own curiosity. She finished quickly, tying a neat braid and both women left the bedroom in wide strides. Faerilla held a strong grip to her daughter’s hand as they walked across the empty and quiet corridors. In all the time she visited Jaque during her childhood days, Lya had never felt the house so disturbingly quiet.
The Jaymes’s home at the farm was not very large as compared to the fields they owned and all rooms were built on the ground floor. But it still was a grand old home made of good old oak, hickory and other hardwoods added throughout the years. Lya had always liked it better than her father’s cold stone manor where she lived. It was once the main Jaymes family home until Finnigan Jaymes, Jaque’s eldest uncle, build a stone house of his own closer to the village centre.
Dydine was already at the entrance room with a covered basket at one hand. Behind her was tiny Kennick, holding his fists to his mother’s skirts and his face solemn. He stared at Lya with wide eyes behind his golden fringe. Faerilla took the basket from Dydine and muttered a brief thanks.
“Aren’t you coming with us, Mother Jaymes?” asked Lya.
Dydine patted her large belly and shook her head.
“I would stay here and take care of my other sons. All of them are too young to attend.”
Faerilla passed the basket to Lya’s hand as they left the house. A rising cinnamon smell of freshly baked bread with soft cream cheeses rose from the cloth covered. If Lya had not been feeling so nervous, she would have peeked to see if Dydine had included some spiced chicken.
Outside were Terrence and her father Handred, both were saddled on their horses and wore smart dark coats with blank faces. Jaque had just strapped on the ropes on bulky old Ned the mule. Beside them was the horse buggy Lya and her mother had arrived in, its one stallion looked annoyed to be harnessed in so soon. The two grown men were in a deep conversation but ended abruptly when they saw Lya and her mother.
“Jaque, go and help the ladies into the buggy,” said Terrence.
Jaque complied obediently. Handred looked away for a moment and then he said to them, “I have to go right now. They’ll be expecting me to be the first to greet them.”
Terrance only nodded. The old Samuelson kicked his heels to his horse’s flanks and he was gone like lightning. If possible Lya felt even more scared. She looked straight at Jaque, trying to catch his eye as he held out his hand to aid her into the buggy.
Jaque could see her questioning look and countered with his own grimmer gaze.
“What it is?” Lya asked before he did. She was careful to keep her voice from her Faerilla, even though her attention was on the sight of her disappearing husband.
“You told me before that the King’s Mages are coming? Well, they are almost here,” said Jaque.
“So soon? But it is a good long way from Aqanau!” gasped Lya.
Jaque shook his head and returned her the food basket.
“I don’t know how, Lya. I just don’t know.”
Before he turned to his Mother Samuel, Lya leaned over and touched lightly on his shoulder. She stared at him with her own serious, solemn stare.
“This changes everything.”
“This changes nothing,” said Jaque.
The journey from Jaymes' farm to the heart of Enatuh took a good length of two hours and they were in a hurry. Jaque and his father moved only as fast as the Samuel's horse-buggy could take the two women, the later led the way with a lighted lamp on a staff. Lya gazed at the landscape as the skylight faded from a gold-red sunset to a purple velvet speckled with tiny spots. They passed other farmsteads and a lone cottage or two from a distance. Many of them were dark or glowed faint with small lights.
There were others headed for the same direction but they seldom spoke. Not too soon when a more stable hard packed road replaced the muddy brown path. By the time they could see the silhouette of the largest and only tiled roofed building in the village, the bread and cheese were eaten clean from Dydine's basket and there was enough light from the bright Fire Tower to see with little use of Terrence's lamp. He blew the light out and returned a greeting from a passing Jeramson.
The Fire Tower was the only structure taller than the village hall. It was used to light the village during festival nights or for important visitors from far away to see the village from a distance after dark. For most of the year, the Fire Tower held a great bell, where Mr. Patrickson the elderly watchman sat in on guard every night. Tonight, a good-sized blaze shone on the very top, lighting high above the earthen streets, thatched dwellings and shop houses everywhere.
It appeared that the King's Mages had just arrived. Two horse drawn coaches drove pass by the Hall. They were deep red of colour, almost black under the firelight. Lya could barely make out the emblem on their doors, a green peacock with a sweeping tail entwining itself around a lighted staff. The words written in a circle around the peacock-staff were in old Isaqn language, Isnut inotu Avaasi ina Uqona.
She felt out of ease by the sight of the emblem. As they got closer to the Hall, Terrence Jaymes rode a bit back to Faerilla and broke the long silence between them.
"We shall part for now. If you don't mind Mrs. Samuels, your husband approved of me borrowing some room in your stables for my son's mule and my horse. We are already close to the hall and my brother's home is on the other side of the village."
Faerilla seemed to have woken from a trance when Mr. Jaymes spoke. But she nodded to him before turning her attention to Lya.
"Lya sweetheart, would you take the buggy and drive back by yourself back home? Just make sure Rosa scrubbed them down nicely. I'll see you at the back entrance of the Hall later. I must be with your father. He would need a hostess," said Faerilla.
Lya was about to follow obediently before she suddenly saw Jaque turned his head to her. He spoke the soundless language with wide, searching eyes. Nothing's changed, I need to disappear.
"Mother, why don't Jaque take the horses instead? It isn't safe for young ladies to be alone after dark, even with the Fire Tower lit. Rosa can..."
Her voice faltered when she saw Mr. Jaymes shook his head.
"I'm sorry daughter, but my son needs to be punctual in this meeting. Most of the men around his age are already in the Hall. It was requested by the Mages," said Terrence.
He got down from his steed and motioned to Jaque to do the same before handling him the reins. Jaque tied his father's horse and his mule to the back of the buggy. All the while, he looked to Lya and his eyes spoke again, in a way she could not really tell if it was softer or harder. You're the one with the Ability. I'll look after myself.
Lya sighed steadily as she took the reins from her mother and led the buggy away with the two other esquires. The Samuel's residence was little more a house yet much less than one of those fairytale mansions she had read about in her father's library. It was the oldest and one of the few double story buildings in Enatuh, itself enclosed in a large private garden surrounded on all sides with a seven feet high fence wall.
Outside the abode yet adjoined to the wall was the stone stable. Lya got off the buggy and knocked gently on the wooden sliding gate. Predictably, Rosa answered the summons almost immediately, her dark eyes gleaming. Rosa Samueldottir was her father's first cousin. She lived with them just after the terrible butchery thirteen years past that made her a widow and childless. The woman's face always lit up at the sight of Lya, whom she considered as her closest female companion.
"You are a too early to return here, butterfly," said Rosa. She had never once called Lya by name and often spoke in riddles and metaphors.
"Not tonight, auntie. There are Mages in the village and they don't seem willing to wait for tomorrow to round up the head of clans," said Lya.
But then she thought for a moment.
"Are they staying for the night, Rosa?"
"Not to my knowledge. The only thing on my mind since this morning was if your flower had shared its secret earlier than flowers were supposed to."
Lya ignored the growing heat on her face, either caused by her continuing uncertainty or Rosa's statement. She untied the reins of the Jaymes' steeds as Rosa led the buggy inside.
"Ahh, yes. Mages Dangerous. Dangerous Mages. See how they rhyme! Be quick, butterfly, before you are missed. All flowers shall be bloomed but sweetness is best when tasted twice. So hurry now," said Rosa, smiling as she remove the straps.
Lya's face stiffened but she returned the smile with a wave. Now she wondered how many others who thought she had already a Bonding Night with Jaque.
She was running before she stopped at the front gate of her house. If the Mages were staying at Enatuh for the night, they would definitely stay the head villager's house since there were no inns, her father's house. Lya felt a sense of presentiment with that thought. Knowing how long it would take for Rosa to take care of 3 animals, Lya opened the gate and walked quickly up the garden pathway to the stone porch to the front door.
There were only five rooms at the ground floor but three of them were very large. A modest hall that had been turned into a classroom, Rosa's bedroom next to the only kitchen anywhere that could cook a boar indoors and a good-sized library. Quietly entering, she went straight for her father's study. Four generations of Samuels had completely ignored the historical treasure just under the very stone floor they walked upon and ten generations after that, including her father, did not even knew it existed.
Out of habit, Lya knocked gently on the thick door. There was no answer. She had expected it but she was being careful and always armed with an excuse in ready. She had been caught twice before but never while she was in the actual act of taking the set of keys out from a small hidden cache under the grand mahogany desk. After removing them, she gave a sigh of relief. Now she must hurry to get to the Hall.
She left the room as quietly as she came, pressing the set of keys close to her so they won't make a sound. If the Mages were curious as Lya was as a child, all they could only find that was curious enough would be an empty box in the study. Unknowingly, a pair of eyes had watched her every move from the window in the cover of outside's darkness.
Enatuh’s hall, or simply known as the Hall, was the main reason, if not just one of the reasons, why the village became the capital of the Green Cliffs valley. The sparsely populated community area was not small, indeed one of the largest in the kingdom. But the great interlocking of two mountain ranges surrounding the valley made it a difficult terrain to travel in or out to the north, Asuqaro, or south, Uvounuq.
Lya stopped to catch her breath for a moment as she stood at one of the smaller back doors of the Hall. She had run all the way from her house, her body was sweating despite the cool night’s breeze. But before she could knock quietly, the small door opened with a bang.
“Quick, quickly child! I wish not to miss anything and neither should you!” cried Channeler Harrietta. With a jingle of her bracelets on her thick wrist, she pulled Lya roughly up the staircase and closed the door noisily.
A number of hushed shhh! followed. Lya’s eyes tried to see clearly in the almost complete darkness but her feet tripped over someone and she fell to the wooden floor. Another round of shhh..., a little louder.
“Oh, quiet yourself!” said the Channeler in a hoarse whisper.
Still holding a tight grip on her Lya’s wrist, she pulled her up to the front, following more wooden steps, each narrower and more twisted than the other.
Only men were permitted to sit on the stair benches fitted against the left and right walls. Important guests, regardless of gender and when there are any, were seated at the main red mahogany tables that made a ‘C’ on the stone floor. The open-end arrangement of the tables faced the main antechamber and entrance. The women and children stood crowded listening from the antechamber, or if they were lucky, watch the proceedings from the encircling balcony just under the Hall’s roof.
As Channeler Harrietta led her to the balcony, muttering excuses as she goes, Lya could see Jaque and his father sitting somewhere at a corner close to the entrance, just under the light of a rusty iron-wrought candles’ stand. Terrence was rubbing his chin, his face looked solemn. Jaque looked more nervous than she had ever seen him before. He kept turning his head at every noise but most of the time, he looked at those sitting at the main tables.
“There you go girl, just stand here with Faerilla and watch. Look, Gemianna, Lyndie and Virdie are already here.”
Channeler Harrietta pointed to the high back of the only chair in the balcony area. And with a flash, she disappeared, rather quickly for a woman her size. Lya looked nervously over the railing as she made her way to her mother. On her left were a young pregnant woman and a pair of Willingdottir twins. Virdie’s face lit up at the sight of her best friend and gestured excitedly with her hands to bid Lya closer without making a sound.
Lya pushed her way gently between the curious and anxious women to join them. She touched lightly to her mother’s shoulder to show her presence. Faerilla merely nodded and returned to her attention to the meeting below.
“What’s going on?” whispered Lya.
“Nothing much. Your pa had just introduced the Heads to the Mages and they’ve answered back. See, they’re passing the welcome wine now,” said Virdie quickly, as if saying anymore might distract her of something. The men sitting on the benches were not offered the wine.
Virdie Willingdottir was hardly identical to her twin sister. She was fairer than most people with a thick bushy head of gold, like her father. Lyndie looked more like Gemianna’s sister than simply first cousin. Both were shorter and their red hair was straight. Gemianna had a rounder face, which was full of freckles, a trait only Leighamdottir possessed. Having a round belly, either with or without a child also seemed to be a Leighamdottir trait, Lya quietly mused.
She looked over the railing again and this time, she studied the faces of those sitting at the table. Her father was at the main chair, looking as relaxed as a merchant guard in attention. On his right were not two or three but all seven Heads of Green Cliffs; Jeram, Leigham, Walkers, Caygarl, Asana, Frett, and of course, Jaymes. How did the Caygarls and the Fretts managed to arrive so quickly from their distant communities was as baffling to Lya as why the Mages requested the meeting.
On Handred Samuelson’s left, there were four Mages sitting not close but on the far edge of the tables. Anyone could tell they were the ones because of the silvery peacock green coats they wore and the two young boys standing behind. The boys were servants perhaps, or apprentices, or both. They stood in discipline, but their shivering was obvious and their faces flushed red. Apparently, only the Mages were warned of the cold mountain air in Enatuh’s nights.
Like the rest of them, Handred drank deeply into his apple wine; his eyes never wavered from a light-haired Mage closest to him. He looked to be at the height of his manhood, his short beard neat and his brows thick.
“He’s the leader. His name is Chris Anasteq. Or at least, that’s what he said,” said Virdie.
She pointed to each of the Mages and explained their identity to Lya.
“The old man next to him looks as old as your pa, but more vigorous, if you excuse my meaning. Mage Chris said the old man’s his senior but not his superior or his father, how strange.”
The next Mage had a darker skin than any of them; his eyes were an unusual bright blue, and often shivered but with less consistency than the boys behind him. He drank the wine with less consistency too.
“And that one’s Karina, Chris’s wife. Imagine, a mage for a wife! But Chris addressed her as a ‘Sage’, maybe cause she’s a lady. I’m not sure about these things.”
Lya listened in earnest, her eyes focused closely at Karina. Her curly hair was short, like her husband’s, but her face was shapely.
“The last one’s looked most strange to me. Gerald Usuquinota. What a name. Perhaps his clan was barbarians. But he looked more like a knight, don’t you think?” asked Virdie.
Lya could barely register what Virdie said before her father suddenly stood up with his hands held out for attention. The scattered talks, whispers and other noises disappeared almost in an instant. Handred stood for a moment, before he spoke.
“Blood and brethren, I see and accept you! Clans and clansmen, I speak and listen to you! Let no dishonour be done and may no evil harm us. For at this moment and at this hour, we welcome four Outsiders for as long as they come in good graces. What would they say?”
Handred gestured a hand to the light-haired Mage, Chris Anasteq. The man, who had never left his eyes between her father and the Heads, stood up like a solider. He looked more robust standing than sitting. The man gestured a fist to his heart before he bowed his head low in respect. Then the man spoke, his voice was as deep and haunting as the echoes of a stone dropped into a deep well.
“I say this, Father Villager, to you and your blood and your people. I bring no stain; neither do my company, until proven guilty. I bring no danger; neither do my company, until proven guilty. Here are my hands, no whiter than yours. Accept me is to accept us all. What do you say?”
Lya saw that most of the men we impressed. Jaque had stopped looking around and was rubbing the side of his neck.
Apparently, Mage Chris was no stranger to the ethnic customs of Green Cliffs. Although the faces of the clan leaders were blank, once or twice their heads nodded in approval. Handred did not even blink, but his answer said his sanction.
“I answer you, Outsider, that I shall let you speak. Let all who are here become witnesses to your words and actions. You may speak now.”
The Heads stood up a bit straighter.
Mage Chris paused for a moment. Lya could not tell if he looked tired or troubled, or maybe even both. But there was no evident weakness in his eyes.
“Citizens of Green Cliffs. I wish to apologize for the lateness of this hour I’ve called for you to hear. But any moment in luxury here is a moment in peril elsewhere. For you see, good men and women, the whole of Asuqaro is threatened by outside forces once again. We are at war.”
The hall suddenly fell into a silence at the mage’s last word; broken only by sudden gasps, rough whispers and mutters from the crowds. The mage had paused, either waiting for the information to sink into the Heads or simply to catch his own breath. But if any of the Heads showed some emotions, they looked more solemn than ever. Lya felt someone held on to her right hand and saw that it was her mother. Her eyes had grown very wide.
Handred Samuelson nodded for the mage to continue, his wrinkled face looked hard. Chris inhaled deeply.
“The enemies that held its sword against us are the Skylander provinces. The Nobility had confirmed at least 3 regions had gathered and stationed their armies close to the west border of Onus, which is only a kingdom and a sea-strait away from our homeland.”
The scattered voices grew in size and numbers as Mage Chris spoke.
A stray voice from the benches cried, “The Skylanders have no business with us!”
A number of voices echoed the man’s thought. Mutters and whispers continued, each made by harsh faces. Another man voiced his opinion, one that Lya managed to catch the person who said it.
“We have nothing against the Skylanders. Your message is obscure!” said Finnigan Jaymes, speaking for the first time.
Her father knocked the head of his walking stick loudly on the table, silencing the crowd. He eyes never left any of the Mages, but Lya could not really tell which one he was staring at.
“Please continue, Mage,” said Handred.
Mage Chris’s face looked more forlorn in Lya’s eyes, but his stance was ever so erect.
“It is the truth, the Skylanders have nothing against us. It is still the truth, but what they do have against is Inutqland,” said the mage.
The scattered whispers started to rise again. Lya heard a woman behind her gasped as her mother’s grip tightened. The last mage, the one Virdie thought was the strangest, raised his gaze from the table. His face showed more youth than the other three mages, but it might have been the trick of his very short black hair and his striking gold-brown eyes. It was the man’s eyes that amazed Lya the most because for some reason, it struck a sense of familiarity.
“Inutqland is a dead nation,” said a high-pitched voice.
The statement took Lya’s attention to the person standing behind the head villager’s high-backed chair. Channeler Harrietta looked as if she had her broom handy, she would have swept the Mages out with all the strength of the Mailotdottir within her. As Enatuh’s channeler, her position in any important meeting is always behind Lya’s father, no matter the gender.
And Channeler Harrietta was not finished yet. Her face was taut.
“Five hundred years had the dastardly Inutites kept themselves barricaded inside their own barren country. Their land is nothing but broken down to ashes and the barbaric people forever trying to rebuild with those ashes as their Government only cared bathing in honey-milk. Everyone has a history against Inutqland and it had all been done,” she said.
A cheer rose of a corner where many Mailot clansmen had gathered. Lya recalled the history lesson her father had taught in class. Inuqtland was one of the oldest and strongest civilisations in Evinau realm. But a sudden change of power had led to national deterioration, to a civil war and an opportunity to an open war. Since their great fall, little to no diplomatic Inutites had ventured outside their borders and hardly any traders. And all the other kingdoms and nations kept it that way.
The Head Villager rapped his stick on to the table again and the cheering men dropped their merriment to a minimum. But instead of simply nodding for the mage to continue, he asked a question. Impatience rang in his voice.
“Why does this news concern us, Mage Chris?”
His voice was so serious and monotonous that no one muttered a word when he finished. But Lya subconsciously knew the reason for the sudden silence because it was the one question on everybody’s mind tonight.
The mage turned his face straight to Handred. No longer did he look like a tired traveller but a battle knight filled with passion.
“Why does it concern? Why did you think we have journeyed? Are you not the people of Asuqaro? Have you not felt the pain of loss thirteen years ago? Our land in under threat again and all you ask is to be allowed sit in idle? Wake up Suvonians!”
And they certainly did. Even those in deep stupor and on the edge of snoring were suddenly jerked by magic.
Lya wondered if indeed magic were used in the mage’s words. But so far, Channeler Harrietta had not signalled her father that she felt that connection. Even so, the very name Suvon could entice passion fire of either hate or love, depending on how the story had been told. But hardly anyone ever speak of the great land before the Collapse. Hardly anyone even spoke of the lost past at all. And to her the name from the mouth of a mage...
But Handred Samuelson was not ready to back down yet. He stood with all the majesty Lya had ever seen him possessed, his walking stick looked like a sceptre.
“And I say this to you, Mage. Where were you and your fellows thirteen years ago? Where were even the King’s knights? The last of Uvounuq’s barbarians tore across our hamlet while you only concern is the King’s coronation. And you knew!”
Handred shook his walking stick at Mage Chris, his face twisted in temper.
“You knew our plight but did nothing! All that we’ve received was a parchment of apology and allegiance. The rider would not even stay to take my message of aid to your newly crowned leader. People of Asuqaro? No! We are Green Cliffs!”
He slammed his thick stick to the table to emphasize his word. The men rose and cheered, even the women cried in a mix of approval for her father and distaste for the mages.
But Chris Anasteq the Mage’s own fury had not been expunged. The man banged his fist on the table so hard that Lya jumped. And by the diminishing voices, so others were caught by surprise.
“Honest people! Did you think the blood of others were not as red? You whose children were spared from war, did you think it would never come to your door? Did you think the Nobility had spared you because they ignored you? If you would not answer to the Spirit which is Lost, then answer to your own history! Think, good people and answer me. How were you ever Green Cliffs to begin?”
This time, there were no voices that followed. Only silence as dead as the night that had long since fallen on Enatuh. But then a lone statement spoke without fear, but with clarity as if the man who stood and said the words knew in his heart of the truth what the mage had demanded.
“We were the Defenders Guard, by honour of Esaeni Aqens Order. We were all born to become soldiers.”
The man who spoke was Jaque Jaymeson.
Whatever effect Jaque thought he would gain, only those around his age looked surprised and/or puzzled. Lya could tell that he managed to surprise himself. The elder clansmen and clanswomen just stared solemnly at him, some even cringed their faces. Even less told than the myths and legends of Suvon was the secret history of Green Cliffs valley.
For many years, the tale was told through generations but not spoken of. After the new King did not provide protection or aid, her father openly rebuked anyone who tried to speak of it. To the children, he only taught them that the clans’ people came to a lush land from the Old Realms and made it their homes. Nothing about the magic. Not even the secret archives of Chaos Skills.
Esaeni Aqens. Perhaps no one even remembers what the Suvonite name means anymore, save Lya herself.
“Sit down, Jaque,” said Handred, his tone was sharp but with little displeasure.
Jaque’s face was red but the mage had his attention well focused. “No, Father Villager. Let him speak,” said Mage Chris.
He raised an open palm to Jaque and nodded. But while Jaque looked eager, his father was tugging at his son’s hand to sit down.
But Handred stood as quickly as his frail bones could carry him, his expression filled with growing distaste.
“I do not let any one to speak of the Green Cliff’s old days as long as I am the Father of Green Cliffs.”
“The boy is not of your clan, isn’t he? Let him speak. Let him tell the truth,” countered the mage.
A mutter of interest rose from the younger folk of the Hall only seemed to fuel Handred’s discontent.
“He is a man. More importantly, my son-in-law! And what does he know? He was not even schooling when I passed the rule,” said Handred, his eyes going back and forth between the mage and the half-standing Jaque.
Because I was the one who told him. Lya squeaked instantly at the thought and quickly regretted her bad habit. Half the hall now drew their attention at her.
Jaque quickly broke free from Terrence Jaymeson’s grasp and spoke loudly.
“I do know. More than that, I’ve told many about it! Who we were, how we came here, how we failed the Towers and how the mages...”
But Handred was knocking his the head of his walking stick on the table loudly.
“Stop, stop! I forbid you. Jaymeson, restraint your son!” shouted the Head Villager. Terrence pulled Jaque forcefully by his arm as Jaque continued to rant.
Lya thought that she should speak too but her mother’s grasp on her own hand was almost begging for her not to start. But the rest of the hall was growing troubled as well; the walls were ringing with the voices of the younger clans of both men and women as the elders tried to hold them.
“Let Jaque speak!”
“What secret?”
“Mages, tell us if you knew!”
“Quiet Boris, or I’ll have your mouth stuffed with dung!”
“Clean out your mouth, father!”
Between the shouts and cries and knocking of Handred’s stick, Lya caught the elder mage standing up. With hands as thin and crooked as her father, the elder mage clapped them together once but the sound emitted was enormous. It was like a crack from an End-Winter thunderstorm that was a lightning-struck tree too close. Lya felt her ears ringing and wondered if others, by their shocked faces, felt the same.
Channeler Harrietta seemed to be the only person unmoved by the sudden noise. Immediately she pointed a fat finger at the elder mage.
“Magic! You touched the Chaos!” she cried, as if the 300 unskilled others had not noticed the unnatural resonance. Lya saw the faint waves of patterns too.
Many times she had watched the channeler performed the common skills on others, healing or cleaning the water or reading the earth for when to plough the fields. Always there was this strange white glow on her fingertips, like the faint edges of candles. When she was a smaller child, she had always wanted to ask Channeler Harrietta about the glow, but the woman’s huge size had always intimidated her.
It was not until after she discovered the archives that her curiosity was quenched. Even then Lya had not mention them to the channeler. Now that she was older and hopefully stronger in the skills, the desire to share her secrets was turned to Jaque instead of the Channeler. But there was a difference between the waves that exude from the elder mage and the channeler.
“Virdie,”
“Please Lya, not so loud,” said Virdie, rubbing the ear that Lya spoke into.
“I’m sorry, but who was that old mage again?” asked Lya, her eyes watched as the elder mage and Mage Chris whispered quietly to each other.
“Oh had I not mentioned? His name is Mariel Hivyniqiv. A foreigner no doubt,” said Virdie.
Hivyniqiv. Lya wondered what language did his name contain a meaning.
Handred’s look was never broken from the two standing mages. If anytime, he was a man ready to gain control of the situation. He turned a hand away at Channeler Harrietta and gestured for her to return to her place. But it was the elder mage, Hivyniqiv, who spoke first.
“Keep your old secrets, Handred Samuelson, and bury your past if you think you know what is right. But tonight we both see that your voice had not been one with the Whole. We can sit here until the Old War-Devil knocks on your door before he blows down this shack. But I am old and my juniors cannot waste their skills with you while the rest of my family break their bones on stones.”
The old mage produced a stick from under the table, long and strong, shaped like a shepherd’s crook. He rapped the other mages with it on their shoulders as if he had turned daft.
“Come, come! We leave. Yes, now. Let their own dead speak to them. When it gets louder, maybe they’ll finally hear something.”
The Mage, Chris Anasteq, raked his hand through his hair, his face suddenly turned dejected. The woman mage, Karina, looked as if she was ready to protest and speak her voice but the rap on her shoulder seemed to have dispirited her. Only the face of the youngest mage did not express his thoughts, his striking gold-brown eyes stared blankly at the clan leaders.
Enatuh did not seem to let them go silently though. Many were standing and shouting with divided opinions. Those who sat by the entrance to see the mages pulled back by others; clearly they wanted the mages to leave.
“Good riddance!”
“Please, wait! What secret?”
“Forget it, they’ve brought more trouble than loose goats!”
“Don’t come back!”
“Quiet, they might curse us!”
“They’ve travelled far. They can protect us!”
Suddenly, a man from the benches pulled free from his father’s grip and nearly fell as he ran down the stairs to the mages, running as his father cried for him. Lya wondered if Jaque insistence for the mages’ support was his plan to escape Enatuh. But to war? She remembered how Jaque froze in fear before an oncoming wild boar. He would never survive any real battle.
Lya watched as Jaque pushed away at the hands that restricted him and stopped dead in front of the mages. He looked surprised at his own courage. Behind him were shouts of disapproval and called for him to move away. The old mage seemed to have thought the same. He said something to Jaque that was drowned from the chaos of noises and used the stick to rap Jaque. Jaque avoided the stick and said something to Chris Anasteq, his voice too Lya could not here.
All eight clan leaders were standing as they faced the backs of the mages, each of them with their own thoughts and mixed expression. Handred held tightly to his walking stick as if it was a sword ready to wield.
To be continued...
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