Xinthusla is so old. Of course he's probably been here. And there, and anywhere. I've been only in Ferwiq and Qu'Eleth. I wonder if he's been there? Has he done this before? Has he taken some Novice and gone exploring in the Land like we do now? She started to remember her history. She had always been told stories of the greatest sorcerer and had always thought him a legend. Now she walked besides him and all she could think of were questions that she wanted to ask. She looked at him again. His golden hair was tied back in a tight tail at the nape of his neck. His clothes were fitted tightly to him so that the wind couldn't pull at him. He wore flat boots that went up to his knees. Her gaze went to the ring on his finger. She suddenly became curious as she looked back up to his face. She knew his dead wife's name. She had even seen a picture of Robin but she knew nothing about her. She took a deep breath before she asked, 

"What was Robin like?" 

He was silent, the wind behind him screaming. She wondered if he had heard her or if she should repeat herself. She was finally rewarded with him turning his gaze on her. His light eyebrows weren't lowered and he seemed calm. 

"I am afraid to ask how you know about her," he replied softly, the wind's howls making one or two of his words almost inaudible. She opened her mouth to reply but he shook his head. "I do not care from what lecture or lesson you learned about her but you aren't going to learn more from me right now." He gave a smirk. "Curious as a cat." She faintly smiled, trying to make up for the discomfort she had given him. She did not want to upset him. 

"I am." 

She glanced down at her feet as she stepped over a small sand pile. When she looked back up at him she was surprised to see that he was still staring at her. His blue eyes made her feel slightly uncomfortable and she ended up looking away. She looked at the rest of the caravan they traveled in. They had picked it up in the city of Sul'illa for only a few silver pieces. It was made up of three merchants' wagons and two living and cooking wagons. Only the wagon drivers and two other got to ride in the wagons. What surprised her was that there weren't any small children or elderly. Everyone heading to the Imperial City was in the prime of their lives. 

"What made you ask that question?" 

Roselyn turned her head back to him. He was looking forwards once again. "Because I am bored. My legs are screaming at me and my eyes tire from the sight of so much sand. It surrounds us! I cannot tell where we are going or if we are just turning around in big circles. I wanted to talk- to help pass the time," she lamely added. She felt clumsy and inept with him walking besides her. Even though he had ordered her to call him "Christian", she always had "Xinthusla" on the tip of her tongue.

"So, I'm now a storyteller?" he asked. She only playfully shrugged her shoulders.

"If you wouldn't mind? I do not have any stories of my own." He chuckled and nodded once.

"Of course not. You are only in your mortal years. They will come. One day, an upstart young fool will ask stories from you." He paused. "I will not tell you about my wife."

Her heart gladdened as she realized he was offering to tell her a story. She thought hard over her knowledge of him and where she had questions about his life. She remembered his stay in Yio. 

"Your time spent in Yio, with Xinthia," she eagerly said. His light eyebrows raised. 

"You really want to hear about my mother and myself against Uryal?" he asked. She only nodded her head. 

"I do. I want to know about the entire battle." 

"Alright. This story is so long I'll be telling it until the entrance to Gil'alla."

She suddenly felt guilty. She didn't deserve to know any of his life. She had just presumed he would tell her. "I- you do not have to-,"

"Hush or I won't finish before we arrive." She smiled and silenced as she walked besides him in the hot desert. 

It began in my hundredth and seventy-first year. I was living in Dernth in the Quil islands. I wanted to live in peace and solitude after my recent skirmish with Lady Death. She had taken another of my loved ones and I wanted to try and forget. I had a small cottage house there, in the city of Derni. I was in peace- listening to the birds sing overhead and the gentle creek babble besides my hammock. I had placed it by a small creek in the middle of the isle, where no one else lived. A small village was a league away but I rarely talked to them. I liked my solitude as I had a lot of things to think about. Remember this Roselyn, people look up to those with power. I seemed to have enough power that the whole Land felt it appropriate to let me carry its burdens on my shoulders. Anyway, I digress. I was half asleep one day when I heard my mother storming through my cottage. 

"Christian!" she screeched. I kept my eyes closed as I heard her boot heels click on the stone steps that led from the back door and to the kitchen. It tended to get rather muddy and the stones enabled me to walk out to my hammock without sinking into the soft ground. As for my mother's boot heels, it seems Xinthia had always been rather poor until her Awakening. She had always wanted a pair of shiny black leather boots, they were a sign of money to her, so she made herself some soon after my father's death. She wore them everyday, it is one of her idiosyncrasies. 

"Christian! Did you hear me? You have to come with me," she told. 

"I do not have to come with you," I replied with a yawn. 

"It is very important that you come with me now!" Now Xinthia always thought things were more important than what they were. Usually what she thought needed immediate attention I could deal with the next day or the next week. I guess our definitions of time are a little off. 

"Uryal can wait?" This got my attention. I opened both of my eyes and watched her. She was dressed in her traveling clothes, green riding skirts and a white cotton shirt with a button down dark green vest over it. Her brown hair was pulled into a tail at the back of her head. It snaked over one of her shoulders and ended. 

"You have my attention," I replied. She cunningly smiled- my mother is the reason why the Gods made us capable of cunningly smiling. I instantly recognized she had some plan churning in her mind; I was afraid to ask what it was. She sat herself down close to me on a chair she had created. 

"I just learned that Uryal is on the move. From my reports, it sounds like Xinizia and Tiz are dead."

"Dead?" Those two had been Uryal's right and left arms for centuries. To learn of their sudden deaths surprised me. It also made me wonder who had killed them. My mind came to two possibilities: a sorcerer who was against Uryal- probably one of the three jesters who run Qu'Eleth, or Uryal himself. I thought back over the past few days, then weeks, then months; I hadn't heard or felt the massive amount of magic that would have been needed to kill the two. That meant someone had killed the two by mundane means. I doubted that there was another sorcerer who had the same strength that I did. Call it foolhardiness or inexperience of youth- I dismissed the other possibilities. 

My mother was nodding at me, her hazel eyes twinkling. "He seems to be heading northward. This is our time," she softly hissed.

"To do what?"

"To kill him."

I shook my head. "How can you be sure of this? I find it hard to believe the two are dead. This reeks of a trap."

"The two of us against Uryal! This is our opportunity!" she badgered. I could see the prize- Uryal dead- but it was not a clear path. There was too much fog but I didn't want to wait for it to clear. 

"Where is he?" I asked.

"A hundred leagues north of Hiew."

I shook my head. "He's heading to the Isles. It will be hard to follow him once he's there. He can be in any of the three realms- underground, above ground, or in the clouds. We can't tell which of the three realms he would be in." I remember she placed her hands on my hammock, her sun drenched knuckles white.

"Are you going to let him run off and hide again? Are you going to let him disappear from us to live for another seventy-five years or more? He killed Robin. He deserves to die."

I weighed the chances of succeeding and the chances of this being a trap. Uryal was an intelligent sorcerer- I always had to believe he was outsmarting me. I believed the two balanced each other- leading me to more fear that it was a trap. But then, I relived the moments when Robin had died in my arms. With her lifeless body in my arms, I had looked up to Uryal and the sneer he gave me has always been imprinted in my mind. This memory led me to say, 

"Okay. Let's go."

We traveled day and night, only stopping for an hour or two every other day. Magic helped sustain us. One of us would sleep in our saddle while the other one rode awake, always on the alert for signs of trouble. I doubted anyone would stop us we were dressed as normal peasant travelers on horseback. We didn't want to be forced to use our magic because Uyral would hear my mother or even me because I was traveling near her. We had a lot of ground to cover in a little time. Uryal was weeks ahead of us and coming ever closer to the Isles. We had narrowed the gap by almost half after a month. But Uryal only had twenty leagues to cross until he reached the Isles. I would spend my waking hours thinking of ways to stop him. I couldn't physically stop him and if I used my powers he would certainly know we were following him. 

One night, during one of our infrequent stops, my mother did something that kept our chase alive. While I stood watch, she went into a trance. Her body stayed behind as her soul went into a body of a chimera. I made sure her body was kept safe while she used the chimera's magnificent speed and power to take her to the city of Yio. There, she met an old friend of ours by the name of Klis. He owed us a favor and Xinthia was there to collect. I imagine it must have been a humorous sight- a chimera talking to a spy with my mother's voice coming from the beast's mouth. She told him to use everything he knew to keep Uryal in the city. Klis did not let us down. As we quickly crossed the Land, Klis kept Uryal in Yio. I'm guessing he used his friends or those who owed him a favor to keep the sorcerer entertained. 

As we entered Yio from the west Uryal was leaving it in the east. I'm guessing he started to feel our presence and realizes that he needed to start moving. He made a fatal error though. He used his magic to steal another horse. He called upon his powers and it was like a beacon to us. Before he could finish his work, I quickly sent out my magic and like if someone was tugging on the end of a rope, I held onto to his stream of magic. I made it so that he couldn't finish and that he had to keep his power flickering alive as we dashed across Yio's streets. We found him outside the city, on top of a hill, his face red as he held the reigns to two horses. He was an interesting sight- perched on top of the hill struggling to let his powers become dormant again. The black night sky behind him made a grand background as light from the city behind my mother and myself cast dark shadows on his face. He wore his sorcerer robes- Uryal had always wanted mortals to know who he was and fear him- and the dark purple robes lay limp behind him. My mother only cackled as she jumped off her horse and neared him. As I dismounted, something pricked the back of my mind. I stopped and tried to find out what it was- but Xinthia began to speak and I wanted to hear what she was going to say.

"'Tis over Uryal. You've finally been caught," she crowed. Her hands went to her hips. It was then that I felt the prickling again. 

He began to laugh at us. Uryal began to laugh so loudly that thunder would have been drowned out by his laughter. I was ready for him to increase his strength- to call upon the full force of his powers, but he never did. "You two are blind!" he cried. My mother had never been one who could take an insult calmly, so I cringed as she called on every last ounce of her power. When she did so, it was like a hammer striking an anvil inside my ears. Uryal didn't seem to have been affected. 

"We are blind? I would not speak so. You are the one who has been trapped and you are the one who is going to the Otherworld." He stayed silent as Xinthia neared him. 

"You are mistaken Xinthia," he softly hissed. "You should be thanking me- I am going to send you back to Andrew and Xinthusla back to his Robin." There was then a loud crash of magic and I instinctively put up a shield around me. It was a moment too late. Blue fire consumed me. It lapped up my feet and into my core where my magic lived. I could not put it out like a regular blaze- by calling upon either water or sealing off the air around me- it fed on my physical body and my powers deep within me. As the heat consumed me I worked to free myself. I began to change my body. Slowly, working upwards like a flower sprouting up to the sky, I changed my existence. The blood, bones, muscles and skin that made my up body I replaced with water. It took a lot out of me, transformations usually did, and especially this transformation. I changed myself into a water sprite. My body- made of lucid blue water- still held its humanoid form and I could still see, hear and speak. The scents of the evening- fresh grass, smoke from the city behind me- were lost. But that did not matter at the moment. The fire had been fizzled out by my change. I kept my new shape a moment longer- long enough to see that my mother was fighting with two others. I changed my body back. The entire transformation, from sorcerer to water sprite to sorcerer, took but two seconds, but it was enough for Uryal to release himself from the magical grip I had put him in earlier. I saw Tiz and Xinizia fighting my mother, the sorceress and the ogre being a deadly duo. I had to make a decision. I did not know if my mother was capable of fighting both and if I helped her Uryal would have a clear opportunity to attack me. I fed the fire deep within me, letting my powers come to their full strength. And like every time that I call upon my full powers, the bright scarlet robes replaced my worn down traveling clothes and the gold arm cuffs appeared on my forearms- just like in my Awakening. Uryal and I faced each other. We were closely matched because my transformation had drained quite a bit from me. I did not know how much energy Uryal had used so I could only hope that it was enough to give me an edge. 

We fought- throwing everything from magical lightning at each other to even such mundane things as throwing knives. The only way I could win was to keep him surprised as to what I would do next. We were in a stalemate. We were both getting exhausted from the massive amounts of energy we were expending and our moves still had to be as nimble as an acrobat's. It was then that I heard a brief shrill scream from my mother. Without turning around to look, I knew the ogre and the sorceress had been too much for Xinthia. Using a half thought plan, I instantly made an invisible box and I sent it at Uryal. I knew it would trap him I just had to hope it would hold him long enough so I could help Xinthia. I turned on my heel and saw her being pinned to the ground by the ogre while Xinizia held a blue fireball in her hands. My mother looked pale and ghastly. She was exhausted. There is certain amount of power that each sorcerer has. Like water in a well, there is only so much. If a sorcerer uses too much of his power, there won't be enough to sustain his mortal needs and he will die. This is the fate that I feared my mother had reached. I sent a hurricane strength gust of wind at the two sending them flying through the air until they smacked up against the walls to the city. Neither had been expecting it so they could not fight against it. My guess was that Xinizia was nearing her exhaustion point and that even if she did have a slight second to fight back- she was too tired to do so. Both fell like sacks of grain down against the wall to lay in weak heaps on the ground. I took a large breath of air as I turned back to Uryal. His hands were against the walls of the invisible cage I had made and he was slowly burning it away. I waited for him to fight back as he freed himself when the Land suddenly went black. There were no stars in the sky nor bonfires from the city. The Land was dark and without light. I was blind, not being able to see anything that I had just a moment ago seen. I knew where things were, I could hear the startled cries from the people in the city and the immediate activity from the animals of the night. Uryal had brought this on and only he could undo it. If I had had all of my strength I could have undone it but I had to presume Uryal was going to do something drastic and I needed to be ready. 

A woman appeared before me- her bright white-golden hair hanging in thick tresses about her head. I froze, not letting even my heart beat. It was Robin. I might have said her name, I cannot remember now. I do remember hearing my mother gasp. My dead wife's body was bruised and broken before me. Instinctively I wanted to run to her and heal her at my touch- but cold reason held me back. I stood still and watched as she died a million deaths, every second telling myself that it wasn't her. That she was in peace in the Otherworld. An image of Uryal appeared besides the image of Robin and I stoically watched as the two embraced. I then felt a little slip. The real Uryal was getting tired. He had expected me to start fighting back against the images blindly letting my power attack anything. I closed my eyes, therefore shutting out the images, and started to probe around. I found him. Ever so lightly so that he wouldn't notice, I began to walk towards him. He, like me and everyone else, couldn't see so he did not notice me until I had placed my hands on his shoulders. The images instantly stopped as I both physically and magically pushed him underneath the ground. It isn't that hard of a thing to do. You let your body composition become less dense and then let the dirt and rocks go through your body. You absorb through rocks, your magic the only thing keeping you together in some form. Lower and lower I pushed until we were under thick layers of rock that made up the Land. He was too startled and tired to really fight back. What attempts he made I could easily fend off as I pushed ourselves deeper and deeper underground. I finally stopped and released him. 

"This is your prison Uryal, for eternity. Remember me." I then soared back to the surface. When my body came to its normal self, I opened my eyes and smiled when I saw the stars above my head and my mother lying down on the ground. She was crying into her palms. Xinthia is a proud woman and doesn't like letting other people seeing her cry. I came to her side and asked, 

"Xinthia, what is wrong?" She shook her head.

"Xinthusla, I saw Andrew. Uryal showed me image after image of Andrew dying a gruesome death." I had guessed wrong when I had earlier thought she had gasped at the sight of Robin. Uryal had made two different images. That could have been why he was as weak as he was when I trapped him. I knelt there in silence besides her for a few moments thinking of Robin. Tears came to my eyes as I released my magic. My traveling clothes came back to me, the scarlet robes going to wherever they went when I wasn't using my magic. 

"I want to leave. I want to see him again." I stayed silent, completely understanding. I had wanted the same thing for a long time. I took a deep breath before I replied,

"You are needed mother. The Land needs your guidance." She looked up at me, her hazel eyes tear-filled. 

"Uryal is gone. There is no need of me."

"There are others. Think of all the good you can do." She shook her head and I thought she was determined to kill herself if I didn't say something. "I need you mother." She gave a half smile and reached out with her left hand and patted my cheek.

"No you don't but it was sweet for you to say so Christian," she replied. She nodded her head. "Okay, I will stay. But only for a few more years." 

Roselyn was dumbfounded. As the walked in the early dawn on the third day she had more questions than she started out with. Her hair, tied in a tight bun at the top of her head, no longer bothered her, but now it was her ankles. She could not find a single pair of shoes in the entire caravan that would keep out the sand. Her skin was red both from her itching and the constant rubbing of loose grains of sand. She had silently listened as he had told his story for three days. She had gone to sleep each night eager to awaken so she could hear more. This was history to her-she had learned about this episode in his life but never with all of the details. She had never known that the great Xinthia had wanted to end her life. 

"If she had," she paused, "there wouldn't be a Qu'Eleth." Roselyn looked up with big eyes at him.

He only nodded. "Perhaps. Or perhaps someone else might have founded it along with Xinzia. My grandmother is a persistent person- she would have hounded another sorcerer until he or she agreed."

"Yes, but it was Xinthia who actually did it." She stayed silent as she shook her head at the possibility that there might not have been a Qu'Eleth. She couldn't find words to say. Roselyn half smiled as she looked back up at him. He was walking a pace away from her, his face and eyes facing forwards. "You are a wonderful storyteller. Perhaps you should do that after this is done." 

"I have already been a storyteller. The life of a traveling minstrel doesn't appeal to me too much. Perhaps I'm just too soft but I like staying in one place for a time."

"Then you could be a bard at a court?" He laughed at the notion. 

"I have yet to find one monarch who doesn't seem to bother me." He paused. "I told you my story would last us until the gates of Gil'alla." Roselyn swung her head around and looked. Past the last sand dune she saw the large black iron doors. At first she thought it was a mirage- she had seen plenty in the last few days, but when some spiraling white towers appeared in the sky behind the black doors, she realized it was real. She watched in awe as the Imperial City materialized as they came closer. Huge earthen walls stood at least thirty feet up in the air, surrounding the sprawling city. The walls were a soft pinkish-orange color- like the sun above the horizon in a sunset. She smiled when she saw the green leafs of a palm tree or two rest above the city's walls. She then saw the buildings reaching to the sky. They were all of the same earthen material except there were rectangle buildings with large openings in a wall. Roselyn saw tiny clothes lines stringed between buildings with clothes flapping in the strong wind. A large potted plant or two stood on top of a building and light colored fabrics covered some window openings. As the caravan neared the gates she could begin to see the palace. A white dome topped a black marble palace. She couldn't believe her eyes when she saw all of the black marble making up the palace's pillars and turrets. A single white pennant whipped in the wind off the highest turret. Roselyn would have almost taken it as a cloud if it wasn't for its quick sharp movements. She could only stare at the palace's glory. 

"All human made. Not a touch of magic helped make that palace." She looked to Christian. He didn't look impressed as he dug in his satchel. She was almost amazed at his lack of emotion as she was at the sight of the palace.

"How long did it take? To build I mean?" she asked. 

"Two hundred and forty-seven years. If you ask anyone from Gil'alla, they will tell you it took two hundred and thirty-one years. They don't like to mention the years during the revolt."

"The revolt?" 

He only shook his head as he pulled out a length of red cloth. His eyes went up to her face again. "No, not this time." He chuckled. "That's a story for another time." She watched in silence as the caravan slowly moved towards the gates. He pulled out a gold round broach in the shape of a tiny sun. It was well carved with little triangle rays extending out from its center. Christian took the length of red cloth and let it fall. It was rectangular in shape with a thick width and length. He took up the shorter end and brought the two corners around his neck. He brought the two corners to his right shoulder then pinned one corner over the other , clasping the broach over the overlapping pieces. It became a flowing mantle behind him. 

"What is that for?" she asked. He only winked. 

"You'll see."