City of Alva

Lulu stood inside the large chamber in shock as he watched all that was going on. Lined up around the wall at the edges of the chamber were naked waitstaff just like him, both men and women. Some were moving around the chamber carrying trays of fruits and roasted meat, some poured ale from large pots situated on the ground into the tankard of the nobles. The chamber could be said to be a small hall, with very low light and warmth.

He instinctively reached for his arm and rubbed it to generate some heat. The nobles in the hall were dressed in very revealing robes, lying on strangely Shaped furniture that Lulu had never seen before. They appeared very appealing to the eye, but he couldn’t for the life of him wonder how such furniture could be comfortable. There were quite a number of slaves ‘servicing’ these nobles too. More unwanted entertainment for the eyes.

Lulu looked away, facing the pit in the center of the room. He watched as the man in shackles from before was thrown into the pit. Two short blades were thrown in after him. The nobles cheered in excitement, urging those in charge of the pit to hurry.

“Stay focused, Lulu,” his master’s voice reached him, helping him stay focused. Lulu straightened his spine and picked up a tray, he filled it with some berries giving off a powerful fragrance, and went around, moving toward the Alvric Lord.

For some reason, he started to grow really anxious, afraid that the Lord would see through him. If he messed up, it wouldn’t be just him who died. His women would be raped and killed in front of him. The Alvrics showed no mercy to traitors in their city.

“Hey,” one of the nobles called to him. “Come over here.”

Lulu obeyed, bringing his tray of fruit over and bowing. The man reached for some fruits but didn’t stop there. He reached behind him to grope his buttocks.

“Urgh. too stiff,” the man said with a grimace. “Where did all the good ones go?” he waved the shivering Lulu off, who almost stumbled as he went.

Lulu held himself together. He couldn’t believe he was just groped by a man. Where did he expect to put his tiny rod? His butthole? I need to get out of here, he thought.

He quickly went back to the servers to refill his tray and walked toward the Alvric Lord again. This time, no one stopped him. Except for two guards standing before a small flight of stairs to the curtained space. They scrutinized the fruits on the tray and even asked him to eat a berry out of it. After a long while, when nothing happened to him, they let him through.

He went unhindered, reaching the short flight of stairs that led up to the Lord’s dais. A large tester bed with curtains hindered his view, but he was not there to see what was going on. He could hear groans and moans and the slapping of flesh against flesh, however.

“Would my Lord care for some fruits?” he asked, reverently bowing his head and holding out the tray.

The crowd of nobles roared behind him, causing him to jerk fearfully. He forced himself not to spill the contents of the tray or look back to confirm what was going on. Lulu waited for a while. It was a long moment before a large hand reached out from behind the curtains and into his tray.

He heard the click of metal, a muffled groan, and then nothing.

“Go drop your tray, Lulu. And walk back to the wall…slowly.”

He tried not to hurry but his legs were already moving too fast.

“Slow down, Lulu, or people will get ideas. Just remain calm.”

He breathed in a shaky breath to calm his nerves. Beastly growls were coming from the pit now. Lulu looked around to find that the nobles had their eyes focused on the pit. He slowed down as best as he could but he knew it was only a matter of time before he was caught. What had he gotten himself into? An Alvric Lord had vanished right before his eyes and he had participated in it.

The growls suddenly turned into growls of pain and something hit the ground with a thud inside the pit. The nobles started standing up from their seats.

“What just happened?” someone asked.

“He couldn’t have been able to kill a Fire Stripped Tiger so easily, could he?” a noble beside Lulu asked no one in particular.

Lulu sped up his pace again. He had a feeling this had something to do with his new master. He quickly stepped up to the wall when someone else screamed.

“Where did he go?”

“What the fuck is happening here?”

More voices filled the air expressing complaints at the unsatisfactory entertainment they were having.

“He was just here, I tell ya! The cur was just here. He couldn’t have gone anywhere. His core had been shackled!”

The crack of a whip resounded in the air, causing the nobles to quiet down and a thunderous voice boomed in the air. “Report this to Lord Alvric!”

Lulu took in a sharp breath. He almost emptied his bowels where he stood. His heart began to beat a mile away as fear ate at him. Beads of sweat dotted his brows as he watched as one of the guards standing in front of the raised dais quickly climbed the short flight of stairs and went down on one knee in front of the tester bed where the Lord had been.

Something suddenly pulled him into the wall from behind and he thought he was going to hit his head against the wall. But the wall wasn’t there anymore.

“The Lord is not here, commander!” he heard before he blacked out.

~~~

“What is the meaning of this, ‘Two’?” his superior asked.

Rihal glanced at her, worried she might not see the reason why he had to save the man on the floor. He had no idea if she knew of the fated Dark One. By all accounts, Milena was his superior on this mission and he answered to her. His master had made sure to plug every hole in the mission. That way, they wouldn’t stray too far off if mistakes ever happened.

“Forgiveness, ‘One’. I had to,” he responded with a bow, addressing her by their temporary identification method since they were still on the mission.

“You were supposed to make two jumps, ‘Two’. Why three?” Milena asked again, her voice calm and collected. She looked around the room full of people.

Rihal couldn’t see her eyes since she wore a hooded dark leather armor and the hood was big enough to obscure her whole face. All three members of the Nediti on this mission did.

Lulu was being embraced by his family as they cowered in a corner of the tiny room in fear. The three Sages they had caught were bound by essence shackles, sprawled on the floor unconscious. And then there was the last person, also bound in essence shackles.

Someone chuckled lightly beside him. “You seem unable to follow instructions, ‘Two’. Maybe this job isn’t for you.”

“Silence, ‘Three’,” Milena said, shutting him up.

Rihal savored the momentary pleasure of seeing ‘the viper’ squirm under the words of the Sage. He didn’t like Idrel one bit, plus the man had once set his eyes on his disciple when he was recovering from his injuries, which still annoyed him.

“This is one too many people, ‘Two’,” Milena said again.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A nice play with words. This Sage was full of surprises. Apparently, she kept up with the current slang among the youth. He wondered how she did it though. Sages were known to be reclusive.

“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t leave him to the ‘wind’,” she said and Rihal decided to go with his gut.

“He’s an acquaintance of my disciple, Lady Milena. Please grant me this as a boon,” he transmitted his voice to her privately, still bowing.

Milena kept quiet for a while, looking in his direction. He could see he was right to trust his gut and tell her of the man’s origin. As it appeared, she knew what he was talking about. Milena turned to the naked man on the floor.

“He must have worked at the orphanage then. What’s his name?” she transmitted back.

“Moss,” Rihal answered. “His name is Moss.”

~~~

Castle Alvric, City of Alva

“Do you know why I have called you here, Nolan?”

“No, Ancient One. You call and I answer,” Nolan Alvric said, kneeling in front of his father.

It was strange to see the once decrepit old man looking younger. He looked just as young as Vorthe’s Saint — with the help of the Argonaut of course. It was good that he was stronger and not dying anytime soon. But strange all the same.

“You have done well in your duties, son. I put you in charge of the Clan and you have produced good results. The Clan is thriving, and the slaves are plentiful. Though we lost businesses in Vorthe, we still have our partners in the Archipelago.”

Nolan could hear the ‘but’ coming from a mile away.

“Those are good accomplishments…”

Good, not great. Right. The wide hall of the throne room seemed to become narrower as his father, the Ancient One, spoke. He could almost feel the mandrake skulls used to decorate the throne staring him down in accusation. The tapestries on the walls seem to still as the wind stopped moving as if they were waiting for judgment to be pronounced. The lights from the colorful orbs dimmed and his father’s voice was all he could focus on.

“Emphasis on ‘good’. You could have done better, however.” The Ancient One took a big gulp from his tankard. “Your son has witnessed and suffered things many his age never would. In your time, you witnessed nothing like what he did.

“I trust you know that he will be twice the man you are, Nolan.”

“It’ll be an honor, Ancient One,” Nolan said from his kneeling position. He didn’t like that his father, the Ancient One, was looking down on his achievements. He had achieved what no other Patriarch had achieved.

“I know what you think. You think not that your accomplishments are inferior to that of your predecessors. You think you did a better job. Well, I say you could have done better. For the very thing you have been searching for all this time was right under your nose and you dismissed it.”

What? Nolan unconsciously looked up in shock but quickly looked down again. The air left his lungs the next moment and he hit the floor, choking.

“Never raise your eyes to meet your superior. Did I not teach you this, Nolan?”

Nolan strained to breathe, almost clawing at his throat to remove whatever invisible barrier was keeping him from breathing. He tried to command the air in the throne room to no avail. His father had complete control over the atmosphere. When he almost passed out, air rushed into his lungs.

“You younglings have lost your fire. Tsk, Damn Vorthe for making you like this!” the Ancient One cursed. “We once were the pride of these lands! Warriors, every single one of us! It runs in our blood, Nolan. But your generation depends only on tricks and tactics!

“Did you not learn the tale of the Alvric braves? Spirit, Nolan. In times like these, you need a strong and unyielding spirit.”

“I have been unyielding, Father.” Nolan hacked once again to restore order to his lungs as he returned to his kneeling position. His anger boiled and he did his best to restrain it.

“Have you? Your boy gets the beating of a lifetime during Pilgrims’ Keep and what do you do?”

“It was a rite of passage, Father, there was nothing to be done.”

“No Nolan, Pilgrims’ Keep would be canceled if it were I in your spot! The Royals would find a way to appease me. It wouldn’t matter how powerful they are! No one who does that to an Alvric heir would go scot-free!”

Nolan Alvric kept quiet, assessing his father’s point of view. That kind of attitude would have worked a few hundred years ago but Vorthe had grown financially stronger in the last few years. They had created new shipping routes and could manipulate the markets as they saw fit. If he did anything of the sort, he wasn’t ready to find out how petty the Royal Family could be.

“As it turns out,” the Ancient One went on. “The one who beat your son to a pulp is still alive and well, do you know?”

“Yes, Father. I heard.”

“Did you also hear of the beastly behavior he displayed at Blade’s Edge Canyon?”

Nolan stopped himself from looking up again. What was his father talking about? Hedon never mentioned any of this.

“No, you did not. Because you did not listen,” the Ancient One pointed out. “We are warriors, Nolan. And warriors of the wind. Warriors that listen to the songs of the ether through the wind. It sings to us the secrets of our enemies. Have you forgotten how to ‘listen’, Nolan?”

Nolan bowed his head in shame. “No… Ancient One,” he said, expressing his reverence by using his father’s status.

“Good. Find your son. And listen to everything he has to say about that boy. When you are done, present yourself in the war room.”

“Is it finally time, Ancient One?”

“It is, son,” the Ancient One replied. “It is.”

Nolan Alvric quickly got to his feet and left to find his son.

The Ancient One remained on his throne as he thought through his plan to overtake Vorthe. With the Argonaut, they would be undefeatable. But with help from his other ‘patrons’, they would be unstoppable! Vorthe wouldn’t want to fight a war with Sages and Saints, he knew how they played their games. They hide behind the guise of protecting the land so they don’t reveal their most powerful assets. But things weren’t going to go their way this time around.

“Are you still trying to bring down Vorthe, Jorm?” A voice reached him from the ether. It had come from afar. From the other side of the continent in fact.

“And do you still draw breath, Munin?” the Ancient One asked, almost playfully.

“You play a dangerous game, old friend,” the voice said.

“Pah! You dried up husk of a man. You who have always lacked the spine to do dangerous deeds. You sit, cowed in your own castle, hiding from the rest of the world. While I am getting ready to put Vorthe in his place at long last.”

“By colluding with foreigners, traitors, who have desired our lands. What says the Argonaut in all this, eh?”

“That is no concern of yours. You should worry about living to see the next day, oh son of Itakar. For when I am done with Vorthe, I will come for you. Though we may have blood ties from eons past, that is nothing in the face of my conquest!”

“Ahahah, my salvation is nigh old friend. And you played a hand in it, oh son of Alvric.”

The Ancient One winced at that. Even though he had no idea how that must have happened, he knew what it meant.

“Soon, I shall regain the full use of my body just as you have. My salvation would cost me naught but a friendly ally. But your redemption would come at too great a cost.

“Alas, I see a beautiful phoenix, noble and full of vigor. But it flew too high on the wind, prideful of its beautiful colors. The welkin looked and grew jealous of its beautiful feathers; the sun looked, and delighted in those feathers, wishing to pluck them off to traverse the vastness of the void.”

“Tsk!” Jorm Alvric tsked in irritation but Munin continued, undeterred.

“Who doth come to save the phoenix from its folly? Out of the nostril of the snow rabbit, came the raven. ‘From whence doth thou come?’ asked the phoenix. ‘I come bearing a warning from the bowels of the snow rabbit,’ the raven admonished. ‘Let go your pride and dive back to the ground. The earth would produce seed and the seed would feed your descendants.’

“But the phoenix listened not. The welkin reached its hand for its left wing. The sun reached for its right wing. Together they turned the phoenix into a featherless fowl! One could not traverse the vastness of the void with but a fraction of the colorful feathers. The sun and the welkin joined hands and together they flew off to yonder places.”

“Lies all of it! Lies!” Jorm Alvric raged. “You may be called the Seer of the North, Munin but you are not Zamara’s equal! Remember also that you are NOT the only Saint with the Sight! I have gazed into the river of fate and have seen it all!”

“And did you see your victory? Or was it that you saw what you ‘wanted’ to see? I might be a great seer but even I cannot see farther than a Transcendent. I warn you, Jorm.

“The Transcendents play by a different set of rules. They play a long game. A game that has been in existence long before either of us were born. The ETERNAL game! Tis’ still early to turn back the hand of fate.”

“I swear by my forefathers, Munin. I will rip your head off with my own hands!”

“I have warned you, Jorm. The rest… is up to you now.”

The voice left him to his thoughts. Jorm took some time to digest what Munin Itakar had said but ultimately refused his words of prophecy.

No. I have seen my fate, he thought. And I would take hold of it and bring it to bear!