Chapter 3
“I still think this is insane.” Regalia said, it had been two hours since being attacked by the thralls and his summoning of the Stalwart Sentinel. They were in an underground tunnel now heading to their capital, to Sunbloom Castle.
“Do you have a better idea?” Kana asked her shifting her gaze from Blane in front of her to Regalia beside her.
“No, I guess this is still the best way to keep an eye on him and ensure he doesn’t know the true location of our home.”
“Um, hello? You both know I can hear you right?” He asked waiving his hands around like a child trying to get his distracted mother’s attention. “And I do take offense to this, really I’m not that bad of a guy, well not to anyone except for maybe harry. But other than him no one really has a reason to hate me back home.”
“Does he have to continue talking?”
“Reg-chan, you know who men are, always wanting to continue talking especially after they’ve been told to keep quiet.” Kana continued walking while looking to her friend, and newfound no longer rival.
“You know you use that honorific like your from my world, from Japan. Do you all use honorifics like that?”
“Only on occasion, usually when it’s really important.” Kana replied.
“Exactly, I don’t understand why she’s using it now, but it’s creepy. Cut it out.”
“But Reg-chan, do you not like the name?”
“Not that one. I don’t need some kind of pet name just because I’m your friend now.”
Kana seemed hurt by that remark and looked downward for the rest of the trip, Blane made a mental note of it in case it became important later. “How much farther till we get there?” He asked hoping to change the mood a bit.
He was tired of walking, he’d hated walking when he was back home, and he didn’t relish it much here either. Then a thought struck him, he really had no idea where he was, at all. The things he’d seen were so like his cards, but could this really be the land of Tesvala? “I need to know something,” he began as he stopped walking, forcing them to stop before slamming into his back, “Where—”
“What the hells do you need to ask us now male?” Regalia snapped at him, but Kana put a hand on her shoulder and motioned for her to look closer at his stance.
“Hold your tongue a moment Reg-chan,” she caught the dirty look and corrected herself, “Regalia can’t you tell he is experiencing something terrible right now? Look at his stance, he looks as if he is trying to hold something in. Maybe it’s him trying to figure out why we are still mistrustful of him?” She offered.
“Oh, he knows. He knows a hells worth more about us than he should, especially for being a human male. He should be a thrall by now, he’s been here long enough that he shouldn’t even be human still.”
“Where am I?” He finally got out, his tone had changed, anyone with half a brain would have noticed how depressed and desperate he sounded. “I was at home, I was…fuck I was fighting with my best friend… Why the hell did I have to be such an asshole?” He spun on them and stared into their eyes asking them, “Did you see any other men before you found me? Please, I need to know if they are okay?”
Regalia looked him up and down, unsure even after he’d saved them if he could be trusted. If he was sincere or not. If he was trying to make them trip up and reveal some sort of information that would lead to Ikengard falling to the Non. “That depends, were the men you came with gray?”
His eyes wide he said, “No, they weren’t thralls, none of us are. I don’t know where they are, if they are even still alive!” His voice rose two octaves as he became hysterical.
“If you are truly here for good and not ill I am sure our Lady will help you find these friends of yours.” Kana said softly as she laid a hand on his shoulder to give him some support. “Now, we are not far, you need to speak to our Lady for she will help you as she can.”
They walked the rest of the way in an uncomfortable silence, it took them another quarter of an hour to arrive at a door leading up from the tunnel. As soon as they opened the gate Blane was forced up into the daylight and he stood before a strange city that looked straight out of a fantasy movie.
Stonework buildings stood as far as the eye could see, a city gate stood closed before him with a grad tower at either side of it with two visible guards standing at the railing with bows in hand, their eyes on the trio as soon as the ascended from the ground.
As the trio walked towards the gate one of the guards called out, “Who goes there?”
“Regalia, Kana and a guest to see Lady Galantine.”
One of the guards looked down at them, squinting and said, “Who is the guest?”
“Believe me, you shouldn’t believe us if we told you. But it is imperative that we get him to the Lady post haste.” Regalia said, she wanted to get him there and learn if they were indeed being told the truth.
The guards looked at one another before shrugging and the first guard called down behind the gate. “Open her up.”
They waited a moment as the doors parted, swinging inwards as they walked towards them. One they were through the doors were pushed closed again and Blane watched as they used a complex pully system to both open and close the massive doors.
“I’ll be keeping my eye on you.” The guard warned as she stared them down while they walked straight towards the heart of the city.
“What is her problem?” Blane asked them idly as they walked.
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“She hasn’t had any since her girlfriend went missing last year during the purge in Rotheim. It’s been hard on her and she’s really taken to putting her all into her work.” Regalia said quietly so the guards couldn’t hear her.
Blane thought for a moment and then looked back to stare at her again. He noticed a faint aura of green around her and he looked back at the two women, “That’s Yumiko? What?”
“You need to speak with the Lady, now.” Regalia said as they quickened their pace towards the center of town and the home of their leader.
It took them longer than Regalia would have liked for them to reach Sunbloom castle, named after the Lady’s favorite flower, and since she was the first one to found the small safe haven they’d come to know and love, everyone had kind of accepted her as their de facto leader, even though she’d never admitted she wanted the role.
The castle was large, almost fifty rooms in all, with guards visibly making rounds and with the pool and fountains, not to mention the gardens, it was on a large parcel of land and Blane could see why it would be safest place for lady Galantine. It was so fortified being this far in the city, and with how many towers and guards there there was no way anyone would get in without her say so.
“This place is way bigger than I imagined it being, and so much more beautiful than Issac Stern drew it.”
“Who is that?” Kana asked him.
Looking them in the eyes he said, “Issac is the man who illustrates pretty much all of the artwork that serves as physical representations of what Declan Cross writes. This is so similar to what he pens there has to be some way he’s seeing this place. There’s no other way it could be so close.”
“So the one we think is a spy tells us there might be another spy?” Regalia asked him as they walked to the front gate and a pair of guards looked them over before opening the door and allowing them entrance.
“This seems wrong.” Kana said as she began looking around, her eyes roaming the walls and people who walked the halls. They saw women in clothes of the finest silk, there were female elves wearing earth tones and she couldn’t tell what type of cloth they wore only that it covered most of their bodies, but metal gleamed as it hugged their curves and she wondered why they would dress so inside the castle.
They walked the halls, heading for the throne room where the queen would welcome them and as they walked Blane began feeling something in his gut, a foreboding he didn’t like.
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“Lady Galantine you have guests, Regalia and Kana have returned. And they’ve brought with them someone they say you need to meet.” The woman said as she led the trio into the throne room, no one called her their queen, though it was obvious she was.
“Thank you Zoe, you may take your leave, I have a feeling this is going to be a long chat.” She waited until her second had left and closed the doors before speaking to them. “What have you bought to me girls? I see a man, though he does not look to be elfin, and he is too tall to be dwarven, so what is he?”
“He is human my lady. At least, in all appearances he is. But he is something more, he is a sorcerer.” Kana blurted out nearly tripping over her words as she told Lady Galantine about finding him and the battle with the thralls, his summoning a warrior to protect Regalia and healing her bones.
Blane stood back a little as she spoke, his eyes trying to take everything in as he fought to understand why he was feeling the way he felt. It was if he wasn’t going to make it out alive, but there was nothing they could really do to him here, was there? Would their queen really murder him just because of his sex? Or was there something else, something more sinister going on here?
Once Kana had finished the Lady looked him in the eye and spoke, “So you are from another world then? And in your world do you have the plague of the Non to contend with?”
Stepping forward he replied, “No ma’am. We have other issues to contend with, but the Non aren’t one of them.” He looked around the room and saw there were no other chairs, only her throne. There was no one else in the room itself and he saw how bleak the room looked for the first time. The tapestries hung on the walls were depictions of death in battles he had no name for. There was room for plenty of tables and chairs to be brought in, there was room for a dozen or more people to arrive and sit comfortably. But she’d chosen to stay here by herself. “Ma’am may I ask you something?”
“If you can answer my question then yes you may,” he nodded. “What do you know of this throne of eternity?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing you say? Yet the woman you summoned said that you are to be it’s heir?”
“I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can tell you of it. The throne doesn’t show up in the lore we have on my world of this world —that sounds so ridiculous to say out loud. Her land, Cardend, we know about because of the set titled Sundering of Eons where Cardendians were forced to do battle with creatures known as dragons, it was one of the best sets to come out in years. I know of this land from what I’ve seen in the current set of cards, and the novelizations they come out with about each of the worlds. But this throne is new to me as it is to you.”
“Yes, well, whatever the nonsense might be there is merit in that you have saved two of my best and brightest and you shall be rewarded, sorcerer.”
He hated the title, but when you summon a character from a card into real life —if he could call this real life— there wasn’t much else you could really call yourself. “Um, okay then could you answer a few questions for me?” She nodded and he continued. “What happened to all the men? I haven’t seen a single man since arriving here, but when they found me Kana said there are no men in that part of Tesvala.”
The queen looked tired, he figured it had to be from retelling such a sad story. “When the plague hit us it appeared to be carried by the men, we’ve seen how one or two men returning from a sortie into the enemy lands could turn an entire town if they weren’t burned before their tainted hands could spread the disease. It was hard, but I’ve ordered all men, save our wizards, be moved northward to the Elvin lands, there they can be looked after by the elves and they will hopefully get to return to their homes soon enough.”
It was a lot to take in, but it also let him understand how it spread so easily, it probably gets passed through skin to skin, or through respiration. I wonder if any of the men were spat on or had the enemy’s blood spray them and transfer it that way. His mind raced as he tried to figure out which it could be and he realized they were starting at him. “My other question is, is there any way you can help me find my friends and return us home?”
She shook her head and her eyes lowered in sorrow. “I’m afraid I cannot return you to your home. I can help you look for your friends, but I cannot promise they will be safe. I would like for you to meet our own sorcerers though, see if they can help you hone your skill and become more powerful.”
“Sure, yeah I can meet with them. But I’m pretty sure I know how to use my magic now so I don’t really need their help.”
“You do not throw away a meeting with the enlightened ones!” Kana scolded. “They are the ones who have learned to conjure things, to fight the evils of this world with something more powerful than a sword.”
“Then if they’re so powerful why don’t they destroy the Non, huh? Why do they stay safe locked in a castle rather than take the fight to those who need to be defeated?” When no one responded he shook his head with disgust, “Then they aren’t worth my time, they’re just cowards sitting in their ivory tower.”
“I can appreciate why you would feel that way, however they have been pooling their magics together to create barriers to protect our land from even further incursions of the Non and their thralls. Thanks to the enlightened ones we have our borders secured to the south and they are trying to figure a way to reverse the plague that has ravaged our males, turning them into these mindless beasts. Would you consider speaking to them in case something you know could help them reverse this change?”
He stood and stared at her for a moment, thought about the whole issue for a few moments before saying “Sure, maybe I can actually get the ball rolling and get this fixed.”
“Then Kana will go with you and show you the way.” She looked to Regalia and spoke, “Stay, please, I need to speak with you.”