THE GLADES OF DESPAIR

BY LAND

CHAPTER I

“....imbues anew the land of yore

from whence emboldened darkness tore...”

Nilwn Gyndoh Dynde XX

2:2:4:7/5, III:IX

“You’re sure about this?” Fidgeting with his burlap disguise, Jorn gaped up at the mountain fortress of Sierlyn. The hooded monk’s robe scuffed his tanned cheeks as he traced the city’s switchbacks.

Kingard adjusted the bolts of fine cloth in their cart, the dull browns arranged to disinterest buyers. “The question is, are you sure?” After three weeks of training, his pupil’s reluctance tested the elf’s patience. “Your powers require conviction, Jorn.”

“I know. I’m ready, I just...” The young man shifted his headband with a wince. “I just wish those books were more use.”

The false finish drew a measured stare from the plains elf, his dark eyes grave beneath his burlap hood. “The books of A’lara teach what you most need. And you’re proficient for the task at hand. You even know the palace.”

“May Mother forgive me for it.” Disgrace crawled along Jorn’s spine at the memory. Shoving their cart from the alley, the young man skulked for the mob of vendors heading uphill.

“That exact self-loathing impedes your magic, boy!” Kingard hissed abreast of him. “How do you expect to focus when you’re busy hating yourself?”

Jorn scowled, angst tight in his gut. “How can I excuse what I’ve done? You haven’t.”

The once-immortal elf lurched and regained his pace in silence. “It doesn’t matter what I’ve excused,” he coughed. “Absolution comes from within, and magic flows from the same source.”

“Why don’t you take it, then?” Jorn beseeched for the third time since receiving his powers as Light Master. “You’re rosen; I could bestow you. Can’t you do better than me?”

A stony lapse answered him, and they reached the guarded gate. Beyond, the palace sprawled along the top three tiers cut into the mountainside, buzzing with the mayhem of market day. Bored eyes flicked across their cart, and two soldiers waved them into Sierlyn’s lower courtyard. “Second terrace, far right,” droned one, his apathy tangible on the late spring morning.

Jorn rolled past the threshold, and a ghostly tingle swept Kingard’s skin as he followed. Within the palace enchantments, the elf sensed wards against his own magic. Imperfect and antiquated, the spells dampened his powers less than expected, but he withheld this stroke of luck from Jorn.

They clattered up the winding streets of the first courtyard, bumping over cobblestones through the second gate. At their left, rows of livestock and produce crowded around the palace kitchens.

Skirting the terrace wall to the right, they steered through a sea of trinkets to the end of the fabrics row. “That’s the door to the lower laundry,” Kingard briefed with a jerk of his chin, disowning their dull cart to the colorful bedlam. “Get to it, then.”

On their stroll for the door, Jorn relaxed into his oldest magic talent. Rousing the palace cats with a silent hello, he urged them to rile the geese milling near the kitchens. A chaos of squawking feathers arose, and when the guards blundered off to effect peace, Kingard led Jorn into the laundry at a clip.

The elf riffled through folded clothes and tossed a guard’s tunic to his apprentice. Donning a similar uniform, Kingard smoothed his backswept ears against his head and settled the cloth skullcap low on his browned forehead. “Don’t make eye contact,” he instructed, redressing Jorn’s skullcap to hide his two-tone hair. Since Jorn had received his new powers, the roots of his dark locks grew sunshine yellow, and lighter lashes now framed his green eyes. “Face down at the floor, and they shouldn’t recognize you. Follow me.”

They minced through empty halls, most of the palace outside for market day. Kingard turned corners in a haze, the stone dreary and sad against his vibrant memories. They passed only one servant before hastening down a long red rug to the ornate doors of the imperial chambers. “My lady?” called the elf, slipping through after Jorn and settling the door behind them. “Are you here?”

“...Yes,” came a sigh from beyond the sitting room, and Kingard marched around a stately desk to part the curtain veiling Empress Deira’s bedchamber. A massive four-post thrust its canopy two stories high, and great bay windows captured stunning views on three sides. Hair dark and unkempt, a pale woman in her twenties wilted in the window seat, her vacant face angled towards Lake Kiatan. Swollen with meltwater, it churned through a wrought-iron gate to crash onto the plains below.

A pang of guilt flooded Jorn. Mere weeks ago, a slow infection of dark magic drove him to betray his allies, and he’d joined their Khollic enemies in this palace, where the mind-warped empress had propositioned him to sire an heir. Though he’d refused, other vile deeds still tarnished his unsought title of Light Master. “Empress Deira, you must come with us,” he asserted, less shocked than Kingard to see Allana’s vapid sovereign languishing in her nightgown.

“But they said to stay here,” whined the empress, her dark gaze unmoving as she rose from the window to oblige them.

“Well, now they want you to come with us.” Jorn took her hand and signaled for Kingard to hurry.

“Almost through the spell case,” grated the elf, threading a path through the enchantments that prevented magic transport within the fortress. “We’ll go straight from here in a moment.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” a voice drawled, spilling through Jorn like cold water.

He spun to confront a blond elf, his old master from a life of slavery in Kholl. “Haisrir! You bastard’s brat!”

Recognition washed over his sneer, and the pale tree elf boggled at Jorn. “You! How did you get–?” Faltering, his ice-blue gaze narrowed at the plains elf before him. “...Who are you?”

“Mother above,” breathed Kingard, white as a sheet and stricken with horror. “Varyan? Could it be?”

Scowling, Haisrir brushed past the empress to glare into Kingard’s wide eyes. Though speakers like Jorn foiled his mind-reading, he expected some insight into this newcomer. But silence answered him, Kingard’s thoughts as inaccessible as any speaker’s. “I am Haisrir,” he growled. “Who are you?”

“Kingard,” groaned the elf, lifting a hand to squeeze Haisrir’s shoulder. “I’m Kingard, Varyan! Don’t – don’t you remember me?” In desperation, he shoved back the skullcap to reveal his dark hair, tied in a low horsetail like the blond wore.

Ire spiked and Haisrir shook off the elf’s hand, unsettled like a stone slab askew. “No,” he dismissed with a wave, backing toward the open curtain. “No, I don’t remember – I don’t know you! I’d – I’m... I’m sure I’d remember you if...” Kingard followed after him, and the blond elf stumbled into Deira’s sitting room. “S-stay back! Get back! ...Guards! Guards!”

Jorn cursed, pulling Deira by the hand. “Kingard!”

“Get her out of here!” the elf howled, throwing the wooden doors closed and sealing them. On his exposed brow, a twisting rune glowed red with the magic he cast. “I’m right behind you.”

Wrapping the empress in his arms, Jorn felt for Kingard’s path through the palace wards. He framed a few words of Ryunic that broke the rigid ether, and he dragged Deira through oblivion to safety. In their wake, wind swirled and thunder crashed through the royal chambers.

“Varyan!” cried Kingard, reaching for Haisrir’s trembling shoulder. “Come with me, please!”

The heavy door bowed under the axes of the palace guards. “Don’t touch me!” he squealed, scrabbling behind an armchair. “Guards! Hurry!”

“Your name is Varyan and you love the sea,” Kingard urged, ducking splinters of wood from the buckling door. “You sculpt cold metal with your bare hands!”

“Sh-shut up! Shut up, shut up!” screamed the elf, palms pressed against his ears. “Anyone could know that!”

“Come with me, Varyan!” shouted Kingard, grasping the blond’s elbow and hauling him from behind the chair. “This isn’t who you are!”

“Let me go!” Haisrir unleashed a blast of magic, and Kingard slammed into the far wall. Winded, he sank to one knee, and an axe broke through the door.

Out of time, Kingard traced Jorn’s path through the spell case. “Varyan! I’ll come back for you,” he promised, transporting from the palace in a roil of thunder and wind.

The door splintered open and guards surged into the room. “Master Haisrir, what happened?”

“Kingard!” wailed the elf, overwrought and quaking. “Kingard was here!”

“Where’s Empress Deria?”

“What?” How could they care about that brainwashed puppet at a time like this? “She... kidnapped! Kingard, he and Jorn – I found them in here! They’ve kidnapped the empress.”

A sturdy terror settled over them with the stark consequence of her departure. “Might... she be retrieved?”

“Doubtful,” grumbled Haisrir, his stomach in knots. “Unless you have a way into A’lara.”

“Perhaps the master–”

“–has returned to Kholl,” snarled the elf, “and the new mindwarps aren’t due back until next week.” Smoothing his jerkin, Haisrir fought to collect himself. “Clean up this mess. I’ll deal with the empress.” He stormed through the shattered door and down the hall, outrage waning into stunned discord. Your name is Varyan and you love the sea.

Kingard’s face haunted him, the elf’s familiar voice resounding off the unlit corners of his mind. Don’t you remember me? But how could he know the Kingard of legend? Varyan! I’ll come back for you. Haisrir’s reckless pacing slowed. Perhaps he’d find out and reclaim Deira to boot. The master might never even know she’d gone.