Empress of Clouds - Chapter 13

                

Chapter 13

            Brythia could not help but cry when she entered the rooms that had been her and Tolian’s home for the last year.  The room still smelled like Tolian—her favorite perfume still lingered there, pulling out ever deepening levels of longing in the druidess.  If she closed her eyes, she could imagine Tolian there, coming up behind her, whispering softly in her ear.  She had to take a moment, and sat on the bed they shared.  The tears rolled down her cheek and her sobs sounded unabated.  They had been so happy here.  Of course, palace life was not without its difficulties, and Tolian’s situation hadn’t made things any easier, certainly.  But this was their home, the place that symbolized their life together.  They had lived as though their happiness would be eternal.  Instead, it was all too brief an oasis in a desert of nightmare.

            She was weak and tired.  Even the strength that her considerable will afforded her was waning now.  Not now, she thought.  Not now.  She felt all used up, like she had squeezed every ounce of energy from her body and her soul, and now there was nothing left.  Now, when she needed all the energy she had ever had.  There was no time for weakness, no time for tiredness, no time for tears.  Tolian needed her.  She would find what strength she needed somewhere.  She forced herself to get off the bed.  As she did so, a familiar voice chimed brightly behind her. 

            “Milady, can I get you anything?”  It was Dovyse.  Her kindly voice was like a balm. 

            Brythia turned to face her.  She couldn’t help but notice the girl’s startled reaction when she saw her face.  “What’s wrong, Dovyse?  Do I look that bad?”

            “Oh Princess Brythia, you look hard.  Like all the warmth and kindness has gone out of you.  Like you could murder someone.  I have never seen you look so.  You frightened me, Milady.  There, that’s better.  Though, you still look starved to death.  Let me get you something to eat, at least.”

            “You are so precious, dear.  Thank you, but I don’t have the time.”

            The girl knitted her brows.  “You’re off after Princess Tolian, then?”

            “I am.”  Brythia nodded, touched by the young girl’s bright eyes and caring expression.

            “You must eat something, before you go.  I will not let you leave unless you do.  Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

            “I don’t have time, dear, really.”

            “I’ll just be a minute, wait here.”

            Without waiting for an answer, the girl hurried out of the room.

            Brythia shrugged to herself, and turned to the business she had come for.  She moved a stool next to the fireplace, and climbed up on it.  With one hand balanced on the mantle place, she reached up and took down the sword that hung there. 

            Her fingers tingled as they touched the hilt.  A strange energy radiated from the weapon.  She thought she would have felt it even if she had not been trained in handling such mystical forces.  It exuded an alien power, a magick not rooted in the natural world, yet soothing and oddly reminiscent (in some ways) of Tolian.  She removed the lunar blade from the hooks holding it above the mantle place.  Such a placement was the custom of the warriors of Lorm.  Brythia had always thought that a more ceremonious and convenient place would be more in keeping with the Moonsword’s status, but Tolian had insisted.  She had maintained that if the hearth was considered the sacred heart of the home, then the warrior’s sword should mark the defense of the same by its customary position.  Brythia suspected that Lormians simply loved their swords so much that they had to keep them within their view if they weren’t on their belts.  Well, in any case, it was Tolian’s sword after all, and her explanation of the traditional placement did make some sense.  Of course, Tolian was tall enough not to require a stool to fetch it down when she needed it.

            Brythia climbed off the stool and regarded the weapon.  When on the wall it was inert, remarkable only for its mysterious beauty and imaginative styling of the hilt (forged as it was by the power of Tolian’s will), but in her hands it seemed to glow dimly with a purple radiance and pulsed with something akin to a life force.  She stood transfixed, mesmerized by the sword’s strange aspect.  She could feel the ebb and flow of a wondrous energy.  Several minutes passed before she pulled her own sword out of its scabbard with one hand and slid the Moonsword in its place.  Now looking at her own trustworthy blade, she smiled.  She climbed back up on the stool and hung her sword on the hooks above the mantle.  Just as she was doing so, Dovyse returned bearing a tray.

            “I’ll leave this in the outer room for you, Milady.”

            “Thank you, dear.”

            Brythia followed the servant girl to their small table.  She stood as Dovyse laid out the food:  two eggs (hard-boiled), bread, butter, cheese, and slices of rare oranges imported from some far-off land.

            “How did you have time to prepare this?”  Brythia’s surprise sounded in her query.

            Dovyse giggled and said, “This was nothing, Princess.  “Tis what I’m here for.”

            Brythia had no time to sit and take a meal, but she was ravenous.  She picked up a few handfuls of food as she stood and she proceeded to eat it, far too fast than was healthful.  A bite, at first, seemed only to make her hunger worse.  She had to admit that even this simple fare (by palace standards) tasted better than the best of the Temple cooking in the order.  She had devoured her meal in only a couple of minutes, plus drained two tankards of water.  She turned away from the table when she had finished.

            “I’ve packed you some more food.  Is there anything else you require, Milady?”  Dovyse popped back into the room as she did so.

            “No, that was perfect, Dovyse.  Thank you.  Never overeat after a fast,” Brythia said.  “Now, I’ve got to get moving.”

            She looked at the girl.  “Now, Dovyse, promise me you’ll take good care of yourself.”

            “I always do, Princess.  But, please don’t talk like you’re not coming back.”  A single tear ran down the girl’s cheek.  “You’ll find her, I know you will.  When, you do, I’ll be here to take care of you both.”

            “I hope you’re right.”

           

            She could see that only Findelbres was waiting in the courtyard as she stepped out of the main palace building.  Her ears picked up the footfalls of boot on stone behind her.

            “Ah, there you are.  You mortals take a long time doing everything, don’t you?”

            Delorick’s voice sounded behind her, “Master Findelbres, that’s because we are more thorough in our preparations.  At least a mortal thought to secure some provisions for our journey.”

            Brythia let the others carry on their conversation.  She immediately set herself to find some trace of Dowbreth and Tolian’s passing from the cold cobblestone of the courtyard.  She crawled about on all fours for several minutes, searching for some clear sign, in vain.  She was climbing to her feet as Kiliordes and the pilgrim Pagyrus emerged.

            “There are no signs of them here,” Brythia announced.  “We’ll have to try our luck outside the palace.”

            With her eyes focused on the stones, she led the way through the inner gates, paying no more attention to her companions.  She would certainly have felt better if there were some trace on the stones.  There should have been.  Even on the hard stone, a giant’s step should have left a small mark—a clip or scuff.  But there was nothing discernable.  She was just about convinced that she must have missed something.  She grew afraid that her concentration was dulled by the lack of sleep she had experienced.  As she stopped before the outer gatehouse, an obvious question entered her mind.

            “Delorick,” she said lifting her gaze off the ground for a moment.  “The guard house is empty.  We don’t protect our gates anymore?”

            “There are no guards posted during the Jarrels, Princess, except during wartime.  All the men are encouraged to participate in some Jarrels’ festivities.  That has been our tradition for centuries,” responded the Captain of Guard, with more than a measure of guilt in his voice.

            Brythia hurried through the gate.

            “How fortunate for Dowbreth, or how well-informed he seems to have been,” noted Brythia.  “Oh, and Delorick, let’s skip the titles, for now, okay?  We’re all friends here, right?”

            The others moved forward to follow, when she stopped and bent down towards the ground.  “Oh, here we are, though your men seem to have done their best to trample over the tracks.”

            There was one set of footprints quite distinct from the general traffic.  They were huge, the biggest prints from a humanoid she had ever seen, and they were sunk deep into the earth.

            She shook her head.  “Well, I don’t know how, but your men seemed to have missed these tracks; they went in the wrong direction.”

            “They weren’t my men,” Delorick corrected her.  “Prince Kelris led this party.  My men went with Prince Keliof out the Warrior’s Gate.”

            “Well, Kelvris’ troops then, went straight out to the west.  Dowbreth and Tolian seem to have traveled back along the outer walls and to the southeast, to start with.  Gentlemen, let’s run for as long as we can see the trail clearly.”

            “Watch carefully, Brythia,” warned Findelbres, “it is an old faerie trick to make a strong trail in one direction, then turn off and give no indication of direction or trail after that.”

            Dowbreth’s tracks cut across the surrounding field for about three hundred yards before joining a road leading south.  The prints became immediately more difficult to follow as they continued down the road called, if Brythia remembered correctly, Doveshyre-Palace Road.  Suddenly, the footprints disappeared all together.  Brythia held a hand to stop the others, and knelt down to examine the last visible prints.

            “It seems you were right about the old faerie misleadingly-clear-trail trick, Findelbres,” she remarked.

            “I usually am, dear druidess,” he replied.

            “Modest, isn’t he?” commented Pagyrus, coming up with Kiliordes.

            “Oh, you’ve noticed that,” said Kiliordes.

            “Modesty, sir, is a character flaw we faeries do not possess.  It is a completely human foible.”

            Their [KR]Their conversation and Brythia studying the side of the road don’t have anything to do with each other.       conversation brought the tiniest of smiles to Brythia’s face. She studied the ground along the sides of the road.  “Damn, he’s good,” commented the druidess.  There was no trace of the massive faerie’s tracks.  “How can he completely obscure his trail like this?”

            “You must remember, first off,” explained Findelbres, “that we of the Good Folk do not actually exist in the normal sense in your world.  We may enter it yes, and when here most of the same laws that govern your actions apply to us as well.  But, there is a buffer of sorts keeping us partially insulated, most of the time.  With enough concentration and practice, it can be utilized for various purposes for brief times.”

            “How long?  How far could he possibly go, carrying a mortal, before he would have to leave a trail?”  Brythia felt her patience wearing thin as the question poured across her lips.

            “If he was carrying a mortal, he could probably go, I don’t know, maybe a hundred yards or so.  But, I caution you to remember that which you choose to forget, Druid-Princess.  Tolian is not really mortal, so I hesitate to say for certain.  And, trust me, Dowbreth’s trail will be almost imperceptible without his concentration.”

            “All right, fine,” she said.  “You gentlemen, wait here, I’ll go and check a hundred yard radius and see where that takes us.”

            It was discouraging.  Never, in all her considerable experience had she even encountered such a difficult trail to follow.  She crawled low to the grass, bringing her eyes and nose close, for what seemed to be a painfully slow pace, to search for a spore or scent.  With each minute she searched thus, she felt the distance from Tolian grow greater.  Her intestines began to ache in tune to the anxieties growing in her heart.  How could they hope to pursue Dowbreth and Tolian with any sort of rapidity under such conditions?  Hopelessness bit at her as the first signs of lightening in the eastern sky came in softly.  She went out another fifty yards and began another circle of what was escalating into a frantic hunt.

            Just as desperation was moving toward despair, an idea flickered like a candle in the night.  She slowly got up off the ground.  She straightened out her frame and stretched her muscles a little.  She reached back and drew the Moonsword out of her scabbard, and raised it straight up over her head.

            It took all of her training to still her mind.  Slowly a mental clarity and quiet replaced her churning apprehension.  In her mind, she questioned the Moonsword:  Where is Tolian?

            She repeated it several times as she attempted to tune into the blade’s lunar nature.  At first, she could sense a subtle vibration gently throbbing in response to her query.

            She stood there and stood there.  She must have stood there like that for several more minutes before she noticed the intensity of the vibration begin to fluctuate.  Brythia got a sense of confusion from the sword.  She rephrased her question.

            Where is the Moon Goddess? she asked mentally.

            There was no hesitation.  No doubt.  Immediately upon the initial formulation of her question, the sword pulled itself so that it pointed, in her grasp, to the east.

            Yes.  She smiled and called to the others, “Gentlemen, let’s go to the stables, first.  I think we can make up some time.”

 

Copyright 2004, 2015 Diana Hignutt