This is the beginning of a story I started on, about a young woman and a slightly footless wizard. I'm not sure whether I'll finish it, but I quite like it, and so I'm posting it here.
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It all Begins Somewhere (Annabelle)
Annabelle
walked up the large marble steps towards the palace. It was so large and grand
she could barely believe it, having come from a small town that looked like it
would fit in the building a couple of times over. She had asked around, and
apparently it was fine for anyone, from Duke to pauper, to walk straight in the
front door and petition the King. As long as it was a Thursday.
She felt timid as she made her way past some
large marble pillars and in through the open front doors. A long queue was
already forming inside, made up of a varied bunch of people. She looked around,
the place was magnificent. A huge candelabra hung from the ceiling over a
double staircase leading to the first floor. The staircase itself was ornately
ornamented and embellished with silver. Several guards were standing to
attention, pikes in hand, watching over the queue, which was leading away from
the staircase, down a hall to the left.
Annabelle joined the back of the queue and
began waiting. It wasn’t long before the line had lengthened even more and lead
straight out the door. A plump, red faced man a few people ahead of her
appeared to be getting impatient, and brusquely asked the nearest guard what
was going on. Apparently the queue hadn’t moved since he’d arrived.
“I’m sorry
sir, Kings not here yet apparently. I’m sure he’ll be here soon”.
“He better
be” the man muttered.
The guard
raised an eyebrow, “You think a King should rush on your behalf? Who are you?
The queen of Hargen?”
The man had
the decency to look abashed, but muttered something in his defence too quietly
for Annabelle to hear.
Time passed,
and Annabelle waited. And waited. And waited. At least three-quarters of an
hour passed and the queue hadn’t even moved slighty. The only notable change
was the red-faced man had slowly gotten redder, whilst his muttering got
slighty louder.
Eventually a man wearing turquoise robes,
loosely clasped at the front covering some of the dirtiest overalls Annabelle
had ever seen walked in through the front door. He headed past the end of the
queue walking towards the main chamber. Whilst he appeared scruffy, especially
contrasted against the pristine guards, the man was obviously important, as
nobody told him to stop. As he came closer Annabelle noted the clasps were
solid silver. So he was an important man with money. As he passed Annabelle
leaned out of the queue slightly to speak to him.
“Excuse me
sir, I’m sorry to bother you, I was just wondering if you knew what was taking
so long? The queue hasn’t moved in nearly an hour.”
The man
started, and looked at her. “Hello” he
said, almost in a probing way.
‘oh good’ Annabelle
thought. The man is a fool.
“Can you see
me?” he asked.
She looked
around, and then back at the man. “erm…. Yes?”
“interesting….”
He stroked his chin, rasping a thin layer of stubble firmly stuck there.
“Why would
you ask that?” Annabelle queried.
“Why not ask
them..” he said waving to the people standing around her “… if they can see
me”.
Annabelle
sighed. An Idiot. Back in the village she had gotten used to dealing with old
Thesp, who was “Brain addled” her mother called it. She thought she’d better
just play along with his fantasy. Turning to the woman standing behind her she
asked “Can you see him?” waving her arm in the mans direction.
The woman
looked along where she pointed, apparently looking straight through where he
stood. “See who dear?”
Annabelle
looked stunned for a minute before replying “Nevermind”. The man spoke to her
as she looked back around at him.
“To answer your question, the king is running
late. I’m sure he sends his apologies. Now, let me ask you a question. Would
you happen to be a sorcerer? Possibly a Witch? Wizard? Hag? Maybe a transmuted
phoenix in disguise?” He inquired stepping closer to her.
“You’re invisible” she said.
“not just
invisible, nobody else around you can hear me either. I was just sneaking in,
hence why I was surprised you spoke to me”.
“who are
you?”
“I’m…” He
paused for a moment before continuing “I’m the court wizard. Just running a bit
late after a busy morning. In fact I really need to go but…” He reached into a
large pouch fastened to his belt and pulled out a single coin. He handed it to Annabelle
telling her “Listen, I’d really like to speak to you about why you can see me,
but I have to run. This is my little token. Show it to anybody in the palace
and they’ll sort it out so you can come and see me. Oh and whatever you do,
don’t give it to anybody else. It’s yours to keep.” And with that, he ran off
down the hall, past the end of the queue and into the Kings meeting chamber.
Annabelle
looking down at the coin in her hand. It wasn’t the currency of the kingdom,
which was mostly bronze coloured coins with various crowns, lions and dragons
stamped onto them. This felt like solid silver, and had a “+” protruding from
the surface on one side, and a “~” on the other. The area that wasn’t raised
appeared to have been painted with a turquoise enamel paint, so it was blue,
all except for the two symbols and the coins rim. She quickly stuck it in her
pocket with her coin purse, suddenly realising how much the silver in the coin
must be worth. Looking around she noticed that everybody else near her in the
queue was now staring at her.
To them she
had not only just had a full conversation with thin air, but then proceeded to
pull a coin from that very same nothingness.
She hunched down away from their stares, and
luckily nobody spoke to her, until eventually they had all lost interest in her
again.
A bit more
time passed, maybe 5 or 10 minutes, before she heard a ruckus coming from the
Kings chambers. There was a huge crash and the sound of many people hurrying
about before, eventually, a small, portly gentleman with a moustache emerged
from the chamber and addressed the queue.
“Ladies and
gentlemen, I know you have been waiting a long time but I’m afraid something
urgent has come up. The King has had to leave immediately so he won’t be able
to see any of you today. Hopefully, if you come back in a week or two,
everything will be back to normal. Once again, I apologise profusely.”
The queue began to break up almost
immediately, with some heading towards the door, and others heading to speak to
the man to complain. Annabelle didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t wait a week
or two. She needed to ask for the Kings help, and whilst the matter at hand
could wait a week, it had taken her half her money just to travel up to the
city. She couldn’t afford a place to stay, and still get home again. Maybe… maybe
if she spoke with the man… begged him to let her see the king tomorrow or the
day after, even though he didn’t do audiences on those days, maybe she could
afford one or two nights. Having made up her mind she set out to the crowd
gathered around the moustachioed man and waited from them to slowly disperse.
He was very quick in dealing the people, mostly telling them to come back in a
week, but some of them he told to come back later, where he’d deal with their
problem himself.
The crowd thinned, and eventually it was just Annabelle
and the man, standing at the doorway to the chamber. “Look” he said “I’m sure
your problems can wait a week, and if not, come back on Monday when the
vice-chancellor will be taking audience in the kings name”
“I really
can’t wait till Monday, I’ve spent most of what I have travelling here, I can’t
afford to stay for more than another day really, isn’t there any way I can see
the King?”
“I’m sorry
love” he said, in a surprisingly caring way to her “the King has already left,
and it’s likely he won’t be back till the middle of next week at the soonest”.
Annabelles’s
heart fell. He must have seen the solemn look on her face as he continued
“perhaps I can help you? I’m Kaul, the royal valet, so I have enough sway
around here if I need to use it.” Annabelle smiled briefly at the kind gesture
before the solemn look resumed.
“It’s to do
with a matter of a debt…”
“Ah. Bugger.”
Kaul replied almost immediately. “Only the king has the power to erase a debt.
I really am sorry, you look like a nice lass, but there’s nothing can be done.”
Kaul gave her a consoling look and turned to go.
Annabelle
had a thought. Maybe that wizard could help her. If he could use magic to
teleport her to the King maybe, or allow her to talk to him from afar, that
would be all she needed. She just needed the Kings word, nothing more.
“Wait, if I can’t see the King, can I see the
court wizard?”
Kaul turned round, brows furrowed “Court
wizard?”
“Yes, he
gave me this” she said, pulling out the little token.
He looked
away from her, an angry look crossing his face, muttering “court-bloody-wizard
indeed”. He turned back to her,
obviously fighting to keep his temper in check “I am afraid to say that the
‘court wizard’ is with the king.” Kaul spoke, each word punctuated with barely
conceledanger at the wizard “where did you get that coin lass?”
Annabelle
suddenly felt a bit timid what with the angry question. “He gave it to me.”
“Gave it to
you? The wizard?”
“Yes.”
Kaul sighed
and rubbed his temples. “He really should not have done that. Listen if you
give me it back, I’ll give you a few copper to help cover your way home”
She gripped
the coin tightly in her hand. Suddenly the timidness seemed to flow away. The
wizard had definitely said the coin was hers to keep, and very definitely told
her not to give it to anybody else. “No. He told me the token is mine. And he
said that if I showed you to anybody in the palace, they would have to help me
see him.”
Kaul was going red in the face “Bugger and
bloody balderdash! Well what do you want to do? Wait right here for him for a
week?”
“Maybe.”
Fuming, Kaul
waved to one of the nearby guards. “Take this young lady down to the kitchens,
have them get her some food whilst they make her up a bedroom. It looks like
she’ll be staying with us until the King returns.” He gave her one final look,
more annoyance then real hatred, and walked off into the chamber, which looked
to be a foray of both hussle and bussle.
Annabelle was shocked. Usually her stubborn
temperament got her into more trouble, rather than a week’s stay at a palace.
Not that she’d ever been in a palace before.
The guard, a decent looking young man of maybe
20 to 25, turned to her. “If you’ll follow me ma’am I’ll take you down to the
kitchens now.” And with that, she was lead off, deeper into the palace, still
clutching her coin.
About an hour before (Ben)
Ben brought
the hammer down hard onto the hot iron, again and again and again. It was
starting to take the form of a sword, the metal curving down towards where the
sharp of the blade would be. He lifted it off the anvil and inspected it. Not
his finest work but he was only really playing at the moment, testing a new
technique to fold the iron. He stuck the thing back into the forge and
stretched. Smithing pulled at muscles he wasn’t even sure should be able to
ache, but he enjoyed it. He wasn’t the best smith around, and technically had
never even qualified as a master, although he knew his work was good enough,
but he just did it as a hobby. He knew how lucky he was to have enough money to
own, stock and run a forge as a hobby. Smiling and wiping his dirty hands on a
rag he stepped outside to get some air.
The sky was
clear, nearly cloudless, and the sun was just cresting its zenith as he looked
out over the square outside his… Wait… almost noon already? “Bugger!” he
yelled, throwing the rag, that turned out to be his shirt, on, and running
through the forge, in to his house by the connecting door. He grabbed a piece
of bread off the kitchen table and rammed it into his mouth. Running towards
the front door he grabbed his turquoise robe off of the hat stand, and went out
through the door, heading up towards the palace. It was a good thing he lived
so close, but Kaul was still going to yell at him for being late for the Kings
audience. He chewed and swallowed the bread in a few gulps as he ran down the
few alleyways between his house and palace, but soon was muttering under his
breath. “Incanto, exibus, Moriutum, forthen…”
He slowed as he reached the palace. The queue
for an audience with the king was already out of the door and down the big
marble steps. He shimmied up the steps and waved to the queue as he passed
them, checking he was, as he’d planned, entirely invisible. He walked more
casually into the main hall of the palace, only briefly looking at the people
queuing before making his way past them.
Everything was going fine, until suddenly, a
young girl, couldn’t be older then sixteen, he thought at first glance, leaned
out of the que and said “Excuse me sir, I’m sorry to bother you, I was just
wondering if you knew what was taking so long? The queue hasn’t moved in nearly
an hour.”
Starting a
little he turned to her. She was looking right at him. He scanned the queue
with his eyes briefly before looking back at the girl. “Hello”.[ML1]
She looked
at him like he was an idiot.
“Can you see
me?” ben asked, curiosity growing mixing with his confusion.
She
definitely thought he was an idiot. “Erm… yes?”
Ben scratched
his chin. “interesting….”
The girl
looked confusedly at him. “Why would you ask that?”
“why not ask
them..” Ben replied, point idly at the crowd.
The girl
sighed in a pained ‘ok I’ll play along’ sort of a way. She turned to the lady
next to her and asked her the question. As she spoke to the lady Ben took the
chance to have a good look at her. She was, maybe 5’4” with dark black hair and
dark brown eyes. That was unusual, as blue or green was far more common in the
Kingdom, and the brown that was around was usually a light hazel, unlike this
girl’s very deep brown. There was something about this girl.
“To answer
your question, the king is running late. I’m sure he sends his apologies. Now,
let me ask you a question. Are you a sorcerer? Witch? Wizard? Hag? Maybe a
transmuted phoenix in disguise?” he smiled at the last one, he meant it as a
joke, but the girl only looked stunned.
“You’re
invisible?” she asked.
“Not just
invisible, nobody else around you can hear me either. I was just sneaking in,
hence why I was surprised you spoke to me”.
“Who are
you?”
“I’m…” Ben
paused. He didn’t want to tell her who he really was, it would just cause
trouble what with all the people about, but he really wanted to find out who
she was and why she could see him. ‘I’ll
give her a token’ he thought. “I’m the court wizard. Just running a bit
late after a busy morning. In fact, I’ve really to go but…” Ben fished one of
the tokens he kept in his belt out and handed it to her. “Listen, I’d really
like to speak to you about why you can see me, but I have to run. This is my
little token. Show it to anybody in the palace and they’ll sort it out so you
can come and see me. Oh and whatever you do, don’t give it to anybody else.
It’s yours to keep.”
Without waiting for a response he set off at a
run into the Kings Audience chamber.
The chamber
itself was large, with a high, arched ceiling in the middle supported with two
rows of columns, and a lower ceiling either side of the columns. A room
designed to impress those who entered it. Ben sneered and jogged to the other
end of the hall, past what looked like a dukal delegation waiting patiently for
the King. At the end of the hall a large silver throne sat on a raised plinth,
waiting for a pair of royal buttocks. Ben walked up to the throne, still
invisible to the crowd around him, and sat down. He looked around the room,
noting who was were in the room. His gaze eventually came to rest on the duke
waiting for an audience. Duke Ortiel, an older man, obviously a soldier from
his stance, was waiting with his wife and a handful of servants.
Ben took a
deep breath and then let the invisibility spell go. The Duke was taken by
surprise, whilst Kaul, Ben’s Valet, just rolled his eyes.
“Yer Majesty” Kaul spoke. Ben look at him,
standing at the bottom of the plinth near the duke. Kaul looked Ben dead in the
eyes and tapped his head. “We’re in session, yer Majesty”.
Oh right ben thought, He waved a hand
near his head and his crown appeared. It had been on his head the whole time,
but he tended to hide it when he wasn’t on kingly duties. It was easier to make
it invisible then to make it appear and disappear. Kaul nodded and turned back
to address the duke.
“His Majesty, King Benjamin of the Rolling
Plains is ready to receive you now yer Grace”.
The Duke
nodded, he had a stern, troubled look on his face. “Your Majesty” the Duke
said, with a slightly pained bow that suggested the onset of arthritis, “I am most troubled. We have urgent news, the
city of Tarnslad is under attack by a large group of armed men. My wife and I
slipped out of the city to come and get support from you and the army. We
arrived in the city a day and a half ago, and whilst I expressed the urgency of
the matter I needed to discuss with you, I was told I had to wait until
Thursday, for that is the only day you hold and audience.”
Ben sat in stunned silence for a moment.
“What?” He looked at Kaul. “Why didn’t you let them see me before?”
Kaul looked
as agape as he was. “I’m sorry your majesty. I wasn’t aware of the situation.
Everyone who comes to talk to you says its ‘Urgent’ so we just tell everybody
to come back Thursday now. Well, everybody who doesn’t have a..”
“Token” Ben
finished Kauls thought. “Bugger. Ortiel, I apologise for making you wait, it
was a…” he looked at Kaul again who flushed “Miscommunication issue. How long
has it been since you left the town? And do you think the cities defences will
have held against… how many men were in the attacking force?” he finished, his
thoughts running into one.
Ortiel’s
stiff posture relaxed slightly, having seen how seriously the King was taking
it now he knew. “I’d estimate there were around four to five thousand men,
including some horse and bowmen, but mostly foot soldiers. They wore no colours,
nor uniform that I’ve ever seen before. We left the town five days ago, it took
us three and a half to get here moving at the fastest we could. As for the
town’s defences, it has a moat and stone walls running the perimeter of the
town. I’d say they’re more likely to try and starve out the townspeople then
attack directly.”
“Thank you, Ortiel. Guardscaptain!” Ben
shouted bringing the captain of the royal guard to him at a run. “Go and round
up as many guards as we can spare, and get them and Ortiel on the road back to
Tarnslad within the hour. Then send a runner into the city, and neighbouring
towns to drum up any of the army volunteers you can, and prepare to make ready
outside of the city. If I don’t send word within twenty four hours get them
marching to Tarnslad at a brisk pace.” He turned to Ortiels wife and continued
“Duchess, I know you are not a fighting woman so feel free to stay in the
palace until we’ve sorted everything. “Kaul, go and disappoint the nice people
waiting outside, I’m afraid I’m going to head straight out and see what I can
do.”
With that Ben strode into the centre of the
room. He looked up at the large glass window on the rooms left side and
stretched out his hand towards it. “Everybody clear out” he said before
clenching his fist and pulling it towards himself. As he did that the window,
frame and all, slide from the stone wall and fell to the ground. Rather than
smashing, it hit the floor with an enormous thud, lying inert on the floor. Ben
ran towards where it lay, beneath the now ‘open’ window, and yelled “Fix that
for me would you Kaul” moments before turning into a large, turquoise dragon,
and flying straight out of the window.
Many people in the room stood stunned, until
Kaul began yelling “Get to work everybody, you have your orders or you know
what to do. And somebody check and see if we have any patrols or scouting
parties near Tarnslad. I’m sure his Magesty wouldn’t mind some backup”.
The room
exploded into action.
Up in the Air (Ben)
Ben flapped
hard to gain height. Up high he found a Jetstream heading south and rode it
most of the way to Tarnslad. It was strange to be a dragon. He could feel
little, reptilian thoughts doing most of the work to help control his body, but
the part that was ‘him’ felt mostly separate to this. He spread his huge
turquoise wings either side of him, catching the wind and letting it do most of
the work.
Turning his
head he could see his whole kingdom from as high as he was. An expanse of
greens hemmed in all sides by mountains. That was part of why he had chosen
this kingdom, the protection and privacy that the mountains offered. ‘nearly
there’ he thought as he saw the meander in the weyn that meant he was close to
the mountains. Soon the town itself was in view, a little smudge amoung the
green.
He began circling, gradually loosing height. A
dragon’s body could easily take the low pressure and lack of oxygen of high
altitude flight, but much like a diver, bad things would happen if he dropped
too fast. As the he came closer to the ground the town came into focus. A
medium sized walled town, mostly stone houses, with a stone wall and moat.
Built before his reign, when the local dukes used to fight amongst themselves,
so town defences were critical. With the town now in full view, he could make
out the large groups of men, *sniff*, yes, definitely mostly men, by the smell,
in camps around surrounding the town, just out of arrow shot. Judging by the
debris, it looked like they had been periodically attacking the town, a large
battering ram sat idle not far from the camps. There was activity in the camps
but nothing more than cooking among fires.
He made one final circle, checking the before making the final drop, swooping down to
land heavily upon the wall, near a group of the town’s guards, guarding the
gate. The guards looked panicked, but quickly pulled out crossbows, and had
them levelled at him.
Ben snorted smoke from his nostrils and
dropped the spell binding him into dragon form. The smoke spiralled around him
covering him as his body shrank, and claws became hands, and wings became
shoulder blades.
As the smoke slowly cleared he heard a loud
clear voice address him. “I am Captain Harkin of the city guard, I know not who
you are, or how you did that, but raise your hands and name yourself now or my
men will fire.”
Ben sighed again, this time without the smoke,
and raised him hands. He could already feel the magical fatigue behind his
eyes. “I am his Majesty King Benjamin Akken, protector of the realm.”
The captain stepped forward, squinting through
the smoke, “A bold claim. Show yourself.”
Ben stepped
forwards, hand still raised, and looked the man dead in the face. As
recognition passed the captains face he fell to one knee. The other guards
followed shortly.
“Get up, we don’t have time for…” Ben started
to say before a hugely loud horn sounded in the camps surrounding the town. “…
this. Bollocks. Captain we need to get moving. It seems my, not exactly
stealthy, arrival has triggered another assault. Get the men to the walls and
keep them at bay.” As the guardsmen got to their feet and readied crossbows and
bows by the walls, the captain approached, the King. Ben unbuckled his token
pouch and held it up between them. It suddenly started glowing a pale blue,
causing the captain to take a step back.
“Captain, take this pouch, and give one of the
tokens to as many men as you can. The magic in them will help protect them from
harm, and let me talk to them. Keep one on you, as it will be you I most need
to talk to. Also, who is the most
inexperienced of your men here?”
The captain looked confused by the last part,
but took the bag and pulled out a token. “that would be Toby your majesty”.
“Grab toby
and send him to me” Ben turned to the wall and began to stare out over the
surrounding grassland. He was watching the movements of the men from the
besieging force, as they formed up shield walls and began a march on the town.
Toby arrived and stood watching him for a moment. “You called for me your
majesty?”
“Good, you
must be Toby. Go to the main keep, and make your way down to the kitchens. When
you’re there, get the staff preparing a great feast. I will need a lot of food
when I’ve finished, so at least three whole chickens and a half a pig. Whilst
they are at it, they might as well make us a victory feast for the rest of the
guards ey?” Ben smiled, turning towards Toby. The boy didn’t look confident,
he’d obviously never seen real battle before the siege, and didn’t believe
they’d win, but he smiled back anyway. “Yes your majesty, anything else?”
“No” and
with that, ben lept up onto the wall and then into the air, once more taking
the form of a turquoise dragon. He climbed quickly as he swept towards the
enemy forces, making sure to get to a height out of arrows range. He could have
easily caused carnage amongst their ranks, but that wasn’t what he was seeking.
Swooping around the town he eventually found what he was searching for perched
at the top of a hill, where the whole battle could be seen.
A small group, mostly on horseback, watched
over the battle, sending runners to direct any changes in movements. By this
point, the shield walls where just getting to
[ML1]The
reason she thinks he’s an idiot is because it’s a long “hellooooooo” with a
query in the tone. Makes him sounds slightly stupid.
--- © Copyright Mark Langridge
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