Brainstorming

King Aedric and Queen Snoe begin working on a plan to save Aaron from the clutches of the Hutcaiah.

7.

Brainstorming

 

“It’s been a week, Aedric, and we still haven’t thought of a plan!”   Queen Snoe said to the King as she looked up from her work.   Instead of knitting like most women, the young woman worked on linking chainmail links together.   It was an odd hobby for a Queen to have, but one that kept her nerves at bay at times like this, so she slowly worked and crafted the Elven chainmail while her husband paced back and forth.

“I know, sweetheart; it is frustrating to me as well.”    They had stayed in Tarmard after releasing Aaron to the Hutcaiah King and both had been so tormented by it that they had done little else in the week that followed.    The Watcher, Deborah, came with Lysa (still unconscious) the next day, after they had sent a request to have her brought there, following Sophia’s suggestion.   

Lysa looked horrible; her skin flaking off from head to foot in large patches.   Her hair had fallen out the evening of the day Aaron had been handed over to the Hutcaiah, but in the week since then it had rapidly grown back.    The swelling of her body was almost gone and it was clear to anyone who saw her that she was greatly changed.   

Her form was slender and graceful and her features were somewhat different.    When she had first appeared after being dissolved in the Pool of Purity, she had seemed to be a sort of hybrid between an Orc and an Elf.   Now all evidence of her Orc heritage seemed to be erased and her metamorphosis was nearing her completion.

Lysa’s brother, Captain Bruce had come to Tarmard a few days later and spent many hours sitting with her, speaking to Deborah as they waited.   The Orc was beginning to accept his sister’s transformation, but was still concerned about how she would handle suddenly awakening as an Elf.

Snoe was pondering this question, while she wrestled with a plan to help Aaron, when suddenly a crazy idea came to her.

“Aedric, didn’t Deborah say that she is extremely certain that Lysa will end up with the appearance of the Hutcaiah princess that was thrown into the Pool of Purity?”

The King stopped pacing, “Yes; her skin is the white shade of the Hutcaiah people and her hair seems to be coming back in as black, although that was her hair color when she was an Orc.”

“Has anyone pulled her eyelids open to see what her eye color is?”   Snoe asked, and Aedric shrugged.

“The Hutcaiah princess had cobalt blue eyes, Aaron told us, right?”

“Yes, which is why her husband was bringing her to the Pool of Purity; to see if she was pure enough to be one of their goddess’ priestesses.    But she failed the test.”

Snoe tapped her chin, “Maybe she didn’t actually fail the test, Aedric.”

“Huh?   I’m not following you.”

“Well, I was thinking about the account of the incident that Aaron told us.   He said that the girl confessed to the Prince that one of her ancestors had not been a Hutcaiah.”

“Yeah, so wouldn’t that settle it?”

“Not if she lied about it.”

“Lied about it?   Why would she have done that?    She was killed after she confessed!    Why would she lie about being pure enough to be a priestess of her goddess?”

“Maybe she hated Sefet-Manyue and was tired of his cruelty.   Or maybe she was just afraid of the possibility of some ‘tainted’ blood in her ancestry.    Remember what the Watchers told us - all of the Hutcaiah have blood mingled with other Elven and even human races, several thousand years ago.     That is why they have the same features as the Toi-Migg people.    The Tol-Migg were humans, Aedric, yet apparently in the distant past, they interbred with a race of Elves and produced the Hutcaiah people.    But the Hutcaiah think of themselves now as a pure race.”

“So you think that this princess might have confessed something false to the prince out of fear of being thrown into the pool?”

“Well, she would have probably done that if she’d known she was of mixed ancestry anyway.    I think she was taking a gamble that maybe her confession would not only keep her out of that pool, but maybe Sefet-Manyue would just cast her off instead of killing her.”

“Surely she would have known what he was like and how violently he would react to the news.”

“So she took a desperate chance.   Or maybe it was simply her way out of a terrible life.   Perhaps she saw how he treated Aaron, Lysa and the Talminor and decided she’d rather die, so she confessed, knowing he’d kill her.    Maybe she thought that by being thrown into the pool, she’d come out alive and pure.    I don’t know for sure, really.”

“But the point you are trying to make is that you think that the princess was actually pure enough to serve as one of the priestesses?”

“I think so, yes.    Her family would have surely known that the Prince would use magic to check out her racial purity.   Why would they have risked his anger by knowingly putting forth a daughter for him to marry that they knew to be impure?    Perhaps they didn’t at all, and she was as pure as any of the best Hutcaiah nobles.”

“Well, when she was thrown into the pool, the waters seemed to separate her mixed blood.    This only occurs, they said, when the person thrown in is not a pureblood.”   Aedric argued.

“Yes, but Aaron came out just as he went in, and he is half Elf and half human.”

“True, but he was a second generation Half-Elf.    That is what I think makes the difference.     I think the pool doesn’t dissolve a person who is a second generation of a racial type.    The Talminor were all the first generation of a jumble of races, so they were scrambled.    Lysa’s parents were probably of slightly different racial mix.    Perhaps her father, for example, was 100% Orc, but her mother was a mix of 75% Orc, 12.5 % Human and 12.5 % Ogre.   So Lysa would be a mixture - in the ‘eyes’ of the magic pool.”

 

Aedric considered all of this for a moment, “Okay, but there is a problem - the Hutcaiah.    The princess was thrown into the pool and was scrambled up.   Well, if she was actually a pureblood as you theorize, then this should not have happened.   Then there is the Prince - you know for sure that his parents were of the purest Hutcaiah ancestry- so when he fell into the pool, he should not have been scrambled either, yet he was mixed and he came out completely changed.   How would your theory explain that, my dear?”

 

Snoe sat back in her chair and pondered this for a while, “Aaron said that anyone dead, thrown into the Pool will be consumed regardless of their race.   The princess… what was her name… Seba-Yinhu, I think… anyway, when she was thrown into the pool, she was dead, after the prince had ordered that her throat be slashed.    Aaron said that the prince did that as a demonstration of the effect of the pool on the dead.    That is why her ‘blood’ or whatever they call it, was mixed in with Lysa when she was thrown in; for we know Lysa was of mixed ancestry.”

“Okay, that explains that mystery, but what about when the prince was pulled in, when he and Aaron tumbled into the pool?”

“I can answer that,”  Snoe said with a smile, “Obviously, the Prince’s parents were not of the exact same racial percentages.    You see, I think that is actually what the Pool of Purity does to the living - it looks at the balance of ancestry - somehow- and calculates what percentage of ancestry came from the parents of each person.    If those two percentages don’t match, then the Pool determines that the person is a mixed blood.”

Aedric shook his head, “How did you come up with all of that, Snoe?   It hurts my head to try to follow you.”

“I’ve spent a week wondering about it.   But my theory would probably work.     The Talminor were of a radically mixed set of creatures, so of course they’d be dissolved by the waters and reformed.”

“Lysa’s mother and father were probably slightly different mixtures of races as I theorized a minute ago, so she was dissolved by the waters.”

“Princess Seba-Yinhu (or whatever her name was) was probably pure enough for the waters not to dissolve when she was alive, yet the Prince killed her and so anyone thrown into the waters dead are dissolved.   I know that Aaron said that Sefet-Manyue told him that only mixed bloods are dissolved by the water, but I think that anyone dead thrown into the water is dissolved into the water whether they are pure or mixed of ancestry.”

“So when the princess was killed and thrown into the water, her essence was dissolved into the water and then Lysa was thrown in, and she was of mixed ancestry, so she was dissolved, but somehow, she was reformed using just the Orc part of her blood, but also with the princess’ pure Hutcaiah blood too and those two types of blood don’t mix, as Deborah explained to us.”

“Then Aaron and Sefet-Manyue fell into the pool.    Aaron’s parents were 100% Half-Elf each.    Aeric was exactly 50% Human and 50% Elf and Alis was also exactly 50% Human and 50% Elf, and their son, Aaron was perfectly balanced.    So he is unaffected by the pool and comes out reformed exactly as he was before.”

“But Sefet was a different story.   I think he knew of a skeleton in the family closet.    He knew that either one of his parents was not 100% Hutcaiah, but probably had a mixture of another Elven race.    It didn’t show up where anyone could tell, but he knew.   I’ll bet it was a terrible family secret that they have worked fiendishly to conceal.     Maybe that was why it was so important for him to have a ‘pure’ wife, so his bloodline would improve.”

“So when he falls into the pool, the mixture dissolved him.    The water still had the ‘essence’ of some of Lysa’s ancestry - in this case, her Ogre ancestry which came from Lute.    So Seret was reformed, not into a pure Hutcaiah or as another race of Elf, nor even as a human, but with some of the Ogre essence that had come from Lysa.    Ironic isn’t it?   He comes out of the water as an Ogre, which he would have considered a brute, and his men kill him.”

 

Aedric was amazed at the deductions of his lovely wife.    Her theory would explain everything, but it didn’t seem to solve the problem with Aaron’s captivity.

“Well, my dear, that would perhaps explain the Hutcaiah Emperor’s determination to kill Aaron.   Perhaps he suspects that Aaron knows of their little family secret of mixed ancestry and wants to eliminate him.”

Snoe frowned, thinking of the captive Half-Elf, “I think you’re right, Aedric, which is why I may have a plan to rescue him.    I think it’s what Sophia and Khord were hinting at all along.   It all rides on whether Lysa is able to assist or not.     She has to be recovered enough to help.”

Aedric went over and sat down beside her, moving a sheet of chainmail that she had finished, “If it all hangs on Lysa, then I think I see where you are going with your plan.    Lysa will awaken - we hope- looking like Princess Seba-Yinhu, and she was a pureblood Hutcaiah.   At least that is your theory, right?”

Snoe nodded, eager to see if her husband could figure out her plan.

“Okay, then she should have those cobalt blue eyes that the Mesen-gongzu-Yu are all required to have, to serve as priestesses.    When the Watchers read to us those passages, they were about the part of the festival when their moon goddess, or one of the priestesses, would appear, impersonating her.    So you are thinking that we might work out a plan to fool the Hutcaiah.    During the festival, we could have Lysa teleport to the proper position at their goddess’ temple.    They might think that she was the Moon Goddess in the flesh, coming down to accept their offering and then we could rescue Aaron.”

Snoe grinned and hugged her husband, “Very good, that is exactly what I came up with.    It might work - all of the Mesen-gongzu-Yu priestesses would be accounted for, so the Emperor would know it wasn’t one of them appearing, and that might fool them into thinking that Lysa was their goddess.     If she came down and spoke the words that the goddess is supposed to speak, then takes Aaron and is teleported away, then the Emperor will think he was victorious and his revenge will be satisfied as well.     Plus, the Soul-Geis would be fulfilled and we’d have 100 years to prepare for any future raids or wars by the Hutcaiah.”

Aedric was impressed, “It might work, Snoe.   We’d have to figure out a way to allow Lysa to teleport in and out on her own, because none of us could go with her or they’d figure out it was a ruse.”

“I’m sure we can come up with a teleportation device.   I’ll contact my Mom by crystal ball, and you can see if Mathlyn has any ideas.     Of course, we have to wait and see if Lysa recovers and is able to do this.   If she doesn’t recover in time, or if she doesn’t appear as a pureblood priestess with blue eyes, this probably won’t work.”

“At least we have a plan.”   Aedric kissed his wife, “And we can make preparations for it.   Let’s get busy doing all we can!”

Reviews

[Elina]

"...what he was like and how violent he would react..." I think you were wanting "violently" here. ?
"...12 ½ % Human and 12 ½ % Ogre." This is only a matter of personal thought and opinion, but it might look cleaner to use a decimal here instead of 1/2.
"He knew that either his mother or his father were not 100% Hutcaiah..." It took me a moment to realize what you were saying here. I think it would benefit from a little rewriting.

[Eddie Davis]

Thanks for your suggestions.