21.

Near St. Catherine's convent something mysterious is seen.

21.

 

There was the river, flowing eternally southward, into the earth, then underground connecting to the warm spring that bubbled up to the surface.   No fish lived there, for its waters were magical and cold, at least until they met up with the spring waters.

But those that fell into its waters were engulfed in the deep blue chill, even in the hottest part of summer.   No one knew if it was minerals in the water or something unknown and arcane, but things that fell into it were covered and eventually consumed entirely.   

With one exception.

Many thousands of years ago, one who had thought himself a god had reshaped and molded Albyia into the place he had wanted.   It had been the last act of a long age of creation, a last signature of the being before the Creator God judged him and flung him into the outer abyss for his sins.

The river had been one of his last creations, just before crafting the pool that bore his name for centuries.    He had created it to preserve and assist his beloved elven and fae races, which were his pride and joy.    For he did not know what the Creator God would do to his creations, which he felt were superior to the weak humans that the Creator had placed in his worlds.

The river flowed toward the pool, to bring his creations to the source of healing that he had created exclusively for them.

Surprisingly, both the river and the pool had remained after the Creator God had taken possession of Albyia and the entire world.   Its magic had remained, unaltered though no-one knew exactly what that magic did or how it had come into being.

Rumors and tales flowed from the primitive elven races living on the island, down to the human invaders, who added their own tales and fears to the legends of them.

Then St. Catherine attempted to dispel the mystery of the ‘faerie pool’ by starting a convent on its banks and consecrating it to Yesh the Merciful.     Miracles were attributed to her and soon the pool became a holy place.

But the river was avoided as cursed, haunted, flowing water, best left alone.

 

***

 

Sister Lylia stood hidden by the massive statue of St. Catherine, nervously, but softly chanting the flame cantrip so she could light her Darx cigarette.   The spirited youngest daughter of The Duke of Radderwich had only entered the convent to hide her ‘unfortunate condition’ from the elderly married Baron who got her that way.   Although most of the sisters were kind and there were even a few acquaintances from the royal court suffering from the same condition that she did, Lylia still hated the place.

Mother Julia expected them to work like dogs every day.   Harvesting Darx from the miniature trees that grew around the holy pool, then long hours processing the bark and hand rolling them into cigarettes which they packaged, sold, and shipped to all the fashionable ladies throughout Albyia.

But, to her dismay, she’d learned that none of the nuns were allowed to smoke them (except for the lucky two sisters who sampled them for quality control).    So she’d sit there agonizing for a cigarette, smelling the coffee-like aroma of the Darx all day long and yet was unable to partake of what had been a deep and beloved addiction.

She’d toss and turn all night, struggling from withdrawal which was amplified by her huge belly, heartburn and the little bugger inside her kicking as if he or she needed the Darx as badly as she did.

So a week ago she’d begun rising an hour before the morning prayer bell, sneaking into the unlocked workroom and stealing a couple of Darx cigarettes, then hiding behind the statue of the saint and frantically smoking until the bell sounded.    It would sustain her (usually) until midday and calm the infernal kicking for a while.

This morning she had been spooked by a noise in the workroom, so she had only lifted one cigarette and she intended to make it count.

Sitting on the base of the statue, she finished the cantrip and pulled the rich smoke hungrily into her desperate lungs.    With a contented sigh, she felt the drug flow through her like warmth on an icy day.    For a while she just sat there with her head against the cold marble, dragging heavily in sheer contentment.  

Her serenity was abruptly disrupted by the sound of something large bobbing to the surface in the Holy Pool.

Sister Lylia opened her eyes lazily, for she’d heard the sound before several times.    Bubbles from the Hot Spring, contacting with the icy blue water of the river somewhere below ground caused huge pockets of air to form, which would quickly rise to the surface with surprising noise, then pop when meeting the surface air.

But when her eyes focused on the pool in the early dawn light, she jumped to her feet in surprise, dropping her precious Darx cigarette in alarm.

Floating in the Holy Pool was a pale white body.

 

Forgetting all secrecy, Lylia gave a piercing high-pitched scream, unconsciously clutching her swollen belly protectively as she staggered away from the pool.

 

Almost at once nuns came to her aid, all of them shrieking in alarm at the sight in the Holy Pool.  

“What’s going on?”   Sister Niana asked her when she arrived minutes later.   Niana was Mother Julia’s assistant and in charge while the Reverend Mother was away.

Before Lylia or any of the other sisters could answer, Niana saw the body and gasped in shock.   For a full minute she just stared in wonder at it, then, squinting, she took a step closer to the pool.

“What is it sister?”   Lylia asked her, “What do you see?”

“The body…I think… Merciful Lord!   It moved!   Look!   There are bubbles by its head!   The head!   It moved!   Yesh have mercy!”

The sisters were all nearly hysterical, clutching at each other and crying out in panic.

“Sister Niana, it could be someone terribly injured!”   Lylia said and her words seemed to give her fellow nun courage.   Niana looked at her with an uneasy smile.

“Yes, sister, we must trust Yesh.    Sisters!   Come, let us pull this person out of the pool and find out who they are!   Do not be afraid, it is not a monster!   Trust in God!”

The older nun bravely rushed up to the pool, paused a second and waded into the waters.    A moment later, her heart racing wildly, Lylia joined her, and then several others followed.

Turning the figure over in the shallows of the pool, they all gasped a second time.

“It’s a man!”   One said, “He’s wearing militia armor too.”

“Not a man, sister; an elf!   See his ears!”

“An elf!   Yesh have mercy!   How’d he get in the pool?”

“Quick, sisters, get the stretcher from the infirmry.   He is terribly weak and bears the marks of torture.”   The women began removing the armor of the mysterious man, examining him for injuries as they did.

Two of the women lifted their habit skirts and ran to do as Niana instructed.

“How horrible - his… private region has been… mutilated,”  One of the nuns commented.

“Yes, but there is a strange blue glow about him,”  Lylia responded, “It looks like… perhaps it is just the light… but it looks like the wounds are… changing.”

“We’ve got to get him inside,”  Niana told her sisters, “Keep your voices down, sisters, we do not know who this is or how he got here, so let us not draw attention to him or to us until we find out some answers.   Gather up the pieces of his armor and bring them along.”

“How exciting!”  Lylia exclaimed, which earned her a stern glance from Niana.

The stretcher arrived and five of the sisters pulled him onto it.   

Lylia followed the four sisters carrying the injured elf into the convent, revived and refreshed by the mystery and excitement.

 

***

 

Denrich found sleep to be impossible as he tossed and turned in misery in Lady Xael’s suite. He could do nothing but feel hurt and frustrated at Xael.   Why?   He kept asking himself that - he hadn’t entered into a relationship with her and she had not committed herself to him either.

He just felt as if she had genuinely liked him.   Perhaps she did and he just didn’t understand the wild and immoral lifestyles of the royal court.    Still, he didn’t like being thrown into the mess like a babe in the woods.    Then to be told that he was Reddric’s son.   Of all people!   Xael was right; there would be no escape for him, no return to the way of life he found the most satisfying.    If he tried to escape, they’d find him and drag him back in chains, or else panic and assume that he was going to raise an army and try a coup against his father.

But the throne was something he certainly did not want, even if it were possible for him to gain it.   Hopefully Reddric’s child bride would bear him a human son.

For a while he got up and paced, but his keen ears could hear the muffled sounds of various nocturnal activities going on throughout the palace, and that made his mind turn back to Xael.

He considered just roaming the halls, but he valued Mother Julia’s warnings even if Xael didn’t, so without anything else to do, he found parchment and an ink well and decided to write a letter to Abbot Matthes about all that had happened to him.

Denrich found writing to be soothing to him and after crafting a lengthy letter, he rested his head on the desk and fell fast asleep.

Only minutes later the lock clicked quietly and Xael slipped silently into the room.   It was much earlier than she had intended to come back as she didn’t want Denrich to think she had not spent the night engaged in intense lovemaking.    But the Duke had told her quite a bit in a short period of time.    She’d left him there sleeping it off, with one of her green hair ribbons lying in the floor to confirm to him that she’d been there, just in case her magic didn’t affect him as strongly as usual.

She was surprised to find Denrich asleep at the writing table.    Xael was more than a little relieved that he had not left her room and after verifying that he was truly asleep and hadn’t been assassinated while she was gone, she began slowly slipping his letter out from beneath his hands.    She sat by the window reading his long letter by candlelight.   His frankness surprised her and she was delighted at his insight and thoughts on all that had gone on around him.  

Amazingly, he had very few negative things to say about her except that she was ‘wild and free; a master of taking care of herself, her wants and needs’.    He waxed almost poetic describing her to the Abbot and she could not help but feel flattered at his thoughts about her.

She didn’t want him to ask her a lot of tough questions tonight, but she wanted both of them to get some sleep, so in her softest voice, she chanted a mild beguiling spell, similar to the one she’d used earlier on the Duke.

“You won’t wake up, Love, I want you to keep your eyes closed and yet go over and get into bed and cover up.   Then go into a deep restful sleep and don’t remember me telling you to do this.   Do you understand?”

“Yes,”  Denrich said with a deeply groggy voice.   Immediately he got to his feet, keeping his eyes closed and felt his way to the bed, then crawled from the foot up to the head of it, tucked a pillow under his head and fell fast asleep.

Xael watched him with gentle amusement and once he was asleep, she stripped down to her flimsy gown and slipped in next to him, curling up behind him and softly humming an elven lullaby that her mother had lulled her to sleep with when she was a child.  

Soon she was drifting off into a world of interesting dreams.

 

***

 

Just before dawn, somewhere in one of the twisting side passages in the palace, a fat man wearing a dark cloak lurking in the shadows, waited for a meeting.    Soon out of the darkness came a smaller figure that moved as if the shadows were his natural environment. 

“Good, you made it,”   The fat man whispered, mopping his brow though the air was cool and damp.

“I always answer your summons, Your Grace,”  He bowed respectfully to the larger man, “What is your bidding?”

“Tomorrow there will be a lot of activity that will seem to come completely from the throne, but I have my own plans.    I want you to be aboard the next arcane train.    I have paid for a merchant’s cabin and you will pose as a cloth merchant hoping to open up new business with Baylcothrom.”

“Baylcothrom, Your Grace?   The Elven Kingdom?”

The larger man snickered, “Not any more.   Tomorrow it will be given - secretly at first- as a Grand Duchy to the daughter of the last Elven king.   She will be quietly named as duchess, but do not be deceived; this is only a temporary situation.    She will journey on the train to claim her title and I, along with that half-elf sheriff will accompany her.”

“This has already been scheduled, I take it?”

“No, not yet.    Denrich knows nothing of it and Avalynn knows very little.    Denrich will be sent back to St. Wemricshire to collect his personal items so he can return here and live as the king’s b*****d.    Reddric has set this trip up to give Avalynn time to seduce him and gauge his loyalty to the High King.     But I see an opportunity to set things in motion that will put an end to the influence of these damned elves.”

“May I ask how, Your Grace?”

“As you should, for much of it involves you!    You see, Reddric has no intention of putting a daughter of an elven king as duchess.    His troops are stationed all around Baylcothrom.   His expressed plan was to send the foolish girl back home, supposedly with his blessing.    She’d spend a week or so back home, establishing her duchy and hopefully by that time Denrich will be smitten with her.     They’ll return here and the king will learn more about his b*****d from the Nymph.”

“Then he plans to make a decision about both her and Denrich.    If she proves useful, he might let her live, removing her as duchess but giving her some other title.   If she isn’t useful, he told me that he’d simply drum up some ‘secret plans that she made’ and use that to try her for treason then execute her.    I doubt he’d go this far, though, as he is too taken by her beauty to kill her.    At any rate, his thoughts are to see how Denrich behaves away from the palace when he is back in his ‘home territory’ of St. Wemricshire, as well as the elven region.    Reddric has said that if Denrich proves loyal, he might set him up as a Baron or Duke perhaps.”

The large, sweating man sneered at the thought.

“So I take it that you want me to alter these plans, Your Grace?”

“Yes, but it is a complex plan and I don’t want you to know more than you need to, just in case you were questioned by magic.    For now, I want you to take the train to the station at Eastwatch in St. Wemricshire.    I will be going with Denrich and Avalynn, but I will not speak to you or even seem to know you when we are all on the train.”

“I understand, Your Grace.”

“Good.   I have an envelope that is sealed that I am going to give you.   Do not open it up until we arrive in Eastwatch.   It will tell you what I want you to do.    If my scheme changes before then, I will slip another note under the door of your train’s cabin.   But if there is no note from me before we reach Eastwatch, then precisely follow the instructions enclosed in that envelope.   Do not open it until Eastwatch, so that you won’t know more than you need to know if something went afoul beforehand.”

“Can I ask one question now, so I will know what tools I need to prepare?”

“Only one question and ask only a general question.”

“Will my task involve murder?”

“Yes, and the details will be outlined in the envelope.    Here it is, along with half of your usual pay.”    The sweating man pulled a sealed piece of parchment from his robes, along with a pouch heavy with gold coins, which he handed to the smaller man.

“Thank you, Your Grace, as always, I will follow your instructions completely.   You can count on me,”  He bowed respectfully to his patron.

“I know that I can.   Now go quietly before the chambermaids begin prowling around.    I have a lot of work to do before this afternoon.”

Without any further conversation, the two figures slipped away in two different directions.