A Warrior's Revenge (16 page)

“The other ring I keep for myself as is my
right.” I picked the bigger ring off of my palm and slid it onto my
ring finger. The carved engravings came to life and shown a fiery
gold color that pulsed with the beat of my heart.

Ellanara starred in shock at the ring
pulsing on my finger. Shaking her head she said, “I don’t
understand? I need these rings! I’m supposed to……” She broke off in
midsentence and I could tell that she was starting to put it all
together.

“Two houses? Two peoples?” She said, as she
touched the white skin of her arm and then she looked over at the
black skin of my arm.

“Little Queen.” She whispered out with
baited breath.

She looked up at me and I saw misery in her
eyes, “You’re a warrior, a great warrior aren’t you? The greatest
to ever have lived in a thousand years?”

The depth of misery was so great in her eyes
that I almost wanted to deny the truth, because I hated to
disappoint her, but I had to tell her the truth so I nodded yes.
Her eyes dropped from mine to stare at the ring on the table.

My eyes widened a little, as she suddenly
screamed, “No! No! No!” She said, as she pounded the table with her
little fist in time with each declaration.

Wow! This girl had a temper to match her
glorious hair! Perhaps we were a well-placed match after all.

The anger melted away and dissolved into
deep wrenching sobs, as she seemed to fold over on herself her head
dipping forward, until it almost touch the edge of the table. Her
crying was awful to listen to and I wished it would stop, but I
didn’t know what to do to help calm her, as I couldn’t change the
circumstances that bound us together.

I just stood there helpless to do anything
to fix the situation, as her sobs tore through me like knives. Was
I that terrible? She certainly seemed to think so!

Her crying had finally come to register as a
lingering quiver throughout her body and I had no sooner relaxed
than she abruptly straightened up in her chair. Her shoulders went
back and she wiped at the tears on her face in an almost angry
fashion, as she tried to regain her composure. She then resolutely
reached out and picked up the ring and brought it to her
finger.

“Wait! If the ring initializes with you it
will never come back off. Only in the event of your death or the
removal of your finger will the ring come off. Take a moment and
think about what and who you’re about the bind yourself to for
forever.”

She looked up at me and starred into my eyes
for a long moment then glanced down to the ring poised in front of
her finger, “I made a promise and I’m going to keep it.” She said,
as she slid the ring on all the way.

The ring lit up and initialized just as mine
had. Such a thing had never occurred to my knowledge to anyone not
of Sallaconese blood before. I watched Ellanara jerk, as the full
meaning of the rings came to her.

Her eyes turned up to mine in horror, “We’re
linked now aren’t we? You have open access to all my thoughts!”

I nodded somberly. I hadn’t forced her to
put the ring on, but neither had I told her one of the side effects
of doing so.

Sullenly she said her voice full of
bitterness, “So why haven’t you already taken what it is that you
want to know so badly from me? It’s not like I can do anything to
stop you now!”

It was all there before me. No walls, easy
open access to everything I needed to save my people. My fists
tightened, as I strained against the temptation to just reach out
with my thoughts and take what I needed from her memories. Perhaps
she had been caught in a trap not of her own making, but the same
was true of me. It wasn’t just about my people and their continued
survival anymore. It was also about her people. When I had slid
that ring on and allowed her to slide hers on I had in effect taken
responsibility for both of our peoples, thus fulfilling my father’s
wishes.

The past history between our peoples was
gone now and it had been hard to let it pass, but if we were to get
anywhere into a better future than that was the price to be paid.
This woman was now my wife and she was worthy to be treated as
such, as the ring had fully initiated with her, thus confirming her
suitableness to rule by my side.

It would take some convincing of my people
though to accept her as a leader over them. My people hated people
of white color and they had good reason to. First there had been
the cowardly betrayal of their one time friends the Vallians and
then my people had almost been brought to the edge of extinction by
the Orlandian’s, who while not all white were mostly so.

Despite whatever reservations my people
might have they would listen to me and get over it if they wished
to survive any further in life. My father had been a greater
strategist than even I had realized, as I admitted sourly to myself
upon reflection on how neatly he had managed to box me in.

Ellanara glanced up at me in a questioning
way. She no doubt was surprised that I hadn’t delved into her
thoughts yet to discover her secrets so I decided to put her at
ease with my newfound truth, “A husband and wife, which we now are,
should have respect for each other. Your thoughts are your own,
until you wish to share them with me. I have nothing to hide and
you may look as you wish through all my thoughts.”

She stared up at me in open surprise and I
was distracted for a moment by her lips, as they fell apart. She
was so beautiful, on the tails of that thought came another. She
was now all mine. It had been a very long time, but now was not the
time. In an effort to refocus my sudden rampaging desires for this
woman I asked, “There is one thing I must ask of you that I require
an answer to. Roughly 10,000 of my people remain alive scattered
over several worlds in this system. Do you have a way of conveying
such a large number of additional people off world in search of a
new one, where both our peoples can start over again as one?”

“Yes.” She responded softly not putting up
any fight or denial of telling me anything.

“I will need to know more about how that is
when the time comes. I’m trusting you to let me know when that time
is.” I said somberly, as some part of me couldn’t comprehend why I
just didn’t take the knowledge I needed from her open
consciousness.

Wordlessly she nodded in agreement still
looking surprised.

“If you are tired you can rest in my bed
over there. I have some things that I need to attend to. You will
be quite safe here, but do not venture out into the ruins, as many
parts of them are unstable.”

Nervously she stood up and moved back from
the table a slight distance, “Where will you be sleeping?” She
asked trying to appear calm.

I smiled and she took another step backward,
“I rarely if ever sleep. I’ve gotten more than enough rest to last
me for several lifetimes. I will see you in the morning Ellanara.”
I said, as I walked across the floor to the door, which I closed
behind me shutting off view of the beautiful woman within the room.
Closing the door had been a very hard thing to do.

I walked deeper into the ruins of the lower
levels of what had once been the crown palace. The ultraviolet
light of my staff increased with my need for more light. I hadn’t
been this way in a very long time, as it was; the way had gotten
only more treacherous and unstable with the passage of years.
Sadness threatened to overwhelm me, as I acknowledged that this was
going to be the last time that I came this way. I felt that
knowledge echo strongly within me.

Dust sheeted down on me from above, as I had
to crawl up and over the fallen debris that littered the floor. The
history and glory of my ancestors was fallen all around me. My
people were fallen from power and yet for the first time in a very
long time I now had a hope that things could once again be
better.

These ancient shattered halls that I
traveled through could never be repaired. Somberly I gave up on the
dream of that very thing occurring one day. It was time to begin a
new dream and to experience more things than just those I was used
to from long force of habit and tradition.

I entered the great subterranean hall
littered with stately fallen pillars. The whole place was about to
collapse. Perhaps it had been unwise to come here at all, but I had
wanted to say goodbye one last time so I had come anyway against my
better judgment. Hopefully the ceiling would stay up for a few
minutes longer.

I moved across the room of the shattered
glory of past Kings, until I came to the end of the line, which was
my father’s resting place. He had been one of the kindest and yet
wisest of all those who ever ruled over the Sallaconese people.
Staring at his tomb I wondered how and what he would advise me to
do now.

I wished I knew. I let my head fall forward
onto the dusty tomb. I may have been well over a thousand years in
age, but in some ways I think no matter how old I lived to I would
never be as wise as he had been.

He had been the best of fathers. He’d always
found time to spend with each of his children despite the
responsibilities of his position as leader of our people. As a boy
and as a young man I had been a challenging offspring to maintain
control of. I had often been found in fits of unreasoning rage or
acts of unkindness.

Father hadn’t let me get away with any of
it. I’d always had to pay the penalty of whatever punishment he
thought best suited the crime I was guilty of, but he’d always
shown me clearly that whatever punishment I was made to feel was a
result of my own actions. Always he had taken great effort to show
me another way around the situation than the one I had taken.

He’d always been positive, always
encouraging, and most important of all, always loving. He had made
me a better man than I was on my own. So many years removed from
the excellence of his kindly wisdom had, I had thought at least,
undone a lot of his patiently taught teaching. I had been wrong
though.

I had just forged an alliance by blood with
the same people that I had sworn to destroy, if ever I got the
chance, because it had been my father’s wish for peace and
reconciliation instead. I had denied the passion of my rage and
instead I had been reasonable and done the bidding of my father’s
wishes. I had refrained from senselessly crushing the beautiful
mind of the woman that I now called my wife. I had shared with her
and thus her people the prestige and honor of my people, because of
my father’s wishes. I had left the room instead of fulfilling my
desire to enjoy my new bride with a pent-up passion hundreds of
years in the making. Of all these decisions I had made it could not
be said that I had done them because I was a good man at heart. I
wasn’t.

I was a killer, a man of rage, a man past
caring, a man without love and yet I had acted as my father had
taught and inspired me to be. But now what? What keys did his
tutoring of me have yet in stock to show me the way I had yet to go
in the uncharted depths of the life opening up before me?

I was going to have to trust God if anything
positive was to be achieved, because among all the other things I
was also a weak man. Even now I had to fight a war against letting
my rage be released on both the enemy and the betrayers of my
people. The people, who had allowed all this ruin that lay around
me to befall us. I gritted my teeth and ground my forehead into the
cold stone of my father’s tomb.

I also had to fight a war against returning
to the room and the woman I had left behind, who was now mine to do
with as I pleased. God help me!

How was such a man as I going to keep it all
together and keep doing the right things, when all it seemed like
that I yearned to do was the opposite of what should be done? My
father would have been a better suited man to the task at hand than
I was, yet it had fallen to me of all the great kings that lay
resting in this room.

Why did it all have to come down to me the
least of all those worthy to have ever ruled the Sallaconese people
to deal with the delicate situation our people were faced with for
continued survival? God must have a purpose to my selection for the
job. He must or why else would my life have been continued on so as
it had?

I would do the best I could and hope it was
enough. The best strategy it seemed to me was to start gathering my
people into one place in secrecy where they could be picked up as
one group. That plan could backfire, as all my people could be
killed easily in one group together, but it was going to be a risk
that was going to have to be taken.

It was also a strategy that involved
trusting the Vallians. God help us, if they failed us this time, as
they had done so in the past! If they betrayed us again and I was
still able I’d make sure they were done in along with my people
down to the last one of them!

I shook my head sadly. Here I was next to my
father’s tomb plotting vengeance on my new wife’s people, for a
perceived future betrayal that had not happened yet and likely
wouldn’t. It was not the way that this new blood bond between our
peoples needed to start out. I stared down at the lit up engravings
of my ring, as I reflected that it was not a blood bond yet between
our two peoples.

What had made me do it? What had made me
throw all the hatred and distrust away and give the woman that I
hoped was still in my room one of the map keys to the Haven
Worlds?

I admitted the answer to myself, even if I
wouldn’t have to somebody else. It hadn’t been just because of my
father’s deal with Tadias, it had also been because I simply
couldn’t resist having the prize that was being offered.

I gave up on one of my wars, as I left the
Hall of my father’s and headed back out through the ruins toward my
room and the woman within. About an hour later, as I was nearing
the room I heard a crumble of stones and the ruins around me shook
slightly. I turned and looked back down the way I’d just come from.
After a minute I saw a plume of dust drift out toward me.