Fire of the Soul

By

Smashwords Edition

Published by Flora Speer At Smashwords

Copyright © 2015 by Flora Speer

Cover Design Copyright 2015

By http//:DigitalDonna.com

Smashwords Edition, License Note:

This e-book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

I hold the fire of the soul,

I hold life and healing

from The Rig Veda

Thousands of years ago, when the northernmost
lands of the known world were frozen in a long age of ice and snow,
a band of six men and women, mages all and all banished from their
original homes in the wilderness of Mataram, fled across the
Fiuris Occam,
the Sea of Fire and Ice, to the land that
later became known as Chandelar.

In that unexplored refuge, where volcanoes
kept a small peninsula warm enough to sustain life in the icy
wastes, the twelve founded a village, which they called Tannaris.
In the fertile volcanic soil they planted the seeds of hardy herbs
which they had carried with them from Mataram, and they nurtured
the fragile plants through the brief northern summers. They hunted
the giant, hairy beasts that lived on the ice, made clothing from
the skins, and smoked the meat over volcanic fumeroles to preserve
it for the winter, when no one dared to hunt in the wind-driven
blizzards.

It was a brutal life and a short one for most
of them, but they and the few children they produced lived without
fear of harassment. At first, that was all they desired, the
freedom to practice without persecution their inherited magic, the
Power.

In the third generation of the mages of
Tannaris, the girl, Aone, discovered The Emerald, and everything
changed.

Finding it was an accident – or, perhaps, a
trick played upon humankind by the old gods. Greener than the
lushest leaves of the fabled keshan tree of warmer southern climes,
clearer than the air at a storm’s end, absolutely without flaw, the
Emerald glowed in plain sight where a rockfall had tumbled down the
slope of a volcano.

Ignoring the rumble of the earth beneath her
feet and the sudden spurt of brilliant orange volcanic fire far
above her head, Aone picked up the stone. Who would not reach for
such a jewel? It lay in her hand, encased in a greyish stone
matrix, yet she could see its perfect shape, a long, beautifully
angled crystal. Aone sensed the strength in it, a Power greater
than any she had ever imagined existed. Such Power could do
wondrous things, she knew.

Having carried the Emerald back to the
village, Aone proudly displayed her treasure – and promptly learned
about greed. She was not permitted to keep the stone. She was too
young to own such a gem, her mother explained when the eldest of
the mages, Bron, confiscated it. The jewel belonged with learned
men who would know how to use its Power.

For a year and a day Aone rued what she saw
as the theft of her beautiful green stone. Having learned
discretion from her loss and being a clever girl, she practiced and
studied in secret, steadily refining and increasing her Power.
Believing her time would come and aware of Bron’s great age, she
waited with only slight impatience.

On the day after Bron died, while the funeral
rites for the ancient mage were being conducted, Aone seized her
opportunity She slipped away unseen and stole the Emerald, though
if anyone had confronted her, she would have said she was merely
retrieving her own possession.

Aone tucked the Emerald into a pouch she had
sewn into the bosom of her leather tunic. Then she loosed from its
mooring a small boat made of animal hide and paddled out of the
harbor, past the smoking volcanoes and away from Tannaris.

Aa short time later a little boy who had been
watching Aone when he should have been studying incantations, told
what she had done and how she had left the village. The men would
have followed her to take back the Emerald and bring the foolish
girl home again, but they were prevented by an unseasonable storm
that raged out of the northeast, forcing anyone with any wits at
all to seek shelter. A few folk muttered that the storm was not
natural.

No one in Tannaris ever saw Aone again. They
thought they knew what had happened to her, though. As the village
grew larger the mages sent out trained men and women to teach the
lessons of the Power to anyone who would listen. They established a
school for would-be mages who traveled to Tannaris from other
lands. And over the years the tale of the Emerald was carried back
to Tannaris.

Far to the east a tribal chieftain who called
himself Gundolam the Great formed a confederacy amongst his
neighbors and soon thereafter made himself absolute ruler of all
the eastern tribes. No one could stand against him. His authority
was rumored to be the result of his queen’s influence, for she had
brought to their marriage a magical green stone that became known
as the Great Emerald of The East.

The mages of Tannaris refused to curse one of
their own, however misguided she was, so they cursed the stone
instead,, declaring it would bring wealth and strength to its
owners, but also grief and bitterness and violence, until it was
returned to the place where it was discovered. Only then would
peace descend upon the known world.

When Gundolam’s son, Gundobar, grew to
manhood, he slaughtered his father and stole the magical Emerald
along with the lordship of his father’s land, which by then were
known as the Dominion.

Years later, Gundobar’s son, Gundiac, also
killed his father and seized control of the Dominion and of the
Great Emerald of The East. And so it went through long centuries as
the rulers of the Dominion, a Gundolam followed by a Gundobar, who
in turn was followed by a Gundiac came to the throne by murder,
ruled for a time,

and then died by murder.

The mages of Tannaris always insisted the
stone ought rightly to be called the Great Emerald of Chandelar. No
one in the Dominion paid any heed to that claim and after many
years even the mages began to refer to the stone simply as the
Emerald.

But the mages continued to wait, knowing the
day would come when the Emerald would return to them once
more….

Early Spring

Northeastern Sapaudia

Garit first saw her as he rode alone out of
the shadowy forest. His squire, Anders, was lagging well behind
with the men-at-arms and the two pack horses that carried their
baggage. Garit had been paying little attention to anything except
the rutted path until the trees ended abruptly, without the gradual
thinning of most forests, and he found himself gazing at a wide
swath of open fields that were bathed in golden sunlight.

A woman on horseback was supervising the
workers who bent to the task of planting the nearest field. She
rode astride, her dark skirts hiked up to her knees to reveal
heavy, mud-encrusted boots. Above the tops of those boots Garit
glimpsed long, shapely legs covered in bright green hose. Green for
the season, Garit supposed, as if she were a lady of the royal
court. She wore a straw hat with a wide brim that hid her face
while it kept the bright sun from burning her.

Then Garit heard her voice, a clear tone
that, unexpectedly and most improbably, touched a raw, aching spot
in his soul. Suddenly, between one heartbeat and the next, he
became aware of his surroundings, and the signs of a northern
Sapaudian spring in full leaf and bloom tugged at his senses.

Where he was, close to the Sea of Lestrac,
the winds could be icy so that spring, when it came, arrived slowly
and delicately. Boyhood memories of other springs spent in the same
area crowded his mind, rousing him from the torpor that had held
his emotions prisoner for three unhappy years.

Looking down he noticed along the edge of the
path the bright blue flowers of sweet gallinum glowing like
miniature sapphires. He had seen gallinum often enough in his
youth, yet he blinked, marveling at the tiny beauty as if he’d
never beheld a flower before the present day. He brushed against a
blooming apple tree in passing and pinkish-white petals scattered
over his dark blue cloak. With a peculiar intensity not usual to
him of late, he noticed the contrast of delicate petal against
rough wool.

High above him a bird sang, pulling his
attention toward the heavens. Garit craned his neck to catch sight
of the singer. All he could discern was a faint, winged shape
silhouetted against blue sky and fluffy clouds. He returned his
gaze to the earth, though not immediately to the road that led to
his journey’s end. The view was simply too lovely for him to pass
by unheeding.

A brief shower had sprinkled the landscape
with glistening drops of moisture and all around him the plowed
soil of the fields was darkly, damply fertile, with grain sprouting
in wisps of pale, yellow-green. In the nearest field the workers
were busy at some task that Garit didn’t immediately recognize.
He’d been too long absent from the countryside, too long occupied
at the court of King Henryk of Sapaudia. One of the men in the
field, muddy and darkly tanned from too much sun upon unprotected
skin, noticed Garit and said something to the woman. She pulled her
horse around and came toward him unattended, though two or three of
the field workers watched her so intently that Garit wondered if
they believed he might offer harm to her. That he would never do,
counting himself an honest knight and having no interest in
ravishing any woman. Even common prostitutes were safe from him.
But the men in the field could not know that, so Garit was pleased
to see how carefully they watched over her.

“I bid you welcome, sir,” said the woman in
accents that would have suited a great lady of the court. “Are you
lost? Or seeking someone in particular? Mayhap I can offer a
correct direction?”

“I’ve come to see the lady of Saumar Manor,”
he responded, too bemused by the music of her voice to state that
he knew the way perfectly well. He lifted a hand to his forehead,
then recalled that he wasn’t wearing his helmet. Anders was holding
the headpiece, leaving Garit clad in his light chainmail tunic and
blue cloak, with his sword at his side. He wore heavier gear into
battle, but he wasn’t expecting a confrontation so close to his
destination and he’d wanted to avoid the chafing discomfort of the
helmet.

“This road will take you directly to the
manor,” the woman said. “It’s just a short distance from here.”

“I thank you for the information.” Garit
nodded at her and gathered the reins, prepared to ride on.

Then she smiled at him and he experienced the
oddest sensation, as if he ought to know her, or had known her at
some time in the past – or was destined to know her somewhere in
the future. He shook his head to clear it of such nonsensical
thoughts. Perhaps he ought to put his helmet back on to shield
himself from the sun. Or else find a hat like hers.

She tilted her head backward as if to see him
better from under the wide brim and Garit noticed her pointed chin
and greenish-grey eyes, though he still could not make out her
entire face. She appeared to hesitate and her smile disappeared.
The instant her mouth settled into a serious line Garit had the
feeling that a cloud had passed across the sun. The thought crossed
his mind that the woman might be possessed of the magical Power
that some people inherited and, if so, she could be using it on
him.

“Good day to you, sir.” She pulled her horse
around and headed back to the middle of the field, riding along a
track even narrower than the path Garit was following.

With his peculiar awareness of everything
around him, he noted how she took care that her mount did not
trample the newly planted crop. He sat a moment longer, watching
her, but she did not look toward him again.

Garit did not care what the workers thought
of him, nor the men-at-arms, either. However, his squire had just
caught up with him. Garit knew that Anders, with the familiarity of
long friendship, was sure to make a jest or two at his expense for
paying so much attention to a female.

“A lady working in the fields is most
unusual,” Anders remarked, his gaze, like Garit’s, fixed upon the
retreating figure. “Judging by her voice and her manner, she
is
a lady. I wonder who she can be?”