Shade of Destiny (The Foreseeing) (9 page)

    
The Master waved them away with irritation, watching Wynn – with the help of the maid – drag herself from the room; then began to pace around in a temper. The strange man walked over to the curtains and drew them allowing light to flood the ornaments and sculptures that dotted the room. He blew out the remaining lit candles then walked over to a large chair which had been hidden in the darkness and sat down. Eventually the Master stopped and stood in front of the man.

    
“What am I to do to Ricedon?” the Master snapped..

    
The man in the chair sighed a long, self-pitying sigh, “You, Oprend are where you are because of your own greed. I’m not saying it’s a bad quality but sometimes you have to know when to let go.”

    
The Master stared, expressionlessly, at Ricedon. “I want her Ricedon, more than I have ever wanted anything. And I get what I want!”

    
Ricedon shook his head, “Oprend, you would be wise to keep your word, our Mistress spared your life That Night, saving you and your wife to protect you from her creatures, and sparing your army so they could continue under your rule,” he said coldly, “Wynn is part of a far bigger plot; do you think it was by accident that she was taken here to work? Our Mistress has known for seventeen summers that she killed the wrong person That Night and she has paid for her hastiness.

    
          
“Elina was a clever Magus; the last spell she cast placed a protection over Wynn in the form of that gold necklace she wears around her neck. It is a feeble protection of course, due to run out on her eighteenth birthday, when she will grow into her powers and have enough power to kill our Mistress. So she was sent here, to grow under your watchful gaze, for you to belittle her, to break her spirit so when she eventually grows into her powers they will consume her. Do you think she sleeps on her own by chance, or is hounded by men regularly merely for her beauty? It is so she feels isolated, broken; you have done well in your part of that but you must realise what will happen if you disobey Her.”

    
Oprend started pacing again, “I know this Ricedon, but how was I to know she would turn into such a beautiful woman?”

    
There was a knock on the door and Oprend shouted for the person outside to enter. It was a servant, holding a large tray of metheglin, an alcoholic drink made of fermented honey, water and mead; and biscuits. She set them on the side; Oprend grunted in disgust and sent her away. Ricedon got up from the chair and helped himself to a mug of metheglin then sat heavily back down in the chair. Oprend watched him carefully sip the sweet drink.

    
“Aerona has your wife’s soul Oprend; you are bound to serve her,” Ricedon reminded him after he had drained half of the mug. Oprend scoffed and picked up a biscuit, and crushed it in his hand with ease, letting the crumbs fall to the floor.

    
“I care not for that thin, ugly woman that I lay beside each night. Our Mistress has made a fatal judgement in believing I care about anyone but myself. My wife is no less interesting than when she actually had a soul. Our Mistress can keep it for all I care.”

    
Ricedon continued to drink slowly as he thought about Oprend. Oprend had employed him as General of Woodstone’s army two decades ago and he had served him well. He had trained his men to be merciless, to beat those who did not work, to take any woman they pleased. Those who disobeyed were at the army’s mercy, and their Mistress’. The image of the army had changed over the last seventeen summers, before they had been regarded as slow and incapable. Now they were the most feared force in the lands; true some of the men he employed were muscle bound cretins, who did not have the initiative to act on their own, but that was what General Ricedon looked for in men, someone who would obey. He too, like Oprend, cared for no one but himself, he rarely spoke and when he did it was to the point. He thought of That Night seventeen summers ago. He had not been General for long when Oprend informed him who he really worked for. Aerona, a Magus. He had not believed it, he too like the other residents of the town had believed magic was a myth, creatures of darkness were stories they told to their children to make them behave. Since then he had seen Aerona’s power, felt its might. He wondered what she would look like, this Magus who controlled their lives with a flick of her wrist. He had never seen her, but her reputation was formidable.

    
She had ordered many things that he thought he was not capable of. People were killed for speaking out against him and Lord Oprend, women stolen from their families, daughters forced into the whorehouses for their beauty. He had become hard against the world, for anything beautiful would surely be destroyed under Aerona’s hateful rule. And yet one day haunted him more than any other. The day the army had invaded Cairon, the capital of Terra, stormed its borders and held the King prisoner in his own castle. Ricedon had been ordered to burn the houses of the villagers to cause confusion and lessen the chances of able men banding together to challenge the army. Those still in their houses once the fires started would be burnt alive. Amidst the chaos, the smoke and screams and scores of soldiers forcing those who did not obey back into their houses, one boy had caught a glimpse of him through the window, locked eyes with him as Ricedon ordered the death of his family.
 

    
Those child’s eyes haunted him, he had seen a boy turn into a man the moment he had ordered the house to be burnt. Ricedon shuddered involuntarily and drank the last of his drink. Eventually he spoke.

    
“Our Mistress may be able to find out what happened to your daughter.”

    
Oprend stopped drinking for a moment then looked at Ricedon’s lined face, “She was never my daughter, we adopted her when we found my ugly, incapable wife could not have children. The King’s daughter no less, my wife had heard of the child, blonde hair and blue eyes. Just like her. She cried and she demanded the baby. Of noble blood it was, she couldn’t have just any baby, no, it had to be the King’s. The wife died in childbirth, handy for us, everyone was too occupied with the Queen’s death to pay much attention to the baby, it was easy for my men to kidnap the child. But when my wife brought that baby home I despised them both. Much more beautiful than my wife to be sure, but she would be a constant reminder of that which I loathed. I never loved her and I care not if she is alive.” Lord Oprend spat as he spoke, anger shaking him. “Many things were lost to me That Night and though I gained much for my efforts I know Aerona has always held it against me, losing the Inner Nation’s only heir to the throne. To not know if she is alive tears Aerona apart, she has made it obvious that her spies cannot find the girl... I remember Aerona stilling us That Night and my wife clutching onto the baby in the Great Hall, but when we awoke the baby was gone.”

    
He turned to Ricedon, “It is fruitless to wonder what if, only you and I know that I had the Princess stolen, and that is how it will stay, so we will never know.” Ricedon nodded hurriedly in agreement, hearing the concealed threat in Lord Oprend’s words.

    
Lord Oprend paused and then smirked as something occurred to him, “And who are you to be judging when your own son ran out on you. He left of his own volition; at least
my
daughter was stolen from me. We all know you were training him to be your successor.”

    
Ricedon clenched the mug in his hand and it shattered in his grip, “That boy is not my son and if I ever find him he will wish he had never been born.”

    
Oprend laughed, “Then let us thank our Mistress for the power to bestow such punishment!”

    
Ricedon laughed and picked up the shattered mug, broken into spikes which glinted in the sunlight, and raised it in a toast, “To our Mistress, may she rule this land with passion, greed, and promiscuity.”

    
“I can drink to that!” Lord Oprend grinned, his cup clinking against Ricedon’s.***

***

The wind whistled eerily through the streets and the shutters of the many homes shook softly. The moon shone down brightly in the clear sky, flooding on the cobbles and causing the shadows to dance and deceive. The sound of men cheering echoed from the tavern and golden candlelight poured through the windows. Around each of the ten tables ten men sat, mug in hand, cheering at the man sat on the bar. The air was musty and the smell of ale and sweat overwhelmed the senses. The torches fixed in brackets on the wall gave out little heat but the amount of men squeezing into the tiny tavern provided enough warmth to be comfortable. The man at the bar ushered for the men to fall silent and they obeyed without question.

    
“Men!” He cried, “Our journey has been a hard one, and I shudder when I think of what it used to be like, when the army was nothing more than a pretence. Now we are strong and you have served me, the General and Lord Oprend well these two decades. But alas I have news, for ill or well I do not know yet but the plentiful times that we have so enjoyed are drawing to a close; the General has informed me that things will soon be different; we will be invading Terra again, for the final time. It is Oprend's attempt at complete control and we will serve him well. Without him we would not have our beautiful wives, an endless supply of ale and the freedom to do whatever the hell we want!” The men cheered in response and held their glasses high, ale spilling in their enthusiasm. “I have only one other thing to relay, the General has ordered the capture of someone who wronged him. We do not know her name, or what she looks like now, but our orders are iron clad, find her and obtain her. All we have to go on is her age, eighteen summers this year, and the fact she was born with blonde hair and blue eyes. She is important to the General and he wants her found, if we use the right sources I am confident we will find her.”

    
The tavern went silent and the men listening intently. This was the kind of order they were used to, find and obtain, no questions were asked and obedience was mandatory. It had always been like this, even back in the beginning when the army was nothing more than a prop, holding no real power. Lord Oprend still used them, mostly as muscle, but a few had worked as his spies and together they had worked hard to become the terrifying force they were now, controllers of freewill, self-proclaimed Gods. They had recruited hard in the first few years and their army was in the thousands, spread now across the whole of Inlo. In Woodstone only one hundred or so were housed, and they were glad of the privilege. To be part of the army was to be protected and men clamoured to be a soldier, but of course the General only recruited the best, and those who were not worthy, or who became deserters or traitors were sent away to The Rune, never to be seen again.

    
The night they came fully into power, named That Night secretly by the inhabitants of Woodstone, was the time the army took over Woodstone. It was a time of political strife and confusion, the whole of the lands were feeling the strain of a hard few summers, crops had yielded little and livestock bore few young. Every land and town within it almost all depended on imports of materials and food, it was a hard time to live and Oprend was glad. It worked out perfectly for him, for he had planned it for years, his invasion of Cairon, the capital of Terra, the largest land in the Nation. The conquer of Cairon and therefore Terra would mean control of the whole populace and Oprend craved that more than anything.

    
Cairon over the years had become famous for its army, two hundred thousand strong and all loyal to the King. At that time his rule was complete, all Lords reported to him and failure to do so was punishable by either a fine or whipping. No Lords disobeyed and the Nation was happy and prosperous with the omnipresent King. Yet Lord Oprend despised him and the power he wielded, and so he recruited his army far past what would ever be needed for such a small town and he trained them hard. None could ever have guessed the Master he reported to, who had given him the power to raise such a force of soldiers and so finally when That Night came; it was not just men who forced the walls of Cairon.

    
In the years after they became known as the Fallen, men and women whose lives were taken from them, who were nothing but shells, who felt no pain and did not bleed. They forced themselves on Cairon, thousands of them, an army larger than any man had ever seen, dragging their rotting limbs and killing all that stood in their path. Cairon's army fought, but how could they ever win against a beast that could not die? Cairon fell, as Oprend intended and as soon as the borders were weakened he sent his army in under the presence of helping rebuild the city and took control. The King was weakened by the invasion and Oprend took advantage of his damage to hold him captive in his castle and place his soldiers in charge. It was a well thought out plan and the death of the King's wife a few days before, coupled with the kidnap of his daughter only helped Oprend's plan.

    
Oprend's army stayed in Cairon, expanding their forces throughout Terra until every town had some semblance of the army enforcing it. So it had been for seventeen summers.

    
“She could be anywhere, this girl that the General seeks;” the man continued on, “Lord Oprend has the rest of the men looking throughout Inlo, as it would have been impossible for her to have left, and has recruited the help of the other Lords, so our job is to look through Woodstone. We will find this girl, and obtain her. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. Now go, report back here at morning light for further instructions.”

    
The men got up noisily, laughing and joking with each other and departed, leaving the Lieutenant-General sitting on the bar. He looked around at the upturned chairs and spilt drinks ambivalently. He remembered what the tavern had been like before That Night. He faintly remembered the owner too, he had been fond of him he recalled, as fond as a soldier could be of a peasant, and there was a woman that always came in, Elina, he remembered, a diamond among weeds. She had married a traitor and given birth to a daughter; the Lieutenant-General had always thought that she was far too good for Andor. He had been glad when Andor was murdered; it meant Elina was a free woman; he would have even taken on Elina’s baby, what was her name?

    
“
Reminiscing
?” A cold voice said as though inside the man’s head, interrupting his thoughts. The Lieutenant-General jumped off the bar and spun around, searching for the owner of the voice, knowing full well that there had been no one in the tavern apart from him and his men. The torchlight quivered and the man felt suddenly deathly afraid, as though his life was threatened.
 

    
“
Edward,
” the voice whispered, echoing inside his own head. It was unmistakably female. He felt cold spikes inside his mind, probing in his most private areas as though he had been stripped naked and splashed with freezing water. Something, for it was unmistakably something and not his imagination, was deep inside him, forcing its way into his memories and thoughts, filling him with revulsion at the intrusion. He covered his face with his hands as his stomach lurched in disgust. His breathing was laborious and he was lost in his nausea until the sensation of a woman’s fingers brushing against his cheek made him shiver in delight and forget entirely the strange sensation in his mind.

    
He had felt this way before he recalled, That Night, all those years ago, when he had been called to Lord Oprend’s Manor and a voice had put him and his men to sleep. They fell where they had stood; his last memory was the outline of a person, black against the darkness of the room. He had always put it down to his overactive imagination, for what else could it have been? That Night was the stepping stone of his career and to include magic would mar his achievements and so he had forced it from his mind. Yet now it was here once more, the same soft and lulling voice and the firm sense of finality.

    
“
You remember me
,” the voice said, “
you remember my power. It was I who caused the events of That Night. It was my hand that forced sleep to claim you and my will that murdered the men of Woodstone. Do you remember the corpses? Piled high, limb after limb, covered in blood, glistening in the moonlight,
” the voice sounded happy for a moment, as it painted the image before Edward. Edward did not need his memory prompted, at the voice’s words he remembered That Night clearly. The New Year celebration cut short by Lord Oprend’s news that Terra had been invaded and his orders that every man of Woodstone must report to his Manor where he would give them their instructions and weapons. They never made it that far, when the inhabitants spoke of That Night he often heard them refer to a ghost, a harbinger of death, clad in black, who led the men, and then subsequently the women and children, to death. Edward began to understand; the more he remembered That Night the more he pieced the facts together. He really had seen a person That Night in Lord Oprend’s Manor for it was the same person that had effortlessly slaughtered Woodstone’s people.
 

    
No one he cared about but he recalled now the broken and bleeding body of Elina Fillamenth, the town wise woman. Found in the light of the morning, her home burnt and her baby daughter crying in her cot. Wynn was taken straight to Oprend Manor, without a family she had become an orphan and with nowhere else for her to go she was taken to the Manor to become a maid and serve in exchange for food and a home. After that the army began rebuilding the town how
they
wished it to exist. Hard work for the poor and a life of pleasure for the rich, it was the building block of their ethos and General Ricedon prided himself on its continued reign. The army never questioned the General or Lord Oprend, they accepted that the men had been murdered and took control for themselves; it was the perfect way to distract them from the true events of That Night. Edward shivered, realising the enormity of the events that night, the baby girl that had been found in Elina Fillamenth’s home was the same young woman that Lord Oprend paraded as his lover. How had he been so blind?

    
“
It is so satisfying watching your idiotic mind piece together my plan, yes you are right. I came to Woodstone to murder Elina and I succeeded, it was only after that I realised I had killed the wrong person.
As you know
,
Elina’s daughter was not killed that night. You were thinking about her just now which is just as well because she is central to what I am about to tell you. I am a Magus, Edward. Do not shake like a child, such things exist. Elina was also a Magus and that means that her little brat will be too. Any attempts on the child’s life have been impossible due to the necklace she wears around her neck. I myself tried but was repelled each and every time, I could not touch her let alone kill her with magic. Lord Oprend has become quite besotted with her and will reject plans to kill her, betraying the agreement him and I share. He will of course need to be taken care of. Elina’s daughter has not been a problem but her eighteenth birth-day looms and I fear that Lord Oprend has not broken her will enough for her to be consumed by her powers. This is why you are going to storm Lord Oprend’s Manor and take the girl
.”

    
Edward could only nod, the information kept slotting together, nearly two decades of his life had been based on a lie, not to mention his childhood. Magic was illegal, wrong, but most importantly it did not
exist
. He had exiled many a man and woman because they spoke of it or simply because they believed. Was he any different now to them? He closed his eyes and tried to force the voice from his mind, but couldn’t free himself. It had wrapped itself around every corner of his mind and any attempt to block it from his conscious, or think of something else was fruitless. He had never felt anything like this and it smacked of something dark and unnatural. Was he going mad? Hallucinating? The day was over now and the darkness reigned.

    
“
I am Lord Oprend’s Master,”
the voice continued,
“I am the one that can make the great Lord bow down. Do you think that man was capable of the feats known infamously throughout the Nation? He is nothing without me. I am his Master, I am your Master and soon I will be the world's Master.
”

    
Edward gulped but said nothing; it seemed too strange to talk to himself and the things the voice was saying confused him. Who was this woman who spoke inside his mind and claimed to give the orders to Lord Oprend?

    
“
That is not all, the girl General Ricedon has informed you to find, she is no ordinary girl and she has not scorned him, which is just the lie to tell your men. She is the King's long lost daughter and I want her found! I have worked too hard these past years for her to suddenly show up and claim the crown. Find her and bring her to me
.”

 
   
Edward’s mind felt swamped and he opened his mouth but as soon as the words had formed the voice had gone. Nothing remained of the cold chill on the edge of his conscious. He breathed a sigh of relief and slowly left the tavern.