The Misadventures of Ka-Ron the Knight (53 page)

"What could you have done?" Ka-Ron asked. "Even if I, Jatel, and En-Don had fought them, they would still have won. Elves are that way. Their logic is sometimes quite...logical."

"Oh! You hit that one just right!" The wizard grumbled.

Keeth took out his dispatch and handed it to Ka-Ron.

"Read this, child. Tell me what you think."

Ka-Ron scanned the message. Her eyes betrayed her thoughts.

"Keeth," she said, softly rolling the paper back up. "That's the craziest thing I have ever read."

"Wonderful, isn't it?" Keeth agreed, rubbing his hands together in a child-like excitement.

"But, we can't just&"

"Listen to me, Ka-Ron," Keeth said, picking up his mallet. "We only have a window of at least two cycles before we can even begin to be of use in all of this. The key to everything relies on us getting this new machine to work."

Ka-Ron looked around at the huge edifice the wizard was trying to beat into shape.

"You know, there's one thing I have always meant to ask you."

"What's that?"

"Where in the hell you get all the parts to create these things."

The wizard paused, and gave the knight a wicked wink. "That's my secret, love."

Skeptically, Ka-Ron accepted the wizard's answer.

Ka-Ron sat quietly, watching the wizard as he banged away on his all-important "whatever-it-was." She didn't need to understand. She only accepted the fact that it was important and had to be done. Wherever possible, she handed the old man a needed tool, and assisted where she could with a complicated or bulky part.

Anything to get her mind off the problem.

Rohan fought desperately to blink the dirt out of his eyes. Both he and Dorian had been placed in shackles, and were being dragged to the Great Hall, where The Council of the Twelve and his father were waiting. He had been tripped several times. He had been spit upon and had dodged stones.

Dorian, on the other hand, seemed to remain untouched. She followed the elf, silent and terrified. Her hands were tied in front of her and her head was downcast. Rarely did the woman look up at those who shouted at her.

I must not lose sight of our goal.
Wincing in pain, Rohan rose once more to his feet.

Behind him, making great sport, was Rolmore.

From the moment Rohan and Dorian were let out of their cabin, the elf captain did his best to play the part of an angered and furious elf. Sent by the king to help find a traitor, he made sure that Rohan's journey to court would be a memorable one.

He was the cause of Rohan's injuries.

"Seems as if we are bothering the prince," Rolmore shouted to the crowd. "Let us see if we can be just a little more entertaining."

The elf captain placed a boot in the middle of Rohan's back, launching him forward. Rolmore pulled back upon his brother's chains, causing the elf to fall backwards and land upon his bottom. What made the fall more exciting to the on-looking crowd was the fact that Rohan landed in the middle of a puddle.

Now, on top of everything else, Rohan was wet.

"Kill the traitor!" Someone in the crowd had yelled.

These were not elves. Not the elves Rohan knew.

Elves prided themselves for their natural abilities to remain both cautious and calm. These people were nothing close to the mark. Rohan had to wonder what could have happened to his father to help cause so much change in his nation's character.

There had been no wars. The crops and food stores were all full. The alliances between other elves and neighboring nations were all solid.

Rohan could not figure out the puzzle.

Through the glaze of his eyes, Rohan saw several elves, strangers to him, throwing up clenched fists and yelling in hatred and rage. What had the king said to all of them to make them hate so much?

Dorian kept her place alongside Rohan, helping when she could. Her face was marked by a stream of tears. Never in her life had she seen so much chaos and hatred. She dodged trash that was being thrown upon her by yelling citizens, whose own bigotry overpowered their curiosity in seeing such a rarity as a dwarf female.

"Dwarf whore!"

Both Dorian and Rohan were amazed to hear such a comment coming from the mouth of an elfin priest.

The priest appeared to be quite underfed. His ribs were showing through his tattered clothes. Like everyone else in the crowd, it appeared that he had missed several meals.

Dorian paused and looked up at the elf.

Caught between wanting to slap the woman and his own religious beliefs, the elf priest cast his guilty gaze aside. Timidly, he melted back into the crowd without saying or doing a thing.

Another stepped forward. He was a young elf, who was quite hungry. His mouth was dripping with an almost insane drooling.

"A female dwarf?" the boy yelled, twitching. "Impossible! It is a sham. The whole thing is a sham."

Stepping forward, the crazy elfin boy grabbed Dorian by the breasts. In her surprise, Dorian let out a terrifying scream.

"Feels real!" the boy yelled to the crowd. "Feels real."

Swooping in, Rolmore withdrew his sword. The crazed boy was decapitated and thrown to the street before he even had a chance to face his attacker.

Everyone froze.

All noticed the head rolling down the street and falling into a sewer vent.

"No one touches the female, by order of the king!" Rolmore shouted, placing his sword back into its sheath.

Dorian stood horrified. Her face was splattered with blue elfish blood.

Rolmore touched her on the shoulder.

Out of instinct, or fear, the dwarf pulled away.

"No one will harm you," Rolmore whispered. "Come."

Up ahead was the Great Hall. By all outward appearance, it looked to be nothing more than a granite cliff showered by a waterfall. However, upon the approach of Rolmore and his men, the waterfall parted, opening like two separate doors. Inside the falling water, there appeared an entrance.

Again, if a strange eye had been passing by, all they would have seen was the waterfall.

All entered.

Rohan was about to face his father.

Ka-Ron paced the main deck, waiting for the wizard's hammering to stop. She knew once that tell-tale silence had sprung, her troubles would soon begin.

The odds were sorely against them. Revolutions had a way of doing that to the righteous.

"No," she heard En-Don say, laughing. "Let me show you."

Turning, the woman watched her son.

En-Don took his sword away from Molly, who had been trying her best to oil the blade down. In some way, the woman wasn't doing a good job.

"You must treat a sword the same way you do a lover," En-Don explained.

Lovingly, her son took the sword from Molly, who by all appearances gazed back upon En-Don with the gentlest of intentions. The young man placed the sword in his hands with the traditional tenderness of a knight in love with his craft, and started to tap the blade down with special Idoshian spices. Being next to the two lovers, Ka-Ron noticed that her son had lit the appropriate lamps.

En-Don had done well.

"Is it true that most warriors believe that their sword holds a part of their soul?" Molly asked, taking hold of En-Don's arm.

"It is true." the young man confirmed.

Lovingly, Molly kissed the man's arm while watching with the wonder of a child.

"Of all things, is not love the best?" Ka-Ron mused.

She had done Molly a disservice.

There would always be bad blood between them, due to the way of Molly's introduction into their life, but Ka-Ron surrendered to the fact that the woman was good for her son.

"I've done it!" a voice shouted, coming up from the ship's under housings. "I have done it!"

The knight turned to see Keeth rising out from under his ship, still holding in his one hand the wooden mallet from before. But now, in his other hand, the wizard had a metal compass-like device that the knight could not recognize.

"Gentle lady, I have completed the greatest machine anyone upon this planet could conceive."

The knight glanced at the ship's sundial.

"Good thing," Ka-Ron stated, pointing at the clock. "We only have three-quarters of a cycle left for your plans to take hold."

"It was a challenge, Ka-Ron," Keeth beamed. "Especially the two cannons. Well! Enough of my babbling. Rohan and Dorian can now hold a little hope."

"Then, we attack?"

"We, my lady, attack!"

Ka-Ron closed her eyes and prepared for war.

King Rakamore had once been a noble man. If he were to rise from his throne to state something, people would line the walls of his chamber just to hear a sample of his mutterings. He was, in a word, "good."

His passion for the betterment of his people was only surpassed by his ability to project both justice and logic. He was a scholar, a student, and believer in the preserving of history. He believed that, through the learning of the past, one could quite possibly predict the future.

And, it was in this scholastic pursuit of the past, that Rakamore had discovered his demise.

Several seasons ago, to help get his mind off the rebellious ways of his son, Rohan, the king thought it best to return to the outskirts of the ancient Nown city of Maagad. Rakamore was a skilled archaeologist. His digs were the talk of the court. Several of the modern-day inventions, which helped to make ordinary life less stressful, had been discovered by the king during his digs.

All upon the planet knew and trusted this man. But the days of trust were soon to be at an end.

Rakamore was a towering figure of an elf - over seven sticks in height, and somewhat skinny for a man of his race. He rarely ate - only enough to fit his needs to live. However, he loved his drink. He would often prefer a liquid beverage to that of the wholesome comfort of a plate of solid food. It had always been his way, so it was never looked upon as odd when the king had stopped eating. He was, after all, an honorable soul.

Where Rakamore separated himself from the rest of his kin was in the keen uniqueness of his piercing eyes. His left was white, and his right eye was black. No one could offer a logical reasoning for such a dramatic parallel of differences, but to gaze upon him as he studied his subjects, one often wondered what the elf was thinking.

He wore simple clothes. The only form of jewelry he would allow was the well-worn presence of his crown. It was, by his design, quite simple. The thing was three interwoven twigs encased in copper. Upon their designs were written the ancient whispers spoken to the gods, who held the power of creation.

It was because of his crown that Rakamore was insane.

While Rakamore loved the rediscovery of history, fear often stifled his curiosity. His hunger to learn more about the wonders of the Nowns had been limited by universal planetary law.

Nown cities were forbidden.

Rakamore had tested the viability of the laws by surveying the outskirts of Maagad. While digging there, the king had bent over and pulled out yet another mystery of the past. His crown had been blown off his head. It rolled into the deep and dark streets of the ancient village.

Several members of the king's dig party had offered to enter the great city in order to retrieve the symbol of their nation, but the king refused. In keeping with his remarkable character, he would not have others do what he himself was not willing to risk. After all, the courts would understand this one breach. Who would deny a king the rights to his crown?

So Rakamore entered the city.

Something became aware of his presence.

Something quite old. And something quite powerful.

It was a Lurker!

For a long time, the thing had been asleep, ready to be awakened by its masters. It was not aware of the passage of time. Nor, could it even understand the simple truth that all it had been bred for, all that it had known, loved, and protected, had already crumbled to dust and distant memory.

All that the Lurker knew was that it now had someone to which it could attach itself.

Rakamore entered the ancient city with both fear and a sense of adventure. Distant memory had never observed the recordings or observations of an elf entering a Nown city - he was the first. So, as with all believers in the preservation of the truth, Rakamore paid close attention and recorded everything.

A Nown city was not unlike that of the elf. It consisted of a black, non-reflective series of gigantic buildings, all designed and built for the fantastic height and mass of their race. Rakamore felt like a child lost at temple. He felt like someone was watching him.

The buildings, for lack of a better understanding, were aware.

It was they who awoke the Lurker.

Rakamore's crown had rolled up to what could have been a public water fountain. Its design and function was not all that alien to the elfish king. He would have liked to see if the ancient device still worked, but the thing's spout was too far up for the king to reach.

So, picking up his crown, Rakamore turned to leave.

That's when he saw it.

"Well," Rakamore smiled, "Who&what&are you?"

It was quite a little thing.

The strange animal had only one leg, on which it seemed to get around by hopping. Covered all over with a thick black fur consistent with that of a common house pet, the creature purred most of the time. It had no eyes or ears, but seemed to get around by using its tiny but efficient nose. The organ hummed - a sound separate from its purring - as it scanned its environment by constantly smelling. Two small arms extended from its circular body, all centered around a gaping mouth filled with tiny, razor-sharp teeth.

It looked quite helpless.

"Arp! Arp!" the tiny thing said, bouncing up and down upon its only foot.

"It is a joy meeting you upon my travels, little one," the king said, bowing.

That was the last "free" thought and action Rakamore would ever take.

The Lurker sensed the strange creature as an invader. It was its duty to subdue and control all enemies of the state. Once controlled, it was to seek out that creature's weaknesses, using them to both cripple and destroy.