The Medievals 1, page 4
part #1 of The Medievals Series
“Who told you that?” he asks, his question holding a new intensity.
“Leeta,” Wendolyn answers. “My friend.”
As Wendolyn hears herself say ‘my friend,’ a sense of loss hits her as she wonders if she will truly be able to call Leeta a friend again.
Her father sighs.
“Wendolyn, you are not a witch,” he assures her. “But you carry a power within you.”
He hesitates, signifying the warning that comes next: “And there are those who will try to use it for their own ends. That is why we must be careful.”
Wendolyn can hear the timbre of the Nameless Fear within her father’s words.
“Not so long ago, the powers you now hold deep within you are what saved the Realm,” her father says. “But those powers are now forbidden on this side of the Northern Barrier.”
Her father takes her hand in his, adding weight to his forthcoming appeal: “No one can know. Those children -- the ones you call your friends -- they cannot know. It is dangerous that they saw you do what you did out there in the woods. The people of the Realm, they do not understand what you are. And they have forbidden the power that is within you.”
His words tunnel through her ears and echo inside of her mind, where they hide in the shadows of meaning.“
But I do not even know what I did. What power? And what if it happens again?”
“You must learn to control it,” her father says. “I will teach you to find your true voice, which hides deep within you.”
True voice. This is a phrase she has never before heard her father utter.
Wendolyn’s mind swells with a tide of questions, and she speaks the first one that hits her lips: “Do you also have this power?”
“Not like you.”
“Then my mother did?” she asks.
This question seems to shut her father down. Perhaps it is one question too many. He leans back and runs a hand through his speckled hair, saying, “There will be time for answers. For tonight, that is enough.”
“But--”
“It is enough for tonight, Wendolyn. I will tell you more when the sun comes up.”
Her father stands and moves to the back room, where he retrieves a pail, a lantern, and Wendolyn’s coat.
As he hands the items to her: “There is work to be done.”
◆◆◆
Outside, the falling darkness curls about her and the cold invades her bones as Wendolyn moves through the woods on her way to the lake to retrieve a pail of water: one of her nightly chores.
As she walks, her boots crunch into the icy ground. The leaves shiver and the wind makes human sounds. Her lantern shows her the forest floor, casting shapes and shadows among the trees.
She reaches the lake, where Wendolyn walks out onto the thin piece of land that snakes out into the water. Her goatskin shoes toe to the edge where the ground meets the ice, which puts her in the middle of the lake. And there, Wendolyn chips away at the crusted ice with a sharp pick.
The ice is tough and thick, and her arms grow tired quickly. In her fatigue, she comes down at the wrong angle, and she strikes her other hand, the steel cutting her palm.
Blood trickles from her palm and then drips into the water, where it seems to disappear instantly, as if her blood can swim.
Wendolyn positions her bucket on the ice before squeezing her bleeding hand, putting pressure on the small cut and staunching it with the cuff of her sleeve.
With the bleeding stopped, Wendolyn rubs her temples, which continue to ache. Strangely, she can feel sweat dripping onto her brow.
How can she be sweating? It is freezing out here.
Wendolyn grabs a clump of snow and brings it to her forehead, hoping to cool her brow and ease the pain. But the snow melts instantly as it touches her head. It becomes water and then trickles down her face.
Does she have a fever?
Wendolyn stands. But her feet are unsteady on the flat ground. She becomes dizzy. Splotches of inky blackness invade her vision. She tries to shake the splotches loose, but they remain, keeping her from seeing what is right in front of her.
Wendolyn makes her way back to the bank of the lake, feeling dizzy and isolated out here in the middle of the water, only a small peninsula upon which to balance.
She reaches the bank.
Then, her hands begin to tingle. A stinging sensation just beneath her fingernails.
Her heart beats faster.
Her head feels hotter.
The pain stabs through the lining of her mind. There’s something inside of Wendolyn that wants out. And just as Wendolyn thinks her head will burst into flames...
FWOOOOSH!
Something flies from the tips of her fingers. A hot, visible wind leaving her hands.
And then she is on the ground.
She vomits.
Wendolyn rolls over, lying there on her back, staring up at the foggy moon. Snowflakes drift down from the night sky to her face, growing ever larger until they blur and disappear in her periphery.
After a few moments, Wendolyn realizes that the black splotches are gone from her vision.
And so is the headache.
She feels her forehead, no longer hot with a fever.
Wendolyn stands and searches the forest for signs of what just happened. The wind that left her fingers. But there is nothing.
Did it really happen?
And then she sees it: the smooth oak twisting out of the snowy earth. It stands there, naked of bark and snow, while all of the surrounding trees are heavy with icicles. And behind the tree, evidence of the bark that was blasted off the oak, now lying in splintery pieces on the ground.
What could cause that? Wendolyn wonders.
Eeeee-eeeee-eeeee!
A black-winged bird lands next to her in the snow, pulling Wendolyn’s attention from the naked oak tree. The same bird that she saw a fortnight ago.
“Did you see that?” Wendolyn reflexively asks the bird, wondering if it witnessed the wind coming from her fingers.
Wendolyn smiles at the curious bird, which seems to be studying her violet eyes. Then, she notices a medallion on the collar around its neck. And there is a symbol carved into the medallion. Like a ‘U’ with a line through the middle. Or like a fork with three tines, the center tine longer than the outer two.
But just as Wendolyn leans down to get a closer look…
KKRRACKKK!
Wendolyn turns back toward the lake, where she sees the ice breaking, cracks spider-webbing across the frozen surface.
Impossibly, a fist of water smashes through the ice and flies through the air toward Wendolyn. Without thinking, she dives clear of the fist, rolling away through the snow.
But the bird is not so lucky. The black bird appears tiny and helpless as it struggles desperately to free itself from the tight grasp of the massive watery hand.
Wendolyn looks back to the lake, where she now sees the figure of a woman rising up out of the water. But while it has the shape of a woman, it is not human. Instead, the icy woman’s face is like glass, reflecting the pale moonlight.
Eeeee! The bird squeezes out of the woman’s icy fingers and flaps away, escaping off into the trees.
And now it is only Wendolyn and the watery woman.
So Wendolyn turns and runs. As fast as her feet will take her. And without looking back, she races through the trees all the way to the cottage, yelling for her father as soon as their smoking chimney comes into view.
Her father comes from the cottage, wrapping himself in his coat. His eyes search the night, quickly finding Wendolyn running toward him.
“What is it?” he asks.
“A woman… in the lake…” Wendolyn gasps for air. “She tried to grab me!”
Her father ushers her into the cottage, closing and bolting the door. Then, he sits her down at the table. “Steady yourself. What woman?”
“She was not a woman. Not exactly,” Wendolyn hesitates. She knows what she is about to say goes beyond the bounds of belief. “She was… formed from ice. Her face was like glass. Her hand came up out of the water and grabbed the bird.”
“A bird?” Her father seems to have missed the part about the watery woman and moved on to the bird.
“Father, did you hear me?! The water turned into a wom--”
“Was there anything unusual about the bird?”
Why does her father care so much about the bird?
Wendolyn sighs. She thinks back to the bird. To the collar around its neck. “It had a medallion. With a symbol.”
Her father sits down in front of her, a sense of urgency growing on his face.
“Can you draw the symbol?”
Wendolyn only saw the symbol for the briefest of moments. And it was dark. “Maybe. I do not know.”
“Try,” her father presses her.
Wendolyn strains the limits of her mind for the symbol. A vague image reveals itself to her. With her finger, she scratches the symbol into the dirt floor of the cottage:
⍦
Her father’s eyes go wide at the sight of the emblem. The Nameless Fear.
He stands, pulling her up with him. “We must leave.”
“Leave? And go where?”
But her father does not hear her as he unlocks the cupboard and pulls out the glowing flower. He wraps it in a diaphanous cloth and stuffs it into a satchel.
“Wendolyn, grab a spear.”
“But--”
“Now!” her father yells as he slings a sheathed weapon over his back, then pulls a candle from the table.
Wendolyn watches in horror as her father begins lighting the bedsheets and the curtains with the candle, the inside of the cottage catching fire quickly.
Her father pulls a spear from the wall and shoves it into Wendolyn’s hands. But she just stands there, the shock pinning her feet to the ground. Without words, her father pushes her out into the dark night, leaving the door open as he continues to prod Wendolyn away from the cottage.
Outside, her father throws Wendolyn onto Zongshi and then he mounts the horse as well. They ride off on the back of Zongshi; and as they move into a copse of trees, Wendolyn realizes that she has started to cry, tears forming a cold river on her face, a mix of fear and sadness. She swallows deep, and then turns to look back at the cottage.
The fire spills out of the windows. The roof is smoking. In a matter of minutes, Wendolyn’s home will be no more.
{Richard}
The flames reach upward out of the hungry fire, licking at the night sky. Richard watches the embers as they travel toward the gathering stars, the glowing coals eventually going dark somewhere out there above the clamorous stadium.
From his seat on the terrace, Richard can see all six of the massive torches that light the King’s Arena. Beyond the iron gates, he can make out parts of the opulent castle, a short distance from here; and the Royal Port can also be seen, its bevy of ships’ masts out of the docks.
The heat of the blazing torches gets lost in the chilly night air that is carried in from the river and surrounding mountains; but the flames spread a vast, flickering yellow-orange light onto the faces of the spectators sitting in the tiered stadium.
The King’s Arena is said to seat twenty thousand, and there are at least two thousand more spectators standing in the aisles and on the upper promenade that rings the structure. As Richard has been told, people have travelled here from all of the surrounding Nine Territories, some from even further out.
BRRUM!
The single beat of a drum echoes over the crowd, signaling the beginning of the evening’s performance. Silence unfurls over the massive audience, with parents sushing their children, and late arrivals rushing to their seats.
The audience is made up of masons and dukes, shipwrights and moneylenders, carpenters and knights, women and children. After a day of games and feasting -- with the city gates opened to all -- Richard’s Triumph Day celebration is coming to a close here in the King’s Arena with a reenactment of The Endless War, a page from history that has become a perennial favorite for children in the kingdom; although, Master Cheng has promised Richard that it has never been performed the way it will be this evening.
BRRUM!
The drum sounds again, and it feels as though the entire arena is holding its breath. Around him on the terrace, he can see the anticipation in the faces of his mother and father, as well as the King’s Council, which has been invited to join them on the marble seats. (Richard and his friends refer to the King’s Council as the White Hairs, a group of wrinkled advisors that could make a century appear young.)
BRRUM!
With a final bang of the drum, the torches atop the towers dim as -- FWOOSH! -- a bonfire erupts in the middle of the field below.
And from the bonfire grows a voice, sounding sage and eternal: “For ages, mankind and magical beings had lived in balance with one another in the Realm.”
While the voice sounds as if it belongs to the fire, Richard recognizes it as the wise and worldly voice of Master Cheng. As the King’s hand and Prince’s tutor, Master Cheng has been charged with choreographing Richard’s Triumph Day performance.
Richard searches the arena for signs of Master Cheng, his vision moving over archways and stone columns. He spots him in the central tower, the topknot of Master Cheng’s graying hair giving him away. Master Cheng’s face is hidden behind the wide mouth of a blast horn, which projects his voice to the audience.
Upon seeing his tutor’s face across the stadium, Richard feels the smallest wind of guilt warm his cheeks. The guilt is born from a recent interaction with Master Cheng, in which Richard did not comport himself with the appropriate respect for his elder.
The day Richard attempted to conquer Mount Saurian but failed, now a fortnight ago, he returned to the castle and promptly sought out Master Cheng, intent on asking his mentor why he had betrayed Richard’s confidence by revealing his whereabouts to the King. Richard had found Master Cheng tending to the Sacred Garden.
The sprawling garden is a world unto itself, once an inner ward of the castle that Master Cheng has transformed into a walled eden, which is host to hundreds of species of plants and trees, each carefully selected by Master Cheng himself. Much of the garden’s rare and unusual shrubs and perennials have been imported from the Lands of the East; and the osmanthus, and peonies, and bamboo stalks all make the Sacred Garden a home away from home for Master Cheng.
The Sacred Garden is Master Cheng’s retreat from the bustling noises of the castle, and he created it for the purpose of reflection. Outside of the King, the Queen, and Richard, few are permitted inside the walls of the Sacred Garden -- and only then with express permission of Master Cheng.
At times, Richard’s mentor has brought him to the garden to sit beneath the trees and listen to the histories of Master Cheng’s people: the heroes and villains, the battles won and lost.
Richard’s preferred tale is that of Mulan, a warrior maiden from hundreds of years ago that learned to fight even though she had lost the use of her eyes, and defeated the most feared monsters of the East.
As Richard approached Master Cheng in the Sacred Garden that day, the fading sun cutting across Richard’s vision, the old man was speaking softly to a large magnolia, a majestic tree that blooms into a shock of purple during late spring. (Master Cheng believes that all creatures and plants deserve gentle, nurturing words so that they may grow.)
“Why did you tell my father I was climbing Mount Saurian?” Richard asked, his tone hot with indignation.
Master Cheng stepped away from the tree, not yet in bloom, and took to the path that carves its way through the Sacred Garden. Richard followed, knowing this was Master Cheng’s wish without even a gesture from him.
“The Sacred Garden is a place of calm. We come here to offer our gratitude. To reflect. To refresh the soul.”
“You had no right to tell him!” Richard said, refusing to heed Master Cheng’s call for quiet.
“I serve as the King’s hand. I am beholden to him before all others.”
“But it was your words that inspired me,” Richard argued with Master Cheng. “I wanted to prove myself. To pass the test of Kings.”
As they stopped at a mound of stones, one of many cairns within the garden, Master Cheng gestured for Richard to take a seat.
Master Cheng put his hand on Richard’s shoulder, and said, “It is true: to be a great King, a Prince needs a great quest. But one can not create the monster only so that they may slay it.”
“I do not understand,” Richard replied, his curiosity having overtaken his earlier indignation.
“Young Prince, you do not get to choose the journey that will prove your worth as a leader. Your quest -- be it on the battlefield or on the mountain -- it chooses you. And only then can you rise to meet the moment.”
◆◆◆
BRRUM!
The drum shakes Richard from his memory of Master Cheng in the Sacred Garden, and his attention is pulled back to the performance in the arena, where the rest of the crowd looks down on the field with anticipation.
To one side of the bonfire, an actor playing the part of King Avedon, a distant grandfather to Richard, magically rises up out of the ground, sitting atop a magnificent white horse. (Richard has toured the underground passageways to the arena, seeing firsthand the secret lifts and trap doors that allow for such spectacle. It is quite the mechanical marvel.) King Avedon dons a begemmed crown and a gray tunic, which bears the royal crest -- a winged lion clawing at the sky.
Master Cheng continues with his Eternal Voice: “The Realm’s greatest ancestor, King Avedon, had secured peace between all races and creatures in the land. But the long peace was broken by a mystical race from the north: the Runes.”
As the crowd gives a practiced and collective jeer, a villainous figure emerges from the floor of the field on the other side of the fire. While he vaguely resembles a human, the seething Rune is larger -- both wider and taller (made up of two actors beneath the costume, Richard imagines) -- and his forehead is bulbous like an overgrown squash.
The Runic warrior stands there holding a blood-red banner, which billows in the wind. In the other hand, he grips a javelin. With the bonfire lighting his wild eyes, the Rune bares his yellowed teeth and throws an ugly roar back to the audience.
