ARYSARNIA

GENFFAINE

As a teenager, Genffaine scouted the streets of Crystalia, mostly teary-eyed and hungry. Shooed away from the wares of peddlers and food vendors, he soon got to know that to survive he had to join the rest of the children on the streets. Their alliance managed properly always seemed to get them fed. So he found himself in a company of boys; the girls did not keep long on the streets since they found employment as servants to rich men or helpers in some other handiwork. The brothels were more than happy to welcome any girl who was fortunate with beauty and was of the right age. That was where he found Tikan, years after Tikan ran away from home leaving Genffaine and their mother during the harassment and bloodshed of the Purge. There on the same streets of the city, Tikan had already met Spike on the deserted outskirts of Crystalia, Tikan took to Spike when they met and became friends. Back then, when the half-caste had met the scrawny but handsome Spike as the street boys struggled for bread that had coincidentally fallen off the baker's trolley in the market, Tikan had been too small in stature to struggle so Spike shared his loaf with him. 

Spiken Cynthalith lost his family to the wars at the south where the dwarves first attacked Crystalia. His identity was lost with the dead. His name was given to him by Obarion Cynthalith a magician who took him on his wings as his adopted son and helper in the magic tricks he used to earn a living.

Obarion soon passed away from old age leaving Spike to fend for himself. Spike took Tikan on side trips aside their daily struggle for food to seek mythical riches he has heard off in one folklore or from tales of travelers that passed through the kingdom. Soon, the fortunes of the pair began to turn during one of their regular trips away from the market. They began to feed well and dressed better.

While the other children only hailed them and partook in their good fortune, it rather made Genffaine who watched them from the sidelines as his brother Tikan was used to ignoring his existence, curious as to how they could afford it.

It was not long before he was accosted and seized by the neck along with a couple of other street boys by soldiers from the castle, asking them about the whereabouts of two boys whose descriptions fit his brother's and Spike. Genffaine like the other boys, denied knowledge of their existence and he was going to use that as a bargaining chip.

Coming back to the alleyways where they slept that evening, he overheard Spike arguing with Tikan. He paused in the darkness and listened.

"No Tikan, don't go back there" said Spike.

"Just this once –or don't you want to be a wizard like your Papa? You can have your own chamber" Tikan pressed him.

"We could get caught"

"It's the last time I promise, no one will see us" Tikan pressed him.

"I don't know...There are dead things in the tunnels" came the voice of Spike "what if we get trapped?".

"Let's be quicker then-come oon" Tikan said dragging Spike with him. Genffaine followed them incognito to the outskirts of the city where the inhabitants disposed off their unwanted items like the broken wagons and carts, heaped dangerously on the slopes of the dump. The pair suddenly disappeared in between two heaps of broken cider barrels. He went to the spot where the two disappeared and could see growths of long grass freckled across the fertile land. Still trying to decipher where they went, he took a step onto the grass and fell wholly through the growth into a hole in the ground. A muffled groan escaped his throat as he picked himself up. He looked around at the vortex of tunnels that flagged him in all directions. He followed the fading voices of his brother and Spike into one of the tunnels.

He found himself wriggling and climbing up a confinement at the end of  the tunnel dripping with fresh water until he appeared what seemed to be out of an enchanted marble column which appeared to be part of the pillars holding up a building high above his head like a cathedral. He realized he had found himself in the throne room. He gaped at the magnificence of the throne room.

He could hear the voices of the pair some few meters from where he stood behind the pillar, he tiptoed in a safe distance after them as they made their way into a chamber. Genffaine peeked and saw the two standing before an illuminated door at the back of the throne room there was a whole new chamber behind the throne room which resembled a court room. The chamber had twelve high pillars in a circle that looked like bird perches in the center of the room. He noticed  a big sack in Tikan's hand.

Spike raised up his hand toward the door and said something that Genffaine could not make out and the two entered the door, engulfed in a blue light and disappeared. He skipped across the chamber to the door and touched it. He felt a shock in his finger tips and he drew away from it, trying to figure out what Spike said, he gave it a second try and waved through the door like a curtain feeling the shock he felt earlier in his hand radiate all over his body. He fell through to the other side grimacing from the pain.

He barely had enough time to recover when he felt himself slipping down the narrow stone floor he had landed on, reaching out his bony hands he grabbed hold of the rugged edges of what he realized was a cliff that overlooked a deep gorge plunged in darkness beneath him. Looking up, he saw Tikan and Spike hanging diagonally above him scraping out what appeared to be streaks of gold and crystals on the walls of the cliff and collecting them into the sac. He screamed out to them for help.

"What's he doing here?" said Spike.

"He followed us" Tikan said.

"Help! Pleeease" Genffaine was now in tears, his palms were sweaty and he was slipping. His little strength beginning to give out. Spike made his way down to him with Tikan but Genffaine slipped from the cliff before they could get to him.

He was caught mid air by a winged man who swooped out of the shadows from a sphere of light, Genffaine was too frightened to notice what had saved him. He realised there were about a dozen others flying around them as the sturdy hands that caught him struggled to sucure his frail body ,the other flying sages caught hold of Tikan and Spike and carried them back to the chamber that had led them there.

"We cannot let them go, they know our secret" said the man that had grabbed Genffaine from his fall. He had a pair of black wings at his back, adorned in velvet robes with the hood pulled over his short brown hair. The three boys were surrounded by the winged men in the chamber.

"So what do we do with them?" another asked, "We can't keep them here, we have to get rid of them".

"Please don't nip us, we will do anything to repay you for the gold we took. We will work for you" Tikan begged.

"How did you get in?" a calmer looking old man came closer to ask them, having white freckled wings.

"We used the tunnels I-" Tikan started to explain.

"It's my fault not his sir, I dragged them down here and opened the portal- please let them go" Spike cut in.

"How did you come about the spell that opens it and how did you know it was even there?" asked the man with the freckled wings.

"My father, he used to teach me magic so I just tried it in here and this door sort of just appeared" Spike explained, " but please don't put us in  jail, please we wont come here again"

"Enough, Father owl, what do we do with them?" one with dark wings asked.

He looked at them with kind eyes, "I see intelligence and pure nerve in these three for having found a dungeon only the royals know of its existence and yet have never seen. Where are your parents?"

"We have none sir, and I-I just followed them I didn't steal nothing?" Genffaine blurted out.  

"Take them to Isle-Himethrill" the freckled winged one replied. "We will make something good out of them"