The Evion

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 

Sir Gillian’s oath and departure where hardly even noticed since most everyone was still focused on Sir Dureant. The king in particular was distraught by his most noble knight’s fainting spell, and a whole team of servants swept the knight away to a comfortable suit while the king ordered the grand halls be fixed up at once. In a matter of moments, it seemed that every noble or high blooded person in the castle had vanished. Those who needed medical attention were quickly taken away to whatever medical facilities the castle had. Those who were none the worse for wear ended up heading back to their quarters to polish up their armor, or to the smithy to pound out the dents and sharpen their swords.

            The servants on the other hand scurried about like ants reconstructing their knocked over hill. They rummaged through the tables and set everything upright, cleaning the floors with remarkable speed. Charlie and Jesse were still rather confused as to how they did it, for it looked like some form of magic. The servants all ran about with buckets seemingly filled with water. Whenever they would happen upon a mess, they would pour the bucket over the splattered food upon the ground or pillars and all would erupt into a cloud of dissipating steam. When all cleared away, everything was left as spotless as the day it was first made.

            While one team of servants worked tirelessly as the bucket brigade, another set about to climbing the ropes and chains of the place to reset the drapes and the chandeliers, while still another set of servants rushed over to the shattered window and constructed a scaffolding system in a matter of minutes. The window squad would climb up the scaffolds, and have buckets lifted to them on pullies. Charlie thought he was seeing it incorrectly at first, but upon a second glance he saw that the buckets were in fact filled with wispy cloud. The servants would grab a bucket, pull out a handful of cloud, and shape it like a glob of clay. Then they would place the flattened cloud puffs along the edges of the broken window, and blow it all away like smoke. What remained, was a fixed window portion exactly where the cloud puffs had just been. It was a remarkably efficient manner of fixing up a place.

            “Looks like you’ve got repairs down to a science.” Charlie said to a servant.

            “Aye, me lord. Those curséd pirates have been at us for weeks now. Every few days it’s the same. They run in, toss the place, loose heart after a while, then bug out. Never do they make demands, nor make they claims upon the land, oh no, sir. They just come in, turn everything upside down, then make like the devil in the light and vanish. Though the princess, Lord bless her soul, she be the first to one to be abducted. What change has come, it is beyond me to find, but never have those mongrels come with such force as they have today.”

            “You mean to say that this has been happening for weeks and the castle has done nothing to protect themselves?” Jesse asked.

            “We’ve had no need, me lady.” The servant answered. “Our valiant knights have always held the keep and kept us subjects from harm. Like I said, them pirates be a right nuisance, make no doubt about it, but never have they hurt nobody before. This be a strange and frightful move from them.”

            Jesse stood there, confused as to why such strange things were happening now. She couldn’t shake the words that Sir Gillian had said when they first arrived. Perhaps she and her brother were an ill omen for these people.

            “Jess.” Charlie said.

            “Hm?”

            “Sir Gillian looked pretty serious when he said he was leaving to go after the princess.” Charlie said.