The King's Might: A Legend of Averdan

Part Seven, Chapter Two

Why not this one too? New covers. New covers for ALL.

Love,

EFR

TWO

In Which There is More Confusion, Swearing of Fealty, and Alcohol

Jalith had set up his camp in the throne room, as was only appropriate. His little tent, patched together from spare cloaks and his own threadbare blankets, kept most of the wind and still-chilly air of the valley off him when he slept. The walls themselves might have been able to do so, if there had been a fire going; the fireplace, however, was over three wagonlengths long, and the amount of wood needed to fill it would have been downright wasteful for such a small handful of people. Various clothes items and weapons, and such little gifts of food as the Norchladil soldiers were able to provide, covered almost every available surface.

The throne room had once been constructed very much like the one in Hamrat--Lanon recognized the vaulting ceilings and columns along the wall instantly, in spite of the snowdrifts and birds' nests that decorated them. The throne, which time had weathered into a bare mounded shape, stood much in the same place along the back of the hall.

Jalith did not sit in the throne, but on the floor with the rest of those assembled, making a rough half-circle around the fire blazing in an impromptu firepit before the throne. The only sound for a long while was the echoes of singing from outside and the crackling of branches.

Jalith had just told his story, and sat cross-legged and composed by the fire as though awaiting a verdict. Lanon could not help but look at him--tall and proud he seemed now, no longer the gawky ashamed boy who had left his court just months ago. His white clothes, on closer inspection, were dirtied and ragged, but he wore them with the carelessness of a true lord. The crown, which he had discarded as soon as he left the mob outside, rested on the seat of the throne, a gleaming reminder to Lanon of all the things this son of his no longer was.

"I found the crown," Jalith said, when asked. "It was just sitting on the throne, covered in dust. Waiting for me, I suppose."

The whole place, Lanon thought, had been waiting for him. There had been legends of Sirili in the Souchlad for as long as there had been kings, but Lanon had always thought it a fairytale place, created by some ancient storyteller to fit the legend. No explorer, no matter how bold, had ever found it.

Yet here it had been, mysteriously well preserved, at the end of a road in the middle of the Mountains. Had it been here all the time, someone would have found it long ago.

It had waited for its prince, true heir to its powers, for thousands of years. And when he came, it had given him a crown and an army.

"I don't know how I called them to me, exactly," Jalith had explained. "I got here, and suddenly it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to do--to banish the snows and the frost, to call my people here. I think it's the place more than it's me. There's magic here, hefenta magic."

"Right," Lukere had said. "So, evil."

"Not evil, my lord," Chari Ironstar had corrected. "We in the Borderlands have long known it. Hefenta--the word itself meant blood drawn from the earth, in the long-ago tongue. The magic of itself is not evil. But the earth powers are no friend of men, and it can be twisted to evil very easily.There was hefenta in our country once too, or have you forgotten your lessons? The hefenta-stohl of Telhir, the blessing-spells Sidhenna placed over Rekhani. These were not evil things. Anmar Sedat has made it a word to be feared, but it was not always so."