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Robert M. Kerns

Awakening

I find myself thinking about one of my classes today. The class in question was a study of the ancient epics, but there was one precocious soul who decided to venture into more recent history. She looked up at me from her seat, all earnest and curious, and asked what truly started the cascade of events that led to the second Godswar.

I smiled as politely as I could and corrected her that scholars refer to the late unpleasantness as the War of Darkness. I also pointed out that the class was intended to study the ancient epics, not my current work in progress. However, I indulged her, saying, “If I had to pick one event that started us on the path of no return, I would have to say it was the arrival of Gavin Cross in this world. Without doubt, tensions were already building to another conflict, but Gavin put a spark to the tinder.”

To this day, I cannot imagine how he withstood all the temptations he faced. So many times, during those years, the entire world hovered over the abyss, and whether we fell rested solely on Gavin’s shoulders.

—An excerpt from Journal #57
Declan deHavand, Headmaster
The Bardic College Skuv Ir Nathene
circa 6099 PG (Post Godswar)

Chapter 1

Kiri stood atop one of the many rolling hills in the grasslands of Mivar Province, her destination in sight at last. The sun from a cloudless sky warmed her face, the soft breeze brushing her nose with a hint of the salty sea air from the south. She placed her sack on the ground beside her, taking a moment to stretch her fatigued body. Her stretches complete, Kiri retrieved a water skin from her sack and took a drink, taking care to slosh the cool liquid around her mouth before swallowing.

The unpleasant itch in her left shoulder flared, and Kiri sighed. She reached up with her right hand to massage the shoulder and, not for the first time, wished she could cover the brand there in some way. The brand proclaimed her status to all who saw her. With one last sigh, wishing for something she could never have, Kiri retrieved her sack and resumed walking to the city sprawling across the river valley below.

Tel Mivar was more than a province capital; it also served as the capital for the entire Kingdom of Tel, and like its sister cities in the other provinces, Tel Mivar was a relic of ancient times. Kirloth and his Apprentices, wielding incredible power unheard of in the modern age, raised the city from the very bones of the earth and transmuted its structures into a marble-shaded stone immune to the ravages of weather and time.

That is not to say the city remained unchanged, however. As the world’s population rebounded in the wake of the Godswar, Tel Mivar found itself at maximum capacity in less than three centuries. Wooden construction soon started springing up outside the city’s walls, and over time, Tel Mivar became one of the most prosperous and populous trading ports in the world, its population divided among the old city and the new.

No walls surrounded the wooden construction that had grown up outside Tel Mivar, though building some had been discussed down through the centuries, and Kiri strolled past homes and shops whose construction elicited strong memories of her homeland. In Vushaar, the land of her birth, almost all construction was wood; only affluent people could afford brick, and only royalty could afford stone.

The nostalgia lasted just until Kiri came within sight of the West Gate, and she relied upon the training of her youth to hide her nervousness.

“Well…look here!” the youngest guard said as Kiri approached. “We have ourselves a rather fine-looking slave. Where’s your owner?”

Kiri squared her mental shoulders and met the guard’s lecherous gaze eye for eye, before lowering her eyes in submission. She hoped word of her escape had not preceded her arrival.

“My master has sent me to Tel Mivar to visit the spice merchant,” Kiri said. “May this slave please pass?”

One of the other guards sauntered over.

“Well now, I don’t know,” the newest guard said. “It seems to me we ought to help ourselves to the goods before we allow you to enter the city.”

Kiri shuddered in the depths of her mind and prayed she kept it from being seen. Something about the second guard spiked her fear. She took a couple slow breaths before responding.

“If that is what you wish, this slave will strive to please and hopes my master approves,” Kiri said, keeping her eyes downcast. “Baron Kalinor does not usually like anyone touching his property without permission.”

The two guards almost jumped back. A close friend of the king, Baron Kalinor’s reputation as a petty and vindictive soul was known far and wide. He wasn’t well acquainted with forgiveness, either.

“G-g-go on t-t-through,” the young guard said, his former brazenness now fled.

Kiri kept the smile lighting her heart from showing on her face as she resumed her walk into the city.

The moment she passed through the gatehouse and into the city proper, the itch Kiri had endured the last two years flared into an almost-burning sensation. Kiri remembered hearing other slaves at her master’s estate talking of this, and they said it was because the various protections, conjurations, and other magical effects built into the city created an ambiance of magic that resonated with the power maintaining the brand.

A sudden pain in her midriff dropped Kiri to her knees, and she struggled to pull the sack off her back. Shaking hands worked to untie the knots in the sack’s drawstring, and her movements were jerking and frantic as she rummaged through the sack for what she sought. She seemed to find everything but the object of her search; jerky and nuts, extra clothing even if they were simple homespun garments, and pieces of flint were but a few of the items she pushed aside.

As the pain began to build, Kiri sighed her relief as she pulled a partially-empty vial from the sack. Not trusting her shaking hands, Kiri pulled out the cork stopper with her teeth and spat it into the gutter before downing the contents of the vial in one, large swallow. The mixture was off-blue with hints of purple, and it was a vile-tasting brew, bitter and chalky. Within a few heartbeats, the pain was gone, and Kiri sagged against a convenient lamppost.

Not content with the papers that declared her his property or the brand on her left shoulder, Baron Kalinor laced Kiri’s meals with a poison that concentrated in the lining of her stomach. Should Kiri ever fail to imbibe the foul-tasting swill in the vials within a few moments of the pain’s onset, the poison would deliver a slow, agonizing death, and no cure for it existed in nature.

With one last deep breath, Kiri pulled the drawstrings on her sack tight and draped it over her shoulder once more. She added an apothecary visit to her mental itinerary; only three more vials remained in the sack. She would need more within a day or so.

Kiri sighed as she pushed herself to her feet. She wasn’t proud that she’d stolen two coin-pouches from Kalinor’s estate; her parents didn’t raise her to be a thief, but she hadn’t seen any other way to fund her trip home.

Two main streets crossed Tel Mivar-one north to south and the other east to west. They divided the city equally, and they intersected at Market Plaza. Kiri turned south onto a secondary avenue that ran north to south about halfway between West Gate and Market Plaza. Kiri had no wish to stay on the main thoroughfare, though; she attracted far too much attention.

The average Vushaari possessed a complexion that was just noticeably darker than the fairer-skinned people of Tel, with blond or red hair almost unheard of, and Vushaari were not an uncommon sight in Tel, either, given their culture of being sea traders. No…Kiri attracted too much attention because she had been ‘graced’ with the kind of looks that turned heads across rooms: well-proportioned features, wavy hair the color of glossy anthracite, an hourglass figure, and a smile that could put even most disagreeable person at ease. Kiri had grown into one of those women who drew attention no matter how much she wanted to be unnoticed.