HALCYON RISING:
Breaking Ground
by
Stone Thomas
Copyright © 2017 Stone Thomas.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication, including the cover, may be used, copied, or reproduced by any means, electronic or non-electronic, in any format or form whatsoever, without consent from the owner of the copyright in this material.
This is a writing of fiction. All characters, names, places, items, events, and unintentional likenesses are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious.
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“You have no power here, demon!” I yelled, slashing my legendary spear through the air.
Okay, it wasn’t a legendary spear. It was a broom handle with a knife tied to the end of it. And I wasn’t fighting a demon, so much as a middle-aged bat that thought it could take up residence in the temple’s belfry.
The black creature swooped at me, its teeth bared. It was an ugly little sucker, and one that I didn’t want to come anywhere near me. I swiped at it with my polearm, knocking it in the head.
I also, unfortunately, knocked into the enormous bronze bell that hung in the tower’s center. This bell was reserved for holidays, weddings, and the head priest’s fancy. He didn’t fancy for me to ring it today though, so it would only take a moment before –
“Arden!” beckoned Head Priest Cahn.
“Coming!” I yelled. Then I bent over the bat that lay dazed on the floor of the temple’s highest room. “Today you live, fiend. But I shall return!”
In all fairness, the bat shouldn’t have lived. I hit it squarely in the skull with the wooden pole of my makeshift spear. I had been killing rats, and roaches, and bats in the belfry for years now. If I had access to a proper skillmeister, I would have improved my Strength, maybe even chosen a class that specialized in combat skills.
As things stood though, I couldn’t afford the services of a skillmeister, so all of my experiences were accumulating, useless. As a head priest, Cahn could train me up, but he wouldn’t. Not without collecting his customary fee. And for an orphan like me, there was no one to foot the bill for my training if the priest wasn’t feeling generous.
Head Priest Cahn never felt generous.
“Arden!” he yelled again.
I sighed. The view from Meadowdale was beautiful and I was loathe to head back into the temple. It was stuffy in there, and my punishment for disrupting Cahn’s morning contemplation would likely be another round of roach-squishing in the catacombs beneath this old stone building.
Far to the north, the mountains blocked my view of the Savior’s Sea, an unseasonably warm body of salty water that provided yearlong fishing and pearl diving. The snow-capped peaks looked serene against the sunrise.
The southern view was just as beautiful, with a sprawling forest and rolling hills. I didn’t know what secrets those trees hid. I had never left Meadowdale, and most people that did escape this poor, cramped village never bothered to come back. Stories of the outside world remained just that. Outside.
I put my hand on the top rung of the ladder from the belfry when something else caught my eye. It was a series of small dark shapes a mile outside the city walls. It looked like people, and animals, marching two by two. It looked like an army.
There must be a procession from some foreign city, or kingdom even, that wanted to meet with Meadowdale’s mayor. I climbed down the ladder and then a spiral set of stone stairs that led toward the temple’s main hall.
“Arden, Arden, Arden,” Cahn said. Two people knelt by the front altar as he began admonishing me, a ritual I think he secretly enjoyed. “Clumsy hands offend the gods, but you know that.”
“Yes, Father Cahn,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”
“But it will, Arden, won’t it?” he said. His wrinkled face was set in a tight scowl. A strange growth, the size of a corn kernel, grew from his left nostril. In all my seventeen years here, I had never once allowed my gaze to stray to that hideous knob. I didn’t allow it now, maintaining eye contact with the priest. His eyes were bottomless pools of disappointment. At least I knew how to swim in them.
“I’m sorry, Father Cahn,” I said, “that bat was a difficult one. Perhaps if I were a little stronger, it wouldn’t take so many swipes to knock it out.”
“You received your charity,” Cahn said, “when I took you in from that orphanage and gave you a job here. Serving me is the same as serving Laranj, the goddess of harmonic sound. Though, creating that noisy disruption upstairs is hardly sure to please her. If you’d like to be stronger, stop spending your wage on sweet rolls and start spending it on training.”
Maybe if you fed me, I thought. No, better to change the subject.
“Are we expecting visitors from outside Meadowdale today? I saw—”
One of the men kneeling at the temple’s altar turned back. “Father Cahn,” he said, “where is she?”
The priest hurried away from me, much to my relief. He hadn’t even sent me to the catacombs yet. If I could sneak away now I might get the afternoon off.
“That clangor must have turned her away,” Cahn said, “but never fear. You’ve made a generous offering. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.” He cleared his throat loudly. “Isn’t that right, Laranj?”
As I skulked toward the temple’s side and a stairwell that would whisk me away from Cahn’s wrath, a bright light erupted behind the altar. The sound of angels yawning rose and fell before three notes of a harp plucked from nowhere. I turned back and watched a whirlpool of pink light swirl over the polished marble slab.
From that whirlpool rose a beautiful woman with soft pink skin. Her hair was mauve and her eyes were lilac. Her torso was wrapped in a loose-fitting fabric that exposed a hint of cleavage. She tugged at the cloth, pulling it further up her shoulder.
“What a bountiful gift,” she sang. “What has sent your heart adrift?”
“My son,” the man said, “he went out on his first official quest, and a witch stole his voice. He needs a new one now. Will you help?”
She nodded, sending a long tress of hair down her front. It nestled in the space between her breasts. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. I had seen her before, but she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever witnessed. Her robe hugged her hips tightly and stopped mid-thigh. Her legs were smooth and pink like the rest of her. Like a carnation.
“He shall speak again with a voice like honey, because you have paid the appropriate m—”
“Homage,” Cahn said. “You have paid homage, and the goddess is grateful.”
She blushed, which was hard to pull off for someone already so pink. She reached her hand toward the kneeling boy. His body glowed for an instant, then he spoke with the deep, soothing voice of a man twice his size and age. “Thank you, your grace.”
If only I had the kind of money these folks did. I could be something. I could train up my Strength and fight more than bats. I could fight bears. Or gobbawogs. Or dragons! I would rake in the loot and keep building myself into a powerful warrior. The kind that kings called upon when their daughters were kidnapped by assassin lords.
Instead, I was a custodian and exterminator, armed with a spear made of a broken broom handle and a rusty knife.
Footsteps pounded against stone behind me. I turned away from the goddess and back toward the temple’s front doors. People yelled. Metal clanged. In the front of the temple, Cahn counted coins.
I walked toward him and tugged on his heavy black robe. It was soft, like silk, which meant he had spent some of Laranj’s funds on himself. Cahn said that all head priests dipped into the holy coffers sometimes, but he was particularly blatant about it. I bet he had silk underpants to match.