Categories > Original > Fantasy
Azure Glade
0 reviewsA pair of extraordinary twins stumble upon a strange and wonderful place named Azure Glade. Wacky antics, romance, industrial revolution, and a war to save the fabric of reality ensue.
0Unrated
Hi Everyone! I'm posting the first chapter of a fantasy story I'm working on here at FicWad. As I post, I've actually completed 7 chapters of the story, with many more to come. You can find the rest at "FictionPress":http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2724040/1/Azure_Glade (follow the link directly to the story). Hopefully some of you folks will find the story enjoyable. ^^
***
Azure Glade
Written by Archangel
An Ultra Publications Production
Part I – Of Books, Blacksmithing, and Blowing Stuff Up
Chapter 1
{Author’s Note: There have been some changes since I first posted this story, so I suggest re-reading it, even if you read the previous versions. Further notes at the end. Enjoy, and please provide feedback! Email me or post your thoughts on the UP forum!}
“No story has ever truly begun or ended, but that doesn’t stop people from chopping them up into volumes and chapters. Makes the world easier to keep track of, I suppose.”
— from Astral’s Great Truths of Life by Ilsa Sandoval
***
The northeast fields were about ripened, Nanci judged as she slipped her aching feet into the water. Another two months gone as if they were a week. Nothing ever really changed here, and yet time flew. It especially flew when your mind was always whirling and your heart harbored a dull ache.
“Blisters again?”
Nanci started and looked over her shoulder, smiling in delight. “Lord Astral!”
The green-robed man plopped down beside her, dropping his feet into the crystal-clear pond beside hers—boots and all. “Pining again I see,” he told the girl, ruffling her hair affectionately. “Is it over who I think it is?”
Young Nanci Perriman sighed and sank back onto the flagstones, closing her eyes. “I don’t understand him at all,” she moaned. “I know he likes me, but he won’t talk to me! He slips away whenever I so much as smile at him!”
The young-looking man beside her chuckled softly. “I’m going let you in on two of the Great Truths of Life that people keep asking for,” he replied easily, drawing Nanci up from her supine position like a shot. “Males and females think in different ways,” Astral told the eager teenager, “and Elven and Humans think differently as well. The differences simply multiply when you put the two together. That’s the first Truth.” Astral paused dramatically, teasing Nanci just a little.
The two of them had always been completely at ease with each other, ever since Nanci was a newborn. While Astral was the ‘favorite uncle’ of all the children in the Glade, he probably spent a little more time with Nanci than with any of the others.
“The second Truth,” Astral continued, “is that you can’t understand people as a group. You can only understand people one-on-one, as individuals.” He grinned. “Well, there’s a third Truth, but you’ve heard me say that a hundred times.”
“‘Help wears infinite faces’?” Nancy asked incredulously. “How do all three of those help me with Tomeris?”
Astral pulled his sopping black boots out of the water and stood up on the Roundwalk. “Only you can write your story, Nanci,” he told her, as he had so many times throughout her life. “I’m just the narrator.” Astral took a deep breath and smiled as he took a sweeping look around. “Bad day to be moping, though. Not a cloud in the sky.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “And whose fault is that?” Nanci asked, rewarding Astral with a giggle. She really was feeling better.
“I could create a special little cloud to rain on only you,” Astral rejoined with a raised eyebrow.
“Ohh… you…!” Nanci dissolved into laughter. “Alright, I’ll try to cheer up. Satisfied?”
“Are all your chores done?”
The young woman reluctantly withdrew her feet from the water and slipped them back into her shoes. “Yes, for once.”
“Then I’m satisfied.” Astral leaned down and gave Nanci a fatherly kiss on the forehead. “Take care, Kiddo.”
Nanci shook her head at the pond water sloshing out of Lord Astral’s tall boots and soaking his robes. “You moon-man,” she murmured as she turned the other way, heading for the main doors of the Tower. If nothing else, it’s time I stopped whining and started doing, Nanci thought determinedly. That he-Elf is going to talk to me whether he wants to or not!
***
Petra allowed herself a deep sigh as she heard the tapping on the shutters. Maybe if I ignore it, whoever’s chasing him this time will catch and kill him, she thought behind closed eyelids. It was only reflexive; Petra would stick by her brother no matter what he did. Even if he was an idiot.
Running a grease-covered hand through her long black hair, Petra rose and grabbed the hand-sized firetube from its peg on the end of her huge workbench. She gave the ignicap a quick check as she strode to the window—after all, it just might not be Everest, and a lass needed some protection.
It was Ev. The minute Petra unlatched the shutters her twin brother came tumbling through, instantly shutting the window behind him. Everest Grimward sank to the floor, letting out a relieved breath. “Thanks, Sis. Had to leave it all behind to get away this time.” Everest shook his head. “I’ll never understand why they get so worked up about me taking old junk.”
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because nowadays that ‘junk’ is bleeding VALUABLE!” Petra snapped, glaring down at Everest with her hands on her hips. “You seem to forget that I’m not the only inventor in this city, and some of them are rich!”
Everest flinched, but smiled as he did it. “Eh, they all just copy you,” he retorted as he levered himself to his feet. “You’re the most moon-touched of them all.”
Petra sighed again. “Why can’t you just stay in the temple library where you belong?” she asked Everest irritably. “Ev, face it: you’re a lousy thief! I make enough off my work to buy anything I need for my research. You know that. So why bother? Why put your life at risk to get me stuff I could just as soon buy? For Llain’s sake, you don’t even steal the correct stuff!” The tiny technologist had to pause and catch her breath.
For once, her brother’s cocky attitude evaporated. “Really?”
Petra sighed once again. “Yes, really. Look, it’s really sweet that you want to help with the income, Ev. I just want you to do it more… constructively.” She walked over and hugged Everest. “You should tell your stories in the inns and taverns, not just to the children in the back alleys.”
Everest started. “You know about that?”
His sister laughed and rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows. Clients tell me things, you know. The little ones adore you, and they all tell their parents.” Petra looked up at her brother. “You have a real talent, Everest. If children love to hear you tell the stories you find in the library, then why not adults too? Head ‘round to a tavern that doesn’t have a bard going tonight and see if they’ll give you a chance. I bet you—”
The destruction of the window-shutters by a very large axe cut Petra short. The owner of said axe jumped through the window right behind it. Even before Everest could move to protect his sister, Petra raised the firetube in her hand and pulled the trigger. It was entirely reflexive, but the bullet blasted a perfectly serviceable hole in the axeman’s head. He crumpled to the floor with as little grace as a dropped sack of flour.
“Grimward! I know you’re in there! Get your bleeding carcass out here or we’ll kill your precious sister too!”
“Taff!” Everest placed himself between Petra and the shattered window. “It’s Conlan,” he whispered by explanation, his knuckles white around the handle of his dagger.
Petra nearly dropped her firetube in the middle of reloading it. “You tried to steal from CONLAN?” she hissed, pushing a bullet down on top of the small charge of powder and slipping an ignicap under the hammer. “Are you completely mad?”
“Hit me later,” her brother groaned. “We have to make tracks or we’re both dead!”
“I’ve got a score of men around the building!” the merchant crime-lord called from outside. “There’s no escape, fool! You have one minute to get out here if you value your sister’s life!”
Everest started towards the window, only to be restrained by Petra’s hand on his wrist. “Don’t you dare,” she told him firmly. “We either live together or die together, remember?”
Her brother nodded grimly. “Out the windows to the west alley,” he breathed into her ear. “Most likely chance of slipping away.” He looked around the cluttered room forlornly. “Sorry about your workshop, Sis.”
A gentle squeeze to Everest’s shoulder reassured him. “Everything important is up here,” Petra whispered, tapping the side of her head. She rummaged in a pile of parts and came out with a small clockwork device. Petra adjusted a timer and twisted a knob. The thing began to tick quietly. “Thirty seconds. Let’s go!”
The would-be thief needed no second prompting. He was out of the room like a shot, his sister right behind. As they kicked open the shutters on the other side of the house and tumbled through, a roaring explosion consumed Petra’s laboratory. No sense letting somebody like Conlan examine all her tools and projects, after all.
Of more immediate concern than the explosion was the massive enforcer blocking their way up the alley. The weak sunlight glinted dangerously off the huge broadsword in his hand. As the twins raised their respective weapons, their opponent simply froze, his sword raised and a murderous smile on his lips. Everest and Petra looked at each other, then back to their foe. Not a twitch. Everest straightened, walked up to the man, and poked him. He felt alive… but he wasn’t moving an inch. Bizarre.
“Come with me.”
Brother and sister nearly jumped out of their skins. They whirled around to see a very singular man standing in the alley behind them. Long robes of the flattest, most neutral gray they’d ever seen cloaked his body. Beneath his raised cowl, they could distinguish the vague outline of a face and two glowing eyes of the same gray. How anything could glow gray baffled Everest, but he retained enough presence of mind to move protectively in front of his sister. “Who the Void are you?”
The glowing eyes narrowed slightly. “Right now, I am life. Either come with me, or stay and die on his blade.” A pale, emaciated hand flicked towards the frozen enforcer. Without another word, the man in gray turned and moved back down the alley.
After a moment’s staring, the twins traded a look and shrugged simultaneously. Why not? Their eyes proclaimed to one another. They hurried after their mysterious benefactor. He seemed to glide along the flagstones, apparently unhurried in his movements. From his dress he was probably a spellman, a rare sight even in Menanderzon, the largest city on Amaz. But none of the tales about spellmen Everest had read mentioned glowing eyes or the disconcertingly… powerful air that this man carried about him like a second cloak. The gray spellman swept past the frozen figures of Marc Conlan and his muscle-bound retainers without even a glance. The twins followed with some trepidation. Not a one of them twitched, seemingly still focused on the long-faded explosion.
Two minutes’ walk through the back alleys later, the gray man halted before an utterly ordinary back door in one of the buildings. The latch glowed faintly under his touch, and the doorway swung open. Within was a solid mass of swirling mist, as flatly gray as the man’s robe. “This is where we part,” he told the siblings as if ordering dinner in a tavern. “Go through.” With a swish of his robe, the spellman turned a nearby corner and was gone.
Well.
Everest looked at Petra. The look she returned was equally puzzled and nervous. After a full minute of silence, she wordlessly held out her hand to her brother. Everest took it. Together, he and Petra took deep breaths and stepped into the swirling mist.
***
“Please High Predicant,” the Orken Divinate simpered, thrusting his tusks forward to highlight their ritual scrimshaw. “Releasing a sacrifice alive draws the wrath of Almighty Szell! At least let us give it some real deformities first? To appease Szell, you see. How about its—”
The self-serving drivel became a gurgling scream as Meyvn’s scalpel neatly severed an artery in the stupid creature’s neck. The High Predicant of the Black Fist didn’t look back as he wiped the slim blade on the falling Ork’s robe. He didn’t spare a thought for the corpse—between the multifarious cannibals, perverts, murderers, thieves, rapists, madmen, and other degenerates of every race who now filled the Cathedral of Night there wouldn’t be so much as a bloodstain left by the time he was finished.
Although he was irritated at the momentary interruption, Meyvn the Facetwister realized that such things were necessary. Some lessons needed to be re-taught on a regular basis, and there was no changing it. Seeking to take control of the ritual with scriptural sophistry, the Divinate had forgotten the simple lesson that power was everything. Meyvn was well-known as a deadly knifeman, but more to the point he was in the very highest favor with Lord Szell. In this place, Szell’s favor was everything.
And it was time to call upon and strengthen that favor once again. The High Predicant looked down without expression at the whimpering young human bound to the centuries-old lump of black stone. A real prize, this one, a paragon of the female human form just barely into her childbearing years. And her face… so very beautiful, so very perfect. It was because of that lovely face that she had been set aside for the legendary Facetwister. It was because she had been set aside for him that she would be sent back to her family alive—with a hideous, grotesquely deformed countenance.
This was Meyvn’s art. This was his joy. This was his worship to the Black Lord of Corruption: transforming the very height of beauty into the deepest depths of ugliness.
He leaned down to make the first incision. The girl jerked her head away. No, that would hardly do. Meyvn set his blade on the altar and clapped his hands twice. A dozen whip-thin tentacles of oily blackness sprang forth from the altar and seized the girl’s head, locking it firmly in place.
Much better. Meyvn reached up and flipped back his hood, revealing the pulsating black symbols that Lord Szell Himself had carved into the flesh of his bald head. As his hand found the scalpel once more, the Facetwister leaned down, gazing into his victim’s wide, terrified eyes.
“I love doing this.” The quietest of whispers, for her ears alone.
Meyvn straightened up and went to work, whistling cheerfully over the young woman’s shrieks of pain.
***
Petra couldn’t say what she was expecting exactly, but probably not this. She heard a click and turned her head to see that the polished mahogany door behind them had closed. The little plate on it bore a few characters in a language Petra did not know. Everest took hold of the handle and pulled gently. Then harder. Then with all his strength. It wouldn’t budge. No going back that way.
Well, this place seemed pleasant enough, albeit strange. It was just a broad stone corridor lined with polished wooden doors, all identical save for their identifying plates. A few glowing… balls? floated lazily near the high ceiling, casting a soft, soothing light. And that was it. No tapestries, no paintings, no wall sconces, nothing. This place was purely for function, Petra thought, not for living. She also had the distinct impression that she was underground. She tapped Everest’s arm; he was still examining the corridor intently.
“I think we go this way,” Petra murmured, pointing to the ‘open’ end of the hallway, where it intersected with another. The other end terminated in yet another of these doors.
Everest shrugged. “Sure. I don’t think we’re in danger here, but keep alert just the same.”
With a nod, Petra followed her brother up the corridor. To the right the intersecting corridor stretched down about four hundred paces and ended, with several other corridors branching off on both sides. To the left they could see a small room about twenty paces away. The twins headed that way.
The little room shared the corridors’ high ceilings, but a couple of massive tapestries gave the walls a welcoming touch. A doorway into a spiral staircase faced the long corridor, while a large wooden desk stood to their right. In the upholstered chair behind the desk was a young man. His sandaled feet were propped up on the desk. His eyes were closed. He was snoring softly.
It was Petra who approached the desk first. “Umm… excuse me?” With a sigh, she tapped lightly on the man’s foot. When that drew no response, Petra tweaked his big toe.
The recipient of the tweaking started violently and fell out of his chair. His head reappeared over the lip of the desk and studied them for a moment. Then the rest of him appeared and a sheepish smile lit his face. The young man bowed and spoke to them. The language was very beautiful, but Petra didn’t understand a single word.
Before she could say so, Everest replied—in the same language! He spoke slowly, as if afraid of misspeaking, but he clearly knew what the man had said. The two traded a few more sentences, then their host turned to Petra and bowed again. “My apologies, Saya Thundercrown,” he told her in Common. “I did not realize that you do not speak Celest. I bid you and Siya Icecrown welcome to Azure Glade.”
Petra blinked twice. “Umm, thank you. ‘Thundercrown’?” she asked, quite confused.
The young man gave her that sheepish smile again, brushing some dust from his rumpled red robe. “Again, apologies. I am gifted with the Divine Sight, and it is…” he looked up at the ceiling, searching for words. “It is habit for me to call people by what I See upon them.”
Everest shook his head as if to clear it. “Okay, you’ve lost me, friend,” he told their host. Petra just stared.
The young Diviner sighed. “Simply, I see a small image for every person I look upon.” His eyes traced over the top of Petra’s head. “On your head, Saya, I see a crown of blazing lightning.” To Everest: “Upon your head, Siya, sits a similar crown of purest ice.”
“Okay…” Petra spoke slowly. “Can you tell us what that means?”
“No, Saya. I can tell you that they relate either to your character or your future. Most likely both. And that they are true. But their exact truth? No. Each contains a great many truths, all linked together into the one image. Does this aid understanding?”
The twins nodded simultaneously. “Yeah, kinda,” Everest replied. “But so you know, my name is Everest. This is my sister Petra.”
“I am pleased at our meeting. I am called Jorun, and right now I am charged with greeting visitors to Azure Glade. I must ask, why have you come?”
That brought the scholar and the inventor up short. “We’re not really sure…” Petra admitted at last.
“This weird guy sent us,” Everest said, continuing her thought. “These thugs were attacking us, then a spellman—or something—showed up and froze them all in place. He told us to follow him and opened a door full of smoke.” Everest was embarrassed at how weird the tale must sound to Jorun.
“When we walked through, we were here,” Petra finished with a shrug. “We don’t even know where here is.”
Jorun smiled softly. “This spellman… he wore gray robes?”
The twins nodded emphatically, once again in sync. “He had really weird eyes,” Everest told Jorun.
“They were gray too,” Petra added. “He didn’t say much.”
A gentle laugh escaped the Diviner’s lips. “So. My lord’s lord sends us new faces again. It has been some time.”
“What?” both siblings asked simultaneously.
Jorun came around the desk and walked up the large spiral staircase, gesturing for them to follow. “The man you met is the leige of Lord Astral, ruler of Azure Glade,” he explained as the trio climbed. “None know his true name. I call him ‘Null,’ for that is how Lord Astral names him. On him I See nothing, which is most strange. Anyhow, from time to time he collects people of good heart from all over Zel-Amaz and sends them here to us. If you are here, then Lord Null believes that this is your proper place.”
“I don’t get it,” Everest stated bluntly.
A shrug rippled Jorun’s red robes. “I cannot say with precision, but I will say this: Azure Glade is a garden. Beings are placed here to grow. This is a sanctuary, my friends, a place of learning and healing. Lord Astral freely aids any person of good heart, and so do we all.” He smiled over his shoulder at his charges. “You are welcome among us, Petra Thundercrown and Everest Icecrown.”
Petra smiled faintly. “My thanks, Jorun Strangesight.” She paused. “Where exactly are we going?”
“To the kitchen.”
Everest grinned. “Schwankyendaro! I’m hungry.”
Jorun grinned back at the taller man, their eyes level now that the Diviner was several steps higher. “As am I.”
{More Author’s Note: Not much to put here; if I start explaining inspirations and influences I’ll go on all day. Suffice it to say that I haven’t plagiarized anything to the best of my knowledge, but I’ve been reading fantasy stories all my life, and these worlds of Azure Glade and Amaz (the planet where Everest and Petra live) draw elements from here, there, and everywhere. I just hope that it’s an enjoyable read.
The word “schwankyendaro” was invented by my friend Clovis15. On Amaz, it is a real word. ^^
Many thanks to my alpha readers: JeffG, LK, and Myuuchan.
See you next chapter! Remember folks, only you can write your story!}
***
As a reminder, you can find the rest of the posted chapters, and any future ones, at "FictionPress":http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2724040/1/Azure_Glade. If you've read this far, thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it! -AA
***
Azure Glade
Written by Archangel
An Ultra Publications Production
Part I – Of Books, Blacksmithing, and Blowing Stuff Up
Chapter 1
{Author’s Note: There have been some changes since I first posted this story, so I suggest re-reading it, even if you read the previous versions. Further notes at the end. Enjoy, and please provide feedback! Email me or post your thoughts on the UP forum!}
“No story has ever truly begun or ended, but that doesn’t stop people from chopping them up into volumes and chapters. Makes the world easier to keep track of, I suppose.”
— from Astral’s Great Truths of Life by Ilsa Sandoval
***
The northeast fields were about ripened, Nanci judged as she slipped her aching feet into the water. Another two months gone as if they were a week. Nothing ever really changed here, and yet time flew. It especially flew when your mind was always whirling and your heart harbored a dull ache.
“Blisters again?”
Nanci started and looked over her shoulder, smiling in delight. “Lord Astral!”
The green-robed man plopped down beside her, dropping his feet into the crystal-clear pond beside hers—boots and all. “Pining again I see,” he told the girl, ruffling her hair affectionately. “Is it over who I think it is?”
Young Nanci Perriman sighed and sank back onto the flagstones, closing her eyes. “I don’t understand him at all,” she moaned. “I know he likes me, but he won’t talk to me! He slips away whenever I so much as smile at him!”
The young-looking man beside her chuckled softly. “I’m going let you in on two of the Great Truths of Life that people keep asking for,” he replied easily, drawing Nanci up from her supine position like a shot. “Males and females think in different ways,” Astral told the eager teenager, “and Elven and Humans think differently as well. The differences simply multiply when you put the two together. That’s the first Truth.” Astral paused dramatically, teasing Nanci just a little.
The two of them had always been completely at ease with each other, ever since Nanci was a newborn. While Astral was the ‘favorite uncle’ of all the children in the Glade, he probably spent a little more time with Nanci than with any of the others.
“The second Truth,” Astral continued, “is that you can’t understand people as a group. You can only understand people one-on-one, as individuals.” He grinned. “Well, there’s a third Truth, but you’ve heard me say that a hundred times.”
“‘Help wears infinite faces’?” Nancy asked incredulously. “How do all three of those help me with Tomeris?”
Astral pulled his sopping black boots out of the water and stood up on the Roundwalk. “Only you can write your story, Nanci,” he told her, as he had so many times throughout her life. “I’m just the narrator.” Astral took a deep breath and smiled as he took a sweeping look around. “Bad day to be moping, though. Not a cloud in the sky.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “And whose fault is that?” Nanci asked, rewarding Astral with a giggle. She really was feeling better.
“I could create a special little cloud to rain on only you,” Astral rejoined with a raised eyebrow.
“Ohh… you…!” Nanci dissolved into laughter. “Alright, I’ll try to cheer up. Satisfied?”
“Are all your chores done?”
The young woman reluctantly withdrew her feet from the water and slipped them back into her shoes. “Yes, for once.”
“Then I’m satisfied.” Astral leaned down and gave Nanci a fatherly kiss on the forehead. “Take care, Kiddo.”
Nanci shook her head at the pond water sloshing out of Lord Astral’s tall boots and soaking his robes. “You moon-man,” she murmured as she turned the other way, heading for the main doors of the Tower. If nothing else, it’s time I stopped whining and started doing, Nanci thought determinedly. That he-Elf is going to talk to me whether he wants to or not!
***
Petra allowed herself a deep sigh as she heard the tapping on the shutters. Maybe if I ignore it, whoever’s chasing him this time will catch and kill him, she thought behind closed eyelids. It was only reflexive; Petra would stick by her brother no matter what he did. Even if he was an idiot.
Running a grease-covered hand through her long black hair, Petra rose and grabbed the hand-sized firetube from its peg on the end of her huge workbench. She gave the ignicap a quick check as she strode to the window—after all, it just might not be Everest, and a lass needed some protection.
It was Ev. The minute Petra unlatched the shutters her twin brother came tumbling through, instantly shutting the window behind him. Everest Grimward sank to the floor, letting out a relieved breath. “Thanks, Sis. Had to leave it all behind to get away this time.” Everest shook his head. “I’ll never understand why they get so worked up about me taking old junk.”
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe because nowadays that ‘junk’ is bleeding VALUABLE!” Petra snapped, glaring down at Everest with her hands on her hips. “You seem to forget that I’m not the only inventor in this city, and some of them are rich!”
Everest flinched, but smiled as he did it. “Eh, they all just copy you,” he retorted as he levered himself to his feet. “You’re the most moon-touched of them all.”
Petra sighed again. “Why can’t you just stay in the temple library where you belong?” she asked Everest irritably. “Ev, face it: you’re a lousy thief! I make enough off my work to buy anything I need for my research. You know that. So why bother? Why put your life at risk to get me stuff I could just as soon buy? For Llain’s sake, you don’t even steal the correct stuff!” The tiny technologist had to pause and catch her breath.
For once, her brother’s cocky attitude evaporated. “Really?”
Petra sighed once again. “Yes, really. Look, it’s really sweet that you want to help with the income, Ev. I just want you to do it more… constructively.” She walked over and hugged Everest. “You should tell your stories in the inns and taverns, not just to the children in the back alleys.”
Everest started. “You know about that?”
His sister laughed and rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows. Clients tell me things, you know. The little ones adore you, and they all tell their parents.” Petra looked up at her brother. “You have a real talent, Everest. If children love to hear you tell the stories you find in the library, then why not adults too? Head ‘round to a tavern that doesn’t have a bard going tonight and see if they’ll give you a chance. I bet you—”
The destruction of the window-shutters by a very large axe cut Petra short. The owner of said axe jumped through the window right behind it. Even before Everest could move to protect his sister, Petra raised the firetube in her hand and pulled the trigger. It was entirely reflexive, but the bullet blasted a perfectly serviceable hole in the axeman’s head. He crumpled to the floor with as little grace as a dropped sack of flour.
“Grimward! I know you’re in there! Get your bleeding carcass out here or we’ll kill your precious sister too!”
“Taff!” Everest placed himself between Petra and the shattered window. “It’s Conlan,” he whispered by explanation, his knuckles white around the handle of his dagger.
Petra nearly dropped her firetube in the middle of reloading it. “You tried to steal from CONLAN?” she hissed, pushing a bullet down on top of the small charge of powder and slipping an ignicap under the hammer. “Are you completely mad?”
“Hit me later,” her brother groaned. “We have to make tracks or we’re both dead!”
“I’ve got a score of men around the building!” the merchant crime-lord called from outside. “There’s no escape, fool! You have one minute to get out here if you value your sister’s life!”
Everest started towards the window, only to be restrained by Petra’s hand on his wrist. “Don’t you dare,” she told him firmly. “We either live together or die together, remember?”
Her brother nodded grimly. “Out the windows to the west alley,” he breathed into her ear. “Most likely chance of slipping away.” He looked around the cluttered room forlornly. “Sorry about your workshop, Sis.”
A gentle squeeze to Everest’s shoulder reassured him. “Everything important is up here,” Petra whispered, tapping the side of her head. She rummaged in a pile of parts and came out with a small clockwork device. Petra adjusted a timer and twisted a knob. The thing began to tick quietly. “Thirty seconds. Let’s go!”
The would-be thief needed no second prompting. He was out of the room like a shot, his sister right behind. As they kicked open the shutters on the other side of the house and tumbled through, a roaring explosion consumed Petra’s laboratory. No sense letting somebody like Conlan examine all her tools and projects, after all.
Of more immediate concern than the explosion was the massive enforcer blocking their way up the alley. The weak sunlight glinted dangerously off the huge broadsword in his hand. As the twins raised their respective weapons, their opponent simply froze, his sword raised and a murderous smile on his lips. Everest and Petra looked at each other, then back to their foe. Not a twitch. Everest straightened, walked up to the man, and poked him. He felt alive… but he wasn’t moving an inch. Bizarre.
“Come with me.”
Brother and sister nearly jumped out of their skins. They whirled around to see a very singular man standing in the alley behind them. Long robes of the flattest, most neutral gray they’d ever seen cloaked his body. Beneath his raised cowl, they could distinguish the vague outline of a face and two glowing eyes of the same gray. How anything could glow gray baffled Everest, but he retained enough presence of mind to move protectively in front of his sister. “Who the Void are you?”
The glowing eyes narrowed slightly. “Right now, I am life. Either come with me, or stay and die on his blade.” A pale, emaciated hand flicked towards the frozen enforcer. Without another word, the man in gray turned and moved back down the alley.
After a moment’s staring, the twins traded a look and shrugged simultaneously. Why not? Their eyes proclaimed to one another. They hurried after their mysterious benefactor. He seemed to glide along the flagstones, apparently unhurried in his movements. From his dress he was probably a spellman, a rare sight even in Menanderzon, the largest city on Amaz. But none of the tales about spellmen Everest had read mentioned glowing eyes or the disconcertingly… powerful air that this man carried about him like a second cloak. The gray spellman swept past the frozen figures of Marc Conlan and his muscle-bound retainers without even a glance. The twins followed with some trepidation. Not a one of them twitched, seemingly still focused on the long-faded explosion.
Two minutes’ walk through the back alleys later, the gray man halted before an utterly ordinary back door in one of the buildings. The latch glowed faintly under his touch, and the doorway swung open. Within was a solid mass of swirling mist, as flatly gray as the man’s robe. “This is where we part,” he told the siblings as if ordering dinner in a tavern. “Go through.” With a swish of his robe, the spellman turned a nearby corner and was gone.
Well.
Everest looked at Petra. The look she returned was equally puzzled and nervous. After a full minute of silence, she wordlessly held out her hand to her brother. Everest took it. Together, he and Petra took deep breaths and stepped into the swirling mist.
***
“Please High Predicant,” the Orken Divinate simpered, thrusting his tusks forward to highlight their ritual scrimshaw. “Releasing a sacrifice alive draws the wrath of Almighty Szell! At least let us give it some real deformities first? To appease Szell, you see. How about its—”
The self-serving drivel became a gurgling scream as Meyvn’s scalpel neatly severed an artery in the stupid creature’s neck. The High Predicant of the Black Fist didn’t look back as he wiped the slim blade on the falling Ork’s robe. He didn’t spare a thought for the corpse—between the multifarious cannibals, perverts, murderers, thieves, rapists, madmen, and other degenerates of every race who now filled the Cathedral of Night there wouldn’t be so much as a bloodstain left by the time he was finished.
Although he was irritated at the momentary interruption, Meyvn the Facetwister realized that such things were necessary. Some lessons needed to be re-taught on a regular basis, and there was no changing it. Seeking to take control of the ritual with scriptural sophistry, the Divinate had forgotten the simple lesson that power was everything. Meyvn was well-known as a deadly knifeman, but more to the point he was in the very highest favor with Lord Szell. In this place, Szell’s favor was everything.
And it was time to call upon and strengthen that favor once again. The High Predicant looked down without expression at the whimpering young human bound to the centuries-old lump of black stone. A real prize, this one, a paragon of the female human form just barely into her childbearing years. And her face… so very beautiful, so very perfect. It was because of that lovely face that she had been set aside for the legendary Facetwister. It was because she had been set aside for him that she would be sent back to her family alive—with a hideous, grotesquely deformed countenance.
This was Meyvn’s art. This was his joy. This was his worship to the Black Lord of Corruption: transforming the very height of beauty into the deepest depths of ugliness.
He leaned down to make the first incision. The girl jerked her head away. No, that would hardly do. Meyvn set his blade on the altar and clapped his hands twice. A dozen whip-thin tentacles of oily blackness sprang forth from the altar and seized the girl’s head, locking it firmly in place.
Much better. Meyvn reached up and flipped back his hood, revealing the pulsating black symbols that Lord Szell Himself had carved into the flesh of his bald head. As his hand found the scalpel once more, the Facetwister leaned down, gazing into his victim’s wide, terrified eyes.
“I love doing this.” The quietest of whispers, for her ears alone.
Meyvn straightened up and went to work, whistling cheerfully over the young woman’s shrieks of pain.
***
Petra couldn’t say what she was expecting exactly, but probably not this. She heard a click and turned her head to see that the polished mahogany door behind them had closed. The little plate on it bore a few characters in a language Petra did not know. Everest took hold of the handle and pulled gently. Then harder. Then with all his strength. It wouldn’t budge. No going back that way.
Well, this place seemed pleasant enough, albeit strange. It was just a broad stone corridor lined with polished wooden doors, all identical save for their identifying plates. A few glowing… balls? floated lazily near the high ceiling, casting a soft, soothing light. And that was it. No tapestries, no paintings, no wall sconces, nothing. This place was purely for function, Petra thought, not for living. She also had the distinct impression that she was underground. She tapped Everest’s arm; he was still examining the corridor intently.
“I think we go this way,” Petra murmured, pointing to the ‘open’ end of the hallway, where it intersected with another. The other end terminated in yet another of these doors.
Everest shrugged. “Sure. I don’t think we’re in danger here, but keep alert just the same.”
With a nod, Petra followed her brother up the corridor. To the right the intersecting corridor stretched down about four hundred paces and ended, with several other corridors branching off on both sides. To the left they could see a small room about twenty paces away. The twins headed that way.
The little room shared the corridors’ high ceilings, but a couple of massive tapestries gave the walls a welcoming touch. A doorway into a spiral staircase faced the long corridor, while a large wooden desk stood to their right. In the upholstered chair behind the desk was a young man. His sandaled feet were propped up on the desk. His eyes were closed. He was snoring softly.
It was Petra who approached the desk first. “Umm… excuse me?” With a sigh, she tapped lightly on the man’s foot. When that drew no response, Petra tweaked his big toe.
The recipient of the tweaking started violently and fell out of his chair. His head reappeared over the lip of the desk and studied them for a moment. Then the rest of him appeared and a sheepish smile lit his face. The young man bowed and spoke to them. The language was very beautiful, but Petra didn’t understand a single word.
Before she could say so, Everest replied—in the same language! He spoke slowly, as if afraid of misspeaking, but he clearly knew what the man had said. The two traded a few more sentences, then their host turned to Petra and bowed again. “My apologies, Saya Thundercrown,” he told her in Common. “I did not realize that you do not speak Celest. I bid you and Siya Icecrown welcome to Azure Glade.”
Petra blinked twice. “Umm, thank you. ‘Thundercrown’?” she asked, quite confused.
The young man gave her that sheepish smile again, brushing some dust from his rumpled red robe. “Again, apologies. I am gifted with the Divine Sight, and it is…” he looked up at the ceiling, searching for words. “It is habit for me to call people by what I See upon them.”
Everest shook his head as if to clear it. “Okay, you’ve lost me, friend,” he told their host. Petra just stared.
The young Diviner sighed. “Simply, I see a small image for every person I look upon.” His eyes traced over the top of Petra’s head. “On your head, Saya, I see a crown of blazing lightning.” To Everest: “Upon your head, Siya, sits a similar crown of purest ice.”
“Okay…” Petra spoke slowly. “Can you tell us what that means?”
“No, Saya. I can tell you that they relate either to your character or your future. Most likely both. And that they are true. But their exact truth? No. Each contains a great many truths, all linked together into the one image. Does this aid understanding?”
The twins nodded simultaneously. “Yeah, kinda,” Everest replied. “But so you know, my name is Everest. This is my sister Petra.”
“I am pleased at our meeting. I am called Jorun, and right now I am charged with greeting visitors to Azure Glade. I must ask, why have you come?”
That brought the scholar and the inventor up short. “We’re not really sure…” Petra admitted at last.
“This weird guy sent us,” Everest said, continuing her thought. “These thugs were attacking us, then a spellman—or something—showed up and froze them all in place. He told us to follow him and opened a door full of smoke.” Everest was embarrassed at how weird the tale must sound to Jorun.
“When we walked through, we were here,” Petra finished with a shrug. “We don’t even know where here is.”
Jorun smiled softly. “This spellman… he wore gray robes?”
The twins nodded emphatically, once again in sync. “He had really weird eyes,” Everest told Jorun.
“They were gray too,” Petra added. “He didn’t say much.”
A gentle laugh escaped the Diviner’s lips. “So. My lord’s lord sends us new faces again. It has been some time.”
“What?” both siblings asked simultaneously.
Jorun came around the desk and walked up the large spiral staircase, gesturing for them to follow. “The man you met is the leige of Lord Astral, ruler of Azure Glade,” he explained as the trio climbed. “None know his true name. I call him ‘Null,’ for that is how Lord Astral names him. On him I See nothing, which is most strange. Anyhow, from time to time he collects people of good heart from all over Zel-Amaz and sends them here to us. If you are here, then Lord Null believes that this is your proper place.”
“I don’t get it,” Everest stated bluntly.
A shrug rippled Jorun’s red robes. “I cannot say with precision, but I will say this: Azure Glade is a garden. Beings are placed here to grow. This is a sanctuary, my friends, a place of learning and healing. Lord Astral freely aids any person of good heart, and so do we all.” He smiled over his shoulder at his charges. “You are welcome among us, Petra Thundercrown and Everest Icecrown.”
Petra smiled faintly. “My thanks, Jorun Strangesight.” She paused. “Where exactly are we going?”
“To the kitchen.”
Everest grinned. “Schwankyendaro! I’m hungry.”
Jorun grinned back at the taller man, their eyes level now that the Diviner was several steps higher. “As am I.”
{More Author’s Note: Not much to put here; if I start explaining inspirations and influences I’ll go on all day. Suffice it to say that I haven’t plagiarized anything to the best of my knowledge, but I’ve been reading fantasy stories all my life, and these worlds of Azure Glade and Amaz (the planet where Everest and Petra live) draw elements from here, there, and everywhere. I just hope that it’s an enjoyable read.
The word “schwankyendaro” was invented by my friend Clovis15. On Amaz, it is a real word. ^^
Many thanks to my alpha readers: JeffG, LK, and Myuuchan.
See you next chapter! Remember folks, only you can write your story!}
***
As a reminder, you can find the rest of the posted chapters, and any future ones, at "FictionPress":http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2724040/1/Azure_Glade. If you've read this far, thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it! -AA
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