First Comes The One Who Wanders

  First Comes The One Who Wanders

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  First Comes The One Who Wanders

  Lynette S. Jones

  Copyright © 2012 Lynette S. Jones

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 149425039X

  ISBN-13: 978-1494250393

  DEDICATION

  To Harvey, who has always believed in me.

  Greyan’s Prophecy

  First comes the one who wanders the earth, the depths and the heights, who holds the balance between light and dark.

  Second comes the one who seeks the words of power to undo what has been done.

  Then will come a warrior, to reunite a people and a land.

  Still, the way forward is not clear

  For, all must choose the way in which they will walk,

  light or dark—

  And no one can know how they will choose.

  Master Greyan, Book of Foresight

  CHAPTER 1

  The two orcs closed in as Leilas drew her sword in the narrow alleyway where she’d decided to make her stand. There was enough room for her to move, despite the garbage strewn along the walls and covering the ground. She was counting on the fact that the soldiers would have trouble maneuvering in such a tight space. The ones standing in front of her weren’t her only problem. A group of ten mercenaries were running down the alley to join them. In all likelihood, they were traveling bandits, who’d accepted someone’s money in return for killing her. A year ago, they wouldn’t have dared to attack the Princess of Dirth. The citizens would have risen up against them, but no more. The Dredracians were becoming more brazen as their numbers within the city continued to grow. Every day, it seemed there were more of them in and around the city. The balance that the crafters were supposed to be maintaining between the light and dark magic seemed to be disappearing as the power the Dredracians wielded grew.

  Leilas knew how to handle a sword, but she wasn’t a warrior. Usually, the authority of her scarlet and silver tunic, which identified her as a member of the house of Leyhan, protected her. She didn’t think her uniform was going to save her today.

  Her opponents stopped just out of reach of her sword, gibbering in some language she didn’t understand. She knew they were waiting for the mercenaries to reach them. Then while they kept her occupied, the others would slip in behind her and finish the job.

  Moving into a defensive stance, she pulled her sword up next to her ear, ready to sweep it across her chest if the two facing her drew too close. Then she waited for the others to come into range of her magic. The mercenaries were only ten feet away when she suddenly shifted sideways, dropped her sword and began to chant. Before her enemies knew what was happening, they were lying senseless at her feet and the magic she’d expended began to swirl around her urging her away from the light magic toward the dark.

  Leilas sank to her knees, unaware of her surroundings and fought against the tide of darkness, struggling toward the small beacon of light shining through the swirling mists. She had no idea why this happened to her, but she’d learned that she must fight it or she would be enveloped in the darkness forever.

  “Are you all right, my lady?” asked one of the guards who’d come running at the sound of the commotion in the alley. “Have you been injured?”

  “I’m not hurt,” said Leilas, using the guards’ presence to focus her attention and pull herself back to the present, away from the darkness that was calling to her.

  “You shouldn’t be wandering the streets unprotected, your highness,” chided the second guard, after checking on the men lying in the street. “Where are your bodyguards?”

  Leilas had the decency to be embarrassed at the question. She’d gone to great lengths to ensure that she wasn’t hampered by the bodyguards. She hated having to be escorted everywhere she went. “I didn’t tell them I was going out.”

  “That isn’t wise these days, my lady. There are many Dredracians who want you dead. You’re one of the few who are willing to stand against them. Your father does nothing to protect the people of Dirth. If it weren’t for your diligence, Dirth would be overrun by the likes of those lying on the ground and the Jovanulum of Dirth would be gone.”

  “The masters of the School of Sky would never let the Dredracians overrun Dirth.”

  “They’ve already let it happen, my lady,” replied the guard. “While they assure us that we’re safe, the Dredracians enter the city in increasing numbers. It’s only a matter of time until those who follow the teachings of the light magic have no choice but to leave or be killed for practicing what they believe.”

  Leilas let him help her to her feet, while she silently acknowledged that what he was saying was true, she just didn’t want to accept it. Why weren’t the masters at the School of Sky, where she was studying to become a master crafter, raising the alarm that the balance between the light and dark magic had been compromised?

  The Dredracians were the enemies of those who followed Jovan and the light magic. They were servants of Dredrac, the Dark Lord. They practiced a perverted form of the dark magic. Leilas knew that there were those who did follow the pure dark magic and that it was part of the balance the crafters were sworn to protect, but the magic the Dredracians practiced was nothing close to that form of dark magic. She could feel the magic they used. It was interwoven with unspeakable evil that easily overcame the one who wielded it.

  “I’ll escort you back to the castle,” said the first guard. “Draden will take care of this mess. In the future, you should be more careful where you walk, my lady. There might not always be guards around to help you.”

  Leilas didn’t bother to point out that she’d been more than capable of protecting herself. Under different circumstances, she might have argued with him, but she was happy to have him accompany her back to the castle today. He was one of the few guards who still tried to protect Dirth, rather than sell his services to the highest bidder. She’d had too many encounters with those men to refuse the kindness of this one, especially since the darkness was still clinging to her mind and making her sick. Each time she had such an encounter the darkness seemed to get stronger, last longer and the physical effects worsened. She knew that none of the other students were afflicted by the darkness when they used their magic against the enemy. Why did using her magic against people affect her so adversely? It was a question she hadn’t brought to her masters yet, for fear of their reaction.

  “If you are ready, your highness?” asked the guard, offering her his arm, his eyes filled with concern over her disoriented condition.

  Taking his
arm, Leilas leaned on it heavily as they walked down the main street of the largest city to the west of the Drakmoth Mountains. Music and smoke billowed from the taverns and mingled with the spices and tantalizing smell of meats and breads for sale from the small businesses that sold their wares alongside the taverns. Gaudily painted signs offered dresses, shoes, tunics, armor, while shady little store fronts with sinister looking signs offered magical cures. Brothels, –where women with dead eyes stood outside, scantily clad, offering their wares– were tucked down the side alleys.

  This was all familiar to Leilas and yet not. More dark holes, taverns and brothels seemed to appear every day while the honest merchants seemed to disappear with frightening regularity.

  “You won’t mention this to my father, will you?” Leilas asked the guard as they walked.

  “I won’t mention it to the King, but I will have to tell the captain of the guards,” said the young man.

  “I don’t want my bodyguards to get in trouble. I did my best to elude them.”

  “That shouldn’t have mattered. It’s their job to protect you.”

  Leilas shrugged to herself. She hadn’t meant to get the bodyguards in trouble, but it appeared she had. All she’d wanted was to spend some time in the city. When the guards were with her, she didn’t get a good picture of how the city was changing and how the people were faring.

  What she’d discovered today hadn’t made her happy. More of the Jovanulum had disappeared. Some had moved away, but many of the people she’d talked with in the city said that people were just disappearing. They left unsaid that they were being killed by the Dredracians. These days, the city had ears and it wasn’t always wise to say too much.

  She’d mentioned to her father that people were disappearing, but he wasn’t interested in the people of the city. He was only interested in securing his power and increasing his wealth. She blamed Mandrak, the king’s scribe, for her father’s lack of interest in his people. Mandrak had spent her entire life poisoning his mind. Whatever good might have been in her father, he’d killed many years ago.

  Talking with her mother about the problems arising in Dirth hadn’t done much good, either. Her mother had never taken much interest in Dirth, or her father. Lately, it seemed that she’d withdrawn even further, rarely leaving her room and never speaking with the king. The queen’s withdrawal coincided with her sister Catalaina’s marriage to the Lord of Magnus Crog in one of her father’s ill-fated alliances with the Dredracians. Leilas knew that her mother was a good woman, who followed the light magic. Her reticence to involve herself in anything to do with Dirth was a mystery to Leilas. As was her reticence to involve herself in Leilas’ life once she’d learned she was a crafter.

  “Do whatever you think is best.” Leilas could still hear her mother’s standard answer to the masters’ questions about anything to do with her training. She could still see the dismissive wave of her hand and the way her robes swayed as she walked away. Her mother had never nursed her through her fevers or colds, or through any of the after-effects associated with her training. But that didn’t keep Leilas from loving her or wanting her to be part of her life. Once she took her oath and received her master’s crest, she hoped to spend more time with her mother and brother. She prayed it wasn’t too late to develop the love that should exist between a mother and a daughter, a brother and a sister.

  When they reached the gates that surrounded the castle, the guard bowed and watched her walk inside before he turned and disappeared back into the streets of the city. Leilas turned to the right and walked toward the door that led to the school, which was housed in the right wing of the castle. The stone walls that made up the hallway had been plastered and painted white, with a scarlet and gray trim near the ceilings. Oil lamps, held in golden sconces shaped like winged stallions along the hallway, brightened the way. The brightness of the hallway belied the darkness that had settled on the castle since her father had become king. She’d heard stories that, in the past, the kings had been good men and that these halls had rung with love and laughter. These hallways had never heard laughter in her lifetime. All they’d known was fear and anger and the need for power, above all the need for more power.

  She was in no mood to see her father, who was more than likely drunk since it was after mid-day, nor did she wish to see Mandrak, who would be at his side pouring the wine and whispering poison in his ear. If she could remove Mandrak from Dirthstone Manor, she would do so in a heartbeat. But even the daughter of the king could not go so far as to banish the scribe of the king and murder wasn’t in her nature and she hoped that it never would be. The fact that she’d never killed another human being was what kept her from being evil like her father, in her mind. Her training in the light magic made her well aware that she had his darkness inside her. It had also taught her that it was for her to choose which path she would follow. Still, she knew that she had his weakness inside her, as well as her mother’s strength. Why her mother had married her father was something she’d never understood, nor had her mother explained it to her. Her mother rarely took the time to explain anything to her, or to spend time with her. Leilas often wondered if her mother even liked her, much less loved her. Shrugging her shoulders to slough off her unpleasant and too often present thoughts, Leilas continued through the hallway to the right wing of Dirthstone Manor and the School of Sky.

  Reaching the entrance to the school, she spoke the word that opened the door and stepped inside. A staircase led to the upper floors of the castle and to the rooms where the apprentices of the Sky masters lived. She, like the other apprentices called these quarters home, although unlike the others, she had the right to go to her rooms within the castle should she choose. Her mother kept her rooms prepared for her. Leilas almost never left the confines of the school anymore. There had been a time when she lived in the family rooms of the castle and tried to be part of her mother’s world. The effort had only left her feeling more alone. After that, she didn’t try to fit in with her family, had stopped living in her rooms in the castle proper and made the other apprentices and her masters her family.

  Of all of her mother’s five children, Leilas was the only one who had been born a crafter. Leilas knew that being born a crafter had nothing to do with who your parents were and that the craft wasn’t a gift that tended to run in families. But there were times when she wondered why she had been singled out and why there was such a great price to pay for being born with power?

  Still being a crafter had kept her from her sister’s fate, at least it had up until now. Her sister had been married off to seal an alliance with Magnus Crog. Leilas had argued with her father that Catalaina wasn’t a piece of property to be bartered away. He had laughed at her and said that was exactly what women who were born to royalty were and that she should be glad that she was worthless as a woman and bargaining chip or she would soon follow in her sister’s footsteps. At eleven, Leilas hadn’t understood why he thought she was worthless as a woman, though his censure had made her quite timid and unsure around the boys who’d wanted to show off their new found manhood to her. Now that she had grown into womanhood, she knew that as a crafter, she would never bear any man children. In return for her barren womb, she would be given almost eternal life. She would outlive generations, as long as she didn’t die by another crafter’s hand or expend her life force beyond her limit. These were the blessings and the curses of being born a crafter.

  They were perhaps better blessings than those offered her older brothers. Being born the sons of a king, they were expected to fight and die for him and for his kingdom. Like the good sons they were, her brothers had gone to war with their father, when he’d waged war on their nearest neighbors, and had been killed. Since only males could inherit the throne, that left her younger brother Brenth, as heir to the throne. If her father continued his present course of action, waging wars he couldn’t possibly win, he would soon be without an heir. The only reason he still had one now was because Brenth hadn’t yet r
eached an age where he was expected to join his father in battle. Another year and her brother wouldn’t be protected from his certain death any longer.

  Leilas knew that if he thought he could persuade the king, Mandrak would have counseled her father to get her out of Dirth. To him, she was the only one in the royal family who stood in the way of his having all the power of the throne. Hers was the only voice that was ever raised in opposition to the advice he gave her father. Perhaps he had counseled her father to be rid of her and he’d refused. Leilas smiled at the whimsical thought. She’d never seen her father refuse to do anything that Mandrak asked of him. It would be the one redeeming quality he had if he’d actually tried to protect her. Leilas’ smile faded when she thought that Mandrak could have asked her father for far worse, he could have asked him to turn her over to him.

  Leilas had heard rumors of what Mandrak did to those who’d been given over to him. The rumors whispered of horrible torture. None who’d been turned over to him had lived to tell if the rumors were true. Shaking her head at the thought, Leilas stepped into the room that led to the School of Sky and stopped to let the feeling of peace and belonging flow into her.

  From the first moment Leilas had stepped into this room fifteen years ago, with its diffuse light and ceilings and walls that seemed to shimmer and move with some unknown energy, it had touched a chord deep within her. Master Frey said that was the sign of a true calling. All she knew was that it calmed her when she was troubled.