Alfirean Age Book 1 - Inheritor of Strength

The Unraveling

The air whistled in Harold's ears as he spurred his horse on, determined to be the first one to the top. He hardened his heart and set his mind like a flint, resolute in what he must do.

The hill gave way to reveal a man standing calmly at the base of the tower. His glowing robes billowed in a nonexistent wind; his dark eyes gleamed in satisfaction,  and his face bore the look of a snide conqueror.

Vackzilian was alive.

Cold rage burned in Harold. He would not let Alfonso's sacrifice be in vain; he would finish what the young master had started, regardless of the cost. Readying his life energy,  he raised his right index finger and pointed at the wizard.

Vackzilian turned towards Harold and stared at him. His lips rose in a sneer and he chuckled. “Come to finish me off, have you?”

Harold gaped at the wizard. Nothing had happened.

“Did you really think your parlor tricks would work on me?”

As Harold's eyes met Vackzilian's, his horse collided with an invisible force. The poor beast crumpled to the ground, and Harold launched himself forward. Tucking and rolling, he vaulted to his feet and once again threw out his right hand. Water mixed with a paralyzing poison raced from a hidden sack on his shoulder, down his arm, and into his palm, forming an ice spike.

But before he had a chance to launch his attack, a cyclone of dust and freezing air slammed into him from behind, driving him into the ground face-first at the feet of the wizard.

His half-finished spell skidded away across the hard-packed dirt, and a rush of wind hissed past Harold's ear as Vackzilian brought his foot down hard on his hand.

“Such a heroic effort,” Vackzilian mocked, grounding his heel into Harold's fingers. “Too bad for you, the only one who could have defeated me now lays at the bottom of the hill, broken and worthless.”

The sound of creaking bones filled the air and Harold grunted in pain.

At last, Zachariahs crested the ridge. His red beard quivered, and his bushy eyebrows lowered in rage at seeing Harold’s fallen state. “Attack!” he bellowed as he drew his sword and kicked his horse forward.

A contemptuous snort resounded from the wizard. “So many fools so eager to die.” He sighed as if disappointed and glanced off to the side. “Alas, I have no time for this. I have empires to conquer and  emperors to crush.”

The air around Vackzilian crackled, and without warning, the wizard disappeared, leaving no proof he'd ever been there.

Harold stood to his feet and stared at the place where Vackzilian had been standing a few seconds ago. There was no residual energy and no gravity distortion, nothing that accompanied the usual signs of teleportation.

Vackzilian had simply vanished.

An earth-shattering noise pierced the air. Harold jerked his head up. A giant, jagged c***k ran from the top of the tower down through the middle. Massive obsidian chunks of rock shot free from the tower like living giants of stone and tumbled towards the ground below.

“We need to get out of here now!” one of the soldiers shouted.

The earth shuddered underneath their feet; the horses started to prance wildly about, and the hairs on the back of Harold's neck stood up.

The soldier was right. It was time to move—Vackzilian’s mysterious disappearance would have to wait for later. Running to his horse's side, Harold reached out and grabbed the saddle. Gritting his teeth through the pain shooting down his wounded hand, he pulled himself up and kicked his heels into the horse's sides.

The earth shook again, and another c***k rent the air, followed by the sound of screeching metal and rock as the tower started to crumble.

“Go, go, go!” Zachariahs shouted. His horse raced neck and neck with Harold’s down the hillside, while the soldiers followed close on their heels.

A giant piece of the tower smashed down just feet away from Harold. A soldier cried out in pain as a shard from the shattered rock pierced deep into his arm.

“Legion shield wall, now!” Zachariahs bellowed.

As one, the soldiers raised their left hands and group-channeled a shield around them.

As the shield closed around the group, a flurry of twisted pieces of metal and jagged rock screeched and wailed as they bounced off the newly erected barrier.

And then it was all over as Vackzilian's tower let out one last massive groan, collapsed to its side, and tumbled over the cliff in an avalanche of metal and stone.

The men reached the bottom of the hill and paused. They stared back at the empty knoll with mixed feelings written in their eyes. On the one hand, they had failed: Vackzilian had escaped, and Alfonso's death was unavenged. On the other hand, the tower that had once dominated the western skies for so many years was no more. No longer would the black spire send chills down people's spines and instill fear in the hearts of those who looked upon it. But at what cost?

It was a sad, defeated company that rode back to greet Olivia.

Harold slowed his horse to a trot and gazed at the young woman. Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes. She still softly rocked Alfonso back and forth.

Seeing his shadow approach, Olivia looked up. An unspoken question lingered in her eyes.

Harold looked away. How could he tell her that Alfonso had failed? That he had failed? That her friend's last selfless act in life had been for naught... He couldn’t.

“I see,” she said.

An uneasy silence fell on the small party as they lingered around Alfonso's fallen form. Only the occasional sound of an impatient horse stomping its foot or swishing its tail broke the silence. 

Then the world shook, and Harold found himself transported twenty feet away. His horse tossed wildly about, struggling to find its footing as the rocks on the ground began to vibrate. A loud buzz filled the valley and the air shimmered. Like a mirage floating above the desert, the distant forest edge flickered in and out, there one moment and gone the next.

Zachariahs spun around, trying to figure out where Harold had disappeared to. When their eyes met, the mayor’s face twisted in panic as realization struck him.

“The magic that twisted this land is fading,” he shouted. “We need to get out of here.”

Zachariahs spun back around and pointed his hand at Olivia.  “Jenkins, get her on your horse, now!”

The soldier rushed over and leaned down to help Olivia onto his steed, but she refused to let go of Alfonso.

“Now, Jenkins!” Zachariahs shouted again as a tremor shook the land.

Fear marred the soldiers' faces as with every shudder, one of the guards found themselves transported dozens of feet away.

Again, Jenkins attempted to obey, but Olivia stubbornly refused his efforts. Harold knew she would not leave Alfonso's body to waste away, discarded and abandoned in the middle of nowhere.

He spurred his mount forward. “No, she is right. We can’t leave Alfonso here."

Zachariahs grunted in agitation. Charging to Olivia's side, he jumped off his horse and grabbed Alfonso’s body. Throwing him over the back of his saddle, he leaped back upon his steed and took off.

At that very moment, a towering wave of magic rose from the base of the hill and rushed towards them. Zachariahs kicked his horse hard, spurring it on to outrun the unraveling tide of magic.

Olivia had barely clambered to her feet before the crystal clear tide cascaded over her.

With a burning flash, the hill and Olivia disappeared into the distance.

“Run!” Jenkins screamed, his eyes dilated in fear as he slapped the side of his animal with the flat of his sword.

No! Harold would not lose both Olivia and Alfonso in the same day. Yanking on his reins, he drove his horse to charge headfirst into the oncoming wave. The magic slammed into him, and Harold felt as if he were being pulled apart from the inside out. Gritting his teeth, he charged onwards till the wave spat him out the other side.

There, just feet in front of him, stood Olivia.

Reaching out, he grabbed her outstretched hand, and ignoring the resulting pain, swung her up onto his horse—there would be time to heal his broken fingers later.

A second wave erupted from where the tower had once stood. It rose hundreds of feet into the air and raced down towards them.

“If that thing hits us, we'll be lost out here,” Olivia hollered as Harold turned the horse around.

“I know,” Harold said, spurring their already battered and weary horse on. “Do you think you can slow it down?”

“No, but I might be able to speed us up.”

Finely attuned to magic through his countless years as a healer, Harold felt the frequencies around Olivia shift and change as she used magic to reach into the horse and pump energy and adrenaline into its muscles.

The effect was immediate, and Harold reached back to steady Olivia as their horse took off like the wind.

A cloud of dust and ash swirled in their wake as they overtook the first wave and dived back through it. In a tide of light, they reappeared on the edge of the barren land in front of the trees. Harold swerved, barely missing several low hanging branches as he turned onto the path.

“Thank God Almighty you two made it,” Zachariahs shouted over his shoulder.

“We're not out of this yet,” Harold called back, weaving through the soldiers to Zachariahs's side.

Olivia waved her hand at the soldiers' exhausted steeds. “I don’t think our horses can take much more of this.”

“They don’t have to,” Zachariahs responded. “That wave is slowing down for every mile it eats. We just have to outrun it a little longer.”

And so, holding tightly to their reigns and praying for their safety, they pressed ever onward.

***

Half an hour later, a tired and bedraggled group dragged themselves into town. Hundreds of miles behind them, a magical bubble of distortion reached high into the sky, slowly expanding and reverting the land back to the way it had been before Vackzilian.

An anxious and worried crowd greeted them.

“Is Vackzilian dead?” the town crier yelled above the hustle and bustle of the townsfolk. Everyone quieted down, eager to know the answer to his question.

“No,” the soldier named Jenkins spat.

“But his tower?” the crier said, pointing up at the giant bubble of distorted magic.

Harold pulled on his reigns and looked back at Zachariahs. It would be best for the people to see what had happened; no words would suffice for this. 

The mayor nodded and slid off his horse. Gently removing Alfonso’s still form from behind his saddle, he laid him in the grass alongside the road, underneath a silk floss tree in full bloom.

The onlookers pressed close, attempting to see the man's face. One of the children slipped through the adults and peeked under the tree's branches. “It’s...it's Alfonso!” he gasped. Sounds of dismay and shock erupted from the people, and pandemonium ensued. Men yelled, and women wept in sorrow. How could their young master be dead? they cried as Harold hung his head, and Olivia rested her face against his back. Why had he fought Vackzilian? Why hadn't anyone stopped him? Were they certain it was Alfonso? Their relentless questions pounded in his ears as the men and women who had known and cherished their High Lord looked on in anguish. 

From the animated populace, a young-looking, silvered-haired woman pushed her way to the front. She looked at the muddied, beaten remains of Alfonso, and her shoulders began to tremble. Her legs collapsed, and the senior head maid of Alfonso’s estate fell to her knees beside the last of the Brockovich bloodline.

Silence fell as others came forward. One by one, they kneeled beside him.

The quiet sound of weeping weaved through the pink blossoms of the silk floss tree and merged with the soft cries of the white-tipped doves.  

Wiping away her tears, the silver-haired woman asked, “What happened?”

No one answered.

“How did he die?” she asked again.

Still no reply.

Pushing herself to her feet, she turned on Zachariahs. Her violet eyes flashed, and the air seemed to hum as she demanded, “What happened?”

The muscles in the mayor’s jaw tightened. His teeth clenched, and his fingers curled around his weapon, but as he turned to stare into the maid’s eyes, his tension vanished, and like a doll whose strings had been cut, he went limp. “I... He…,” he began to say.

“I’ll tell them,” Olivia whispered, sliding off the horse and briefly touching the mayor's shoulder.

The mayor looked back, his curly red beard skimming the top of his armor, and Olivia smiled at him softly.

Stepping forward, she took a deep breath, and with a trembling voice, she retold the events of the day.

As Olivia finished her story, large grey clouds rolled in, covering the land in shadow. Rain poured from the sky, soaking the heartbroken people and drenching the world in a smeary water painting of blues and grays. The rain mingled with everyone's tears, running in rivulets down the tree until it reached Alfonso. As it washed away the mud clinging to the fallen High Lord's face, Harold looked up. Even heaven itself seemed to mourn Alfonso's passing.

Eventually, the senior maid’s two sisters took her hands, and for a brief moment, they shared a silent moment of unspoken communication.

Then the eldest sister nodded, her face dark with grief, and her youngest sister said, “Let’s clean him up. I don't want the people's last sight of him to be like this.”

Zachariahs wiped the rain from his eyes, leaned down, and motioned to Harold without a word. The butler slipped off the horse, and together they carried Alfonso through the crowd and back towards the Brockovich Manor.

Entering Alfonso’s bedroom, Harold stood to the side as the maids tenderly took him and washed away the stains of battle. Dressing him in his finest garments, they laid the young master on his bed with bouquets of tropical flowers, white lilies, and red roses all around him.

***

Word spread fast throughout the empire that Alfonso Vivyander Brockovich the third, seventh High Lord of Alfireá, was dead.

People from all over the globe came to give their condolences—once it was discovered the teleportation stones were active again—and to look upon the face of the last of the Brockovich line, a line known for its charitable acts and extreme virtue.

Late into the night, the Emperor himself came to pay his final respects. There was none of the fanfare that typically accompanied the arrival of the Emperor. He simply appeared with a handful of his elite guards and his personal aide.

As the lone proprietor of the Brokovich household, Harold led him to Alfonso’s bedroom, where the Emperor of Alfireá kneeled at the foot of his bed.

As the Emperor knelt, his bodyguards cleared the room, and Harold, along with the others, waited outside as the Emperor grieved.

Sometime later, the Emperor’s aide exited the room and motioned for Harold.

“Yes?” Harold asked.

“The Emperor wishes to speak with you privately,” the tall, lanky man said, waving his hand at the door.

Harold nodded and quietly entered.

The Emperor stood with his hands behind his back, staring out Alfonso’s window. The soft glow of the moon illuminated his troubled features, and the familiar sounds of the jungle were strangely muted. No doubt the animals sensed all was not well. Harold closed the door behind him and waited for the Emperor to address him.

Descended from dragons, Emperor Drakovian Rylarth Docdovinun the second had ruled the empire with justice and righteousness for over one hundred and eighty years. Broad of shoulder, well-built, and standing over six feet tall, one could see his impressive physique, even through the royal robes and ornamental dragon-winged cape he wore. When Drakovian II entered a space, he demanded immediate attention, for he emitted an overwhelming air of authority and power. Magic brimmed closely beneath his skin as if it would break loose any moment.

Harold had been in the Emperor’s presence before, though never this close, and despite years of discipline, he found it hard not to fidget underneath the power radiating off of him.

Clasping his hands behind his back, he waited patiently.

At last, the Emperor released a heavy sigh and asked, “Exactly what happened, Harold?”

Harold closed his eyes. He gathered his wayward thoughts and pushed back the black hole of anguish threatening to engulf him. Now was not the proper time to grieve. Hands trembling, he reached into his vest and took Alfonso’s crumpled letter out of his pocket. Gazing unseeingly at its wrinkled, worn-out lettering, he began to retell the events of the day.

“I am well aware of what transpired,” the Emperor spat, turning around and cutting him off.

His dark blue eyes flashed. “I want to know how this,” he waved at Alfonso’s still form laying on the bed, “happened. What in Eldrin's teeth possessed him to attack Vackzilian?”

Harold stepped back in shock—tears were glistening in the Emperor’s eyes.

While he struggled to find the words to say, the Emperor spun and began to pace the floor as if he could not bear to stay still lest he lose some internal battle. Anger and sorrow etched themselves deeply into his features.

His grief is as deep as my own, Harold realized. And with that thought, something broke in Harold. The walls of distrust and distance he had erected in his mind finally crumbled, and without a word, he held out the now barely legible letter to the Emperor.

Their eyes met, and Drakovian strode forward. He accepted the paper and Harold relaxed. He knew he was doing the right thing by giving it to him.

Drakovian II stood at the foot of Alfonso's bed, reading the letter. Upon finishing, he hung his head low. An expression of intent concentration exuded from him as he took it all in. Clouds momentarily covered the moon, and the smell of roses and funeral incense permeated throughout the room. At long last, he said, “I see. Alfonso was truly a great man.”

Harold clenched his fists, struggling to forgive the murder of his young charge. “Yes, a great man that was killed before his time.”

The Emperor nodded and turned his back to Harold.

After a moment, he said, “Vackzilian may not be dead, but he must have been gravely wounded, or at the least, weakened. The teleportation stations are open, and the massive storm over Glandledale has ceased. Furthermore, the shield around the Imperial mine has fallen. My men are securing it as we speak. This fact alone makes Alfonso’s selfless act more important than you can imagine.”

He may have been attempting to comfort Harold, but it did little to quell the roiling sea of pain inside him.

As if reading his thoughts, Drakovian said, “I know my words are insufficient recompense for such a great loss, which is why my officials and I have chosen to give Alfonso’s estate, and its caretakers, a part of the reward we offered for Vackzilian’s death. It should be more than sufficient to keep the hospital and orphanage functioning for years to come.

“I have also looked over the papers Alfonso sent earlier today, and I have given them my full approval.” The Emperor paused, appearing to mentally scrutinize the documents once more.

“I approve of you opening a magic school here. We have far too few of them, and the ones we do have are more about political maneuvering than attaining knowledge. Having a magic school that teaches its students, instead of indoctrinating them, will be a great boon to my empire.

"In order to endorse your school, I will be sending my own son here when he comes of age. I will also encourage others to do the same.”

The Emperor fell silent as he lifted Alfonso’s letter and read through it once more.

The glow of the magic lanterns, and the light of the moon, cast their shadows upon the walls, marking the ebb and flow of time as the two of them fell quiet and shared a moment of companionable silence.

As if coming to a decision, Drakovian II neatly folded Alfonso's letter. “To honor Alfonso's brave sacrifice, I am bestowing upon him the title of Dragoon, which means he will be buried in the Royal tombs the day after tomorrow. I feel this is the least I can do for the last of such a noble and honorable family.”

Harold’s eyes grew wide. He stared in astonishment at the back of the Emperor. Only two others in Alfireá's history had been bestowed with such an honor. To be made a Dragoon, one had to be considered to have lived a life of perfect selflessness and gone far beyond the call of duty. He grasped for words, striving to think of something to say, but words evaded him. The sheer enormity of the honor the Emperor was bequeathing upon Alfonso made anything he could say seem minuscule in comparison. Ultimately, all he could do was choke out, “Thank you, Sire!”

The Emperor turned to look at him. Eyes tinged with deep sadness, he smiled, the corners of his mouth barely reaching his eyes. He walked over to Alfonso’s bed, leaned down, and laid the letter on Alfonso’s folded hands. Then straightening up, he motioned to the two guards standing on either side of the door, and without further word, he left the room.

Harold walked to Alfonso's side. "Did you hear that young master? Your sacrifice will not be in vain. We will go on, and we will continue in your footsteps."

He strolled to the door, and turning for one last look, he said, "Goodbye Alfonso. May the Most High welcome your soul into the heavens above."  Then he too left the room.