Forgotten Embers

Chapter 14: High Palace

Avera peddled hard, propelling her bicycle up the grassy hill until she at last broke free of the dense forest of trees on the loosely established path which she rode.

"Finally!" she sighed with great relief at the sight of the dark city walls which loomed ominous and threatening, their powerful appearance stretching far above her.

She rallied herself, worn from the journey, and she began to peddle harder. She rode speedily alongside the southern wall of the capital, becoming only mildly aware of the change in atmosphere as she went.

There was a dark haze which seeped up from the ground, lessening visibility and sunlight. It rose higher the nearer she came to the city and its gates, becoming darker and more prominent until it engulfed everything in sight with its grey spectral hue. The change had been so gradual that she had hardly noticed it until she had nearly reached the western gate and there was darkness all around her.

She looked up at the sky to see how the day was passing, expecting the sun to have been heavy with the burden of night but only to find it still filled with the vigor of the afternoon.

She hopped off the bicycle, dismounting to enter the gates in compliance with the city ordinance. She walked then through the main gates and the guards, surrounded by the multitudes who would enter there, Pyre and its citizens, merchants, peddlers, and travelers alike, all attending to their business and their lives as it pertained to the land and its capital.

She made her way gradually down the city streets towards home, to the house of her neighbor, Annetta Klauthbrid.

It was mid-afternoon when Avera found the little house on Mayverch Street. Taking a deep breath, she walked up the three steps to the door and knocked. The door opened, and she was quickly met with the enthusiastic and tearful embrace of Miss Klauthbrid.

As long as Avera could remember, Annetta had been a close friend of her family, and when Avera had moved with her father to Pyre, Annetta was there to help them become acquainted with the culture and customs of city living. Her kindness and loving concern was always something which Avera had come to rely on, now more than ever she had. Annetta had been appointed with Avera's consent at the request of her father as guardian during his wartime absence. Now, with her father missing and presumed dead, there were some questions of what would be done with Avera under her new status as a ward of the state.

"Avera! Oh, you're back, child! Where have you been?" said the kind faced lady, sobbing as she squeezed her.

"It's alright, Annetta. I'm alright," she said, and her face fell against the woman's shoulder. "It's okay. I'm back now," she reiterated, perhaps assuring herself more than her caretaker. "I'm sorry. I just... needed some space."

She was relieved to feel the gentle embrace of a familiar friend, and her face relaxed into a smile as she collapsed in the lady's plump arms, the tears flowing freely from their eyes.

At last, Annetta, wiping the tears from her eyes and regaining her composure said, "Well, you should come in!" She cleared her throat. "Yes, come in! I was just about to decide what I should make for supper. You should come and help me decide!"

It was a kind invitation, and which Avera would by no means refuse. "Yes, I would like that," she nodded softly and a grin spread over her face as she wiped the tears from her eyes on the sleeve of her shimmering white skysuit.

***

Early the next morning as they slumbered in their beds, there came a loud knocking at the door.

"Who on Caldor could that be?" Annetta disgustedly wondered out loud as she emerged from her bedroom, tightening the belt of her robe, her dark hair still in its curlers.

Avera opened her door in her night clothes, looking to Annetta sleepily with questions in her eyes. The two stood across the hall from one another, each seemingly equally discontented and groggy.

"Oh, I'll get it, dear," Annetta said, unhappy with their early morning visitors. "You go get yourself dressed. I have a suspicion that we're up for the day now," she added with a frown, turning her eyes in the direction of the front door.

"Alright," Avera said yawning. She offered Annetta a quick nod before returning to the small bedroom.

The knocking began again, strong and demanding.

"Oh, hold your horses just a minute!" she heard Annetta yell to the door, addressing the unknown irritant.

'Clothes, clothes...' She glanced around the room, searching blankly. 'Right... they're at my dad's house. Okay. Where's my skysuit, then?'

She looked around the room, becoming a little more purposed and a little more frantic, the sedation of slumber wearing off as the need to find the missing article began to settle in her mind.

"Goodness! Come on, where is it?" she said aloud, becoming vexed. "Oh, I know!" she said, at last remembering. "It's right... here!" she exclaimed, throwing the door shut and revealing a small wooden arm chair with the skysuit thrown haphazardly over the back of it. "Ah!"

'But it's... grey.'

"Avera!" Annetta called from the bottom of the stairs down the hall. "Come here, please!"

"Just a minute!" Avera called back with a slight sense of panic.

She carefully lifted the suit by the shoulders and held it in front of her, looking at it with astonishment.

'What... happened?'

"Avera, darling?" Annetta's voice came again, scared and urgent.

"Coming!" Avera shouted back, hurriedly changing into the maurium skysuit.

'I guess I shouldn't worry about it. Who knows? I can't ask Benjamin, and he may not answer me, anyway.'

She rushed down the hall to the stairs, and hurried to the entry hall, distracted by her clothing. Annetta stood by with the door still open. Two soldiers stood beside her, barely inside the doorway, each dressed impeccably in the uniforms of the King's Royal Guard. Avera stopped short and slowed her step as she came to the bottom of the stairs.

"Annetta?" she curiously addressed, her voice serious and low as she looked slowly towards her.

"Avera Ibori?" one of the strapping young men demanded.

"Yes?" Avera answered nervously.

"You're coming with us!" he said, and they seized her, escorting her one on each side out of the house.

"Where are you taking her?" Annetta asked in a concerned frenzy as she followed them through the door.

"High Palace," the man brusquely informed her. "She has been ordered to appear before the King and his court."

Annetta lifted her hand and opened her mouth as if to say something, but the man cut her short. "Ma'am, it's better that you're not involved," he told her, responding to the robed woman's concern in no uncertain terms.

"If this is about the custody hearing," Annetta began anyway, unsure of how to finish.

"Ma'am!" the soldier warned her. "Stay out of this. Understand?" he asked, and Annetta stood speechless. "Good," he said, turning back from the frazzled woman on the doorstep as they led Avera away to the High Palace sector.

***

The crowded city streets became sparse and desolate the farther they ventured from the city center into the governmental district.

Zephyr reigned from High Palace, a remote fortress which occupied the northeastern corner of the capital. It was not a place that the townspeople were known to go or to be caught staying in for any length of time. Some said it was for fear of spies, others for fear of the wrath or paranoia of the King, but whichever it was, the illustrious soldiers of the King's Royal Guard were always unusually quick to act upon the threat of citizens. The King and his authority were not to come into question, nor were the people to take too much interest in the palace and its activities.

What townsfolk could be seen in the area kept their heads down and hurried on along their way without a word to anyone. There were no stray glances or passing greetings as they came near the palace gates, only the silence of fear and an air of oppression, the occasional remark  or order of a guardsman being the only exception.

There was a guard every few feet along the palace fence, each in his brandish uniform of reinforced maurium, the most advanced of tech reserved only for King Zephyr's personal defense forces. The huge dark metal gates of the palace towered over them as they approached, and the High Palace of the King could be seen up on a hill in the distance behind the massive stone walls.

Avera looked past the gates to the palace fortress as they approached the gatekeeper, not wanting to look at him. The ground inside the gate was stripped earth, dry and barren clay with dust blown by the light wind which blew across the palace yard. The building itself was a massive fortress, an impressive feat of master craftsmanship and engineering, maurium covered in stone and reinforced again by maurium carefully placed in select sections. It was a magnificent masterpiece of wartime engineering commissioned by the King himself for the express purpose of inspiring terror in the hearts of all those who would look upon it.

'It is impressive... but monstrous.'

The two men explained themselves to the gatekeeper, stating their purpose and reiterating that she was under royal summons.

"Called for by the King, eh? Well, good luck to ya," said the gatekeeper gruffly, signaling to his partner for the gates to be opened. "Ye'll need it," he added menacingly, noticing Avera glance over at him as he addressed her.

Then, with a chuckle and a sinister grin, the two broad, bearded men spun the levies and opened the gates which moaned as they swept in towards the winding road in front of them.