Chapter 20: Queen

THE PRESENT:

"She is the queen of what?" Val asked.

Tasmine looked just as surprised as Val and I did. Except for Atheria. She leaned back and looked puzzled, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

"She is the Queen of the Dragons," Sheperd repeated. "No, she is not a true dragon, if that's what you're wondering."

"Then how can she be a queen to you?" Tasmine asked, perplexed.

"It is a long story," Sheperd told us, "and I was not there for it. Perhaps you could ask someone who was there to tell it to you."

He looked purposefully at Atheria. At first, the elven warrior had not heard him, she simply sat there, lost in her own thoughts. Then she realized that we were all looking at her. She looked to each of us, then back to Sheperd.

"That explains so much," she said. She looked to me and her face was filled with sorrow. "My apologies for what I am about to say, Gianna. I had promised your mother I would not tell you. I pray to Mishalla that her soul will forgive me for violating my promise to her."

"Given the circumstances, I think she will understand," Sheperd quietly told her.

Atheria hesitated, then nodded in silent agreement. Then she began to speak her tale.

THE PAST:

Kathia looked up as the two travellers entered the inn. At first, she paid them no mind. She was tired and she was heavy with child. The baby would be born very soon. And she had spent much of her time lately worrying about Bria. Ever since Maygis had struck her, she had started to become more and more depressed. She didn't sleep very much, hardly ate anything. She seemed to care nothing for herself or for her the child she carried within her. The only thing that mattered to her was that she had displeased Maygis, and nothing she seemed to do could make things right with him. Kathia was scared of what Bria may do.

She glanced back over at the two travellers who were speaking quietly with Bria's father. Probably to obtain a room for the night, Kathia mused. One of them was an older man, perhaps in his sixties. His white hair was short and neat, a trimmed beard and moustache lining his face. His companion kept himself wrapped in a cloak and hood, hiding his features from Kathia's eyes. Kathia saw Bria's father glance questioningly at the hooded stranger during the conversation.

Then she caught a single word of the conversation. All of the other words were lost, but the one word was clear: "Maygis".

Kathia stiffened and watched the two travellers with a keener interest. She saw Bria's father shake his head. Maygis was gone on one of his long and secret travels yet again, and Kathia had no doubt that Bria's father was telling the two men that he was not here. The old man nodded gratefully, and the two turned to leave. Kathia quickly approached the two, ignoring the stare of Bria's father.

"Excuse me, sir?" Kathia said. The old man turned to face her, given her a warm smile. His eyes were friendly as they met hers. His companion also turned to regard her from the shadows of his cloak, and Kathia could feel his eyes upon her.

"I heard you mention a name? Maygis?" Kathia asked.

"Why yes, my lady," the man told her, his smile still there, but the friendliness had left his eyes, replaced with curiosity. "Do you know him?"

"Yes, I do. May I ask why you are looking for him?"

The man looked back over his shoulder at his companion, who said nothing. He then looked over at Bria's father, who was staring at three from behind the counter. The old man looked back at Kathia then.

"Let us speak in private," he told her.

"Yes, of course," she said. She went behind the counter and grabbed a key to a room that was unoccupied. Bria's father watched her the whole while, but she did not return his stare.

"Maygis was a student at the Tower of Ancient Magic," the old man explained once they were in the room. He sat in a chair, Kathia sat on the edge of the bed. The mysterious man in the cloak stood outside of the room at the door, watching to make sure that no one disturbed, or listened in on, the two of them. "He was not one of mine, but I knew of him."

"Not one of yours?" Kathia asked. "Then you are a wizard?"

"Yes, my lady, I am. Have you heard of Altholos?"

"I have," Kathia nodded. "The owner of the inn is a friend of his. He has a house here in the town where he stays at sometimes."

The old man nodded. "I was his teacher. He was my best student. I have taught many pupils at the Tower, but few have disturbed me the way that Maygis did when he first came to us, asking acceptance into the Tower. As we always do, we meet with those who request to learn the ways of magic, and when I met him, I felt a chill run through me. There was something not right about him. But several of the instructors took a liking to the young man. As it turns out, the ones who wanted him to join us were all female, but that didn't occur to the rest of us at the time. He was successfully voted in to begin his training at the Tower.

"His instructors told me he was quick to grasp even the most complex of spells. He was a powerful force in the ways of magic, and he quickly outgrew anything we could or would teach him. One of his instructors got into a fierce argument with Maygis when Maygis had demanded that he teach him a particularly powerful spell, one that the instructor refused to teach him. The next day, the instructor was found dead in his bed. He had died in his sleep, a look of terror on his face. I assume that was Maygis's way of dealing with someone who stood in his way of getting what he wanted. Though we had no proof, we knew that Maygis had killed the man while he slept. Even the women who had helped to vote him in were appalled. He was quickly voted out of the Tower and commanded to leave. He certainly did leave, but not without warning us that we would all bow before him someday."

Kathia's world swam around her as her mind placed the words he had said. The dead wizard who prevented Maygis from getting what he wanted. Her father dead after he prevented Kathia from ever seeing Maygis again. Both died in their sleep, and both died with looks of horror on their faces. Kathia felt like the air was being choked out of her as a cold realization struck her. Maygis had killed her father. He had taken her father away from her, and she would never have him back.

"Something similar happened to you, hasn't it?" the old man asked, his voice grave. "Maygis... is he the father of the child?"

Kathia nodded and began to tell him everything. The story of how he had seduced her into giving up her body, how he had seduced both Bria and Kathia, leaving them with a child in each of them. She spoke of how often he was gone for weeks at a time, never saying where he was going.

When Kathia was done, the old man stood up quickly, giving Kathia a look of alarm.

"I must find him. Kathia, you do not know this, but there have been rumors that something is uniting the evil creatures of the Wildlands. Every creature that is an enemy to the southern races is uniting to follow this one being. My companion and I have been tracking down these rumors, and they have led us here. We have every reason to believe that Maygis is the one who is doing this. I must find him, but I will leave my companion to watch over you and keep you and Bria safe."

He knocked quickly at the door, and the cloaked figure entered. As the old man shut the door, the figure reached up and pulled the hood back, revealing a beautiful elvish woman. Kathia gasped in amazement. She had never seen an elf before, she had only heard that they were striking to look upon. Now that she was seeing one for the first time, she quickly agreed that they were incredibly beautiful.

"Atheria will watch over you," the old man told her. "Do not tell her what you have told me."

"But why?" Kathia asked in confusion. "If she is to protect me, shouldn't she know why?"

"Because if I am captured and tortured," Atheria said, her voice almost musical, despite its grim tone, "I can reveal no information that I simply do not know, even under mental or magical intrusion."

Kathia and Bria went into labor at almost the exact same time. Their babies were born and both seemed healthy. Kathia gave birth to a girl, while Bria birthed a boy. Kathia named her daughter Gianna, and Bria named her son Tayne.

The birth of Tayne seemed to take the weight of the world off of Bria's shoulders. Maygis had been gone for a long while, longer than he had been gone before, and it seemed like Tayne's presence almost made Bria forget about him. She returned to being more lively, more like the Bria that Kathia knew. Atheria continued her watch over the two women, waiting for word from Shalzen, the old wizard who had accompanied her, the one who had gone to seek out Maygis. In the meantime, travellers who stopped at the inn reported unrest in the Wildlands. They were attacking outlying villages and towns of the southlands with more and more frequency. The numbers of the attackers were growing and their sieges were coordinated and well-planned. Refugees began to come into or pass through Trias regularly as villages and towns began to fall to the evil beasts of the Wildlands.

Gianna and Tayne were nearly a month old, and it was coming up on the sixth week that Shalzen had been gone. Atheria secretly started to fear for her old friend, and started to make plans to move the two women and hide them, in case Maygis came looking for them. But after darkness had fallen one night, the door to the inn flew open and Shalzen staggered in, badly wounded.

"I found him," the old wizard told Atheria, his voice hoarse. "His power was too great. He surprised me because he is not what he seems! Atheria, you must take the women and their children and leave this place. Hide them away from him. He must never find them!"

Before Atheria could inquire further on what Shalzen had learned, a tremendous explosion rocked the town. Cries of terror and of death sounded from outside. Atheria raced to the front window of the inn and peered outside. A fire was raging in building down the street, and through the darkness, Atheria's sharp elven vision could see a gigantic form flying through the darkness. The creature made another pass over the town, spewing flames down on another building.

"A dragon!" Atheria breathed in awe and horror.

"Quickly!" Shalzen urged from where he was sitting, his body giving in too the horrific wounds he had suffered. "Get them away from this place!"

Atheria moved without hesitation, silently bidding a farewell to her friend. She raced up the stairs and flung open the door to Bria and Kathia's room. The two were holding their respective children, who were both crying at the sounds of the explosions that rocked the town.

"What is happening?" Kathia asked.

"I will explain as we leave," Atheria told them. "We have to leave now! Leave everything behind, it will only slow us down!"

Bria began to ask questions, but Kathia quickly did as she was instructed. When the two were ready, Atheria led them down the stairs and out the back door of the inn.

"Kathia! Bria!" A voice called out from behind them, inside the inn.

"Maygis," Kathia breathed in fear.

"Maygis!" Bria yelled, hearing the voice of the man she had missed beyond life itself. "Maygis!" She called again.

"Bria, no!" Atheria cried out as the woman began to run back to the inn.

A dark form appeared in the doorway of the inn. When he stepped out into the moonlight, they could see it was Maygis, glaring at the three women.

His eyes fell first on Bria, then on Tayne. His lips curled in disgust as he looked at the infant, wailing in his mother's arms.

"Useless to me," he muttered. He pushed Bria out of his way, knocking her down to the ground, clutching Tayne in her arms. He began to stride to Kathia, who stood close by Atheria.