Birthright: The Crystal Throne - Book 1 Page 10

  As such, it was with great relief that almost three hours after they had entered the tunnel, they finally reached the end and Absalom halted the procession. Without looking back, he held his hand up above his shoulder to signal everyone to stay where they were. Arleth and the rest of the servants stopped where they were and waited for Absalom to open the portal. The servants were indifferent, they had seen this many times, but Arleth was practically jumping up and down with excitement. She desperately wanted to run up beside the king to watch what he was doing and get a closer look at how he opened the portal. It took all of her restraint to stay where she was, about 5 paces behind the king. She shuffled a bit to the side, practically standing on the person beside her in order to look around the king to what he was doing in front of him. The servant beside her looked at Arleth a bit curiously and moved over a few steps to give her room.

  Even with the new vantage point, Arleth was disappointed to discover that she still couldn’t see very much of what Absalom was doing. The way he was standing, with his feet firmly planted, shoulder-width apart, his body was effectively shielding what he was doing. She sighed sadly. Maybe if she craned her neck enough she could see around him. She took one more step to her right, and pivoted on her foot, craning her neck as far as it would go. It was at this moment, when she was outstretched most ungracefully and her face wore what could only be described as a constipated grimace, that she realized she was being watched. Her clumsy attempts to see what the king was doing had caught the attention of those servants standing nearest to her. They had all turned in her direction and were now staring at her.

  Arleth looked slowly around her at all the faces staring back at her and blushed.

  She silently chastised herself; what a great first impression she was making. Just wonderful! She was going to start off her new life in a new world with everyone thinking she was a lunatic. She smiled as endearingly as she could and fished around for something that she could say to redeem herself.

  “Kandahanana cruente tosk,” shattered the silence and saved Arleth from her embarrassed suffering.

  These certainly weren’t the words that Arleth had in mind, in fact she didn’t know what they meant or even what language they were in, but they probably worked better than anything she could have said. Absalom had begun to open the portal and with these strange words, a light had begun to appear in front of him. Although Arleth couldn’t be sure, the light looked to be originating from a small point directly in front of the king. Absalom turned and motioned to the Greken on his right and as he did so, Arleth was given a momentary glimpse of the king’s left arm. She saw that tattooed on his wrist, no bigger than a fingernail was a silver crystal. It was from this symbol that the light was emanating from. It started as a small beam of concentrated light coming from his wrist and as she watched, the beam moved of its own accord to outline a door in the wall of the tunnel.

  So this was how the Crystal Throne worked! Arleth was fascinated. The king’s own body served as the means to open the portal! Arleth had never imagined that the legendary Crystal Throne artefact would be the king himself. But if she thought about it, she guessed that it did make sense.

  Arleth was roughly jolted out of her reverie by a strong shove from behind. A greken had rushed up from behind her, not even noticing anything in its way as it hurried to stand at the king’s side. The force of the impact caused Arleth to lose her balance and she stumbled a couple of steps to the left, waving her arms wildly in an effort to stay on her feet. This she managed to do, but for a few seconds she remained disoriented. As it was, her eyes saw while her mind gradually comprehended, the portal opening in front of her, the light slowly outlining the shape of the door and finally the door now completely illuminated, burst open to reveal the Oherran landscape.

  Arleth, let out a gasp of excitement, which was quickly replaced by a small sigh of disappointment. She only had a brief glimpse of what was though the portal before it was quickly blocked by the burly bodies of the grekens who huddled together in front of the king. They formed a solid grey wall protecting the king from whatever possible danger could be awaiting him in Oherra.

  Although she had spent the day being chased by an Oherran assassin, this was the first time that Arleth had thought about how dangerous this new world could be. She had realized this of course, it would have been hard not to after the day she had, but before now her excitement had been so great as to drown any other feeling out. She had also realized although she tried not to think about it, that just because the assassin had failed to kill her the first time did not mean he wouldn’t try again. She was still very much in danger. If the man had chased her across the desert and through a whole city just to protect his identity he was not likely to give up so easily. She realized also that human assassins were most likely one of the least dangerous enemies on Oherra. There were bound to be hundreds of creatures on Oherra that Arleth had never even imagined existed, and Arleth was not naive enough to presume that they would all be friendly.

  For the moment though, Arleth felt relatively safe surrounded by all the other servants, the Grekens and the king. She felt herself begin to relax and it wasn’t long before her excitement had once again taken over and she was again anxiously awaiting when the Grekens would move out of the way and she could have her first real glimpse of Oherra.

  Unfortunately, the procession moved slowly and Arleth had somehow shifted farther back in line. This time, she resisted the urge to sway to the left or right to see around them, remembering what had happened last time. As patiently as she could, she slowly walked behind the servants in front of her, feeling quite proud of her restraint. After a few minutes, she reached the door of the portal and as the servants directly in front of her stepped through, Arleth gasped at the beautiful scene laid before her.

  The portal had opened on a small rise and so as the servants stepped out, they had stepped downwards, giving Arleth an unobstructed view. She was standing in a large circular valley about five miles in diameter. Surrounding the valley on all sides, enclosing it protectively was a wall of towering mountains. The tops of many were so tall that they were lost in the clouds. Arleth had never seen mountains so tall before, in fact she had never seen mountains before at all and she stared at them for a few seconds in amazement. She wondered how far the tallest of the mountains extended to, and what it would feel like to walk through the clouds.

  Returning her attention to the valley, she saw that directly in the middle, equidistant from the surrounding mountains stood Iridian Castle. As a young girl learning about the histories of the worlds, Arleth had imagined plenty of castles, her mind giving plausibility to the most impossible creations of her imagination. But Iridian Castle was unlike any castle that she had ever imagined. The castle itself was entirely white, a kind of material (Arleth had no idea what) that seemed to glow with an internal luminescence. The sun was high in the sky and was glittering brightly off of its surface. Surprisingly though, the effect was not blinding; the castle appeared almost to absorb the sun’s rays and cast them back out in a gentle ray of light. This gave the castle an ethereal quality that Arleth thought was wonderful; she thought it made the castle itself appear magical.

  Arleth looked closer at the castle, her eyes running over the details of the structure. The castle appeared to be composed of eight separate sections of all different shapes and sizes that were each connected at ground level to the ones beside them by tall clear tunnels. Dozens of towers came up from the castle, some emerging from on top of one of the sections, while others were built to rest against the main bulk of the castle. Connecting all the towers to each other and to the main buildings were layers of twisting pathways. They were clear, and appeared to be built of the same material as the tunnels. But what was so fascinating to Arleth was that they connected the towers and buildings outside! The pathways ran at all different levels, some close to the ground, while others were hundreds of feet in the air. The ones higher up appeared to be completely enclosed while tho
se nearer to the ground looked to be open, almost like a normal road back home on Tocarra.

  Even more remarkable was a waterfall right in the middle of the castle. It appeared to have its base in a central courtyard but how it was standing there with no supporting mountain or water reserve Arleth had no idea. It appeared to just be hanging in the sky. Arleth was certain that this was created from magic, there was no way such a thing could exist otherwise. There was a brilliant rainbow gleaming in front of the waterfall. Her eyes followed it downwards to the base of the waterfall which was hidden by the walls of the courtyard. But she could see four openings in the wall through which four rivers of water burst forth. Once outside the courtyard, they each turned sharply from their central joining at the base of waterfall to cut across the valley, one flowing in each direction; east, west, south and north, dividing the valley into four sections. Arleth could not see where the rivers ended but she thought that they would probably end at the mountains, and she imagined, they would likely end as surreptitiously as they had began.

  Arleth heard some mutterings behind her and she turned to look at a row of angry servants who were gesturing to each other and glaring at her. Arleth had been standing still while she was looking around her and now she was holding up the procession. She smiled embarrassedly and hurried down the slope after those in front that had continued walking and had left her behind.

  For the next hour or so she walked, following those in front of her and although she didn’t stop again, she couldn’t keep from glancing constantly around her to take in as much of the scenery as she could. Unfortunately though, crammed as she was between rows of servants and now on flat land, she couldn’t see very much of the valley around her. What she did notice though were the thousands of soldiers and Grekens strewn around the valley. Some were stationed near the mountains as if standing on guard from something beyond them. Others were sitting in small circles eating, resting or sharpening weapons. While yet others were in squadrons running through drills and daily exercises. It seemed clear to Arleth that Oherra was at war. There was a tense air among the soldiers, made even more palpable as the King strode through. Every soldier, be it Greken or man was alert. Even those who were resting or eating had their weapons close at hand and seemed ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

  Arleth realized now even more than before that she had gotten herself into something very dangerous. This was not child’s play, it was not a joke. Going into Oherra was not all fun and games and excitement. Not that realizing this made her regret her decision in the least. She would have taken almost anything over having to spend the rest of her life as a slave to Bella. But more than that, she had yearned for adventure and magical worlds ever since she was a little girl learning about them from her teachers in the orphanage. It was childish to assume that such adventure would come without danger and Arleth realized that deep down she had already known and accepted this risk when she had first stepped out of Toccara and entered the portal.

  When they reached the doors to the castle, the procession halted. Absalom called one of his servants over to him; a slight girl no older than Arleth with long auburn hair and a freckly face. The girl nodded, and with a small bow, turned away from him and made her way over to Arleth.

  “The king wants me to show you to your quarters and give you a tour of the castle. Please come with me.”

  “Ok,” Arleth nodded. Absalom had gone off to the side a few feet and was conversing in muted tones with two of his Grekens and with a towering giant of a man who had appeared out of nowhere. The rest of the servants, having reached their home had all dispersed. Most had gone into the castle, but some had remained outside, hurrying to whatever task they had yet to do.

  With no further words, the girl turned and walked into the castle and Arleth hurried after her.

  * * *

  It had taken Arleth all but five minutes to realize that her tour guide had next to no personality. Her first hint had come a few seconds after their meeting when Arleth, striding beside the girl, introduced herself and asked the girl what her name was. The girl had looked at her curiously for a few moments and then said, as if Arleth had asked the most ridiculous question in the world, “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.” Arleth had been taken aback by this answer, but assumed that maybe the girl just had a quirky sense of humour. Arleth had tried again. But after two further minutes in which Arleth’s friendly conversation had been met with nothing but silence, Arleth had come to the conclusion that the girl had the personality of a floor mat. Arleth had not tried to initiate conversation a third time and instead had walked beside the girl in silence.

  They were now standing in a long narrow room, lined on both sides by rows of single beds. The girl was standing at the door waiting for Arleth to look around. She seemed utterly uninterested in what Arleth was doing and was instead looking out the nearest window sleepily. Arleth walked down the rows of beds until she came to one that looked untouched. There were no clothes laid out on it and it did not appear to have been slept in. Although the girl hadn’t said anything beyond, “You can find a bed here,” Arleth presumed that since there was nothing on this bed that she could take it. Arleth sat down on it for a few moments, bouncing up and down. She hadn’t slept in a bed in seven years; not since she had been in the orphanage. Bella had had her sleep on the hall floor outside her bedchamber. Beside each bed was a small table with a lamp and two drawers. Arleth was a bit disappointed that she didn’t have anything to put in them as she had been forced to leave everything behind when she fled the orphanage and Bella had certainly given her nothing to keep. What would she use then to mark this bed as her own? She looked at her clothes to see if there was something she could take off to put on the bed. But all she was wearing was the ugly brown dress that had served as her only clothes for the last seven years. She looked over at the girl and decided to ask her a question.

  “Are there clothes for me to wear? Like a uniform or something. I noticed that all the servants wear the same clothes.” The girl turned from the window to stare at her. She stayed like this, just looking at Arleth for a few seconds and then replied, “In the drawer.” The girl returned to looking out the window.

  What a ridiculously odd girl Arleth thought to herself. She bent down and opened the top drawer and saw that there was indeed a pair of clean, neatly folded clothes. She supposed that this bed had been meant for her then. It would have been nice of the girl to tell her this! Arleth picked up the clothes and held them up, admiring them. They weren’t much, just a light blue dress with a white sash that tied at the waist. But to Arleth they were the first new clothes she had seen in seven years and she thought they were marvellous. She contemplated asking the girl to leave the room when she changed, but she realized that the girl was paying her absolutely no attention so it really didn’t matter. Happily, Arleth slipped out of the filthy brown bag-like dress and into her new clothes. Compared to her old attire, the dress was soft against her skin. She tied the sash around her waist and did a small turn, watching as the bottom of the dress twirled around her knees as she moved. Arleth smiled to herself contentedly. She left the brown dress on the bed and looked again at the girl staring out the window. She noticed that the girl was wearing leather sandals on her feet. How nice it would be to have shoes again! Arleth thought to herself. Rather than ask the taciturn girl any more questions, Arleth opened the bottom drawer and found to her delight a pair of sandals resting inside. She slipped them on and tied up the leather laces. They fit quite nicely. Smiling, Arleth took a few moments to bounce up and down on the bed a couple more times and to stare admiringly at her shoes before walking over to join the girl by the door.

  The rest of her tour continued very much like the first part had. Aside from a few perfunctory comments to point out the rooms they were passing the girl walked beside Arleth in silence. Although Arleth wished the girl was friendlier as she had a million and one questions to ask, Arleth was also happy to just look arou
nd and absorb what she saw.

  What struck Arleth almost at once, was how large the castle really was. From the outside it had looked enormous, but walking around its mazelike corridors from the inside made it seem like just crossing from one end to the other was an endless journey. And that was just the parts that Arleth was shown. The girl had stopped outside a massive oak door that screened off an entire wing of the castle explaining, in one of her more chatty moments that “This is the chamber of the king. No one is allowed in there. Only when we are invited do we go there.”

  Furthermore, Arleth, much to her dismay had not been taken to any of the towers and so she had not had the chance to travel on any of the twisting outdoor pathways she had seen from the valley. When she had inquired about this she had a received a flat, “No, off bounds.” This off course had made Arleth even more curious and she had secretly sworn to herself that before the week was up she would try and sneak into one of the towers. She not only wanted to walk on one of the pathways swirling through the clouds, but now that it was off limits, she wanted to know what secrets, if any, were hidden there.

  Another part that Arleth had been particularly fascinated by was the courtyard, where the enormous waterfall had its base. Arleth had vaguely seen it from the valley, but at such a distance she couldn’t make out very much. But now up close, she had clearly seen all the details and they had taken her breath away. The waterfall formed a giant pool in the centre of the courtyard, and as she had seen from the valley, it exited the courtyard from four separate archways in the wall. The pool was clear and sparkling and there were a few women swimming lazily through it. The girl had explained that this was the courtyard for the king’s harem and only they were allowed to swim in the pool. Arleth had no idea what a harem was and she didn’t bother to ask. The girl had looked a bit angry when she said this and Arleth guessed that whatever a harem was, this girl was not part of it. Arleth hadn’t given it much attention anyways she didn’t really care, as she didn’t like swimming. Her attention had already turned to the luscious garden spread all around the pool. To Arleth, this was much more interesting.