Chapter XII - Nebulous is Stolen
The Legend of Leanna Page: Vol. I
You’re reading The Legend of Leanna Page, the page-turning mythopoetic queer literary fantasy. *Click here for the Table of Contents and start of Volume I*
Previously: Madrick and Lief agreed to be married! But Isolda has sworn to discover Leanna’s secrets and keep her away from the crown. What will Isolda find out? Will the wedding go off without a hitch? What will happen between Leanna and Kennedy? Read on!
“It really is to be a beautiful affair,” Leanna told her father over a bowl of vegetable stew after a long day of wedding preparations. “The courtyard will be draped in roses, and the central podium dressed in a fine summer satin. By the hour of the vows, the sun should be just behind the tops of the Infinites so that the courtyard is blanketed in the glorious shadow mosaic from the Leaves.”
“Thou dost paint a pretty picture,” Byrdon said, and Esta merely smiled with a nod, having heard all the same from the countless others who would be helping to set that scene come the wedding day.
“Madrick and Leif have asked that I perform in the ceremony as a member of their inner circle. I hope it’s alright that I said yes; I was far too overcome with happiness to hesitate.”
Esta’s smile grew, but Byrdon furrowed his brow.
“Isn’t it odd for a king to request that of a page?” he said. “Such a thing should not be listed among thy duties.”
“I would not be there as a servant, but as a friend.”
“A servant should never befriend a king. They will only ever be used and discarded, even if it is done kindly for a time.” The father allowed his idea of his own wisdom to lay a didactic tone over his speech. Leanna could not stand it.
“Madrick’s betrothed is a stablehand! He isn’t as you say, Father. I would know.”
“Love may blind him to the station of one peasant, but that will not change how he views the rest.”
“That’s absurd! This is Madrick Oxbien II, King for the Commoner; and he trusts me.”
Byrdon scowled, his pretense at wisdom falling away to distaste. “The trust of a king is nothing to be celebrated. It is revoked as quickly as it is given.”
“Madrick is not Petrenair. You cannot conflate the two.”
“A king is a king.”
Esta placed a hand on Byrdon’s knee. “Please, dear, this is a happy time in Masor. Whence comes thy distress?”
Byrdon flared his nostrils and sucked in a breath before replying, “Guiomar received an invitation to the wedding.” Esta sat back in surprise, and Byrdon continued. “As did Petrenair, and a number of Pavol lords and ladies.”
“It was only a courtesy,” Leanna explained. “We have not been presuming they would all attend, least of all Guiomar.”
“Well, the ‘courtesy’ was not taken as such, not by the prince.”
“How could he be angered by receiving a wedding invitation? We were afraid of offending the Pavols by not inviting them.”
“Child, think!” Byrdon said, desperately containing agitation. “The envelopes were not sealed save for a small ribbon, easily undone and retied.” Leanna nodded, having tied a great many of them herself. “The peasant messengers who delivered the invitations then, naturally, also read them. So they read of the Good King Madrick of Masor, Crown for the Commoner, who loves his everyperson so much that he would marry one! Word has spread throughout the kingdom, and day after day we receive notes from our lords that entire households under their domains have uprooted in favor of settling across the River to put their taxes in the pocket of a king who will care. And the land of Serenity! Why, the lord there himself has declared that everything south of Lifallen Creek now is loyal to New Masor. Petrenair does nothing, and Guiomar grows in his rage every day. He is certain this has all been a ploy to deplete the morale of Pavoline’s civilry.”
“But Byrdon, thou knowest such is not the truth,” Esta tried.
“It does not matter what I know,” he replied. “What Guiomar believes is all I am afforded by my position to consider.”
“He will not be attending, will he, Father?”
“Denying the opportunity to look his enemy in the eye? Use thy sense. With his cunning, and the king’s interest in shows of friendship, of course they will be attending.” Byrdon looked to his daughter with renewed care and fright. “The last thing I would wish is for Guiomar to see thee on the podium with the inner circle.”
“He would not know me.”
“Precisely. An unknown to him is no one worth sparing.”
Leanna looked intently to her soup.
“He would not risk violence so publicly,” Esta said.
“That is what concerns me all the more. During such a journey, he would control my every hour. I dread to think what he might ask of me.”
Leanna looked up. “If he asked of you evil, you would refuse.”
“Child, thou dost underestimate the control a sovereign has over their servant.”
“Am I not a servant myself?”
“Not to a wicked man,” the father replied.
Esta spoke. “Byrdon, fear not. I too have concerns with Isolda. She will say nothing, but she is far from pleased with the happy circumstances. Nevertheless, we cannot trouble ourselves so with the distasteful qualities of our sovereigns. We hold more knowledge of the greatest danger in this world than any of the royals above us could dream to know.” Leanna perked up with interest but retreated into quiet. She understood the importance of the Jewel they kept hidden away, but still burned with mysterious questions, even as simple as its very location, to which she had lost hope of being permitted to know the answers. Her mother continued. “Perhaps the prince shall ask of thee terrible deeds, my love, but they shall be nothing compared to the worst. Whatever they may be, after their completion, thy family will be waiting hither to welcome and absolve thee with open arms. My sole concern is that we stay together. Together we can keep one another safe, no matter the obstacles.”
Byrdon smiled, taking Esta’s hand, but Leanna turned her gaze down and occupied herself outwardly by stirring her stew. She was not certain she shared her mother’s priorities. While she too hated the thought of their separation, it was unclear to her how she might look her father in the eye if he aided in any of Guiomar’s evil doings.
In truth, they knew nothing of the lengths to which Guiomar would go to avenge Pavoline. In his mind, not only now was Masor responsible for the death of his mother, but too, with their conniving, peasant-loving king, they were tricking the uneducated villagers into crossing the Gwahanu. He fumed at their unending success in growing ever stronger at Pavoline’s expense. He pleaded with his father to retaliate, send forces to reclaim the land below Lifallen at least!, but the tired old man would hear none of it, loathe to perform any but his most essential duties, content to spend the remainder of his time in lost memories of his queen, and, Guiomar thought, imaginations of joyous hours with the son he would never have.
After receiving notice of another cohort of Pavols leaving the kingdom, after more than a month of the same, and the same, and the same, Prince Guiomar burst forth with impatience upon his father in his apartment, pointing towards him with the most recent billet.
“You are the king! You must put an end to this,” he said.
Without pause, Petrenair chuckled and said, “I wish thou couldst recall when thy mother taught me to play lilypads. Never could I manage to win, no matter how she tried to let me. My little tantrums brought the most humble and beauteous smile to her face.”
“The villagers, Father. What are you going to do about the deserting villagers?”
“I don’t believe I’ve played it since we lost her. Should we give it a go now? The game board should still be in thy mother’s closet.”
“Petrenair!” The aging prince was shaking in rage.
The king turned calmly to face him. “Yes, my son?”
“Our kingdom will shrivel into nothing if you do not act. Our farmers are leaving their lands. Soon, we’ll have no one to perform the harvest.”
“When we visit them for the wedding at the beginning of the season, we can request aid from the Masorians. They will not allow us to starve.”
“That damned wedding is the only reason we would require it.”
“All the same.”
Guiomar uttered a sound of deep distress. “If you are to place us so under their care, you may as well hand them the rule of our kingdom!”
“If the people love them so, then perhaps that is precisely what I should do.”
Guiomar stepped back from the king. “You are mad.”
“Son, please—”
“You are mad!” and the prince stormed out of the chambers, the door crashing shut behind him. At last, the inevitable was all too clear to Guiomar. It was entirely his responsibility now to save the kingdom of Pavoline, and he would not fail it, no matter the cost.
*****
When Spring’s final bud had given way to a new Summer’s bloom, a small caravan from the castle at Pavoline set off on the long road to Masor. Byrdon bid a long farewell to his loved ones before accompanying his prince on the journey. The gentry and royalty among the party slept often in their carriages, but the servants and drivers slept only every other night when they would set up camp and rest some hours. On their final night of rest before arriving in Masor’s citadel, Guiomar waited awake into the twilight, then called to his servant.
“Yes, my liege?” Byrdon answered upon entering the prince’s tent. He stood tired, though at attention. He was unable to deduce the royal’s precise emotion. Guiomar seemed in a combined state of somber intensity and repressed, though giddy expectation.
“Tomorrow, at the wedding-eve feast,” Guiomar began, “my father intends to make a plea to Masor’s crown and vice-crown for aid. His blind allegiance to their friendship would cripple our kingdom in due time, and this I shall not allow. I require of thee a serious task that I would entrust to no other. While the kingdom feasts, I will have thee find every dark crevice of the castle, every secret it holds, and discover where lies the Masorians’ greatest weakness. Thou shalt discover my method of revenge,” he declared. Byrdon shuddered.
“Your highness, forgive me to speak plain, but I have not seen my family in a fortnight. I am weary, and not entirely in my best mind. I beg you not to ask of me anything rash that I have not the current capacity to refuse.”
“Fool, hast thou ever known me to be rash?” Byrdon couldn’t be sure of the most appropriate response, and in his silence, Guiomar went on. “Thou knowest this is no mere request.”
The servant sighed. “But I have never undertaken such a task. I would not know whither to begin.”
“I myself have not the answer, therein lies my order to thee,” Guiomar retorted. “Someplace Masor must have its fragile fault. I need only one thing that can completely destroy them.”
Suddenly, at the prince’s words and entirely devoid of his own will, Byrdon’s mind conjured an image of the all-powerful Jewel that resided in secret so near his own chambers. He masked his remembrance just as soon as the danger of it brushed his consciousness, but that left moment enough for Guiomar to see his solution lay already in his servant’s understanding.
“Speak, Byrdon,” he commanded.
With meek hesitation, the servant replied, “Speak of what, sire?”
“Thou knowest well, yet I do not; an entirely unacceptable arrangement.”
“I only think of my fear of being caught were I to risk such a task, although I will attempt it regardless, in your service.” Byrdon bowed and tried to leave.
“If thou liest again, I shall kill thee hither.”
Byrdon froze. “Your highness—”
“Proceed cautiously,”
So Byrdon proceedeth not.
The prince continued. “Thou wilt not leave this tent until thou hast spoken the truth. If thou speakest untrue, thou wilt not leave this tent at all. And thou knowest I speak only the truth to thee. Thou hast shown great loyalty throughout the years; prove it unquestionably now. Tell me what thou dost know, and thy reward will be grand.”
Byrdon thought of his dear Leanna, the danger she may yet face, and he thought of his beloved Esta, her promise of love and absolution singing comfort to the pounding in his ears. His memory lingered on the prince’s last words, telling of a grand reward, and he imagined a true home in Pavoline where his family could be secure and cared for, no longer needing to serve any kings. At long last, he spoke.
“I know of a weapon.”
“I already have a weapon.”
“This one is stronger.”
Guiomar’s eyes burned in anticipation. “What is it?”
Byrdon hesitated but told himself Esta would understand. “It’s a Jewel,” he said. “With great power.”
The prince drew closer. “Tell me everything.”
“I must admit to knowing nothing of its mechanics but, somehow, it gives its possessor ultimate command over the Skies. If you seek one object of absolute destruction, this Jewel would be the answer to your call.”
“Thou dost not perchance know whither it resides?” Guiomar said, his cheeks painfully repressing a grin.
“The dangers of this Jewel are no trifle, I would beg you—”
“Dost thou know?” The prince queried with growing intensity.
“Sire, please—”
“Speak, thou fool!”
“Yes!” Byrdon revealed. “I know.”
Guiomar’s grin broke free of its restraints, and he laughed. “Is it near?”
“I could retrieve it soon enough,” Byrdon shakily admitted.
“Go. Bring me this Jewel, and I shall make thee the richest lord in this land.”
The poor, exhausted servant, swimming in new dreams of comfort, freedom, and a safe home for his family, took little more than a moment’s thought to promise: “Yes, my liege.”
“Go!” Guiomar bellowed, and Byrdon ran off.
He ran towards Masor, fleeing with just sufficient speed so that every regretful thought which occurred to him was left unheard in the dust behind. He reached the city in the dead of night and saw again the moon that had first called him to Esta’s side. Surely it would not lead him astray now. Byrdon repressed all feelings of pain and exhaustion, seeking tirelessly for Esta’s old well which would lead him homeward. He turned down every corner and walked in full every street, and finally, on his third pass of the primary market road, he saw, with fresh moonlight, a break in the endless stone buildings and, turning into its hidden alley, found the ivy strewn well, bucket line falling downward into the mouth of a cave. He drew up the rope and lowered himself down as Esta had always described.
They were perfect in their sleep; peaceful. The father gazed upon his beloved little family in their cots and thought of the future they may yet have together. He knelt before Esta and placed a light kiss upon her brow, and as he rose, he felt her gentle touch stay his hand.
“Byrdon,” she whispered with barely unclosed eyes, “is it thee?”
He smiled and knelt again beside her.
“Wherefore art thou returned so soon? I thought I would see thee in Masor before I saw thee again hither.”
At his elongated silence, she found her alertness and looked to him with more love and compassion than he could bear. He could not lie to her.
He told her of Guiomar’s designs and his promise of lordship in exchange for the Jewel of Nebulous. Byrdon felt the snake of guilt constrict his innards as he watched Esta’s expression sharpen to exude fear and pain.
“Thou spokest of the Jewel to Guiomar?”
“I had no choice. It was on my life.” He spoke in whispers, endeavoring not to wake Leanna, whose cot lay but paces away.
“We cannot give Guiomar that power,” Esta replied.
“And why? With it, he will do harm only to Masor while Pavoline thrives. Leanna and thee will travel with me to Pavoline where you will live in comfort all your days. This is the only way we may be free.”
“Masor is my homeland. I shall not forsake it.”
“But thither thou art only a servant. In Pavoline thou couldst be a lady.”
Esta grimaced. “What need I of ladyship when I have happiness?”
“This is not happiness, this life. We deserve more than to live underground with our lives dictated by those above.”
“I do not wish for more!” Esta stifled a cry. “I wish for thee, and Leanna, alive and well and unchanged. How couldst thou betray us so?” Her voice rose and Leanna stirred, though the child’s eyes remained unopened.
Byrdon’s voice began to shake. “My dear, please, I do this not to betray thee but to secure thy only wish that we be not parted.”
Esta rose from the bed and stood in the center of the chamber gazing around at the life they had built. Her breath quickened with every inhalation, and she spun to Byrdon.
“Thou dost not understand what thou hast done!”
He met her gaze as his heart rate mimicked her own. “I have served at the hand of wickedness for so many years with only the desire to love and protect thee. Of course, I understand the gravity of my actions; I think thou dost not see the gravity of the reward.”
“Thy reward will be a close companionship with death and destruction. Thy reward will be our downfall, and to know thou wert the cause!”
“The reward will be my life.”
“Not a life with me,” Esta declared. He stared to her with disbelief.
“My love, if I do not return to Guiomar with the Jewel he will certainly have me killed.”
“Then do not return to him at all.”
“I know his secrets. He will not cease his searching until I am found, and I am dead.”
“Then let me protect thee!”
He shook his head decisively. “I cannot ask thy protection from an evil I could avoid bringing upon us.” Byrdon stormed past Esta and began digging bags of grain away from the opening which led to the Jewel's chamber, continuing through her wailings and pleas. When at last the bright cerulean light flooded through a clear opening, Byrdon looked a moment to Esta who then seized him, wrapping him in her arms and raining tears onto his chest. Though his heart ached, he thought of the alternative to his success and walked on into the tunnel, leaving a shaken Esta standing behind. Esta turned her gaze to Leanna who, for what the mother knew, lay soundly asleep. She turned again, following Byrdon to the Jewel’s dreaded chamber, and Leanna unclosed her eyes.
The girl lay curled in bed, wildly awake, eyes drying from opening so wide. She listened as her mother screamed at volumes yet unreached and her father revealed cowardice yet unshown. She had come from a dream with Kennedy who must now be worried as to the late disturbance. What could she tell her? A sickness started in Leanna’s stomach and her hands grew cold gripping the comforter. She pinched her eyes shut and Dawn’s visage appeared before her. She watched him nicker softly. His sight seemed the only calming presence in a newly terrifying world.
“Byrdon, look around thee!” Esta exclaimed, gesturing to the murals on the chamber wall. “The man I love could never condemn our world to such a fate.”
“Thy love will absolve me, that was thy oath.”
“It matters not the extent of my love. No love can absolve thee of this.”
“I have no choice!”
“Leave the Jewel in its place, that is thy choice. We have no way to know the outcome of removing the Jewel from its pedestal.”
“I know too well the outcome of failing Guiomar. His rage would endanger us all.”
“Better us than all of Masor,” Esta declared.
“No!”
“I implore thee! She has stayed free of it all these years; thou cannot risk her this way!”
Byrdon stopped, confused. “Who?”
Esta glanced to the dark antagonist of the murals and thought suddenly to tell him all and purge the fears she had kept hidden for so long, but a wave of distrust overcame her.
“I have to protect her,” she said and hurried from the chamber. She emerged from the tunnel and stopped cold in the center of the cavern, seeing her daughter’s cot empty, with blanket thrown off the side.
“Leanna!” Esta looked all round the small cavern home but found her daughter nowhere. As Byrdon emerged from the tunnel Esta turned to him with fright.
“Byrdon, she’s gone,” and, in a moment, both parents forgot every idea of the Jewel. Each bounded down separate tunnels in search of the child, calling her name, but soon met again in the central cavern, certain their daughter was nowhere within.
“Where could she be?” the father asked.
“Masor, I am certain,” Esta shook her head. “We should not have argued so loud.”
“We will find her,” he said, with a calming hand on her shoulder. Esta wrapped herself in her cape, and the couple set off together now towards Masor, Esta climbing first up the well then lowering the bucket for Byrdon behind her. He held onto her as he stumbled his final leg out of the basin, and just as he did so the pair caught a glimpse of the dim light from their cavern flickering, then extinguishing into darkness. At once, all the ground below them began to quake, and they leaned onto each other, as well as the stone, to look down and watch below as dirt was upturned and the familiar pathway sped away, new ground erupting in its place. They could all but feel their precious apartment disappear into the northern distance as the magic was sucked out of their home, and the short walk through their perfect caves was elongated into the weeks-long journey of the land above. The lovers stared down their well, unable to believe it.
“What was that?” Esta asked.
Byrdon whispered his response, hardly daring to admit it: “The outcome.”
She glared at him. “Tell me it isn’t so.”
Slowly, Byrdon reached into his pocket and removed a clump of cloth in his fist. As he opened his hand, the cloth fell open and revealed in his palm the Jewel of Nebulous.
“No!” Esta shoved him in his chest.
“Esta, please, thou must understand. Thou must forgive me.”
“I must do nothing of the kind. See what thy choices have caused? Our home is gone!” She scowled and pushed past him, striding into the dark empty street, lit only by the moon.
“My dear—”
She faced him, and her countenance of disgust nearly brought the lover to his knees. “Leave me, Byrdon,” she said.
“Let me help thee find Leanna,” he pleaded.
“I will find her. Thou goest to that prince of thine if thou must.”
“But I shall see thee again?”
Esta paused in her grief as she looked to the stars, confounded. Byrdon could not be clear of her answer. All she replied was, “If that Jewel ever comes near my child, I will never forgive thee,” then she turned a final time and bounded toward the castle.
“Esta!” He called, but she did not stop. He tried regardless to plead with the back of her hood. “Travel with me to Pavoline after the wedding. I beg thee, my love.”
But the cape merely went on into the darkness.
Meanwhile, Leanna had charged into the Masorian stables and, opening the door to Dawn’s stall, felt a sudden rush of dread as her knees fell out from beneath her. She knelt beside the resting steed, unfeeling yet with complete terror, knowing for certain what had just then taken place in the caves. Dawn whinnied and brought his nose down to the shaking girl, coaxing Leanna to lift her head. She threw her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder as he wrapped his chin around her back. It was here she sat, hopelessly trying to clear her mind as she watched her father in visions returning to Guiomar’s tent and showing the prince the Jewel of Nebulous. She watched Guiomar stand with eager anticipation and carefully approach the servant, reaching for the powerful gem he held in his hands. Leanna watched the prince take hold of the gem, enclosing it in his grasp. Small, pine-colored vines erupted from the Jewel, wedged out from between his fingers, and took hold in a locked spiral around his wrist. Within moments, a web of vines wound up his forearm and around his hand, holding the Jewel securely between the knuckles atop the prince’s fist. He let loose a laugh which mingled in dissonant harmony with the thunder he now forced from the clouds. At this, Leanna’s vision ended, and she turned swiftly away from Dawn as her dinner forced itself onto the stable floor.
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"With it, he will do harm only to Masor while Pavoline thrives. Leanna and thee will travel with me to Pavoline where you will live in comfort all your days. This is the only way we may be free."
Ah, good rationalization.