Chapter XVIII - Friends, Enemies
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 Isolda each swore to take the other’s power, a glint of hope was found for Masor at the Gwahanu River, and Leanna finally met Kennedy - now the heir to the Queen of Alquoria - in the Forest of Lufian, but they were seen there together by Kn. Degora. Leanna was forced to confess all of the truth to Madrick who had her locked away for treachery. Will Leanna escape? Will she and Kennedy be together? Is Byrdon safe in Pavoline? Read on!
After Leanna was marched from the throne room, Madrick stood painfully still while Isolda ordered Esta to get hence, and the distressed mother flew from the room. Once Esta had gone, Isolda turned to Madrick and expressed her assumption that, given the night’s discovery, he must intend to rescind his recent proclamations.
“No,” he said. “All I spoke to the lagifs remains true, Isolda. Whatever the knights collect at the Gwahanu will be allocated equally to all no matter their rank, only now the force will be led by Kn. Pouray instead of…” his voice trailed off but the princess knew well of whom he spoke. Madrick returned to his seat on the throne and rested his eyes on a tired palm while Isolda berated him with a multitude of reasons why he was a fool to disregard the gentry, not to mention the insult it was to let her own royal skills go unutilized. Although it may have felt otherwise to the princess, Madrick truly had been paying her an ear until now when he felt a strange, though painless, sensation at his temple as though something were pulling on his mind.
Madrick, he heard, and jolted his gaze to his sister who looked to him expectantly.
“Madrick,” she said. “Are you listening?”
He said nothing, and as Isolda’s lips began again to move he heard instead entirely separate words from a distinctly separate voice.
My liege, please. I must speak with you. You cannot leave me in here, I despise confinement.
Madrick held up a hand to Isolda, entreating silence, as he rose from his chair and strode to a corner of the chamber.
“Leanna?” he said.
“The page again. What of her?” Isolda inquired.
You do hear me, Madrick.
“Quiet Isolda, she speaketh to me.” He felt his brow.
“You can hear her? In your head?” The princess walked round the king as though expecting to find Leanna in his ear. He turned from her.
“Speak not to me with thy magic, traitor,” Madrick growled.
Then hear me in the cells and I shall have no need. In all these years, I have earned that at least.
Strong as he struggled against it, the king could not help hearing the voice of a troubled friend.
“Come, Isolda,” he said, and he started toward the dungeon.
When Leanna saw the two royals approach, she stood and placed a hand on the bars of her cell.
“King.” Then in a lower, quite unhappy register, she added, “Princess.” Isolda crossed her arms and stood beside her brother.
“What is this, Leanna?” Madrick scowled.
“You must know, sire, that I am not such a danger to the public that I must be hidden away. If you hate me so, banish me, but lock me not behind bars.”
The king endeavored to speak but Isolda answered in his place. “The concern is not how thou might harm some peasant, but how the diffusion of thy knowledge and ideas might harm the Crown.”
“Foolhardy!” Leanna laughed. “There is nothing in my mind that cannot reach beyond confinement.”
“Can it reach beyond death?” Isolda asked.
“We have not discussed such things,” Madrick broke in.
Leanna quieted, watching intently as the royals turned to one another.
The princess was evidently decided. “Brother, for what other cause would we have detained the traitor if not to hold her for an execution?”
Madrick’s brow grew tight, and his breath unsteady. “I had not considered it.”
“You still care for the child,” Isolda realized with disdain. “You are of no mind to be deciding upon the necessary verdicts.”
Images flashed before Leanna’s vision of her father in his cell in Pavoline. Guiomar was approaching with the glint of expectation in his eye. Leanna shook herself back to her own place, her own cell.
“I am of perfect mind, Isolda, and I wish us to not be hasty in this matter.”
“There is no matter, Madrick. Our law is clear on the sentence for treachery, and you have recently reminded us both about the importance of the crown abiding by its own laws.”
“Perhaps a trial—”
Guiomar’s voice rang in Leanna’s ear, speaking to Byrdon. “Tell me what thou knowest of the fairies of the Wood.”
Leanna watched her father raise a daring chin. “A respectable Pavol hath no knowledge of them at all, sire,” he said.
“Thou art no respectable Pavol.”
“A trial would reveal nothing we have not already tonight been acquainted with,” Isolda said. “The same decision falls upon us.”
“Upon me, Isolda,” Madrick said.
Byrdon: “Why, King, would you desire it?”
Guiomar smiled.
Madrick: “What if there were some manner in which we could make use of her abilities, same as we do the mystical glass?”
“There would be no way of assuring she did not them use them against us!”
“We do not, in truth, understand her full intentions.”
Guiomar’s smile widened and voice whispered low: “Knowledge of my intentions is for myself alone, and then for my knights as soon as I can provide greater intelligence of my desired target.”
Byrdon: “I have no reason to help you.”
“Thou dost know of them then.”
“If I did?”
“What if it meant thy freedom?”
Isolda: “‘An opportunity for redemption’!? Brother, be reasonable.”
Leanna realized she was hearing two conversations at once, and missing things.
“She is the reason I am a king, Isolda, even if it was done through treachery.”
“Absurd. You are a king because you are the first-born of the Oxbiens.”
“You should know best of all it is not so simple.”
Byrdon: “Do you truly swear it?”
“On my honor as a king.”
“And everything I know of you; you’ll free me despite it?”
“With the understanding, of course, if it is revealed, I no longer have reason to allow thee to live.” After a nod from his prisoner, King Guiomar asked, “Is our bargain struck?”
“Very well.”
“Good. A scribe will record thy knowledge throughout the night, and I shall make arrangements for thy release in the morning.”
Madrick, conceding: “Perhaps it would be right for me to give you this choice, Isolda. I fear, despite it all, my care for her remains.” The king glanced to his page, but her eyes were unseeing, lost in the horror of her visions from Pavoline.
“That is wise, brother. Of course, the execution order shall require your seal.”
Having left the cells, Guiomar turned to the knight standing guard.
The king of Masor looked down in pain at Isolda’s words, then nodded, turning away from the cage.
Guiomar: “At first light, after the scribe completes his task, take the prisoner to the western bastion and toss him off the side into the Forest of Beasts. Just ensure that he dies.”
“No!” Leanna screamed, returning from her visions in a paroxysm of distress.
“Silence, page. Thy fate is sealed,” Isolda declared.
“I must go to Pavoline.”
“Ha!” the princess exclaimed in victory. “So the traitor doth confess.”
Leanna fumed at the plain miscontrual. “This is out of no loyalty the wicked king.” She turned her plea to Madrick. “I have just seen it now; he is going to kill my father.”
Madrick gave her half a gaze, confounded and unwillingly sympathetic.
“As would we,” Isolda rejoined, “If we controlled his custody.”
Gripping the bars of her cell, Leanna kept her gaze to Madrick. “Please, sire.” She turned her eyes down regretfully. “It is my own doing that brought Guiomar to his current dominion. I cannot now see him take a life so dear to me, not after all our family has endured, not after all I have witnessed already.”
“Then don’t watch,” Isolda said, and turned, ushering her brother out of the dungeons.
“He is going to invade the Wood!” The royals stopped and turned to her with skeptical curiosity. “He said as much, I saw it now. One day, if he decides to use the Jewel against it, he even may succeed. If you cannot bring yourselves to care that an entire people might be destroyed in his quest, at the least have concern that Guiomar’s influence could grow so vast.”
“How would thou saving thy father prevent this?” the king asked.
“My father and I know every crime which that king means to keep from his people. More even than you, Oxbiens.” Isolda raised a brow, but kept silent. “If I could only prevent him from destroying us, we might reveal all. Pavoline would rebel against him.”
The princess shook her head, reasoning, “There is no knowing who might rise in his place. Such an event may bring Masor only more destruction.”
Madrick flinched in disagreement. “More destruction than Guiomar Ranzentine?”
“We cannot be certain! If Pavoline did rebel, some uneducated peasant might take the throne.”
“That would be more terrible to you than our current circumstances?” Madrick was astonished.
Isolda scoffed. “I will not deign to diplomacy with some rebel commoner who has no right to the throne.”
“No matter, as you are only Vice-Crown I shall see to it you would have no need.”
She grew grave. “Do not be silly, brother.”
“If there is opportunity, at so little risk to ourselves, to remove Guiomar from power we have every responsibility to allow the attempt. In the name of King Petrenair, at least!”
“You are speaking of freeing a traitor.”
“I am speaking of freeing of the world.”
“I forbid this, Madrick.”
“As Crown, I disagree.” He strode to a fixture on the dungeon wall and took up from it the keys to the cells.
“No,” Isolda tried. “No!”
But the king was resolute. He unlocked the cage and held the swinging bars aside for Leanna as she ran out between the royals and down to the end of hall.
“Leanna!” Madrick called, and she stopped, turning to him with a hint of gratitude, expecting the spark of friendship to be reignited in his eyes. She was dispirited then to see the sorrow they instead beheld. “Death upon thy return,” he told her.
She absorbed the sentence with a weight on her chest that nearly downed her, but, with all strength and stoicism, she took a sharp inhale, straightened, nodded, and flew from the dungeon. The Oxbiens exchanged neither word nor glance as they themselves exited and retired into their own chambers, sinking into their own thoughts.
The heart-aching page, with now no such employment, thought little on the particulars of whither her feet took her, only that they led away from the castle, and swiftly. More swiftly, in truth, than was perfectly possible. If she was to save her father, it would be imperative that she manage a journey in a single night that it was unheard of to complete in under a fortnight. Then she thought of the caves. Since they no longer held their magic from the Jewel, the time to travel them would be the same as the road above, but there would be no hills or turns or well-intentioned villagers to slow her. She had surprised herself with her speed before, perhaps, with her every mightiest effort, incessantly maintained, she could bring herself to her destination in time. She forced the impossibility of it out of her mind. It was her only choice.
She started down the large market road, turning off where she knew the secret entrance to be hidden. Stopping before the well, pulse running wild, she examined the thick ivy that had grown in every crevice of its stones. Despite the terrible inconvenience of the occasion, she had to confess it was rather beautiful in the moonlight.
Having at last managed to pry the bucket free and having taken it to the bottom of the cave, Leanna began to run. The caves were nothing but darkness and Leanna implored her mind to lose all its sense of space and pain as she ran like never a human dared try run before. Her legs wailed and a sharpness in her side began to shriek, but she paid it no heed. She gave all her thought to the darkness; or so she tried. In all of her years, the life she knew lay consistently on fragile footing. To be found as a child had caused upheaval enough, but now, more, she had been found out. What was left for her to do? Whither was she to go?
Pavoline. Nowhere else was of any consequence. If she could only save her father, and then the world, from Guiomar’s control, perhaps her family might all be whole again. They could leave the royals behind, maybe join the River Dwellers at the Gwahanu straight. They could live in peace. They could be happy. It was the only future she could conjure where her life maintained any of its former normality.
If she could only stop the king…
After what might have been moments or hours, Leanna fell to her knees, her wrists painfully finding the dirt of the floor. She stared into the darkness and watched as images of the Pavoline castle intermingled with those Masor, flashing between royals, friends and enemies all the same, and wondered how any of them, in truth, might be capable of bringing about a lasting wellness to the world; if, even, they would ever make an honest attempt.
In the caves, Leanna grasped the vial of water from the Aldorian Pool she still wore on the long chain hidden beneath her shirt, remembering what goodness, even if small, some kings could indeed be capable of. Perhaps, if she succeeded now, she might regain the trust of the one who had been her friend.
Leanna raised her gaze, remaining in the dirt, and suddenly discovered a slight, dim, flickering glow pulsing all around her. With a sigh, she realized she could see through it the outlines of cots and pots and bookshelves, the furnishing of the cavern of her early youth, and she understood suddenly that she had already come to be directly under the Gwahanu. She wondered now whether she had managed the impossible speed, or if the long caves had managed – without the source of their magic – to shorten themselves in her aid. Not stopping to question it now, she implored any magic the caves could hold to help her fly, and she started off again, indeed at a speed closer to flying than she had ever imagined. Her boots remained plodding on the ground, but Leanna was certain she felt the wind at her back.
At last, she emerged from behind the thicket that hid the Pavoline entrance to the caves, and she looked for a brief moment at the Infinites who were beginning to be silhouetted against the rising sun. She continued on now, running through the unfamiliar streets of Pavoline, vaguely remembering the wide path lined with the merchants opening their shops which would lead her to the castle. As she ran, she kept half a mind trained on her father as the knight unlocked his cell and began to lead him out of the dungeon.
“Would you care for a pair of fairy-wings, girl?” The croaky voice of a merchant jolted her from her steady path. She looked, appalled, at the small green wings, pale from death, that the old woman held out in her path. “A secret import from Masor. Some may hate you for wearing such a charm, but it is said it will bring you strength!”
Leanna meant to curse her in disgust but the merchant’s poor, large eyes halted her spiteful tongue. She settled simply to confirm the path to the castle, and the woman pointed in the direction she had been headed. Thankful, Leanna disguised her contempt in a smile and continued on.
She stopped short just steps before the gate that would bring her into the courtyard of the palace.
“Dost thou mean to enter?” A guard queried, but she merely stood gawking at the wood, her countenance full of anguish and disbelief. She watched now in visions as her father fell from the castle tower, the knight’s poignard falling with him, the blade pierced fatally through her father’s heart. She watched as the light in his eyes flickered out, and his body crashed into the forest below. The image of it was seared into her memory. Awakening from her daze, she pounded her heel into the center of the gate, and, with the aid of a sudden wind, the doors crashed open. She stormed inside.
“Guiomar! Whither art thou? Murderer, face thy crimes!”
The guard who had spoken to her before hurried now to her side, warning, “Hast thou gone mad? He is the king.”
“He is a plague on this land,” she replied, and several servants and merchants began to gather and observe, chattering to one another in amazement. The guard said nothing; he only stood at attention and faced the steps of the palace entrance as King Guiomar walked out upon the landing, having heard the commotion. Leanna looked him directly in the eye.
“This king hath no right to the throne!” she said. “Petrenair himself revoked it upon discovering the consequences of his son’s wickedness.” Gasps and whispers rippled through the crowd, now joined by a handful of wary knights. “If only the good king hadn’t been murdered – by his own son! – perhaps his plans to appoint a separate successor might have been carried out.”
“She lieth! Who is this menace?” Guiomar demanded of his knights, feigning innocence so well as ignorance. They all shook their heads, unknowing. “Seize her,” he commanded. The girl remained strong against the now familiar sensation of knights restraining her biceps. She suddenly felt her journey’s end might be coming near and it brought her an unexpected calm.
“Do away with me, your highness, but you can never do away with the truth. Mine is not the first father you have killed, and yours was not the first king.”
“Take her away. Her senses have evidently taken their leave.”
Leanna allowed herself to be guided below the castle, beaming at the image she left in her wake of a distrustful people looking unsure at their fuming king.
She was tossed once more into a dark cell, shivering at the touch of the stones, cold and damp, unlike those of the previous eve which had been dried and warmed by the heat of Masor. She heard the king’s footsteps booming down the dungeon corridor.
“Thee,” Guiomar snarled, instantly having recognized Leanna, the page with the curious ability to always be where she should not.
“I am grieving my father this day. Let me be.” She disregarded his approach, closing her eyes, sitting with pride upon the ground.
“Let thee be?!” Guiomar laughed and spun away before returning to face his prisoner. “Byrdon’s child, a Masorian? Still, I should have guessed it,” he snarled. “Who else would spin wild accusations of murder in front of my people? But hast thou not been in Masor – how couldst thou have known so instantly of his death?”
Leanna remained with unopened eyes, saying nothing.
Guiomar brought his snarl nearer and wrapped his right hand around a bar of the cell, growling, “Dost thou think lowly pages can deny me my reign?”
A glint of the sunrise shone through a crack in the dungeon stones and reflected off the Jewel of Nebulous as it sat atop the king’s fingers. The light fell upon Leanna’s eye, persuading them to open. She stared at the gem in contempt, every inch of her burning to take the Jewel from him so she might crush the object of wickedness beneath her heel. The pounding of her heart compelled her to obey her instincts and she stood, taking a step toward the bars, but Guiomar stepped back, the Jewel then moving out of reach as the king attempted to mask his being startled by the actions of a measly servant. Leanna tore her gaze from the Jewel and gave it menacingly to the king as he cautiously spoke on, quiet enough that none of the guards in the hall could understand the words.
“My comfort in this,” he said, “is I am privileged to watch as you realize all your precious truth-saying will come to nothing.” Guiomar kept his gaze in contact with Leanna’s eyes and, shocked at the terror he felt taking in the strength of her stare, he forced himself to goad her further. “I have won, and I will continue to do so evermore.”
“Not against the Infinite Wood.”
He worked to suppress his stupefaction at her knowledge of his plots and made certain not to let on that he was bewildered, returning to the volume of pride. “I am not afraid of the Trees. I will bring new honor to the Ranzentine name!”
“Thou shalt be remembered for nothing but shame.”
The guards shivered to hear this young girl speak so. Guiomar burned.
“I am the king! Thou shalt speak to me with respect.”
“Thou dost not deserve the respect of a rat, and thou art even less likely to receive it from me.”
“Who dost thou think thyself to be, page?”
All resignation fled from her, the intensity of furious purpose flooding her spirit. “I am the one who shall stop you, Guiomar Ranzentine.”
He felt clearly, as did she, the air between them shift as the two came to level with one another as adversaries. The king tried to lower her again, allowing his breath to drip into her resolute countenance. “With what?” he mocked. “Thou hast nothing.”
“Perhaps,” she retorted, maintaining her place. “I pledge your ruin nonetheless.”
Guiomar stepped back, astounded, and turned jovially to one of his knights. “She fighteth with me! Do you hear her?” The guard nodded, unsure. “Ha,” the king remarked, shaking his head. “I shall have the executioner prepare to burn her at dusk.” He returned a final time to Leanna, holding himself to his confidence despite the surety in her own eyes. “We shall make a show of it,” he promised, then bounded away, the royal emerald train of his cloak fluttering behind him. Leanna watched him go, unwilling to allow him to be free from her stare so long as she was able to maintain it.
When he was entirely out of view, she turned her eyes to the floor and at last allowed the weight of all the present events to bring her to her knees.
“Kennedy.” She closed her eyes and fought through tears. “Kennedy. Kennedy, please.”
Drifting into overdue sleep, she opened her eyes to see Kennedy walk into their usual dreamscape and was grateful she had not yet awoken.
“Hast thou been crying, Leanna?” the fairy said.
The prisoner found herself unable to determine any appropriate words. As she thought on what she might say to explain her circumstances, the stones and bars of her cell began to appear around them with the image distorted under a dreamlike sheen as though all the objects around the two dreamers lay just beyond a wall of water.
“A dungeon?!” Kennedy cried. “But I was with thee only hours ago! Hath Isolda put thee here?”
Leanna shook her head. “Madrick had locked me away, but—”
“Madrick? But he adores thee.”
Leanna sighed. So much had changed so suddenly.
“No matter,” the fairy continued. “I shall gather my warrior friends. Masor can never hold thee.”
“I am not in Masor,” the prisoner breathed.
Kennedy furrowed her brow. “Whither art thou?”
“Pavoline.”
“Pavoline! How?”
Leanna dropped her head and pressed against her eyes in exhaustion. “Please, Kennedy, it is too much. I am to be executed at dusk.”
The royal purple hands of the fairy took in those of the trembling page. “Nothing can take thee from me. My friends and I shall be to Pavoline in mere hours.” She smiled to add, “Thou art fortunate to be arrested on a day when our schooling is recessed.”
The prisoner let loose a small laugh. “Art thou certain it is safe?”
Kennedy nodded. “Guiomar may have a bolt-spear, but he does not have twenty. He does not concern me.”
Leanna was not comforted. “He does have the Jewel of Nebulous.”
“Then we shall ensure he never knows of our presence. When the moon rises, they shall arrive to execute an empty cell. Thou wilt be safe, and we will be together.”
At this, Leanna smiled. “Thank you.”
“My heart offers me no choice,” Kennedy said, and they brought their lips together gently.
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