Awakening, p.1
Awakening, page 1
AWAKENING
ROBERT M. KERNS
KNIGHTSFALL PRESS
Copyright © 2018 by Robert M. Kerns
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise--without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any place or person (living, dead, or reanimated undead) is unintended and purely coincidental.
Published by Knightsfall Press
PO Box 280
Mineral Wells, WV 26150
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Kiri yearns to go home. To see her family once more. There's just one problem: she's an escaped slave.
Gavin wakes up with his cheek pressed against the dirty cobblestones of an alley. But he has a bigger problem: he has no memories beyond his name.
When ruthless slavers corner them with no escape, Gavin makes a choice that will change the world.
If you love Epic Fantasy set in high-magic worlds...
If you love stories by David Eddings, Terry Goodkind, David Estes, or Brandon Sanderson...
Get your copy of Awakening today!
I find myself thinking about one of my classes today. The class in question was a study of the ancient epics, but there was one precocious soul who decided to venture into more recent history. She looked up at me from her seat, all earnest and curious, and asked what truly started the cascade of events that led to the second Godswar.
I smiled as politely as I could and corrected her that scholars refer to the late unpleasantness as the War of Darkness. I also pointed out that the class was intended to study the ancient epics, not my current work in progress. However, I indulged her, saying, “If I had to pick one event that started us on the path of no return, I would have to say it was the arrival of Gavin Cross in this world. Without doubt, tensions were already building to another conflict, but Gavin put a spark to the tinder.”
To this day, I cannot imagine how he withstood all the temptations he faced. So many times, during those years, the entire world hovered over the abyss, and whether we fell rested solely on Gavin’s shoulders.
—An excerpt from Journal #57
Declan deHavand, Headmaster
The Bardic College Skuv Ir Nathene
circa 6099 PG (Post Godswar)
CHAPTER 1
Kiri stood atop one of the many rolling hills in the grasslands of Mivar Province, her destination in sight at last. The sun from a cloudless sky warmed her face, the soft breeze brushing her nose with a hint of the salty sea air from the south. She placed her sack on the ground beside her, taking a moment to stretch her fatigued body. Her stretches complete, Kiri retrieved a water skin from her sack and took a drink, taking care to slosh the cool liquid around her mouth before swallowing.
The unpleasant itch in her left shoulder flared, and Kiri sighed. She reached up with her right hand to massage the shoulder and, not for the first time, wished she could cover the brand there in some way. The brand proclaimed her status to all who saw her. With one last sigh, wishing for something she could never have, Kiri retrieved her sack and resumed walking to the city sprawling across the river valley below.
Tel Mivar was more than a province capital; it also served as the capital for the entire Kingdom of Tel, and like its sister cities in the other provinces, Tel Mivar was a relic of ancient times. Kirloth and his Apprentices, wielding incredible power unheard of in the modern age, raised the city from the very bones of the earth and transmuted its structures into a marble-shaded stone immune to the ravages of weather and time.
That is not to say the city remained unchanged, however. As the world’s population rebounded in the wake of the Godswar, Tel Mivar found itself at maximum capacity in less than three centuries. Wooden construction soon started springing up outside the city’s walls, and over time, Tel Mivar became one of the most prosperous and populous trading ports in the world, its population divided among the old city and the new.
No walls surrounded the wooden construction that had grown up outside Tel Mivar, though building some had been discussed down through the centuries, and Kiri strolled past homes and shops whose architecture elicited strong memories of her homeland. In Vushaar, the land of her birth, almost all construction was wood; only affluent people could afford brick, and only royalty could afford stone.
The nostalgia lasted just until Kiri came within sight of the West Gate, and she relied upon the training of her youth to hide her nervousness.
“Well…look here!” the youngest guard said as Kiri approached. “We have ourselves a rather fine-looking slave. Where’s your owner?”
Kiri squared her mental shoulders and met the guard’s lecherous gaze eye for eye, before lowering her eyes in submission. She hoped word of her escape had not preceded her arrival.
“My master has sent me to Tel Mivar to visit the spice merchant,” Kiri said. “May this slave please pass?”
One of the other guards sauntered over.
“Well now, I don’t know,” the newest guard said. “It seems to me we ought to help ourselves to the goods before we allow you to enter the city.”
Kiri shuddered in the depths of her mind and prayed she kept it from being seen. Something about the second guard spiked her fear. She took a couple slow breaths before responding.
“If that is what you wish, this slave will strive to please and hopes my master approves,” Kiri said, keeping her eyes downcast. “Baron Kalinor does not usually like anyone touching his property without permission.”
The two guards almost jumped back. A close friend of the king, Baron Kalinor’s reputation as a petty and vindictive soul was known far and wide. He wasn’t well acquainted with forgiveness, either.
“G-g-go on t-t-through,” the young guard said, his former brazenness now fled.
Kiri kept the smile lighting her heart from showing on her face as she resumed her walk into the city.
The moment she passed through the gatehouse and into the city proper, the itch Kiri had endured the last two years flared into an almost-burning sensation. Kiri remembered hearing other slaves at her master’s estate talking of this, and they said it was because the various protections, conjurations, and other magical effects built into the city created an ambiance of magic that resonated with the power maintaining the brand.
A sudden pain in her midriff dropped Kiri to her knees, and she struggled to pull the sack off her back. Shaking hands worked to untie the knots in the sack’s drawstring, and her movements were jerking and frantic as she rummaged through the sack for what she sought. She seemed to find everything but the object of her search; jerky and nuts, extra clothing even if they were simple homespun garments, and pieces of flint were but a few of the items she pushed aside.
As the pain began to build, Kiri sighed her relief as she pulled a partially-empty vial from the sack. Not trusting her shaking hands, Kiri pulled out the cork stopper with her teeth and spat it into the gutter before downing the contents of the vial in one, large swallow. The mixture was off-blue with hints of purple, and it was a vile-tasting brew, bitter and chalky. Within a few heartbeats, the pain was gone, and Kiri sagged against a convenient lamppost.
Not content with the papers that declared her his property or the brand on her left shoulder, Baron Kalinor laced Kiri’s meals with a poison that concentrated in the lining of her stomach. Should Kiri ever fail to imbibe the foul-tasting swill in the vials within a few moments of the pain’s onset, the poison would deliver a slow, agonizing death, and no cure for it existed in nature.
With one last deep breath, Kiri pulled the drawstrings on her sack tight and draped it over her shoulder once more. She added an apothecary visit to her mental itinerary; only three more vials remained in the sack. She would need more within a day or so.
Kiri sighed as she pushed herself to her feet. She wasn’t proud that she’d stolen two coin-pouches from Kalinor’s estate; her parents didn’t raise her to be a thief, but she hadn’t seen any other way to fund her trip home.
Two main streets crossed Tel Mivar—one north to south and the other east to west. They divided the city equally, and they intersected at Market Plaza. Kiri turned south onto a secondary avenue that ran north to south about halfway between West Gate and Market Plaza. Kiri had no wish to stay on the main thoroughfare, though; she attracted far too much attention.
The average Vushaari possessed a complexion that was just noticeably darker than the fairer-skinned people of Tel, with blond or red hair almost unheard of, and Vushaari were not an uncommon sight in Tel, either, given their culture of being sea traders. No…Kiri attracted too much attention because she had been ‘graced’ with the kind of looks that turned heads across rooms: well-proportioned features, wavy hair the color of glossy anthracite, an hourglass figure, and a smile that could put even most disagreeable person at ease. Kiri had grown into one of those women who drew attention no matter how much she wanted to be unnoticed.
Even the secondary avenue seemed crowded with people; Kiri had never seen the like before. Despite having spent both time in the Vushaari capital and the port city of Birsha—Vushaar’s most populated city—Kiri was unprepared for the sheer hordes of people congesting the streets of Tel Mivar.
Kiri was behaving like a unlettered rube as she walked south along the avenue. The way she gawked, turning her head this way and that, one would think she’d never seen a city before.
Kiri should ’ve kept her attention focused on her direction of travel. She was looking back the way she came—not watching where she was going—when she bumped into someone. She back-pedaled and turned to apologize to the person but froze, mouth opened to speak. Standing in front of her was an unwashed man with greasy brown hair, wearing worn leather armor…and he carried a handbill.
Kiri could only watch in stunned silence as the slaver lifted the handbill to read it, his eyes flicking from the parchment to Kiri and back. At last, he turned it for Kiri to see.
Wanted!
One week ago, a Vushaari slave escaped from the Kalinor manse.
She has shoulder-length, wavy hair the color of lustrous black and the Vushaari olive complexion.
The slave is to be taken alive, unharmed, and unmarked…for which Baron Kalinor will pay a sizeable reward.
For several moments, Kiri stood frozen, staring at the handbill. Word of her escape had preceded her, and her hopes of freedom dispersed like mist before a breeze. She considered surrender; yes, the Baron would find some creative way to punish her, but there wouldn’t be any lasting injury. He prided himself on owning such a slave. Kiri resolved herself long ago to the likelihood of never seeing home again, and this attempt to run was nothing but a fool’s errand at best.
It was her thoughts of home and family, more than anything else, that re-ignited the fire of rebellion. Kiri saw the slaver recognize her fire for what it was, but he was too slow. A half-step carried her close enough, and her right knee was a blacksmith’s hammer striking the anvil of the slaver’s groin.
The slaver’s eyes bulged as he croaked in a breath, and Kiri turned to run. The strings she used to drape the sack across her back went taut, the slaver clutching the sack even as he collapsed to his knees, and Kiri struggled in vain to pull herself free.
He walked through the people that crowded the street, unremarked and unnoticed. His average build, brown hair, clean-shaven face, and simple clothes ensured no one noted his passage, for he was a member of an order dating back to the Godswar that went unmentioned in every history text. He was enjoying the pleasant, sunny day, because his order’s liege had informed the local chapterhouse that a female Vushaari slave would arrive in the city today, and she was to reach whatever destination she chose undisturbed…and unaware of her protection.
A slight commotion caught his eye, and he saw the object of his search facing a very unclean man and started drifting their way. He was close enough to see the Vushaari knee the man and his collapse to his knees in response. His eyes narrowed upon seeing the man clutching the Vushaari woman’s sack.
Without missing a step, he drew a short dagger from the folds of his clothes and stepped close to the unwashed man. He clamped his left hand over the unwashed man’s mouth and nose as he stabbed the dagger into the base of his skull. The unwashed man went limp, including the hand clutching the Vushaari’s sack.
The Vushaari dashed toward a nearby alley without a backward glance, and the man gave the dagger a savage twist and jerked it free of the corpse’s skull. Lowering the corpse to the ground, the man threw the dagger into a nearby storm drain and disappeared into the crowd once more.
Kiri didn’t give it a second thought when the slaver released his hold. She pushed her way through the crowd and headed for the nearest alley as quickly as she could. Within moments, she was out of the bustling crowd of people.
Kiri lost track of how many twists and turns she had taken as she stumbled her way through the alleys of Tel Mivar. She didn’t think she had crossed any streets, but it didn’t matter all that much if she had. Kiri turned a corner to avoid what looked like a street ahead and found herself in a cul-de-sac.
Walking to the end of the short passageway, Kiri collapsed on a mostly clean section of pavement and leaned her back against the wall. She didn’t know how far the slaver was behind her, but she was winded from her flight. A few minutes’ rest wouldn’t hurt that much.
CHAPTER 2
Rough stone heated his cheek and torso. Then, he realized the sun heated his back, neck, and arms. It was strange. Almost as if he were waking from a deep sleep, awareness and consciousness returned at a crawling pace. He became more aware of himself and his surroundings, a throbbing ache permeating every fiber of his being. The breeze trying to cool him smelled of the sea, and coastal birds cawed in the distance.
“Well, now, I’d say you had yourself a drunk to remember, son,” a voice said. The voice was seasoned and worn.
He rolled over and blinked his eyes. The sun stabbed his head, and he raised his left arm to block it. An old man stood over him. His full head of white hair was unkempt to say the least, but ‘in wild disarray’ would also apply. The full beard—also snow white—only served to complement the hair. The old man wore gray robes, tattered and frayed around the hem at his ankles, and he leaned upon a balsa-wood staff worn with age and use. A strong feeling of grandfatherly regard belied the old man’s outlandish appearance.
“I say, boy, are you well?” The old man punctuated his question by prodding the boy. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“My name is Gavin Cross,” he croaked. His voice was scratchy and parched, and using it produced a momentary cough.
The old man smiled and turned his head as if listening to something on his right side, but he soon returned his attention to Gavin. “Yes, my boy, of course it is. Now, give me your hand; let’s get you up.”
Gavin extended his right hand, and the old man hoisted him to his feet with no apparent effort. Gavin saw now that the old man wasn’t too tall; he barely reached Gavin’s shoulders. Gavin also saw that he was standing in a seedy alleyway wearing no shirt or shoes; garbage lined one side of the alley, and something not too far away smelled rather foul.
The old man gave Gavin an appraising look before nodding, a satisfied grin curling one side of his mouth. “Yes, indeed, my boy, you will do fine...just fine.” He looked away again, squinting his eyes just a bit. “All right, son, it’s time to be on your way. You want to go that way...” He pointed behind him down the alley.
“Now, just wait a moment,” Gavin said as the old man put a hand on his back and started ushering him down the alley. “Where am I, and for that matter, who are you?”
The old man stopped and regarded Gavin as a patient parent regards a petulant child. The grin returned as he said, “Well, you’re here when you should be over there a ways, and as for who I am, think of me as an old friend who’s trying to help you on your way. But we don’t have time for this. I’ll catch up to you later maybe, and we can talk then. Now, shoo! You have somewhere you need to be.”
What a crazy, old codger... Gavin thought as he started off down the alley. About every fifth or sixth step, something squished under his feet, and Gavin vowed he would spend half a day in the shower, as soon as he found one.
The alley ended not too far away, intersecting another, and Gavin looked over his shoulder, saying, “Which way-”
Gavin found no trace of the old man; it was as if he had never been there. Gavin frowned and examined the alley for signs of a door that the old man might have entered, but he could find none, not even footprints in the filth.
With a sigh, Gavin turned and resumed his consideration of which way to go. Not seeing any difference to either choice, Gavin turned left and followed the alley.
Gavin found himself in a maze of twisting turns. The alley wasn’t more than three feet wide, for the most part, but every so often, it widened to five or six for a stretch. As he walked, Gavin considered his situation. He had no money; his dark-tan, homespun pants had no pockets. In fact, his pants were frayed and tattered around the ankles, not unlike the old man’s robes, and his belt was a length of hemp rope.
