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What Every Student Should Know
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Kharna was completely alone in the world, or at least she certainly should have felt alone, but she didn’t. This, she supposed, was what set her apart. It wasn’t the strange necklace that she wore but couldn’t remember receiving, or the strange dreams she sometimes had, but the fact that, while she was completely alone and friendless, she was not lonely or unhappy.
Tonight her long fingers gripped her necklace tightly. Long strands of brown hair were sticking to her face with sweat. Her breath was raspy and quick. The dreams were coming more often now, circling ever closer.
The figures seemed slightly distorted and the sounds echoed strangely, as though underwater. The clap of her sandals was loud against the stone wall. She realized, through a distant fog, that she was shorter, younger, as though this were a scene taken from her past. She ran behind the woman, doing her best to keep up. She heard another small figure hurrying behind her, but could not turn around to look. They ran and ran, through dark stone passages and dark narrow staircases. She followed the woman’s bouncing curly hair, and her floating green dress. She had the faint impression that she knew this person. Finally they stopped in a small room with one window that the moon sliced through. The man waiting below the window smiled up at her, her tension slipped. The woman lowered her out the window, until she was hanging only by her fingertips. Any second she would fall into the mans hands. The woman turned and screamed. Kharna wrenched herself up, to see into the window, a hard feat for someone so young and small. She saw a dark figure grabbing a little blond girl away from her mother, she looked no older than Kharna felt. Kharna stared into the blond girls eyes, but then she saw no more, as the woman jumped out the window, and together they were falling…
Kharna woke with a gasp. She tried to catch her breath, but couldn’t seem to be able to suck in the hot air. She slipped out of her room and walked down to the hallway at the front of the large servant house. But when she the opened a window she barely had time to sniff the cooler air before a burning fear crept over her.
A cloaked figure was striding straight towards the house. Its dark hood was drawn over his face, but she did not need to see it to know it was someone she had never seen before. Kharna had an excellent knack of analyzing people and remembering them. She could often tell a person by how their feet sounded, or how they looked when they walked. Silently she backed away from the window, thinking hard. Who was this person? She decided she had better find out before awaking the whole house by screaming.
She crept down the stairs into the kitchen, and grabbed a large iron frying pan. She crouched quickly down behind a counter, her back was to the door, which she could now hear the figure creeping towards. She clutched the pan harder, a patch of moonlight shinned on the floor beside her. It moved as the moved as the door opened, and now she watched the shadow of the cloaked figure beside her. She tried to stifle her breathing, but her heart was pounding.
“Hello Kharna,” came a smooth male voice, startling her so much she nearly dropped the pan. She didn’t move but then her jaw dropped at what she saw. The cloaked figure had removed its hood, and instead of a human head in the shadow she saw what looked like a wolfs, or maybe a foxes.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you—there’s really no reason to be hiding down there,” said the figure, there was something oddly gruff about that smooth voice. And Kharna, being so surprised, abandoned all pretense and stood up, the pan dangling loosely in her hand.
Standing at her height was a creature that looked like a cross between a fox, a wolf, and a man. It had red fur covering its whole body, it was standing on two padded feet, like a man. Its hands while covered in dark fur, resembled human fingers and its head looked like a foxes with large pointed wolf ears.
She stared at it, and it at her. It took her a while to realize that her mouth was open, and she quickly closed it. Finally she started, “What—who are you?”
To her great surprise the creature laughed. His laugh was smooth and bumpy at the same time, it would be like the sound of a growling wolf crossed with the voice of a man. “I am a Senoch, I see you have never seen one of my kind before. We are a race older than yours, but we are far fewer now.” He paused. “My name is Qwyxl.” He paused again, he seemed to be waiting for her next question.
“How did you know my name?”
“Ah, now that is an interesting question. But before I answer it I need to know how much you know.”
“About—about what?” She asked warily, what did this creature want?
He fixed her with another piercing stare. “About your past.”
She could have yelled, awoken the whole house, and turned him in. But she was wondering if this stranger knew something about her she didn’t. Maybe he could explain the strange dreams she had been having, or the necklace that seemed to have been shaped while she was wearing it, because it had no end. She had to find out.
“My whole life has been at this farm. I am a stable hand, that is my past.”
Qwyxl had walked right up to the opposite side of the counter, so close that she could see where the red fur turned to dark brown on his face. “That is not your past, this has only been your time in hiding.” He took a deep breath. “I need to have your complete trust, because the story I tell you might seem hard to believe, but you need to believe it. Everything relies on this.”
Kharna’s life had never been exactly full of truth, and she usually found it hard to trust anything. And yet, and yet something about this creature was different. She wanted to believe him, she wanted to be more than a stable hand. She placed the pan back on its hook, and nodded.
“Nineteen years ago King Sirenze, the current king of Atlas, was merely a prince. He was betrothed to a woman named Cera.” He paused as Kharna recognized this as the name of her mother. “Yes, that was your mother. Now, she did not love the prince, her heart belonged to another, a man named Driary Nott. And—you must understand that I’ve gathered this story from many places, it is not exactly clear in my mind. This is what I think happened. Your mother became pregnant, either by the man she loved or by the prince, it is not clear. At the time no one knew about the man she loved, so everyone thought it was a blessing that prince Sirenze already was producing heirs to the throne. But when you were three your mother and Driary were discovered. I believe that they sentenced him to death, so your mother fled with him and you. She must have hid you very well.
“Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there is a debt of an heir. King Sirenze’s son was slain a few days ago. As you should know, the king is to old to produce yet another heir.”
“S—So what are you saying?” Kharna’s mind was struggling with all this new information.
“What I am saying,” Qwyxl breathed, “is that the time has come to restore the real queen to the throne. The plan is set, the Magi have been informed, and so I have come to get you.”
“But—But,” Kharna was definitely having difficulty with this information. What plan? And who were the Magi? “I can’t be the heir to the throne.” But even as she said this she felt that she was wrong. Qwyxl’s story fit perfectly with her dreams, and with the fights that her mother and father used to have.
Qwyxl seemed to sense what she was feeling. “Didn’t you ever remember anything strange? Didn’t you ever wonder where you got that necklace?”
Kharna’s hand immediately reached for the thin metal chain around her neck, pressing the intricately carved pendant into her palm. Qwyxl’s hand reached out and held out the pendant.
“Yes, just as I thought,” he muttered, “The sign of the royals is engraved in this pendant. But—this is odd—“ he paused. She looked up at him. “What is it?” “This sign is different, each royal era has a sign, but the one on yours is an ancient one.”
He let the pendant go. “I’ll have to think on this,” he half growled.
“But what will happen to me now?”
“As I told you we have formed a plan. I have alerted the Magi, a band of six warriors. They are decedents of the ancient council of Atlas. You do, or course, know all about the councils, do you not?”
Kharna, now feeling very uninformed, shook her head.
Qwyxl pulled up a stool. “I am amazed at how sheltered they have kept you. Its not your fault.” He added at the look on her face. “Atlas is a great ancient empire. Recently the government, and the people, have succumbed to poverty and corruption. But when it was formed they set up a system of councils. There was a king, or queen, in charge and the councils would report to them, and help them make decisions. There are six councils. They are—“ he ticked them off on his long furry fingers, “the council of war, law, resources, the common good, and mages.
The most recent council, as I said, is very corrupt. A bunch of idiots looking to make money,” he muttered. “Many of the people, especially those in the cities, are dying of hunger among other things. You probably haven’t felt the effects nearly as hard because you live on the edge of the nation, a long way from the capital. The time has come for new leadership. The Magi are ready to lead this empire back to greatness, but they need you as a leader. They have been waiting for someone worthy to come along for a long time. Its in your blood, you are destined for greatness, not to be a stable hand. So, we are going to invade the castle, we have several hidden friends there, and replace King Sirenze and his council with a functioning government.
So gather your things we are leaving.”
“Where are we going?”
He grinned. “Don’t you think its time you met your council? We are going to Bristle, to meet the Magi.