| Lost In Tortall Amber Written by Amby san heh heh |
| Prologue The fair The sun was shining brightly down on the world, as another large crowed made there way through the fair ground; a girl sat on a bench watching everyone pass by her. She had been coming to the fair since before she could remember, and nothing seemed to ever change. She sighed and tucked a strand of her short brown hair behind her ear (her hair was really to short to stay that way long), then pushed herself up off the bench and made her way through the mass of people to the tiny little booth she work. "Your late," said the woman behind the booth, she didn't even look up from the woman that she was helping. "I don't want to hear an excuses, Amber," she hadn't even been about to give her one. Once she had finish with her customer she turned to Amber, "What was it this time that made you late." Amber gave a smile she knew very well that this was her first time late ever and that it was only five minutes, "Oh, Millie, you know me, I was off making out with a guy again," the sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable. "Yeah and I'm the Queen of England, you know I know you better than that. Come on lets finish the last dresses so we can forget about them and just tend to the customers that our doing that has brought in." "You talk like making replicas of Medieval dresses is something everyone wants to see, and any ways you know I don't sew; I'm just here to sell while you sew." "Yes, but remember this one is yours, I need you to make sure it fits right." "How can it not, it's just one of the over sized thing that you tie up with a belt," as she said this Millie through the dress at her. "Alright I'll go try it on." * * * * * * * Amber packed up the last of the dresses for the night, she was wearing the one that Millie had made for her as well as a pair of boots which Millie had made for her to go with her dress. The fair had ended for the day so there wasn't a person in sight save for the carnies and few others who were putting their thing away as well. Millie had left at seven and it was now eleven, she pushed the last box in place in the back of the booth then went and locked it up. Slowly she made her way past the other booths toward the exit, when she rounded one of the corners she saw something she had never seen before at the fair. It was a small booth not much bigger than ten by ten; the front was covered with a velvet curtain in a deep purple there was a small hand painted sign saying, "Madam Lesila" nothing more. A small candle flame flickered inside showing out through the small space that the curtain was unable to hide. Carefully she made her way toward it, out of curiosity over the first real change she had ever seen at the fair. As she neared the tent, which now became clear that it, was a tent and not a booth. A beautiful harmonious voice flow to from the tent toward her, "Well you might as well come in here dear there's no since in standing out there in the dark." Some how it didn't come as a surprise to her that the woman in the tent knew she was out there as much as it would have someone else, when she walked in she found a woman not much older then herself. She looked to be about twenty or twenty-one and dress far different then one would think of when you said fortuneteller. She had fair sink; large eyes making her look innocent, it would take a keen eye to see the ageless knowledge and wisdom hidden in there depths, her clothing was just a T-shirt and jeans. She stood up from a table in the center and walked over to a small cabinet in the corner as Amber came into the room, she moved with a swiftness and grace that makes one think of royalty. When she headed back to the table she motioned for Amber to sit in a chair on the other side of the table. She still hadn't spoken since telling Amber to come in, and nether had Amber she knew that this woman would talk when she was ready and not a moment sooner. After a few more minutes the woman said, "I've been waiting for you, I thought maybe you might stop by earlier but as you know, you did not." She seemed to choose her word with extreme care, as if she needed to ponder every word first, "You seem polite enough so I wont think anything of it being so late. Would you care for some tea?" "No thank you, I don't drink tea." "I knew you were smart, don't need people knowing anything about you that you don't know yourself. Would you like some water then? It's has just a hint of lemon to it." "Yes, thank you." She gave Amber her water and waited for her to finish it before saying, "Now down to business, I just wanted to tell you that things change." And then she helped Amber up and led her out of the tent, as Amber was walking a way she added, "I hope you like going home." That confused Amber, but she found herself to tried to ponder it for long so she made her way to her car, then took her five minute drive home and crawled into bed not even taking off her boots and was out like a light. ==============^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^================ Chapter 1 Waking up Amber was woken up by the tweeting of birds some time after she had fallen a sleep, now normally birds tweeting would not have woken her up but this was far louder than the muffled sounds of bird she heard from her room. This was more of a right in your ear sort of thing, she was cold, and the air smelled different it smelled fresh and clean like being in the middle of no where right after it rained. With a start she sat up looking around to find her, in a forest that seems so thick that it must go on forever and yes there was a bird which had been tweeting right in her ear. After a few moments she realized that she was going to have to find some city or town or house she would even settle for someone, so she got up and started walking only then did she realize that she was still wearing the dress which Millie had made her. She walked for about an hour then came to what she could only describe as a bunch of dirt "roads" that saw more foot traffic then anything else. And on either side of "roads" were building, like you saw in history books when you're studying the Middle Ages. Amber's head suddenly felt like it was spinning, that up was really down and down was up, she stepped back looking for support from the trees that she had stepped away from with out even really realizing it. She grasped hold of the nearest tree, was it bad enough that she woke up in the middle of no where, but she was beginning to think that she just might be even farther away from home then she had thought. She was beginning to think that she just might have an idea where she was, but like any sane human she didn't really want to believe what she thought. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together she knew that she was going to have to find out where she was and there was no better time than now. Once she had managed to compose herself she made her way into this village, she worked her way down the "roads" thinking that the best place to start in asking directions would be an inn. * * * * * * It didn't take her long to find the local inn, her naturally acute sense of direction leading her there quicker then anyone's words could have. The inn was a building that looked like it had had seen better days, to Amber she thought that it looked like it might be one of the oldest building in the village. With it's thatched roof and mud brick walls showing signs of weather, with a stable on one side and a small ally on the other. She walked up to the heave oak door took a deep breath and worked up her courage then she pushed open the door. As she stepped through the door she found herself in a large room filled with tables and chairs, on the far side she saw a hallway and a counter that she assumed must be where most transactions were made. And behind the counter was a door that looked like the kitchen might be just behind it. Just then the door behind the counter opened to revel a large well-fed man in the later part of his years. Once the man had seen her he asked, "Can I help you, my lady?" Amber thought a moment before she answered him, "Umm, yes, you might just be able to. I was wondering if you could tell me just where it is I am, you see I haven't been quite able to figure that out." The fat man smiled then replied, "Certainly, you are in the northern must village in all of Tortall, Verana. You must have gone over the border and not even realized it. That happens a lot you needn't feel embarrassed it happens all the time just rarely does it ever seem that it is a lady." She forced a smile on her face and then asked, "Did you say Tortall?" It didn't come as that big of a shock to her just that it she didn't really want to believe it. ==============^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^================ Chapter 2 Now What Do I Do "Yes, my lady, this is Tortall. Oh forgive me," the fat man said then in a rush then he added. "I have forgotten my manner, I am Nathaniel Commerson. Is there anything that I may do for you? Perhaps you need help returning home?" "No, I can't go home right now I'm afraid I wouldn't even know how to start. I'm kind of on an adventure of sorts you could say, and not by my choosing either." Then almost as an after thought she added, "Just call me, Amber, none of that "my lady" stuff please? I'm not nobility, I'm just well, I don't know I'm just not nobility." "Of course, my," he caught himself before saying lady, "Amber. May I ask you this then, do you have any money on you?" This was the first time she had thought of anything like money; for a moment she felt like she had been caught off guard. She should have thought about that before, she looked down at her person again taking another look at just what she had on herself. She saw tied around her waist was a purse which she hadn't seen before, it was leather and looked like it was of very good craftsmanship. She didn't open it; she didn't feel like showing this man what was in it; instead she tested its weight by picking it up in one hand. Yes it felt heavy and she could hear a faint jingle as she moved it, then without missing a beat she said, "Yes, I have some, but I'm suddenly feeling that this is not the place for me." She kept getting this weird vibe off of Nathaniel one she couldn't really place but reminded her of going car shopping and having the sales person trying to get you to pay far more then the car was worth. Money was everything to that type of person and if you did not have any you weren't even worth the time of day. She stepped backwards towards the door; the more she thought about it the more she wanted out of the building. "Good day," she said as she turned around and made her way to the door, she wasn't going to stay here any longer then she had to. Just then the door which she now stood directly in front of flew open to smack her right in the head as two knights walked in. "I'm telling you, Barson, there ain't no good fightn' going on in these parts any more. I don't even see why the Kings got us a signed here," said one of the two knights as his friend who must be Barson opened the door. It wasn't till the loud thud of the door against Amber's head that they took any interest in there surroundings. They quickly moved out of the doorway to see what it was that they had hit, as they did so they could hear a string of curses that even soldiers wouldn't use. When they saw what they had hit it came to them as an even bigger shock when they saw what looked like a lady in one of her finer dresses holding her head. "Are you hurt, my lady?" asked the unknown knight. "I'll live, I'll have a nasty bump, but I'll live," she said looking up with her hand on the spot where her head had met the door. The knight who had asked it she was hurt spoke again, "Here, why don't you sit down?" He led her to a table and then he and Barson sat down as well. "I'm Sir Marks, and this," he pointed to he's friend, "is Sir Barson. I'm so sorry about the door, we never meant to hit you." "That's alright," she said pulling her hand away from her head. "I was just on my way out." She got up from the table, "It was umm," she changed her mind on what she was saying, "good day, sirs." She turned and left out the door that had so recently met her head and made her way out side. As she went out she heard one of them say; "she didn't even give us her name." As she walked down the road she was muttering to herself, "Now what do I do? I know where I am, but what do I do, where do I go?" As she kept muttering to herself she and making her way down one of the roads; she didn't notice that she was about to walk right into someone. And as that person that she was about to walk into was also deep in thought that they too did not notice they were about to run into her. Thus the inevitable collision occurred followed by more cursing. "I'm sorry," Amber said as she jumped up from the ground. "I didn't mean to run into you." "That's ok," said the person she had run into, the person was female with a thick country accent. "You look like your almost as lost as I am. I'm Marisa Carson, I'm on my way to Corus, how ‘bout you?" She smiled and brushed the dust of herself. She had long blond hair and vibrant blue eyes; she had on a dress much like Amber's only where Amber's was a deep burgundy hers was Blue. "I'm Amber Stole, I'm well I'm not sure where I'm headed. I just sort of happened here by mistake and can't go back." "Same here, if I go back who knows what they'll do to me that's why I came into Tortall. Well if you don't have any idea of where your going why don't you come with me?" Marisa asked. She was friendly and looked like she desperately want someone with her. "Umm sure, but why do you feel that you can trust me, I mean we only just ran into each other?" "I have the Gift, it let's me know when I can trust people. And it say that I can trust you." "Well, for some reason I feel that I can trust you too, and I don't have any where else to go so I guess that I can go with you." Marisa smiled, she knew that when she had had left that she was going to be on the biggest adventure of her life. And when her mother had told her that she was in trouble and that she should leave, Marisa didn't know what she should do. But her mother had also told her that she would end up on the biggest adventure of her life in a land where women could be knights and heroes. With a friend she would make on her way there they would help save the land that no one knew needed saving. "So let our adventure begin then," Marisa yelled. ==============^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^================ Chapter 3 Starting the Big Adventure "Umm, ok, don't you think that we should think this threw, I mean don't we need supplies and things," Amber asked, trying to avoid the strange looks that people were starting to give them. Marisa paused for a moment then look at Amber dejectedly, "Right, I almost forgot." Amber tried to hide her laughter, she even clamed her hand over her mouth, but she failed dismally. When she had clamed down enough to speak again she said, "I can see now why you looked like you really wanted someone traveling with you. I guess I if I were in your shoes and I almost am, I would want someone with me too. Come on let get some things and get out of here, for some reason I really don't feel like hanging around here." When she had finish speaking she started to pull Marisa into the village, it seemed a weird turn of events for Amber to suddenly take charge like that; it was almost as if the two of them were able to work off each other. Marisa and Amber made a unique pair as they made their way to the different little shops gathering their supplies. They decided that they wouldn't get horses and that they would only take what they could carry themselves, the very last thing the picked up was a map. For which they had argued at the time about Amber had wanting to make the purchase, and they continued to argue over. "Amber why do we need a map we can just fallow the roads?" Marisa asked as they started out of the city. "I don't know, I was just thinking that I hate asking direction, and maybe we shouldn't always fallow the road." "I don't know that I want to go into the woods though, I mean there are immortals and things out there and we have no way of protecting our selves." "Maybe your right, but all I know is that I want to get as far away from Verana as possible." "And you think I don't, I'm the one running here," Marisa said as they made there way down the road. "Maybe we can find someone to help teach us how to fight and things." She kicked a stone in her path as they keep walking and throwing ideas back and forth. Amber sighed, "I think that it would be hard I mean lets face it we probably have more years of doing things the wrong way then most people and it would be really hard to unlearn that stuff." Marisa cut Amber off, "Nothing can be to hard to learn." "You didn't let me finish, I think that we need to find someone who can teach us and travel with us. I know that we'll need more then just a day or two, we need a person who will set the way it has to be and make it so that we have to learn." "And where do we ever get a person like that to travel with us," Marisa exclaimed; throwing her hands in the air and by doing that managing to knock her pack off her back. It fell to the ground with a thump spilling its contents out, "Great Mother Goddess," she yelled out in anger, "What is with my luck today?" "Calm down, take a deep breath and relaxes, let's just pick it up and keep going. I'm thinking that we're just going to have to camp out side tonight, we'll just have to deal with everything as it comes," Amber said with a sigh as she and Marisa bent down and started putting the stuff back into Marisa's pack. * * * * * * * * TWO HOURS TILL SUN SET "This is as good a place as any to make camp," Marisa said with a yawn. They had come about fourteen miles, to a small clearing in the woods not far from the road, but far enough that anyone passing by on the road wouldn't see them. "Marisa, I was just thinking do you hunt?" "No, do you?" "Nope, maybe we should teach our selves so we don't run out of supplies." "You mean just pick up these bows and teach our selves how to hunt," they both burst out laughing. "I can't believe that we got these and neither of us know how to use them." "I can sort of, but I think that till we pick up on the art form of it that we won't be gettin' much in way of food." Once they had both stopped laughing enough to think things threw they decided that they should start there self-teaching now, and so the two started what would be one of the longest evenings of there lives. For this evening they would start what would be the beginning of their training, (that and they were drop dead tired). ================^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^V^================= Chapter 4 The longest night Amber and Marisa had stopped laughing about two hours ago, which was not long before they had started setting up there camp. Well I don't know that you could call it setting up so much as a temping to set it up. You see it didn't take them long to set the tent up not the first time, the second or even the third, what took them long was the fact that once they had it up they saw a better place to put it one with less rocks or more covering. Once they had the tent up it was starting to get dark so they gathered some wood and started making their fire, which they had far better luck with then the tent because Marisa was able to light it with her gift (for which they were both grateful). The next thing they started was to dig the hole for those times when nature calls, (thankfully they put it far enough a way on the first time). And now they were staring at each other from their spots in front of the fire as if saying, "Do we really want to try hunting?" Finely Amber broke the silence by saying, "I think that we should try, I mean yes I know that this isn't going to be easy, but well I'm thinking we should just do it. I mean I would hate to have someone come by while were trying to hunt, wouldn't you?" Marisa thought about it for a moment then agreed that she would not like that, "Alright then were do we start?" "I don't know I was hoping that you would have a clue." "No, well then how should we start this, we can't even see all that far in front of us?" "I'm thinking, I don't know, maybe we should just kind of sneak out there a ways and when we see something move we shoot at it." "We're not going to get anything are we?" Marisa asked in a matter of fact tone. "Must likely," Amber said in the same tone. "But that's not going to stop us form trying," Marisa yelled with energy, then they both started laughing. "Think we'll get much sleep tonight?" "Not likely." "Are you thinking like I'm thinking and maybe we should get two horses in the next village." "Yes, if we want to get any where any time soon. Now how should we start hunting?" Amber looked at the bows thinking for a minute, "I'm thinking maybe we should string these things," she held up the bow in her hand as she said this. With a little bit of time and effort and a lot of swearing they managed to get their bows strung in about ten minutes, they also managed several welts on their hands and legs. "We're still going to keep at this, right?" she asked in a way that said, "please reassure me". "Yep we're going to do this if it kills us." "That's what I thought." They really were a good pair; one of them seemed to always be determined to see it threw (even if it seemed to switch a lot). Once they had their bows strung they looked at each other, then Amber asked, "So what should we do now?" "I think this is the part where we have to leave the camp and find what it is we're hunting." "Right, out there," Amber pointed toward the surrounding woods, "umm, a, after you." "Oh no, you can go out there first." "Why me," then it hit her, "let's go out there at the same time." "Ok, the more I think about this the more I realize that if we can't make it out there tonight, we can't really expect to make it all the way to Corus." "I guess your right, so let do this." They both stood up and started to make there way toward the woods, about half way there a thought suddenly hit Amber, "Why are we afraid to go in there? I'm not afraid of things like that." "I think it has to do with what is in the woods, I'm the same way, I think that there might be immortals near by. You know the kind you want to look out for." Marisa whispered as they got closer to the woods. "If that is the case then we really do need to learn how to use these and fast." They set an arrow in their bows readying it to fire, as they both started to get the feeling that they were no long going to be trying to hunt food. They had arrows strapped to there back and they still wore there dress even though they had bought other clothing making each step they took have to be chosen with care. They were at the edge now straining their eyes to see into the trees in front of them, neither said a word but were thinking the same thing, "it's out there." Then they heard it the in defining silence that had been driving them nuts they only just now realized was broke by the sound of movement in a tree to there right about eight hundred yards a way. Marisa swallowed hard fighting the raising fear that seemed to be working it's way threw her system, both knew even with out seeing it or any real signs of it that it was a spidren. Then it came the that yellow green rope like stuff that the spidrens shot out both girls jump to the side just as it hit where they had been standing. Amber rolling to the right and Marisa rolling to the left, they both had a knack for the things that went into keeping them alive. Once she had rolled to her feet Amber aimed at the spot where the rope like stuff had come from; her aim not being very good see missed where she had. Lucky for her though the spidren was no longer where it had been and her shot managed to graze it on it's ugly human like neck causing it to shriek out giving Marisa something to aim at. Marisa's shot flew far straighter then Amber's had but still it only managed to lodge itself into the chest of its spider like body. It dropped from the trees and moved quickly for Marisa ready to pay her back for the arrow in its chest. Amber moved faster then she ever thought was possible as she strung the arrow on the bow and aimed it. Then she let it go; the spidren dropped dead only feet from Marisa (who was screaming her head off). Amber's arrow had gone strait through its human head; she let out a sigh of relief then walked over to Marisa. "Are you all right, Marisa? None of that stuff hit you did it?" "I'm fine," Marisa answered shakily. "Maybe we should take up camp and just keep moving, I don't feel like staying out here any more tonight." Her face was white as a ghost and she was shaking like crazy she could hardly even stand, Amber had to hold her up to keep her from falling over. "Yeah you might have a point there," Amber replied as the two of them started to walk back to their camp leaning against each other for support. About thirty minutes later they were out walking on the road again color coming back to Marisa's face. It was dark, the only light coming from the moon, from her guess Amber put the time somewhere between two and three in the morning. They hadn't spoken since they had left the campsite, Amber yawned it didn't look like she was going to be getting sleep any time soon. * * * * * * It was long after dawn before they arrived at the fist village on the map they had been walking for hours, and had come about, forty miles. And they were more or less dead on their feet as they made their way to the inn. Once there, they were to tired to do anything other then get a room, once in their room they both drop down on the bed and fell a sleep as soon as their heads hit the bed. They didn't crawl in they just dropped on either side of the bed on top of the bed's blankets, to tired to even dream. |