The hunters did not find the white wolf as easily as Siddis thought they would. What should have been a glorious time for her- the beginning of her rightful rule- was marred by the fact that no one seemed able to produce her mad, transformed sister. It did not matter what rewards she promised, what punishments she inflicted- the white wolf remained elusive. That is until the day almost three years later when a new hunter appeared from a strange land. This hunter assured the new queen that there was not a beast alive- or dead, for that matter- that he could not track and destroy. He would bring her the pelt of the white wolf, or die in the trying- and all he asked in return was a single drop of her royal blood.
Siddis was not pleased by this request: she knew better than most what could be accomplished with a single drop of blood. But this hunter had no whiff of magic about him, let alone that particular, tainted miasma which spoke of dark powers- and no-one else had been able to what she asked. She agreed that he could have his price- but not until or unless he brought her what was promised.
The moon had come to fullness three times before the hunter returned with a shining white wolf-pelt slung over his shoulder. Siddis was pleased- until she saw that there was no trace of the collar she had crafted. When she demanded to know its fate, the hunter shrugged and said she had not requested the jewels: that he could tell they were poisonous things not to be trifled with by ordinary folk such as him, and so he had let them lay where they fell on the forest floor. If Siddis wanted them, she would have to search them out herself. As for the hunter, once he had collected his payment he had plans to leave this troubled kingdom, and never return.
Although she seethed at the loss of her handiwork, Siddis did admit that she had not requested he bring it to her, and as such she would give him his due. Using her terrible stone knife, she pricked her wrist and let a single drop of blood fall into a tiny glass vial, which she gave to the hunter. Once he had gone, she ordered her most vicious assassins to follow him and retrieve it, but it was as though the hunter had vanished from the world: they could find no trace of him or his passing.
Siddis had a fine cloak made from the wolf’s fur. In recent years the winters had begun to last longer, and were more bitterly cold than any in memory: the fur served her well, and if any thought it an inappropriate use of her sister’s remains, no one dared say as much to the ruthless new White Queen.
Winter was not the only thing that worsened as the years passed; there were also more droughts, more plagues, and a gradual dwindling of trade- not to mention the increase in floods, vermin, and crop-blight. The kingdom itself seemed to be wasting away, its borders shrinking and its lands withering, its soil growing thin and infertile as its people. Even the shining inland sea that once surrounded the royal island had shrunk to one eighth its former size: barely large enough to be called a lake. But in spite of all these disturbing happenings, Siddis ruled without mercy, for she knew the land and the people were hers to do with as she wished: all that concerned her was remaining in her rightful role as queen, and having time and materials to pursue her unquenchable thirst for dark knowledge.
In the meantime, although he enjoyed his promised place of favor amongst the Siddis’s court, Kyl’k had fallen into great disgrace with the common people. He was known far and wide as the Traitor, the man who had betrayed one White Queen to the other, and was neither trusted nor welcomed anywhere in the kingdom. This seemed to eat away at his body as well as his soul, and he became a small, twisted, and bitter version of his former handsome self. He often disappeared into solitude for months on end and was missed by none- not even the queen he had given all for.
This was the state of affairs in the kingdom known as Zhiala, in the eighth year of Siddis’s reign. But it is not in the kingdom of Zhiala that our real story begins. It is in the small, almost forgotten land to the south-west of it. So small was this land that it did not have a real name, nor even a formal ruler. But it was decidedly not a part of the surrounding countries (Zhiala included), and thus seemed immune to the trials and tribulations that might plague the others.
In this un-named land there lived a dark-haired famer and his dark-haired wife, and they had an even darker-haired son they called Rohlan. They kept to themselves and worked very hard, and all in all did quite well, and were quite content with the quiet ordinariness of their lives.
Content, that is, until the day Rohlan realized maybe he wasn’t quite so ordinary, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment