Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy Read online

  Fate Rides Wicked

  By

  Jonathan Biviano

  © 2002 by Jonathan Biviano. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  ISBN: 0-7596-4720-8

  This book is printed on acid free paper. 1stBooks - rev. 3/20/02

  Book I

  FATE

  Chapter One

  THE THIRTEEN RIDE

  The ancient man walked the dirt road, green forest on either side, holding danger. Long, grey hair framed his clean-shaven face, a knotted staff in his right hand. His flame-blue eyes glowed, intensified by his emerald-green cloak. This human looked too old to be alive, aged beyond what his race normally lived.

  The man stopped briefly to look to either side of the road, then began to take another step. The sound of hoof beats stopped him and he straightened. His mind passed over his options quickly, considering changing the beautiful, clear day to a horrible, stormy day or walking through them. He decided on the latter, anticipating more fun from it.

  The sorcerer, an evil magician of great power, stooped again and smiled at the prospect of causing some mischief with the riders. Barely in view of the sorcerer the road bent, and in moments the horses and the creatures on them appeared. The magician screamed in horror, for these were not men to bother. He began to chant as rapidly as possible, gesturing wildly to complete the elements of a spell to save him.

  As he neared the end of the spell he could see the face of the lead rider, a contorted mix of ape, rhinoceros and rabbit. The first hooves hit and the spell stopped. He knew in his last moments that the story was true; the Deathless Horsemen would stop for nobody. To be in their way, good or evil, was to be dead.

  The thirteen riders sped on for several more hours on the Far-west Kingdom Highway, then turned east onto a smaller trail towards the mountains. As the path got too small for horses, the steeds changed to large, nimble wolves. When the wolves could no longer carry them and cover the terrain, the riders themselves changed into mountain goats and charged up the side of the mountains. Finally, they reached their destination and changed into humanoid form.

  The strange creatures stood on a large, platform-like ledge in front of a spacious cave. The mountain it stood on towered over all but three other peaks in the Efre mountain range, which ran north to south along the continent. From their roost they could see across the lightly forested kingdom of Unlo to the western Ravenous Ocean. To the east, they could see the kingdom of Seftrel, a land of neftir and humans in low mountains surrounded by a steep band of peaks called the Seftrels.

  They each wore thick furs and gathered around a fire near the mouth of the cave. The leader, a tall figure with flaming red hair and a beard, began their meeting. “We have seen the endarils chased from their village by the forangen, watched their year of wandering and helped them find the hidden valley in the Mountains of Shards. Soon the wizard Corl will cast the spells which will protect the valley but cause the conception of the special endaril.”

  A short member spoke up, evil, but not as much as the others. “I don’t think we can use him properly. If he fails, we will have to compete with Rangdor for the rest of eternity.”

  A rival of the short one laughed deeply and snorted. “Your job is to spread fear, not be afraid, you little freak. In one hundred fifty two years we will be the only beings terrorizing this continent. Rangdor and his armies will be gone.”

  A tall, shadowy member stood and walked towards the cave opening. “I spread worry but now is not a time to do it. The child will succeed, but since we need to wait for over one and a half centuries for him to become an adult, I say we rest and be patient. Our day will come.”

  The leader nodded in agreement. “Though we can’t see the future beyond the beginning of the child’s battle, I’m confident we’ll get our advantage.” He stood and the others followed.

  Chapter Two

  ENDARILS

  In a beautiful, green valley lived a race called the endarils. On this autumn night of their planet’s year they celebrated their safety in their new home, the Hidden Valley. A green lawn next to a small lake, surrounded by a forest, circled by sheer mountains, bore the weight of tables laden with succulent rabbit, wild pig and birds. Huge plates of fruits similar to apples, pears and grapes surrounded the meat.

  Two thousand humanoid beings filled the lawn, slightly shorter than humans. One family sat on a large blanket at one end of the grass, other endarils waiting on them, laughing with them and giving them gifts. The eldest of the family was a very mature man with a long beard, shoulder length white hair and bright green eyes. His cloak and cape shone a fresh-snow white and both bore a crest, the royal seal of the endarils: a circle filled in half green and half brown and a band of silver surrounded it. This was Corl, king of the endarils and the most powerful mortal wizard on the continent. As first of the daril ruled races, the endaril rulers also ruled their cousins the mendar and thrandrils.

  Near him sat his son, Morg, also a benevolent magician of great power, called a wizard. Short black hair and unusual height complemented his handsome, beardless face. Bright purple eyes looked out upon his silver-skinned people. He wore the royal cloak and cape and a staff lay between him and his father. On his other side sat a woman in white armor bearing the royal seal. This great warrior’s long, golden hair accented her eyes, a blue as deep as the lake. Greentree reclined beside her son, Cort, who lounged next to her in his white armor talking with one of his grandfather’s subjects. Blond hair hung to his neck and his grey eyes thoroughly examined the beautiful maiden that sat next to him, her ruby eyes laughing from the pleasure of his company.

  Just beyond the blanket stood a silver lantern on a tall pole. Several others illuminated the area as the magical people piled food on their plates. A small boy with a head of black hair and soft yellow eyes hung on his mother’s leg. An elderly man, close to 1200 years old, stood straight and strong as he took a healthy serving of rabbit. Smoothing back his brown-going-grey hair, he turned from the table and spied a lonely female of a millennium in years and strolled towards her.

  At the opposite end from the royal family sat a band, eating and laughing, their instruments on the ground in front of them. Soldiers wandered among them, wearing their dress armor of leather with silver sashes and capes. Some of the magicians wore their nicest cloaks. Many others strolled around the yard nude but for their smiles and personalities.

  Soon Corl stood and a hush settled upon the crowd. He cleared his throat and smiled. “My lovely people, we have found a new beginning. We are at last safe from the danger of Rangdor and can start comfortable lives.

  “It is also an ending.” The endarils first frowned, but then Morg stood and they smiled. “My son, Morg, is your new ruler, if you’ll consent to it.” The gathered revelers cheered until the tables shook. The 750-year-old wizard raised his arms for silence and it fell. “I will serve you better as a teacher and a wizard. Greentree di Rethel is now queen. Let the dancing begin!”

  The musicians picked up long, wooden string instruments that almost purred with the notes; or short, wooden or metal pipes that sang like the wind on a spring day as the birds awake. As the warm, soft music wafted across the grass the endarils formed several circles. They moved slowly and rhythmically, swaying to the tune. The royal family dispersed to different circles. Fifteen minutes later the tempo increased and the circles broke up. The dancing slowly sped up, children and elderly keeping speed.

  As the morning
approached several hours later, slow music rolled off the instruments. The two hundred remaining couples held each other close and slowly rocked in the falling dew and the mist coming off of the lake. Greentree danced with Morg and Cort with his new friend. The band finished the song and packed up as these last endarils put their arms around each other and strolled off towards the beds.

  The next day they rested, the dancing and revelry leaving tired endarils to sleep the day away. The children swam and played in the afternoon then ate leftovers before going to bed again, almost as tired as their parents.

  The following day, the race rose early and began the construction of their new village. They built sturdy huts in the trees and under them, strong enough to resist a northern winter. The royal family built their own. Corl set about placing magical protection on the valley, sitting alone on one of the mountains chanting and gesturing. In three days he had woven a great spell, which shielded the valley from entry by any unwanted creatures.

  When Corl returned, the village was built. At one end of the lawn where the party had taken place, endarils worked on the base of a castle. It would be a modest one by human standards but huge compared to the normal endarilan abode.

  On that night, the one when Corl returned, Greentree was fertile again for the first time in one hundred fifty years. A normal female endaril was fertile once every seventy five to one hundred years, during their childbearing life, but Greentree was different.

  With the castle almost done, the conception occurred a week later. The two moons, Hift and Nuvi, were in a strong gravitational alignment and they brought about a settling of Corl’s magic. At the exact moment of the first division of the new child, the spell settled. Like a great sigh, space and time paused, changing the growth of the child forever.

  This endaril’s birth took place two weeks after the Feast of Growth, which marks the beginning of spring on the planet Lerilon. With the black hair of his father and the deep blue eyes of his mother, this beautiful child brought great relief, for the endarils had feared deformities. The child’s name was Tych; his full name, derived from placing ‘di’ in front of the oldest living family member, was Tych di Corl.

  Chapter Three

  CHILD TO ADULT

  “Say hello to Thain, Tych,” said Greentree to her twenty-year-old son.

  “Hello, Thain. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Tych bowed in the endarilan form of respectful greeting. “Unfortunately, Sir, I must go to my lessons. To your health.” At this time Tych was about as developed as a three year old human physically, but emotionally twenty. He bowed again and backed out of the room. At the door to the room he turned left and ran down the hall and up the stairs to his grandfather’s room.

  “He’s a remarkable young endaril. You and Morg must be proud of him, Greentree.”

  “Yes, we’re very proud. He already speaks endarilan, common human, neftiran, hiftnuvini, pemilonian and eagle. Corl is teaching him the dialects of our cousins, the mendar and the thrandrils.”

  “My youngest granddaughter, Lendril, is growing fast too. She has an eye on Tych but is too shy to introduce herself.” Thain pulled a large, stuffed sphere that served as a chair over to the bed where Greentree lay. He lowered his voice so as not to be heard by any of the castle help. “There is a rumor going around that Rangdor attempted to reach our valley but was thwarted. According to this, Corl helped in the battle.”

  “Thain, in your wisdom you know that such things should remain rumors. Corl was in a battle a year ago that he refused to talk about and since then twice Buhlaht, the King of Dragons, has visited him. The endarils and dragons have avoided each other since the wars. We brought about the destruction of many of their races when our invasions created dissent. You know all this and so do the other endarils, therefore the rumor naturally started.” Greentree sat up and took the hand of the elderly endaril. “You’ve been a good friend and teacher to Corl since he was a child and when his parents were killed you showed him his strengths so that he could discover the ways around his limitations. Do your best to silence the rumors, for Corl. He obviously wants it that way.”

  Thain nodded. “You are very wise for a mere five hundred and seventy years of life. Morg has been blessed by Lendela.”

  “You know the proverb, Thain, ‘A wise warrior is a live warrior.’ So few of the daril races remain, and even though the endarils are fewer in number than the mendar or thrandrils, we are still the heart of a whole people. Lendela has visited us many times in our history, and he is a benevolent god in all ways. He would disapprove of pessimism among us after he was present at Tych’s birth. Such a gesture showed great honor for the royal family.”

  Thain stood and Greentree slowly released his hand. The old warrior turned away towards the door and paused. “If Corl did battle Rangdor, let us hope it’s not the end of us. I’m beginning to like this valley.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Thain. You will see Lendril grow into a fine young woman.” Greentree stood and took her weapons belt down off the wall. As she buckled it on, her sword dangling at her left hip, she led Thain out. “And I’ll see Tych become a great warrior.” They padded down the short wooden hallway past Cort’s room on the right and Tych’s on the left. “Now, however, I have sword practice. To your health, Thain.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.” The elder walked up the stairs towards Corl’s little tower and the queen of the darils headed down to the courtyard.

  Greentree dodged right but tripped and fell as the sword whizzed by. “Whoa, Tych. Don’t want to kill your mother.”

  The young endaril reached down and helped his mother to her feet. “Sorry, got carried away again.”

  “You’re only fifty-five now, Tych, and when you’re older I won’t be able to dodge that swing. Learn to control that now, before it’s too late. You’re twice as strong as your peers, most of them can’t swing a blade as large as that.”

  “I know, mother. It won’t happen again. Cort’s here for his turn.”

  The beautiful woman looked around, bewildered, for her older son. “Where, Tych?” The young boy pointed and Cort came through a door onto the courtyard. “How did you know, son?”

  Tych laid his scabbard down on the ground and slid his sword in, being too short to do it standing. “I felt him coming.” With this final, stoic statement he walked away. Greentree just stared at his back, dumbfounded by her amazing, emotionless son.

  Tych entered by the eastern courtyard door, which brought him into the throne room. His father was having an audience with the village representatives. All talking ceased as the prince strolled confidently towards the hallway behind the throne, but Morg stopped him loudly. “Why do you interrupt us, Tych? You know it annoys me.”

  Without a visible reaction, Tych responded, “It shouldn’t, father. I live here too, so I know everything that happens. I’m just on my way to my room. Continue, Sirs, I have my own business to attend to.”

  Tych picked up his pace and left the room before his father could respond. Just inside the hall, stairs on his right went up to the hallway where his rooms were. As he sprinted up them, he began to feel dizzy. At the landing, halfway up, before the stairs doubled back, he sat down. He clenched his teeth as power surged through him. He didn’t understand it and wanted it to leave. Most of the time he managed to chase these surges away.

  This time was different. With his mind he fought and battled it, his body crackling and sparkling with energy in the light from the window on the stairs. Images of huge golden lizards battling smaller but more ferocious red lizards raced blurred through his head. As he writhed and struggled with the pain the images were replaced by huge armies of endarils and mendar marching towards an enormous army of the evil forangen. A cascading waterfall, shimmering in the sun, falling into a small pond before once again becoming a raging river replaced this. The beauty of the scene caused him to relax his struggling but then pain struck him like a bolt of electricity. Out of the trees surrounding the pond broke a herd of
animals, fear locked on their faces, its power killing some of them. They turned at the water and following them came a horrific man on a large wolf, rabbit ears jutting from his forehead like horns, his lower face shaped like an ape’s and a horn sticking out from a bare grey skull. Twelve other men with strange features burst out behind the first and froze.

  Tych started pleading with his mind to fight, repeating, “stop this, stop this” over and over again. Then the riders stopped and seemed to look at him, surprise on their faces. They began to laugh and the leader growled, “What is your name of power, my son?”

  A scream knocked Greentree unconscious and stunned Cort. It was an abnormal scream, for it was mental, not verbal. Tych’s mind had cried out for help, forcing his father rigid in his chair and his twenty-year-old brother, Crat, to walk into a tree. The other endarils covered their ears, useless as it was, and turned towards the castle. Many animals died in the valley.

  In his tower Corl slowly closed the large open tome of spells and stood. He could feel the wells of magic from which humanoids drew their power boiling and thrashing. Every wizard on the continent, close to one hundred humans and darils, cursed, and then wondered at the disturbance of their power source. Corl picked up his staff and teleported to his grandson’s side. He could hear people starting to take action to find Tych, lifted the young prince and teleported with him.

  The boy had become unconscious so he just lay on the ledge of the mountain where they appeared. From here Corl could see the whole valley but he focused on his grandson. The strong wind up here pulled at the wizard’s cloak as he chanted. He drew symbols on Tych as he spoke and sang until the glowing began to fade. Stopping the spell casting, he bent down to speak in the prince’s ear before the energy could return to his body.

  He whispered, “Feel the muscles in your toes relax. Now move on to your feet and continue up...” He went through every muscle in Tych’s body, encouraging him to relax it, until he reached the head. “With your mind, visualize a well, not filled with water, but with energy. Feel yourself pouring your own into it.” The images in Tych’s head matched the description, a glowing pit with him standing next to it, the magicians’ metaphor for their energy source. “Recognize that your bucket is as big as the well and put it aside for the future. Once you’ve done that, scoop up some energy in your hands and step back. Drink it. When I count to three, return your body to a normal, awake state.”