“Clear was the rain,

  Indelible her pain,

  Little her gain,

  Oh but still she didst fain

  To wander, and weep,

  As she fail’d to sleep,

  Such were the tears that didst leap

  From her pale cheeks,

  As she was made to wonder,

  And endlessly ponder;

  Where o where didst her love wander?

  She of the clear water,

  She of unending sorrow,

  Whither didst her bright fire go?”

  The song was a favourite of Segrun’s court and was one that often echoed throughout the citadel’s halls. It had become especially popular since the arrival of the lord’s guest. Since her arrival music could be heard at almost all hours within the home of the ruling house of Fadaodi. Always he wished to have her distracted or otherwise amused, so desperately in love it was said had he become that he had abandoned all reason. It was for this reason that he had become something of a source of jests and mockery among the people of the city.

  Certainly a great many loved him, for he had ruled them well for the past thirty years and was a figure renowned for his wisdom, and valour. However, he was also a man with a fierce temper, one who none could ever have previously imagined guarding a woman and catering to her as much as he did the lady who now occupied special bedchambers within his palace.

  Many murmured among themselves about what might have inspired such passion in him, with few if any of the people of Fadaodi able to grasp the why.

  The reason for this was that there was no bardic tradition in Edo, no history of love-poems and songs. Those that were sung were the only ones that had ever been sung in those halls, or so it seemed to the servants and inhabitants of the citadel and city. Bawdy songs and those of crushing one’s enemies were popular and had a lengthy history dating back to the time ere the First Wars of Darkness.

  Ifriquya once the land of Merialeth the great lover of men, from the time of Shalvar and Konnar in the east, no longer remembered love of her sort. Kemet and Deshret might well remember, but those people were the only ones, all others seemed to have forgotten such ancient tales.

  “It is uncanny how she sings of such love,” Marai murmured, as she moved from hall to hall overseeing the cleaning.

  The plump servant woman was highly disapproving of the newest guest that their lord had taken in and was of a mind that the young woman was a leech. She was also convinced she had somehow seduced him, even as she pretended to be chaste and disconsolate. The fact that Charáji had never shown any interest in the likes of Segrun or anyone else for that matter, and spent her days singing melancholically did nothing to dissuade her of this fact.

  Yet as with every time she was made to think of Charáji she was moved to complain about the woman’s passivity, her lack of action and how she did not take charge for herself as Marai was prone to doing. “A true woman ought to be strong as a man, and to have his stomach.”

  “I think it is only that she is sickly, and is in love with someone else, Marai,” Yagras murmured to her softly, the lord’s baker he was a tall man, taller than most. He was also a former slave, carried south from Orissia and thus had their pale skin, once had their mousy brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a thick moustache and long hair, even as he dressed in simple trousers and tunic, and had a genial twinkle in his eyes much of the time. He had been there longer than the lord had been lord it was said, so that he was the oldest resident of the castle. “Do leave her be.”

  His words were spoken with the utmost kindliness yet a firmness that Marai despised, so that she grumbled beneath her breath, “Still I do not like that woman, she is a harlot and a pox on this house, mark my words nothing but trouble!”

  “Quite like yourself I would dare to say,” Yagras hissed back at her, only to command her, “Do leave it alone or you will go hungry.”

  That resolved the matter, with the old woman hardly aware that the woman of whom she spoke had heard everything. How might well be asked, and the answer lay in the water containers that served as a kind of window for the Nereid, who the moment she had dipped one finger into one of the water containers had gained a kind of link to the others. Aware as she was of the jealousy and dislike that many in the castle felt for her, she could not have what sort of scheme the likes of Marai might later conjure forth when she went out into the city to visit with several friends.

  *****

  Months had passed without incident, and without Aganyú coming to her rescue so that Charáji had begun to doubt. Her spirit had wilted in some manner with regards to her confidence in his promises of love and fealty to her. She who had never loved before, and who had been alone for countless millennia now had to wait, and wait and wait, until reason itself seemed to fail her. Or so it seemed to Charáji who had fallen into the habit of praying thrice daily to her grandfather, and great-grandfather that she might be reunited with Aganyú.

  Yet still those prayers had not come true, she thought sullenly as she once more began her song about the bereft Calypso. Her cousin had suffered far worse than she after she had met Odysseus, having devoted herself to him if futilely. After his departure for Ithaka, she had gone on to mourn for him, weeping plentiful tears into the sea for many millennia until at last éluan the King had arrived thereupon her shore.

  Golden haired where Odysseus had been brown of hair, and no less brilliant and renowned in battle, éluan had loved her where Odysseus had not and could not. It was the Golden King and one like him that Charáji waited for, and had waited so long for.

  “Here you are milady,” said one servant-girl who often attended her in recent days.

  The girl in question was called Laida and was one of the household servants, barely thirteen years of age she had not yet begun the transition between girlhood and womanhood. Short, slim and with wide dark eyes she had short hair and thin lips, and was often dressed in overlong skirts she frequently tripped over.

  And yet the Lord of Fadaodi was fond of her. He liked the girl, likely because she had been a playmate of his only daughter before she had passed away to illness. It was the death of the young girl having left him a shade where once he was a man, or so many of the servants and rivals of the old lord whispered amongst themselves.

  Because of this he often humoured the young girl, who could be seen running here and there throughout the citadel. Many envied her, while others pitied her for she was an orphan, with Charáji for her part hardly interested in her. It was not that she disdained the girl, but that she did not have much wish for her company or that of anyone else’s in recent days.

  Quite why was a mystery to a great many people, who could not understand her strange humours and moods. Her melancholia confused and bewildered them, for they were a cheerful people who believed that all people should always be as happy or satisfied with what they had. They could not imagine one different from them, with the sole person they tolerated sorrow from being lord Segrun. So that the lonely grief that Charáji felt was deemed snobbery, and ‘spoiled’ behaviour as though she were a self-important infant rather than a suffering woman, as their lord had deemed her.

  When Charáji failed to respond to Laida the young girl was to glancing up at her curious to see what she might say or do. It was her hope that she might win the lady’s approval, for she had come to find the beautiful lady fascinating.

  She is a kind of strange statue, one who is dusky, is always seemingly still and could always be found by one of the large open-windows staring out into the fields. Her eyes distant, and her soft sighs drifting on the wind, Laida thought to herself amazed at also the length of the woman’s hair which was now waist-length and almost always straight, rather than the curled sort most women of Ifriquya south of Orissia had. In this case though, she had felt the woman’s hair and found it to be of similar texture to her own, so that she did wonder if mayhaps someone sometimes snuck in to straighten it for Charáji. This had led her to in recent weeks occasionally ask this servant or that one, if this was true and had yet to find the one responsible for it.

  What Laida could not have imagined was that the one responsible for straightening and washing the young woman’s hair, was none other than Charáji herself. She did this with the water that the servants often brought up to her bedchambers for her to clean herself with, few of them aware that she also slept in that container during the night to revitalize and refresh herself.

  “Milady, I hope you enjoy the fruits, the bananas and also the antelope venison is quite good, I helped cut the latter myself.” Laida burst out eager to encourage the beauteous lady to eat, as she had yet to see her do so in days.

  She had expected Charáji to continue to stare out the window, as she had hitherto that moment. It was with more than a little surprise she found herself one heartbeat to the next staring into the bluest most oceanic eyes ever to look on anyone within that city, as Charáji asked her. “Why?”

  It was as she squirmed under that gaze that the young girl asked of her, “Whatever do you mean milady? I cut it for thee because I had thought it might be to your liking.”

  “Why should I eat it? I have no use for it,” Charáji replied quietly indifferent towards the platter of food that had been placed not far from where she sat against the orange-sandstone wall.

  This reaction puzzled the young girl, who attempted to recapture her attention once more, this in spite of how apprehensive she was to tempt the strange woman’s wrath once more. “It happens that you must eat to maintain your strength milady!”

  “As though it serves me any purpose,” Charáji retorted with nary any joy or feeling behind her words.

  Struck by this melancholia on the part of the young woman, Laida was to struggle for words. It happened that just as she struggle for them, the old lord Segrun happened to choose that moment to visit with Charáji.

  A genial old man, he had rescued her from imprisonment, when rumours of her great beauty had reached the ears of his chamberlain’s wife, she had brought it to the attention of Paln who had for his part been forced to approach Segrun on the matter. Once he had heard of her circumstances after she had been imprisoned in the castle-prison, Segrun had bound into action going to visit her therein the prison.

  Since that moment he had become greatly concerned with her, and had had her moved into his home that she might entertain him.

  It was because of this fondness for both of them that Segrun preferred to dance about the topic and chose with a glance at Laida to take up the task of attempting to sway Charáji from her melancholy.

  “Ah Charáji it is good that you have risen for the day, mayhaps we may eat together,” Segrun said as he arrived interrupting the two women in the midst of their conversation. Sensing something of the discomfiture in the air, and seeing the saddened hurt look in Laida’s eyes, he was to turn to his guest once more. “I daresay that Laida is the most cheerful of this keep’s servants and has but rarely ever worn such an expression, so that I would know what thou has said.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Exasperated by his words the young woman was to turn away once more. Raising her nose as she did so, she gazed out across the vast expanse with nary another glance in his direction. The old lord, who was of the oldest line in that region, could only sigh in frustration.

  “When you were down in that cage, Charáji, you sang so beautifully that it enchanted guards and servants alike, and even myself,” Segrun reminded the beauteous Nereid. “Let me ask of thee, will you not sing for me once more? Please O lady, sing for me! Sing for me of thine love that I might rejoice in the love of another if only for a moment.”

  Charáji observed him and though she remained visibly displeased by his company, she turned once more to look out across the distant plains. Longing for Aganyú, wishing for him to be near and yet unable to summon him forth from the ether, so that she almost wept though she hid this from her host.

  “Clear was the rain,

  Indelible her pain,

  Little her gain,

  Oh but still she didst fain

  To wander, and weep,

  As she fail’d to sleep,

  Such were the tears that didst leap

  From her pale cheeks,

  As she was made to wonder,

  And endlessly ponder;

  Where o where didst her love wander?

  She of the clear water,

  She of unending sorrow,

  Whither didst her bright fire go?”

  And while she sang mournfully, Segrun restrained his tears and knew peace. Hers was the company, the only balm he could pour on the grief of his wounded heart, broken by the loss of his beloved three years prior. Charáji, he decided though she did not know it, was the only one to whom he might entrust this innermost self. He only hoped that with time, she might come to regard him in the same manner.

  *****

  If there was one thing that was resented by Kelechi it was the fact that she had no other place to go to. Those who had taken her in had perished, those she had hoped to stay with until she could find her way elsewhere, mayhap to Fadaodi where it was said that there was work aplenty and riches still to be gained. And most importantly she told herself, there was Kavas who still lived there. He was wealthy; he was handsome and still young and had promised to wait for her, so that it was for him that she had sought to escape from her family for. It had not been her intent to bring about Owalade and Uju’s deaths, and yet she did not know what else to do save go whither to the west to find him and wed him. It had been three years, yet she remained convinced that just as she had never forgotten him, he had not allowed another to displace her in his affections.

  She would convince him to dedicate a shrine to Osiris for them. It was the least she could do, so that she might light candles for all the years of life that remained to her. She also hoped to find her way to the only lover she had ever known, because he and he alone could make sense of the world around her she told herself. He would enfold her in his arms, would comfort her and tell her it was not her fault even as he would order a hunt.

  She hoped to have the kindly pair that had died for her avenged and the likes of Eikun and his tribe hunted down for what they had done.

  Distracted by her thoughts, she did not notice as a trio of men began to follow her, so keen was she returning to the temple from whence she had come from. She had been staying there for some time and had slipped out with Kolwé trailing her to see to her protection, as he had been commanded to do since they had begun travelling with Kayode.

  The journey was as frustrating as the one they had undertaken in the east. Neither Kayode nor Kelechi were good company on the best of days, as both of them carried with them an air of importance. An air that Kolwé had long since come to find more insufferable than the penitent or wrathful presence of the prince he had rescued (and who had in turn rescued him).

  The sorcerer wondered how exactly it was that his situation always somehow managed to get worse. He had followed Aganyú that he might gain revenge against the prince and now it had come to nothing and all he could think about was how he had been better off with him than with any others.

  It happened that he at the least, he told himself every day, did not always lecture me and left me alone most days. It was strange, but he suddenly missed the violent warrior.

  “Must we really visit with the likes of Owalade?” Kolwé asked of her, with a roll of his dark eyes, “I have told you time and again that he is not the sort of merchant I would entrust myself to. He traffics in slaves and weapons between all sides in all conflicts, him and the whole of his clan are as trustworthy as vipers.”

  “Oh tush, he is no such thing, nor is his family quite half as terrible as you claim them to be,” Kelechi snapped back at him, refusing to hear him speak ill of the man she loved.

  Kolwé did not reply.

  Grumbling beneath his breath as they made their way through the city, he looked about all around them. He did not much like this particular city, and was of the view that it was a nightmare of a city, one filled with criminals and murderers the likes of which disturbed even him.

  It was times such as these that he truly missed Aganyú, truly longed for his company and truly wondered what had possessed the other man to run away and depart on his own. Kayode had claimed that it was necessary for him to become the hero he was meant to become, but Kolwé had his doubts.

  “The man simply regards all of us non-monks and such as mere servants,” the once plump sorcerer grumbled under his breath time and again.

  “Oh do be quiet; I am trying to remember the way to his house.” Kelechi snapped irritably as she made for the west of the city, past a number of merchant stalls.

  A number of the merchants Kolwé noticed followed her with their eyes, or with regards to three of them looked on the former brigand with pity. Each of them had overheard her, and had the view that she was fussy and difficult to live with and travel with.

  It was a view that Kolwé held and was thus more than a little grateful when the young woman at last conceded, “I must ask for directions, why did you mislead me Kolwé and advise against such a recourse not so long ago?”

  “I did no such thing; it was you Kelechi, who was against such an action!” He shouted furiously, as they turned one corner from the merchant-square of the city and arrived near the westernmost part of the city.

  The daughter of Eikun remained steadfastly resolute in her denial of her culpability in getting them lost within the labyrinthine city. As she clicked her tongue and complained ever more about his lack of responsibility, he glowered even more after her. The day dream of taking up one of the nearby rocks to brain her was almost more than he could bear.

  The sole thing that rescued her then, was his inability to harm her. Uju and Owalade had died in the rescue of the na?ve young woman, and therefore he had an obligation to protect her. “Though, it might well lead to naught but more regrets,” he grumbled under his breath, “How is it that none dare consider my counsel!”

  “Mayhaps because it is that of a weasel who was once as much a brigand as my father was,” Kelechi snapped haughtily.

  Kolwé shook his head, and while he may well have loved to inform her how wrong she was, he was soon distracted by Kelechi crying out, “There he is! But wait, what is he doing on horseback and riding thither through those gates? Is that not the lord of the city’s home?”

  “Wait Kelechi!” Kolwé cried out but it was far, far too late, as the girl hurried away towards yon gates in the hopes to capture her former lover’s attention. Cursing he followed after her against his will, thinking as he did so that it might have been better to inform Kayode of where it was that they were headed, ere their departure from the local temple that morning.

  *****

  It happened that while Kelechi searched it seemed everywhere for the home of her beloved Kawas who for his part, as the eldest grandson of Segrun, was in the midst of swaggering about the palace. He had just returned from a long voyage further to the north. Stabling his horse he recommended him to the stable-boys and turning away made for the interior of the citadel. Cheerful and gregarious by nature, most men loved him and women also, with only a few not having much affection for the youth, who was tall, fierce and already wore a thick beard.

  His was a callow youth with thick shoulders, always splendidly dressed in a red silk tunic and trousers brought to Edo from Orissia, and with a long panther-hide cloak that his mother had fashioned for him.

  Observing the youth with stern eyes, the chamberlain of Segrun, an old Satyr, he was grey haired and bearded and though considerably shorter than the youth. He wore simple green wool, and wore but one small bronze ring, gifted to him forty years prior by his lord. It was topped by an emerald, with the plump old Satyr tanned, with his green eyes having lost none of their penetrative nature despite his age.

  “The journey was long, bring me water and bread, Paln!” Kawas commanded at his most scornful and happy.

  This made the Satyr’s still brown brow rise in response, “Really? I might well have guessed that thou might like to visit with Segrun?”

  “Bah, it can wait he is still healthy is he not?” Kawas retorted indifferently.

  This response was one that he had given a thousand times it seemed after his many other journeys, and each time it served only to confuse and frustrate Paln. He loved his lord. There was in his eyes no other man quite like him, and none who could ever hope to match his glory or his goodness. Yet this grandson of the man, had as much respect for him as he did those who shod his horse.

  It was as Paln had occasion to complain to his wife whenever he returned home (his small house was next to the citadel and thus to the west of her great walls), “Segrun might well revere his children and grandchildren and believe them to be more virtuous than Horus the Elder. They however, have none all know so much as a third of his virtues.”

  This remark in the back of his mind as he thought back to the prior night with his wife, he went on to explain to the youth how Segrun had passed his time (as he did so, he made certain to neglect to mention Charáji) and what had changed and what not in the past year that he had been gone for.

  Paln hardly at first took notice of what it was as they journeyed down the hallways of the second floor where it was that the youth was looking. It was when he halted to glance over his shoulder to find him halted next to a nearby door that had been left ajar that he realized whom it was he stared at.

  “That maiden who is she?” Kawas demanded as he pointed in the direction of the young woman seated by the windows, with her back against the wall, her eyes forlorn and distant. He had never seen in all his years so beauteous a maiden.

  It happened that the head chamberlain of his grandfather followed his gaze for he had not noticed at first whither it had wandered to, and was immediately filled with shame for it. While the boy’s father and grandfather might not be willing to acknowledge how wicked the youth was towards women and men of lesser rank.

  “She is the lord’s guest, the most recent one that he has taken in at the request of my wife,” the old Satyr responded stiffly, disliking the manner in which the youth was gazing at the woman. “She is to be treated with respect.”

  “Whence did she come from?”

  “We do not know, she will not speak of it,” Paln snapped once more at him, before he growled at him, “Now do come along, thy grandfather awaits thee milord.”

  Grumbling beneath his breath, Kawas could not forget that maiden quite so easily now that he had seen her. He was to remember her and swear to himself to return back the way he had come so that he might seek her out and woo her later. He had never failed to woo a girl, he thought smugly to himself such as that one southern girl, Kalachi or Kilechi or some other name such as that, and those others from the capital.

  *****

  His grandfather was just as he had remembered him, old and tired from decades of ruling over the marcher lands. Worn he had lost something of his ability to march off to war, yet had taken on ever more administrative responsibilities and left the responsibility of maintaining their war-capabilities to his sons.

  He was a bright-eyed old man, with a fierceness that could be discerned in how he held himself and in his jaw-line. Segrun received him in one of his favourite rooms within the citadel, it was on the second floor, it was filled with tapestries that bespoke to another time, one of heroes and warriors. The room was small with a single mahogany table imported from Orissia, and with three great honey containers to the right of it large as a man, and a red velvet carpet decorating the stone floor, other than this it was a barren room with two cushions arranged before the table and with Segrun already seated on one of them.

  “Tell me of the capital, of our King,” Segrun said to his grandson, when they were alone and the door had been closed by Paln. “I do hope that he is in good health.”

  “He lies dying,” Kawas replied indifferently, reclining on the pillowed seat that had been set aside for him, folding his arms behind his head as he began to rest on the floor. “I do not see why so many fret.”

  “They fret because they fear a renewal of the wars of old,” Segrun replied impatiently, irritated by his grandson’s indifference towards the old King. “Hauvan has ruled well for thirty-two years and has avoided conflict at every opportunity, for fear that it might disadvantage his people. War with the south in particular with the growing power of Ife could only lead to our own demise.”

  “You exaggerate grandfather,” retorted his grandson.

  “I do not!” Segrun hissed furiously, “I spoke of just this with thy uncles and father, and they share my concerns! We are along the frontier to guard it, yet we have grown fat due to trade and have begun to grow lax, in our duties. This while Hausa strengthens itself with arms brought in from Orissia, along with their mysterious new Vizir who has begun a great series of military reforms that have seen the kingdom discard bronze weapons for iron!”

  “Bah, then we will simply buy iron,” Kawas retorted indifferent to his grandfather’s objections.

  “And where will we buy it from, you fool!” Segrun hissed hardly able to believe his own ears, “We do not have access to it, do not know where or how we might mine for it as the Dwarves of our lands will not tell us and the Orissians would levy too high a price for it!”

  “Then what is the answer? To make peace with the south?”

  At this question his grandfather became consternated. Another man might have been concerned over the fecklessness and indifference of his son’s heir, any other man might well have pondered what might be done. It was not however a line of thought that the old lord wished to pursue though, consumed by frustration as he was with the boy. “No matter, what news have you brought hither from the King’s court?”

  “The King is still dying, and his sons’ bicker endlessly,” Kawas replied airily, neglecting to mention that one of them had spoken to him in private, the two of them having become close friends in the time he had been away in the capital.

  Saddened by this, Segrun bowed his head and might well have wept if his grandson were not present. He had known Hauvan in his youth, and had known him not as a sickly old man surrounded by jealous sons’ and greedy daughters, but as a strong and impressive man. It was he who had led their armies in war, had smashed apart the eastern barbarians that had sought to overwhelm the kingdom and though it had meant submission to Orissia he had paid the price in return for support and trade.

  “Any other news?” He asked gloomily.

  “Ah yes, there was one incident of note,” It was now that the youth became excited to the amusement of his grandsire, “Now the King’s granddaughter the Princess Felice had gone missing for a time, kidnapped by some blackheart-”

  “That is terrible!”

  “But you see she was rescued! The warlock who stole her away was stopped, and slain not long thereafter, ere he could properly sacrifice her,” Kawas reported eagerly to the surprise of the old man, who stared at him amazed at this news. “And the hero who rescued her was incredibly fearsome, and was said to have slain this warlock and refused a reward.”

  “What? Why?”

  “No one knows, all that we know is his name.”

  “Which is?”

  “Aganyú.”

  https://ko-fi.com/the_brothers_krynn you can decide the donation if you should want to give one.

  https://www.patreon.com/c/thebrotherskrynn