Jonathan Dunn - The Forgotten King

“Against you, I do. You were careless and let the loyal Atiltians catch you in your weakness. We returned to find that Gylain had only increased his power. The navy was his, and it chased us off to India and China, a lonely refugee in this world of pain. You have been chained there ever since, old enemy, and you know your fate: to never again be a free man. That is the reward for your treason. I need take no revenge, for your bitter heart can do more torture than I.”

“Fools will be fools,” Nicholas Montague answered. “Can you think the rebels are any closer to overthrowing Gylain? Have you not just said that Gylain’s men burned down a church building? Even in the forest the rebels have no strength.”

“Yes, Nicholas, the vagrants burnt the building. Yet they were chased away. Two men opposed them, and they fled.” He fell silent for a moment. “Perhaps it was merely the sun,” he hesitated, “But the one wielded a golden sword, the sword of the king. Either way, six against two, and the two prevailed. Is this the omen of our demise? No, but fools will be fools.”

The swarthy prisoner stopped his grin short, angry that his master’s forces were beaten. But he did not let that anger suppress his hatred.

“Do you hope to find Celestine still among the living? If she is, than she is no better than her mother! You must realize that she has long ago consented to marry Gylain, or has been slain. There is no hope for you to rescue your daughter.” The prisoner feigned laughing.

The Admiral, however, was not fooled.

“Alfonzo lives,” he said with conviction, “And he is more a man than Gylain, for he has the hardness of a man and the wisdom of a woman. Celestine still lives, and still retains her honor. Does not the sun still rise? And do not the stars still shine? If she were lost, then even they would hide their faces in disgust.”

A small tear fell down the old man’s rough face, and even the heartless Nicholas could not help but feel jealous of the love of the father, though it had been tried so hard in his younger days.

The ship rocked steadily up and down to the pulse of the water, with the occasional creak of a timber attempting to adjust itself to the change of pressure. With a slow, unstoppable attraction, the sun was being pulled down below the horizon, leaving the world behind for another dark night. The officer of the watch approached the Admiral.

“Sir,” he said, “Should we not turn to the sea, for the night is coming and this is a lee shore.”

“Yes, turn her to the south, Barnes Griffith. We will spend the night between Atilta and France.”

“And tomorrow?” the officer, Barnes Griffith, asked.

“We go ashore to hear news of Alfonzo and his followers. This is war, young one, and I plan to win.”

“We land outside Eden, then?”

“No, for that is too rash. We have no intelligence of their fleet and it is best to avoid it. We will send out the longboat when we are across from the Western March. I know of an Innkeeper on the forest road that runs out of there who will be able to give us the information we need. From there, we will travel to Eden in disguise and see what we can about the fleet. Gylain has no seamen as followers – none of those who served under me, anyhow – so the navy was full of rebels and lubbers when we last were in these parts. If he has done no better, we have but to overthrow the captains and retain the crew.”

“As you say, sir.”

The Admiral nodded his head and went below, leaving the control of the ship to his trusted officers. His quarters were directly under the bridge, a simple stairway connecting the two. The room was small and cramped, for a land building, but on a ship it was luxurious. There was a cot in one corner, and a grand oak desk on the opposite wall, in front of a large French window that gave a panoramic view of the ocean. A deck jutted out from another wall, projecting itself over the water. Each of the other walls were windowless, one leading to the main deck of the ship, The King’s Arm , and the other to his private bathroom.

Admiral William Stuart sighed heavily and stared at a picture on the wall of a beautiful woman, muttering to himself, “I will not forget, Casandra, nor will Gylain. The love that I have given you, and the hatred that has been returned to me, are too great to be forgotten.”

The old man pulled off his shirt and looked at his reflection in the full-length mirror that rested against the wall, his eyes cold with a smoldering anger. His back was covered with the scars of a hundred lashes, each one slithering along his rough skin like a snake – a very deadly snake.

“I will never forget, Gylain, nor will you. What was taken will yet be avenged.”

With that, he went to bed.

Chapter 18

The capital city of Atilta was Eden, sitting on the southern coast, toward the eastern portion of the island. It was a magnificent city, without blemish on its exterior, though its interior was decaying. At this time, and indeed throughout its entire history, it was a large and important city, for no other reason than that Atilta was a small, wild place, and its only civilized region was Eden. The ancient forest stretched itself out all the way to the coast, even near Eden, and it surrounded the city on three sides, with the ocean on the other. Between the forest and the city a giant stone wall had been built many centuries prior to this time, making a barrier between civilization and nature that still stood after so many years.

Eden was an ancient city, retaining its former grandeur despite the tyranny it had beheld of late. The houses were still built of mighty timbers from the heart of the forest, and still loomed hundreds of feet above the ground. These lofty houses filled most of the city’s interior, interspersed with shops, which, however, were constructed in almost the same manner.

The cornerstone of each building was not a stone at all, but a log. In Atilta, the land of the forest, the products of the forest were used to construct the buildings. The forest was of purer origins than those on the continent, still retaining the strength of the early world. Thus, the trees did not drop their leaves in winter, nor did they rot. The willows truly weeped, shading whole fields, and the oaks truly towered. The firmus , exclusive to Atilta, was composed of strong, almost metallic fibers: as wood, they were used as the cornerstones of buildings; as fiber, rope.

At each of the four points of the compass – the Atiltians were very strict that each corner of a building faced the four cardinal points – a log was secured into the ground, a log little different than the wild tree: the bark was stripped, the branches were removed, but no other preparation was necessary. Tall and wide, these logs were twenty to thirty feet in diameter. Therefore, much of a building was carved into the four pillars that made its spine, encroaching the interior on every side. Generally, the bedrooms and dining rooms were placed on the corners, to soak in the view. The average Atiltian, therefore, woke from a bed of which even the frame was carved from the inside of a tree, and ate his meals looking out from windows of the same. For these reasons, the island was considered magical by the ignorant.

This formed the basic building, excepting only the walls and ceiling. These were supplied by a vine very common in Atilta, the hanging timber: thick, impenetrable, and nourishing. With these vines for walls, the elements could not penetrate the inside of the building, yet neither were stuffiness and stale air imprisoned within. This was the wonder of Atiltian architecture: portions of the house were closed and comfortable, built into giant timbers; while other portions were open and airy, a natural veranda in the center of a vibrant metropolitan area.