:)
The Heart of Seven
Delegation to Acacia
by Jason A. Anderson
(Pre-Final Edit)
Part 1 of 3
Tad Barker’s rather common brown eyes looked over their view of the large hall. Not magnificent by many human royalty standards, the exterior to the Goell delegates living quarters was quite magnificent by Goell standards. The hall about 30 ft. long and 15 ft. wide. Throughout her tapestries and paintings depicting the various triumphant stages of human history in the region for the last two hundred years. There were a few tables trinkets and bubbles that had been set aside as gifts from deep into areas that needed to be remembered or waiting to be placed in a more appropriate storage area. A small vase of hand pounded silver on one table, a mirror with an ornately carved and gilded frame that nearly disappeared in any Goell’s massive hands. A very expensive and finely tea set was on one end table, closest to the head dignitary’s chamber door. Tad’s eyes seemed to gravitate to it. Although he never once considered “appropriating” the expensive item, he did marvel at the vines that seemed to be crafted out of living silver, how the pattern seemed to weave itself around the exterior of the teapot, to wind its way up the delicate crookneck and pour spout. Blossoms decorated the teapot lid. Tad marveled at the value that humans always placed on objects that were crafted by hand: custom made objects. The beautifully worked metal was brushed and polished in such a way as to reflect the light and made the surface of the teapot and tea set shimmer as if possessing a life of its own. Goell placed little value in human possessions, but as they were originally cavern dwellers in a very distant and dormant volcanic region of the known lands, it didn’t surprise Tad to find that out.
He heard the deep resonating voices of the
Goell speaking in their bizarre, almost guttural language through the closed
doorway behind him and that sudden realization that they were approaching
spurred him back to his task. He padded
his way down the polished wood-lined hall, his leather soled house shoes made a
slight slapping sound against the worked wood flooring. He stooped quickly to pick up the small twig
that must have blow in an open window that afternoon, which he had spied from
the top of the hall, just as he heard voices and the door opening behind him.
Bowman ‘Zee was large, especially by human
standards. Compared to Tad, who was not
short for a young man in his early twenties, ‘Zee towered a good two feet above
him and at least doubled his weight. The
Goell delegate was the epitome and typified the race: large in stature, leathered
skin that had developed over years of working as miners and in forge pits. Their bodies were much better suited to cruel
temperatures and hotter weather and they had long generations ago adapted to
the volcanic regions from whence they hailed.
However, though he was large, bipedal and had piercing yellow eyes with
vertical slits in them, harkening to that of a feline, ‘Zee was not a typical
Goell. As he walked toward Tad, who
stood patiently and respectfully near his benefactor’s chamber door, still closed,
the young servant reflected for a moment on how different ‘Zee was to other
Goell that he had met and spent time with.
While the were silent, ‘Zee had a tendency to speak his mind more often
than other Goell thought he should. He
wanted and explanation for why things happened, rather than accepting the
outcome of events with Goell simplicity.
Though they were large in stature and powerful, Tad’s experience with
the Goell race since they had arrived in the ancien ocean city of Althea,
roughly fifty years earlier, was that they were a contradiction in
stereotypes. Where they were tall and
strong and liked tough, physical work, they were unaggressive, quiet. Tad had often heard them referred to as shy,
which didn’t seem to fit the image of a creature that was that obviously
powerful. Many was the time that he
reflected on the size of ‘Zee’s hands as he was pouring the Goell’s tea or
setting a plate at a table. And how he knew
without a doubt that if Bowman ‘Zee had wanted to, he could have crushed Tad’s
head with his giant’s hands without any exertion to himself.
“Ho there, Tad,” ‘Zee greeted him as he and his party of four other Goell reached the chamber door.
Tad nodded respectfully again and in silence turned and opened his master’s wide chamber door.
‘Zee’s accent was thick with the norther lilt that all Goell seemed to speak with, the exception being the Goell Althean Firstborns and every generation to follow. They didn’t have the same type of diminutive accent that their parents did.
“I have prepared your steam,” Tad said as the quintet entered the chambers, “and all preparations are in order for our departure tomorrow,” he explained as he shut the door behind them.
“Very good. I don’t require anything else for the evening, other than you prepare yourself and make sure that nothing is forgotten. Make sure that your house is in order before we leave in the morning. The sun rises early.”
This was to be Tad’s third venture to Acacia
and as he bowed his head in acquiescence, his mind reeled with the
possibilities that the next month held.
He bowed his way out of the room and, closing the door behind him,
couldn’t help finally cracking a smile.
This was the kind of trip that he lived for, he remembered as he hurried
down the entry hall and made his way through the delegate house.
Althea, in its most beautiful years, had once
been the capital city of the whole western region. Nothing had come close to it. The buildings were constructed of marble,
sandstone and limestone. They were
polished until they glittered in the sunlight like the morning sunlight off of
a beautiful clear sea. The city had housed all the great dignitaries. The entire collection of princes had
delegates that lived or visited Althea regularly. Without them, they would be left out of the
loop of decision making, which ultimately lead to their downfall and demise of
their own prosperity. The streets had
all been cobbled and the pathways in between were lit and well policed, to
avoid any kind of dangerous activities.
Sure, Althea had had its share of criminal element, but even the
criminals at their worst still respected the city and the people that lived
there, to a degree. Five hundred years
had passed since the days of Althea’s reign.
At the top of that half-century was the Great Revolution, a turning
point for human society when the commoners rose up in defiance of the
matriarchal society in which they lived.
Though the revolution had been fast and blood, many of its effects had long reaching impact, Tad reflected upon as he sprinted down the cracked stone thoroughfare toward the home that his mother maintained not far away. He could smell the salt on the warm evening breeze. The ocean was audible and if he listened he could hear the sea as the swells raised and crashed against the sand, ever so subtly. He marveled that he could ever grow accustomed to such a beautiful sound as the waves on the ocean. But he had been raised here. He had heard the talk of visitors of how glorious the sea was to behold at night, how the sky lit up unlike anything anyone had ever seen at sunset. As he had been raised in Althea, these were things he had taken for granted for years and never really appreciated until his first trip to Acacia. The delegation would be leaving in the morning, and with them he and a small handful of hired knights would make the two-week journey to the new capital city of the region.
Whenever he cast his gaze out at the sea, just before entering the path to his mother’s estate, Tad always was captured by the sight of the remains of the great bridge. It had once connected the two peninsula that created the harbor on which Althea rested. But during the revolution, as a last ditch effort to win their dying cause, the rebels, through the help of tyranny and magic, had managed to topple the bridge, rendering the mouth of the harbor nearly impassible to large ships, thus closing off the port to all major sea trade. It doomed Althea to an existence for which she was never designed.
Tad paused and looked at the massive stone
footings and the remains of each side of the bridge as they jutted out a few
dozen yards toward one another, as if they wanted to span the great expanse
between them for one last, glorious moment, to bridge that gap from one
peninsula to the other and for a brief, eternal, heartbeat be complete again.
The Barker household consisted of Tad’s three sisters and two brothers, his mother, his father, for which who’s profession the family was named, and his aunt and two cousins. As Tad was the oldest boy, though third from the top of all his siblings, he had finally been granted the privilege of his own room. Located at the top of the house made for a sweltering existence, but the additional privacy and the ability to lock his personal belongings away when not at home, outweighed the discomfort.
(Author’s note: Before Tad leaves the delegation house, he needs to change into his outside shoes.)
Tad rapped once on the main door to announce
a new arrival into the home before opening the large entry end stepping inside. The door closed behind him with a solid
‘click’. He was plunged into darkness
within. He didn’t stumble and managed to
kick off his outside shoes into the pile of footwear stashed in a dark entry
corner, then turn and began up the hall.
His eyes adjusted to the gloom of the interior as he walked. After a few seconds, he emerged into a lit
anteroom that adjoined his mother’s office.
Sitting by the window, with a book in her lap, a rare article, but one that a family of privilege such as the Barker’s was allowed, was Tad’s cousin. At nearly the identical age to he, by the name of Shayna Wheeler, the two of them were born within a year of one another, though they couldn’t be more different. Where Tad had a love for the arts, entertainment, a desire to journey, see new things and record them in his diaries, Shayna was an activist. Her temperament was such that she could not stand to see any living thing trod upon. Regardless of whether it had done wrong or not. Granted, over the years Tad had been able to convince her that the rights of criminals should not outweigh those of law-abiding citizens, but even that agreement was conditional upon circumstances and the young woman’s mood. Outwardly, she seemed everything he wasn’t. About four inches shorter, her hair was long and cascaded down her neck in amber ringlets, almost as if a red waterfall, coalescing off her head to her shoulders. Her skin was the color of fresh cream and completely unblemished. She attributed that to her father, who, for some reason, though light-skinned, neither freckled nor burned. Of course, he never tanned, either. His skin always remained a pure, milky white, as did hers. If Shayna could have determined the most unremarkable feature on her, it probably would have been her eyes. In this case, like Tads, a deep brown, and she often wondered if that was why she remained unwed.
Shayna rather undantyly sat sprawled across
the sofa in the anteroom, reading, and Tad rapped his knuckles on the doorjamb
to announce his presence there. Looking
up, she instantly smiled and closed the book.
“Did you ask?” she inquired as she untangled her limbs and gracefully crossed the floor to him.
“As far as Bowman ‘Zee is concerned,” Tad replied, “it’s alright with him if you come.”
Shayna cried out in excitement, hopping up and down and clasping her hands, then threw her arms around him and gave him a huge kiss on the cheek. “I’m so excited, I’m so excited,” she kept repeating.
As Tad managed to disentangled himself from her, he kept repeating, “I know, I know.”
“What’s all the excitement?” asked a woman’s voice from the hall. They turned to find Shayna’s mother standing behind them. The presence of Mrs. Wheeler gave Tad cause for thought and instantly diminished Shayna’s mood. If anything, he figured she would want an opportunity to prepare her case before presenting it to her mother, but if he knew his cousin, she would probably take the opportunity as it presented itself.
Cocking her head to one side, Shayna took a deep breath and said, “Tad was able to get permission for me to join the delegation to Acacia. It leaves tomorrow.” As she said it, she couldn’t help letting the excitement into her voice and she took a few tentative steps forward. The look of anticipation in her eyes almost made Tad want to cry out, for he suspected she was more optimistic about her mother’s reply than he.
Mrs. Wheeler pierced her with a gaze, the kind that turned water to ice, and then in silence turned and exited back up the hall.
(Part 2 will be available, shortly…stay tuned.)