Tower of High Sun - 1. Chapter 1

Prelude: Birth/Rebirth

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Prelude: Birth/Rebirth

“Now push my lady… push.” Midwife Min had spent the last nine months caring for the Duchess and the child she carried. Lady Simma had longed for a child not just to fulfill her motherly needs but because it was demanded of her. The Duke had always been an ambitious man but to have Min help give birth to a child that would be sacrificed to that monster… She would not have it.

Seeing the child’s head breach the womb the midwife waved her apprentices out of the room. “The child is almost here.”

“But what of my sister… where is the changeling?”

“I’m here sister!” Lady Simma’s sister, Yalla, came running in carrying a basket.

“Lock and bolt the door!” Min commanded. “This business is dark enough without the Imperial Doom’s Men.”

The sister dropped the basket. “You said nothing about the Doom’s Men. I can’t have any part in this”

Min arm snapped out towards the Duchess’s sister. As she squeezed her fingers into a fist an invisible force grabbed the Countess. Drawing the hand to her chest she pulled Lady Yalla and the basket towards her.

“Help me sister. She’s bewitched me.”

“I’m sorry Yalla but you’ve left me no choice. I will not have my child paired with the Prime Heir.” Knowing Yalla had cuckold the Duke, Lady Simma was not one bit sorry.

“But it might be a girl.”

“No foolish girl. It’s a boy, a son… just as the soothsayers foretold.”

“MIN!” The Duchess screamed. The child, her son, was coming.

The witch glared at Yalla and secured her to a nearby chair with a binding spell. On the lady’s hand, she slipped an empty socket ring while placing a sleeping and forgetting charm on the countess. Turning her attention back to the Duchess, she saw the child had not turned. “Oh poor child… I feared it would be so. No matter. The child must be born.”

With skill that would match the Emperor’s personal surgeon, she cut the child free from the womb. Instead of sewing the wound, she went to the basket Lady Yalla had brought. Inside was a cocooned changeling. No larger than the infant she withdrew, she gently placed it inside the duchess’s womb. She stitched the womb closed with an enchanted thread made from the Simma’s dark hair. She did not leave even the faintest trace of a scratch.

Min then turned her attention to Yalla. This was to be the harder of the two tasks. Replacing the Duke Prince with a changeling was childs play compared to placing the boy inside the yet to be pregnant Yalla. Using the same knife she used to deliver the baby, she made narrow cuts on Yalla’s belly forming bloody runes. Once done, she placed a mirror image of the runes on the tiny child’s body. Around the infant’s neck she hung a gold ring. Taking hold of the ring she placed on the Countess with one hand and the ring around the child with the other, she cast what would be her last and greatest spell.

With the release of potent magic, the infant turned into red smoke. The smoke gathered and swirled into a funnel.

The miniature cyclone made for the child’s mother. Both Min and the Duchess knew the smoke knew what had happened and felt violated. Min though had enough power within her to summon it back to her. With the force of her formidable will she shrank and hardened the smoke until she held a large ruby. This she inserted in the empty socket of the ring she had slipped on the Countess’s hand.

It was done.

Near death, Min crawled to the Duchess and held her in her arms. “The child is safe.”

“And the Changeling that grows within me?”

“It will be our dagger in the dark. Your family will have its vengeance as will I."

Chapter One: The Fallen Countess

‘

The courier never liked traveling off the main roads. The inns had lice, the taverns had rats in their barrels, and the common folk were so common that a straw in the hay. In any other situation, the royal knight would have refused the commission but the orders had come from the Duke. Atop the hill he and his horse stood upon, Sir Levi could see the few acres that made up the fiefdom of Rimms. The village was a collection a nine huts made of mud and straw gathered around a pig pen.

Surrounding the village were fields of beets, millet, onions and potatoes. With so little green this far into summer, it would be a poor harvest.

The manor house, if it could be called that, was built along a muddy stream. While not made of stone, glass, and metal at least it wasn’t made of rotting hay and dusty bricks of dried mud. A two-story house made of timber, its widows were un-paned and shuttered. To close them one only need remove the block of wood holding up the trapdoor above them. To think the Duke would dare send him, a royal knight, to such a dismal part of the Emperor’s domain. It was either revenge for a perceived slight or his Grace’s play at dark humor.

Readying himself for the scent of pig shit and the unwashed filth of serfs, he covered his face with an unfolded kerchief and tied it around the back of his neck. He then spurred his mount down the hill.

Few land bound serfs took notice of his arrival. “Please Sir Master… please let me go.” Tied to a pillory in the middle of the pig pen was a naked man. All skin and bones, he was painted with the words “Pig Thief” on his chest. With the bleeding welts around it, the knight suspected the writer had used hot boiling tar.

“Did you really steal a pig?” Sir Levi asked.

“Nay Sir Master. I swear I didn’t.”

“I don’t believe you. You want to know why?”

“Nay Sir Master, nay.”

He was going to tell him anyway. “Because if I were in your shoes, not that you have any, I would do exactly the same thing.”

“The cruel Lady Mistress starves us Sir Master.! Two of my girls died last winter and me wife the year before.”

“Then you should be grateful that you will soon be joining them.” With so many oozing pustules, it was only a matter of time before sepsis set in. He spurred his horse on. The faster he completed the odious commission, the faster he could wash away such filth from his mind.

Ignoring the man’s further pleas, he made straight for the manor. At the log fence he was met by the most curious child. He had dark black hair and green eyes. Dressed in overalls that were wet up to his knees, he held a bullfrog in both hands. “Please Sir Mister, can you hide Billy for me?”

“Billy is your frog I take it.”

“Aye Sir Mister. If the Countess finds it, she is certain to make a meal of him.”

Sir Levi let out an uproarious guffaw. “So the whore still refers to herself as a countess does she? Mark my words serf, your mistress is no countess. Not for the last twelve years at least.”

The lad dropped the frog and took on a look of pure horror. “You shouldn’t speak of my mother … I mean the Countess like that. She would have you whipped if she were to hear.”

Now it was the knights turn to look horrified. “Your mother? You are the whore’s bastard?”

“Aye Sir Mister.” The boy replied as he began to cry.

This is what I was sent for, a child who plays in the mud like a pig? The Duke would have my head if I were to present him with this… this pathetic creature. Strange, he looks more like his poor aunt than his mother. “You’ve let your frog get away.”

The boy grabbed the frog and made a run for it.

The knight didn’t know whom the child was more scared for… the frog being fried or his mother tanning his hide. If he was to complete this commission, he would have to put a stop to the latter.

A woman carrying a cast iron skillet came running out of the house. “BOY! Where are you! Bring me that frog or I’ll see both of you suffer for it.” The woman, whom the knight took for the former countess, was in nearly as ragged a state as her serfs. Her once long silky blond hair was as tangled and knotted as a briar patch. Her clothes appeared to be of wool, not the same flax as her serfs, but were a dirty unbleached gray. Her face… long unmasked lacked any of the beauty she once possessed.

“Yalla I presume.”

“What?” Yalla took one look at the knight and dropped the frying pan on her straw sandaled foot. “Why… why hello sir knight.” Even in the diminished state she was in, she hadn’t forgotten how to be demure. Covered in filth, it only made her look all the more pathetic and desperate.

Sir Levi dismounted from his horse but kept a firm hold of its reins. With his free hand, he pulled back his cloak.

Seeing the entwined serpents and rising sun emblem of the God Emperor on the man’s tabard, Yalla fell to her knees. “You are a knight of our Holy Emperor?” For the first time since being expelled from the Imperial Court, the gleam of hope shined in her blue eyes.

“I am.” He placed a hand on top of his sword’s scabbard He was ready to kick her with his boot if she dared touch him. All knew the ill will of the Emperor was as contagious as the pox.

“Has his Majesty sent for me? May I finally return to Court?”

“Nay Miss Yalla. Your sister’s hatred of you has not lessened. Until it does, you will receive no kind word from his Majesty. I’ve come for the boy.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the child and another boy peeking out from under a log.

“My son? Have the standards of the Court fallen so low that they would invite a bastard among them?”

“That he is one is no fault of his own. You’re the one who couldn’t keep her legs shut.”

“I did not go to him. He came to me. If my sister had not failed in her duty to the Duke, he would not have asked me to his bed.”

“Your sister… or should I say half sister, is a blood relative of our Holy Emperor. You are not. That alone should have dissuaded you from giving birth to his child.”

“If my sister’s hatred of me is still so great, why have you been sent for my son? I very much doubt she would want a daily reminder of my transgressions against her.”

“He is not to be presented to the Court.”

“Then where are you taking him?”

“To the estate of Prince Duke Gustav.”

“The Prince Duke? My sister’s son? For what purpose sir knight?”

“Prince Gustav is in need of a whipping boy.”

“A whipping boy? I see… this is my sister’s doing, isn’t it. It was not enough she had me stripped of my titles and lands. Now she wishes me to serve her as a common servant.”

“Not you… only the child. What have you named him?”

“Thaddeus, get out here!”

“Thaddeus…you named him after the Duke’s treacherous brother. I guess that is fitting considering your betrayal of your sister.”

“Thaddeus!”

Over by the log, the boy in the wet overalls was being held back by the other youth. “Count Prince Thaddeus is this how you treat an Imperial messenger?”

Thaddeus stomped his heel on his companion’s foot.

“Ouch!” The youth reacted to the sharp pain, letting Thaddeus go.

“Yer pardon Sir Mister.”

“Sir Knight.” Sir Levi corrected. “A prince must know the proper way of speaking.”

“Sorry Sir Knight. The Countess says I’m too simple to understand the ways of court. What does simple mean?”

“It means you still have a lot to learn. No matter. Yalla if you will gather your son’s things, we can leave. I will not spend a single night in these lands.”

“Thaddeus! Go pack my things. I do not wish to spend another night here either.”

“Did I say you would be leaving with me Yalla? I said the boy. I said nothing about you.”

Thaddeus eye’s darted between the silver armored knight and his drab mother. He didn’t know who to obey. “Countess?”

For a long moment Yalla and the knight glared at each other. She never thought her sister would send for her bastard nephew. After her exile to this pigsty of a fiefdom, Yalla’s only thought was how to regain the Emperor’s good graces. Insisting she leave with her son might be the last chance she had to end her exile.

With the sun halfway toward the horizon, the knight decided to press the issue. He drew a dagger. With one gloved finger on the bottom of the hilt and another pressed against the tip he waved it before the woman’s eyes. “Get your things boy.”

Exile was one thing, death was another. “Go get your things Thaddeus.”

The boy waved his companion over. “Get your things too Jack. We’re going on an adventure.”

Jack did not budge. His full attention was on the knife. “I don’t think Sir Knight will let me go with you.”

“If he doesn’t let you go then I’m not going.” Thaddeus gave the knight a look of defiance.

“What is he to you?”

‘He’s his whipping boy.” Yalla explained.

“No he’s not. He’s my friend.”

“I’m his bed warmer Sir Knight.” Embarrassed Jack cast his eyes to the dirt-ward.

“”I see… Pray tell how you gained such a noble role.”

“I stole a pig Sir Knight.”

“No… we both did.” Thaddeus insisted. He gave his mother an accusing look.

“The brat’s mother and father stole the pig and were rightly punished for it.”

“Like the man I passed on the way here?”

“Of course. I would have done the same to the boy but my son begged me not to. I must have been mad to allow it”

So the boy’s an orphan. That speaks highly of his lordship. A kind heart will serve him well where he is going. If he is to survive life in the Court he will also need an ally he can trust. “Very well… you may come with us.” Sir Levi prayed he wouldn’t come to regret this.

“Thank you Sir Knight.” Thaddeus attempted to bow but lost his balance as he rose. He would have fallen face forward if Jack had not caught him.

“Come Master… we should not keep Sir Knight waiting.”

“Yer forgiveness Sir Knight.”

Levi wondered how could the son of pig thieves have better manners than the son of the Grand Duke. It helped ease his fears that he had made the wrong choice.

The Prince Count had very few possessions... three linen tunics, a pair of wool pants, a brown green-banded cap, a pair of worn boots, and a mildewed gray coat of unbleached wool. Not much but the Knight had more than enough coin to provide Thaddeus with proper clothes. Jack had only the clothes on his back.

“Don’t have any other clothes?” Levi asked the scrawny youth.

“Begging your pardon Sir Knight but we share clothes.” Thaddeus explained.

“Share?” Sir Levi took a moment to compare the two. Thaddeus was a good four inches shorter than his friend. He then noticed how Jack’s sleeves reached no further than his elbows and his overalls halfway below his knees. They did indeed share. “When we reach Tall Falls, we’ll see about getting you two your own clothes.”

“It’s alright Sir Knight. We don’t mind.” Jack replied. Yalla was stingy and had not been willing to provide either with proper clothes. But as he said, neither he nor his master Thad seemed to mind.

“I’m sure you don’t but I do… so will Thaddeus’ father. You both have a stench about you that would curdle milk.”

“Your pardon Sir Knight.”

“Your pardon.”

The boys had no reason to apologize. The mother did. “Yalla, do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Lifting herself up on her toes, she arched her back forward and lifted her left leg behind her until they formed a straight line. She then placed her left thumb between her teeth and bit down on the nail and spat it at Sit Levi. “Your pardon Sir Knight. I forgot my place.”

If the boy had not been present, Levi would have beaten her to a bloody pulp. No one but the most debased woman would have insulted him. She dare call me a cock biter? “Dare think of doing that again and I will cut the thumb off.” By the horror on the boys’ faces, they knew what gesture meant. “Go say goodbye to your mother.”

He went to embrace her but stopped when she crossed her arms signaling her refusal. Thaddeus looked at her with tears in his eyes. “Goodbye Mo…” Yalla’s eyes flashed red. “Goodbye Countess.”

Jack had seen those tears all too often. “Come Master Thaddeus. We shouldn’t keep Sir Knight waiting.”

Sir Levi didn’t tarry getting both boys on his horse. Thaddeus he placed in front while Jack sat behind. He did not worry that the warhorse couldn’t carry the weight. When it was encased in armor it carried twice as much.

“Before we go do you have any message for me to send to your sister?”

Yalla let loose twelve years’ worth of curses and expletives. After the first few words, Sir Levi turned the horse around and trotted away. He did not doubt Yalla would not stop before the setting of the sun. He was right.

“I am sorry you had to witness that.”

“I… I’ve seen worse.”

Jack laughed. “What he means to say is that at least she was sober when you arrived.” His cheeky grin was the mirror opposite of Thaddeus’ worried frown. In time that would change. “Where will we be going Sir Knight?”

“Eventually to the Tower of High Sun. First we need to reach the town of Evermore.”

“Why there?” Thaddeus’ asked.

“It’s the closest major settlement to your mother’s lands. There we can get a clean bath, fresh clothes, half decent food, and a few nights’ rest without the company of lice and bedbugs.”

“A bath? The Countess would have me carrying fifty buckets from the stream to fill hers. Will I have to do the same for you Sir Knight.”

“No, that is the job of the inn keeper’s staff. Anyhow the water is supplied by pipes, not buckets.”

“Pipes? Like the ones the traders smoke?”

“Not that sort of pipe . These are wider than your fist and carry both hot and cold water.”

“Hot water? Are you planning to make a stew of us?” Jack asked.

“No such thing lad. A hot bath is ten times ten better than a cold one. Once inside the steaming tub you will never want to leave.”

“I don’t know. My Pa said you can catch the fever if you spend too much time in water.”

“Whether you like it or not, you’re getting one. Your stench is foul enough to kill the Duchesses roses.”

“Is my Aunt as bad as the Countess says?” Thaddeus asked

“She is not one to cross but she’s not the spiteful sort either. I would not worry. You won’t see much of her Grace. As I said, I have been sent to bring you to the Tower of High Sun.”

“What is the Tower of High Sun?” Jack asked.

“The Tower is the residence of his Highness, the Prime Heir and his court. Your cousin Oscar is among his companions. His lordship is to be the Duke Prince’s aide-de-camp.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you know what a squire is?”

Thaddeus furrowed his brow. “The servant of a knight I think.”

“He is. An aide-de-camp is much like a squire but of higher station.”

“How so?”

“As his aide, you will be a ranking officer in the Duke’s army. You will be his servant but you will also be expected to give the Duke Prince advice in all military matters.”

“But I know nothing about fighting.”

“Neither does his highness. You will learn as he does. Would I be wrong to assume your mother never taught you your letters?”

“I know how to write my name and haggle with the merchants.”

“Both important but do you know how to read.”

“No… the Countess never taught me.”

“Then you will have to learn. It’s a three-month ride to the Tower from Evermore. Carrying you both will make the journey somewhat longer but no matter. It will give us time to teach you your letters and numbers as well as to ride. You will need that skill if you are to take part in the hunt.”

“Hunt?”

“Foxes, bears, unicorns, Doom’s Men, beasts most mundane, and those that are not.”

“And will I be expected to kill them?”

“No… the killing is reserved for the upper nobility. You will carry his gun, wine skin, and whatever hides he takes.”

“I see.”

“Forgive me Sir Knight but Master Thaddeus is not the killing sort.”

“That I do not doubt. Unless he learns however, it will be his hide that is hunted.”

“If they try, I will cut their throats.” Jack wasn’t boasting or making an empty threat. He had made an oath he would die before breaking.

Where did Thaddeus find such a boy and how does he inspire such loyalty. The knight tasted the bitterness of uncertainly spread across his tongue.

They rode until the path was hidden by the veil of night. While the knight brushed down his horse, Thaddeus and Jack went searching for firewood. It gave the two of them time to speak in privacy.

“What are you thinking Thad? Should we make a run for it?” Now that they were away from the Knight and Thaddeus’ mother, Jack did away with formality.

“I don’t want to be anyone’s servant but where would we go?”

“It’s not all that bad. I don’t resent being yours. But you’re right. Where would we go? Definitely not back to the Countess.”

“No, not home. Maybe we’ll know what to do when we reach Evermore.”

There was a break in the clouds revealing two moons. One was white, the other blue. The closer and smaller of the two had been waning for the last few days and was only half visible. The blue one was always full, radiating with its own light. In a week or two the white one would be in full eclipse with the blue one directly behind it.

“Do you think we’ll reach Evermore before the next Midnight Day?” Thad asked. On the Day of Endless Midnight, the world of Tyron would be covered in darkness. Sometimes the darkness lasted a few hours, other times days.

“Maybe. One never knows when a Midnight Day will come. If not this time, they will come awfully close.”

According to legend, the eclipse had once lasted a hundred years. That had been the time of the Midnight Wars, when Underworld invaded Overworld. It was during that time the Towers of Rise Dawn, High Sun, and Duskfall had been built. While their protective light had long faded, they served as monuments of those dark days.

The last Midnight Day occurred when the boys were seven. The memory of that endless night was set in stone in their minds. On that Midnight Day, Jack’s folks had stolen one of the Countess’s pig. Before the sun could rise again, she had them boiled alive. Thaddeus convinced his mother to spare Jack’s life. The darkness ended soon after. The boys took it as a sign their friendship had been destined by the stars and would last as eternally as their light. Both wondered what the next Midnight Day would bring. If one was soon in coming, their leaving the valley with Sir Levi might have been destined by the eternal stars as well.

“Don’t wander too far children.” Hearing the knight, they grabbed as much wood as they could carry and hurried back to the camp.

While they had been away the knight had ringed the center of the camp with stones. “Put the wood down there if you will.” He pointed to the center of the stones. “Stack them neatly.”

When the boys were done the knight took out want looked like a silver flute from his pack. He placed one end under the pile of wood and the other to his lips and blew.

Fire jumped from the holes in the rod and so did the boys. Flint and iron wool they understood and had used themselves. What they had witness could only be called magic.

The Knight took one look at the pair and laughed. “Have you never seen a fire rod before?”

“Nay Sir Knight. Is it magic?” Thaddeus asked.

“The magic of science. The knight let them look down part of the rod he had blown through. Down the shaft near each hole were pinwheels made of flint. When he blew on it, the pinwheels twirled against the ribbed interior creating sparks. “See, one doesn’t have to be a wizard to use a fire flute.”

While he cooked, he let the boys play with the flute. When Thaddeus set Jack’s tunic on fire he quickly took it back. “I think you two have had enough fun. Time to eat and then it’s off to bed. We will be leaving with the false dawn.”

The skinny pair ate with appetites worthy of men four times their size. Between mouthfuls they asked the Knight the name of what they were eating and why it tasted so good. Chunks of ham stewed in navy beans and flat bread were not unknown in these parts but the spices he had used were.

When there wasn’t a spoon or crumb left, he handed them a blanket and told them to go to sleep.

While he rested his head on his saddle he looked at the curled up pair. Jack returned the gaze with his dark eyes. There was the hint of a threat in those eyes, as if to tell the knight to not dare approach. He once again wondered if he had made the right decision to allow him to come.

That night his sleep was disturbed by dark dreams.

He awoke to find himself soaked in cold sweat but otherwise unharmed. Whatever occurred in his nightmares had already faded from his mind.

“Is it time for us to leave Sir Knight?” Jack asked.

Sir Levi sat up with a jolt. Had the youth been watching him all this time? He looked up at the setting moons and nodded. “It will be dawn soon. How did you sleep?”

Jack nudged Thad awake. The strange youth’s companion stretched and yawned. At least he’d been asleep.