the beginning of A Fantasy story
The alabaster and marble columns that supported the palace were cold and pretentious. But Ohe never noticed. When you’re young, wherever you grow up is home. She was constantly in the company of female attendants and so, although she was an orphan, never felt the absence of her mother. She was tall for her age, eleven, and had bright red hair and green eyes. The typical appearance of the citizens of the Fifth Kingdom was nowhere near as bold. They had fair skin, white or yellow hair, and dark eyes. Ohe looked like a foreigner, which was something of a scandal since outsiders were never trusted and were always dealt with accordingly: from overhearing the whispers of attendants, Ohe learned that most foreigners were suspected of belonging to small terrorist groups from the surrounding countries. Looking at herself disapprovingly in the mirror one morning, Ohe asked an attendant why the Scion had adopted her.”
“Stop asking silly questions and come along to supper,” the attendant said nervously. Ohe would eat every meal with her adopted father, but rarely saw him outside of these. Still, she loved the Scion. She was the only one who did.
“I watched you playing in the garden this morning,” the Scion said to Ohe during breakfast from across the walnut wood table, “Who were you today?” Attendants stood in every corner and every doorway; each held their hands together behind their backs, with their fingers interlocking. They wore black robes that came just below their waists, maroon vests underneath the robes, and black slacks. They were always barefoot, a custom for house servants. The informal dinning room in which Ohe and the Scion shared their meals was smaller than the great hall. It had large bay windows with maroon colored damask drapes. The room was dark in the mornings, except for the beams of light that entered from the four windows on the east side of the table and fell across it, illuminating the elegant banquet. The smell of eggs, toast, fruit, breakfast meats, and pastries wafted from the dinning room and spread throughout the palace.
Every morning The Scion would tell Ohe he saw her playing in the gardens, and every morning he would ask her who she was. Ohe would say she pretended she was a certain person or in a certain place, and The Scion would speak to her about that particular place or vocation. “A sailor!” Ohe might say, excitedly, or “a pirate” or “traveling through Evar.” Ohe would almost always pretend to be someone who traveled to far-away places. She had never been outside of the palace or gardens, and her only friend was her reflection in the large blue-green lake on the northwest side of the gardens.
“My little naive princess, Women are not equipped to be sailors, and beauty such as yours should not be ruined by harsh wind and salt air,” the Scion said explanatorily but lovingly. “And Evar? You want to travel amongst heathens? Travel without an escort is entirely too dangerous… and a pirate? Well! I think you would be better off playing just as you are, a perfect palace princess. Don’t you know that when other little girls play they pretend to be you?”
“Yes, Father,” Ohe said with singsong redundancy. She always responded this way when The Scion reminded her of her privilege. Although he was normally gentle and kind to her, he would get very angry if she forgot how “auspicious” his adoption of her was. She always had to be grateful.
“I am a bit lonely,” Ohe dared to say, “If you let me go to school with other children-”
“You are not to go outside of the palace walls! Do you hear me-?” The Scion caught himself and contorted his face into what he obviously believed was a comforting smile. “If you are lonely I can look into finding a companion for you, what about a Snorful? They’re playful animals.” He chuckled to himself.
“Father!”
“Alright alright… I’m sure any parent would be delighted to have their daughter invited to the palace.” Ohe finished her breakfast happily.
After breakfast, Ohe had her lessons. Her tutor, Rolden, was the royal historian whose work was interrupted by Ohe’s daily lessons.
“The Fifth Kingdom was created when the five parts of the United Lands were divided,” her tutor said in a small but excited voice, “Our race ruled these lands for one hundred years. These years were known as ‘The Golden Age.’”
Ohe mimicked the words “Golden Age” with her mouth as Rolden had said them, and she gazed out the window to the gardens. She had heard this speech many times before, over and over, and knew the History of the Fifth Kingdom by heart. Rolden continued:
“The ’Golden Age’ ended when the other races became so greedy and corrupt that they were too hard to control. So, in an attempt to save his people from the corruption, thievery, and violence of the other races, the first Scion divided each race into five separate countries, enclosing the fifth and largest country in a great wall. The wall is all that separates us from the maleficent and filthy outsiders who would spoil the righteousness and purity of our people.”
Ohe always snickered to herself at these words. From what she had been taught, all the other races had formed feeble societies that required the aid of The Fifth Kingdom in order to survive. She didn’t think such people could ever cause a threat to the ‘great and powerful’ Fifth.
“The five races, as they existed before the division of the Dynasty, were as follows,” Rolden went on, “the Evarts, pale pagans; the Priesieons, green haired cannibals; the Kashvarians, dark skinned miners and thieves; the Adulvilens who were mystics; and finally, our race, the fair skinned rulers and upholders of justice.” Ohe was suddenly pulled out of her boredom by something she had not caught before.
“What did the Adulvilens look like?” she asked.
“I’m sorry?” said Rolden.
“You described the appearance of every race except the Adulvilens, what did they look like?” Ohe asked again.
Rolden rocked nervously back and fourth on his feet (on tip toe he was almost 4’8), scrunched up his face in thought for a moment, and then gave his explanation quickly and irritably.
“That knowledge is lost to us, the Adulvilens mated so much with all of the other races that their appearance has blended with the others, no one knows what they looked like when the races were united…shall we continue?” Ohe felt a bit disappointed at this answer, but she resolved herself to stare out the window once more and listen to Rolden enjoy the sound of his voice much more than she.
Ohe always played in the garden that stretched for acres around the palace. Never having anyone to play with, she was forced to live in her own imagination, dreaming she was somewhere far off and exciting. This morning was no different.
“The mountains of Kashvar are hollow with mines, treacherous, and hard to climb,” Ohe said to herself as she trotted over a grassy knoll in the garden, “But Ohe, the great explorer, is not deterred. Up! up she goes dodging tumbling rocks and-“
“Ohe! Don’t go where I can not see you!” called an attendant sent to watch her.
“Alright!” Ohe called back. But once the attendant turned around Ohe etched a bit further away from where she had been standing. The lake was on the other side of the garden and she wanted to visit Thetis, her reflection and only friend. She imagined that Thetis was a water nymph caught by the Scion’s fishermen, and held captive in the lake, with no one but Ohe to talk to.
The sun shone through the trees and the garden was quiet, despite its size. No one besides Ohe ever made use of it. It was hers, and she knew it better than any of her servants. She could hide in it for hours before they found her. But this would always result in a scolding from the Scion, so she only slipped away on very special occasions. Today was an exceptionally lovely day, and Ohe couldn’t resist the opportunity to enjoy it with Thetis without being watched. She walked stealthily away from the knoll until she reached a secret path that would take her to a short cut across the garden to the west end.
As she snuck along without notice, she couldn’t help but giggle to herself at how crafty her escape was. She walked on the narrow red dirt path as if she was on a tightrope, arms outstretched to hold her balance and one foot directly in front of the other.
As Ohe approached the water she called out to Thetis and sat down by the lake with her legs tucked under her; her long red hair fell naturally over her shoulders. Peering deep into the water, Ohe saw Thetis staring back at her through the rippling water. “Well… what adventure should we go on today?” Ohe asked the water nymph. Ohe smiled and Thetis smiled. “The hole? Today?” Ohe said raising her eyebrows as Thetis mimicked their motion. Ohe had discovered a hole beneath the wall of the garden in the West end during her last expedition there. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it since, if she could just squeeze her way under it, she could break through into the outside world for an hour or so and slip back into the palace before anyone noticed anything suspicious about her absence.
“But what about you? You are trapped here, you can only travel by water and the lake does not go past the garden walls.” Ohe said to Thetis, who suddenly looked sad.
“But your stifled here, you’re suffocating, you have legs that can take you far away from here, you could experience it for the both of us. I’ve been outside these walls before, remember? I was captured. You’ve been a prisoner all your life.” Ohe imagined Thetis said to her. She looked around to see if anyone was there. Of course they weren’t, her escape route had been so perfect.
“I should do it now,” she said to herself, “This is my chance,” but her feet wouldn’t move. She had no idea what it would be like beyond the palace wall and could quite possibly be risking her life by leaving it.
“You can do this, you’ll come back and be able to tell me all about it You are ‘Ohe the Great Explorer,’ right? So prove it! I want to know what’s out there, what is he keeping you from?” Thetis said. Ohe clenched her jaw and her hands into fists.
“I’ll be back, I promise,” Ohe said, “I’ll tell you all about it,” Ohe told Thetis, and she walked to the other end of the lake, Thetis gliding beside her until she came to the water’s edge.
“Goodbye” Ohe said taking a deep breath and walking closer to the wall, leaving Thetis in the lake.
“What am I doing?” she said to herself again, then taking another step forward she said defiantly, “I’m living my life! He can’t keep me locked in here forever!” Ohe walked up to the hole, crouched down on her knees, looked around one more time, and wiggled through it.
What she had seen when she got through to the other side was nothing like anything she had imagined. Vines of bougainvillea ran up the white travertine palace walls, which stretched around the garden of the castle that was simultaneously her home and prison. The exit of the hole was just behind a huge limestone sculpture of a man with the head and wings of a hawk. It was a good thing too, because if she had climbed out into the open anyone of the guards posted at either the top or bottom of the wall might have spotted her. Squinting her eyes and looking up at the statue in the sunlight, Ohe could see that it held a lion in its beak. Ohe crawled her way closer to the foot of the statue. The top of her head just barely reached the top of the statue’s big toe. She grabbed onto the foot and pulled herself off her knees, the statue was surprisingly cold. Inside her garden the air was perfumed with flowers and freshly cut grass. Outside it reeked of something Ohe had never smelled before: the stench of a city and people living in too close proximity. But the part of the city closest to the palace was clean enough, and Ohe couldn’t turn back now.
She walked around to the side of the foot furthest from the wall and ran quickly to the other foot. She glanced back for a moment, then sprinted forward 100 feet across a road to a fine house on the city’s edge. She put her hand out and touched the wall of the house as if she were playing a game of tag with the guards, and the wall of this house was a “safe zone.” The wall of the house was made of some kind of stone that was not as smooth as the statue or the wall of the palace. She hunched over, catching her breath, still holding her hand to the wall. She looked nervously back at the guards, who had not noticed or didn’t see a little girl running in the opposite direction of the palace to be a threat. She knew they didn’t know what she looked like either; only the house servants and attendants were ever allowed to see her. She wondered why. Ohe caught her breath and took her hand from the wall. Since she figured the guards were no longer a threat she stood straight up and walked along the side of the house to the main road. There were only two roads. The main road ran vertically from the palace wall and the other ran horizontally in front of it. She stood directly in the center of the main road facing away from the Palace. She saw it extend on and on before her.
“This is it,” She said to herself taking a deep breath. “Ok… you’ve been out of the palace, now lets go back,” came a voice in her head, “No!” she said defiantly, “just a bit further.” She had every intention of returning, just a little later.
Walking down the road was not really an adventure. The novelty of escaping further away from the eyes of her attendants had slowly worn off. Besides the stink, it was really not much different from the palace. The houses that lined the road were large and beautiful, but the houses behind them decreased more and more in extravagance the further away they were from the road. The people were finely dressed and paused when they passed each other to nod in acknowledgement. Ohe thought they looked like the peacocks that walked around the palace grounds; too decorated and too arrogant. Women and men congregated in groups of the same sex all around the road and outside of their houses. The trees were artificially planted around the road with an equal distance between each of them. They were like the people themselves, standing tall with their heads in the air. In the palace garden, the grass was trimmed and the flowers were planted, but the trees could always grow where they would. To Ohe, they looked like they were strangled.
“Look! Look!” cried one of the women in a group of other women, “an Adulvilian spy! Do you see? That little girl, there!” Ohe turned her face away from the trees and looked behind her to where the woman had been pointing. But Ohe didn’t see a girl there.
“The red hair! That one! Get her, she’ll infect the city!” Another one of the women called.
“Me? No, you don’t understand I’m the daughter, well a-adopted, of the-“ Ohe called back, her voice shaking. But no one listened. The men closest to her grabbed Ohe by the shoulders, hard, and turned her around. The shock of it made her bite down on her lip.
“Look at me!” The first man said. Ohe put her hand up to her mouth where she had bitten into it, she tasted blood.
“Look me in the eye!” he said again. She couldn’t, she tried to raise her head but she couldn’t move. No one had ever talked to her this way, let alone laid their hands on her.
“Do you have any idea who I am?” Ohe said to him, her voice still shaking, but stern. Just wait until the Scion hears about this.
“Some little Adulvian witch I bet,” said the woman who had seen her first. Everyone who had been on the street was now gathered around Ohe and the man.
“Take- your- hands -off -me,” Ohe said slowly in the same stern voice. Another man standing next to the first grabbed her face under her chin and forced it upward. Her eye’s stared defiantly into theirs. They were fair skinned with blond hair, just like every other citizen of the Fifth Kingdom she had ever met, but there was a wild harshness in their eyes that she had never seen before. Won’t the palace guards do something?
“Who sent you here?” The first man said. “was it the rebels? …daring to send their spies into Winerich City now, are they? Well, they can’t send people into our land and get them out alive!” The man reached deeply into his pocket and pulled out a long silver dagger with a jeweled handle. Pulling off the blade’s case he held it high in the air. Ohe saw him raise his arm more clearly than she had seen anything at any point since he had grabbed her. She saw light glint down the side of the handle and the jagged curve of the blade, the point of it sharp and smooth. Ohe felt the blood in her body rush to her legs and arms, she would dodge the blade, despite the hands of men still gripping her shoulders, and run out of there. She’d go right to the Scion. The man thrusted the dagger forward, but his arm only reached the middle of its plunge before it stopped and began to shake. The man looked at it, his eyes widened and his eyebrows rose in shock. He looked at the other men, open-mouthed but speechless, as if to ask what he should do now. Suddenly, the dagger burst into flames setting the man’s arm on fire. The man stumbled backwards and let out a horrified yell.
“Witch! Witch!” A woman’s voice called among the screams of the bystanders, but she wasn’t looking at Ohe. A boy, maybe fifteen, with black hair and small in stature, emerged from behind a perfectly planted tree and stalked towards the heap of men and women trying to put out the fire which had now spread down the side of the first man’s body. The man writhed and shrieked with pain, the people around him frantically tried to stomp out the fire.
“Look! The Rebel! Look” the woman cried again. A few looked up from the man and saw the boy running towards them.
“Evarian treachery! The rebels have us overrun!” another man called. He grabbed Ohe, who once again found herself unable to move for fright, and threw her to the floor. She fell, hitting her head against the rubble. High shrieks came from a woman whose dress caught on fire while trying to help put it out.
“I’ll kill all of you puckelmucked rebels if I have to.” He reached down to Ohe and grabbed her throat with his hands, lifting her up off her feet. She could barely see from hitting her head and swung her legs at him, missing by five or six inches. The shrieks of people burning filled the air and rung in the back of Ohe’s head.
“Is that all the defense you can muster?” said the man tightening his grip on her throat. Ohe gagged. “I would have expected more from a fearless reb-“ Wham! A fist flew at the man’s face knocking him and Ohe to the floor. Ohe scampered onto her knees to catch her bearings and breath. The man who had been choking her didn’t move.
“Come with me!” the boy with the black hair said with urgency, stretching out his hand. Ohe looked around at the man who had caught on fire. From what she could see through her blurred vision, the man was dead, and a few other people with him.
“Come on!” the boy said again, and he pulled her up.
Ohe’s eyelids fluttered as she tried to open them. Her head was throbbing. And her back hurt. Rolling onto her side she realized she had been sleeping on a blanket. She put her arm over her side and pushed herself to a sitting position. “Oh!” she said holding her head.
“You shouldn’t get up so quickly,” said the boy’s voice. Ohe started, all she remembered of what had happened earlier was the uneasiness in her chest and throbbing head. The boy was sitting across from her on a stone, his face deeply concentrated on peeling at a piece of bark with his knife.
“What did you think you were doing on the main road in broad daylight?” the boy asked. Something stirred in Ohe’s memory: a woman’s voice; stern blue eyes; and fire. A searing feeling of fear rushed through her.
“I-I just wanted to see what it was like,” she said.
“Typical wench… Nothing but trouble…”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know I’d be noticed”
“With hair like that! Great…I risked my life to save some dumb Adulvian girl.”
“I’m not an…” she started to say, but quickly realized telling him she was the Scion’s daughter was not a very good idea. “Anyway, thanks …and everything, but I’ve got to go home…”
“That’s where I’m taking you” the boy said, “Up over the mountains into my country, Evar is right on the border, from there you can get to Adulvil.”
“You don’t have to take me. I can go on my own.” Her heart rose to her throat, and throbbed; she had to get away from him. She had to go home.
“As happy as I would be not to travel with the extra weight, you wont be able to get anywhere with a concussion.” The boy said, with resentful sincerity.
This was true. She couldn’t get anywhere on her own. The slightest movement made her feel nauseous.
“It’s getting darker, we’d better get going.” Said the boy.
“Are we going to Evar tonight?” Ohe asked.
“Its more than a two days walk, how in the Fifth did you get here?” He said looking greatly irritated that she didn’t even know the way. Ohe shrugged, and the boy shook his head, laughing at her ignorance. “We’re going to meet the other revolutionaries in the morning, we’ll have to make camp for the night, but not here, we’ll have to go higher into the mountains, Fifth citizens never search for us there.”
Revolutionaries? Something stirred in Ohe’s memory. She overheard servants whisper about the foreign terrorists:
“The servants in town heard the citizens talking about a Kashvarian raid just outside Winerich city, if we make hast we can join the rebels in the west mountains”
“They came all the way from Kashvar? Over the mines?”
“Yes, travelers from Evar helped show them how to get over the mountains, the kingdoms are uniting, now is the perfect time to join them”
“If the Scion catches us, he’ll have us killed…”
“Better to go and die than stay and live under him”
Ohe had never quite understood the treachery in their whispers; she was more interested in their description of Kashvar and the Evart travelers. This boy was a rebel, at the cusp of a war against her adopted father. Even though she realized how dangerous her situation was, it excited Ohe. There was something about the boy that fascinated her.
“My name’s Ian, by the way.” The boy said, holding out his hand to lift her up. “I’m Thetis,” Ohe lied.
Ian led Ohe, half carried, half walking, up the mountainside under the cover of trees. Ohe’s nausea had left her, although her head still felt light and dizzy. She leaned her right arm on Ian’s as they walked. He was strong and could walk quite quickly, Ohe had to skip a bit to keep up. The mountain forest was nothing like her garden. It was damp and dark; and smelled like rotting water and wood. Despite the shrieks and growls of strange animals, there was an eerie quiet. She was happy Ian was there, even though he frightened her. Ohe had so many questions burning inside of her. Why did the other countries hate the Fifth so much? Do Adulvians have red hair like her? If he could, would he kill her father? She had always imagined the Scion to be the same kind of ruler as he was a father: stern, but kind. She could not understand why people would rebel against him unless they were power hungry, or war mongrels, and Ian did not seem to be either.
“So… you hate the Scion?” Ohe asked in a high squeak. She couldn’t hold in this question any longer. She instantly wished she had worded it much more eloquently and subtly. But things don’t always happen quite according to plan.
“What?” Said Ian, looking a little surprised.
“I, I just wondered why you’re, we’re, rebelling against the Fifth Kingdom, because I don’t see what’s so terrible about it.” Ohe said very quickly
“You must have hit your head really hard” Ian said with his eyebrows raised suspiciously.
“My head really does hurt, I am a bit confused… please explain to me what we’re doing here!” Ohe said angrily, she was getting a little irritated at his condescension.
“Well that’s quite a long story Thetis, I wouldn’t really know where to start, just wait awhile, it will come back to you.”
“No,” said Ohe, lifting her weight off of Ian’s arm. “I won’t go any further with you if I can’t understand why.”
“What will you do? Sit in the mountains until some Fifth sees you?” Ian said testily. Ohe merely huffed. “Alright, alright, let’s just find someplace to camp and I’ll tell you all about this war,” Ian resolved. Ohe leaned her weight on Ian’s arm again and they continued walking.
When they came to a break in the tree brush, Ian put down his pack, laid out two blankets and started a fire. The sun had set and the sky was pitch black. The light from the fire lit up Ian’s face as he worked to make the hard ground more comfortable for himself. His hair was jet-black and green eyes were speckled with hazel.
“What are you staring at?” Ian said looking up from his pack.
“You were going to tell me about the Scion,” Ohe reminded him, looking away.
“Right. Ok. Well… I guess I should start with the history of the so-called ‘United Lands.’”
“No! don’t start there! I know that part!”
“Good, she remembers. Ok, well after the Great Odeon freed the people from the Fifth Kingdom-“
“Wait! Freed the people? I thought they were cast out!” said Ohe, surprised.
“Cast out? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, actually. Could you start with the history?”
“Alright. Fine.” Ian said, extremely irritated. He began reciting the history of his people,
"There were five races, and the Fifth ruled the other four. Each race was divided by their separate customs and religions, except for one thing. Odeon was a great Adulvian mystic who, through his studies, gained not only the knowledge and secrets of the world but also gained the ability to control some of nature's elements. Although he became extremely powerful, he vowed never to use these powers to harm, even if it was to protect his people. Odeon's teachings united the four less powerful races to worship the nature and the unity of all things. But the four races lived under the tyranny of the Scion, who did not want the races united in case they gathered enough strength to rise against him. And so the First Scion threw Odeon into his dungeon and the Civil Wars began. But, without Odeon, the four races were not strong enough to fight against the fifth. Many lives were lost. Horrified by the violence and death, the wise Odeon decided he would make a treaty with the Scion. Odeon sent word to the Scion by means of the guards, and the Scion came to the dungeon to hear Odeon. The details of this conversation are unknown, but after many days of negotiation the Scion gave part of his land to the four other races so that they could establish their own countries on the conditions that the Scion could tax them for living on the land and that Odeon go into exile. Odeon put a powerful spell on the agreement so that neither he nor the Scion could break it. Odeon was given three weeks to say goodbye to his family and his people. After just two weeks, Odeon saw how the Scion abused the treaty. He imposed extremely high taxes and gave the four races only a remote corner of his lands to divide among themselves. Because Odeon could not go back on his word, he vowed that his heir would one day correct the mistakes he had made in the treaty, unite the races once more and lead them against the Scion. After the third week, Odeon went into exile, and the Scion seized Odeon's wife and son.
“Since then the Scions have imposed ever more odious taxes and have expanded their walls forcing us further and further from our original homes. The Scion not only taxes us for living on what was once his land but now taxes us for any benefit we reap from it. We don't know for certain what happened to Odeon's family. Some say that they were murdered and some say that the Scion keeps them under close watch because he believes he may be able to use them if ever the other races decide to rise against him.
“There have been many small rebellions, but we have never gathered as much strength as we have now. Hippolotus, the leader of the Adulvians, believes this is because the heir of Odeon is coming of age, but I think that is just his way of motivating the people. Still, I have been sent to get as close to the palace as I can to find out if Odeon's heir is alive.”
Ohe’s mind reeled, as she lay awake on her blanket, starring into the starless sky. Could this story possibly be true? And if this history was true, is she Odeon’s heir? No, how could she be? She had never felt particularly powerful or strong. She sometimes felt like a captive in the Scion’s palace, but she never really believed she was one. And yet, she did look different from everyone else, she was never allowed to see anyone besides the Scion and her attendants. She was even kept hidden from the servants in the palace who were not assigned to her. The Scion told her every morning that he “saw her playing in the gardens,” and then would reprimand her for imagining she was outside of the palace. Could this have been because he was trying to keep tabs on her?
Ohe felt nauseous again and the throbbing of her still injured head prevented her from clearing her thoughts. Ohe leaned onto her side and pulled herself up. She heard running water and went to find it. A small creek ran down the side of the mountain not far from where she and Ian made camp. She knelt beside it, cupped water into her hands and washed her face. When she rubbed her eyes dry she looked down into the stream.
“Thetis?” Ohe said. Ohe’s reflection blinked back at her. “It can’t be true,” Ohe said staring at Thetis.
“But it is you know,” Thetis confidently said back to her from the shallow water, “We’ve always known it, really.”
Ohe walked back to the blanket and sat down. She turned her head to look at Ian; his even breathing mixed with the chirping of crickets on an otherwise quiet night. Ohe laid back and stared once again at the hovering blackness, consumed with her physical exhaustion, her mind racing.