Legends of Luternia Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Information and Front Matter

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Legends of Luternia:The Prince Decides

  By Thomas Sabel

  Copyright © 2013 by Thomas Sabel

  Cover Copyright © 2013 by Jesse S. Greever & eLectio Publishing

  Cover Design by Jesse S. Greever

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (eLectio Publishing) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  eLectio Publishing wishes to thank the following people who helped make these publications possible through their generous contributions:

  Chuck & Connie Greever

  Jay Hartman

  Darrel & Kimberly Hathcock

  Tamera Jahnke

  Amanda Lynch

  Pamela Minnick

  James & Andrea Norby

  Gwendolyn Pitts

  Margie Quillen

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  www.eLectioPublishing.com

  For Judith, Jon-Mark, and Jacob

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Every book is a work of collaboration and this one is no exception. My first collaborators to thank were my family who eagerly listened around the campfire while I told the first version of the story and my wife, Judith, encouraged me to write the tales down. Next to thank is Sophie Schulz who, as young student, had heard of the story and nudged me on to finish it. With the aide of Avon Crismore, my dear friend, and Elizabeth Meyer, my ever-alert editor, the drafts finally were worked into shape. Finally, a special thanks to Avon Crismore, Elizabeth Meyer, and Tim Rossow for their countless suggestions helped to bring the land of Luternia to life.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The unholy stench cascaded from atop the castle tower and filled the courtyard. The smell made Crown Prince Ulrik’s stomach heave. He pulled up his coat to mask his nose and dashed across the open yard. He hated running but he craved the safety of the kitchen where the aroma would welcome him in from the dark and fetid smell of evil the Mage brewed from atop the old astronomer’s tower.

  “It’s worse than most days,” the prince said to Helga, the old cook, as he took his regular seat on the long, worn bench by the large worktable. She nodded her agreement and set a fresh cinnamon roll in front of him. The butter dollop carefully laid on the roll began to melt, filling the air with the scent of butter, cinnamon, and freshly baked bread.

  “Stand up and give me your coat, my dear, so I can air it out in the hallway.” She helped him with his coat and carried it out of the kitchen, holding it out at arm’s length like a thing unclean.

  “These are better than the last batch,” he said, wiping the butter off his chin with the back of his hand.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times: Princes need manners more than the rest of us folk. Use a napkin. And say, ‘Thank you.’ And before you ask, ‘No, one is enough.’ When I smelled what that Mage was concocting I decided to fight back in my own way. I’d hate to know what he’s cooking up. Ugh!”

  “What do you suppose he does up there?” he asked.

  “Uley,” she said, using his pet name “I don’t want to know. Sin and evil that are so obvious are best avoided.”

  “I’ve been up there,” he said.

  She stopped her work and stared at him.

  “On a dare. Barty dared me. He said I was too afraid, too much a scaredy-cat.”

  “Barty’s an eighteen-year-old bully. If it was up to me he would have been sent away years ago, even if he is your father’s only nephew.”

  Ulrik didn’t pay attention to her statement, “It was horrid, dark, and it smelled like something was dying.”

  “Why in heaven’s name his Majesty brought that Mage here I don’t know. There was a time when he never would have let the likes of him set one foot in the kingdom, but when your mother took ill he was blind to everything except finding a way to heal her. He heard the Mage could heal the sick, even raise the dead, and brought him here. I didn’t trust him but your father did . . . and still does. Since he’s the king he must know more than I do. And after your mother died . . .” Helga’s voice trailed off when she saw Ulrik set the cinnamon roll down and pushed the plate away.

  “I’m sorry, dear.” She sat next to him and took his hand. “I probably shouldn’t talk about your mother. You were so young when she was taken. She asked me to look out for you and heaven knows I did my best.”

  “I don’t remember much about my mother.” Ulrik wanted to become small again and crawl onto Helga’s lap and be embraced by her strong arms and cry, but now he was too old for that. “Helga, could we read from your book?”

  She ran her fingers through his brown curly hair, leaving a light dusting from her floury hands. “Do you think it’s safe enough?”

  “I didn’t notice anyone else up and around. Please.”

  “All right. Your mother would have wished it.” Ulrik slipped out of the kitchen and into the deep pantry, fearful someone might come upon them. For last twelve years, the Mage’s spies had tightened a noose around Castle Åræthi and the kingdom of Luternia. Some folks said that the stones in the walls could
see and hear for him. Under Helga’s vigilance the kitchen remained one of the few safe havens in the kingdom.

  Ulrik approached the familiar spot in the pantry—a nook concealed between the flour bin and the apple barrel. He pushed a hidden latch to open the concealed cupboard and eased the large, worn book from its hiding place. He was about to reenter the kitchen when he heard someone talking with Helga, the murmurings indistinct. He stopped, not sure of what do next. If he moved around too much, he would attract attention. Then the idea came. He silently slid back to the nook, replaced the book, and closed the cupboard door. With the book safe, he noisily raised the lid to the flour bin, took a handful of flour and dusted his head and front, and called out, “I can’t find it! Are you sure it’s in here?”

  When he emerged from the pantry all covered with flour, Helga stifled a laugh and scolded him, “What were you looking in the flour bin for, you scamp! Don’t you have any sense at all? Stay right where you are. I just swept the floor.” She moved to him and attacked him with a damp cloth, chiding him about the mess in the pantry and the kitchen. While slapping the dust off him, she whispered, “Clever idea.”

  A boy about his age looked at him with disgust while Helga scrubbed away. The boy wore a black robe cut in the style of his master, the Mage. The boy’s rough peasant clothes hung beneath the ragged hem of an ill-fitting robe. This one is taller than the last, noticed Ulrik. With the previous apprentice the robe dragged on the ground.

  “My master, the Royal Mage and King’s Counselor commands me to bring Prince Ulrik to him immediately.” He spoke loudly, looking at the far wall in the attempt to avoid stumbling over his memorized announcement.

  “Why?” Helga demanded, standing between the prince and the apprentice with her muscular arms on her hips. This confused the boy for a moment and then he snapped back and repeated, “My master, the Royal Mage and King’s Counselor . . .”

  “I’ll go with him. I’ll be all right.” Ulrik said, walking past Helga and with the apprentice into the courtyard. The morning breeze and bright sunshine cleansed the rank odor from the courtyard. In the open yard, the Mage’s apprentice quickly overtook the prince and marched ahead, proud to be the leader. His accent and loping walk spoke of peasant’s roots in the furthermost provinces of Luternia.

  “So, the Mage is going farther and farther out to recruit new apprentices,” thought Ulrik. These boys never lasted more than a year. The Mage’s agents scouted the villages, made great promises to parents about the training their sons would receive in the royal court, paid them a trifling, and led the boys to the Mage’s tower. Their families would never hear from them again. Ulrik did not want to know what happened to the boys. All he knew was that the Mage, normally gaunt and pale, appeared sleek and nourished after each apprentice disappeared. “What part of the kingdom are you from?” asked the prince.

  “I am under strict verbal discipline as part of my training and cannot answer.”

  Ulrik tried not to chuckle at the improper pronunciation the boy gave to the words, “verbal” and “discipline.” Ulrik knew this would be the reply since it was the only answer the apprentices were allowed to give.

  Word spread through the castle that the Mage had sent for the crown prince; the courtyard filled with the curious, the gossips, and the concerned. One of them, a large man, lumbered up and blocked Ulrik and the apprentice from the path to the tower.

  “You can’t do this,” he said, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Uley, please don’t go in there. Bad things up there. It’s a bad place.” Ulrik went to him, led him aside by the arm and comforted him.

  “I’ll be careful, Edgar. Don’t worry. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll be fine,” said Ulrik. Edgar’s eyes filled with trust in Ulrik’s words.

  “I believe you. Uley never lies to Edgar.” The big man stepped aside letting them pass. He took possession of the spot where he stood in the courtyard. Ulrik knew his friend would be there when he returned, no matter how long it took or what change the weather might bring. Edgar would remain there: watching, waiting, and trusting.

  “My dear cousin, didn’t you get enough of the Mage the last time?” said a youth, attired in gaudy silk damask and leaning on the doorpost of the tower’s entrance. “What does he have for you? A special weight-loss program? But then, maybe it’s only baby-fat.”

  “Barty, please get out of our way,” said Ulrik.

  “Anything to please your majesty,” he mocked, taking off his plumed hat and bowing before him, laughing all the time.

  Ulrik moved past him, entered the tower, and followed the apprentice up the stairs to the top. With each step small bones crunched under his feet: bones of rats, squirrels, small birds, and strange ones he didn’t want to recognize. Slime oozed from the walls and though he stumbled once or twice he refrained from reaching out to the walls for support. A reek of decay bore down on him, increasing with each turn up the spiral staircase.

  “Wait here while I inform my master, the Royal Mage and King’s Counselor, that you are here.” said the apprentice as he exited through the green-streaked bronze door. Ulrik had the urge to tell him to run away, to go back to where he came from, to escape from this tower of death. But it wouldn’t do any good, because this boy found more hope as the apprentice to a “Royal Mage and King’s Counselor” than as an impoverished farmer’s fourth son.

  “You may enter,” commanded the apprentice, pushing open the door with a flourish as if to show off a great prize newly discovered.

  The evil in the Mage’s chamber exceeded that of the staircase seven-fold. The tower retained the night’s darkness, despite the brightness of the morning. Odd sounds of skittering haunted shadowy corners. Flies swarmed so thickly over something hanging from a chain that the lump took on a new life. Ulrik retched at the smell. He stood in the doorway for several minutes, holding his stomach, until the Mage emerged from a darkened corner.

  “Come in, come in,” beckoned the Mage. “My new apprentice should never have left the crown prince out in the hallway. Excuse him, he is new and has much to learn.” The boy could be heard whimpering out of sight in the corner from which the Mage emerged.

  Ulrik entered the lair slowly, listening to the Mage’s hollow, hiss-like breathing. The Mage had pulled his hood back. When outside the tower, the hood concealed his head. The exposed scalp revealed random clumps of unwashed hair, his jaundiced skin dry as parchment. The Mage’s eyes were vertical slits. His teeth, filed to points, were black around the edges. “Come in, my prince,” the Mage urged. “No need to fear.” He reached out with a mottled, gnarled hand and grasped the prince’s arm, squeezing it hard. “How strong you’re growing. Such a fine body you’re developing, my prince.” He extended the sound of the word “prince” to a hiss.

  “My prince,” he hissed again, “your father, our king, is quite ill. He seldom remembers from one day to the next what has happened. The day will come when he won’t remember anything at all. He needs your assistance. All of my medicine and magic here is of no help.” The Mage waved his arm drawing attention to the room. Ulrik wondered what good could rise from this chamber of death. Illness, yes; healing, never.

  “Only one hope remains, our last hope,” the Mage said as he pulled the prince toward his face, laying both hands on his shoulders and staring into the prince’s eyes. Drawn into the slits of the Mage’s eyes, Ulrik was eager to hear whatever the creature might say. “The milk of the ioni flower. You, his faithful son, must go. Only one of royal blood may touch the flower and coax the precious drops from it. No one else may touch it. A few drops are all your father needs. But you must go soon. The ioni grows far off in the north and produces flowers only in rare years. All my signs and portents point to this very year. Come, look.”

  He led Ulrik to a stone table strewn with fresh and rotting carcasses of birds and small animals. “See here,” the Mage thrust his finger into the entrails. �
�Observe these.” Ulrik saw nothing. “Smell this,” the Mage grabbed a handful from the table, brought it to his nose, and deeply inhaled the vapors as if fine perfume. The prince gagged.

  “It all means one thing,” the Mage continued. “You must go, and go quickly to save your father. You must go in secret for all would be lost if certain enemies knew that King Arnuff’s heir was gone from the castle on this special quest. Here, inhale and learn for yourself.” The Mage shoved a handful from the table into Ulrik’s nose.

  The prince ran from the tower, stumbling down the stairs. Only at the bottom did he realize that he had touched the walls on the way down. Slime covered his hands; his clothes stank. He staggered into the middle of the courtyard, doubled over, and vomited.

  “What a princely thing to do. You must have had a great time with Mage Almighty,” said Barty who had been waiting for him to come down from the tower.

  “You leave him alone, Barty!” Edgar yelled as he hurried over and stood between them.

  “Barty! How dare you call me Barty? I am the Royal Duke Bartomeus, Count Patalain, and Hereditary Marshall of the Woldermein. You need to learn your manners, you oaf. That is, if you can be trained. My dogs learn faster than you. You should address me only with my permission and then as Sir!”

  Crestfallen, Edgar looked to the ground as he shuffled out of the courtyard, tears welling up in his eyes.

  “Barty! Look what you’ve done. Haven’t you any feelings for anyone other than yourself? He was trying to help me,” Ulrik said. He turned his back on his cousin and while still holding his stomach, hurried after Edgar.

  “Isn’t that a sight to behold, a retching prince and the castle idiot? You two were made for each other.” Barty said as he walked away, laughing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I don’t know what to tell you, Uley,” said Helga after he recounted what had happened in the tower. “The odd creature may be right. Or he may be lying. Your father trusts him, but I doubt if any truth can come from that man- if he is a man.” Quiet settled over them until the pot of gruel boiled over onto the stove.