The names, characters, places and events in this book are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. All characters are over the age of 18. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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"The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." H.P. Lovecraft
***
Listen to me and I will tell you of the old days -- those days long gone, never to return, when jeweled cities still stood by the sparkling seas and the world was in harmony. Yes, I was there. When multitudes lived in the cities of stone where now only lizards bask and the screech-owl cries. I will tell you how horror and chaos came.
Now nearly three hundred times the Moon waxed and waned. Twenty-two years as humans reckon time rolled by. Father Time stands still for nobody and nobody escapes his affects. They were mostly good years and the villa and its farm prospered, helped in part by the mysterious arrival of a leather bag holding one hundred gold coins on each of Viridis's birthdays. Yet there were difficult times as well; there was the year of drought when they lost most of the grapes. Then there was the harsh winter of seven years previously when the snows came early and wolves, both two and four-legged, came down from the mountains and Wulmar and his warband were hard pressed to drive them off.
Ardys reclined on a divan eating from a bunch of grapes while Gwen, her slave-girl -- slave-woman now -- massaged at her feet with oils. She looked over at her husband on the other side of the courtyard who was checking his chain-mail hauberk for rents while a pair of mastiffs drowsed at his feet. The shirt clinked slightly as his hands ran over its surface. Wulmar was no longer the young man she had married but was now a seasoned, veteran warrior. He had filled out and had the beginnings of an ale-gut but was mostly still hard-muscled. His hair and beard had more grey than before and his torso showed a few extra battle scars. Unfortunately, he now walked with a slight limp -- a result of an ax wound when the shield-wall was breached. Yet he was her husband and she loved him with every ounce of her being.
Nor was she herself immune to time's affects. She had her own battle scars as her belly was no longer firm and taut but softer and lined with silvery stretch marks from giving birth several times. And her bottom was much larger than she liked and she had laughter lines around her eyes and mouth. Her thoughts turned to her children. After that strange birth of her even stranger eldest daughter, Viridis, she had three others -- all now grown. Her older son and daughter, Sebald and Thecia, were the image of Wulmar's northern Kobandoi heritage being tall and big-boned with his blond hair and gray eyes. They also had his fearless nature, love of the outdoors, and direct way of dealing with the world. Her younger son, Aldhelm, took more after her having a darker complexion and a more involved personality. Unless she was tortured on the rack, she would never admit it but he was her favorite.
However, it was her first-born, Viridis, who she worried about most. The girl -- young woman of two and twenty summers now -- was so unlike both herself and Wulmar. And unlike anyone she had ever known. The girl was no beauty having a pallid, greenish complexion which several physicians diagnosed as chlorosis. They had all recommended diet, fresh air and exercise but the girl simply hated diet, fresh air and exercise preferring to stay indoors reading musty books and scrolls by candlelight. She had somewhat bulging pale green eyes that blazed when she was crossed and straggly black hair and dressed exclusively in black robes which hid her skin from the sun.
But it was her mental capacity which really set her apart. At age two, she was speaking fluently; at three she had mastered several languages -- hers, Wulmar and his men's original Gothic dialect and even the Ogoja dialect spoken by many of the field slaves. At five, she was beating all comers at chess and her father had hired tutors but by age ten her tutors had approached them and explained that they could teach her nothing more -- that she had exceeded their knowledge and recommended that she be sent to the University in the city of Tingis. Ardys thought that ten was too young to leave, but the following year she relented and so Viridis was enrolled at the University. Ardys sent a few trusted slaves with her to manage her household and look after her.
Then, when she was fifteen, Viridis sent a message saying that her studies necessitated that she travel -- firstly to Prieneidonia, the city of Chalcedony further down the coast where the desert dunes lap the ocean. Then onto Antaphia where the visionary Vuyhull rules with the aid of a silver scepter before Elaerbus where few return unchanged. Before Wulmar could write back forbidding such an expedition, they received a further missive to inform them that she had left.
For seven years, they heard nothing from Viridis although they later heard from a merchant at Vuyhull's court that the woman had spent some time there studying scrolls and proscribed tomes in the city's libraries and monasteries. One night; by a dark, oily lake, she was heard chanting an intonation that had not been chanted for many hundreds of years and Vuyhull decided that she must leave Antaphia by that dawn.
Now, Ardys held a slip of papyrus containing a brief message from her older sister, Molana, who had married a courtier in Tingis. Molana said that Viridis had returned and was living in an apartment outside the walls near where the city ramparts meet the sea. Ardys knew from previous trips that it was not a good part of the city; Lascars and other sea folk gathered there as well as fugitives, footpads, cutpurses and all manner of outlaws and runaway slaves.
Wulmar looked up from his hauberk and smiled.
"You're thinking of our daughter? You would like to visit her?"
Ardys nodded. "It's been seven years now and I would like to see what she has become." That was true but she felt an irresistible desire to see her. There was some urge deep within her mind that meant that she needed to meet her strange daughter. At her feet, Gwen stirred. Long before she left on her studies, Viridis had been held in superstitious dread by all the slaves on the estate.
"Sadly, I will not be able to come," Wulmar said, "As you know, the Tribune of Tingis is besieging the rebels of Port Ourinous and my warband has been summoned to his army. I will not be back before the harvest."
Ardys thought her husband did not look that sad. She knew that he was looking forward to leading his men into battle once again and hopefully plundering Port Ourinous afterwards. Their oldest son, Sebald, would be taking his place in the shield-wall.
"But, of course, you must go. Jashub can look after the villa and I will hire a man to manage the field slaves. It will do Aldhelm and Thecia good to take some responsibility. I'll leave a few men as your bodyguard and send some reliable slaves with you," Wulmar continued.
She smiled at her husband; she loved him so much -- even more than when they had married if that was possible as they had settled into comfortable ways, taking each others wants and needs into account. He was a good man to her.
Ardys covered her mouth and yawned and smiled at her love. "I'm going up now; don't be long."
Wulmar grinned back.
***
It took a few days to organize the journey to the large city of Tingis. There was food and other supplies to arrange as well as gathering in the warband from outlying farmsteads. Weapons to check and armor to repair. On the third day, the large convoy set out from the villa leaving only a handful of men behind to supervise the slaves.
Beneath an awning, Ardys and Gwen sat on one of the bullock carts laden with dried food while the warband walked alongside. It was hot and dusty along the main road but northwards, in the distance beyond the wheat fields, they saw the scintillating blue of the Tiamat Ocean while southwards, dark green pine forests led upwards towards the Mountains of Aloadæ where snow glittered beneath the sun.
They camped by the side of the road and after the evening meal eaten around roaring campfires Ardys and Wulmar would slip into their tent and make love. Both knowing there was always a chance that they would not meet again if the campaign against the rebels went badly and needing to comfort each other.
Several days later the wagon train came into sight of the polished limestone walls pierced by the towering minarets and domes of Tingis itself. They glowed whitely in the sun, contrasting with the azure sea beyond. In the far distance, islands seemed to float on the ocean waters. Before the walls was the army of the Tribune with infantry, cavalry; both heavily armored cataphracts, their scaled armor glinting in the sun, and nomadic light horse, and even massive indricotheres -- massive rhinoceros-like creatures with long legs and a short temper. Covered in armor plates, these would be the shock force of the army.
This was where they parted. Ardys and Wulmar kissed before parting with many a backwards glance; Wulmar's warband, together with Sebald, to join the force while Ardys with her guard would search out Viridis. With a last wave goodbye, Ardys's group entered the city through the main Sunrise Gate and was immediately assailed by the crowded clamor and smells of the street.
Turning to the leader of the small guard, Hrolf Half-hand, Ardys asked that they find accommodation first before searching out Viridis.
"It won't be easy with the army camped but we'll get you somewhere good -- even if we have to evict someone," Hrolf said with a broad grin.
It didn't take long to find an upper floor which could be rented reasonably and soon they were settled in. Shortly after Ardys sent out Hrolf and the others with some silver to locate Viridis. But it took longer before the men, with liberal distribution of silver as well as making several threats, managed to find out where the empty warehouse was which Viridis had made into her base so it was dusk by the time they returned. When Hrolf told Ardys they had found her daughter, Ardys was determined to visit on the morrow.
Hrolf frowned. "Is that a good idea? Tomorrow is the Festival of Tiamat -- their sea-goddess. It will be wild down by the docks."
Ardys thought for a moment. She had heard of Tiamat -- the Nine-Headed Sea-Dragon, the goddess who is the symbol of primordial creation who birthed several of the other gods as well as many sea monsters. Living up in the hills away from the coast, there were few who reverenced the sea goddess but in this coastal city she was widely worshipped.
