Diamond Elf - Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Chelindra appeared next to the scrying basin, startling a few elves who were using it for their own amusement. They recognized her instantly, and gasped. She was surrounded by a haze of human magic that quite frankly terrified them.

“Leave. Now.” Chelindra ordered in no uncertain terms.

“Yes Princess!” They rushed off, mutually deciding to split up and inform the King and Prince Consort about this unexpected event.

Chelindra stared at the basin, and saw nothing but blood. She growled, wondering if she had irreversibly ruined her ability to scry when she had massacred 4000 men in one night. The blood thinned a bit, and she saw bodies, but these bodies were not the ones belonging to her victims.

Piles upon piles of bodies became visible, and a man floated above them. He cackled insanely, and was joined by six other men smiling triumphantly, one of which she recognized as the current Emperor. She reasoned that the others must be the previous Emperors. The mountain of bodies was obscene.

They vanished, and the basin once more appeared to be filled with blood. It thinned, and as it did so, her brother and husband rushed into the yard. They stopped abruptly, and approached her slowly. Finally, they looked into the basin from her sides.

The thinning blood revealed another mound of bodies, and Chelindra instantly knew that this was everyone she had ever killed in battle and stealthily in the night. A few of the bodies were soldiers she had ordered to go on missions that caused their death; necessary missions they knew they would not return from. She floated above the mound, and the expression on her face was grief. She wept until her tears washed the mound away.

A scale appeared, and the seven Emperors swam in the blood pooled in one of the weighing pans. She stood atop the pool of blood in the other weighing pan, but she was naked and covered in blood to the point that it dripped off her in rivulets. The weighing pan full of Emperors slowly lowered until it touched the ground beneath it, and then it sank even lower. Her weighing pan should have raised the exact opposite of theirs, but incongruently, it didn’t. Her side lowered as well, but it only lowered a little bit in comparison.

The basin cleared, and Chelindra waited for it to show her what she wanted. It remained clear, and the wind born from her magic whistled as it whipped her hair about. Her brother and husband stepped slightly away from her to avoid getting hit by her diamond sharp hair. They didn’t have to ask to know that she was seriously enraged.

After thirty seconds of nothing, Chelindra splashed the water in the basin, and yelled. “I want him back!”

The water settled, and clouded over. A picture formed, but it was dim. There was obviously no light in the room she spied upon. She growled, and the scene enhanced itself until she could easily recognize Gabriel lying on a bed. He was pale, almost deathly so, and looked thin and frail.

“Where. Is. He?” She demanded.

The picture in the basin shifted, and she saw the Imperial Palace. Chelindra spun around, closed her eyes, and focused on creating a doorway.

Her husband looked at her brother, and Chehiro knew that he was asking permission. At Chehiro’s nod, Aeryc cautiously approached Chelindra. He placed a hand on her arm, and braced himself for some sort of pain, or perhaps a burn.

“Allow me to accompany you. I may not be impenetrable, but I am well trained in the fighting arts. I can help,” he said.

Chelindra did not open her eyes, but he could see a tear form in each. They slid down her cheeks, and he caught them. They instantly hardened into tear shaped diamonds, and he thought them lovely. She nodded, and a shimmering portal of fire appeared before them. They stepped through.

******

After a night of horrible dreams, Gabriel woke feeling almost normal. He had been allowed to do nothing but rest for days, and the only real problem he had now was that he just couldn’t force himself to eat more than a few bites of food at a time. As a result, he was still very thin.

He had been moved to a small room. Well, he was told it was a small room, but it was at least three times the size of the room he’d had at QueensHeart Castle. It was comfortably furnished, and he was assigned a servant to bring him his meals. The servant had already brought his breakfast, and it smelled good.

Gabriel got out of bed, and paused to look at himself in the mirror. He had never been muscular and robust, but even he grimaced at how he looked now. Had he not known better, he would swear he had the dreaded wasting disease in which a person wasted away until they died.

He sat at the small table laden with his breakfast, and took a good long sip of milk from a thick earthen mug that had been chilled before being filled. By the taste of the milk, his servant obviously thought he needed all the nutrition he could get. His milk had extra cream and possibly even colostrum added to it. He took another sip, “Yep, definitely colostrum.”

He looked at his food, and smiled. Again, a nutritious meal had been prepared for him. The dish was a jumble of fried potatoes, crumbled bacon, scrambled eggs, sautéed onions and garlic, and small chunks of blood sausage. The whole dish had been drizzled with a sauce, which tasted like it was made from egg yolks, butter, cream, and seasonings.

He took a bite and his taste buds cried out for more, but his stomach rebelled at the thought of food. The problem was that he had no one to talk to; no one to distract him from his thoughts. He decided to carry his tray out into the palace gardens, and eat as much as he could while enjoying the sunshine.

        Maybe someone will stop to talk. If for no other reason than to figured out who I am and why I am here. I look like I don’t belong.

Gabriel was a bit disappointed that no one talked to him, but he realized that it was because the only people about at this time were palace staff. He watched the gardeners and lawn maintenance crew do their work, and absently ate a bite here and there as he did so. Soon, he had eaten nearly half the food on his large plate.

He couldn’t stand the thought of wasting such an expensive and nourishing meal, so he brought the rest back into his room, and covered it with a cloth napkin. He paced the room, and wished he had something to do. As the official but unknown heir to the Imperial Throne – which he still couldn’t believe – he wouldn’t be allowed to do the things a slave or servant would do… the things he knew how to do. Nor would he be allowed to just leave. In a way, he would now forever be a slave to the Empire.

        Oh Chelindra! Do you miss me? Do you think I’ve died?

Gabriel decided to send a message to the Emperor’s trusted bodyguard, the only other person who knew the truth, asking if he would ask the Emperor to assign him something to do. He found a page, and told the page to wait for a response. The page ran off, and Gabriel had nothing to do while he waited.

An hour later, the page returned with a package, and Gabriel felt bad that he didn’t have any money to tip the boy with. He sat down as soon as the page had gone, and unwrapped the package. It was a wooden box about 10x10x5.

Inside lurked money, a wooden badge, and a letter.

“Dear Gabriel, you can do anything you want, here is some money. I suggest that you go find something entertaining, but if you must do something like work, this badge is given only to my personal servants. Showing this to anyone in the palace should give you access to whatever you want. Have fun!”

Gabriel debated finding something entertaining, but had absolutely no idea what that even meant. He decided to go worm his way into the palace staff, but then changed his mind. He had absolutely nothing to wear except for the few things – mostly silk nightclothes – that the Emperor had given him.

The very first thing he needed to do was buy something befitting a well-off servant… possibly a minor lord. Gabriel decided that this would be a good opportunity to spy on the residents of the palace. Well, not spy so much as listen to them while they still weren’t aware of who he was so that he could get a good feel for who they were and what they wanted.

Gabriel took a portion of the money – amazed that the Emperor had given him so much – and left to go buy clothes. He prayed that finding his way around the Imperial City would be easier than he imagined it to be.

There was a man outside his door, and Gabriel wondered how an assassin could possibly know about him so soon.

“My Lord, I was sent by Jacen to guard you,” the man said. He was only a little taller than Gabriel’s 5’7” and looked the way a man of his stature should. This meant that he would look like he was with Gabriel as a friend would be rather than like a guard would. This was important; no calling attention to himself.

“ I see,” Gabriel nodded. Jacen was the Emperor’s personal bodyguard, and the man in charge of his secret legion. Anyone who worked undercover reported to him. “What’s your name?”

“Arden.”

“Well Arden, call me Gabriel, not Lord, and walk by my side, not behind me. I need a guide more than a bodyguard at this point.”

“Interesting,” Arden remarked.

“What?” Gabriel asked.

“You said pretty much exactly what Jacen said you would,” Arden smiled. “Of course, I would be honored to show you around the city, but if I suspect that you are in any danger, you do what I tell you to, got it?”

Gabriel nodded.

“So, where to first?” Arden asked.

“I need to buy some clothes,” Gabriel described what he was looking for.

“No problem, I know just the place.”

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