The Chronicles of Articia; Children of the Dead. K.D. Enos

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СКАЧАТЬ facing out to the major Artician compass points. Brendan's tower was the largest of the castle's four towers. It measured thirty feet from the north to the south windows. A staircase, just offset from north window, circled up to another level that housed Brendan's private quarters. None of the royal children have ever visited or been invited to Brendan's private chambers.

      Hanging from the stone supports, that held the up the staircase of the circular tower, were many tapestries, each depicting a part of the history of the kingdom of Articia. Brendan's desk was just beside the southern window and was piled high with parchments and books.

      The center of the floor had soft baglike chairs for the students to sit in. Ava had asked once about the design of the chairs and Brendan had told her that he had read about them in the castle's archives. The documents described chairs filled with beans, though why someone would waste food to make furniture confused Ava. Brendan used the down of a many young fowl to fill his "bean" chairs and this made them very comfortable.

      "Please take your seats and we will begin," Brendan announced. He waited for all of his students to be seated, and chuckled when he saw Dominic and Alec take two of the seats uncomfortably. It was the first time either had tried to sit in the soft chairs and both of them squirmed until they found just the right angle.

      Brendan walked to the edge of his desk and started to speak. "I am going to start at the start of time. In the beginning, there was the void. The lands and the sky did not exist. Darkness ruled until the goddess Adara came into being with a burst of light."

      "Adara did not always exist?" Ava questioned.

      "No," Brendan replied. "Before her, there was only darkness. But the void could not persist on its own and Adara came into being to balance the overbearing darkness with the light," Brendan said as he walked over to a scale he used to weigh out his magical and scientific potions and powders.

      "The balance is now the sole responsibility of Adara's consort, Aris. Aris came into being because of the need to balance the light and the darkness. The symbol of the god Aris is the scale." Brendan pointed to the device on the table. "It is the charge of Aris to maintain the balance of darkness and light. For without darkness, we would not fully appreciate the light."

      Alec had not known that the goddess Adara and the god Aris did not always exist. He was starting to understand why Ava was so interested in history.

      Brendan continued. "Soon after Adara brought light to the void, our land began to change. Plants and animals began to appear in response to the light. Eventually humankind came to the land that we now call Greater Articia."

      "Did the land have a different name before it was Articia?" Alec asked.

      "No, it was just the land," Brendan replied. "Humankind did not give the land a name until it stopped wandering. Let us continue. The first people were nomadic. They never settled in any region but lived off the land wherever they went. Adara did not interfere and only watched as the people developed into a civilized society." Brendan sat in the chair in the middle of the room.

      "Then the darkness of the void revolted against Aris and disrupted the balance of darkness and light." Brendan paused here with a look of concern on his face. "The cataclysmic rift corrupted the land and some believe that this caused some of the beasts of the world to change. The old legends say that darkness corrupted humankind until they became goblins and demons. Those legends also state that some of the animals were corrupted as well and became the imps and the wolug."

      As Brendan completed the word wolug, the hair on Ava's arm rose. She began to feel very uncomfortable. "Why did some of the humans become goblins and demons?"

      "It was said that those who did not have innate magical ability before the enlightenment became goblins and those who did have innate magical ability became demons. We all know of the goblins, but few of us have ever seen a demon up close," Brendan said, "and let's hope none of you ever gets the chance." The mage sat back in the chair at his desk and turned to the students. "The imps act as servants to the sorcerers. They are attracted to the dark magic that the sorcerers perform. The imps can be rather nasty if you do not have the necessary magical skills to counter their innate spell-casting capability," Brendan warned.

      "Recently, through our interactions with the elves of the Vale, we learned that all of these dark creatures were not specifically corrupted by the darkness but were thrown out of a mystical place in another world called Eden. We also learned that the darkness enticed the banished beasts to pass through the rift into our world. The worst of these creatures is the wolug."

      "I have never heard of a wolug. Are they not common?" Alec asked.

      Dominic and Tristan looked at Alec with surprise. They had not realized just how sheltered their younger siblings were from the dangers of the world.

      "They are not common," Brendan replied, "and they represent the worst of the dark beasts. They look much like the wolves of the forest, but they are much larger than and as black as the night. They are fearful creatures with a poisonous bite. Some of you may have heard stories about them. They are more commonly known as the steeds of the goblin riders."

      "The goblins ride the wolug!" Ava gasped.

      "Yes, but not all of the goblin riders have wolug mounts. The goddess has blessed our world with balance so the wolug are very few in number. Most of the goblin riders ride on wild wolves," Brendan replied. "Only the worst of the goblin clans ride on the wolug, and even then only once."

      "Why is that?" Alec asked.

      "The wolug are so vicious in battle that they tend to kill as many of their riders as they do enemy men and their allies. Most of the goblin riders do not leave the battlefield alive," Brendan stated. "The dark beasts came into this world when the balance of light and darkness was disrupted. The goddess Adara intervened and rallied the dwarves of a world of magical metals to come to the aid of humans to counter the threat that the goblins presented. Many elves also journeyed here from Eden in their great hunt and pursuit of the demons." Brendan paused.

      "The elves hunt the demons?" Ava asked.

      "Yes, the elves are the sworn enemies of the demons. One of the books from the other world that we have stored in the archives describes the elves in detail and on that world; the native humans called them angels. But they have always had but one desire - to rid the domain of demonkind," Brendan explained.

      "How does the goddess keep the wolug in check?" Ava asked.

      Brendan smiled. Ava was his best student and she rarely missed the nuances of his instructions. She had surmised that the blessing of the goddess that kept the goblins in check was not just a special blessing.

      "The goddess Adara knew that to defeat the wolug would require an alliance with a beast of significant power. She visited many worlds before she discovered the answer to Articia's woes. In a world where no humankind dwelled and the balance was shifted in favor of the more goodly beings was a special breed of stallion-like creature called by the name destri." At the sound of the name destri, Ava's heart soared. The mention of this creature touched her magical senses.

      "The destri is the most noble and intelligent beast of its world and the goddess Adara was pleasing to them because of the goodness of her light." Brendan paused briefly. "They were honored to send some of the most courageous of their race to Articia to fight against the darkness. One thousand destri came on a pilgrimage to Articia during the early days of the first war against the darkness.

      "When the forces of light had been assembled in Articia, the goddess came to humankind. The humans were an infant society and had no organized СКАЧАТЬ