• Chapter 2
    Story For The Young

    Back at the castle all was quiet. Everyone other than the servants and a few others stayed to clean the castle while everyone else had gone to Vicall for the Sprithan Flower Festival. Maids hurried here, there and everywhere collecting bedding, washing curtains and drapes, collecting laundry, dusting, sweeping and much more. It was only at certain times of year when the cleaning team could come together all at once and get everything done and it was a relief when that happened.
    A cleaning team of 500 women and girls hurried along the empty corridors with brooms, dusters and buckets of water getting the dust and darkness out of the hallways and sweeping the shadows away from the corners of the room and out the windows.
    The pitter-patter of feet was the only noise echoing along the empty halls accompanied by the odd scream of the younger staff who came across a rather big shadow in the corner of one of the older halls and had to have help in getting rid of it.
    The blue and white marble floors had to be waxed before all of the royalties came back into the castle so many were on their hands and knees cleaning to floors with brushes while the team of young wizards and witches used Leoni to spread water across the floor and bring it back and forth in waves to get rid of all of the dirty water used. Other maids took their shoes and socks off and, using mops specially made for the large and wide halls, travelled in lines along the corridors soaking up the leftover water and getting rid of any missed shadows.
    In the kitchens the cooking staff prepared meals for the maids and servants and drinks for the gardeners. A large Seelarak was brought in from the garden by two strong male giants called Hans and Drek. The two muddy boys carried the long, evil beast between them, Hans holding the creature’s forearms and Drek carrying it by its thick hind legs being careful not to be stabbed by the sharp point on the end of its long tail. Similar to something like a crocodile the Seelarak was a vicious beast with the jaw structure and head of an alligator, the body somewhat resembling that of a wildebeest and legs like a bear with claws of a velociraptor on each foot. To top it all off it was hairless, blood red with a long tail tipped with a poisoness barb and spines down its back like a porcupine. Not something anyone would want to mess with.

    As you can perhaps tell I made this creature up, pretty good eh? Anyway it sounds all rather like a duck billed platypus with bits and pieces of other animals but that’s what makes writing a story so fun. You can do what ever you want and there is no one to question your sanity. So don’t question my sanity alright? And for future reference LN means Light Nations and DN means Dark Nations. Simple as.

    The cooks looked up from their work and looked totally bewildered. A Seelarak in L-Ari meant one of two things:
    1. A secret population of the creatures had been discovered in the LN.
    2. Someone had come from the DN via ship and brought Seelarak with them.
    And knowing the looks on the giant brother’s faces it was the second of the two. But still they were proud of their catch. They laid the huge lizard on one of the tables so that the head lolled over the edge as the body was too big for the biggest counter in the kitchen. The head chef stood over the carcass and spread his arms wide in utter confusion. The boys had already expected such a reaction. A Seelarak was rare in the LN and an even rarer delicacy. A chef would only come across a whole one in his kitchen about three or four times in a lifetime and even then it would be a young one. To have a fully grown Seelarak on the table in front of him was a dream come true for any chef.
    “But…how?”
    Hans and Drek laughed their deep throaty laugh that was known amongst the Le-Arians for making snow fall of roofs and breaking glasses. Now that the cooking staff had got over their general confusion they looked Drek and Hans over. With their arms covered in bloody scratches they could see the fight to bring down the fully grown beast had not been a simple task. Covered in dirt they had probably wrestled the thing to the ground before cutting its throat to kill it. Seelarak were known for brute strength and speed but then again so were giants.

    Dear reader you may not know much about giants so I shall fill you in on those from Arlania. Now many people assume that because giants are big they are as thick as two wooden planks; that is how they are depicted on television anyway. On the contrary giants are very peaceful creatures with a high intelligence and the main source of farming produce for the people of Le-Ari and Rienna (check the map if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) Not all giants are the peaceful creatures found in Le-Ari but we shall get onto that later.
    I’ve noticed I talk a lot so I shall shut up for a bit. See I’m not mean I’m letting you get on with the story so ha! Oh yes… sorry.

    Deep in the very heart of the castle all was quiet. No maids scurried from room to room and no wizards and witches cleaned the floors. Only the elite were allowed to venture into the forbidden halls of the Glass Castle.
    The Glass Castle got its name from the huge glass dome which made the roof of the Grand Library. The Grand Library was the biggest single room in the castle which made up 1/3 of the Castle’s whole area if you included the mentors’ offices. The glass dome depicted all five elements merged into one pattern showing, fire, the farmlands, the sea, the sky and lightning. This glass dome had been constructed at the very start of time when Esmeralda was the ruler of Le-Ari. With her own hands she transformed pieces of the sky, the sea, fire, lightning and earth into glass using a very old incantation that had been lost and altered over time. She had help of course but that’s why she was the Great One.
    Corridors weaved in and out of each other like a labyrinth just waiting and wanting to lose someone its twisting darkness. Darkness flitted from corner to corner in the semi-light. No windows dispelled the Darkness and they were free to embrace the dark as they would and moved about freely. Wall candles made the dark just about bearable for anyone who dared walk the halls alone. Usually the ones who went in alone did not come back. Even within the walls of The Castle of Light Darkness still lingered. Darkness were everywhere. Darkness are everywhere.
    The Darkness in the corners shrieked like tormented souls as a voice echoed around the halls, bouncing off the thick marble, getting louder and louder. Darkness of the forbidden halls are not used to such large amounts of noise, especially from the one of the three they feared most. The one that could bring light.
    “Come on girls we don’t have much time. I have another training session in a few hours and if I’m late again Lady Norrani will have my head!”
    The Darkness were scared and skulked back to their dusty corners. It was not often so many people ventured down the forbidden halls and they did not like it. All they knew was it was their territory and no one else’s. They grumbled and growled but did not leave their corners to confront the intruders. Recognising her by her voice they did not want another incident of the ‘heat light’ or so they called it.
    Three pairs of small tired feet and one pair of fast feet padded quietly down one of the many marble corridors that made up the forbidden halls. The day outside was a warm and clear one and the three girls wondered, even if it was momentarily, why they were stuck inside when all of the other children where playing in the castle grounds and down by the river swimming in the cool water.
    A woman in a long black dress which floated around her ankles and swept across the white floor led the procession of tired but engrossed children. Her hair was clipped back in a long auburn ponytail that flowed down her back and was held by a single jewel- encrusted clasp which shimmered red in the faded light of the hallway.
    The three little girls followed their Kita as she made her way through some large open double doors, the first defence. Either side of them two guards bowed to them as they passed and closed the doors behind them, locking them inside the hallway. The three girls became slightly more scared. All little children are afraid of the dark at some point in their young lives but being trapped with things darker than the dark is even scarier than the dark itself. This didn’t change even when these three special girls were trained not to be afraid of the dark but to confront it.

    Hi me again, see I left you alone to read on for a bit, just going to clear something else up for you. The Darkness are not a band in this story but creatures. There are two different types of Darkness, the Darkness themselves which are creatures confined to the dark which are the things the girls have come across and then there are the more dangerous Shadows who are confined to the light. They are all the souls who escape the Realm of the Dead but then travel through the Realm of Darkness to enter the Realm of the Living which is the realm we and the Le-Arians live in. I shall be quiet for a bit longer, sorry.

    Eventually it came so dark that the girls could see nothing when they put their hands in front of their faces. They travelled in a line with the eldest at the front, the second eldest at the back and the youngest protected in the middle. No matter how many people they had around them it was still very scary. They could not see Lady Kita in front of them and they didn’t even know if she was still there.
    They came to the second defence of the now only hallway that led to the prohibited room. No one knew what that room contained, not even the elite that travelled down the forbidden halls where the secret shortcuts from place to place were. Only the Chosen knew where the forbidden room was and of course soon the three little girls following one of the Chosen, the three little apprentices.
    Still in their little line finding their way through the darkness the youngest of the little girls began to crack. Unused to such darkness and the actual Darkness that were beginning to get curious about the little intruders following the bigger ‘heat light bringer’ Kei began to get uncomfortable. She could feel the things flitting around her legs, they felt freezing cold and as smooth as the marble they walked on but when they touched her they felt like glacial mist. She didn’t like it.
    “Lady Kita?”
    “Sshhhhh! Kei don’t allow them to know you are afraid. You are an apprentice so be brave in the face of fear,” a voice came from behind them.
    The little girls wheeled round in fright. They had spent the last half hour believing that they were following their Kita not leading the way. They could ne anywhere in the castle, trapped. The breathing in the long hall began to get quicker, quick with fear. The Darkness began to creep closer. They sensed the fear, the quick breathing and the fast heartbeats and crawled across the marble floor like an oily blob.
    The girls squealed as they felt them under their feet. The slimy Darkness began climbing up their bodies reaching for their necks to feed off the fear. The line broke up as the little girls rushed about in the darkness trying to push the climbing mist off of them but it stuck to them like glue, steadily reaching their necks.
    Two small fireballs flashed passed their heads and hit the floor sending showers of flaming sparks into the hall illuminating the surroundings. The girls turned to where their Kita was standing, her hand outstretched after letting the fireballs go. Smoke escaped her fingertips and she sighed and watched as the darkness began to writhe and panic. Screeching they returned to their oily mass on the floor an awaited the return of the dark just as the last spark hit the floor.
    As the darkness returned the girls reformed their line and waited for a signal from their Kita. There was none. The panic began to rise again as the girls felt along the wall trying to find doors or even a handle. There was none. Sorrel, Lorran and Kei felt completely alone. What they didn’t know was that they were completely alone. As the darkness had returned to the hall Lady Kita had slipped through a secret door that had appeared in the wall next to her as soon as the fire had hit the switch on the floor. No one knew where this switch was other than the mentor’s and the Princesses themselves.
    Now the Darkness began to creep towards the girls again, sensing that the ‘heat light bringer’ had gone away. They girls were alone and frightened the perfect meal for hungry Darkness. Kei let out a muffled scream as a Darkness grabbed her ankle with its misty hand. A sudden slit of light cut the darkness open and momentarily blinded the girls. The Darkness caught in the vertical line of light were immediately sent back to the Realm of the Dead and those caught as the light got wider were sent back to the Realm of Darkness, bordering the line of the Realm of the Dead.
    A black shape appeared from the wide rectangle of light and took the shape of a woman with long hair. The rectangular shape of light reached from the ceiling and down to the floor and as the girls rubbed the sight back into their eyes and they grew accustomed to such a large amount of white light they found that two doors surrounded the light. They had arrived at their destination.
    The black silhouette her hand on her hip and leant to one side slightly, cocking her head to one side taking in the girl’s watery eyes and the panicked expressions on their faces. She laughed loudly making the room fill with the sound of a hundred people laughing with her.
    “You didn’t think I would leave you in here did you?”

    See I’m not mean. I hope you enjoyed my quietness I didn’t want to break your concentration. I would never kill off children, especially when you have only just met them. I bet you are thinking what on earth these three girls have to do with Goddess Esmeralda and Jean but you will see. And anyway it’s not necessarily about the three girls as you will see soon enough. I hope you have noticed I still haven’t told you the Princess’s name. By the way Kita means teacher. Just thought you might like to know.

    The girls grumbled their reply and made their way slowly through the large oak double doors. They turned round and watched and waited as their Kita struggled to close the heavy oak-wooden doors. She had to do this one at a time since the doors were as tall and as wide as a giant standing on another’s shoulder.

    Sorry I forgot you don’t know how tall giants are. One giant standing on another’s shoulders would be about 18 feet tall. Try closing two doors that side and that width and about 2 feet thick. It’s not an easy job I can tell you that.

    Both finally clicked closed sending up a cloud of thin dust from the floor into the air around their feet. They were locked in but lucky for the girls it wasn’t dark, the secret room, although off limits and shrouded in mystery, was one of the most well lit rooms in the Castle, other than the Library, because what was inside the room had to be kept away from Darkness. Orb lamps lined the walls and corners, high windows of stained and misted glass let natural light into the room giving it the feeling of almost being outside. Rays of white light beamed down onto the marble floor illumination billions of dust specs floating like tiny fairies hovering in mid air. The whole room was light with white light so much so it was almost blinding. The light itself seemed to sense its freedom to be as bright as possible and worked to full capacity.
    Their Kita flexed her arms and stretched them high above her head. I should have seriously used Leoni for that, she thought to herself and smiled, then again I need a good workout.
    She watched patiently as the girls had already started exploring the great room. Then again there wasn’t much to explore. The tapestry Room, although one of the biggest and most secretly kept rooms in the entire castle, was one of the least furnished. Any objects in the room meant shadows which meant habitats for Darkness to linger. The information kept in the Tapestry room secretly could not be leaked out. The only furniture in the room was the lamps which stood ain the corners of the room holding small luminescent energy orbs.
    The girls were completely confused especially Kei who could not understand why their Kita had taken them on such a treacherous journey through the forbidden corridors to an empty room. There was nothing their at all. Not a chair, nor a table, nor a candle. Not one single thing. Yet it looked as though something was supposed to be there. One whole wall was pure blank marble. There wasn’t a single lamp on it or in the corners for that matter. It was the far wall. The room was a large rectangle with the longest sides being the far wall and the wall with the entrance and exit doors. The only windows were in the roof as the Tapestry room was joined onto the Library in the middle of a large maze of corridors and secret tunnels.
    The Kita stood with her hands on her slender hips and watched them explore the empty room. It was their first test in the history of their apprenticeship and all she had to do was wait.
    Lorran had two fingers placed on her forehead on there side with another hand out in front of her with her fingers splayed for the most effect. She had an expression of total concentration on her face, trying to stretch her mind to the inside of the walls as she walked slowly around the outside of the room. She had tied her black hair back into a long pony tail like her Mother always wore hers on working days and her. Her dark red eyes were slightly squinted as she tried to hide her pain. She had not yet mastered the art of detecting thought through walls, especially those as thick as marble. She was wearing the traditional attire of the young Cetahi, as were the other two, which was a tunic of the team’s colour (in this case red) and a pair of black cotton leggings and a pair of black leather sandals which were of a strange design.
    The typical Chadori and Cetahi wore tunics and leggings but when they graduated from primary school into the Cetahi academy (if that was there choice, they could go to secondary school) they were given the black sandals to show this. Imagine boots with the sole of comfortable sandals, thick enough to last the harshest terrains (about 1 ½ cm thick) but also like boots with the ends cut off ,made of flimsy leather and able to be tied up at the back like a corset. These strange examples of footwear were given to each student and were traded for a larger size when they reached Chadori level. They suited their job very well, flimsy enough to support fast movement, strong and thick enough to last in the elements, waterproof and comfortable. What more could a Cetahi or Chadori want, especially when the missions got hard.
    As Lorran was wondering around the room with her hand out in front of her making a hand-sign Kei was busy whizzing around the room like a blur of green, black and blonde. Smaller than the other girls she was blessed with speed and precision by her Mother. Dressed in the same attire as Lorran, Kei’s shoes, aptly named Corrun-omi (strong feet), but she wore a green tunic instead of a blue one.
    She was busy running at speeds of 30m/ph ,which for her was jogging speed, around the outside of the room, across the room and on the occasion a short way up the walls when she couldn’t tapping the walls as she went to reveal any hollow or weak spots in the thick marble wall. She never made a mistake, and when she did she was quick to correct herself. This didn’t mean she was an intelligent child, that was Lorran’s job, but she had her own secret strengths and her even more secretive weaknesses.
    Meanwhile Sorrel was the only one not moving. Sitting alone in the far left corner of the room she knelt down so far that her nose touched the blue veined marble floor and her eyes came in line with two small spiders on the floor in front of her face. From where the Kita was standing it looked as though they were staring each other down but they were actually deep in conversation. You couldn’t hear anything of course and Sorrel had to work very hard to try and deter Kei from the spot she was in so as not to disturb the tiny creatures but she sat there patiently as the spiders told her about their day and the children leaving home exedra, exedra.
    After ten minutes of watching the futile search the Kita walked slowly over to Sorrel and sat down beside her making sure not to obliterate the moth and the ladybird that had joined the spiders all trying to get Sorrel’s attention. The little brown haired girl scooped the little creatures up in her hands and put them on her lap so they crawled about in the folds of her blue tunic. She was a caring child and since her power was given to her at birth no creature no matter how small had been harmed when she had been around. She had many a pet in the castle and her Mother let her keep whatever she wanted, that was if she walked the things and cleaned up after them.

    Hey again. Haven’t piped up in a while and now’s my cue. Thought I’d just mention this. When a couple or parent wasn’t a child they must first go to Jean and ask for a spirit. Jean is the Giver of Life and the Spirit Keeper. That was what the Spirits of the suns and the moons gave her when she swapped bodies, that was her Gift. She was also given a box of Gifts to give to the young and powerful spirits that came to her waiting for a rebirth. That was the case of Lorran, Sorrel and Kei. When Norrani, Quazier and Dranatia went to her for the three children she not only gave them three spirits from Earth she gave them those of orphans accompanied by three Gifts. Lorran, Sorrel and Kei were special children, and they were treated so. Right back to the story within a story.

    The first one of them to get tired was Kei who, after running around for ten minutes at 30 m/ph had completely burnt up her limited supply of Leoni and was in a semi-awake state. A person who burned up their supply of Leoni was like a person who had used up all of their energy, useless and vulnerable let alone tired. The little girl slumped against the wall and slid down onto the cold marble floor, panting like an overheated dog and watching as Lorran’s search came to a fruitless end.
    They all breathed heavily with their backs against the wall, letting the cold seep through the fibres of their clothes to cool down their warm skin. Lorran joined them on the floor in the corner of the room, Sorrel playing with the creatures on her lap and Lorran and Kei trying to slow down their heartbeats and breathing.
    Their Kita leant her head against the wall making the clasp clank against the marble. She let out a long sigh and stretched her arms above her head. She had a habit of doing that. It was her thing. Rearranging the dress around her legs to make herself comfortable she looked up at the windows in the roof and watched the dust particles in the air again. Fairy dust had to be in there somewhere. The pretty but sticky stuff was everywhere in the castle. And Darkness hated the stuff which was good.
    “You’ve grown a lot you know,” she said with her head still against the wall, the girls looked at her.
    Silence befell the room once again. The only noise came from the creatures on Sorrel’s lap which happily scrabbled around on her tunic and in her hair. The soft breathing of each girl in the room accompanied the soft tapping of soft fingers against the floor. Lorran was getting impatient. And when she was impatient she got angry. And when she got angry…well…
    “Mother, what on Erath are we doing here?”
    Sorrel looked up from her bugs and joined Kei who was looking at Lorran with a horrified expression on her face. Not even the daughter’s of the Princesses could speak to them in such a disrespectful manner. They looked from their Kita to Lorran and from Lorran to their Kita. Of course the Princess hadn’t moved; she was as stubborn as her daughter. Still looking at the columns of light shining down from the windows she said something that took every single one of them by surprise, even Lorran who was never surprised at anything, because she always knew it was coming.
    “Would you like me to tell you story?”
    It was said in such a dreamy way that they could do nothing more than nod. Sorrel let the bugs crawl off her back to their homes and they all made themselves comfy as they knew that when a Kita told a story it was a long one and not a short lecture. Tucking their tunics under their legs to cushion the hard floor they all squeezed into the corner of the room so they had something with shape to lean against.
    Never taking her eyes off the beams of light their Kita sighed and leant black closer to the wall so she was sitting up almost straight. The Tapestry Room always put her in a thoughtful state and today had been no exception. They were old enough to know the monarchies history weren’t they? They were all trustworthy enough for her to entrust them with the burden of that information. Their Kita took a deep breath and began.