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The Portal
Science
 Created on 10-24-07
 Views(62)
 Story Rating G
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Leo in the Zodiac Galaxy, Hracm 12, 165p.d.
I woke up with a blazing headache. Yeah, I know, it’s not what you’d expect for the beginning of a story, but that’s what happened. On Earth, this tale began on November 13, 1985. I’m writing this because I’m the Royal Bookkeeper, and as such I’m the only one who can See in distance, yippee for me. The records tell me that the eldest child from my family, the Eninacs, always becomes a Seer and the next Bookkeeper when the parent passes on, so my eldest will supposedly acquire the job after I depart for the Great Havens, but it’s not likely I’ll do so soon.[1] Anyway, it was a wonderfully cheerful morning, and, to everyone’s delight, little Crystal had just been born. I know I should have Seen it coming, but I guess all the warning Alha the giver of visions wished to send me was a headache, which I still have. Ah well, to late now, it’s impossible to go back and fix the past, but maybe the future will be better. I think that I shall inadvertently give you the wrong impression if I only give a short summary of today’s proceedings, or I shall botch it up, as some of you say. I’ll just start from the beginning in as much detail as I can.
* * *
“Good morning, your Majesty. I take it you slept well?” This is how I normally greeted Gnik Ralleigh Barsooth these days. Poor leon, he never did sleep well, what with Queen Enna pregnant, but you could never tell, for all his cheerful attitude. Today had been no different, except for the fact that he was unusually hyper as well. He was practically skipping down the hall as he came to greet me. I was about to find out why.
“ Ha, ha! Yes, yes, I’m perfectly fine. Actually, I’m more than fine, I’m…I’m... Oh! I can’t describe it, so I’ll just show you. Come on!” He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me down the hall to the Royal Bedchamber. He was acting like an overly elated schoolboy who had just received his first A of the semester. Seriously, I was thinking about telling him to lay off the moch-hattes[2] when he stopped in front of the doors to the bedchamber. His face was a mixture of pure happiness and deep concern. If I hadn’t been so confused, I would have been worried about him.
“ You need to be quiet as you enter,” Ralleigh cautioned, “ they may be asleep, and I don’t want to disturb them if they are.”
Them? I had thought, who was “Them”? The only one who should be in there was Queen Enna… Then it dawned on me. The queen must have had the child this morning! Oh, I must admit, I had felt pretty stupid for not realizing it beforehand, but then again, I had a headache and my head was a bit fuzzy.
Ralleigh quietly opened the door and stepped inside, beckoning to me as he did so. I entered the dim chamber and quietly closed the door as I took a second to let my eyes adjust to the amount of light in the room.[3] The Royal bedchamber was probably what you’d least expect any monarchy to have in their private chambers. It was full of books, training equipment, sewing equipment, various tools for making everything from jewelry to battle-axes, and in the center of the room, a lofty bed with gossamer curtains surrounding the entire thing. It was all very tidy, given that no one but the monarchs themselves and close friends were allowed in at all. What I had come to see, though, was lying in the middle of the bed, snuggled against her mother’s breast, little Princess Crystal. She was a little darling, white blond hair, rosy cheeks, and a nose that was going to be exactly like her mother’s. I couldn’t see her eyes quite then, but since then I have discovered they were hazel, and not just the regular brown and green, no. They were like a miniature forest, mostly leaf green and bark brown with flecks of gray and blue that made it appear that there was a river running through her eyes. Those eyes may have been on the face of a newborn, but they held the wisdom of the thousands of monarchs before her. I believe my mother said the same about Queen Enna when she saw her.
The King and I had stood there for a while, just observing the sleeping pair, then silently slipped out of the room. Out in the hallway, he had transformed back into that overly excited schoolboy, and I knew exactly how he felt, because that was how I had felt as well. Now that I knew, the hall and everything else seemed brighter, more joyful[4]. Even the black cloth on the Guards’ uniforms didn’t seem at all dismal, as it had been before.
“Ralleigh… When are you going to tell the Court?” We had begun to walk back down the hallway, well, more like jog because of Ralleigh’s quick steps. For all that I was taller than he was and had a longer stride, I was hard put to keep up with him right then. For being such a little Leon he could sure move.
“What? Oh, yes, the Court. I was going to find you and then I figured you could announce it to the Court, since you have louder voice than I do.”
At that point I had snorted. True, when I was excited my voice did tend to be a little loud, but in any competitions dealing with any vocal stuff, he always took the eraik[5]. He probably had had the most gifted voice I had heard, ever. He ranged from delicate love melodies to bawdy tavern songs that would make even the rowdiest palace guardsmen’s face turn pale. No idea where he ever learned them, and I guess I never will now[6].
The rest of the morning went swiftly, having had to organize a celebration on short notice for the afternoon, only after having told almost the entire Court the good news. Luckily there are always gossipmongers to tell the good news to anyone who hadn’t heard the news, and I had left it to them to inform the populace. The servants helped, too. Not much can be kept from palace servants and when someone manages to hide something from them you can bet it’ll be found out before too long. That’s one reason why Enna and Ralleigh had never let the servants into their quarters. They may not have had anything to hide, but if no one outside loyal friends and the King and Queen themselves knew the location of the bed, an assassin would be hard put to kill someone without making a sound.
Now, I hadn’t found this out until it was too late to stop it, but that idiot Commander Tuckyr had let half the guard off to party. Stupid oaf, he even let the ones on duty have a pint of ale, which considerably dulled their senses. There were only a few that stayed somber, and it was good that they did. As I had said before, the headache was the only omen I ever got about this day and I should have known. Just as the party got into full swing, with Enna and little Crystal the center of attention, Ralleigh practically bursting with pride whenever he even glanced at his wife and newborn, the ships came. Not just any ships, no! They were none other than the Warlords. Of course this caused pandemonium almost as instantly as they were spotted, but most of the Guards were too drunk to aim strait. How they could even miss something that big with their cannons showed just how bad we were off, but by some miracle they did manage to disable the guns on one ship, but only one. The rest of the ships started firing into the crowd with a will, and some of the beams hit the pillars supporting the roof.
One by one the pillars collapsed and with that taking many Leons to the Great Havens. One of them was Ralleigh, my companion and king, his last efforts having saved a pregnant Courtier from being crushed underneath it as well. Enna meanwhile had perceived what she had to do, protect little Crystal at all costs. Motherly instinct is hard to ignore especially if you’re new at it, as she was. Anyway, she had gathered the only group of guards that were completely somber to her and had exited via a window on the far side of the chamber. I would have loved to follow her, but I had had my own children to think about. As I was searching for them amongst the throng of people, the ships landed.
I’ll tell you this, this day was a disaster, and it was only later that I found out about a spy in the court, one Ambassador Cludstathk of the planet Scorpion. He got what he deserved, his brains bashed out by a pillar while waiting for the ships to land. He had been in cahoots with the Warlord for a while, his power greedy mind imagining too many good riches and new statuses for him to resist. After the ships did land they rounded up the court and threw them into the prison barges. Luckily I had found my children and we were all thrown in together, and now I’m sitting in the cell, which reeks of stale food and dead rakits[7], with the guard glaring at me through the bars[8], with the same headache I had this morning.
[1] Famous last words. Another one, by the author who wrote Peter Pan, was, “ I can’t sleep.”
[2] The equivalent of a highly caffeinated drink, which I believe you call coffee.
[3] Our eyes are like that of a cat. We don’t need much to be able to see as clearly as day. Sorry to point this out to you, but you humans have such inferior eyes.
[4] Not now, of course, but I’ll get into that later on.
[5] Cake, as you would say it.
[6] Again, I’m getting to it.
[7] General word for rodents.
[8] I had just said something really nasty in reply to one of his comments, and he was to dim-witted to come up with a reply.
Comments
Please Login to post comments| On March 28th 2008 Manx413 Said : | |
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Well, my personal opinion of this is that the prose really needs work. The premise could be good if it were longer and your wording choices were different. I'm assuming that this is just a part of a much longer story that probably still resides in your head. The trick is to get all of that depth out of your head and into the mind of the reader. I recomend a slightly more formal choice of wording. If the narrorator (forgive my spelling, it's one of my weak points) is to be believably the king's historian/chroniclor/bookkeeper then his dialog should show it. I also think that this story would benefit greatly from more vivid descriptions of the settings. From this I can't tell if this is some kind of sci-fi space world or just a planet connected to others in a Star Wars galaxy kind of way (These are both possibilities based upon the title) You did do an exellant job defining the character of the king though. You balanced out the attitude descriptions and actions very well. By the way; as a huge Tolkien fan, I would change the name of the "Great Havens". It, aside of being far too similar to the "Grey Heavens", just doesn't fit the feel of the overall. I suggest mentioning it more aloof, such as "When I float away into the land that comes next..." or something like that. This is just a suggestion. You have a good start of what could become a very in-depth world, it just needs expanded upon. But then again I could just be talking out of my butt. I do that a lot. |
| On October 24th 2007 Catlady7 Said : | |
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Please give me critical comments.... I'd like to see what I can do to improve this.... |
