literature

The Slaver King: Prologue

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The deep halls of the palace glimmered under the soft flickering torchlight as he descended into narrow catacombs. Long, winding, wet and dim, that was what this place was. Filled with dusty air that only broke with the sound of footsteps. Perhaps it might have been beautiful once, long ago when the world was all in forest and the lower levels fresh-made, but now these isles where hard and beaten, the wooden tunnels that the keep's tree grew around where chipped and faded of their once rich colors. All lined with fat pale roots and tarnished runes few could still read or much less make out that once warded this place form the dangers that lurked Lemuria when the world was still new.      
Old Lugoth Tiron scoffed as he struggled threw the passages and depths of the catacombs, his thick oaken staff keeping his brittle bones upright. It had been months sense he had ventured this deep under the Emerald Palace; his legs, hip, and lungs screamed in pain with every misshapen step. He was not overly willing to leave his library in the spires but he new he must, and better now they before he left. That messenger from the capital had reached the borders of the Everwood and quickly brought word to Lugoth himself in the grand golden halls where his Lithinwood throne sat.
"I bring forth word from the Grand Lord himself!", the northerner's accent so queer to Lugoth's ears he had hardly understood the blue skinned man when he spoke. "Lord Abydos has called a summit of all nine of the Gadianzu Lords and Ladies, to be held in his keep by the new moons coming".
A fortnight, Lugoth frowned even now, they had wished him to pack up and leave for the capital half way across Gandoron in a fortnight. A bother it was going to be, he would need to bring that lad Vaelin Fellroot with him, such a venture would not be to his backs liking. Yet he new why the summit had to be held, even in the trees he herd word of the doings of outsiders beyond his flora.
The western lords had started making risky deals with the slave masters in the Ruby Hills, word had it they where trading slave miners for slave warriors and bringing a river of riches from below the mountains. A horrid thing, Lugoth new, yet the outsiders had been slaving and killing one another sense before even his father had lived. Those beyond the Everwood where hard and cruel folk who cared not for lives other than their own. Yet he new, as a Gadian Lord for nearly his entire lifetime, that he could not stand for it when they called for his counsel. The Slave Trade was not likely in Lord Abydos' favor, but Nio and Haien would surly not agree to his wishes. Trouble was brewing and Lugoth Tiron's breaking back could feel it most of all.  
The winding halls clad thick in root and withered with time finally broke when Lugoth Tiron reached the massive wooden triple-door to his elder brother's chamber. When he pushed the heavy door aside the charms over it hissed away as tendrils of root that had grown over the hard wood moved aside as if welcoming him in. Beyond the doors a massive dome of a room took shape in fogy yellow flamelight. The air was chilled and damp and the walls rounded and lined all in thick branched parted only when they needed give was for a torch. The chamber itself all seemed to be made of root an branch, winding and twisting up into a massive canopy. In the very center of the room grew a single tree that stood out around the dark branches and roots that made up everything ells. This tree was sharp, thick and bend to one side, it's bark was milk-silver and it shimmered like metal in the light, it's branches looked like broken arms kinked and curved at every corner, its leaves where few in number but those that had not fallen where a dark navy and moved softly as if they felt a wind Lugoth did not. As the old man neared the tree he patted down his thick gray/brown beard, his left eye and the only eyes he could see from narrowing to focus on the thick trunk of the old silver plant where the bark projected outwards and took the shape of a youthful face and two arms crossed over one another. When Lugoth was near a yard from it the fingers of it's folded arms twitched and the face in the bark shifted slowly. The Archdruid Fugoth the Watcher opened only his Left eye to gaze at his brother. The eye itself was like a pool of poison, solid green and foggy in the flickering light as if it seen many things aside from the dimly lit room it grew in.
He had been seven years older when he was claimed, Fugoth was next in line after their father died for the lordship of Tiron. Yet when old Archdruid died before their father had and Lugoth's brother to the dead Druid's place. Sense then they hardly seen one another, and now countless years later the face in the tree was still a stranger to him. A memory he had all but lost.
"Hello brother", the old man brushed his beard aside and held his weight up on his staff. The boyish face in the tree only blinked it's emerald eye.
"Word has come from the city Lemuria, a summit has been called for all nine Lords", his voice was thick with sway, yet he new the Archdruid would not hear it.
"Chaos", the tree spoke, his eye like a boiling void on the silver of his bark, his voice otherworldly and his branches swaying, "Chaos will light flames".
"Fugoth I...", he started but the face of the boy spoke before him.
"A flame that will surly spread until it burns away many leaves", the Archdruid's voice was smooth, yet cold. "Those who do not sit in the Ladies arms with wither and die, but the forest will live on, and in time more life will bloom in the ashes fire leaves behind".
"The flames have spread to our walls before, let you not forget brother", Lugoth's hips burned as he tried to keep his stance stern. The years had taken from him much of his strength. "Our kin fought in the Unsent War and died to protect all men, not just those who live within our forest".
"The wild takes no sides", the tree said slowly, his words like sour sap in Lugoth's veins, "The Lady of The Trees is forever neutral in the tides of mortals, and such so are We".
Lugoth felt blood lush in his cheeks and tasted the bitterness of his rotten teeth when his anger grew.
"And what would you have me do when the northers start killing one another over these slavers? When rivers of blood flow from the Ruby Hills and men and woman and children alike die in fire? Watch as they burn themselves into ash and do nothing?".
"Watch", the silver tree spoke, "Watch and live on, the world will burn and rise time and time again, but the trees we protect will never fall".
With a scrape of Lugoth's staff on the root-made ground Lugoth spun around, faded cloths dancing around him as he stomped for the triple door.
"You lead our Druidfolk brother, and I will lead  the rest of our people... as I always have", his stomped heavy with his staff in hand and he pushed aside the warded doors, "Let you not forget that".
The silver face said only once thing before the tall oaken doors slammed shut behind him, one thing that haunted Lugoth's thoughts until he had climbed the winding tunnels and steps of the catacombs until he was back in his tower with his books.
"We never forget".
The Slaver King: Prologue

Enjoy, and critic.
I am willing to listen to ideas and points in case my grammar is off. 
The first chapter for The Slaver King should be up soon! <3 
© 2014 - 2024 Ode-Brockenbrough
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lidibug13's avatar
wow!!! this is amazing!!! I like all of the details that you used!!!