The Eagle And The Flame

Introduction/Prologue
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A man, dressed in furs and velvet, sits upon a throne carved from bone and ivory and at his feet crouches a servant, also dressed in fur but pale and shivering with fright.
         "M-Master, my K-King, I b-beg of you, hear what I s-say. The b-boy is of little consequence. He c-cannot rally an army, he is t-too weak, and knows n-not what power he has"
         "Really? Well, that's not very good is it? A Rider with no Majic? We can't have that! You must show him!"
         "B-but, I don't understand! You want him to challenge you?" asked the man shakily, sprawled on the floor.
         "No, but when he knows of his power he will become over-confident and he will make mistakes, especially without guidance."
         "But what if he has guidance, my Lord? What if he already has a teacher?"
         "He does not. And he will never find one. You will make sure of that!"

Chapter 1
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         "Excuse me? Do you know where The Forbidden Library is?" asked Mathias
         "Yeah" the girl said suspiciously.
         "Can you give me directions?" he asked.
         "Yeah, bu' it'll cost yeh." she said. He sighed and rummaged in his pocket.
         "How much?"
         "One Knever." she said, with a tone that suggested she'd charged a lot of people for directions.
         "One Knever! Expensive directions! Have you got change for a Doubel?" he asked, sifting through the coins he held in his hand.
         "For a Doubel, I'll show yeh m'self." she said, taking the large coin from his outstretched hand. He didn't look like he could afford it, in his shabby cloak and worn boots, but if he went around shouting how much money he had, he deserved to have it taken away. Anyway, at least she'd be giving him something in return. If a thief had got hold of him, they'd have stripped the clothes off his back and left him to bleed to death in the gutter.
         She ran off into the crowd and the young man followed. He looked about fifteen or sixteen, was clean-shaven and although his clothes were nothing but rags, the long-sword on his belt was well made and looked extremely sharp. The urchin stopped next to a horse, tethered outside a bar, and waited for the Mathias to catch up. He emerged from the crowd and looked around until he saw her then hurried towards his guide. Before he could reach her, she hurried off down an alleyway. He rushed after her. The girl led him down a series of complicated passageways, over a bridge and into the main square. She stopped suddenly and Mathias crashed into her, stepped back and tripped over his cape. A slight smile flitted over the girl's face but other than that, she remained silent and motionless. He clambered up and stood next to her staring at the sight that met his inexperienced eyes. The entire square was filled with people and in the middle, a huge fountain. It was filled with thousands of figures of men and horses in combat.  Water burst out of the tips of every sword, spear and arrow. It foamed out of the horses mouths and noses. In the centre, a majestic silver stallion reared up, his riders mouth shouting what was unmistakably a silent, metallic battle-cry.
         "Oh, I forgo', Festival Day! C'mon!" she said. The girl ran into a tiny alleyway and out into a deserted road. Then she realised the boy wasn't following her anymore. She returned to the square and saw him standing there, staring at the fountain as though in trance. She walked over to him and poked him. He didn't react.
         "The Great Fountain of Am'n-Kahan. Pretty, init? Kinda hypnotic!" she remarked. He nodded slowly. She sighed and grabbed his arm, dragging him into the alleyway. When they got there and were out of sight of the fountain she let go and let him recover fully. He shook his head, as if trying to get water out of his ears.
         "Better?" she asked in an exasperated voice. He blinked and nodded. She ran back down the alleyway, turning every now and then to check he was still following. They finally reached a grand-looking building in a tiny little street, filled mostly with houses in disrepair.
         "There yeh go, The Forbidden Library."
         "Thanks" said the boy, who seemed to have recovered normal speech.
         "Why do yeh wanna go in there?" she asked, gestering to the Library.
         "I need information." he said shortly.
         "Well, don' say I didn' warn yeh!" He smiled but didn't say anything. She raised her eyebrows, then twisted round and ran off, vanishing between two buildings. He turned to the door and walked up the steps. He raised his hand to pick up the knocker but his hand remained in midair for a second of hesitation before he picked it up and knocked. The first knock jarred his hand and he stepped back for a minute while he waited for his teeth to stop chattering uncontrollably. His teeth still aching, he knocked again, the sound vibrating through the  building. It seemed to get louder rather than quieter, but suddenly stopped as he knocked for a third time. He heard a bell, deep inside the building and footsteps approaching the door. Mathias stood back and the door opened a crack.
         "Who is it? Who's there? What do you want?" asked a rasping voice through the gap.
         "My name is Mathias, I've come to ask you about something. Something important" he added.
         "And what would that 'important something' be?" asked the voice, still not opening the door.
         "Eagles" said Mathias, who didn't want to give the voice too much information until he was sure of it's help.
         "Eagles? Rare birds of prey. Live up in the mountains. That's all you need to know. You want to know any more, go to a regular library!" snapped the voice, clearly annoyed by the interruption.
         "No, I meant Giant Eagles. Magical Eagles. Ones that can be ridden" answered Mathias, knowing this would get the voice's attention. The door opened with a jerk, revealing a bent, wrinkled old man, carrying a rusty oil lamp. He stared at the boy who had interrupted his sleep.
         "What d'you want to know about them for?" he asked suspiciously, his eyes squinting and watery in the sunlight. His skin was thin, with the texture and colour of paper, which suggested he hadn't been out in the the sun for some time. In answer, Mathias rolled up his right sleeve, revealing his lower arm. On his wrist was a scar, or what looked like a scar, of a strange symbol which looked like a swirl in a triangle.
         The old man choked and retreated into the darkness in a coughing fit. He emerged a minute later, eyes watering, patting his chest. He stared at the scar, then grabbed Mathias' wrist. He examined the mark, holding it up to his lantern.
         "Hmmm" he said, nodding "Get inside" Mathias smiled to himself. Grudgingly, the man led him into the library. They went down a low, stone tunnel and through numerous doors, until Mathias had absolutely no idea where he was, which, he suspected was exactly how the old man wanted it. They didn't speak and the only sound was the slow drip-drip-drip of water.
         "You keep books in this place?" he asked sceptically, as a particularly large drop hit him square between the eyes.
         "No" said the old man "I keep the books in this place." With that they passed through a small door and into the biggest room Mathias had ever seen. It was full of book shelves that stretched up to meet the ceiling which was at least 500 metres high and covered in sky blue paint and gold leaf. He looked down between two bookshelves, but couldn't even guess how long the room was. At least three miles long. He swore under his breath and let out a long low whistle. He turned to the man but he was already halfway across the room. Mathias ran after him, his footsteps echoing around the room, earning him a disapproving look from the old man. Suddenly the man turned down one of the long aisles. He went a few metres down and stopped to scrutinise a book that he picked from the bottom shelf. After a few seconds he shook his head, put the book back, making sure it was in the same place and continued. He repeated this process about seven times until he suddenly let out a loud Aha!, terrifying Mathias, who had been tailing him.
         "Riders!" exclaimed the old man, with unexpected vigour. "An eagle! Well I never! I once had a friend that rode a giant blue-tit. I don't expect it was quite as impressive as an Eagle though! I don't think there's ever been an eagle before! You realise, of course, that each Rider  has a different bird, depending on their character? Maybe you don't. Yes, yes, there have been many! A bullfinch, a buzzard, a parrot (he was very annoying! Only ever met him once, thankfully! Never stopped talking!), a kingfisher (beautiful, beautiful bird!). Of course, they're only the ones I've met. I heard of many others! Yes, yes!" Mathias was caught off guard by the man's sudden enthusiasm. He didn't know how to answer so he remained silent, listening to the old man reminiscing about a giant blackbird called Thranx and his Rider, Dimitri.
         "...and you know what? He never gave me my twenty Doubels back!" said the man. then he burst out laughing. Mathias coughed slightly to try and bring the man back to the present. He looked at Mathias as though he'd only just realised he was there.
         "Yes, well, anything else?" said the librarian, immediately reverting to his earlier, frostier manner.
         "I need to know everything about the King" said Mathias.
         "Everything!" exclaimed the man, chuckling "Ah, to be young! So, ignorant of everything around you! I know very little of the King."
         "Well, then tell me everything you do know!" urged Mathias. The old man looked at him steadily, as though weighing him up for a fight. He sniffed and nodded slightly and led the way to a small cabin, his arms laiden with books he'd been picking up as he talked. The cabin was made of logs and looked as though it should be in a forest surrounded by trees and bears and things. Smoke was curling out of a chimney at the back of the hut, even though they were in a room, deep underground, full of books, with no visible means of letting the smoke escape.
         "Curious thing,this hut. About twenty-five years ago, while I was binding a couple of manuscripts, it suddenly popped up out of nowhere! Nearly gave me a heart-attack!" he said, gesturing to the cabin. "I think someone must have been messing about with magic in there, because no matter how hard I try, I can never put the fire out! I've come to the conclusion that there isn't a fire at all, just smoke. Gets a bit annoying at times. I'm Ted by the way. Well, I call myself Ted. Actually my name is Loukoum Bagawerkin, but with so much paperwork to sign, my hand starts to ache! So I changed it to Ted, shorter and easier to pronounce!"
         "Nice to meet you Ted" said Mathias.

Chapter 2
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         They went up the wooden steps and into what looked like a cross between a shack and a sauna. Everything, from the chairs to the fruit bowl, was made out of a honey-coloured wood, pine, Mathias guessed.
         Ted dropped the books on the pine table, pulled two pine cups from a pine cupboard and poured a deep red liquid into them from a pine bottle, which Mathias hoped wasn't wine.
         "Cranberry juice" said Ted. "Came with the hut. Found a couple of bottles in the cupboard and they keep on refilling themselves!" He sat down and sipped his drink.
         "So," he said "you want to know about the King?" Mathias nodded and drank his juice.
         "The Riders were originally the King's Captains. They led his army and kept the peace" said Ted over his drink.
         "I will never serve the King!" burst out Mathias "I'd rather die!"
         "No? That's what the Riders said. Sixty years ago, they opposed the King and fought him. But the King turned his army against them and ordered every Rider to be killed, along with their Birds. And they were" added Ted bitterly "Every single one: eradicated. Like vermin." He paused for a moment. "But now you're here and you can fight the King!"
         "What about the King's army? How many are there? I've never seen one of the King's soldiers, where do they go?" asked Mathias.
         "Sure, you've seen them! They're everywhere!" said Ted.
         "What do you mean?"
         "Everyone is a soldier! Every butcher, baker, candlestick-maker, washerwoman, doctor, magistrate and farmer! They're all soldiers! Even I'm a soldier!" exclaimed Ted, sipping his drink again.
         "What?" asked Mathias, standing up and backing away.
         "Well, I'm not a soldier right now! But I've been branded" he said, lifting up his left sleeve. Mathias moved forward cautiously to look. On Ted's shoulder, burnt into his flesh, was a phoenix erupting out of a crown, and underneath that, the number 17029.
         "When a citizen turns eighteen, he's taken to The Academy, where he learns to fight, to survive. In, short, to become a soldier. He stays there for two years, and when he leaves, he's branded. The brand links every soldier to another and every citizen to another. And when the King calls, his soldiers must answer. We take up arms and march against the enemy. Sixty years ago, that enemy was the Riders. I was sixteen so I hadn't been branded, but I watched my parents and my friend's parents marching off to war. Most of them didn't return.
         "Of course this posed a problem for the Riders. They had always stood for the people and protected them. In fact, The Academy was one of the things the Riders and the King had disagreed on. They had to sacrifice their friends to reach the King."
         "Why couldn't the people just have stopped? Refused to fight?"
         "Because when you are branded, it represents a binding contract. One that, unfortunately, everyone has to sign, whether they like it or not. If any of the King's 'soldiers' oppose him, they die."
         "Who kills them?" asked Mathias, horrified.
         "Nobody. They just die. Instantly."
         "But that's horrible!"
         "Of course it's horrible! Everything about the King is horrible! He imprisoned his own daughter and had her locked up! Admittedly, she had tried to kill him, but still!"
         "Is that supposed to make me more confident?" asked Mathias.
         "But the point is that the King has made an army that is virtually indestructible, unbeatable! If anyone dares attempt rebellion they will be attacked on all sides by their fellows. They may even kill themselves because that is what the king told them to do! No one can resist his summons! But you, you have a chance! You are young and naive, but not naive enough to think that there is no evil in the world! You can fight!" the old man seemed to wilt suddenly. "But it would suicidal! Even if you could find followers it could never be enough! It is useless!"
         "But I have an Eagle, I am a Rider! That has to count for something?" asked Mathias.
         "One Aviz is not enough to bring down a kingdom!" he exclaimed shrilly "Like I said, it would be suicidal, not even a fool would attempt it!"
         "An Aviz?" repeated Mathias.
         "The proper term for the Giant Birds. It's from the language of the Nymphs, guardians of nature."
         "Nymphs?" asked Mathias, confused. He was quickly coming to the conclusion that he would understand hardly any of this conversation.
         "Yes, Nymphs! You know: dryads, hamadryads, naiads, oreads, nereids..."
         "Never mind what Nymphs are, do you know whether there are any more Riders out there?"
         "Maybe, maybe not" said Ted, thinking. "What's the name of your Aviz?"
         "Eremelle" said Mathias," Why?"
         "Hmph, very well Mathias. I will tell you everything I can."

Chapter 3
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         Mathias spent three days in the Forbidden Library, listening to Ted's stories and taking in as much knowledge as his exhausted mind would permit. The more he learnt about the king, the more he began to feel that fighting him was one of the most stupid ideas he could have ever have thought up. The things he learnt about the Aviz made him dread it even more. One particular piece of knowledge made him shiver:
         "But remember," Ted had said one evening "whatever you throw at the King, he can throw back a hundred times harder! Pelt him with a volley of arrows and the ones he shoots back will be sharper, their aim truer! However many soldiers you find, he will have tenfold. Whatever magic you release against him, he will reverse, with malice! And whatever your bird does, his will repel! The King has an Aviz, more powerful than any other see on this earth. It's a phoenix, the royal bird, by the name of Equinoxe. No one has seen it for sixty years, since the wars with the Riders."
         Mathias had gone to bed that night in nothing short of despair.
         He woke early next morning, packed the few things he had collected over his stay into a leather saddle bag, and the little money he had in a pouch by his side. He bid goodbye to Ted, saying he would return when he had found an army, and went on his way.
         He weaved his way through the backstreets and alleys of the huge city and eventually found himself in a small square, full of horses and horse-merchants.
         That morning he had decided what he was going to do. It seemed absolute folly but he couldn't see any other course of action. He was going to rescue the Kings daughter from the palace jail and use her to gather an army. She was part of a rebellion hidden deep in society. No one had ever found the leader of the rebellion, but it was always there, collecting information. Mathias wanted to meet them, and tell them of his plans and the only person he could think of was the Princess. Of course he didn't actually know whether she was alive or not.

                                                          ***

         "Hey! Hey, you! Come here!" Oriais shouted, rattling the bars of the cell door "HEY! Guard! I want to speak to my father! Are you listening to me?! Get my father!" She kicked the door and flung herself down on the floor. A guard in a grey uniform, with a curved sword hanging from his belt, came up the door and coughed.
         "The King says he has had enough of your complaints and wishes you to remain quiet. You are after all, a prisonner," said the guard to the floor.
         "Well, you can tell the King that if he wants me to be quiet, he'll have to kill me! A task I am sure he will undertake with immense pleasure! Send him my compliments and tell him I think he is cruel and heartless, he'll like that! Also tell him that the lock on this door is rusting and needs replacing if he doesn't want me to escape and stab him in the night! A task that I will undertake with immense pleasure, if even the slightest chance comes my way!" The guard turned and left. Oriais turned from the door and wandered to the small window that linked her tiny prison cell with the rest of the wide world. She held her nose up to the bars and took a deep breath of fresh air. Looking out at the barren hillside, and below it, the sweeping sand dunes, she whispered to the night:
         "Orizon? Are you there?" She sent the words as a thought, into the mind of her faithful bird aswell as to the darkness.
         "I will be in a second, Princess," came the answer.
         The prison cells in the palace looked out upon the beach instead of the city, so there was little chance of Orizon being seen, if they were careful. Oriais waited, watching the specks of dust swirl in the beam of moonlight coming from the barred window.
         "Is there anyone around?" heard Oriais in her head.
         "No, but be cautious" she thought back.
         Out of the trees at the top of the hill came a giant phoenix, as silent as the reflections of the starlight on his red and gold plumage. He glided down the hill to the wall of the prison and landed smoothly on the grass at the foot of the castle wall. He raised his graceful head to look at the window. Oriais stuck her hand through the bars and waved at Orizon. He stretched his wings and flapped once, soaring up and scrabbling at the rough wall to find a foothold.
         "Hey. You've been out hunting?" asked Oriais.
         "Yes, I didn't catch anything. I think they know I'm around now" thought back Orizon.
         "Not for much longer. Tomorrow night, we'll be free."
         "Tomorrow? Are you sure?"
         "Trust me. Tomorrow night is full moon. That's when he's at his weakest."
         "Exactly. He'll put extra guards on duty, like he always does."
         "If we're quiet, they won't notice anything until we're gone."
         "Fine, but I'd better go now, or they'll hear me and then there won't be a tomorrow."
         "Bye." whispered Oriais, smiling weakly. She turned around just as the guard came back in, his sword clanking at his side.
         "The King says that there will be no need to change the lock as you will be executed in two days time, and that it will most definitely be an immense pleasure."