nanowrimo_lj | I Did It!!!

I did it! It's pretty much a bare bones version, this first draft, but the objective of the exercise is to write 50,000 words, not a perfect novel on the first go-round. Still, it was fun getting to the good stuff and my fingers fairly flew, as I knew they would when I got to the denoument and resolution. Whew! So here is Chapter Thirteen and the Epilogue to Swordbound in the Light. If you want entry to my friends' list to read the novel, add me as a friend and I'll reciprocate, or comment here. I am looking forward to some good constructive criticism!!

818 words

SWORDBOUND IN THE LIGHT
Chapter Thirteen

Herb’t and I were safely tucked into a campaign bed in my father’s pavilion, the coverlet embroidered with the red griffin of Aarok, and we slept through the morning. When I finally opened my eyes, there sat my husband, watching us intently. Herb’t still slept, snoring sweetly, wrapped in the covers.

“It is done, Lightfather,” I whispered as I smiled weakly.

He nodded. “Your fellow priestesses and guardians briefed all of us, the crowned heads and clerics shortly after you two were put to bed.”

“How long…”

“Not long considering what you’ve been through. It is mid-afternoon, hour of the jay. Are you hungry?”

I sat up, running hands across the stubble on my shaved scalp. “Famished! How many haunches and biscuits are available?”

He laughed good naturedly, then put his arms around me, making sure I could stand unaided. I felt weak but otherwise well. “I told cook he should have roasted the entire deer.” He picked up a brass bell on the bedside table and rang it.

A servant’s head poked in through the closed tent flap. “Yes, Lightfather?”

“Set up some lunch for Lightmother Beline, and bring a flagon of sweet wine and enough utensils so we can all three eat.”

With a nod of his head the woman’s braid-wrapped head disappeared. She returned almost immediately with a basket full of food and tablesettings.

I was washing down my second helping of rare venison when Rand’l put a hand over mine on the goblet. “Beline, tell me. Is it all gone? He’s not going to turn again when he reaches manhood or something worse, will he? How certain are you that the ritual of the spheres purged him.”

“Very sure. Positive. We watched as ring by ring the evil in all its forms departed from him. And at the last, skewered together in that singing blade of pure light, there was no way that evil could survive. Did anyone else mention the tiny puff of grey smoke that exited his mouth just before we fainted?”

“They did,” he said with a nod. “And they were thoroughly grilled by Emperor Jos’ph and his mages, as well as the Archbishop and the clerics of the Cathedral of Ragnac. It was clear that the magic you performed had the desired and promised effect, as the Lord had directed.” He paused, as if he didn’t want to continue, but must. “It’s just that rumors continue, and I worry that our son will always live under a curse of hearsay and innuendo. He is, after all, heir to the throne of Aarok.”

“And from the moment of his conception he has been beloved of the Light, just as you and I were so designated by the Light Incarnate Himself!” I was angry and frustrated and threw my fork down onto my half-empty plate. “What do we have to do, shave the child’s head and make him lifesworn at the age of eight? What will it take to convince the doubters that Herb’t is not only restored, but sanctified by the miraculous intervention of our God? Our God, Rand’l. Arrghh!” Tensions stowed elsewhere while I battled the dark for the soul of my son rose to the surface in a torrent. I sobbed into my hands, boo-hooing loudly while Rand’l got up and knelt at my side, trying to comfort me, but I was inconsolable. Too much had happened too fast. I was an emotional ruin.

“Why are you crying, Mama?” said a child’s sweet voice. The very voice I had so feared lost forever just a day before. “Don’t cry, Mama, I’m here. Papa and Grandfather and Uncle Malco’lm found me and brought me back. You weren’t here, and I was scared, but now that you are here, I am not scared at all.” He crawled onto my lap and wiped my face of tears with a linen napkin from the table. “There, you see? We are together. Together in the Light. Now we have to go home to Grandmother and Luxia and we will all be together and I can have my pony again.”

I grinned. From him gleamed the innocence of childhood. I knew in my heart of hearts that everything that had been done to him, every base and repugnant invasion of his person and mind had disappeared from his memory and his soul. He was as guileless and innocent as a newborn baby, all his little white lies forgiven and forgotten along with the travesties by the touch of the living sword of Light and the ritual of the spheres.

We were reunited. We were whole. We were a family. Let wagging tongues wag, I thought. Those who should know and be convinced are. All else will fade with time.

In my mind came the soft tread of the Light Incarnate as he whispered, “Thus and ever so.”

* * *

514 words

SWORDBOUND IN THE LIGHT
Epilogue

We had one more reunion that day. My mother had shapechanged into a golden dragon, and flown to the encampment of the Armies of Light, landing just outside my father’s pavilion, with little Luxia on her back.

That night we celebrated as we had never celebrated before in the pavilions of the Emperor with all the nine kingdoms in attendance and the Archbishop attesting to the restoration of Herb’t, and telling anyone who would listen how we had been skewered by a gleaming sword made of light and lived to tell the tale. Between him and the Emperor and my uncle, the rumors and heresay circulating in the camps were soundly squelched.

So we returned to our respective homes, the kings and princes to theirs, the Emperor and Archbishop to Ragnac, and all of us to Castle Griffin. There Rand’l and I would stay for half a year, making sure our children were safely recovered from all the ills that had befallen us.

And then it was time to return to the Gilrand Hills, this time as Abbot and Abbess of the newly consecrated Abbey of the Sword. We traveled with a huge caravan of materials and sacred items to establish the new abbey, as well as clergy, Swordbound lightsworn and lifesworn priests and priestesses. And the first thing to be added to the newly laid foundation was a granite shield upon which had been secured the heraldic device of a blazing golden sword surrounded by rays of pure light. It had been copied after the drawings I made of the sword used by the Lord to heal my son and me.

Before too long we had the first buildings up, and the survivors of the ravages of the Darkspawn on the dozen destroyed villages in the hills moved behind the growing walls of the abbey, which in just a few months was already looking like a small city.

We had our hands full, directing the building, consecrating them, and leading the people who came to us, both the orphans and the adults. One of my first projects was to establish a school for all the children of the area. It was there that I first met a raven-haired little girl who clung to my tunic for a day, refusing to let go. She knew only her name, Regla, not where she was from, nor where she had been, and she did not know her parents’ names. When my children, left in the safety of Aarok for their own safety and training as royals, came to visit, they instantly fell in love with sweet Regla, and adopted her as a little sister.

But I get ahead of myself.

All was well. We were people of the One True Light. Scouts and raiding parties of the Swordbound were vigilant in tracking down the surviving Darkspawn and disposing of them. The Gilrand Hills buzzed with life and love as the binding of the Defiler continued both night and day, and we built and kept the Abbey of the Sword.

THE END