Laeringsted: Book Two of the Chronicles of Sol

By John McCrudden

Jon Raine is now a Nisse and lost in the hinterlands of Sol. Accompanied by his wife Princess Erika Nisse the Princess Royal and guarded by the newly formed Messian Guard they travel to the Valley of Laeringsted the school of the Blademasters. Jon must go there to fulfill the dictates of an ancient Faeian prophecy. On their journey they encounter the mysterious Aiken Drum. Will Jon learn enough from Aiken Drum to get him to the fabled Laeringsted? Will Jon be able to fulfill this part of the prophecy? There cannot be a Black Messiah without him first becoming a Blademaster. Will Jon have the strength to endure the trials? Is it possible that his new found friend Janus Welundson is a Troll, and can he really be a Troll and a Rumpelstilzchen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329478954

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Laeringsted: Book Two of the Chronicles of Sol

Laeringsted

John McCrudden

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012   John McCrudden

ISBN 978-1-329-47895-4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Prologue

It is mid-afternoon and the servants have left me to my solitude.  On my polished, Nisse sung desk, sits a golden dwarfen wrought tray.  Upon that tray stands my royal Nisse silverware.  My captors leave behind a light snack of Panna bread and Turrel to see me through to dinner.  The aromatic smell of roasted ground coffee fills the room and perks my interest in the steaming pot that sits beside the tall cool amber glass of Turrel.  As well as Panna bread, there are side plates of Earth Prime and Sollen foods.  I must admit that all those years spent as an asrais fluttering about the vast forests of Sol, left me with a sweet tooth and a passion for Turrel and Danish pastries, both the Earth and the faerie Sollen varieties.

The thermometer on the southern balcony reads minus five degrees Celsius.   With the winter Daystar falling, it will get a lot colder on this long winter night, before the Daystar rises again on my final day on Earth.  The force field on the balcony keeps the cold out and the warm air in.  The Brazilian city of Teotihuacan berthed and anchored in the far French port of Genèts waits in winter stillness for my execution tomorrow. 

I will stand on that second highest flat-topped pyramid, my trusted and faithful captains by my side and we will face the firing squad of our old regiment the 4th Parachute Regiment the Dragon Riders.

Yesterday there was a last-minute reprieve attempt.  My beautiful wife Princess Erika Nisse relayed representations from her father King Kennet Nisse, she petitioned in person, the Catholic Majesty King Thomas Windsor of the United Federal Europe and while he regretted the court’s decision to execute us, he did not see reason enough to reverse the judgment of the UFE Courts Marshal.  It was too much of a hot political issue for King Tom to intervene in person.  His signed royal death warrant remains in force and tomorrow sees that warrant executed along with my captains and me. 

How I marvel at Earth’s technology that allows me simply to utter the words I want recorded and the apartment’s computer listens patiently and dutifully.  The ever listening, ever watching electronic mind, like a technological Angel or to some a demon, it records the words I speak like trollish recording crystals.  The computer, so irritatingly polite, goes so far as to suggest editorial corrections in a warm smooth female voice that reminds me of my dear sweet wife Amanda and I pine for the company of all my wives this afternoon.

I wonder how free with my words I would be if I had to write those words with my own blood as condemned Nisse do on my world.  Those condemned Nisse have an enchanted inkwell filled with their blood and they record their last words with that blood on enchanted parchment.  Those that hold the parchment and read those final words can feel how that Nisse felt when penning those final words.  The reader can feel how the condemned prisoner felt, the remorse for his actions - how he felt when he committed the crimes for which he stands condemned.  Such last blood statements tell of the heart’s hidden desires and feelings.  The blood carries them out of the prisoner’s heart and onto the enchanted paper and there he is able to pour his soul out to the reader.  No Fae, Troll or any other being has ever fooled this last testimony.  

Such words written literally from the heart have many times saved a Nisse wrongly charged and condemned, but not me, not this day.  I remain for my final day resigned to my destiny at the hands of my fellow UFE soldiers who I both served beside and fought against for nearly three decades.

Earth’s newest marvelous technology owes its origins to the long forgotten interstellar civilization of strange insect like flying beings that could walk up vertical walls as easily as we walk on the ground. Decades ago, UFE explorers and engineers found that exotic technology in underground Tlixtian cities abandoned for eons.  Their curious technology preserved in vast sealed underground chambers, discovered by human explorers.  This advance technology beyond anything we could yet conceive, the United Federation of Europe put to use for the purpose of earthman’s conquests of unsuspecting worlds.  The UFE became the greatest world power.  The technology allowed humans to export their wars and butchery to the stars with the new and refreshed religious zeal of rediscovered religions founded on the proof of life after death.

I will sit alone amongst this splendor and understand that every creature faces death alone.  I drink my coffee and eat my pastries.   I will savor every mouthful and waste not a drop or crumb as I hope to save every drop of Nisse pride I have left in my body. 

Let me continue my story my children that you may remember me.  That you may come to know me.  That you might come to love me as I love each one of you.  Seek not revenge as the humans do.  Rise above such base emotions and achieve that heightened state of enlightenment and happiness enjoyed by our people and the Seely Courts of Fae.  Seek not to destroy as those humans do but seek to build upon the foundations that I laid down for the benefit of our people, for they are your people now.   You must allow my captains and me to lay down our lives that you may raise up our people in theirs. 

Long Live the Emperor King.

Chapter 1

‘While all men die, the Fae endure.

Man’s time in life is but a breath to the Fae.

But to die the faerie death

Before the Last Day is to know oblivion.’

An elvin scripture.

I lay beside Estrid, my wife and escort, our tiny Asrais bodies impervious to the cold and snow covered ground.  All around us glistened, touched by the frost and sparkled in the waning gibbous moonlight of bright Epona, a silent lonely sentinel. Her companion in the firmaments of Sol, dark Hekata, gone below the horizon a full hour ago.  A clear night of diamond-studded velvet glistening above us as the ground did below. 

Our bodies flat against the snow covered ridge, we studied the valley before us.  On two sides, steep grassy slopes populated with broadleaf trees and underbrush, led up to the surrounding mountains where the woods and grasses gave way to the snow-capped peaks.   On the third side a sheer rock cliff rose from a majestic building that was Laeringsted the academy, its four different sized domes enclosed in a tall wall that met at the corners, where tall crenellated towers stood rose up nearly as far as the cliffs.  Each tower easily 10 stories tall the stone walls coloured after the four superpowers of Sol.     The fourth side reached out to a patchwork quilt of farmland that gave way to desert-like scrubland and in the distance beyond the far Laeringsted sand port, lay the rolling shifting dunes of the Western Desolation. 

Estrid’s body covered in fine grey fur made excellent camouflage against the snow while my body covered in ink black fur stood out in stark contrast.   Being so small and so far up we did not fear discovery, not many Asrais did, even amongst the faerie races of Sol, Asrais were seldom seen and very rarely captured.   No race of Fae ever seriously considered capturing an Asrais not even the mischievous Gnomes, but with all races and types of Fae there is always those individuals that delight in evil and the suffering of others, in this aspect the Fae were no different from humans.  In the air, Asrais had few enemies, friend to all creatures, even the flying reptiles of Sol.   No flying beast would normally hunt Asrais and only if extremely hungry.

Below us spread the fertile valley of Laeringsted.  That patchwork of farmland spread and lay all around the valley, some of those fields rising into layered paddy fields to begin the lush green slopes. Our big black eyes could make out the whitewashed walls and red tiled roofs of the large mansion and merchant houses.  My eyes drifted back to the academy at the foot of the rock face at the other side of the valley from our vantage point, I looked again at the four gilded domes of the Blademaster training academy, which was the soul of this city. Each dome was coloured after the four main races, the super powers of Sol.  The name Laeringsted is the Nisse word for a place of learning.  On the corner of the outer walls of the Academy tall crenellated towers rose like stony fingers to reach for the sky.  The towers were easily the tallest structures in the valley, they too were coloured to represent the four great races.  Across the middle of the city lay a green belt of grass flowers and trees.  Centre to that Garden stood a high walled structure like a football stadium.  Within and surrounded by a stone viewing platform lay the brightly coloured checkerboard pattern of a Laeringsted game.  The board divided into four quadrants of coloured squares, yellow for the Elvin race, green for the Nisse, red for the Gnomes and blue for the Trolls.  Other colours signified other races like purple for the Alfar from that far off land that on Earth Prime we call Iceland, those Fae were the most secretive and enigmatic of all the Fae, so secretive the Fae called them the Hidden Folk.  A faeian legend told of a great secret they kept hidden, it was a device unseen by any Fae other than those twelve of the High Council of Sol.  The legend said the artefact was as old as the universe and held the complete wisdom of all time.   The four colours of these quadrants were the four main races of New Europa.  The center four squares were black signifying the starting points or the lair of the dark and mysterious Snigmorder, the Fae equivalent to assassins.  The Snigmorder lair was a legendary place where selected Fae would go to train with the guild of assassins.  Army intelligence dismissed the legend as nothing but imagination and folklore.  Looking down at the full majesty of Laeringsted I had second thoughts about this Snigmorder lair.  

The giant playing board I easily recognized as a giant Laeringsted playing board.  Many times past, I played this intriguing faerie game.  On normal tabletop boards, in its classic play mode it looked like a scaled down version of the board I could see down in the central stadium.  Resembling chess, I once asked an Elvin if there was some relationship between the two; he looked at me as if I had just pillaged his tree and made off with all his daughters. 

The game has its fanatical players; played by almost all Fae. I have never met a denizen of Sol that did not play.  Many humans played; like chess, the basic rules were quite simple but the range and complexity of the game brought millions of human players and the game of Laeringsted spread to Earth and on into the known and conquered star systems. 

Each player had a set of twenty-one pieces.  In the classic configuration, the battle zone was the central square of ten by ten.  The checkerboard pattern had the normal black squares but the squares that should be white were either yellow, blue, red or green and the team pieces began their moves from the two rows at a side.  The game played with two, three or four players, sometimes Laeringsted masters play with two sets of players against two opponents with a single set each.  While it was permissible to play as teams, there can be only one winner.  Each player can move from one to six squares depending on the piece moved.  Unlike chess, the players can hop over their own players like draughts and a piece that may only move one or two squares, can with skill and planning, move right across the board if planned properly.  It was a game of risk and strategy and while the rules seemed simple, I could not even beat a 10-year-old Elvin girl.  I cannot begin to describe how embarrassing that was.

‘What worries you Jon?’  Estrid sent her telepathic question, Asrais have no voice box to form words and all our conversations are telepathic.  We can make a few noises, a warning shriek that can alert other non-telepathic beings and animals, it can disorient an attacker giving time to escape.  We make a tinkling sound when we laugh or sneeze or try to make any other type of noise from our mouths.  The telepathic speaking gives a much richer meaning to the thoughts we form to convey our messages. 

‘I mean to find out what Aiken Drum is up to.’  I replied.  I knew Estrid noticed my frown and it is almost impossible to hide emotions from a telepath.

‘I am not sure I follow what you mean Jon, I get the sense that you speak of two worries with one set of words.’  Estrid said without looking at me. 

Our eyes towards Laeringsted, we watched the night-time activities of the people in the sprawling city cut in two by the beautiful belt of gardens.  The magnificent city looked like it outgrew the title of village about two hundred buildings ago. 

‘You are right my love.’  I agreed.  ‘He is up to something these past several nights after I challenged him to turn straw or wood into gold.  Then there is this whole Messiah thing.  Why was he so secretive about who he was when Erika knew all along?’

‘Jon, your first lesson as a married Nisse…  Or indeed Asrais should be, not to criticize your chief wife to your other wives.’  Estrid smiled.  ‘She means well for you my love.’  She added.

‘Point taken.’  I sent back my mental message of apology.  ‘This whole thing of travelling to Laeringsted is getting in the way of what I need to do.’  I complained.  ‘Even though Aiken Drum and Erika say I must to do this thing because of some Nisse prophecy.’

‘Are you so keen to go into battle Lord Jon Raine?’  Estrid sent scenes of clashing infantry and horsemen, the ring of steel upon steel and the earth shaking booms of those that wield the weapons of magic for their respective warlords and chieftains. 

I thought over her comment, not sure of my answer. 

‘I do not think I relish battle…  In fact, I know I do not want it but it is something I need to do…  I need to get this world back to the way it was before these humans infested it.’  I made my argument yet not really understanding the full impact of what I was saying.

‘Jon, it was not so long ago you were one of those invading human soldiers.’  Estrid replied and I could feel the warning in her words.

‘Come Estrid, let us wing our way back to the caravan.  I mean to confront Aiken Drum come the morning.’

∞ ∞ ∞

Our wagon train was still two nights out of Laeringsted and lower down in the foothills that surrounded the high mountains that protected Laeringsted from the outside world.  We winged our way back over the mountains, skimming low over the snowfields to rise high over the fir trees that dotted the surrounding lowlands in copse and forests. 

The Daystar reddened the sky in the false dawn as we sighted the low-banked coals that dotted our night camp.  With my large Asrais eyes, I could see Yori and Santino standing guard at each end of the camp, away from the fires and in the shadows of the night, they were seasoned hunters and LandNisse.  Not much could get by an alert LandNisse.

We darted into our Wagon and slipped into the Asrais sized bedroom made from a trunk by Hocking, one of our Nisse hunters.  The tiny bed stood welcoming us back from our faerie travels.  We flitted over to the bed and slid into the welcoming sheets, in reality a set of silk scarfs donated by Erika.  We cuddled close, Asrais do not feel heat or cold but I felt warm and relaxed there in the comforting darkness my Asrais body found so welcoming. 

I closed my Asrais eyes only to immediately open my Nisse eyes.  I could switch between Nisse and Asrais for several days and nights and feel well rested but after some time without natural sleep my mind would begin to play tricks on me and I would see and hear things that were not there, or of the supernatural ethereal realm.  I had a full night’s sleep last night and after this transformation, I felt rested and well in my Nisse body.  I turned to find Erika at my side looking at me with her dark and mysterious eyes.  I spent a few moments lost in those eyes before eventually saying.

‘Good morning my Princess.’

Erika smiled back and we relaxed in each other’s arms for a few precious moments while we listened to the camp coming awake.

‘Shall we rise for breakfast?’  Erika asked.

I kissed her and replied.  ‘Do we have to?’

‘Come Lord Raine.’  She slipped out of bed.  ‘We have a world to save.  And Aiken Drum is cooking breakfast this morning.’

‘May the Gods have mercy on us all!’  I made the sign of the hammer before me.

I dressed in the back of the wagon and pulled back the rear canvas cover to welcome in the day.  The campsite was a buzz of activity.  Pulling belts and straps to secure the animals, the guards and wagoners hitched the mulluks to the tongues of the wagons.  Morning growls from the angor paddock, they called for their feeding.  Santino and Kaia, a married couple, hunted several rabuck.  The rabuck was very common on Sol.  A close relative to the rabbit it had taken a different evolutionary path becoming larger with long graceful legs and a long sinuous neck, it filled the place of the common deer on Sol.  Santino, Kaia, Malte and Valder tossed four freshly killed rabuck into the paddock and the angors set about the carcasses like a pack of ravenous Trolls. 

We planned to breakfast then strike camp, by the energetic way the troop set about their chores, I could see they wanted to ensure that we could strike camp with ease after breakfast.  None except Aiken Drum and Erika had ever visited Laeringsted and it took the majority of the conversation these past few days, everyone including Aiken Drum and Erika, were excited to see Laeringsted, an old friend to them and a new adventure to the rest of us. 

I made my way over to the long folding table and chairs set under a striped canvas pavilion.  It was candy striped in blue, yellow and orange and I could never see such a monstrosity of color and gaudiness ever used by the UFE, even by the French or Italian regiments.  At one end, Aiken Drum stood behind a cooking range sat over a fire.  I would not let the old fool have the satisfaction of knowing that I thought the smells delicious.

I sat beside Erika and Hocking placed before us our wooden breakfast platters of fried strips of grall and glantala eggs.  Everything on Sol laid eggs, even the Fae.  A glantala was another far relation of the rabbit and this species, not much bigger than our earth rabbit, Fae of Sol kept for egg laying like chickens of our world, unlike laying chickens, these glantala tasted as delicious as their larger cousins the rabuck.  Over the course of a year, a Sollen family could get a hundred and eighty pounds of meat and over a thousand eggs from one mating pair.  While most Nisse and a majority of Fae were mainly vegetarian, some were strict while others enjoyed cooked meats and heated vegetables.  Unlike humans the Fae did not need to cook meat to eat it and some Fae lived all their lives without eating anything cooked at all.

On the table near Aiken Drum sat the box that was his constant companion for the past few nights.  No one had ever seen the contents and he never let it out of his sight.  I made to walk around to where the coffee pot sat on a warm surface on the side of the range.  I reached out and picked up the box.

‘Do not touch that which is not to be touched.’  Aiken Drum said rather dramatically and reached out a hand, I thought to stop me.   

‘What’s inside then?’  I asked examining the box.  There did not seem to be an obvious lid, perhaps a Chinese like puzzle box. 

‘Open not that which must not be opened.’  Aiken added in his dramatic voice. 

‘So what’s inside then?’  I asked again.

‘Jon, Aiken Drum will show us if we need to be shown, before that, the box is none of our concern.’  Erika said from the other side of the bench table.

‘I don’t know if I can agree with that Erika.  Aiken Drum has been secretive lately and I don’t like the uncomfortable feeling I get when I see him sneaking about.  That box could be a Fae bomb!’ 

Everyone took a couple of steps away from me with the box in my hand and I got that feeling that just maybe I shouldn’t go handling that which should not be handled.

‘Sneaking… sneaking!  I do not sneak Jon Raine.’  Aiken Drum declared with folded arms.  ‘And that is not a Fae bomb.’  He added with a sniff.

‘Okay then why the box and what does it do?’  I asked and shook the box beside my ear.  Something rattled about inside.

‘No!  That is a precious thing!’  Aiken Drum shouted from behind the bench, the box shot out of my grip and Aiken Drum caught it in his outreached hand. 

‘Then show us what it is.  There will be no secrets in this wagon train.’  I demanded, a little startled at the sudden show of magic.  Aiken Drum’s eyes moved from me to Erika and back again.

‘Tonight.  I will show you tonight.  It is almost finished anyway.’  Aiken Drum said turning the box over in his hand as if he could see through the box and see the contents therein. 

We struck camp without further incident and proceeded on our trek up into the mountains that guarded Laeringsted. 

As we climbed ever upwards the wagoners broke out mulluk hides to protect them from the cold.  Erika and I got puzzled looks when we declined the mulluk hides.  Our chameleon suits provided perfect insulation from the colder altitudes.  All day long, we climbed higher.  Most of the switchbacks allowed us to see back along the trail.  Each new view more spectacular than the last. 

I thought that this is what earth must have looked like before humans rose to master the land.  I had seen pictures in the storybooks.  Only the discovery of the alien gateways that brought water to parched lands and easy traveling to remote places saved our world from imploding in on itself.  We would have perished through sheer weight of humanity and the burden twenty-seven billion people put on our earth’s resources.  Twenty billion of those people took the invitation given by earth governments to go forth like the pioneers of old and settle the worlds we now reached.  It did not matter if those worlds happened to be inhabited or not.  We were humanity and humans saw it as their right to bring their brand of humanity to the denizens of other worlds.  Yes, we would civilize them or kill them in the attempt. 

Sol was an unspoiled world that existed in harmony with its populations of Fae. 

We spent a peaceful uneventful day passing along the winding mountain passes.  The only moment of excitement when Waccaar’s angor missed its footing and slid from the mountain path.  Waccaar showed spectacular mastery of the beast and almost regained the path before the angor slid again, this time it could not scrabble free and Waccaar and his mount looked destined to fall from their one thousand foot perch.  Waccaar hopped to his feet on his mounts back preparing to leap to safety.  The beast stopped falling.  Aiken Drum held it there by some unseen force at an impossible angle, Waccaar unsure to leap or not. 

I could see the concentration on Aiken Drum’s face.  By some means, magical or otherwise, he had seized the angor, preventing it from falling, he motioned the angor to himself and the beast lifted and moved back onto the path with Waccaar still standing on his saddle.   When the angors clawed feet touched the path again, it let out a whining cry and paced around in circles until Waccaar took to his saddle again to control the traumatized animal.

By Daystarset, we had made good progress and came upon our Waystop for the night.  Dotted with Wayhuts, its boundary mound on three sides fell away to sheer cliffs more than a thousand feet high.  A pair of hunting pterodactyl made their deep booming cough as they hunted the highlands between the mountains.  Like earthen geese they constantly chattered to one another to coordinate their hunts.  We gazed down at them safe in our Waystop, even the dumb animals obeyed the magical tenants of the High Council of the Twelve Titans. 

The Daystar an amber furnace in the east, descended to kiss Sol once more.  I felt I needed to take a few moments to watch this magnificent spectacle.  As if invited the rest of the troop stopped their chores to pause and spend that special moment as the Daystar fell from our eyes.  Fae are a sensitive race and that magical Fae blood reached into humanity.  When you notice that setting Daystar or glorious morning burst of light, you are feeling back through thousands of years to the Fae blood that ran in your ancestor’s veins.

Erika pressed herself against me and I put my arm around her shoulders. 

‘See how the Daystar looks so large my love.’ I said readying to impress Erika with my cosmic understanding.

‘I see this my Lord.’ She replied her head resting against my shoulder.

‘The Daystar is no bigger or closer that it is when high in the sky.’  I said

‘How is this so?  It looks close enough to touch.’ Erika asked.

‘The air we breathe covers Sol and when we look at the Daystar low in the sky, the atmosphere acts like a farseer and magnifies it so it looks so close.’  I said and added.  ‘And that is also why it is red.  The path of light through the atmosphere turns it red.’

‘Your science does not devalue the majesty of the Daystar.’ Erika replied.

‘No it does not.’ I agreed and added. ‘While we can see the Daystar touching Sol, the Daystar