Towers of Redact Read online

  Towers of Redact

  Legends of Gilia, Volume 12

  RG Long

  Published by Retrovert Books, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  TOWERS OF REDACT

  First edition. July 29, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 RG Long.

  Written by RG Long.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Maps and More

  1: Ponderings

  2: Sea Legs

  3: Revenged

  4: Advisors

  5: Judge and General

  6: The Rear of the Fleet

  7: Perin’s Peace

  8: Neglected

  9: Creatures in the Dark

  10: Dwarves

  11: Risk of Loss

  12: Innocence

  13: Casual Followers

  14: Unbelievable

  15: Optimism

  16: A Measure of Heart

  17: Surprises in the Street

  18: Halflings and Princesses

  19: Coin and Drink

  20: Sailors

  21: A Glimmer

  22: Stubbornly Determined

  23: Amends

  24: Full Sail

  25: Loyalties

  26: Oars and Orders

  27: Ashes

  28: Unexpected Interview

  29: On Their Feet

  30: The Evasive and The Loosed

  31: Opportunity Wasted

  32: Mistrust

  33: Family

  34: Sorrowful Sightings

  35: Fire and Revenge

  36: A World At Peace

  37: The Suns Rise

  38: Towers

  39: Mystery Stew

  40: Questions

  41: Obedience

  42: Precautions

  43: Entrance

  44: Fear and Gates

  45: Two Ways

  46: Heaviness

  47: Clash of Might

  48: Infamy

  49: Unexpected Enemies

  50: Resolve

  51: Reckon

  52: Magic Returned

  53: Judgement

  54: Guilt

  55: Rark

  56: Peace

  57: Onward

  Author’s Note

  The Story Continues

  Maps and More

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  1: Ponderings

  A gentle breeze washed over him as he sat overlooking the land he had been exiled to. For as long as he could remember, he had stared over these rolling hills and seen the mountains in the far off distance. The ocean mocked him with its waves as he thought about the time he had spent away from his home.

  He chuckled a bit at that word. Home seemed like an odd word to recollect.

  The place he had been exiled from was not his home in truth. It was just a shadow of it. Those who had forcibly removed him from that shadow and forbid him from ever returning were not casting him from home. Rather they were removing him from the community he had grown up with. Family, friends, comrades, and brothers.

  Either way, the blow still hurt. He took a deep breath of the ocean air as he smelled the changes that were coming. Changes that were of his own making. These he could sense on the breeze.

  War. Bloodshed. Strife.

  These were what would draw the purple ones to him. It would be because of these that he could enact his revenge upon those who had exiled him.

  There was always one, however, who was a step ahead of him. One who was not so willing to be tricked and maneuvered. One who saw through his promise of bloodshed and horror on his terms.

  He will deal with him and time.

  As he sat on his rug at the top of his tower on the side of a mountain, he took in another breath and felt a different sense in the air. Something was working against him.

  Agents of peace.

  He let out a quick huff and opened his eyes.

  This could not stand. He had worked too hard on what was to come for anything to get it the way.

  But then something else happened. He took in a deep breath and found something familiar. He adjusted his sitting position and tried to get a deeper sense of the presence he felt.

  Ever since his exile to this picturesque landscape that also served prison, he had known his community was far away. Sure there were the weaklings whom he had made himself a king over. These were easy enough to threaten and coerce. Nor did it seem to bother his brothers that he was called upon as a ruler over this pitiful nation. Perhaps even they thought it nothing worth bothering about.

  And then...

  He felt a part of them closer than ever.

  Had they finally come to unseat him from this tower into a different prison? Were his actions being perceived from afar? No. That didn’t feel right. Those would feel like vengeance. Like justice and retribution. This felt like... kinship. One who went missing before he was exiled. The reason he was exiled in the first place.

  Slowly, he rose to his feet and put his hands on the balcony of his tower lookout. For decades the landscape in front of him had not changed. Trees had grown. The seasons had come and gone, but the appearance of the area had always been the same. A small city under his feet and plains that led to the ocean. It was always the same.

  And yet.

  This feeling was new.

  “Who would leave?” he asked the wind.

  He needed no answer. Furrowing his brow, he let out a slow, steadying breath.

  “For what reason have you come?”

  He did not expect to get an answer to this question. But now that he had sensed the presence, he desired to know. Were his plans to be thwarted? Was he to be judged?

  A gentle breeze blew over the fields below. He did not need to know why this presence was so close. So he just needed to know if it would interfere with his plans.

  He was an ancient one, after all. One of intelligence and wisdom beyond anything seen below.

  He looked up at the comet that glared in the sky and knew the timing was going to be set by him. The question was, when the hammer fell, who would be there to forge a new world from the ashes?

  Looking out, he saw the ship flying through the air, approaching his tower.

  He smiled.

  It was time.

  2: Sea Legs

  “If someone moves another muscle I swear on my beard I will cut their legs off!”

  Gorplin was not in a good mood. Not only had they been escorted off of the Skrilx island and told not to return, but they had also been placed in the smallest sea craft the dwarf had ever seen. Cold sea spray assaulted his face and body until he was soaked all the way to his bones. He tried his best to maintain his honor by not shivering and showing his coldness, but it was getting harder with each passing moment.

  Instead of large ships with great masts, decks and rooms for sleeping, the feline race of Redact preferred instead to cross the divide between their island and the mainland in long, very thin boats. Only half of the group they had brought with them could ride in one boat. The other half had taken a separate vessel.

  Gorplin held on to the sides of his small boat with both hands, lamenting the fact that he could easily reach both sides. Even the emergency rowboats on some of the vessels he had been on were bigger
than this.

  The only reason the boat had not yet toppled over was because attached to the thin part where they sat were too long beams that were connected to a long piece of wood that ran parallel to their side. Gorplin imagined that the reason for this was to balance the weight of their side and let the boat sell faster.

  Whatever it was, he hated it.

  Two cats each were assigned to their boats. They ran along the cross beams and went up and down the small pole that served as a mast with little care. Gorplin couldn’t watch them. The boat rose and fell with each wave, and the dwarf thought that he would be tossed into the sea at any moment. A great gust of wind caught the sail that ran in a triangle from one side of the boat to the log on the other and then up the pole. Gorplin gave up entirely and let a shiver run through his body, warming him slightly.

  “Blasted cats,” he muttered under his breath. “I can handle airships and boats, but not this log we’ve been forced to keep afloat.”

  “Be grateful you’ve been given your life,” one of the Skrilx who was rowing beside him said.

  “Chief Rark could have you all killed for spying on us.”

  Gorplin did his best to swallow hard, forcing the contents of his stomach back wall where they belong. The taste of the sea air did him no favors.

  “We’re not spies,” he choked out.

  “Give it a rest, you know?” Trotta said from in front of him. “We’re not dead. That’s somethin’.”

  Gorplin wasn’t sure he agreed with the woman from Ladis. How she and the little spellcaster had ended up on their island was a mystery they had yet to unravel fully. But it was good to know that Alma sat gracefully in the front of the boat. Gorplin knew she could easily wipe them all out with a wave of her hand. That was probably why they had sent with their party a third boat filled with Skrilx. To make sure they made it to the human nation of Darc.

  Rark had said that at the nearest point, the island the Skrilx lived on was only one full day of sailing away from the nation of Darc. In good weather that was.

  Gorplin wasn’t sure of the rolling waves of the ocean were good or bad. All he knew was he couldn’t wait for dryland.

  He looked over at the other boat with Holve, Wisym, Felicia, and Silverwolf. None of them seem to be suffering from seasickness as much as he was. All of them sat with dour expressions on their faces, while Felicia helped paddle and steer the small boat. The dwarf knew she had missed being on the water and was happy for a chance to sail again, even if it was in these terribly small boats. Silverwolf sat with her arms crossed. Gorplin didn’t know how she and Wisym were holding up.

  He felt his stomach give a lurch, and he closed his eyes and looked back out in front of him. Turning to the side had not improved his condition.

  “How are you holding up?” came a soft voice from behind him.

  “Bah,” Gorplin replied.

  He didn’t have time for Serinde’s sympathy. The elf was still growing on him. She was quiet and reserved, something he most certainly could never manage. He was glad they weren’t drowned in the ocean after Alma had magically transported them halfway across the world. But he was quite sure that they might end up drowned in the ocean anyways.

  Another large wave took the boat up and back down, and Gorplin’s stomach finally gave up holding back. He leaned himself over the side of the boat and gave up his breakfast and his honor.

  After what seemed like several minutes of retching into the water and having an elf pat him Hirgurly on the back and tell him it was all right, Gorplin relented.

  He didn’t exactly feel and better from the experience, but he had nothing more to offer to the water.

  “Ugh.” he moaned. “How much longer.”

  “I can see land!” Alma said from the front.

  Gorplin dared to open his eyes just long enough to see that out in front of them, there was, in fact, a shining beacon of hope.

  Trees.

  “I need to get back underground and get rid of these sea legs,” Gorplin complained as he reached over the side of the boat and dry heaved, cursing the water and the cats who were sailing them away.

  3: Revenged

  “My king!” the grizzled commander shouted at the rubble. “My king!”

  The explosions had ended as quickly as they had come. There was one at the royal palace, another one at the school of magic, and two within the hanger.

  From the scattered reports he had received so far, each of them had been placed with expert precision. The blasts had caused the most amount of damage with the smallest amount of force. Only someone with extensive knowledge of the country could have done something as devious as this. Something Commander Polk sought to fix. Once he found the king.

  Commander Polk did not know how much longer the Royal Tower would stay standing. He felt it sway as the winds outside blew stronger. An unsettling gust came through the palace halls. Winds did not normally pass through here.

  “Keep looking!” he commanded those who had come with him. Soldiers who were loyal to the crown and the king Belfast were sifting through the rubble. The king had been inspecting his troops, preparing them to go to war with the Court of Three when the explosion had gone off. Several loyal and well-trained soldiers had been lost.

  Commander Polk gripped another rock with his bruised and gnarled hands. Normally such a task would be too great for him, but adrenaline pushed him forward. Even so, he could not go like this forever. He moved aside another rock and cursed. The piles were too deep.

  “Speakers!” he shouted. “Speakers!”

  I did not know if there were any near the tower. Normally the king would have kept at least a dozen on hand. Surely many more would have accompanied the troops the king had been inspecting. But that was before the blast. Polk did not know how many of them had been killed in the blast.

  “Tell your men to move aside!” came the hard voice of someone Commander Polk recognized.

  “Headmistress!” Polk said, both relieved and confused at her presence. “The king is under the rubble! We must see if he’s alive!”

  The woman did not answer him but, rather, struck out her hand and spoke words commanding the elements to obey her.

  A stronger breeze came through the tower, moving away the dust and debris. Soldiers covered their faces as the room was cleared of every floating particle. Polk too, closed his eyes for a moment as the wind cleared the room. The winds died down, and he looked back in her direction.

  With another hand, Headmistress Cactus raised up the rubble. Stones lifted into the air as soldiers cleared them away as easily as one moved through fog and began to search underneath them.

  “C... Commander Polk!” came a startled cry from his right. “Over here!”

  As quickly as he dared manage underneath the floating debris, Polk made his way towards the voice of the soldier who had called to him.

  He saw what he knew he would when he had heard the broken cry of the soldier, what he had feared when the explosion had occurred while he was not in the King’s presence. What he had known would happen since the rebellion had been crushed. The commander fell to his knees beside the broken body of their king. Belfast lay in a heap, his eyes staring up to the broken ceiling, unseeing.

  Commander Polk let out a yell of rage.

  He had warned the king. He had told him that his life was in danger. He tried to tell him that he had caught rebels plotting against him — rebels who had been in this very building before the blast went off.

  Rebels who had stood in this very room.

  “Clear this away!” he commanded Headmistress Cactus. He only saw a moment of her stern expression as she moved the rubble and stacked it in such a way that would support the roof above. With a great sigh, she allowed her magic to relent, and the orange glow that had filled the room subsided.

  “I tried to warn him,” Commander Polk said out loud. “Ealrin and Elise Belouve. I tried to warn him.”

  “The Commodore’s children?” Headmistress Cactus pr
odded. “What do they have to do with this?”

  “I caught them in the presence of rebels. And inside a secret rebel hideout.”

  “The Commodore’s children? Rebels?” Headmistress Cactus replied. “But their companions were just in the tower of magic this morning! I denied them a book they were seeking from my library. It seems everyone from Thoran is interested in runes nowadays! You don’t think they are truly rebels against Rerial?”

  Commander Polk stood up and glared at Headmistress Cactus.

  “You gave them a tome from our library? You are aiding the rebels!”

  Headmistress Cactus put her hands on her hips and looks sternly at him. He didn’t back down from her gaze/

  “I did not give them the book,” she said. “Though in so doing, I was disobeying the orders of what I was told the king wanted.”

  “And now the King is dead!” Commander Polk shot back. “We now have to defend him and Rerial’s legacy by hunting down these rebels! Or else the entire country will be torn apart!”

  “But the Court of Three is on our doorstep!” Cactus replied. “That’s why the Speakers were here. In order to prepare for battle.”

  Everything was jumbled up inside Polk’s mind. Normally he was a clear thinker and excellent tactician. But holding onto the body of his king had rendered him useless for the moment. He shook his head. Bowing graciously, he lay the king’s broken body back down on the floor, calling for his soldiers with his hand. Several came up and began to wrap the king’s body in their jackets and prepare him to be carried off.

  Watching them do this seemed to clear his head. The king was dead. There was no heir. That could only mean one logical course of action. Commander Polk thought for a moment.

  “Commodore Evan is a reasonable man,” he said plainly. “Once he learns of his children’s rebellion, he will deal with them and then lead our people to victory with the fleet of airships we have left. Until such a time, our captains can hold back the army from the Court. We do still own the most powerful weapons in the world.”