THE QUEST FOR THE CRYSTALS
~The Book of Wind~
By E.E. Blake
The Quest for the Crystals: The Book of Wind
By E.E. Blake
Copyright 2012 E.E. Blake
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Once again, to Mr. Hughes.
Prologue
The world of Vida. For an endless age, the heart of this vast terrene of fertile lands, abundant forests, and mammoth mountain peaks were cared for by maternal nature’s abiding children: The Apostles of Mother Azna.
It was in these days of peace that Vida’s balance found harness within the core of the five Great Crystals of Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit, all hidden away in solace within the niches of the world.
To honour their Goddess, her Apostles constructed Temples within the farthest reaches of Vida’s five continents, and for many years, the Crystals and their Apostles lived in harmony with one another, separated across Vida’s regions of Galheist, Lylia, Fyrand, Castor, and Doblah.
However, it is naive to believe that the idea of peace is one of permanence.
As the first Feast of the Jubilee approached, Mother Azna bestowed her children with the gift of a fallen stream of stardust. From inside the hollows of the fiery mass within, came a Man from the lands of Terra, far beyond the reach of Vida.
Led by the advisory of Zoot Lablanche, Vida became a world of advancement. A government was formed within the mountains of Doblah Region, and over time, as Man’s reach spread over Vida, the teachings of Mother Azna were lost to but a few who opposed the new world order.
Under the fierce determination of Alexia Garbonde, a rebellion was formed, and a swift attack upon the government commenced. This was the first outbreak of violence in the name of Mother Azna, which led to what would be later known as, “The War of Ages”.
Lablanche’s counter attack was swift and fierce, but time and time again, the diplomacy of the Alliance government was thwarted in stealth by the cunning bravery of Alexia and his ever-growing militia known by those of the underground as, “The Retainers”.
However, amidst the struggle of power, an even darker force unearthed. As crimson fog loomed across the mountaintops and spilled throughout the valleys, bandits and vandal hearts overtook the countryside, looting caravans and razing every town in between. Before long, no inch of Vida was at all safe to journey.
It was not long after, that the influence of Alexia waned, and the Retainers were crushed under the iron fist of Prime Minister Lablanche and his Alliance Army.
…Now, ten years later, the shadow of war once again threatens the world of Vida.
PART ONE
~ The Wind Chapter ~
1. Voices in the Wind
In the midnight sky, a purple haze crept across the vast wheat fields while quiet gallops in the distance filled the ears of little Regina Lepue. The skunk turned and saw the cavalry of red-and black armoured soldiers through the rickety, weather-worn wooden posts of the six-foot high fence that lined the village perimeter.
“Regina, get back here!” Regina felt a hard tug at her arm, and she was yanked to security against her mother’s hip, just as a cloud of frantic townsmen raced past, fumbling for the swords and maces at their hips.
“I wanna go with Daddy!” Regina protested. She broke free from her mother’s clutch, and ran after the group of armed animals just as another dozen came from around the block, yelling and shouting commands at each other before they passed by the two skunks in a hurry.
“Regina, wait!” her mother called after her, but Regina was already merged with the others.
Regina found her father near the entrance to Altas Village.
Thomas Lepue gazed out past the village’s wide-open gate, with sword held at his side. As the townsmen rushed past him through the gates and into the night, Regina’s father looked over at his six-year-old daughter. A small smile of relief formed on his otherwise fretful face.
“Daddy!” Regina shouted. She started to take a few steps towards him, but Thomas stopped her with an extended paw. The sound of the armoured cavalry was almost upon Altas Village.
Slowly, his sword-arm rose, pointed out past the open gate.
Regina felt the cool wind against the fur upon her tender cheek.
“Gloria, take Regina out of the village,” Regina’s father said as soon as the girl’s mother caught up. “There’s nothing for us here now.”
“Thomas, I’m not—” Gloria started to say.
Regina became distracted by streams of orange light that arched in the air, towards Altas. At first, she thought they were fireworks, until they rained down upon the streets. As townsfolk around the skunk family were felled by the aerial onslaught, Regina watched in shock as thatched rooftops surrounding her burst into flame.
Next thing Regina knew, the town was filled with the red-and-black soldiers – shadows coming out of the night – crossing weapons with every able-body in Altas Village.
“Daddy!” Regina wailed when they became separated by the in-town skirmish. She watched her father block the attack of an arbitrary soldier in the crowd. Her father thrust forward, but the bandit parried the attack, and with brute force, leaned against Thomas with an arm. Regina saw a quick flash of the soldier’s sword thrust down overtop her father, but before she could witness his fate, the backs of two other fighters met, blocking her view.
“Thomas!!” Regina’s mother screamed, and before Regina could rush between the two men to chase after her father, she felt her mother’s grip around her tiny arm, and was ruggedly dragged backwards. In a brash attempt to once again break free from her mother however, Regina tripped over her own feet and tumbled into the damp street, where she knocked her head against the cold, wet, cobblestone.
Regina awoke with a start, and for a moment, forgot where she presently was. It dawned on her then that she had fallen asleep against a poplar tree by a ravine, just off of the main path in Altas Forest that led between the village of Altas and its sister city, Keeto.
Just a dream, Regina thought.
The same dream which had haunted the sixteen-year-old since she was a little kit.
I wonder how long I’ve been asleep for, Regina wondered. She mashed her clenched paws against her eyes, to rub away the dust of sleep. The skunk pushed up to a stand, fluffed out her tail, and flattened the skirt of her hooded frock.
What mattered most was that the severe abdominal pain that forced her to stop in the first place was no longer present.
Regina washed her face in the ravine. She gazed at her own reflection in the water’s ripples for a time while she reflected on the horrible nightmare. She had woken up in a recovery tent some time after the raid upon Altas Village, but by then, all of the slain townsfolk from that horrific night’s surprise attack had been buried.
Though there was nothing she could have ever done to prevent the deaths of her parents, Regina had never quite recovered from guilt.
She no longer lived in Altas, though she worked there at the hospital as a day-shift nurse. She had lived on her own since the attack, helping out around the village as best she could until she was old enough to mandatorily attend Mecia Hall, Vida’s only university, across the Gabriel Sea in Castor Region. As soon as Regina graduated at the age of fifteen, she relocated to the remote beach of Sharktapus, at the edge of Altas Village.
Regina continued along the forest path between Keeto and Altas until she came to a fork in the road that led to both Keeto and
an unknown part deeper within the forest. Regina had never wandered down the opposite road, always afraid of the undetermined dangers, bandits, and grotesque monsters her wild imagination dreamt up.
As soon as Regina started upon the branching road to her right, to Keeto, she heard rapid hooves in the distance, sprinkled with the odd whinny and sharp neigh. Regina turned and saw a small-sized cavalry riding towards her from the opposite fork in the road.
The five riders, she soon realized, were clad in a dark green armour overtop black chainmail. Green and black: the colours of the Alliance Army, Vida’s militant police force established by the world’s leader, Zoot Lablanche, whose government reigned all of Vida from the mountain continent of Doblah.
“Help me…” A soft voice whispered in Regina’s ear.
Regina went rigid with frightened alert.
“Regina ... Regina Lepue … please, help me…”
“You! Get out of the middle of the road!”
Regina shook her head and let out a sharp gasp when she realized the cavalry of Alliance soldiers was almost on top of her. The lead rider, marked by the flowing navy blue cape around her shoulders, wound her gauntleted paw around her horse’s reins and pulled hard.
With a shriek, the dark steed reared up on its back legs, slashing at the air with its front hooves.
“Is death your wish today, peasant?” the lead rider demanded through the rhino-horned helmet visor that covered her face.
“I – I’m sorry,” Regina stammered. “I didn’t mean to. I just – I don’t know what happened just now.”
“Help me … Regina Lepue… Please, help…”
Regina let out a light gasp. The voice seemed to come from inside the lead rider’s saddlebag.
“You don’t know what happened just now? You were almost trampled, that’s what happened just now!” the lead rider spat, and then dismounted from her horse with a heavy thud.
Regina swallowed hard and took a couple of steps backwards. “I – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“This is your final warning,” the lead rider declared as she drew a long broadsword from the scabbard at her hip. “You get out of my way, or I’ll cut you down on the spot. You hear me?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, General Uriost…” said a new voice from behind Regina, “But that would be manslaughter, and killing is against Azna’s law, is it not?”
The lead rider lowered her sword and tilted her visor up to reveal a youthful wolf’s face. Her yellow eyes narrowed coldly past Regina’s shoulder. “Doblah’s law is precedent over all others. Are you responsible for this directionally-impaired one?”
Regina turned and saw a hooded, grey-cloaked animal with a gnarled walking staff and a large camping pack over his shoulders coming towards them along the path from Keeto. Regina couldn’t make out the animal’s face, except for the white muzzle that poked out from under his hood.
“Hello again, General Uriost,” the cloaked animal said in a cool tone. He came to a full stop a few feet before them all. “Is it safe to assume you’ve already made your visit to the Stone Zephyr?”
The lead rider’s expression dulled slightly in thought. She opened her mouth to rebut – but then her eyes went hard with realization. “It’s the heretic! Seize him, now!!”
“Heretic?” Regina murmured. She threw a glance at cloaked animal, then looked at the soldiers, and then back at the cloaked animal.
The figure regarded Regina, and then said, “Not here, General. Not now, with the girl here.”
“Who are you to tell me where I make arrests in this land?” demanded General Uriost as her four soldiers quickly dismounted and drew their swords.
“I have something you’re looking for, and you have something that doesn’t belong to either of us; I don’t want the girl to witness a similar slaughter here as those in Doblah witnessed when they tried to stop me,” the cloaked animal said.
Regina watched a wave of rigidness sweep through the small platoon before her. What was going on? What were they talking about?
What had she walked into the middle of?
“General Uriost…” the cloaked animal murmured. “…You can avoid this.”
A dark silence overcame those present along the forked road. Uriost and her soldiers remained rigid and unmoving – however, her paw clenched tighter around the hilt of her broadsword.
In the distance, a bird started to chirp somewhere among the treetops.
“At least let the girl leave before we commence,” the hooded animal suggested, “unless you were to kill her for simply meandering in the middle of the path. I didn’t realize disrupting the flow of horse travel was punishable by death.” The animal looked at Regina and asked, “Did you know of this law?”
Regina froze with terror.
“Strange, I know,” the hooded animal answered for her.
“Enough of these games,” Urisot declared. “Seize him!”
Two of her four Alliance soldiers rushed past her with their swords at the ready.
The mysterious hooded animal tossed his walking staff to the ground and brandished a white-hilted sword from under his cloak. Then – with swift movements Regina didn’t know possible – the traveler made two quick slashes at his attackers, and the soldiers crumpled at the animal’s field boots, dead.
A cold stillness cut through the air. General Uriost and her remaining forces stood dumbfounded, as though they had never seen such a display before.
“Im … impossible…” Uriost’s voice crackled. Behind her, both soldiers raised their rhino-horned visors, wide-eyed. One of them then instinctively reached for his horse saddle, ready to mount and escape.
“Get out of here!” the cloaked animal snarled at Regina, but the skunk found herself frozen to the spot, overwhelmed with terror and unable to respond to the cloaked figure’s demand, though she desperately wanted to.
“You killed Lieutenant Artois with that sword…” General Uriost said with a strong voice, although it was clear she was also frightened.
“I’ve killed many people,” the cloaked animal stated plainly, “and I’ll continue to do so until Lablanche falls. You know what he’s doing is against Azna’s law – why do you play to his treachery?!”
“You speak of treachery, and yet you’re the one who’s defiled Nimbus, Blade of the Unicorn!” snarled General Uriost. She started forward with her broadsword held at the ready. “I’ll end you myself!”
“Don’t do this, General!” The cloaked animal warned as he sheathed the white-hilted sword, which Regina presumed was Nimbus.
“General!” one of the two other soldiers cried out. He grabbed the other by the shoulder, and they rushed forward with drawn swords raised overhead, to flank Uriost.
“Watch out!” Regina found herself screaming at the hooded figure.
The mysterious rogue snatched his gnarled walking staff in both paws and cracked the general in the side of the helmet with a loud clang before she was on top of him. Then, as she toppled to one side in pain, the traveler tossed his staff back into the middle of the road and drew Nimbus once again.
Immediately, the two Alliance officers skidded in their tracks with eyes wide and breath held as soon as they saw the sword turned on them. In the light of the sun that peeked through the branches and leaves overhead, the bloodied tip of Nimbus glinted brightly.
“If you value your wretched lives, you will relinquish that saddlebag to me,” the cloaked animal ordered slowly. “You will take your general and your fallen comrades, and you will leave this place.”
The rogue nodded past the soldiers, to Uriost’s horse. One of the shaken soldiers wandered over to the steeds and in silence, removed the saddlebag from his general’s horse.
“Pathetic cowards,” Uriost growled as the other soldier helped her to stand.
“It is far better this way, General,” The cloaked animal noted in a gentle tone. He then regarded the soldier who returned with the saddlebag, and took it from him.
r /> “Remember this day as you rot in abandon,” Uriost swore as soon as she was back on her horse. “This will be the last we cross paths, old man,” she said while her forces gathered their dead.
“As long as our silent war persists, you know it won’t be.” the cloaked animal stated as he sheathed Nimbus again. “Put an end to this while you still can, General Uriost. Only you have the power to.”
Uriost gave an incredulous snort. Then, with a quick snap of her reins, what remained of her unit moved out in shameful silence and rode onward along the path to Altas Village.
Regina’s mouth was bone dry, and she didn’t realize until then just how much her body trembled. She shook her head, and her eyes dropped to the gnarled walking staff which had rolled to a stop near where she stood.
Her eyes flicked back over to the hooded animal. He peeked inside of General Uriost’s saddlebag for a moment, uttered a heavy sigh, closed the flap, and slung it around his shoulders, despite the heavy camping pack he wore.
Why did she warn this hooded rogue about the two other soldiers? He was a vandal!
But, he had also saved her life, she realized.
Swallowing down her fear, Regina took a few timid steps over to the walking staff, and picked it up in both paws. The skunk’s tail flicked with slight wariness as she crossed to the other side of the path to meet the cloaked animal.
“H – here.” She outstretched her arms to present the staff to him like a kind of sacred offering.
The cloaked animal looked at her in silence – and then as he regarded his walking staff, the hood dipped to hide his eyes even more than it already did.
“Thank you,” he said, and took the gnarled walking staff from Regina.
“Who are you?” Regina asked. “I’ve … I’ve never seen anybody oppose the Alliance before like that. What were you all talking about before, about your sword, and Doblah?”
The hooded animal looked at Regina for a long moment, and then walked past her in silence.
Regina blinked in confusion. She turned and watched the animal continue along the branching path that the Alliance soldiers had initially come from. It was then that she noticed that the animal’s cloak was riddled with little holes torn in the fabric.
Odd, the skunk thought, and wondered why anyone would hang onto such a tattered old thing.
“Wait!” she called to him.
“Forget what you saw today,” the cloaked animal said to her without looking back.
Regina remembered the voice that tickled her ear only a few minutes before swords were drawn and blood was spilled. The skunk looked over her shoulder and gazed upon the large, dark pools of Life Energy that slowly absorbed into the grit and dirt of the dusty forked path.
Regina wondered why the soldiers were so afraid of the cloaked rogue. It was obvious he was a skilled swordsman – but they were Alliance soldiers. Nobody opposed the Alliance Army.
In her gut, the skunk knew it would be wise to head home to Sharktapus Beach and take the vandal’s advice and forget everything she had seen and heard. It was the sensible thing to do. Whatever happened between the rogue and the Alliance was none of her business.
She was just a nurse in Altas, after all. Nothing more. Not a soldier of rebellion, like her father.
Just a simple nurse. That was all.
Regina chewed on her tongue as she continued to watch the mysterious traveler wander down the forest path until he vanished within the darkness of the woods.
But again, the vandal, whoever he was, and whatever injustices he was embroiled in with the Alliance and Doblah were, he had saved Regina’s life.
And, more importantly, the skunk realized, who did the mysterious voice asking for help belong to, why didn’t the others seem to hear it, and why did it specifically seek out Regina’s help?
“What on Vida is going on?” she wondered aloud.