The Kingdoms of Laruta: Book 1: Campaigns Against the Olden (Grim's Labyrinth Series) Read online

  The Kingdoms of Laruta Series

  Campaigns Against the Olden

  © 2014 by Grim’s Labyrinth Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying form without written permission of the publisher, Grim’s Labyrinth Publishing, LLC.

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  Campaigns Against the Olden: The four kingdoms of Laruta are constantly at war with each other, and this is the story of one of the bloodiest wars on Laruta between the continents of Kyllary and Olden. They have been feuding for millennia about the divine nature of Niton, a founder of the Kyllary magical school, who was detested by the Olden as a false prophet. At the center of this war is Queen Ronela, who grows dissatisfied with her marriage, and wants to escape into the arms of her strong Olden Sergeant Gerp. Rebellions, persecutions of the Olden people, and various other disasters and clashes cover the landscape of this fantastic story.

  Translator’s Note

  One evening I received a strange email in a complex foreign language that was made up of shapes that had no equivalents in any of the languages that I knew of. The message did include an attached interplanetary dictionary and the following short note addressed to me:

  Dear Anna:

  We have heard that you are a skilled translator between several Earth languages, and we would like to solicit you to translate and publish the attached story about some historical clashes we have seen over the past decades on our planet, Laruta. The publication of this saga is impossible in my world due to censorship, but I believe that the fantastic nature of this narrative will shield it from similar censorship on your distant planet. I’m sending this communication in secret, with the assumption that nobody from my world will ever explore a small publication on such a remote and undeveloped planet as your own. I have attached an interplanetary dictionary that should be sufficient for your needs. If you download it to your computer, it should automatically translate most of the words, but you will need to smooth it all out, so that it won’t sound like a foreigner wrote it. If you have follow-up questions for me, I’m afraid you won’t have a way to email them back to me because I’m using magic to send it, and can’t disclose or teach the steps involved in the spell in a short email. I trust that you will do right by my story and will support my efforts to speak freely in the one venue available to me. I’m sorry to say that I cannot pay you because of the distance between us, but I have found a publisher who will solicit this book and will pay you a small token amount for your efforts. I wrote this book in your human equivalent of the third person in order to avoid sounding biased and to put an academic distance from it in case the work is discovered by somebody on my planet. I might occasionally slip into talking about “our” world and “us,” but only when this is necessary to explain the complex differences between our worlds.

  Yours sincerely,

  Queen Ronela

  I assumed that this was an elaborate hoax that was being played on me due to the intricate nature of the apparently invented language before me, but then on the following day a publisher did email me and offered $590 for this translation. My funds being limited at the time and Ronela’s request being as genuine and heartfelt as it was, I accepted, and have done my best to preserve the intentions of the author.

  Chapter 1: Assassination, Coronation, and Marriage

  Laruta is one of a dozen planets that circle a sun in a galaxy on the other side of the visible universe from Earth. Earth rules of physics have some alterations here due to the smaller gravitational pull of this smaller planet, the presence of four circling moons that pull on our oceans and bodies differently, and the evolutionary process that the humanoid species has taken on Laruta. Just as most planets that support life have water and similar temperatures, humanoids evolve in a similar pattern on the few planets that tend to allow for the evolution of complex life forms. Our planet was closer to the center of the Big Bang explosion, so we have had an early start in this evolutionary cycle and have developed certain skills that humans would call “magical.” On the other hand, we developed magic before we developed complex machinery, so our clothing and way of life is what humans call “medieval.” Our scholars have explored universal mechanical systems, but have forbidden us to use machines, as they are viewed as evil creations that doom the souls of their users.

  Laruta is made up of four continents, each of which is dominated by a single kingdom. The Kingdom of Kyllary has the largest land mass, the best soil, and the highest per head wealth measures. The four kingdoms have been in continuous warfare from prehistory through the present day. Only occasionally does one of the kingdoms invade the mainland of another. Most of the battles focus on the small islands around the coasts of the kingdoms, which are lightly populated due to the nonstop warfare in those exotic and remote lands.

  The capital of Kyllary is Tur, which is made up of a series of islets at the warmer top of the continent. The islets are connected to the mainland and to each other with thousands of intricately designed bridges. It should be noted that the islets are not natural formations, but masses that are suspended on magical poles that are rooted in the skins of underwater sea creatures called the Seirets. The Seirets look a bit like an Earth echidna, only with fins, and smoother scaly skin around the needle poles. They are a hibernating species that sleeps for around ten millennia before awakening to mate, so it’s safe to build on top of them. However, these natural supports do put the capital at constant threat if any rival kingdom ever managed to awaken the Seirets. Still, the wealthy landowners in Tur have continued to block legislation to move the capital to a less unstable location.

  The physical laws of Laruta are such that they are conducive to the development of magical abilities. Magic first bloomed as a practice on Laruta in the Country of the Olden, one of the four continents, which carries its name in honor of the initiators of the first innovations in the art of magic. These first practitioners contributed to finding elixirs and potions, which have since gone into the public domain and have helped to expand the lifespan and well-being of all Larutans. However, after a couple of millennia of positive use of magic to enrich Laruta and all its inhabitants, the Olden were split into two camps by a supernatural disagreement. One of the princes of Olden, Niton, proclaimed that he was the most powerful warlock on Laruta and that he held so much power that he had become a new supernatural class of being superior to all other Larutans, so that those who were inferior had to worship him or suffer his wrath. The Olden king and the top Olden warlocks fought a war against Niton and banished him from Olden. He sailed to Kyllary and found both asylum and the followers he yearned for there. Thus, a split formed between Kyllary’s practice of the Niton-worshipping ritual magic and the traditional branch of magic on Olden. This split has been the biggest cause of bloodshed between the continents over the following millennia. The other two continents also engage in warfare over territory, power, and magical superiority, but their squabbles are stories for another saga.

  Lohsa was born into one of the most powerful aristocratic families in Kyllary, but he had missed the royal line of succe
ssion and was a branch too far from it to ever hope to become a king through natural succession. He grew up in a castle in the seaside suburbs on the coast that looked out at the islets of Tur, and moved to the city as soon as he had reached the age of majority. He did a round of duty in the navy, then entered politics through his family’s connections and quickly buttered his way into the position of ambassador. He then became an advising commander to the king, a title that gave him daily access to the king and his affairs.

  It should be mentioned that Lohsa was shorter than an average Larutan and that he enjoyed wearing foppish, bright colors, and always designed complex architectural styles for his long curly hair.

  It was an unusually bright night, as the sky was lit by all four Larutan moons. Lohsa was sitting at the dining table in his castle apartments. He was joined at the table by a couple of other commanders, a few officials, and other high-ranking and highly connected aristocrats, as well as the king’s chef. They were all eating sacitte, a delicacy on Laruta because it is a rare sea animal that has mind-expanding properties. They were also sipping yksvy, a beverage similar to Earth wine, but that had a side effect of making all drinkers float a few inches above their seats, without consciously levitating.

  “What I need to know is if I can count on you,” Lohsa said, drinking a bit more of the yksvy and working to keep from floating higher towards the ceiling by holding on to the fork-like instrument that he stuck firmly into his sacitte.

  “So, you would be a better ruler because you’d put programs in place that would line our pockets?” a general asked.

  “Yes, limit the people’s access to free food they can forage, tax land holdings, and otherwise force them into slavery, so that they’ll work as much as you want for nothing.”

  “It sounds like a beneficial plan to me.”

  Other members of the party also nodded their heads in agreement.

  Turning to the chef, Lohsa asked, “As the king’s chef, it will be your job to mix the poison into tonight’s dinner. Is everything ready for it?”

  “I’m a bit afraid that he might ask a tester to try it first,” the chef replied.

  “Does he usually do that with every meal?”

  “He gets annoyed when the tester tries everything on the plate because then everything has a bite missing. So, I think the tester can try a vegetable, and refrain from dipping into the sauce on the sacitte.”

  “When I’m king, I’ll be sure to have everything tasted. I hope you won’t get ideas about poisoning me later on if you’re displeased with the money I’m paying you. I’ll know you did it if my taster drops dead.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. A second suspicious death that seems food-related wouldn’t look good on my CV.”

  “Then, once he’s dead, the rest of you will suggest me as the successor.”

  “We can mention that his son is only seven and not of sufficient age to rule,” the same general proposed.

  “If there is resistance and others in the line of succession are presented, we might have to react with violence. How do you all feel about that?”

  “What’s a good coup without a bit of violence?” the general said, rubbing his hands.

  “We’ll need the help of generals like you, Notn, to keep the king’s guard and the knights on our side.”

  “They would all like to get a bit richer, so I don’t expect any problems.”

  “I hope this won’t be like the last coup when half of the royal court, and two thousand knights were killed before we finally took over,” a commander said, shaking his head with some dread.

  “That’s why we’re going with poison this time, instead of a stabbing, to keep things orderly,” Lohsa said.

  “Why don’t we cast a spell on him instead? It’d be cleaner than poison, without as much evidence,” an elderly wizard said.

  “The protective spells on him are too strong. We’ve tried a few spells already, and just poison in the food seems like a much less detectable tactic, magically speaking.”

  The diners discussed a few other points that could decide the actions of the following day. Then, they all withdrew to their own apartments and houses to make final preparations, and to get some rest.

  During dinner, the waiter, dressed in colorful velvet pantaloons and a lace-ruffled layered shirt, tasted the un-poisoned items on the king’s plate. The king did not notice anything odd and ate the poisoned sacitte. The poison was a toxin that is particular to Laruta, which turns all solids into their gaseous form. Moments after swallowing this toxin, the king’s body began evaporating, without any pain, but so quickly that there was no time for his doctors and magicians to repair the damage. They were all also drunk on the yksvy at the table and their reaction times were slowed.

  “Help! Somebody help me! I’m disappearing!” the king shrieked, jumping up, as he noticed his nose going up in smoke. He jumped around violently, and made an attempt to recall the spell that might have brought him back, but looking through a good spell book for the cure would’ve taken hours, and within a minute the king was nothing but a small puff of smoke floating glumly in the middle of the dining hall.

  The sight of the king going up in smoke terrified all of his supporters and gave the uprisers courage. Generals, commanders, and officials stepped forward to support Lohsa as their new king. There was a long debate where there were a few muffled objections, but then everybody from the king’s seven-year-old son, to others in line for the throne and those that supported these alternative claims confirmed Lohsa as the next monarch of Kyllary.

  In truth, few were surprised that a king was assassinated because an assassination had ended the previous dozen reigns in Kyllary. They were just surprised that Lohsa found enough support to vie for that coveted and deadly spot. Some suspected the seven-year-old as much more capable of murderous intentions. One of the reasons those who were in the line of succession didn’t object too much was because they had only entered this line when the newly assassinated king killed his predecessor without hereditary rights to the throne.

  The chief prize that all those assassinations gave the temporary victor was possession of the royal castle, which came with an army of servants, and with access to the coffers that had more gold in them than any merchant could dream of. The monarch’s staff also included a group of the best wizards from across Kyllary, whose job was research and development of new magical techniques, potions, and spells. The wizards’ research lab and living quarters took up the right wing of the castle, which was fully surrendered to them because nobody wanted to live nearby when one of their failed experiments escaped or exploded. There was some turnover among the wizards due to deaths in the lab. The left wing housed the court, guests, and all other aristocratic affiliates that were invited for a visit or to move in. The entire central round portion of the castle belonged to the king, the royal family, and their ladies and gentlemen in waiting. Cooks, the cleaning staff, and all other castle servants were housed in the basement around the giant kitchen, a floor above the sub-basement dungeons. The gardeners and other grounds staff lived in a small house on the outskirts of a field and garden that surrounded the castle.

  There was no body to put in a casket, so the rituals associated with carrying the body into the Dome of Magic had to be cut out. The Dome of Magic was the great hall in a small wizarding boarding school that was located near the gardener’s house on the castle’s grounds. It was the place where most sacred days and major life-changing events for the magical members of the court were celebrated. It seemed to the guests that the burials of kings kept getting shorter with each assassination. One successor took out the row of the bowers ritual, where every member of the old and the new king’s family lined up and bowed by crouching on their knees to the coffin. Another successor cancelled the eating of the flowers ritual, where everybody in the audience was given a flower to eat that symbolized their love for the deceased. Then, a new king took out the much-loved flying dance of grief, where the mourners would fly up close to
the roof of the dome and would fly in elegant movements and formations. Thus, the whole funeral lasted for around half an hour instead of the two-day affair that was staged only a century earlier. The Chief Magician gave a short speech, remembering the reign of the king that had passed on. The king’s wife and son were about to go up to speak, but suspecting that they might say something unfavorable to his new reign, King Lohsa even forbade them from recalling the man they were mourning. At the conclusion of a brief ceremony that honored the dead king’s spirit, King Lohsa made a brief logistics announcement, saying that they should expect major changes in the upcoming months, and that they should all be warned that any attempts on his life or at a coup against him would be met with swift and numerous executions.

  On the following day, the king was crowned in the same Dome of Magic, but with decorations in a color scheme that symbolized the beginning of a new reign as opposed to the death of an old one. The coronation ritual had changed little in recent millennia. It began with the new king walking into the Dome of Magic in his blue velvet bathrobe, slowly walking through a line of guests towards a movable bathtub that was placed by the front stage for the occasion. King Lohsa unrobed, turning regally to face the crowd as his robe dropped to the ground, revealing his body in all its detailed glory. The Chief Magician then approached from his podium and held the king’s naked hand as he took a couple of steps to get into the tub.

  “This signifies the infusion of the king with magical powers passed down to him by our great spiritual leader Niton, who also once bathed in this tub with this very same water, and left the essence of his power in it before he died of a strange rash…” The Chief Magician ceremoniously put on a pair of gloves and then splashed the water from the tub over King Lohsa’s head and hair.