Bertrice Small - The Sorceress of Belmair

“We have none where death is concerned for at death our bodies simply evaporate here on Belmair. Even the life glass of the king has refilled itself with the death of my father. If we go into the Hall of the Kings now we will find a marble bust of Fflergant in the place designated for it. There will be a new empty alcove waiting for you when your reign comes to an end,” Cinnia explained. She wiped her eyes. “We do not celebrate death here in Belmair. We celebrate life. My father was a good king. He will be remembered as such, but he is gone. No further mention will be made of him.”

Dillon nodded. “Thank you for explaining that to me,” he said quietly.

“Nidhug and I will leave you two to become acquainted,” Kaliq said. “I will rejoin you for the meal later.” Then, taking the arm of the dragon, the Shadow Prince walked from the small throne room.

“I am twenty-two,” Dillon said when they were alone.

“I am seventeen,” Cinnia responded.

With a wave of his hand he conjured a perfect white rose, and offered it to her.

Cinnia glared at the rose, and it withered and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

“Surely you do not mean to make a puerile attempt to woo me?” she said scornfully.

“Considering that we do not know one another yet are wed, aye, I was attempting to make a small effort on your behalf,” Dillon responded. And he held out his hand to her. From his fingers hung a beautiful necklace of green stones that matched her eyes.

Cinnia sniffed, pointed a finger and the necklace shattered into dust.

A kitten appeared in his outstretched palm.

She hissed, and it turned into a writhing viper.

Dillon flung the viper into the air, and they were showered with a burst of pink snowflakes.

Cinnia laughed aloud and he grinned back at her. Then she grew solemn. “It isn’t you, my lord. I am simply angry at this turn of events.”

“You wished to be queen of Belmair in your own right,” Dillon said quietly.

“Yes!”

“But tradition dictates Belmair be ruled only by a king,” he continued.

Cinnia nodded. “It isn’t fair! I am the sorceress of Belmair, and I would be a good queen to my people. There was no males available from the ducal families, and then Nidhug said I must marry a Hetarian and he would be the new king. Hetarians are an anathema on Belmair.”

“Why?” Dillon asked her, and he drew her down onto the dais’s steps where they might sit comfortably while they spoke.

“Aeons ago, those we now call Hetarians were citizens of Belmair,” Cinnia began.

“But certain of them grew overly proud. They began to question our traditions and the authority of the king. They wanted to make changes that went against our ways. The king then, his name was Flann, gathered up the troublemakers one spring night. They were placed in an enormous bubble and sent to your world, which is the star we call Hetar. This history is taught to every child born here. Bad children are threatened by their mothers who tell them that they will end up on Hetar if they do not behave.”

Dillon laughed. “You cannot know how terrible a threat that is,” he told her.

“You are not of Hetarian blood?” Cinnia asked.

“I have some of their blood through my mother’s father, but then he also had faerie blood,” Dillon answered her. “I was raised in the Outlands and in Terah until I was twelve. Then I was sent to Kaliq for my training. I did not know until a little while ago that he was my father. I was raised to believe that Vartan, lord of the Fiacre, was my father. Even my own mother does not know the truth. I barely remember Vartan, but I have had a good stepfather in the Dominus of Terah, Magnus Hauk. And my mother is an incredible woman. She has great powers.”

“What will she think when your father tells her where you are, what you are to be and that you have a wife who is a sorceress?” Cinnia wanted to know.

“At first she will be angry that Kaliq planned this without consulting her. But she will be far angrier when she learns the truth of my paternity,” Dillon said with a smile. “My mother has been cursed, or blessed if you will, with a destiny that is not yet fulfilled. It has taken her many places. She has had great adventures, and done marvelous things. But she does not like being at the mercy of a greater power. Did you?”

“No, I did not,” Cinnia admitted.

“I find your tale of how Hetarians came to be rather interesting, for that is not at all the story told on Hetar,” Dillon said.

“We know they have forgotten this world. It was meant that they forget. We did not want them returning to cause havoc once again,” Cinnia said. “But tell me what they say of their beginnings.” She shifted against him, stretching herself briefly.

“It is said Hetar was once a world of clouds and fog. That the Shadow Princes came from those mists, and for generations mated with the faerie races they found there. When the day came that the clouds evaporated and Hetar was visible to all, it was discovered there were other races living there created by the tree, earth and sea spirits. The Shadow Princes took the desert for their own, and so Hetar was born. The City was built, and civilization ensued. It is a bit more complicated than that but that is the basis of the history of Hetar as it is told,” Dillon finished.

“Some of it is probably true,” Cinnia remarked, “but if you ask him your father will tell you the truth of Hetar. We were told our people were deliberately settled on one side of that world in order to keep them from those on the rest of Hetar. I believe you call them Terahns. And then there were smaller regions called the Outlands and the Dark Lands. But Prince Kaliq knows more of it than I do. We but sought to rid ourselves of those who caused trouble in our lands.”

“Tell me of Belmair,” Dillon said. “I am very much at a disadvantage as you can appreciate, Cinnia.”

“I did not give you permission to speak my name,” she said sharply.

“You are my wife, and therefore your name is mine to speak,” Dillon said.

“I will not be some meek creature who sits by her loom in the hall, my lord Dillon,” Cinnia told him. “I am a great sorceress!”

“And what do you do with your sorcery, Cinnia? Other than play with mine?” he asked her wickedly. “Do you use it for good?” He turned so he might see her face.

“Play? I do not play!” the girl said outraged.

He laughed softly. “Aye, you do. Your dragon has taught you all manner of magic, but you don’t really know what to do with it. But I will teach you.”

“You? Teach me? A Hetarian?” Cinnia said scornfully. “I think not!”

He took her hand in his, and running a finger up her bare arm and back down again, said, “I am not Hetarian, Cinnia. I am of the Shadows and I am faerie.” Then, raising her hand to his lips, he kissed each of her fingers before turning the hand over and placing a kiss upon her palm. “There is a great deal I can teach you, Cinnia.” Dillon’s blue eyes met her green ones, and he smiled slowly into those startled eyes.

She heard her heart thumping in her ears. Her lips parted softly in surprise at her reaction to him. “Are you attempting to seduce me?” she asked him.

“You can only be seduced if you want to be seduced, Cinnia,” Dillon told her. “Do you want to be seduced?”

“No!” She snatched her hand back.

“I think you do, however we will not argue the point,” Dillon told her. “But I believe I asked you to tell me of Belmair as I am to rule it.”

“Does our world seem very blue to you on Hetar?” she asked him.

“It does,” he said.

“That is because most of our world is water,” she told him. “Belmair consists of four islands, each a different size, floating within a single great sea. Our island is the largest and is called Belmair. The others are Beldane, Belia and Beltran. Each of the other three islands is a duchy ruled by a ducal family. Those families answer to the king on Belmair. Our kings do not necessarily follow a direct line of descent. It is the dragon who decides who will rule us. In this manner no one family has ever gotten too much power to wield over the others. My father’s family came from Beltran. My mother was the youngest daughter of the previous king, who came from Beldane originally. She was very beautiful and very frail. That is why there were no more children after my birth. She died shortly after I was born. I had my father, and I had Nidhug,” Cinnia told him.

“Tell me who now rules the three duchies?” he asked.

“Let Nidhug tell you,” Cinnia said. “We must feast to celebrate our union, and then you must mate with me before the morrow when the dukes arrive to learn who their new king is. Unless we are well and truly mated, your legitimacy can be questioned, and that will not please either Nidhug or your father, will it? I go now to prepare.” In a small flash of light Cinnia was gone from the throne room.

Dillon arose from the step where he had been sitting. “My lord father, I know you are there. Please come to me.”

The Shadow Prince stepped from a dusky corner of the room. “Nidhug and I are going to take you to see your kingdom now,” he told Dillon. “She awaits us on the battlements of the castle. Do not be frightened by her size when you see her true self.”

“When are you going to tell mother?” Dillon asked Prince Kaliq.

“When I return to Hetar,” came the answer.

“And when will that be?” Dillon inquired, his tone amused.

“In a few days. Tonight we feast, and then you mate with Cinnia. On the morrow the others will arrive. They will be astounded that an outsider had been chosen to rule over them, my son, but they will accept the dragon’s judgment. And, too, my presence will give even greater legitimacy to Nidhug’s decision. That you come from Hetar will disturb them, aye. But the fact that you are my son will calm any fears they may have. When that has been accomplished I will return to Hetar to seek out your mother and tell her of what has transpired.”

“There are some things back at the palace that I will want,” Dillon said. “My staff, Verica, for one.”

“You will find everything in your chamber here now,” Kaliq told him. “The royal quarters are unique. Both you and Cinnia have a set of rooms, and in the middle of them is the Mating Chamber. But come! Nidhug awaits us, and she wants to show you all before the sun sets this day.”

Together, Kaliq and Dillon left the throne room, and climbed to the roof of the castle where the Great Dragon, Nidhug, was even now awaiting them.

WHEN THEY REACHED THE ROOF Dillon caught his breath in amazement when he saw the size of the dragon in her full glory. The afternoon sun set her iridescent blue and green scales to sparkling. Seeing the two men had arrived, she reached out her hand, and they stepped into her palm so she might raise them up to sit upon her back.

“Look carefully,” she told them, “and you will find two small pockets upon my back into which you may safely seat yourselves.” When they had, she opened her great wings and rose from the castle’s battlements to fly.

“Cinnia said Belmair consists of four islands in a vast sea,” Dillon remarked. “She is correct, of course,” the dragon answered as she flew.

“Your island of Belmair is the largest, and the most perfect of the four. As you can see there is a small range of mountains to the west. Fertile farmlands, woodlands and valleys cover the rest of the island. The coastline is both sandy and rocky with beaches and hills.”

Dillon gazed down. Everything was very green, and it reminded him of Terah except there were not great cliffs and fjords. The woodlands below them now were just coming into full leaf, and the few planted fields were hazy with new growth. The meadows housed cattle and sheep, but curiously he saw no sign of life other than around the two castles. “Where are the villages and the people?” he asked Nidhug.

“There are few and they are widely scattered,” the dragon answered.

“Is it like this on all the islands?” Dillon wanted to know.

“Aye, it is,” was the answer.

“Why?” Dillon asked the dragon.

“I don’t know,” Nidhug admitted. “For the last few hundred years the young women on all the islands have been disappearing. The men have had no wives to wed, and fewer and fewer children are being born. Some women are returned to us when they are old, and can no longer have children or be of use. They are not able to tell us where they have been, and are horrified to find themselves old. If it continues, Belmair’s civilization will die. That is why I trained Cinnia to become a sorceress, but as powerful as she is, she needed a husband who was even more powerful. Your father knew it, and that is why he brought you here to me to be Belmair’s new king. Together you and Cinnia can work to solve the mystery of where our young women have gone, and correct the situation so our population can once again thrive.” She turned north now over the great sea, and they were soon flying over a mountainous island, the highest peaks of which were still covered with snow. “That is Belia. It is the smallest of the duchies.”