Enlightenment

CHAPTER ONE

Hannah pulled the scruffy horse she rode to a halt on the crest of a small rise, paused, and looked out over the unknown valley spreading before her. Sage, the young sorceress who had been sent to teach her to read and write, and had been drawn into her escape, pulled her horse beside Hannah and smiled in a limp attempt at displaying confidence, and failing utterly.

“The beginning of our new lives is down there,” Hannah said, trying to sound cheerful and doing her best to disguise the doubts and fears with words. She hoped they were an encouragement for the older girl, Sage, who had been innocently caught up in the venture.

Sage stopped beside her and glanced over her shoulder before returning to take in the view of the broad valley neither had ever seen or heard of. While her eyes focused on what lay at the base of the mountains, Sage said, “They’ll be pursuing us, soon, won’t they? Coming after us? I mean, after you?”

Hannah nodded. She knew the assassins sent by those seeking to keep her from the throne were sure to follow behind, perhaps in only a few hours or days, as they tried to find her trail. Then they would be after her again, asking everyone in the whole countryside if they’d seen her, following every clue, and offering rewards for information. If they knew of Sage, and then they searched for two girls traveling together. One of them would be almost twelve and the other twenty, one blonde; one raven haired that hung down her back. But it was hopeful they didn’t know about Sage, yet, and that would be a blessing.

Hannah tried to remain calm and pretended she knew what to do next, but tears suddenly streamed down her cheeks and blurred her vision. She felt like she was six-years-old again, and knew nothing of value, especially what to do next. Neither of them said anything for a long time, both lost in their own thoughts and planning. Sage had turned to her once, seen the tears, and shed a few of her own, but remained silent as if placing the blame on Hannah.

“I’m sorry to bring you into this,” Hannah sniffed, turning to face the older girl. Sage came from a small village where she made simple love spells and the other trinkets of the beginning sorceress. She was hired to teach Hannah to read and write, a skill she had not learned while tending the fires in the morning kitchen at the Earl’s castle. Now Hannah’s life was in danger, and because of her, Sage’s was too.

Sage didn’t meet her gaze this time. She kept her eyes centered on the valley and river below. Hannah glanced at Sage’s fingers holding the reins and saw the slight tremble in them, the pale face, and the worry in her brow. Hannah turned and looked out over the broad valley that would become their home, at least for a while, and ignored her tears. She had to be strong.

Sage said, as if she couldn’t capture enough breath to speak openly, “The horses need a rest. So do we.”

“They’re fine. We must keep moving,” Hannah corrected her.

Sage threw a leg over the rump of her horse and dismounted, anyhow. She stood on the ground, hands on hips, eyes angry. “Get down here, or I’ll grab you and pull you down.”

Hannah hesitated and drew back a little at the harsh tone and annoyance. Sage’s pale face had turned red, and everything about her had changed. She no longer cried, looked timid, or defeated. Hannah wearily dismounted.

Sage said, “You haven’t told me half of what’s going on. You owe me that. And more.”

“There wasn’t time.” Hannah heard the defensiveness in her voice and tried to hide it. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Who are you? Not your name, but who? How can a child mobilize dozens of killers to chase her? Even mages?”

The simple questions stunned Hannah. She didn’t know how to answer. Who was she? There were several answers, all correct. She pointed. “There’s a clearing over there, and a stream for the horses to drink.”

“We just need rest and to talk,” Sage said. “Here will do, fine.”

“But my story will take time. You need to get your bow and those enchanted arrows that don’t miss the target in case anyone follows behind us.”

“Not everyone who crosses that mountain pass can be after you! I won’t shoot an arrow at innocent people. I’ve had enough of this.”

Hannah shrugged and remained standing where she was, not making any effort to move to the meadow. Or to speak. Sometimes the best way to get others to talk is to say and do nothing. She’d learned that while working in the morning kitchen as a fire starter for five of her eleven years.

“Well?” Sage demanded.

“You saw the new grass growing on the trail when we crossed over that mountain pass and the lack of footprints and hoof prints. No one had crossed over it in days or weeks. If anyone comes from there today, I believe he is trying to kill me. Either you take out your bow and get ready to use it, or I go on. Alone.” Hannah lifted her chin in defiance while imagining what Sage must be thinking.

“You’re serious?”

“Do you want to die here? Because that is what is going to happen.”

Sage removed the bow and quiver from the saddle and led her horse to the clearing. Hannah followed, making sure no hoof prints showed the way for any behind. When the horses were munching on fresh grass and drinking from a clear stream, Hannah sat on a blanket where she could keep watch on the trail and hide if anyone came.

Sage sat across from her, the bow and quiver at her side. She said, “You look like a small girl, but you’re different. You scare me.”

“Good. That attitude may keep you alive another day.” Hannah had no intention of holding back on the truth or being direct about it.

“When I was your age, my mother used to play a silly game with us. To make our minds sharp, she would have us tell her a simple story in as few words as possible. Just the most important facts. We would fill in the rest. Can you do that?” Sage asked.

“Why? I thought you wanted to know all of it?”

Sage shook her head. “I’m too scared. What’s behind us scares me. All I don’t know about what’s happening and why we’re running. It’s time for you to divulge enough information so I can figure out what we need to do.”

Hannah closed her eyes. Where to start? She needed to convince the sorceress of the danger, and to do that, she needed to explain. Or did she? There might be another way. Hannah drew in a breath and let the air escape slowly. “I was a servant at the Earl’s castle until a week ago, but my dead mother was of royal blood, a very minor lady in the court, but a lady. My father was a famous mage, but a high-born Royal, of very high rank. He was fourth in line to the throne when he died.”

Sage scooted back a little, the fear and awe contrasting in her expression. “I thought you were only a budding sorceress that needed to learn to read, and you somehow cause others to be angry with you.”

Hannah continued as if she hadn’t seen the shift away from her, “You’re right, you just don’t know the whole story. My parents were married, but they had a great fight before I was born, and my father didn’t even know about me until recently. When he did, I became fifth in line to sit on the throne, moving everyone below my father down one position, one more death from taking the crown. Several below me on the list want their old position back, so I must die.”

“You’re fifth in line to be queen?” Sage gasped. “A princess?”

“Fourth. My father was murdered.”

“Fourth, I can’t believe that I’m sitting with a person who is only four away from the crown.”

Hannah said, “It gets worse. After the king, in the Royal Line of Succession, there is his son, who they say is not interested in anything but other men. He wants no part of ruling a kingdom. He is followed by two old men, one deathly ill. I forget how we’re related, but they are both too old to rule and will decline the crown.”

“That leaves you to be queen?”

“And there’s the problem. My father was murdered so someone could move higher up the list, probably by the one directly behind my new position, or perhaps the one after that. I expect that either of them has offered enough gold to last a lifetime for my death. Unfortunately, there is more to the story.”

“More?” Sage groaned and appeared dazed. Her fingers wrapped around her bow tightly enough to turn her knuckles white. “How can there be more?”

“There is a movement to usurp the king and seize the throne, not even waiting for his natural death, probably by someone else, who is of lower rank. The younger mages in the kingdom are involved. One of them knows me by sight.”

“The young mage in the village where they took Evelyn prisoner.” It was not a question.

Hannah said, “I am almost twelve. I need to learn to read, write, and survive, for at least three or four years, until I’m old enough to take care of myself and claim my rightful place.”

“And then you will do what? Become the queen?”

Hannah looked back at the mountain pass without answering.

“How will you live until then?”

“I have gold. And I need help. They may not come for me today or tomorrow, but they will come. I need soldiers at my back, protection before me, and a hundred other things. I need to learn to read, most of all, and to acquire sorcery skills. Reading will tell me what I don’t know, and maybe provide some of those answers.”

“Hannah, you are so young and silly. They’ll find you in days and kill you. They are professionals. And they’ll kill me along with you.”

“I’ve got to try.” Hannah felt more tears gathering and ignored them. “All I have to do is disappear.”

“Not my point,” Sage said. “Listen, they probably don’t know about me, but we can’t be sure of that, so we plan for it. We may have been spotted, or the people back at the inn where we got the horses might be tortured until they tell stories of me. Besides, that young mage you spoke of can make them talk. He can make anybody speak with the right magic as punishment.”

“With spells?” Hannah asked.

“No, of course not. He controls the four elements, not spells. He can fill their bodies with so much water they burst, or their hair can catch on fire. He can suck the air from their lungs, or bury them in dirt until they talk. In the end, he will know everything they know. But, that may be harder than he thinks. We didn’t leave a lot of clues for him to follow.”

“Then what do we do?”

Sage said, “Well, here’s my basic plan that I just made up. We’ll change our names and appearance, and we will imitate other people. Become them. They are searching for you, but we’ll hide you behind me. I’ll take over and become your older sister.” She smiled for the first time in a full day.

“This is my problem, not yours. You should wait here and sneak home when you can.”

“You didn’t seek this trouble out any more than I did. Listen, I can’t go back, or they will capture and torture me, too. We’re in this together, like it or not. Now we have to make some choices so we can disappear.”

“Spells again?”

“Of course, not. They are too temporary, and I don’t know much more about sorcery than you, so we do it the old way. But, we’re lucky we stopped here before anyone on this side of the mountains saw us and can reveal our path to those who hunt us.”

“You sound like my mother did when she wanted me to do something,” Hannah said.

Sage said, “We need to change identities right now. We should make up a story to tell, beginning with your hair that used to be yellow and is now a silly-looking black that is, of course, dyed with ink. I don’t think I’m that much of a liar.”

“You can get this ink out?” Hannah asked, excited at the prospect of her hair returning to her natural golden color.

“Come over to the stream and lie down,” Sage said as she rummaged in her saddlebag. At the side of the creek, she held up a bar of soap and a small knife.

“I already cut my hair!”

Sage laughed softly, “Not all of it.”

When Sage finished cutting and shaving Hannah’s head until she was completely bald, Sage handed the soap and knife to Hannah. “Now do mine.”

“Are we trying to look like boys? Because with your hips and chest you’ll never seem like a boy with or without hair. Besides, your hair is so long and beautiful. It’s the first thing I noticed about you.”

Sage snorted as if that was funny. Then Hannah understood. If she noticed Sage’s long raven hair first, so would others. They were not going to look and act like boys because that would never work—but without hair, they might look as if they traveled from a strange land, and they would fit no descriptions anyone had.

Sage rolled onto her back, her long black hair flowing in the stream. “Cut it first, then shave it, like I did yours.”

When Hannah finished, she ran her hand over her scalp like she’d done a thousand times and froze. The prickly stubs felt alien. She watched Sage do the same, then their eyes met, and both laughed at the appearance of the other.

“Sage, you look awful,” Hannah said.

“Like someone from another land. But from now on my name is Sara. Not Sage, a name they might know.”

“Huh?”

“Sara, named after my mother. Enough like Sage when you say it that you can switch at the last moment and nobody will catch on. Now for you. Hannah means Princess in the old language, so you are now Prin. These are not the last changes we’ll make this day.”

“Let’s get the horses and find our new lives,” Prin said, feeling better and more confident than she had in days, despite the mental confusion of thinking of herself by another name. It would take time to get used to the name.

Sara said, “No, not yet, let’s remove the saddles and bridles and take what we want to carry with us. We’ll turn the horses loose. In our new lives, we don’t ride horses, and those following will be searching for a girl or two on horseback. If we’re going to do this, everything about us must change. Everything. We must be able to walk right past those chasing after you, and they’ll never suspect. If we do it right, we might even join in the search.”

It took a little time to hide the saddles and bridles in a shallow overhang of rock. Prin regretted not selling them, but realized it was too great a risk for little return. The buyers would remember her and tell the tale in exchange for a share of the hunter’s gold. She had two new dresses that had never been worn. She cut the expensive material of the skirts into wide strips, then wrapped one around her head, neck, and under her chin. At the questioning look from Sara, she said, “Sunburn. Our scalps are pure white.”

“Good idea. We’ll say it’s part of our culture from our homeland.”

They spread the remainder of the contents of her leather bag on a blanket. She placed a few items in the leather bag to carry. She took everything from her father’s study and bedroom, especially the painting of her mother and father.

Sara furrowed her eyebrows as Prin wrapped it before placing it in the leather satchel. “Can I look at that again?”

“You’ve seen it,” Prin said. “But, sure, you can look again.”

A more perplexed expression crossed Sara’s face. She said, “You look at it. Tell me what you see.”

Prin turned it to face herself and gulped. The two people in the painting were no longer smiling. They looked worried, perhaps a little angry. “Their faces are different.”

“I thought so, too.”

“How? Is this why my father was called a great mage? He could do things like this?”

Sara said, “They might reflect what you are thinking.”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure. I think it is what they would believe if they were here. Don’t ask why I think that.”

Sara looked intently at the painting from several angles. “I believe at least part of that picture was enchanted by a sorceress. Your mother, without a doubt. But there are other parts I’m unfamiliar with. The faces are telling us something.”

“They made it together!” the girl who would be known as Prin shouted.

“Are you angry?” Sara asked. “Like in the painting?”

“No, I’m not. I’m scared and confused, but I guess I have reason to be angry if I thought about it. I just don’t think I am, and that’s why the painting isn’t a reflection of me.”

“I wish I’d have known them,” Sara said, staring into the eyes of the woman in the picture.

“Me too.”