Young Writers Society

Lloyd of the Viper clan woke up to the sun shining through his small, ivy covered window. It was late morning. He rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed. The bed at one time it had probably been fancy, but insects, rodents, and time had rendered it uncomfortable. Still, it was better than any of the other beds in the abandoned ruins of a castle that Lloyd lived in.

He got out of bed and put on some clothes, which was followed by a black cloak that gave him a rather sinister look. Lloyd stared at the least decrepit thing in the room, which was a mirror. A pale, black haired, green eyed boy looked back. His pupils were in slits, like a cat’s. He tweaked an eye muscle, and they morphed into normal looking pupils.

He was no normal human. He was a necromancer, which meant that he had a tremendous amount of underworld magic at his disposal. Unfortunately, most necromancers were cruel and ruthless, so almost everybody who saw Lloyd and recognized the fact that he was a necromancer attempted to kill him.

Few of them ever got close to succeeding, as Lloyd scared them away by summoning up some skeletons from the underworld. It was tiring, so he usually tried to avoid contact with other folks. One person, however, seemed determined to get at Lloyd. The reason for this was probably because he was Lloyd’s neighbor.

His thoughts were interrupted because of a sudden knock at the door.

“Come in, Ralph,” He said. Ralph came in. “What is it?” He asked. Ralph panted as he said,

“The king, sir, he’s trying to arrest you again sir—"

“Oh, come on!” complained Lloyd. “When will he learn to leave me alone?”

“I don’t know sir,” answered Ralph, but Lloyd was already gone. He ran down the spiral stairs out of his tower, and down into the crumbling dining hall with only a small wooden table and two small wooden chairs. He ran down another flight of stairs that were dimly lit with flickering torches and arrived at the dungeons. He walked up to a specific cell that had no windows and was heavily locked. Lloyd pulled a key out of his pocket, inserted it into the lock, and turned it.

The door opened to reveal a pitch black, ethereal figure that was slightly transparent. Lloyd could feel cold and malice reverberating around the room as the creature asked him; “What does master want?” in the language of the underworld. Lloyd replied in the same language.

“I want you to injure the soldiers directly outside of the castle. No killing.”

The creature hissed at the “no killing” part as Lloyd continued speaking; “Come back to your cell when you are done.”

“Yes master,” said the thing as it left.

Lloyd left the dungeons and went back upstairs to the crumbling dining hall with the small, crude table. He glanced at it.

“Ralph!” he called.

“Yes sir?” questioned Ralph.

“Where’s my breakfast?” asked Lloyd.

“I… I didn’t make it yet sir, to be honest, I was really scared because there was a bunch of soldiers outside and I forgot about breakfast,” admitted Ralph. Lloyd grumbled under his breath. Ralph was his servant that he had saved from a band of hobgoblins that were going to cook Ralph for dinner. He was slightly younger than Lloyd, and much more timid.

As Ralph cooked breakfast, Lloyd went into the library, and started reading a book called Wraiths, Ghosts, and other spectral Beings. He went to the chapter about shades, which the book described as being one of the more powerful creatures in the spectral category. Those soldiers probably weren’t having a very fun time right now, he speculated. Most underworld beings were summon-able by necromancers, depending of course, on the said necromancer’s power, skill, resources, and cunning.

Summoning them is the easy part. Controlling them is what is difficult. When Lloyd had summoned the shade, he had summoned it in a heavily enchanted cell that he had found in the abandoned castle. It took several days of hard work and difficult enchantments to finally subdue the dark creature. Since then, it had been incredibly useful for fending of George.

Lloyd got up out of his chair and went back into the dining hall. He then went through a wooden door into the kitchen, where Ralph was cooking venison in the oven. Ralph turned the spit a couple times.

“Are you almost done yet? I’m starving,” said Lloyd.

“Almost,” answered Ralph. “Can you grab the salt? It’s in the left cupboard, and I’m turning the spit.”

“You should’ve salted it before you started cooking,” Lloyd reprimanded him, as he grabbed the salt and handed it to Ralph.

“Yes sir,” said Ralph. He took the salt and started salting the meat.

After the meat was cooked, Lloyd went over to cupboard and pulled out a hunk of bread. He walked back through the oak door to the kitchen and over to the table in the dining hall. Ralph entered with two plates of steaming venison, and they ate the badly seasoned food in silence.

After Lloyd finished gobbling up his food and had stuffed the last bite of bread into his mouth, he got up.

“I’m going to check if mister creepy is back from beating up the soldiers and scaring them half to death,” he said as he walked off.

Sure enough, the shade was back in its cell, licking the blood off of its cold gray sword.

“That’s disgusting,” muttered Lloyd as he left the dungeons. On his way up the stairs he bumped into Ralph.

“Just so you know, we’re out of venison,” Ralph told him.

“Seriously?” said Lloyd exasperatedly. He changed his course and went through a hallway into an ivy-covered tower that held the armory, where he pulled out a crossbow and some arrows. He exited the tower and walked out of the front doors and into the courtyard. He crossed the courtyard, over to the drawbridge. Lloyd sent a telepathic message to a skeleton on the battlements causing it to start raising the gate. Lloyd exited the crumbling castle and went out into a forest.

Outside of Lloyd’s dwelling there was a path. If you followed the path, it would take you to a much larger road, which had the occasional farmer, merchant, or band of robbers traversing it. If you took that road west, it would take you to another castle, this one with a king and not falling apart. This was the castle of Lloyd’s neighbor, George, who was soon going to be yelling at his captain of the guard who had run away from a “black ghost with a sword”. If you continued your tour and you exited the throne room and go to a different part of the castle, you would find a princess doing her lessons with a highly boring tutor.

Princess Irvina didn’t like her lessons very much. She was in an old dusty room with books and scrolls lying around. The only nice thing about it was a large window that let the light in. She was sitting on a chair that was comfortable enough, if a bit hard.

Her tutor was sitting at a desk with a quill and some ink on it. She found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying, because not only was he talking about boring stuff, he was telling it in the most boring way imaginable. At this moment he was saying something about courtesy and running the keep when the king and the other men of high status were gone.

She glanced outside at the sun and saw it was almost midday, when she would be finally released from her tedious studies. She decided to attempt once again to concentrate.

“…and a princess must always show extra politeness to nobles and other such esteemed guests, and when eating, a princess must keep her elbows off the table…” The tutor droned on.

She knew this stuff already. Not only was it boring, she already knew how to behave around guests, where to sit, and other simple table manners. Why did her father have to hire the most boring, repetitive tutor in the kingdom?

“…and now I’m afraid we will have to continue tomorrow, because your lesson time is up,” said the tutor.

Irvina mumbled something polite about seeing him tomorrow, and then exited the room through a door on the side of the wall, trying not to look relieved. She ended up in a long hallway, walked through it, and then went through another door at the end of the hallway. This brought her to the dining hall. Dale, her brother, was already there. He was eating his lunch.

The dining hall was heavily decorated with fancy ornaments, such as the chandelier. It had a high, vaulted ceiling, and the table was large and rectangular. It was one of those really long ones in typical royal dining halls, where the king sits at one end of the table, and the queen sits at the other end.

“Ah, there you are,” said her brother in a slightly self-important voice. Irvina looked at the empty king’s seat.

“Where’s father?” She asked.

“Oh, he’s off trying to arrest that necromancer again. You know, the one that moved into the old ruins,” answered Dale, her brother.

“I don’t really see the point,” stated Irvina as a servant gave her food. “He doesn’t really do anything except scare off robbers, and that’s a good thing.”

Dale finished chewing his bite of food and swallowed it. “Well, you know father, very anti-dark magic. At least the necromancer isn’t killing any of the soldiers Father is sending against him; otherwise we would’ve lost the whole army by now.”

They stopped talking and ate their food in silence. Irvina and Dale weren’t very close, and they only really talked through necessity and to pass time. As Irvina ate, she thought about her other brother, Darreck, her father’s favorite son, who was out helping the emperor fight the losing war against the powerful conqueror Vladimir, otherwise known as the Blood King.

Darreck was not the nicest person. He was indifferent at the best of times, sneaky and manipulative at the worst. He was like one of those bullies who are way too careful to be caught, who often shift blame on other people. He consistently flattered George, he was a “hero” in wars, and he came up with lots of devious schemes to get what he wanted.

When Irvina finished her food, she headed up a flight of stairs to her bedroom, which had a nice view from the window. She examined the village located outside of the palace, little brown huts and paved streets, with the odd cart carrying goods. Beyond that was the forest, with the main road snaking through it, quickly hidden by the trees.

She switched her attention back to the village and wondered what it would be like to be a peasant, working almost all day. It probably wouldn’t be very nice, and she was glad she wasn’t one of them. That caused her to feel a stab of guilt, and she felt sorry for them, having to do a bunch of work and be really poor, while she was a privileged princess with “being polite” as her only responsibility.

She stepped away from the window and hopped in her bed. As the warm, afternoon sun came through the window, she drifted off to sleep.

Deep in the forest, even deeper than Lloyd’s rundown fortress, there was a tree house. This tree house was safely tucked away in an apple tree. If you looked inside you would find herbs, cooking utensils, and lots of apples. You would also find a small bed, where the tree trunk had seemingly naturally grown into a bed shape.

Aldwyn was an elf. He liked nature, so he wandered around the woods a lot, sometimes aimlessly. This time, however, he was gathering mushrooms for his favorite apple mushroom soup. He scanned the ground, trying to remember which ones were edible, and picking them when he found some. He found a large clump of one of his favorites, and he picked them. That was enough mushrooms, he decided, and he started heading back to his tree house.

He had inadvertently wandered between Lloyd’s fortress and the king’s castle. This caused him to bump into George’s men who were dejectedly heading back to the castle rubbing their wounds. He looked them up and down.

“Bothering Lloyd again?” he asked.

“Bothering Lloyd? Bothering Lloyd?” yelled the captain of the guard. “He practices dark magic! Besides, it’s the king’s orders.”

“Well, he keeps the goblins away because they are afraid of him, so I see no reason to bug him,” offered Aldwyn.

“Exactly! If even the goblins are afraid of him then that means he’s even more dangerous!” blustered the infuriated captain.

“I can’t say that I agree, and can you please stop shouting? I believe it’s giving me a nasty headache. I don’t particularly like nasty headaches, so quieting down will be much appreciated,” Aldwyn said. He left as the captain sputtered in rage at the notion of “quieting down.”

Aldwyn continued on his way home. He had helped Lloyd escape from his clan, the Viper clan. The members of the Viper clan, like pretty much all necromancers, were cruel and corrupt by nature. Only a few were what you would call “decent” people, and they usually ended up at the bottom of the pecking order. The only necromancer that Lloyd could call a friend was Kevin of the Cobra clan, who would have run away as well except that he was too scared of the consequences of getting caught, which would have meant death.

Aldwyn had been both of their friends; secretly, of course. If either the Chief of the Viper clan or the Cobra clan had found out that there was an elf befriending their young, Aldwyn would have been executed in a most gory manner. Luckily, he never was caught, and Lloyd successfully escaped.

Aldwyn arrived at his tree house, climbed up the tree, and went in. He lit a small fire in a fireplace and pulled out a large cauldron. The small space Aldwyn lived in was actually quite comfortable and gave off a nice leafy smell. The dim evening sunset showed through the window in a nice natural way. The whole place was very organic, but not dirty. It definitely gave Aldwyn a sense of home.

He began cooking the apple mushroom soup. Mm, apples and mushrooms, how delicious, he thought. He deeply inhaled the fragrance of the flavors blending together and contemplated whether it would taste better if he added thyme. He decided it would, so he opened a jar labeled “thyme” and poured the contents into the mixture.

When it was finished, he scooped some soup into a bowl and began eating it, relishing the delicious taste of apples, mushrooms, and the new ingredient, thyme, (which was rather strong). Thyme goes perfect with it, he thought. When he finished his helping, he put the food back in the corner and got into his bed. He then decided, since he had nothing better to do, to visit Lloyd in the morning.