Tag: Tales of Vatan

Disclaimer: This is not the final version as it will be available from the usual e-book sellers and eventually, bookstores. Rather, it should be seen as an (almost) final draft. If you are interested in becoming a beta reader, or you have any comments, suggestions or thoughts that you feel I should consider before publishing please drop me a line using the contact form.

Arrival

Alagariel sighed. She felt funny. Funny wasn’t the right word though. The right word, she decided, was different. She felt different. It didn’t help that her mother often pointed it out too.
“You’ll grow up slower than the other children, Ala. It’s because you’re a half elf.”
She knew that her mother didn’t say it out of malice. Her mother was a very good woman. It was just the way things were. Ala often wished she didn’t say it every day though. It was often frustrating enough without being reminded. The villagers reminded her too. Usually, it was the children.
“Ay, you! Ala! Don’t you ever… you know… grow?”
Things like that were usually followed by laughter. Some of the villagers also said that she was slow. Some of them tried to be nice about it, saying that it was understandable in a half-elf. She didn’t think they were right. The human children didn’t learn quicker than her. Not as far as she could tell. It was just because they grew so much faster than she did. To her it was like they never had time to know how old they were before they became even older. She often thought about things like that. She took more time to think about things than the other children, she supposed that at least was true. She was just less… hurried? She had time to be, before she rushed into being something else. It wasn’t like she was suddenly going to grow up like the other children did. Priestess Deirdre, who taught the village children, often scolded her.
“Stop daydreaming Alagariel!” she would say sharply, just as Ala was exploring a fascinating thought.
Ala didn’t really understand why Deirdre should care. She had heard all of the Priestesses’ lessons so many times. She might grow slower than the other children, but she was certainly a lot more sensible than any of the children who were about the same size. She had been in Thetwick for years before she had been allowed to go to school. It was actually a small wooden extension to the Temple of Ceres, not a proper building. It was quite new, having been built shortly before she arrived in Thetwick. She had been looking forward to going in the beginning. She didn’t always feel the same way now. It was usually very boring. Of course, she’d gone for far longer than any of the other children. Her mother and the priestesses seemed to be waiting for her to turn ten, though sanity finally prevailed when she’d actually visited the school for ten long years. She still looked the same as the other children on their first school day.

She didn’t actually know how old she was. By the end of her decade at school she’d been in Thetwick long before any of the other children in her class were born. She didn’t actually have to go to the school anymore after. It wasn’t mandatory at all and the Temple of Ceres only really intended for children to go there until they were ten. She was much older of course, being a half-elf. Even though Ala was sure she was much older, she was quite small, much smaller than most human children were when they were ten.
Over the years she spent at the school she had asked Priestess Deirdre just about everything the poor woman knew. In the beginning, the priestesses in charge of the school, particularly Deirdre,had been driven almost to desperation. Deirdre’s knowledge didn’t stretch very far and she didn’t like it when Alagariel asked her something she didn’t know a good answer to. Ala also seemed to remember things that had happened a long time ago better than the Priestess. It was something else that Ala knew Deirdre didn’t like to have pointed out so she’d stopped doing it. Deirdre learned how to deal with Ala more easily as she got older. Or perhaps it was just that Ala had stopped asking the priestess as many questions? Or maybe Deirdre had just stopped trying to force her to concentrate? It was probably a little of both. After that first seemingly endless decade, Ala visited the school again for a while every few years. The sisters of Ceres seemed not to mind, as long as she wasn’t disruptive. Deirdre not knowing something seemed to happen more and more often every time Ala went back to school, so she had begun asking other people about things too. Most people didn’t want to talk to her.
“Go away, half-elf! Don’t come near, hear me?” Was the sort of thing she often heard.
A lot of people didn’t like half-elves and the ones who didn’t care or know about her mixed heritage were rarely interested in a proper conversation with a child. Some people even seemed a little scared of her. She had to admit that the grown ups didn’t have a lot of time to spend on the human children either, but Ala was of the opinion that her questions were definitely better. It made her sad that the grown ups didn’t realise that, but it wasn’t surprising. Sometimes she found someone who was willing to talk to her and she occasionally found out something she didn’t know yet. She found she liked learning new things, especially if was about interesting subjects. She liked swords, though she didn’t really know why. Food, animals and the things that were happening in far away places were always exciting too. They were her favourite subjects. After swords, of course.

There came a time when Deirdre grew old and eventually died. While Ala had never really liked her very much, she found she was still sad when the priestess, who had become a quiet old lady by then, passed away. She ran into Deirdre, almost literally, once when she was on her way to school, not long before she died. Ala had been looking up, at a hawk circling high over the fields, when she’d almost walked into Deirdre who was sitting outside the temple in her chair with a blanket over her knees.
“Oh… sorry… sister Deirdre. I was just looking…”
“Oh Ala… you still haven’t changed a bit.”
“I do change a bit!”
“That’s not what I meant, I know full well you age slowly. What I mean is, that you’re still looking all over for new and 11interesting things.”
“Oh,” said Ala, feeling a little ashamed that she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“What you’re talking about… well. I can still remember when you first came to my class. You do look a little different since then… but I wasn’t much more than a girl myself the first time you came to class. I’ve become a very old woman since then.”
Ala shuffled her feet. It was all true of course, but she thought she felt as strange about it as Deirdre did. It wasn’t happening to anyone else, after all.
“It’s odd for me too,” she whispered.
“Really? Or well… I suppose that makes sense. Though you must have a bit more time to get used to things. But, I suppose things are just as new for you as for me.”
“I guess.”
“Well Ala, it’s nice to talk to you, but you’d better run along, or you’ll be late, like you often were for my lessons.”
“OK. Bye… Sister Deirdre.”
“Oh and Ala?”
“Yes?”
“We don’t talk often and I won’t be around for all that much longer, so I should tell you now. I know we didn’t always get along very well, especially in the beginning, but I’m glad I met you. Really.”
Ala thought for a moment. “Me too, Sister Deirdre.”
“Ok, run along now.”
Ala ran off, though she slowed down to look back at the old lady for a moment too. She wondered if it was going to be the last time they spoke together. That idea saddened her. She was definitely going to be late.

Several new priestesses had come to Thetwick over the years and she’d was taught by many of them after Deirdre. Sometimes she had learned some new things from them, but priestess Deirdre was still the one who had taught her the most. One of the girls from the village, Gera, had even joined the Temple of Ceres. Her parents had been very proud, telling anyone who would listen that their daughter had been asked to travel to Pearson to join. They even told Ala. When Gera came back to Thetwick, to serve, she was eventually also allowed to teach. Ala avoided going to Gera’s lessons, she was more than certain that she knew everything Gera knew and more besides.

If you wish to receive the weekly installment to this story in your inbox, please subscribe to the newsletter below.

Disclaimer: This is not the final version as it will be available from the usual e-book sellers and eventually, bookstores. Rather, it should be seen as an (almost) final draft. If you are interested in becoming a beta reader, or you have any comments, suggestions or thoughts that you feel I should consider before publishing please drop me a line using the contact form.

Chapter 1: A Curious Foundling

An earnest footnote to the tale of Alagariel
by Ferdinand de Seyssel

Whether Alagariel Vatra is a historical figure or a mythical one is a matter of endless scholarly debate. Did she actually exist? It is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty. Elven historical works strongly imply that she was real. Even if one takes elven consensus at face value, the details of her tale vary dramatically even in elven histories. Every detail about her changes, depending on the telling. A great many names have been claimed to refer to her. Aside from the obvious ones such as ‘Alagariel Elf Queen’, ‘High Queen of the Elves’ and ‘Queen of Fire’ there are also monikers such as ‘Marshall of Vatan’, ‘Dragon Queen’, ‘Dragon Lady’, ‘Blade Mistress’, ‘Lady Fire’ and countless others that may or may not refer to the same person.

Elven scholars even go so far as to claim that some structures still existing today were called out of the ground by Alagariel’s own magic. Those who have sailed along the coast of Iurrak between Konigsberg and Erythrae have all seen one of the buildings attributed to Alagariel, namely the admittedly breathtaking Tower of Dragons. However, despite elven claims that she was primarily responsible for the magical construction of that magnificent edifice, this humble researcher has not managed to uncover any conclusive proof that this is, in fact, true.

Alagariel’s legend holds that she was responsible for driving demons from Vatan at the beginning of the elven calendar almost twenty thousand years ago. Of course, this is where things become truly impossible to verify. As little reliable information as there is to be found about Alagariel, material on her adversaries is even more scarce. In fact reliable documents describing events that occurred so long ago are essentially non-existent. No corroboration exists between the dating of Alagariel’s story and the architectural sites that are said to be associated with her reign. Certainly, the pristine condition of these buildings seems to make the claims unlikely even if they are said to be magical. Central to the many tellings of the Queen of Fire’s story is the recurring, rather fantastic, theme of her alliance with dragons and perhaps also giants. No reliable sightings of either of these species are known to exist.

Through these mists of uncertainly, all we can say for certain is that the nursery rhyme ’Alagariel’ which almost everyone in Taldyr and beyond has grown up with is at least inspired by her story, whether it really happened or not. Certainly, there are a great many elements which seem to be fanciful and while I do not mean to distress my elven colleagues it is perhaps best to see Alagariel’s tale as the distillation of a great many events and people in ancient history. We should see the tale in terms of metaphor and allegory rather than as a representation of an actual historical figure.

(From the works of his Royal Highness Ferdinand de Seyssel, Prince of Iurrak and Rector Magnificus of the University of Erythrae, in one of his countless contributions to the Encyclopedia Royalis Iurraka, circa 975.)

If you wish to receive the weekly installment to this story in your inbox, please subscribe to the newsletter below.