With this ring...
“Have you got everything?” Avin had checked solicitously.
“Yes I have already taken most things that I need. I can come back easily enough if I’ve forgotten anything. Oh Avin!“
Sil hugged him like a child with a favourite teddy bear.
“I‘ll miss you.”
“and I you little sister” He said, bending to kiss her forehead.
Avin at the age of twenty two was a man that the word “handsome” didn’t come close to describing. His waist length
golden blond hair hung in thick strands down to the small of his back. His eyes were grey, almost silver
and sparkled with life and energy. His face was almost sculpted, the lines were so defined.
Sil was almost a mirror image in feminine form. She was a year younger, and perhaps four or five inches shorter than he.
They had lived in the Keep at the place called the Northern Edge for at least half of their lives on the world of Minthrall.
In their childhood Avin and Sil had come there with their parents. When Avin was about eighteen their parents
failed to return from a trip in the worlds. They were both still waiting for their return,
and in their own ways looking for clues as to where they could be, whether dead or alive.
Avin’s way was book study. There were plenty of them here at the Keep. He tended to travel into the worlds mainly
to find books he needed, or artefacts that would be useful items to have. He was sure that a clue was there somewhere.
Sil’s way was to go into the worlds and try to find them. For the last few years she had used the Portal more and
more. She had at last found a place where not only did some people remember their parents, but a few were
convinced that they were still in the area. She had resolved to make that world, called Artez, into her home
base for a while and concentrate her efforts there. Avin would continue his investigations here. He also had
other plans that caused him to want to stay here.
Recently he had found a warrior half starved wandering around the forest during one of his walks. It seemed that
the man had been sent via a Portal , similar to the one that they had in the Keep, as a punishment. His crime
was to have witnessed the murder of a nobleman. He himself had been accused of the crime, found guilty and sent
here as a deterrent to other enemies of the Dukedom. In the place where he was from it seemed that death
was seen as an honourable, if final, punishment, whereas exile was seen as a continued punishment and a much
more shameful end.
That was how Avin had met Gant. He had taught Gant magic skills, and in return Gant had trained him in the use of
sword and knife, and also a little bowmanship. Gant had enthusiastically accepted the offer of a room in the Keep.
He and Avin had talked on many occasions about how they could assist others. Gant knew of the Mage schools, Avin
had no idea such places existed. Gant’s world was called Tinvarth, and he had been refused mage training there.
It was very much a matter of class as to whether a person received training or not in Strant, where Gant
had been born. Magic was seen as a few steps up in prestige and status to the use of physical weapons. Gant was
from farming stock, and was therefore deemed to be a weapons warrior. That was that. They both thought
that it might be useful, and fun, to offer some sort of haven to others who for one reason or another, could
not follow their chosen paths in life.
Avin was more settled with the disappearance of his parents than Sil. She seemed driven to find them.
Avin had always felt that people were where they were supposed to be, and although he missed them and cared about what had
happened to them, his way was to systematically search, but allow his own life to unfold as it saw fit.
He had no impatience about him.
Sil on the other hand was questlike about it, and was unable to settle to anything else.
“I’ll see you soon. Take care of yourself Avin” she stepped into the Portal and into her new life in Artez.
“You too Sil” Avin whispered into the empty room. He knew she had not told him all.
Probably a lover involved. He was concerned, but he could not rule her life for her.
She had a destiny to meet, no doubt all would unfold in time.
He’d learned that Sil would always go her own way. No caution from him had ever slowed her down before.
When Sil stepped out of he Portal in her new home on Artez she was immediately greeted by a loving and long embrace.
“ I have missed you so much” whispered Hirn. Dark haired and tanned from the sunny climate here in the Southern
sector of Artez he was exotically attractive. This was more than she could have ever hoped for, that he would
be waiting here for her. His deep brown eyes looked longingly into hers.
“Are you home to stay Sil?”
She kissed him, “Yes love, I have all that I need here”.
“Marry me Sil, I need to know you’ll always be here” he was almost begging her, and took a ring of sparkling jewels
set into gold from his pocket. He took her unresisting left hand and placed it on her third finger.
“I love you” he said simply,
“I love you too Hirn, I can’t live without you. Of course I’ll marry you.”
They had stood until moonrise on the balcony of their home, overlooking a quiet sea and holding each other,
and looking much like most deeply in love couples look, surrounded in magic.
Except that one of them was surrounded in magic, and the other was too lost in love to detect it.
Sil had married Hirn the next day. She had wanted to wait and invite Avin, or at least have a chance to tell him
about Hirn, but Hirn had not wanted her to do that.
“Of course I understand your wishes Sil, your brother is my brother… but in our culture a marriage is a very
personal thing, private to the couple marrying. Only they and a priest to bless and witness are present.
One year later, when all rites are performed, the families of both gather and celebrate together.
It is a time of great feasting lasting for almost a week That is when your brother and I bond as brothers,
and my sisters as your sisters.
Until then, neither has contact with their family at all.”
Sil had accepted without question this conditional marriage, she was deeply in love, and knew that Avin would never
interfere in her affairs and would understand. In her travels in the worlds she had encountered many
customs alien to their own, and this was just one more.
She never asked about the Rites that Hirn had mentioned either. They had been blissfully happy for a fortnight,
and then Hirn had received a note from his Order House.
“I have to leave you for a while Sil.” he was almost crying,
“I have an interest in an orphanage many, many miles away.
It seems that a cliff face above it has eroded and the whole island has been besieged by huge tidal waves.
I must go with others in my Order and help.”
“I’ll come too!” Sil exclaimed, eagerly offering her services as a mage. “ I ‘m working with a strange magic,
called technology. Perhaps some of the devices that I have will help!”
“It is too dangerous love, the whole place is unstable, and our Order would never put a woman into danger.
They simply would not agree”, he was shaking his head, “Though it would be my dearest wish not to leave you.”
He embraced her as if it was a final parting. He turned to leave and then as an afterthought,
“but Sil, if you could find out more about this technology whilst I was away…perhaps it might help us stabilise the situation.
once the immediate threat is dealt with.”
His eyes were alive and shining with the possibility.
“Yes! You can use the Study on the third floor!
Its very grand and has a portal.
It would make a fine place for you to work.
I would be proud to think that my wife worked beside me though at a distance."
He looked at her, his eyes full of pride already.
“I’ll need to know what sort of things would help” she asked
“Hmmm,” he considered for a moment. “We have been trying teach the children simple shielding techniques, not only
for this sort of emergency, but because the island is rife with wildlife, some of it dangerous. Not all of them
can master it though, its not easy. Even my own skill is poor and I’ve been practicing the Spelling since
I was a teenager. Something that could shield an individual…that would be a great help….but I don’t want
to impose upon you.”
“Nonsense” she responded enthusiastically. “Whatever else will I do without you, other than count the days to your return?”
He hugged her again and kissed her, “my beautiful, clever wife. I must leave immediately, I won’t rest until I am
by your side again.”
He tore himself from their embrace, and left for his Order House, turning to wave to her three or four times before
the bend in the road took him out of sight.
She stood for a while sighing at the trail from her balcony, and then went to the third floor to begin her work.