Elements of Glory: The Princess of Nothing

’They are the last ones… What does that mean, Thaddeus… please, tell me, what does it mean?’

- Eleanor to Thaddeus, expressing concerns, days before John and Samantha turned fourteen

REALM-BEFORE

John Raven and Samantha Liam were the very best of friends. They had known each other for as far back as either of them could remember, and had spent almost every waking urrh together. For fourteen yehvs – though not brother and sister – they’d lived in the same house, cared for by the same people. Their Guardians were a kindly old man and woman, who – as far as John and Samantha knew – weren’t married, but had been working together for twenty-two yehvs, raising a houseful of orphans.

Most of the others had moved on by now, leaving Samantha and John – both fourteen – more or less alone, with the run of the mansion and the beautiful lawns and forest that surrounded it. A few older kids – seventeen and eighteen – still lived in the house. Those who were eighteen, were there for their last yehv in the mansion.

John and Samantha didn’t have much to do with the older kids. They knew some, and were friends with some, but mostly kept to themselves.

‘We are our own exclusive club,’ Samantha had told John once.

He rather liked that idea.

John woke up early on Sixday, excited, and tingling from head to toe. It was the very end of spring, and the last day of school had been yesterday, which meant the rest of the summer was free. Earlier in the yehv, John and Samantha had found an old rundown fort – out by a brook in the woods – and had decided that they were going to fix it up over the summer and make it their personal hide out.

An exclusive club needs an exclusive fort, John thought.

It wasn’t really as if they needed a place to hide though. Thaddeus and Eleanor were the kindest, gentlest, people John had ever known in his life. Nevertheless, the opportunity to spend more time with Samantha gave John a thrill. He’d known Samantha all of his life, and he’d spent almost every day that he could remember with her. She was the closest friend he’d ever had, and he never imagined that would change.

It hadn’t really, but things were a little... different.

Things had first started to change last yehv, on Samantha’s thirteenth birthday. Everything had been pretty regular, but at dinner, when all the orphans were gathered for a big feast – some of the older ones had even come home – Samantha had been dressed in a nice gown. Her hair had been done differently, and she’d worn make up for – what John guessed was – the first time. He couldn’t, for the life of him, remember her wearing make up before that.

He didn’t think, at that moment, that Samantha had ever looked as pretty. It had made him feel really strange. From that point on he’d started to notice more and more how truly pretty Samantha was. Every day she seemed to get prettier, and it didn’t seem to matter what she wore, or if she had make up on or not, or if her hair was done up or hanging loose.

John also noticed that the time he spent with Samantha had become even more enjoyable than ever before.

John really got the impression, as time went on, that he was starting to like Samantha for more than just a friend. He promised himself that he wouldn’t let on though – at least not yet – he didn’t want Samantha to tease him for liking her, and for thinking she was pretty.

And she would too.

Throwing off his covers, John leapt out of bed and hurriedly dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans. He glanced at the window of his dorm, and looked out across the forest; tall, thick and green. He smiled at the pink glow that was on the distant horizon. It was early, which meant, if he and Samantha headed out now, they’d have a full day ahead of them. John guessed that they might even get the whole fort fixed up in one day!

He was something of an optimist.

Hurrying to his closet, he grabbed a knapsack that was full of supplies, threw it on, and hurried out of is room, through the hallways of the mansion, toward the girl’s wing where Samantha stayed. The hallways were tall and wide. The floors were polished dark wood, and there were big, old fashioned, pictures on the walls, which depicted the different generations of people who’d owned the house before Thaddeus and Eleanor. John couldn’t count the times he’d been told about how the house was really old, and for a long, long time before it had been donated to Thaddeus and Eleanor as an orphanage and school, it had been a special school for truly gifted people.

Eleanor would always point out that everyone who lived and had lived at the mansion today was very gifted too. John didn’t think he was particularly gifted. He was rubbish at spelling, didn’t do well in history, hated science, and struggled in maths. He liked fencing though, and was good at building things, liked planning stuff, and had an excellent sense of direction.

None of those things, however, really helped him get better grades in maths, or his other classes.

John moved quietly down a spiral staircase and took some more hallways. Then he hurried up a wide flight of stairs that had a polished, curved, banister, to an upper floor in the girl’s wing. He sneaked to Samantha’s door and knocked twice. A moment later the door opened and John found Samantha, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, with a knapsack of her own on, grinning at him.

She looked pretty today. Her blonde hair was tied back in a pony tail, and her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. She was a little bit taller than John – Thaddeus had assured the young man countless times that he would probably surpass her when his long over due growth spurt began.

‘Hey,’ Samantha said to John, smirking, ‘what took so long?’

John shrugged. ‘Nothing,’ he responded, sniffing.

Samantha pushed past him and stepped out into the hallway. ‘Come on,’ she urged, and then led the way through the quiet mansion. Soon they were crossing a wide lobby, to the tall doors that led out onto the front porch, and then outside. Samantha’s hand was on the golden doorknob, that was shaped like a lion’s head, when a voice, like mist and shadow, smooth like leather, spoke behind them. They stopped dead in their tracks.

’And just where do you think you two are going?’ the voice said, cool and menacing.

John and Samantha turned around quickly. To their surprise, they found a tall man in long, black, robes, holding a silver staff in one hand, staring at them. The man had law-length, greasy, black, hair, and dark, blue, eyes that sent an arctic chill into John’s core.

Recently, John had seen the man around the mansion. He’d even asked Thaddeus who he was, but the old man was far from forthcoming.

‘Out,’ Samantha said boldly to the black-clad man. ‘It’s summer holidays, we’re allowed.’

’Out where?’ the robed man wondered, his voice smoother than hot oil.

‘Into the woods,’ John said, ’were fixing up an old fort if you have to know.’

The robed man narrowed his eyes into thin slits. The blue irises seemed to glow darkly. ’Letting children out into that forest in these wee urrhs…’ he sighed. ‘I sometimes wonder what Thaddeus and Eleanor think they’re playing at.’

John and Samantha exchanged confused looks, and then turned their attention back to the robed man.

’Who are you?’ Samantha asked unflinchingly.

She was always much bolder and braver than John.

‘You’ve been hanging around the mansion for the last couple weeks… who are you?’ she pressed.

‘Thaddeus and Eleanor never told you?’ the man wondered grimly, lacing long, pale, fingers in front of him.

‘No,’ Samantha retorted. ’So why don’t you?’

’What if I told you I was sent here to guide and protect you, as I’ve done for all of the other children who have lived here over the yehvs.’

‘We’ve never seen you before,’ Samantha pointed out, ’you’ve not been here.’

’You’ve not seen me, because you were not supposed to see me,’ the robed man explained calmly, patiently. ’But now… now that you’re both fourteen, all that has changed.’

‘School’s done for the summer though,’ John chanced to say. ’I hope you’re not thinking you’re going to be… what did you say… ‘guiding’ us through our holidays.’

It was a very Samantha-like thing to say, but John found himself getting much bolder when his free time was threatened.

The robed man gave a small, almost scary, smile. ’I’m sure Thaddeus will talk to you later today and explain everything…’ The man looked at the door, and then at John and Samantha, waving a hand. ‘Go then, if you must, but be careful… you two are the last, and now that you are past the age of protection, all manner of creature will seek you and your untrained powers.’

’Our what?’ Samantha asked, chuckling. ’Are you sure you’re supposed to be here and not in a loony bin?’

John sniggered, but when the robed man gave him an acidic look, the boy stopped laughing and suddenly found his shoelaces very, very interesting.

Samantha wasn’t intimidated though.

‘Off you go,’ the robed man said.

‘Come on,’ Samantha told John, grabbing him by the arm and leading him out onto the front porch. They raced down the steps and onto the manicured, green, lawn. They hurried around the mansion – which had impressive wings and the towers, and green ivy growing up the walls.

It looked more like a wooden castle than a house.

’What do you think that was all about?’ John wondered, hurrying with Samantha past the back porch and the lilac trees that grew around it, and the stone swimming pool. There were paved paths in and around trees and flower beds too, all weaving nicely about the pool, which was still and calm this early in the morning.

‘Who knows,’ Samantha responded casually, ‘he’s a nutter.’

John grinned as he and Samantha left the lawn, charging into tall grass that bordered it, and lay between the lawn and the woods.

’I hope we don’t have summer school,’ John groaned as he and Samantha rushed into the forest, and got on a path that they’d followed countless times in their cycles together.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Samantha assured him in a comforting tone, ’old Thaddeus would never do that to us. Now stop whining and let’s focus on how we’re going to fix up our fort.’

They talked quickly and excitedly about their plans the whole way to the old fort. However, when they arrived, it was not at all how they’d left it.

The old cabin that had been built between two big evergreen trees, at the end of a winding forest path surrounded by the thick woods, was now nothing more than a broken pile of splintered wood. It almost looked like someone had blown the old fort to pieces. However, John expected, if that had been the case, there would be more charred pieces of wood, but there were none!

The cabin was just shattered into trillions of little toothpicks.

’What in the world happened?’ Samantha exclaimed, running toward the cabin and stopping just beside the rubble. John hung back, getting a sort of concerned, tingly, feeling at the back of his neck. He looked around the forest, which he decided had become much, much too quiet.

He thought about what the robed man had said, about all manner of creature seeking their untrained powers.

’Someone trashed our fort!’ Samantha exclaimed angrily, turning around to face John. ’Can you believe this?’

John turned and looked back at her. ’They shattered it,’ he said, examining the destruction again. ’Who could have done this… and why?’

John could never understand why some people were just destructive.

‘Who cares,’ Samantha growled, ‘we’re going back and telling Thaddeus and Eleanor that someone’s been trespassing!’ She marched up the path toward John, and then brushed past him, determination written on her face. John stared at the remains of the fort for a mytak more, and then turned to follow Samantha.

Before he did though, out the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something moving in the brush near the shattered fort. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better look, but, whatever he thought he saw, ducked into the brush and disappeared, leaving only some swaying bushes and leaves.

‘Come on, John!’ Samantha called to him, sounding only a little shrill.

‘Yeah, I’m coming,’ he called back, turning slowly, before hurrying after his friend.