What Lies Within (Book 5) by Martin Ash

Author:Martin Ash [Ash, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Outside Publishing
Published: 2013-05-05T23:00:00+00:00

SIX

i

Prince Anzejarl had established his command headquarters in an abandoned manor house set off the road approximately a league to the south of Enchantment's Reach. The manor was the home of a family of minor nobility who had hurriedly upped and left just weeks earlier. They had taken household staff and carts groaning under the weight of personal effects, furniture and sundry belongings, and moved to the capital where they kept a well-appointed villa.

The manor, called Willowmere, had been built atop a low, level-topped rise. The forest immediately surrounding had been largely cleared and set to arable and pasture. The lilac-cloaked soldiers of the Karai Guard, Anzejarl's elite bodyguard, had quartered themselves in out-houses and the deserted cottages of the small population of nearby Willowmere village. More troops were billeted in barns and other buildings close by, or had pitched tents along the roadside and in glades and clearings. Men worked quickly to bolster the existing defences of the manor and establish new ones at its perimeter.

From the windows of the lord's master suite on Willowmere's third and uppermost level, looking northwards, the city-castle of Enchantment's Reach could be seen, lofty and majestic upon its soaring scarp. Prince Anzejarl stood there now, eyeing the capital which had emerged from a swathe of grey cloud. Twisting columns of rising smoke were gently buffeted and broken by quiet breezes as they slowly drifted between the maze of towers. A shaft of brittle autumn sunlight broke suddenly through the cloud and the marble towers and turrets were shining bright, predominantly white, flecked with myriad other shades. A fantastical vision high above the forest, then the clouds obscured the sun once more and the city-castle, still a wonder to behold, relinquished its fabulous light.

Prince Anzejarl nodded inwardly, his face set, his Karai eyes almost aglow. The greatest prize, radiant in the new morn!

Almost his!

He had come to want this now, more than anything. In recent days his understanding had grown. He had discovered that the unfamiliar passions and fires that raged within him, the constant restless unease and conflict that beset his being as a consequence of Olmana's Gift, could be quelled, in significant part if not completely. The key he found was focus. To take the tyranny within and turn it without, gather the energy of that rage and torment, and concentrate it to the exclusion of all else upon a single external goal. And if there was no one goal, no overriding ambition, then create one!

Enchantment's Reach!

Inklings of this had become apparent earlier, as Anzejarl marched against and conquered the kingdoms of the Southern Mondane. But at that time understanding had been elusive. Olmana's gift, his Awakening, was still so new, had not yet attained its fullest force - though Anzejarl had not been aware of that then. It was as he moved towards the kingdom of Enchantment's Reach that he began to gain an insight into the full nature of what she had given him.

Now, with focus, with terrible and single-minded purpose, all things could be achieved, and the demons within could be kept at bay.

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