**Note: As my story is still in the making, all names, places, and events may be subject to change.**

“I have come to speak to you,” she said at last, wishing she sounded just a little more intelligent.   She had come to respect this man for standing up to her father, and now his presence was rather intimidating.  Faeryn berated herself for this small cowardice, trying to remind herself that she was the princess, she was royalty, and this man was a beggar behind bars, a wandering no one.  But despite her impressive bloodline and Byerron’s shabby one, Faeryn felt that outward rank didn’t really matter any more.   

            “About what?” Byerron asked, dropping the note of cynicism now that he knew she hadn’t come only to stare.

            “I…I wanted to know more about the things you spoke of up in the Great Hall.  I have never heard anyone say anything remotely like what you said today, about the taxes and the sacrifices, and about there being only one god.  And you seemed so confident, I…I believed you.  I want you to explain more to me.”

            “I will.  Ask me what you wish.  It is not often that people wish for me to tell more of matters such as this.  Mostly they are reviled by what I say.  They have convinced themselves that they are unable to accept anything but a plurality of gods.”

            Faeryn couldn’t help but think of her father as Byerron spoke those words.  Now more than ever she wished that her father had listened.

            She paused, trying to pick one question out of the many that swirled in her mind. 

            “Are things really as you said?  Are the people really starving because of the taxes?”

            Byerron’s face grew grave.  “They would be able to survive if it were only the taxes.  The tax is very heavy, but they could survive it if it weren’t for the daily sacrifices to the gods.”  He shuddered.  “One bull and three goats for each of the main deities and two goats for each of the lesser gods, every day, provided for by the people.” 

            With thirteen main gods and dozens of others being worshiped in Orotaek, this added up to a staggering number of sacrificial animals. 

            “You have to be lying,” Faeryn said.  “The people of Orotaek could not survive under those conditions.”

            “They can’t, and they aren’t.  If you merely walked through the streets you would see.” 

            Faeryn grabbed one of the bars to steady herself, reaching for stability as her mind whirled in a confused vortex.  “How can my father do this?  He has always been a just and upright man, who works to do what is best for the kingdom.  How can he allow this?”

            “I will tell you why.”  Byerron began pacing slowly in his cell as he talked.  “Now, I may not be completely right on all I say, but I believe my guesses will be close.  I have been watching for a long time.”  He paused and stood still for a moment, and then began to pace again.  “Your father has come under the influence of a new sorcerer by the name of Sarvoniere, who comes from the east and has brought with him the religion and worship of a new goddess: Ryselleacar.  It is Sarvoniere who has imposed the high sacrifices, and your father has listened.”

            Faeryn was at a loss for words.  She was horrified, but not as shocked as she thought she should be.  “How,” she asked grimly, still wondering if she could really believe everything that Byerron said, “could my father listen to such a man as Sarvoniere.  Surely a man such as my father would see the folly of all this?”

            Byerron’s face was sullen as he paced.  “Anyone,” he said, “who is not always alert and on guard may be deceived, if the deception is woven slowly and carefully.”  He stopped pacing for a second, one foot half-raised as if he were going to take a step, and looked over at Faeryn as if to say, “believe me, this is real”.  He then resumed his pacing.  “As for Sarvoniere, he had the aid of his dark magic.  Your father is really an incredible man, and he would have seen and put an end to all this by now if it weren’t for the spells that Sarvoniere has woven over him.” 

            “Dark magic…exists.”  Faeryn found herself clinging to the minor points Byerron had said, as if trying to avoid thinking about the points he had made. 

            “Yes,” Byerron answered her.  “Somewhat.”  He came to a rest in front of Faeryn.  “The effects do actually exist, but they are not accomplished by the means told of in the folklore.  Spells are not composed of powerful words that work the magic themselves, but they are actually, in their truest form, prayers to summon up dark spirits, who then do what the magician asks.” 

            “So…the spells control the spirits.”

            “No.” 

            “Then…why do the spirits do what the magicians ask?”

            “Because the evil spirits are working to control the minds of men,” Byerron answered.  “Carrying out a task for a magician is a small price to pay for ruling over his mind.”

            Faeryn’s eyes went wide, and she shuddered. 

            “Sarvoniere’s mind is now almost completely controlled by those demons,” continued Byerron, “and that makes him very powerful, or rather, the demons are powerful through him.  What they will is what he wills.  And now that he has the ruler of Orotaek under his thumb, there is no end to the damage he can cause.”

            Faeryn rested her forehead against the bars.  Her strength seemed to suddenly have slipped away.  “Can anything be done?”

            Byerron sighed heavily.  “I tried,” he said, his voice filled with sorrow.  “I did.  I thought that perhaps I could convince the king.  He…he has listened to me in the past, when I came the other times to warn him of danger to the kingdom.”  Faeryn looked up at him, surprised at his sudden emotion.  He didn’t seem to be speaking to her anymore. 

            He raised his hand in the air.  “I thought…I thought that I could do it, and that he would listen to me.  I had this chance – I should have been able to convince him!  But I couldn’t.”  His hand fell to his side, and he hung his head in despair.  “I tried.  And now I’m here.  Now I can’t do anything.  I could be killed, for all I know.  Not many who have been imprisoned here have ever become free men again.”     

            Faeryn stood speechless.  She could not find any words to comfort this caged man, who had tried to stop the evil in the kingdom but had only brought trouble down upon his own head.  What could she say?  How could she do anything to help him?

            But perhaps there was something she could do.

            “I’ll get you out,” she said. 

            Byerron looked at her, startled.

            “I’ll set you free.  If you promise…”

            “Yes?” Byerron asked.  Hope had returned to his voice.

            “If…” Faeryn thought for a moment.  “Byerron, tell me about your god.”

            A far away look came into Byerron’s eyes, and light seemed to radiate from within them.  He stared over Faeryn’s head at the wall behind her, seeing neither her nor the wall of the dungeon, but something Faeryn could only guess at. 

            “Faeryn,” he said.  “I…it was…He…” the prophet groped for words.  “I cannot…I can’t find words that will convey…the power, and the love, and…oh!  The task is beyond me.” 

            “What…happened to you?  Just tell me that.” 

            Byerron relaxed somewhat.  “I was staying with the elves…”

            “Elves?” Faeryn laughed.

            “Faeryn, they’re real.  I swear to you, am not lying.”

            The princess stopped laughing.  She wanted to believe what Byerron was saying.  She had never been able to completely deny the existence of elves to herself, and she dared to hope that perhaps Byerron was not lying.  Her heart had leapt within her when he had mentioned them.  But she had to admit, it was easy to doubt a prophet when he started speaking of mythical beings. 

            “Where do they live?”

            Byerron hesitated in answering, and Faeryn could tell he was debating whether or not to give away the location. 

            “They live at the far end of the forest behind Mount Liathan.”

            “You mean…the Forest of Mist?”

            Byerron laughed.  “Is that what they call it in Orotaek?  I had no idea.  The elves call it Aenywroe, which means ‘jewel’ in their language.”

            “Aenywroe.”  Faeryn liked the feel of the name.  “So…you were staying with the elves…”

            “Yes.”

            “In…Aenywroe?”

            “Yes.”

            “What happened?”

            “Well…I was wandering in the woods behind the lake in Raendolin, when I came upon the entrance to this canyon.  I was curious, so I walked down the narrow path until I stood at the bottom of the canyon.  On both sides were steep cliffs, and the only way to get out was to go back.

            “I was just standing there, looking around me, when suddenly there was something like a great flash of light, and I fell down.”

            Faeryn gasped.  “What happened then?”

            “Nothing happened for a great while.  I felt that someone or something was near, and I waited for it to make a move.  I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move.

            “The waiting was so unbearable, and I felt so helpless.  When I could stand it no longer I cried out, ‘Please, take me!  I am helpless, and I would rather die now than starve.’

            “And then – and this is so strange, I can’t understand or explain it, even though it’s been years since it happened – I felt, as if out of no where, that someone was standing directly over me, but when I looked up I saw nothing.  At that moment I was so terribly afraid that I closed my eyes.  And then…”

            Faeryn stared motionless at Byerron’s face, silently begging him to continue. 

            “…I…I heard a voice.  It wasn’t like a normal voice, that you hear first with your ears and then inside your head, but it seemed to start from within my head and work it’s way outward to my ears.  The sound of it was deep like thunder, but it was melodious too, like the voice was more used to singing than to speaking.  I felt myself shaking.

            “The first thing it said to me was my own name.  ‘Byerron.’  As the voice said it, I felt that it knew everything about me.  I cowered in fear, as much as a man can cower when he’s lying on the ground and can’t move. 

            “ ‘Byerron’, it said again, and then it asked me, ‘why have you come?’ 

            “I didn’t know if I dared to respond.  It repeated the question, ‘why have you come?’ 

            “I saw that I would have to say something, and I responded, ‘I found the entrance to this canyon, and I came down to look at it.  I didn’t think I’d be intruding.’

             “I don’t think that was quite the answer the voice was looking for, so it asked another question.  ‘Why did you come to Raendolin?’

            “I replied that the elves had found me wandering in Aenywroe, and they had let me stay. 

”It asked a third question.  ‘Why did you venture into Aenywroe, leaving behind all you had ever known?’

            “ ‘I had nothing at home,’ I said.  ‘Everyone hated me.’

            “ ‘Why did you decide to go where other men dared not to go?’ it asked.  

            “ I replied, ‘I was tired with my life.  I wanted to find something…spectacular.  Something that was beyond the ordinary.’ 

            “The voice asked, ‘Did you find what you wanted?’  Now the question surprised me.  I thought that the speaker, whoever it was, would have figured out by now what it wanted.  I was tired of the questions.  They were digging deeper and deeper into my heart, and I didn’t like that.

            “ ‘I found the elves, didn’t I?’ I responded.

            “The voice repeated the question, ‘Did you find what you wanted?’

            “ ‘No!’ I shouted.  I was shocked by what I had said.  That response hadn’t been anything like what I had planned.  But I continued without stopping, as if I couldn’t stop.  ‘I didn’t find what I want,’ I said loudly, my voice echoing in the canyon.  ‘I thought that when I found the elves and saw all the wonders of Aenywroe, I would…I would feel different.  But I don’t.  I’m the same as I was before.  There’s nothing left for me, you see!  No matter how hard I search or where I travel, I’m never going to find something more spectacular than what I’ve seen!  I don’t know what I’m searching for, and I’m never going to find it!’  I was so scared by how blatantly rude I’d been, and I started weeping.  I hadn’t wept since I was three years old, and I thought I wasn’t able to anymore.  I dreaded to see what the voice would do to me, now that I had been so irreverent.  I had decided by that time that I must be speaking to one of the gods that I had learned about when I was young, and I was more terrified than at the start of the incident.  I waited to see what it would do to me.   

“It seemed like an eternity before the god spoke, and when he did, his answer nearly broke me. 

“ ‘You came to Aenywroe,’ he said, ‘because I drew you.’

“There was nothing I could say.  Every time I tried to speak, I choked on my own words, so I remained quiet.  I heard someone wailing in the canyon, and it wasn’t until I put my hands to my face and felt the tears that I realized it was me.  Faeryn, I have never felt so weak as I did at that moment, when he spoke those words.  In my mind I kept fighting against what he was saying.  My mind didn’t want it to be true, but I knew…somehow…I don’t know how…that he was right.  And you know, while part of me didn’t want it to be true, the rest of me longed for it to be true, in a way I can’t describe.  I struggled, and then gave up fighting with myself.  I asked the first questions that came to mind.

“’What do you want with me?  Who are you?’

“He answered the last question first.  ‘I am,” he said, pausing just for a moment.  “I am the one who created time, and I am the one who will end it.  I am the one who imagined the sky before any even dreamed of it, and I am the one who formed the stars out of light.  I placed the earth below the stars and gave it being, I shaped the waters of the deep and of the heavens.  I created the winds and the mountains, the forests and rivers, the plains and all green things.  I gave to the day the creatures belonging to the day, and to the night the creatures belonging to the night.  I gave life to the elves and the nymphs, to govern the earth and belong to it.  And,” he said. “I am the one who, when creation was nearing completion, breathed life and a spirit into humankind, to which you belong, for myself.’

“I trembled, Faeryn, as He spoke, and as he named each successive thing His voice grew louder and louder, and my shaking grew greater and greater until I was certain that I would never recover.  As he spoke the final words, ‘for myself’, I felt a thrill run up my spine, and I fell flat on my face. 

“ ‘Lord of the Universe,’ I screamed.  ‘Do what it is you want with me!  Please do not delay my death, if that is what you wish!’

“He did not respond immediately, and the skin on my back tingled, waiting for something to happen.  When he finally did speak again, his voice was like a whisper, whereas before it had been louder than thunder. 

“ ‘Byerron,’ he said.  ‘Be not afraid.  I am the one who made you, and who knows more about you than you yourself ever will.  And I know that you desire me, because that is the way I made you.  Do not be afraid.  I create no desire that I do not fulfill.  I love you like a father loves his son, and I am going to guide your steps.  I love you, Byerron.’

“I don’t really know what happened after that.  No one had ever told me that they loved me before.  I recall vowing that I would serve the Creator of the Universe with my whole life, but that memory seems distant to me.  All I could really think about was the fact that the God had said he loved me.”

Byerron looked up at Faeryn for the first time in a while, and he stared at her in an odd way.  Faeryn suddenly realized that she had been crying, and that Byerron must be seeing the tears streaking down her face.  She wiped her eyes, and Byerron continued: 

“He told me things, Faeryn, wonderful things, some of which I can’t even describe to you.  He told me to remember all of them.  I can’t recite them all to you now, but whenever there is a need for them to be spoken, they come back to me as if I had just heard them. 

“When He was done instructing me, he told me that I was to be his prophet, and that He would show me what to do.  And He commanded me to seek Him, and to look for Him in unexpected places, and He said that He would always be near me, wherever I went.  After that He told me to go back to the house of Anwyr, so I did, with great reluctance.

“I was afraid to tell the elves about my experience, so I didn’t say anything for a while.  But Anwyr could tell by my appearance that something tremendous had happened, and after a time he took me aside and asked what had happened.”

“Who is Anwyr?” Faeryn asked. 

“He is the lord of the elf dwelling of Raendolin,” Byerron replied.  “He befriended me when the elf scouts first found me and brought me to Aenywroe.  I don’t really know why.”  Byerron gave a half-smile.  “He has almost been like a brother to me.  I can’t really explain how it is.”  He shook his head, as if trying to clear his poor explanation out of the air.  “Anyhow, I eventually told Anwyr the whole thing, and he said that the elves had knowledge of the One and worshiped Him, but he also said that none of the elves had ever spoken with the One as I had.

“ ‘The Holy One has set you apart to be special,’ he said.  ‘I am anxious to see what will come of it.’

“After that, I stayed a long time with the elves, and then began to wander into the countries of men.  I have always felt the presence of the One God with me since the day that I first met him, but not always as strongly.  A few months ago I was staying in Raendolin when I felt that He was near, and He told me to come to Orotaek and tell the people about Him.  I came, and I saw that the people were oppressed by the worship of these false gods, and since I had advised your father several times in the years of my wanderings, I went right away to speak to him about it.”  Byerron sighed painfully.  “I didn’t expect things to be so bad – with your father, I mean.  I knew that Sarvoniere was gaining a hold, but I didn’t realize how strong it was until today.”  He bent over, discouraged. 

“Take me to see your God,” Faeryn said, her words appearing suddenly, as if out of thin air. 

Byerron stared at her.  “Take you to see Him?  He’s not a sightseeing attraction, you know.”

“No,” Faeryn said, her excitement growing.  “Not like that.  Take me to where you met Him.  Maybe He will speak to me like He spoke to you!” 

“Faeryn, I’m not sure…” Byerron fumbled for words, uncertain.  “You…you know, he set me apart to be a prophet.  I don’t know if He would speak to you in the same way.”

“But He might,” Faeryn said, pounding the bars in her excitement.  “He might!”  She thought quickly about the situation.  “I could set you free, and you could take me to Raendolin.”

“Travelling alone?”  Byerron shook his head violently.  “No.  I couldn’t do it.  It wouldn’t be right.” 

“Please!” Faeryn said. 

“No,” Byerron said, stepping backward from her as if she were a crazed woman, his face clearly expressing that he was against the idea.  Then his expression softened and his eyes refocused.  Faeryn felt that he was staring through her instead of looking at her.  Neither of them spoke for several minutes.

“Yes,” Byerron finally said, startling Faeryn.  “Yes.  You will let me out, and I will take you to Him.” 

Faeryn drilled Byerron with a stare, trying to get him to explain why he had changed his mind, but he said nothing about it.  Eventually, after waiting to no avail, Faeryn spoke.

“I will do what I can to get you out.  I don’t have any guarantees about how successful I will be.”

“That is fine,” Byerron said.  “Do what you can.”  He bowed to her.  “My lady.”

Byerron obviously thought the conversation was over.  Faeryn wished to keep speaking with him for hours, but, since she could find nothing else to say, she gave a nod to Byerron and strode back down the dungeon corridor, pondering everything that Byerron had said.  She barely noticed the when guards bowed to her as she exited the dungeon. 

It may be late, but Faeryn knew tonight’s work was not done.  

Copyright 2008 Cherise A. Do not reproduce at all without my express permission. If you like what I do, you can link to me instead.