Since the former citizens of Illyrium had arrived at this kingdom, without a finished wall surrounding the land, no one dared venture beyond their doors after the sun went down. The streets had been silent at Ikarus, not a hint of movement. The construction was ongoing. Families slept in turns with usually one member staying awake to keep an eye and ear out for anything suspicious. They were shaken by the atrocities they had witnessed. That secure feeling the people of Illyrium had shared for decades was shattered. After the attack the Graleons had sent knights to assist in the protection of the new capital of Men during the last stages of the build. But the presence of the knights of Grale wasn’t enough to calm the paranoid terror. Most soldiers traveling beyond the land of Ikarus were robbed of their weapons and whatever food they carried by displaced looters. But only recently the new capital felt its first tremor of darkness. Several children went missing from the orphanage, vanishing from their own beds under the watch of Ikarus and Graleon soldiers.
The Ikarus castle and temple had already been completed when the survivors of Illyrium had arrived after the sack. Most of the villages were finished. But since the kidnappings, stone masons and carpenters had doubled their efforts, working through the nights, rain or snow, to finish the wall. They had set up a road of logs that stretched from the nearby forest to the western gates, where strong men pulled huge pieces of timber and giant stones across the rolling lumber with thick ropes. To the older men, who had worked with Burton Lang long ago in masonry, the stones felt much heavier since Burton was no longer around to levitate them.
In the past, the process of lifting large material began with chanting. Burton had brought master masons and singers together to teach them the power of sound, so that they could collaborate on creating giant structures. He’d scouted out the most beautiful voices in the kingdom, male and female, to participate in this ceremony. Once the group had locked onto a specific key, their harmonized voices produced a wave of vibration, making tons rise from the ground. Hovering, the stones were like feathers for men to maneuver with nothing more than the touch of a finger. Burton would point his wand at piles of stones and arrange them into place without ever laying a hand on a single one. Constantly amazed, the builders had thought that it was the chanting alone that made the stones rise. But when they had attempted this levitation in Burton’s absence, it didn’t work. Craftsman had tried to mimic him; shaping all kinds of wands in hopes of achieving the same effect. But Burton seemed to possess something that the builders didn’t have.
Today marked the completion of the kingdom’s outer wall as the last stone was laid. Surrounding five square miles of land, rocks weighing up to nine tons each were stacked ten feet high. The kingdom sat on the highest plateau, overlooking Illyrium Island. Its location guaranteed a flood-free existence.
Bankers at the Merlin Crown, the central bank and treasury for all three kingdoms hidden beneath the Mern islands, provided a stockpile of silver coins to the builders of Ikarus for good food, fresh clothing, new tools, and the strongest building material available; sparing no expense. The goal had been to create a new empire that was not only extravagant, but also impenetrable.
Montague was given a new job and a new title at Ikarus. Nearing fifty years of pushing his body to its limit farming crops, he was now financially secure. No more did he need to worry about tax collection. Olivia, the former princess, became queen and appointed the farmer as voice of the council and maintained their secret arrangement that kept him as her private healer. She was now the last living Volpi.
It was considered a blessing to the people that a descendent of the creator survived—a miracle. Without Volpi blood walking the planet, people of Volpik faith believed that the world would end, falling into sin. And attendance at the new temple had been growing since the establishment of Ikarus. People looked forward to the next generation of Volpis to be born and they prayed for the long life and good health of the queen.
In Montague’s current position as the council speaker, there was no more raking, or digging, or pruning, or planting; his hands became much softer now. He’d retired from hard labor. Now, the world demanded his reading, writing, and speaking skills. Although he didn’t talk with a sophisticated accent like royals, he felt much more comfortable shaking hands with people of high class. He already had good relations with the common folk, as he did with the leaders of all three kingdoms. They very much appreciated his medicine. That established relationship with foreign powers influenced the queen’s decision to also name Montague ambassador to Grale and Mern.
Behind his public duty, the cultivation of his rare herbs and spices was complicated. Whatever made them grow must have been in the soil at his farm. The running water of the Noahl and Origon rivers packed the land between with so many rich nutrients. Maybe, Montague thought, that was why the herbs were so powerful; they extracted such a high concentration of minerals from the ground converting them into healing properties.
Although the source of the recent food-borne illness had been removed from the farms, the queen was still experiencing an extended wave of headaches and hallucinations. Olivia needed a dose of nutwood and pigroot three times a day. These herbs still grew in Montague’s fields near the ruins of Illyrium, but Ikarus men had been killed in previous efforts to acquire them. The exiles were still violent and engaged any civilized party passing through the free land, as
