Caellamore deLavierre

The horizon was still pink from the sunset when Caellamore deLavierre finished the last stroke of her sword drills. She wiped the sweat from her brow and shook the moisture from her deep red hair. She gave a few stretches before sheathing her sword–a 5-foot two-handed sword that was so thin and tapered that it looked like a giant’s rapier. Caella twirled the sheathed sword and tapped the tip on her boot.

Things were going to change starting midnight. Everything.

 

***

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Master Seishiro was testing his sword, tapping it with a small hammer. The fine Kara-Turan katana hummed softly with each tap, a sound that the old swordsage found extremely soothing. Just as he was about to sheathe his sword, a series of angry yells erupted from the next room.

The old swordsage looked up from his work and peered into the training room.

Caellabianca deLavierre was furiously slashing at a training dummy with her practice sword, yowling like an angry wildcat with each stroke. The 16-year old’s forms were graceful and dexterous, noted the old master as he studied his apprentice’s movements. Still, the swordsage couldn’t help but shake his head as he sensed the deep anger in Caella’s voice.

“Caella.”

The girl stopped in mid-swing, shaking the sweat from her hair.

“Sensei,” she said, bowing in the traditional Kara-Turan formal manner of greeting.

“Are you still upset?”

The girl hid her eyes.

“I keep thinking about that night, master. Horses thundering over the horizon. Black-cloaked men breaking into the house. Black-bladed swords, smoldering with green fire. Papa and Mama falling on the floor, cut into pieces…” trailed off the girl as she choked back her tears.

She screamed as she threw the wooden sword she was holding at the dummy with all her strength. The wood quivered in the center of the dummy’s chest as Caella collapsed onto the floor.

“Caella,” whispered the old man calmly as he knelt down beside the sobbing girl. “This is why I taught you my sword wisdom. It is not an outlet, not a mere conduit for rage. The Diamond Mind is a transformative discipline, turning chaos into order, fury into focus. “

“But…but..” blubbered the girl. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“It’s not a matter of forgetting it,” replied the old man. “Take that memory that you see. Grasp it. Take hold of the faces of your father and mother.”

The girl closed her eyes, still half sobbing.

“What do you see?”

“I remember that the last expressions on their faces before they died.”

“What were they?”

“They did not turn to face their attackers. They turned back to me. They were smiling.”

“Excellent. Take that memory and send it deep into the earth. Beneath the blackness of the Underdark, into the fires at the very center of Toril. Into the fire of your soul, into the pressure of your focus. Turn that memory into a diamond.”

“It is…frozen forever, sensei.”

“As it should be. It isn’t a matter of forgetting about it. It’s a matter of seeing that memory the way it should be seen.”

The old man stood up, smoothing out the creases in his robe.

“Thank you, master,” Caella said with a bow.

“Thank your parents for the memory,” replied the old man without looking back.

***

Caella did find the meditation successful. She was sleeping peacefully for the first time in a long time, and her dreams were pleasant recollections of her frolicking in the wheat fields of her father’s land with her father and mother. They had often gone out on picnics, eating bread so hot it was painful to touch, spread with blueberry jam that glistened in the sunlight like jellied sapphires and butter that would glow like Lathander’s sun had it been any more golden. She felt the strong grip of her father as he hoisted her up to the sun, calling her in Chondathan “my white heaven.” Caellabianca.

Her mother’s laughter rang out, filling the morning–and Caella’s heart–with unspeakable joy.

Then came the sound of thunder. It was a low rumbling, coming from the horizon with black clouds. Caella’s parents did not stop smiling.

The thunder came loud, crashing over and over again–until Caella realized it was not thunder, but the sound of horses.

The rasping scream of metal being drawn from leather followed, along with the blaring cry of battle trumpets. Black flags flew over the golden fields. The horses came closer, and warriors in black, glossy armor rode over the small family. Swords met flesh. Flesh gave way to blood and bone.

Caella awoke screaming and realized that the thunder of hooves was still there even if she had already stopped dreaming.  With a start, she drew a sash around her loose night robe and ran for the training room while calling out her master’s name.

“Master! Master Seishiro! Sensei!” she cried as the angry orange glow of torches flickered outside.

Stumbling into the training room, Caella picked up one of the swords that hung from the wall of the training hall. Just as she looked towards the door, she realized it was wide open, and Master Seishiro was standing outside.

The old man was calm as usual, his long white hair loose and billowing in the angry, hot breeze that blew through the Heartlands that night. Caella walked up to him, trembling.

“Caella, if you want to be of any help to me, draw your sword now.”

“Sensei, I…”

Three black-armored warriors strode up to the old swordsage, each carrying a short sword and a huge shield. Behind them was a fourth man; a tall, imposing Chondathan who wore a red-trimmed black tabard over his polished obsidian armor. The black fist of Bane was embroidered in great detail on the tabard.

“The Zhentarim demands information, old man,” said the man in a tabard.

“I would gladly school your warriors in my art,” replied the swordsage.

“Pah! We have no need for your training,” spat Tabard Man. “Our warriors can take you on without any trouble.”

Caella heard only the click of her master loosening his katana from its sheath. Before she could see him move, Master Seishiro was already done with the stroke, standing with his legs wide and his blade in the air. The   three foot soldiers crumpled to the ground, their armor and weapons clinking as they fell.

“You may insult me, but you shall not insult the Diamond Mind,” whispered the old man as he sheathed his katana once more.

Caella was awestruck. She had never seen Master Seishiro use his abilities in actual combat.

Tabard Man’s face crumpled into a frown. He walked forward, imperious, undaunted.

“I only want you to tell me where the daughter of Earl Agathion deLavierre is.”

“She died with her parents.”

Tabard Man held up his right fist, and whispered a few words in a black and foreign language.

“You may lie to me, old man. But you will not lie to the Black Lord.”

A roaring pillar of green fire surged down upon the old man. He pivoted out of the way as the flamestrike scorched the ground and singed his robes and hair. As he regained his composure, the old man stood up straight, held his blade before him with both hands, and closed his eyes.

“Oh? Is the old fool praying to his own gods?” snarled Tabard Man. “No god can save you from the hand of Bane.”

“Learn the power of the Diamond Mind, Caella,” whispered Seishiro. 

The cleric raised his hand to the sky once more, but Seishiro’s eyes were open once more. The old man lunged forward, his sword singing as it sliced through the air. There was a brief snapping sound as the blade struck Tabard Man’s breastplate, splitting it cleanly in half along with his breastbone and heart.

Seishiro pulled out the sword, flicked off the blood and sheathed it–all while Tabard Man fell onto the ground with a heavy thud.  The ranks of soldiers stepped back, given pause by the old man’s power.

Then the echo of an unearthly neighing pierced the sky.

Caella looked up and saw  a ghostly white horse racing across the black above, its hooves and nostrils trailing ghostly blue fire. A nightmare.

The horse swung low, and seated on its back was a warrior, clad in black armor with gold devices. The warriors cape was white, matching the spectral color of the steed. The knight was slender but not any less menacing. In fact, there was something about the warrior’s eyes that caught Caella by surprise. They were green, much like hers–except they seemed to flicker ever so slightly, as if like dying pieces of charcoal.

The nightmare came to a halt beside the corpse of Tabard Man. The rider back cocked his helmet’s visor–the image of a face twisted into a grimace of pain and misery. Caella then realized that the rider was no man. The rider’s dun brown hair was short and cropped like a pageboy’s, but her face was chiseled and fine. Her eyes were not dampened by the ivory glow of her skin–their green fire burned angrily as she stared down Master Seishiro.

“Old man,” said the rider. “I am Scyllua Darkhope, emissary of the Zhentarim Highlord, Fzoul Chembryl.”

“I wish I could say it was my pleasure to meet you.”

The rider’s frown deepened and her brow creased.

“I take it you are not willing to cooperate with us.”

“You are wise enough to be such as I,” said the old man. “But your soul is blackened through and through.”

“I take that as a no.” Scyllua’s tone darkened dangerously.

“Master,” whispered Caella.

“Every word I say against you is merely an echo of ‘no,’” said the old man as he turned back to Caella. The young swordswoman knew what would happen next. Master Seishiro would smile, and the rider would take his head off.

But he did not smile. An expression of unfathomable sorrow creased the old man’s face.

In the silence of those brief seconds, in the impenetrable calm that unites all disciples of the Diamond Mind, in the great flow of energy that binds all adepts of the Sublime Way–Caella knew why.

Master Seishiro saw her future. He knew that his death would break her spirit. The diamond would shatter.

Metal rasped as the mounted blackguard drew her bastard sword.

“Bane take you, you old fool.”

The sword flared green, green as the cleric’s flamestrike, green as Scyllua’s eyes. The same green flames that killed her parents.

Caella closed her eyes as she heard the sword bite into the old man’s neck and the sickening thump of the disembodied head as it rolled onto the floor. She did not want to open her eyes. She did not want to see what Master Seishiro’s dying eyes would tell her.

“Girl,” whispered the woman blackguard. “Who are you?”

“Caella…more.”

“Caellamore?”

“Yes.”

“‘Black Heaven.’”

Caella nodded, her eyes still closed.

“You’re a strong girl,” said the blackguard.

Caella heard the clink of Scyllua’s visor closing.

“The Black Lord could use someone like you,” continued the woman. “But you’ll probably just mourn for your dead master for the rest of your life.”

Caella choked back tears, trying to ignore what the blackguard said.

“Men, torch the house. Targaraene!” yelled Scyllua as she spurred her nightmare. “To the sky!”

The twisted horse let loose another unearthly whinny and took to the air. The black-armored warriors surged forward, pushing past Caella as she collapsed to the ground. A cold, mailed fist struck the girl in the face and dropped her to the ground. Caella kept her eyes closed. She refused to see what was going on. She refused to see her master dead. As her consciousness drifted out of her body, Caella swore to her dead master that the diamond would not shatter. The diamond would only become harder in the baleful green flames of Bane. The diamond would become sharper, and it would pierce the black heart of Scyllua Darkhope.

***

Caella drew her hood over her head as she mounted her horse, a coal-black mare. She gazed off into the distance. The ominous lights of Zhentil Keep glowed in the distance.

“It’s time, Hardeneth. I will have my revenge. And I will become stronger than Scyllua.”

The horse gave a snort.

“She is the picture of what a warrior should be. But I will become more than her.”

 

 

 

 

 

~ by J. R. R. Flores on October 14, 2007.