Chapter 19: A Summons

 

19

"How would the idea of a light lunch sound?" The streets were busy, but most of the local cafes seemed to be relatively quiet as we passed by.

"Sounds like a good idea Olive. Lead the Way! As a local, I'm sure you know the best places to eat."

Continuing along the high street, Lottie had a spring in her step. The burdens she had been carrying appeared lifted after our long conversation earlier this morning. She had her necklace on again, concealing her true elven self from everyone around us. Not that I minded. She had her reasons. Smiling to myself, I replied, "Yup, I think I know just the place."

The cafe I had in mind was just outside of the shopping district. It was my favourite place to go for a large filling breakfast or lunch; they were also one of the company's oldest partners, so I was well known amongst their staff.

Rounding the last corner, the cafe came into view, there was a small amount of seating outside, consisting of small round wooden tables and chairs. Above it a red canopy hung out from the stonework, shielding the area from the sun. A few people sat drinking tea and eating. This view was interrupted by a guard calling out to us from behind.

Turning around to face him, "Excuse me. Would you be Ms Olive Blackheart?"

"Uh, Yes that would be me. Why are you asking?" Both Lottie and I were a little on edge, it wasn't usually a good thing to be called out by the King's Guard. Let alone chased down by one.

"We received a notice this morning, requesting your presence at Edgeton castle. Lord Barstoke has ordered your summons." Pulling out a scroll from his waist "I came to your residence, but was told I had just missed you." Clearing his throat he handed the now unrolled paper over to me. It read pretty much as he had explained.

"If you would please come with me. If you refuse, action will be taken by force."

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Looking at Lottie, I reassured her that I would be fine on my own, sensing her worry, before following the soldier towards the castle.

I highly doubted they had summoned me due to the incident a few weeks ago. But there was always the possibility. I would have assumed though, that they would have asked simply to come to the house and taken me far sooner if that were the case. In the end, I concluded it would have something to do with business. No other logical explanations seemed to come to mind.

The weight of my situation did finally hit as we passed through the front gates of the royal residency that towered, heavily guarded, in front of us. Swallowing my unease, I let an air of confidence surround me, in the hope that it would make me seem less guilty. If I was even guilty of anything in the first place.

"Wait here to be called forward," the guard said, walking off without further explanation. Looking around, I now stood just inside the main entrance lobby to the building. Two Staircases reached upwards to the left and right, and in the centre, a large wooden double door loomed at me. "Surely this can't be good" I whispered to myself.

I'd never heard of a commoner being summoned before the lord, except in cases of severe punishment or heroic acts. Unsure of if anything I had done in the last year could be deemed as either, all I could do is wait to be called forward.

-

Taking a seat on the stairs rather than standing, I decided to get out my notebook and continue working on cracking the cipher I'd been working on in my free time. The code I was deciphering was contained in the last chapter of the book I bought from Sandon back when I was three. It had helped me to learn the languages of the continent, as well as teach me all of the current progress in translations of ancient texts and symbols. The final part of the book had proved as more of a challenge. 'The ancient mana ruins'. These ruins were scattered all across the continent, eight of them in total, each exactly equidistant from the centre of the disc, at 1600 kilometres. Why these existed was a mystery, there are many theories as to when they were built and by who. The widest belief is that they were constructed tens of thousands of years ago by the ancient civilisations and the gods that once ruled over them. I'd read extensively into the topic and found little to no information about them at all; this left me with the hope that the book would contain the answers. If not, I would go and find them myself. Progress had been slow on the code so far, even after years of dedication, I wasn't much closer to working out what was written. There were points I would be sat surrounded by open books trying to find a way to make sense of the mysterious writing to no avail.

I was currently working on a different approach. Trying to translate it from structure, symbols, word length by comparing it to other codes seemed pointless; instead, I was in trying to reverse engineer it by creating as similar a version to it as possible. Over the last ten months I'd been through so many  alternative ways I'd lost count, each one becoming more and more complicated each time. I was still a long way off from my goal.

A sudden creak broke me free from my state of focus. I looked up and watched as the large double doors creaked open slowly. The sheer size and weight of them created a wind that blew past me as they displaced the air before them. At their base, footsteps echoed as a short man in a long robe stepped forward,

"The Lord will See you now. Please follow me."

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