Chapter 6: Ghaldor

Ghaldor rubbed at his beard as he watched his Hero walk towards the open door where the maid was waiting. He ignored her wave to him, instead turning his attention back to the throne. The king was watching the girl leave, his lips set in a grim line. The old wizard wasn’t sure what Alcor was thinking, he had always proven to be a very hard man to read. In his twenty years of service, he had never managed to guess once what was on the king’s mind. Thus he had no idea what the man had thought of his Hero.

As soon as the door closed behind Amelia, King Alcor turned to his advisors. “Thoughts?”

“Was this a joke?” Of course, Duke Hatcher would be the one to speak first. He had been the biggest critic to Ghaldor’s plan and saw any minor complication as a victory for his side. “That child is no Hero! To parade her around like one is an insult to all of us!”

“Don’t tell me you don’t believe your own eyes?” Ghaldor sneered. “You were there at the ceremony. You saw her appear in that blaze of light. My process works! I have taken the very foundations of magic and advanced our knowledge by a thousand years! I have replicated a process that up until now only the gods themselves could perform! I have summoned a Hero!”

Hatcher looked ready to scream back a reply, but before things got louder Duke Reynard cut in. “No one here is denying the fact that you summoned a Hero, master wizard. Our physicians tested her themselves and have confirmed that yes, the divine blood does flow through her veins.” The thin nobleman pushed up at the silver spectacles he was wearing. “What we are questioning is the quality of said Hero.”

“You doubt my work?” The wizard directed a fierce glare at the duke.

“Enough, Ghaldor,” chastised the king. The old man backed off, taking his heated gaze away from Reynard. “We are certain that your work is irreproachable. You have summoned for us a Hero, and for that we applaud you. But you must admit, old friend, that upon meeting the girl, she does raise some valid concerns.”

“Yes,” said Reynard. “Her physicality for one. I doubt she’ll be very good in a fight.”

Hatcher snorted. “I doubt that waif can even lift a sword!”

“Her appearance is irrelevant,” Ghaldor stated firmly. “So are her physical limitations. Remember the Child Hero, Chen. Only eleven summers old was he when summoned, yet he was able to defeat the Dark Lord Rashorr single-handedly. When speaking of Heroes, it is their power that matters, nothing else!”

“Speaking of powers,” the king said. “Do we know what hers are?”

“Not yet,” the old man answered. “I don’t know when her powers will manifest, either. Though I very much doubt that she will be another Fool like the one in Pengloth.”

The king frowned. “And we can’t officially announce her to the world until she gets her powers.”

“Of course not,” Hatcher grumbled, shaking his head. “We’d all look like idiots if we debuted a Hero with no powers.”

“Why not? Pengloth did,” remarked Lord Roche, earning a few chuckles from everyone.

There came a lull in the conversation, and Prince Callion took the opportunity to speak. “That girl. I had not been convinced on this matter, and I am now even less so after seeing her in person. She seems quite timid and afraid. Qualities that no true Hero would possess. I don’t think it matters what her powers are if the girl is too gutless to use them. I think she’d no sooner run from a fight than stand up against our enemies.”

Ghaldor gritted his teeth as he listened to the boy prattle. As the Prince had gotten older his father had urged the boy to speak up during the meetings he attended. It was all part of the boy’s education, Alcor would tell him. He wanted Callion to have the confidence to speak his mind so that when it was time for him to rule, he would be able to stand up to any of the powerful families who may try to use him.

Which was all very well and good, except for the fact that Ghaldor thought the princeling to be a complete idiot. Every time the little fool spoke up, it was either to express something completely obvious or spout out some childish opinion. The wizard had absolutely no confidence in the brat’s ability to rule. In fact, all he saw when looking at the boy was an ineffectual king in the making.

“The Prince makes a good point,” Alcor said, nodding towards his son. “The girl does seem rather… meek.”

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Ghaldor sighed, rubbing his forehead in annoyance. “I must admit that, for a Hero, Amelia seems quite innocent. Childish, even.” Truth be told, his own patience had almost been worn down by the girl’s constant bouts of weakness. “She has led a sheltered life. She’d been bedridden for most of it, due to some sort of illness or another.” At least, that’s what he was able to piece together from the girl’s babbling rants.

“She’s ill?” Duke Hatcher blurted out. “Are you trying to say that you summoned us a lame Hero?”

“Of course not!” The wizard tried not to roll his eyes at the man’s idiocy. “The physicians that examined her all agree that she is in perfect health. The summoning cured her of whatever ails she may have had from the other world.”

“Well that is good,” Lord Roche said. “But it still leaves us with the problem of a weak-willed Hero.”

“I see it not as a problem, but a boon,” Ghaldor stated. “Her weak will makes her easy to control. She is like a child, easily led. We will definitely not have another Hero Oliver on our hands.”

The king nodded, as did many of his advisors. None of them wanted a repeat of what the Hero Oliver had done in Scepter.

The queen gave out a small cough, a signal that she wished to speak.

“You have something to add, my love?” The king asked.

“Yes.” Queen Mirgette looked down at the assembled lords, a collection of the most powerful men in the country, and met each of their eyes unflinchingly. “As distressing as our Hero is, she is not the main concern we have at the moment. Our focus should be on the nations of the Alliance, and what they will do when they hear of what we’ve done. They, who have lorded over all other nations due to their monopoly on Heroes, will not be happy when they learn that their main advantage is ended.”

Reynard nodded. “Her Majesty is right. News of the summoning has already spread as far as Nisher. It won’t be very long until the Alliance hears of it.”

“Bah, what can they do?” Ghaldar scoffed. “They’re too late! We’ve already summoned our Hero.”

The king remained pensive, though. “Do you think they’ll go to war?”

“I very much doubt they’ll go that far. The Alliance armies haven’t fully mobilized in over nine hundred years!” Duke Hatcher said. “Besides, even if they do, such a blatant act of aggression would get the other non-aligned nations to unite against them.”

“They might put trade restrictions on us,” Lord Roche added.

“It wouldn’t amount to much,” Reynard said. “We’ve had a bountiful harvest this summer. We have more than enough grain to last us the year. As for other necessities, well, there isn’t anything the Alliance can offer us that we couldn’t get from other places.”

“Still, we should remain cautious,” the queen stated. “The Alliance nations haven’t survived for this long by being stupid. We must remain ever vigilant if we are to counter any schemes they may throw at us.”

The gathered lords nodded, taking the queen’s words to heart. Afterward, there were more discussions about matters that did not concern Ghaldor so he barely paid any attention to them. The old wizard merely tapped his fingers at his side, waiting impatiently for the blasted meeting to end. He had other things to attend to. Work that needed to be done. How he longed to be away from the prattling of the court and be back to the silence and solitude of his workshop. He had so many new ideas to try, so many lines of inquiry to follow. Every second wasted here was valuable time he could be using to improve his process.

And yes, even though his process had succeeded magnificently, it could always be improved upon. That was something he had learned early on in his long life. In order to achieve true greatness, one should never stop striving for it. With him summoning a Hero, Ghaldor had achieved a feat only the gods were capable of. But he knew with the utmost certainty that he could do more. So much more.

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