Writer : Avery Brighton

A Spring in the Desert.

Chapter 1

The City

The Free Ports of the West, an alliance of free democratic cities, were the ideal place for merchants and sailors who were in search for employment in this prosperous for the human era.
There  you could also hear the most bizard stories from all around the world of men and even elves some times.
One of the most widespreaded was about Callera the mysterious city of eastern Kasmia.
Her rocky valleys in the Shadow Mountains had  conquered from the ‘’Red Serpent'',an empire located in the northern lands near the Grey Islands.
Sixteen years before was the last independent kingdom before the vast Yellow Waste a dessert so large that nobody knew where it ended.
The city placed in the eastern slops of the mountain and separated in three levels by old and half destroyed now stone walls.
Only the pale cyan exterior wall was now still in his place and full with bastions and impressive turrets near his three main entrances.
The conquerors had decorated the main gates with four  gigantic statues carved in hard black granite.
The statues was the new male gods that the Usurper King ,as the people called him,tried to impose to the locals.
This gods was different from the peaceful female deities of the past in this ancient matriarchal religion and society.
This hideous deities required blood and even human sacrifices at times to satisfy their needs.
They also promoted the idea of the men or male generally supremacy  over the female living beings ,human or not.
And the new masters of the city guided by the the Dark Council ,a notorious religious sect,  valued only power and of course violence.
The city was also one of the few water sources in the area.
Inside the city was also a very interesting place to explore for the travelers and merchants that came with rich caravans from the dry plains west of the mountain rangrang
The  houses and public buildings were constructed usually from the same cyan stone or marble as the exterior walls and the latest were usually very old and impressive.
At least the ones that survived after the terrible siege not many years ago.
The city’s well preserved roads was usually crowded during the day, in this so important for the trade roads city.
Buzzing markets sheltered with arcades and large warehouses were everywhere.
But each night the streets was empty.
The rules was strict and clear.
Only the soldiers of the emperor had the permission to use  the streets at night and only for patrols.
And this to prevent any citizens who could possibly attempted  something unlawful during the night.
In the western side a large dark fortress with many turrets projectile from his main bulk spreaded a large threatened shade in the houses above.
It was the notorious emperor prison and now the governor headquarters that few dared to approach.
Heavy armoured warriors  guarded the near by streets and watched with cold eyes every one who approched.
They all had the two headed serpent as emblem in their red coloured breastplates and armour.
In the left side of the main square which the was the largest market located a three floor white building.
A large artificial garden in rooftop could been seen from the main street.
The garden was full with purple and cyan flowers that their were extremely rare and grown only in some isolated areas of the eastern dessert.
It was the home of Asha the most successful and rich woman in the city.
Together with her sister Tamika she expanded her family merchant business in almost all the southern east part of the empire.
She was also the head of merchant conference a small elite of rich citizens who even the high ranking officials respected.
The sisters were originated from one nomadic tribe who settled in the city many years before.
But they had gained their economical power and influence in cooperation with the new rulers of the city and that made them unpopular among the common folks.
Asha was dark skinned with long raven hair and as most of her tribe people tall and lean in body.
She was an attractive voluptuous woman.
But her grey eye’s was shinning with cunningess and it was well known that her incomes was not only from conventional trading.
A huge demand for slaves started to appear in the continent.
And her business didn’t delayed to expand in this field to.
But not without problems from the people that still tried to stop the  shameful trade.

Chapter 2

«She is like moon who fell in love with the blue night and shared all her light …»

Imran Sheikh

The Queen

In the southern edge and in a more quite part of the city was a palace relatively small in comparison with others palaces of the empire.
A small forest of large magnificent palm trees was next to it.
Connected with it with a long colonnade corridor was a large three floor library with rare papyrus and books.
There the knowledge of centuries had saved from the governor destructive intentions almost two years before.
The governor saw this knowledge as a long term threat to the empire stability.

And then began a campaign of destruction of whatever promoted  knowledge to the people.

The palace and its surroundings was the last sanctuary of the young Queen Sermona the VIll.

Despite the various threats that she faced the young Queen had managed to protect some of her people’s and herself from total enslavement.

Until now …
As long as the emperor consider her useful to kept her alive.

He could easily gave her in his commanders as common slave girl like many others previously noble women’s in her city.

She was a graceful and clever woman. And very beautiful indeed.

With long brown hair which shimmered like a lake in the moonlight as her people said often in the chronicles about her.

Her almond shaped green eyes was like pools of bejewelled water ,as the scholar’s described her and her smooth complexion was like the ruthless sun of the dessert hadn’t touched her in her life.

A slight cinnamon scent was always following her presence in her private or official meetings with the peoples of the city.

Sermona despite her royal long purple dress which enveloped her body was an obviously well shaped woman.

Her cleverness, education and charming but noble behaviour wasn’t something that could be passed unnoticed from the governor Sard himself.

He was a tall man with stern face and dark grey eyes that seems as it could look inside your thoughts when he stared at you.

Wearing usually his leather armour and accompanied by his broad shielding mercenaries bodyguards was imposed his authority with only brutal force.

He had the real and main power in the city after the Queen’s capital captured by the imperial army.

He was known not for his wisdom but for the beautiful slave women’s who possessed from every corner of the empire.

Many of them were noble in blood but became slave girls after their cities captured in return for their family’s lives.

Sermona was still managed to survive and remain free in a more and more difficult political scene.

She wasn’t tall like her mother but she always kept her royal demeanour which preserve the respect from her remaining servants.

One of her main porpoises now was to stop the slave trade from expand in her beloved city and she used every influence that she still had to stop it.

But every time that she was outside of her palace she was not safe.

She couldn’t even protect her own younger sister and princes Velana.

Velana was also graceful and pretty as picture girl with dark hair and emotional light brown eyes from her father side as they said.

She was known as one of the most educated woman in the city despite her young age.

In her eighteen years she had more knowledge than most of the scholars of the city and she was wittier from every man of the palace.

But two years before she lost her in a sudden ambush after a visit of them to one of the city’s public officials.

She was kidnapped by the governor brother Estar and his masked horsemen’s just outside the palace.

The kidnappers target was her but the last moment she managed to sleep away with her horse Safir.

But her sister was not so lucky.

She still remembered the masked man taking her in his horse with her hands tied behind her.

She desperately called her name but it was nothing that she could do then …

Eventually the emperor learn the incident but her sister was taken as a hostage from him in his palace in Zahara.

The Haram

The foreign women in the palace lived in special restricted area in the hurt of the city called «Haram».

Valena was hostage but as many other girls she was used as a slave girl.
They  kept her in the emperor’s  slave’s rooms where many other young and beautiful  girls , usually kidnapped from all over the empire , were slept also.

The girls all in age of nineteen or sometimes twenties was working, eating and sleeping together.
Girl’s with brownie like mocha skin and light black eyes from south kingdoms like her and blond ones from the north.

They lived in this luxurious rooms with fine food and drinks often given to them in bed from other slave’s.

Usually children slave’s or male servants of lower social classes.

The girls could also choose their own personal servants from them to assist in their everyday needs.

They provide them with the best silky clothes and perfumes from all over the empire for the events.

They also often received gifts like jewellers or precious stones from the emperor himself.

Each one of the girls had her own bathhouse heated with underground pipe’s and decorated inside with cyan marble and silver.

Other , male usually slaves or servants worked at nights to prepare the water for them.

The slave girls was also educated more than the free men of the city and definitely more than in their previous life.

They learned them writing and reading in the local hieroglyphic alfabet.

Singing and dancing was part of their everyday education also.

The new environment appeared attractived and many of this girls especially from poor families started to believe that perhaps this fate wasn’t so bad after all.

Some they tried to gain the favour of their masters doing things against their own «sister’s» as they cold each other.
Snitching and backstabbing was usual inside the Haram.

And the punishments for the girls that accused for even the smallest mistake was severe.

But despite their privileges the women weren’t free at all.

It was golden cage.

These beauties especially those who came here recently where all chained together in small groups with fetter’s in each of their left ankles every night.

They slept next too each other under the watchful eyes of their guard’s.

Even the women who were years in the palace were locked in their rooms at night and shackled with the same way as an reminder of their status.

There rooms had no windows and the heavy doors was locked most of the time.

All of them wore the same purple shift dresses and where bare footed ( as this was the rule for slaves in all the inside halls of the palace ) .

Some of them gain the trust of their masters with their obedience.

And after one year this women used as supervisors of the other girls in the palace.

The most beautiful of them became one of the many wife’s of the emperor or his younger brother’s.

Other girls married some of the others public officials or officers and
Gained some of their freedom’s in this way …

Velana never made any friendships there.
She knew that her sister had escaped and hoped that she could help  her.
But as the mouths passed by it became clear that her sister couldn’t free her.
She couldn’t even reach her by letters.
Valena isolated herself from the other girls and her only thought was to escape.

Her escapes however ended only with her captured again few hours later.

Then they usually shackled her again in an isolate room for almost all day.

She didn’t find any way to pass the guard’s and the dozens of servants who guarded every door in the Haram.
Soon she felt into disfavour.
Now her everyday life was too assist the maids of the palace in some of their light works and serving the soldiers of the emperor in their feasts.

Others girl’s usually danced in front of the guests or sang songs in many of the celebration’s and gatherings.

But princess pretty feet was always chained in her ankles with a thin shackles to prevent her from her sudden escapes attempts.

The guard’s new now how fast she could ran and kept her away from the other woman’s as punishment for her indiscipline behaviour.

But in her good luck she was still too precious for the emperor to be punish like the opposite gender male slave’s.

Sometimes the captured lither beauties where working outside in the famous roof gardens of the palace.

The city was one of the two main capitals cities of the Imperial state this year’s.

Inside the double high reddish walls off the city heavy armed warriors and archers in the towers we’re watching every movement of the citizens.

The slaves there were almost half of city’s population and rebellions wasn’t uncomon.

She realised however that it was impossible to escape.

But her free spirit never stopped thinking how she could gain again her freedom .
Her people will not abandoned her she thought every night with her eyes brimming with tears.

Only they and her sister  could freed her from her chains perhaps paying more ransoms or exchanged her with another hostage ,she often thought looking the new women that arrived each day.

But her own beauty was her saviour and her doom.

The emperor never allowed pretty girls like her to be released so easily.
Even in exchanges between the war prisoners she was excemted.

The Queen’s Loss

Her sister, the Queen ,was devastated by the lost of her beloved sister.
The fact that she couldn’t do anything to take her back made her fell even more helpless and unsafe.

Her fury and sadness was unbearable and for days she didn’t came out from her chambers.

From this day she didn’t went outside as a Queen, disguised herself as a common woman in order to avoid another attempt.

Her palace was the only safe place that she could find.

It was built with almost clear cyan marble and with tall thin turrets in each of his four corners.

A double line of cyan tall and thin colonnades surrounded it all around.

Four bronze statue’s of griffons was seated as ancient guards in the wooden entrance doors.

Many human sized black statues of past Queens and priestess of the previous generations decorated the arcades in front of the main entrance.

The palace was still famous for it beautiful woman’s dancer’s that still lived in the palace hall’s protected from the outside word.

But now the old matriarch system has been replaced by the emperor strict governor rule who cruelly explode every wealth from her and her citizens.

His rule started fifteen years before after the siege and the following defeat of her few outnumbered soldiers that consists the city’s garrison.

The treason of her own mercenary guard’s in one of her gates followed next.

The last few loyal female warriors of the Queen was the royal archers of the palace, the Asalinas.

This women were from noble families of the east and trained to become archer’s and mounted messengers in the service of the Queen, for life.

But even this brave women’s was killed except few who retreated with her Queen in the second level of the city until the total surrender of the capital.

The emperor Garhelm has allowed only the symbolic existence of the Queen from ever since.

Now she was restricted in her own palace but with her own people inside at least.

She was not even allowed to go outside the city without the governor decision.

Mercenaries patrolled the outside streets ensured that no escape attempt will be possible.

The history of her family and the events that followed after the siege was known to all the citizens.

The famous for her beauty mother Sermina Vll decided defeated to deliver the city keys to the victorious emperor to prevent more bloodshed and suffering of her people.

Sermina was then young and innocent and with no experience about the emperor’s dishonour and cunning mind.

The people that still remembered her said that she was just her daughter …same dark hair ,and crystal green eyes.

The negotiations was seemingly ended with the promise from the side of the emperor that no violence or enslavement will took place in her people.

Also he gave her his word that the Queen’s royal family and herself will be remaining safe and free to leave their palace if they surrendered peacefully .

Few days after the peaceful surrender of the city the Queen was sleeping in her quarters still in her palace which was by the agreement a permanent asylum.

She was still in her night dress when suddenly she was arrested and taken with the rest of her royal family.

The emperor men chained the helpless queen with shackles in her hands and ankles in front of her sister’s and her last supporters.

There the white dressed Quinn forced to take an oath that she will excepted any conditions and even slavery from the Hermadians in order to protect the lives of her people’s from immediately execution.

The Queen’s cousins and other nobles was almost all enslaved and transferred in prison’s in distant place’s.

Her last remaining Asalinas tried to escape with the queen’s daughter and some servants from secret underground tunnels.

But somehow their enemies anticipate this attempt and they all captured just outside the city’s walls.

The governor imprisoned all the captured Asalinas in the city castle.

Nine of them were very beautiful ,as he observed, among them their  leader the blonde Hermina.

  Hermina was sackled as the other girls  with golden chains in their ankles and wrists.

- I will spare the life of your sisters …and in return i want your love …,he told her.

In order to save her sisters the helpless woman excepted with tears in her light blue eyes.

And she was taken in one of his luxury mansions outside the city and  became his wife.

Chapter 3

The Ritual

And from this day it was decided that every new Queen when she was ready to took the place of her mother she should be forced to show her submission to the empire.

This year the ritual performed in the spring as Sermonas mother still passed away from a sudden mysterious illness.

The empire himself visited her and he sat in the forbidden for her ancient silver throne of the palace.

She was wearing only her light night dress as the previous queen and took off her sandals which symbolise her old agreement scene.

Sermona stood in front of the main royal hall doors with her bare knees in the smooth wooden floor.

Two soldiers chained her hands and then her bare feet with silver ankle shackles.

The same chain’s which used in the previous queen fifteen years ago …

After the king summon her and she walked towards his throne.

She kneels in front of him.

If the emperor is satisfied from her she requested his permission to rule her palace as before as a vassal queen.

After her dismissal from the emperor she returned in her quartets and prepared the funeral of her beloved mother.

She was alone now.

«She is a ray of sunshine . a rain of warm summer . a bright fire of a cold winter’s day .»

Imran Shaikh

Chapter 4

The gift of the city

The strange ritual was not the only change which came with the conquest.

Strange new deities demanded human sacrifices became the main religions in the city.

One small forest , oval in shape that located near the eastern gate was the spiritual center of this religion.

It was artificially created and surrounded with a tall brick wall all around its perimeter.

Thick willows was almost the only tree in this mysterious forest .

In the deepest part of the forest there was a cave.

Around her entrance were black sculptures with animals or mythical creatures in different sizes carved in the hard stone hundreds of years before.

This was the holy temple of the city’s new deities.

And in front of it another dark opening like a giant well.
It was the Ice spring.

The waters of the spring was shinning this night.
It was a full moon again.

This springs were the life source of the city and her surroundings villages.

There every full moon thirteen white young girls where gathered in silence.

But this time was different.

Something very important was about to take place there.

The girls with purple dresses down until their knees and white ribbons in their heads were waiting in a circle.

They were all barefooted and in their
Ankles silver anklets decorated their elegant skin.

They stood in a tight circle next to the main path waiting in absolutely silence.

Then three of them who had strange black iron bracelet’s in their wrists stepped back and sat leg crossed in the grass.

Some men hooded with grey robes appeared from the trees and sat behind them like watchful guard’s.

Then as if someone gave an invisible sign to them the rest of he girls started walked with light steps towards the hurt of the forest in a single line.

They sang softly their melodic choir’s which was the only sound echoed in this mysterious and forbidden place during the twilight.

They were the priestess of their dark dainties.

The dainties temple was inside a deep cave which entrance was next to the Icy Spring.

There each night they gathered in circles waiting for the white full moon to reappear bleaching in the night sky.

The priestess was divided in two strictly separate classes.

Nine of them are always from noble the families of the city and there were the high priestess.

But dispute their status they usually didn’t were more than twenty five years old and never less than nineteenth.

They had to be mature women’s to became priestess.

They all chose for their beauty and indeed before most of them were wanted bribes for many rich and powerful persons of the city’s Council.

And many of this girls avoided an unpleasant marriage and devoted to their religious duties.

Until at least they reached twenty five years of age.
Then the period of their religious service ended and weren’t safe from their admirers any more.

By the rules of the temple they had to leave there place’s because other girls was also waiting their turn.

But the second rank of them was four which was always slave girls.

This girls were often kidnapped from the northern borders by the Slave Hunter’s or they were from enslaved families who were quite a lot of them in the city now.

But also free young women who travelled with the caravan’s and entered the city often disappeared under mysterious sircumstances.

Slave Hunter’s this days has started to became more and more bold as the authorities allowed their profitable activities.

The second ranked priestess was also very beautiful and dressed similar with the others but they didn’t serve a lot of time like their «sisters» as they call each other.

And that because at times one of them has to scarified to the deities and a new slave girl took her place soon after that.

And that’s was something that no foreigner visited the marvellous city knew about …

Two weeks before a slave girl named Selena was chosen.

She was unknown to the most of the other young women there.

And she was from the North.

Selena was graceful with all the elegant characteristics of the girls from her distant nation.

She wasn’t tall but slender in body and with long brown hair falling to her white shoulders.
Her large emerald eyes was a rare characteristic in this eastern lands.

Her only garment was a light blue dress which reached down until her lower knees .

Her eyes was shadowed darkly like the eastern women of the dessert tribes.

But looking carefully in her white complexion bruises from rough hand’s marked her limb’s.

Her eyes only opened sometimes looking emotionally with an perplexed way around.

She was clearly half drugged possible from some kind of strong herbs.

One tall but wan man was white dressed like a priest but he had the hard stern features of a soldier.

He carried the brunette in his arms towards the temple entrance and around them the rest of the priestess with their sad choirs filled the silence of the night.

The girl mouth was gagged with a black cloth .
She souldn’t disturb the ritual.

Her bare feet was also restrained .
They tied up tightly her ankles with black leather straps.

This straps kept her feet only few inches close to one another.

They had tied her up and kept her drugged in her bed almost two days.
Now her time came at last.

A thin metal chain wrapped around her waist kept also her hands close to her body.

The man approached the entrance of the cave.
There an oval shaped casket was placed down in front of him.

Blue silk covered the inside of it like a soft blanket.

The casket was opened awaiting quietly the helpless woman to fill the gap inside it like a hungry dark mouth.

The man placed the girl softly inside and tied her again with leather straps across her white shoulders and lower calf’s inside the casket.

Then the dark mouth closed slowly and entrapped it’s victim.

It was the end.
The hideous deities has gained another servant for them.

The casket was taken by two dark dressed slaves who silently pushed it in the dark waters of the spring.
The water hungrily devoured the cascet and the pale girl gone with it.

Epilogue

Many centuries passed until the realms became free again from the tyranny of the empire.

But position of the poor men and women , children and slaves weren’t improved a lot after the period of the conquest.

New difficulties appeared for them in every step and her glorious line of Queen Protectors had extinct by then.

But they continued to hope that one day according to the prophecies the period of the  peace and  happiness will be return.

And perhaps  under a new ruler with a totally different idea for the people right for happiness in life.