The Hidden One - chapter one
Opening of a new fiction. Hope you like it.
The Palace was falling to pieces; how long ago had he left? An hour? Two hours? It hadn’t been very long. But they all knew in their hearts that the Prophecy had come full circle. Their beloved tyrant of a King had been killed. The Wizard’s first rule had been used against him. The magic of Orden and his own sorcery had been used against him.
The King was dead.
D’Hara was in ruins.
And all had been peaceful what seemed like mere moments before. Than again, it had most likely only been mere moments before.
Women were running, screaming; mobs of resistance would be storming the palace soon. It wouldn’t be safe for innocents to stay in the Peoples Palace. Not now. Not now after the magic of their master and their protector had been melted away. Shattered by the Seeker. Children were crying; they might not have known why, but they could all feel the change in the atmosphere. They could feel the change in the Peoples Palace. In the Kingdom. In their very hearts.
Darken Rahl might have been a tyrant. He might have been a brutal murderer of children and all who were innocent. But, Darken Rahl had already proven himself in other ways. He had always kept the people protected from dark magic (other than his own, but most were ignorant of what their King was capable of). He had always been exactly what he said he was; a power-hungry monarch who would go on whatever the cost.
But the cost had finally proven to be too much for the tyrant. The prophecy that they thought had been averted, had in fact come full circle.
He stood in the middle of the panic, looking around in in shock. His blue eyes widened and his brows raised. His mouth slightly agape. All around him people were fleeing; fires were starting to rage where lanterns had been knocked from their pedestals. The only saving grace against the fires reaching him or any of the others, were the marble floors. Only the spilled embers could burn. Children everywhere were screaming and crying. Yet every thing seemed as though he were watching it through the water; time was seeming to stand still.
And then specific crying caught his attention. The young child’s shrill wails cut through his very soul. He closed his eyes tightly. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her the truth about what had happened to the King. Her father. But he knew he had to be the one.
He turned quickly on his heel; the cranberry velvet of his skirts swished as he dashed back the way he had come when the commotion started. Back out of the line of sight before any potential invading resistance members could see him. Back through the white marble of the hallways he ran, dodging the people that ran from the heart of the palace towards the exits. Towards their supposed freedom. He dodged them all as best he could as he headed back into the depths of the palace. It was not so incredible of a distance, but the mob was keeping him back. They recognized him, they knew him. They paid him no attention. And it didn’t matter. Because all that mattered was the crying princess that the rest of the Palace had completely forgotten and abandoned.
He finally ripped the doors of the King’s Chambers open. Though he expected to find her in the adjoining nursery, where she always slept, he found her instead curled up in her father’s bed. Crying her blue eyes out. Her pale honey coloured hair was in tatters and knots from her rolling, tossing, and turning. The tears stained her cheeks. The sight of the princess broke his heart. Though for him, unlike her father, that was not a hard feat to accomplish.
Princess Elianna looked up slowly when she heard the door of the grand room open. Her tears were still heavily falling, but when she saw his outline she started to relax. Her crying turned instead to sniffling hiccups as she reached out her tiny hands to him. She was still crying as he ran to her and quickly wrapped his arms around her. He held her close; hugging her as tightly and as desperately as he could while he pet her long hair. “Princess”, he breathed softly into her ear as he hugged her. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her.
But Elianna hugged him all the tighter. Her tiny arms wrapped around his neck and her fingers tangled in the locks of his dark hair. Her voice came weakly, and wrought with tears. “Daddy!”, she buried herself father and closer into his shoulder and breast.
Walter didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was her father’s double and not her father. At just under three years of age she had never been told. Her father, Darken Rahl, had not seen the point in telling a child so young. He had been confident that if one of them had to die, that it would be Walter and not he. That he and his daughter would escape. But, it was not so.
Walter’s heart was too big and too kind for his own good. There wasn’t an evil bone, or even a unpleasant muscle in his body. It was always working against him, yet he could not change his outcome. Nor would he choose to.
There was no way he could tell the infant what had happened to her father, so he merely stood with her in his arms and hugging her for many long moments. With her in his arms the world seemed to calm. The waters of turmoil settled to glass and everything was as it should be. At least in those few precious moments when he could forget that he was Walter. Just Walter. Just the double of Darken Rahl.
Walter kept a hold of Elianna for what seemed like hours. Maybe it was hours. He wasn’t sure of the passage of time anymore. Not when the little girl was locked in his embrace. His mind quickly shot through all the possibilities. They could flee together, and he could raise her as a normal child. Pretend she was not of Royal blood. She could be his daughter, and he could be Walter. Just Walter. No one had to think he was Rahl. Not if they ran far enough. His heart leapt with excitement. There was nothing that he could ever want more. Not in all the world. And it wasn’t the thought of not being mistaken for the D’Haran brute either. The thought of raising Elianna energized him; he would do anything for the little girl, including going to the ends of the earth. There was nothing he would have loved more than to raise her and be her father and always be with her.
Elianna was after all half of her mother as well as half of her father. It was not the Rahl side that made Elianna sweet and loving. It was her mother’s side.
Walter had always admired Calanthe, even if it had to be from afar. The woman had been on of Rahl’s Mord’Sith, and though Walter was normally terrified (to the point of whimpering at the mention of them) of the faction of tactically trained torturers, Calanthe was different. In Calanthe there was still beating a good heart, even if it was hidden under the layers of ice that coated it and the leathers that protected it. Calanthe, above all her sisters, was kind to Walter. Maybe not the same sort of sweetness that the man himself had, but she was forgiving and made exceptions for him. Explaining to Father Rahl that Walter was with her for breaking every time that he tried to stay away from his master. She would simply claim that she beat him for it, and Rahl would believe it. Though both Mord’Sith and double were sure he was suspicious of their relationship.
Walter would have loved, beyond all else, to raise Elianna himself. But as he held her in his arms their reality flooded back to him. He was not her father. Her own father, their once illustrious King, was dead. Murdered by the Seeker. And Walter was, for now, free. Though he didn’t see how that would at all be possible with his face as it was. He sighed deeply, stroking the infant’s long hair as he held onto her. He knew that with the fall of the D’Haran empire, the Resistance would come to the Peoples Palace. By the hundreds, beyond those that were already storming the stronghold. And he knew that when the Resistance came, they would learn of his existence. Should he be found out, the Seeker himself would come to put an end to Darken Rahl once more. Even if he, Walter, was not Darken Rahl.
Even if they could somehow escape together, the other realities began to set in. Without Rahl he was nothing. He would have no income except for whatever meagre earnings he could turnover with his old tricks once again. But now with the real King gone, that line of work was clearly a danger.
Walter drew a deep breath, hugging Elianna all the tighter. With a heavy heart he made up his mind. There was only one chance for Elianna. Only one that meant she would live a normal life, and grow up happily oblivious to all the pain of her kingdom.
If she was sent away without her father, or any man that may happen to resemble him. Without any true knowledge of who or what she was. Without any reminders for her to learn in the future. He could not have her starting a war of vengeance against her brother, the Seeker. Richard had, after all, only done as he saw right. It had after all be the right choice. Good had to triumph over evil. Yet that was a hard mouthful for even Walter to swallow. Yes Rahl was evil. Yes he was brutal and unkind. But even though he had experienced it all first hand, he, unlike the Seeker, knew that there were more than just the general people of D’Hara that counted upon their King. Just what would Richard have done if he had known of Elianna? Would it have changed his mind? Or would he have come after her next?
Walter set her down upon her father’s bed once more. Letting the little girl settle into place (though she was not pleased with having to let go of her Daddy). As she sat watching him, the double quickly pulled a small wooden chest from beneath the grand bed. It was empty, and it was small, but it would do enough to carry the little girl’s most precious items. He sped about the room, and the attached nursery gathering up her plainest clothes and folded them quickly. They were more a tangle of cloth than any decently folded garments, but Walter didn’t care. Elianna only watched curiously as her father moved about like a man possessed.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?”, she looked up with her big blue eyes which were full of concern, as she gripped onto her slightly ragged toy bear. She looked through the space between his ears.
Walter paused in his erratic folding and packing, to look up at her. His eyes were sad but he tried to hide it from her. “Nothing Sweetheart, don’t you worry!”, he tried his best to keep the emotion out of his words, but he failed as his voice cracked and heightened a pitch. He turned back to his task, looking around desperately before his eyes finally fell upon it. It was so simple. Right out in the open.
A book bound in leather and red velvet. Decorated by gold. It was the grimoire which her own father, Darken Rahl, had penned for her before she was born. It was a record of all of his darkest and most powerful spells. Yet in the pages were strong spells of love and protection; the ones he wrote only for her. So that she might ever be protected should anything ever happen to her. Call it the foreboding sense of impeding doom, but it had certainly proved right in the end.
Walter grabbed the book and quickly tossed it in amongst her clothes; hiding it in the middle of the layers. Elianna watched confused, but said nothing until Walter bolted the straps and picked her up in one arm. He carried the small chest in his other arm.
“Daddy what are you doing?”, Elianna whimpered, holding onto him all the tighter. She feared that with only one arm around her that he might drop her.
Walter made no effort to answer her, only moving quickly through the palace. He found the woman he was looking for, just before it was too late. Ammie, the Kitchen Maid, and her husband Todd. “Ammie!”, he had to shout to get her attention over the commotion of the horses and people who all sought to leave the Peoples Palace. To leave D’Hara.
The woman, with her long red hair, turned quickly once she heard her name being called; the horses stomped their hooves impatiently. Todd glanced towards Walter, but he knew who he was. They all did. The sight of the double was nothing to them. It was clear to them that he was not the real Darken Rahl. Ammie turned to look at him, “what is it?”
“Elianna. You have to take her with you! Please! You have no child of your own and she’s going to need parents to raise her. I can’t do it.”
Todd gave Ammie a long and slightly dark knowing look, but Ammie turned back to the double and the child in his arms. The weeping child who was clutching onto him. After a moment she nodded her head, “of course!”
Walter’s heart both seemed to lighten, and to sink. On one hand, Elianna would grow up safe in the arms of a loving mother and father. On the other, he would have to let her go. And she did not know the difference between himself and her own father. It would crush her, almost as much as it was going to crush him. He turned to the weeping little girl in his arm, as Todd took Elianna’s chest from him.
“Daddy no! Please! I’ll be good I promise!”, she wept uncontrollably, hugging him all the tighter. His heart was shattering passed what he ever thought was possible. “No Elianna, it’s not safe for you. You’re in danger but you’ll be safe with Ammie and her husband. I promise!”
“But you’ll come back for me, right? Right Daddy?”
Walter’s eyes softened, his brows furrowing in sorrow. He shook his head a little, “I am sorry Sweetheart, I would if I could hunny. But if you’re with me you’ll be in the danger I am trying to keep you from. So I can’t ever see you again. You’re safer without me.”, Walter lifted her and sat her on the bench of the cart, beside Ammie, between the woman and where her husband Todd would sit.
Elianna started to bawl, reaching out for her father. But Walter knew well enough he had to break the tie. Even if it was killing him to do so. He stepped back, the cold winter wind running it’s fingers through his dark hair as he raised his hand to brush back the locks. The child was screaming she was crying so hard for him. Todd ignored her completely as he climbed up the cart and took the reins. With a heavy jolt to the leather straps the two horses were off and running.
Walter was left to watch the child he always wanted to be his, scream and cry for him as they faded out of each other’s view. Her cries and screams echoed on through the night for some time after he had lost sight of her. And when they finally ceased to reach his ears, he stood there still. He stood there till the dawn finally started to breech the horizon, and then he turned his back sadly. Wandering back into the Peoples Palace.
The Palace was falling to pieces; how long ago had he left? An hour? Two hours? It hadn’t been very long. But they all knew in their hearts that the Prophecy had come full circle. Their beloved tyrant of a King had been killed. The Wizard’s first rule had been used against him. The magic of Orden and his own sorcery had been used against him.
The King was dead.
D’Hara was in ruins.
And all had been peaceful what seemed like mere moments before. Than again, it had most likely only been mere moments before.
Women were running, screaming; mobs of resistance would be storming the palace soon. It wouldn’t be safe for innocents to stay in the Peoples Palace. Not now. Not now after the magic of their master and their protector had been melted away. Shattered by the Seeker. Children were crying; they might not have known why, but they could all feel the change in the atmosphere. They could feel the change in the Peoples Palace. In the Kingdom. In their very hearts.
Darken Rahl might have been a tyrant. He might have been a brutal murderer of children and all who were innocent. But, Darken Rahl had already proven himself in other ways. He had always kept the people protected from dark magic (other than his own, but most were ignorant of what their King was capable of). He had always been exactly what he said he was; a power-hungry monarch who would go on whatever the cost.
But the cost had finally proven to be too much for the tyrant. The prophecy that they thought had been averted, had in fact come full circle.
He stood in the middle of the panic, looking around in in shock. His blue eyes widened and his brows raised. His mouth slightly agape. All around him people were fleeing; fires were starting to rage where lanterns had been knocked from their pedestals. The only saving grace against the fires reaching him or any of the others, were the marble floors. Only the spilled embers could burn. Children everywhere were screaming and crying. Yet every thing seemed as though he were watching it through the water; time was seeming to stand still.
And then specific crying caught his attention. The young child’s shrill wails cut through his very soul. He closed his eyes tightly. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her the truth about what had happened to the King. Her father. But he knew he had to be the one.
He turned quickly on his heel; the cranberry velvet of his skirts swished as he dashed back the way he had come when the commotion started. Back out of the line of sight before any potential invading resistance members could see him. Back through the white marble of the hallways he ran, dodging the people that ran from the heart of the palace towards the exits. Towards their supposed freedom. He dodged them all as best he could as he headed back into the depths of the palace. It was not so incredible of a distance, but the mob was keeping him back. They recognized him, they knew him. They paid him no attention. And it didn’t matter. Because all that mattered was the crying princess that the rest of the Palace had completely forgotten and abandoned.
He finally ripped the doors of the King’s Chambers open. Though he expected to find her in the adjoining nursery, where she always slept, he found her instead curled up in her father’s bed. Crying her blue eyes out. Her pale honey coloured hair was in tatters and knots from her rolling, tossing, and turning. The tears stained her cheeks. The sight of the princess broke his heart. Though for him, unlike her father, that was not a hard feat to accomplish.
Princess Elianna looked up slowly when she heard the door of the grand room open. Her tears were still heavily falling, but when she saw his outline she started to relax. Her crying turned instead to sniffling hiccups as she reached out her tiny hands to him. She was still crying as he ran to her and quickly wrapped his arms around her. He held her close; hugging her as tightly and as desperately as he could while he pet her long hair. “Princess”, he breathed softly into her ear as he hugged her. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her.
But Elianna hugged him all the tighter. Her tiny arms wrapped around his neck and her fingers tangled in the locks of his dark hair. Her voice came weakly, and wrought with tears. “Daddy!”, she buried herself father and closer into his shoulder and breast.
Walter didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was her father’s double and not her father. At just under three years of age she had never been told. Her father, Darken Rahl, had not seen the point in telling a child so young. He had been confident that if one of them had to die, that it would be Walter and not he. That he and his daughter would escape. But, it was not so.
Walter’s heart was too big and too kind for his own good. There wasn’t an evil bone, or even a unpleasant muscle in his body. It was always working against him, yet he could not change his outcome. Nor would he choose to.
There was no way he could tell the infant what had happened to her father, so he merely stood with her in his arms and hugging her for many long moments. With her in his arms the world seemed to calm. The waters of turmoil settled to glass and everything was as it should be. At least in those few precious moments when he could forget that he was Walter. Just Walter. Just the double of Darken Rahl.
Walter kept a hold of Elianna for what seemed like hours. Maybe it was hours. He wasn’t sure of the passage of time anymore. Not when the little girl was locked in his embrace. His mind quickly shot through all the possibilities. They could flee together, and he could raise her as a normal child. Pretend she was not of Royal blood. She could be his daughter, and he could be Walter. Just Walter. No one had to think he was Rahl. Not if they ran far enough. His heart leapt with excitement. There was nothing that he could ever want more. Not in all the world. And it wasn’t the thought of not being mistaken for the D’Haran brute either. The thought of raising Elianna energized him; he would do anything for the little girl, including going to the ends of the earth. There was nothing he would have loved more than to raise her and be her father and always be with her.
Elianna was after all half of her mother as well as half of her father. It was not the Rahl side that made Elianna sweet and loving. It was her mother’s side.
Walter had always admired Calanthe, even if it had to be from afar. The woman had been on of Rahl’s Mord’Sith, and though Walter was normally terrified (to the point of whimpering at the mention of them) of the faction of tactically trained torturers, Calanthe was different. In Calanthe there was still beating a good heart, even if it was hidden under the layers of ice that coated it and the leathers that protected it. Calanthe, above all her sisters, was kind to Walter. Maybe not the same sort of sweetness that the man himself had, but she was forgiving and made exceptions for him. Explaining to Father Rahl that Walter was with her for breaking every time that he tried to stay away from his master. She would simply claim that she beat him for it, and Rahl would believe it. Though both Mord’Sith and double were sure he was suspicious of their relationship.
Walter would have loved, beyond all else, to raise Elianna himself. But as he held her in his arms their reality flooded back to him. He was not her father. Her own father, their once illustrious King, was dead. Murdered by the Seeker. And Walter was, for now, free. Though he didn’t see how that would at all be possible with his face as it was. He sighed deeply, stroking the infant’s long hair as he held onto her. He knew that with the fall of the D’Haran empire, the Resistance would come to the Peoples Palace. By the hundreds, beyond those that were already storming the stronghold. And he knew that when the Resistance came, they would learn of his existence. Should he be found out, the Seeker himself would come to put an end to Darken Rahl once more. Even if he, Walter, was not Darken Rahl.
Even if they could somehow escape together, the other realities began to set in. Without Rahl he was nothing. He would have no income except for whatever meagre earnings he could turnover with his old tricks once again. But now with the real King gone, that line of work was clearly a danger.
Walter drew a deep breath, hugging Elianna all the tighter. With a heavy heart he made up his mind. There was only one chance for Elianna. Only one that meant she would live a normal life, and grow up happily oblivious to all the pain of her kingdom.
If she was sent away without her father, or any man that may happen to resemble him. Without any true knowledge of who or what she was. Without any reminders for her to learn in the future. He could not have her starting a war of vengeance against her brother, the Seeker. Richard had, after all, only done as he saw right. It had after all be the right choice. Good had to triumph over evil. Yet that was a hard mouthful for even Walter to swallow. Yes Rahl was evil. Yes he was brutal and unkind. But even though he had experienced it all first hand, he, unlike the Seeker, knew that there were more than just the general people of D’Hara that counted upon their King. Just what would Richard have done if he had known of Elianna? Would it have changed his mind? Or would he have come after her next?
Walter set her down upon her father’s bed once more. Letting the little girl settle into place (though she was not pleased with having to let go of her Daddy). As she sat watching him, the double quickly pulled a small wooden chest from beneath the grand bed. It was empty, and it was small, but it would do enough to carry the little girl’s most precious items. He sped about the room, and the attached nursery gathering up her plainest clothes and folded them quickly. They were more a tangle of cloth than any decently folded garments, but Walter didn’t care. Elianna only watched curiously as her father moved about like a man possessed.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?”, she looked up with her big blue eyes which were full of concern, as she gripped onto her slightly ragged toy bear. She looked through the space between his ears.
Walter paused in his erratic folding and packing, to look up at her. His eyes were sad but he tried to hide it from her. “Nothing Sweetheart, don’t you worry!”, he tried his best to keep the emotion out of his words, but he failed as his voice cracked and heightened a pitch. He turned back to his task, looking around desperately before his eyes finally fell upon it. It was so simple. Right out in the open.
A book bound in leather and red velvet. Decorated by gold. It was the grimoire which her own father, Darken Rahl, had penned for her before she was born. It was a record of all of his darkest and most powerful spells. Yet in the pages were strong spells of love and protection; the ones he wrote only for her. So that she might ever be protected should anything ever happen to her. Call it the foreboding sense of impeding doom, but it had certainly proved right in the end.
Walter grabbed the book and quickly tossed it in amongst her clothes; hiding it in the middle of the layers. Elianna watched confused, but said nothing until Walter bolted the straps and picked her up in one arm. He carried the small chest in his other arm.
“Daddy what are you doing?”, Elianna whimpered, holding onto him all the tighter. She feared that with only one arm around her that he might drop her.
Walter made no effort to answer her, only moving quickly through the palace. He found the woman he was looking for, just before it was too late. Ammie, the Kitchen Maid, and her husband Todd. “Ammie!”, he had to shout to get her attention over the commotion of the horses and people who all sought to leave the Peoples Palace. To leave D’Hara.
The woman, with her long red hair, turned quickly once she heard her name being called; the horses stomped their hooves impatiently. Todd glanced towards Walter, but he knew who he was. They all did. The sight of the double was nothing to them. It was clear to them that he was not the real Darken Rahl. Ammie turned to look at him, “what is it?”
“Elianna. You have to take her with you! Please! You have no child of your own and she’s going to need parents to raise her. I can’t do it.”
Todd gave Ammie a long and slightly dark knowing look, but Ammie turned back to the double and the child in his arms. The weeping child who was clutching onto him. After a moment she nodded her head, “of course!”
Walter’s heart both seemed to lighten, and to sink. On one hand, Elianna would grow up safe in the arms of a loving mother and father. On the other, he would have to let her go. And she did not know the difference between himself and her own father. It would crush her, almost as much as it was going to crush him. He turned to the weeping little girl in his arm, as Todd took Elianna’s chest from him.
“Daddy no! Please! I’ll be good I promise!”, she wept uncontrollably, hugging him all the tighter. His heart was shattering passed what he ever thought was possible. “No Elianna, it’s not safe for you. You’re in danger but you’ll be safe with Ammie and her husband. I promise!”
“But you’ll come back for me, right? Right Daddy?”
Walter’s eyes softened, his brows furrowing in sorrow. He shook his head a little, “I am sorry Sweetheart, I would if I could hunny. But if you’re with me you’ll be in the danger I am trying to keep you from. So I can’t ever see you again. You’re safer without me.”, Walter lifted her and sat her on the bench of the cart, beside Ammie, between the woman and where her husband Todd would sit.
Elianna started to bawl, reaching out for her father. But Walter knew well enough he had to break the tie. Even if it was killing him to do so. He stepped back, the cold winter wind running it’s fingers through his dark hair as he raised his hand to brush back the locks. The child was screaming she was crying so hard for him. Todd ignored her completely as he climbed up the cart and took the reins. With a heavy jolt to the leather straps the two horses were off and running.
Walter was left to watch the child he always wanted to be his, scream and cry for him as they faded out of each other’s view. Her cries and screams echoed on through the night for some time after he had lost sight of her. And when they finally ceased to reach his ears, he stood there still. He stood there till the dawn finally started to breech the horizon, and then he turned his back sadly. Wandering back into the Peoples Palace.