The Whitestar Queen.

Chapter 1. The Stone in the Water.

This is a tale from long ago and in a world very different from ours. But it is still a story with dangers and threats, so to listen to it will require great courage.

Merim grew in a very small village, her grandparents told her that it was once a kingdom, and the village still lived within the walls of the kingdom, but the buildings were old and broken down. The building was made of rock and squat, crisscrossing the inner walls like a spiderweb with small gardens and pastures in between.

She learnt about everything from her grandparents, her parents had died when she was very young.

She brought a pot full of water into the small shack she lived in with her grandparents, on her way she said hello to all her friends and neighbours. She stopped as she found a camel lying in the shade, panting heavily as it was very thirsty. Feeling sympathy for the animal, she grabbed an old bowl and poured some of the water from the pot before she headed back towards her home and entered the shack.

She saw her grandmother sitting on a chair weaving some clothes for her. She loved the clothes her grandmother made, they were always so soft, beautiful, and shielded her from the harsh sun and strong winds.

‘Come here,’ her grandmother called, her old and wrinkled skin curving as she gave a soft smile.

Merim took the clothes her grandmother gave her; they were delicately knitted and on it were animals dancing around. It went beautifully with her curly black hair.

‘I love it!’ she said and hugged her grandmother.

Latter her grandfather came home carrying some thin strips of meat. ‘I’ve got today’s lunch.’

Merim looked at the thin meat and frowned. ‘That’s not a lot.’

‘It isn’t,’ her grandfather sighed sadly. ‘It’s getting harder to find food or water, the desert is spreading each day. When I was your age, you could play for miles outside the walls without ever touching sand. Now, they’re half buried in it.’

‘What was it like before the desert?’ Merim asked, she knew the stories but loved to hear how he told them.

‘Well,’ he sighed as he took a seat. ‘Back then there were great kings and queens and they lived in palaces, far bigger palaces than the old, broken ones here. And all the kingdoms united to become the Great Empire Above-the-Mountains. Back then the deserts were small, and water flowed freely from the mountaintops. We were even friends with the men across the sea, they wore heavy suits of armour and were strong, like our warriors.’

‘But then what happened?’ Merim asked.

He shook his head. ‘Decay. Cousins fighting over land, brothers and sisters crying treachery, the Empire was weak…and then the demons came…’

‘Enough!’ Grandmother interrupted, she didn’t like it when he talked to long about the past, and always stopped him before he got to talk more about the demons.

‘Speak of demons and they shall come,’ she said.

Every morning Merim walked out to fetch water. She carried an empty pot tied on her back to the nearest river. It was called a river, because that’s what it used to be, but in recent times it had become a stream.

She kneeled in front of the stream and dipped the pot into it, she waited for the pot to fill with enough water, it was getting harder each day. She had to be careful not to dip the pot too deep or she could fill it with mud.

Unfortunately, she found mud dipping into her pot, sighing she quickly drained the pot and began again, digging a bit into the ground to give more room. She used her hands to move the dirt aside and she felt something hard beneath the mud, thinking it was a rock she gripped it and pulled it out.

It wasn’t a rock, it was a flat object that felt like metal, but very old metal but also stone. She turned it over in her hand and saw strange patterns covering it, like water and fire mixing together. She felt it was beautiful as it caught the sunlight.

She put it into her pouch and went back to filling the pot. Once she was finished and the pot was just over half-full, she strapped it to her back and walked back to her village.

It was an hour’s walk from the stream to her home, she stayed mostly in the shade left by the ruins which were scattered outside the walls, but when she stopped under the shade of one of those rocks, she looked up and saw something strange, black smoke.

At first, she thought that maybe someone had been cooking but suddenly she noticed a multitude of columns of smoke rising behind the walls.

Fear shot through her, and she left behind the pot as she ran. She reached the gates in the old wall and gasped. There were bodies littered all around and houses were burning. She dashed into the village and ran straight towards her home, worried for her grandparents.

She found her house destroyed, the rocks black from fire. She dared not to investigate the rubble, too scared of what she would find.

She held in a squeak of fear as she heard rocks moving somewhere ahead, not really thinking why, she hid behind a large rock, peeking slightly over the edge.

Something came crawling down the street, some hideous and vile, it a tail like a scorpion, but its mouth looked like a crocodile’s, its body like a starved lion, it dragged its backs legs whilst it long front legs pulled it forward, but what she noticed most were the eyes, red eyes that looked as if someone had cut through them in a cross.

She let out a small gasp and the creature stopped.

She covered her mouth and hid behind the rock. She heard the creature shuffling closer and saw as one of its clawed hands griped onto the rock and pulled it away. She screamed and ran as the monster hissed and chased her.

Even though it could only use its front legs it was fast, but Merim didn’t have to drag a large body, so she was faster. She dared not look back as with every step she felt its jaws snapping too far from her.

She realised that she should have paid attention to where she was running because she had run into a dead end, there was only rubble on either side and a lone half collapsed house in front of her.

She ran through the rickety doorway and the monster crashed into it right after her. The ground bellow her collapsed and she fell.

When she woke up, she was covered in dust. Small rays of light slipped through the cracks above her and allowed her to see where she was. It was a stone cellar, and she was surrounded by bags of fruit and dried meats.

She didn’t know how long she’d been down there but surely if the monster was still after her she would be able to hear it digging for her. Despite her tiredness, fear and sadness, her hunger almost drowned them out and she bit into an apple she found in a bag.

She suddenly recognised where she was, it was the cellar of the kind Mr. Bayo. He’d always offered her and the other children of the village a free piece of fruit each when they got hot playing in the midday.

Again, she felt tears coming to her cheeks, but she tried to push them aside, she felt pain on her knee and realised she must have scrapped it at some point while running. She stayed quiet and looked up at the cracks and listened intently, waiting to see if the monster was still there.

She could have been staring for a minute, or a whole day for all she knew but she heard no movement and decided she had to get out. She grabbed a bag and filled it with fruits and dried meats.

She then stopped, how was she going to get out? She couldn’t dig herself out, she wasn’t strong enough and if she tried, she’d just get the whole structure to collapse upon her. She sat back down and dropped the bag.

‘I’m trapped,’ she said sadly. Trapped and alone. The food would last her a while, but she needed to be able to drink too. Even though it was warm, she shivered lied down and closed her eyes.

She must have fallen asleep cause once her eyes opened again; it was moonlight that was drifting from the cracks. She stretched her arms and legs, but till found she was trapped, sleeping had done nothing and now it was cold.

A breeze blew and she wrapped her arms around herself. If only someone had closed the door, she thought. But then she realised that draft wasn’t coming from the cracks but behind her. She turned around and clambered to her feet, and there it was!

A cellar door, she should have realised sooner! The owners wouldn’t bring food in through a hole in the floor. She climbed up a small flight of stone stairs that she hadn’t noticed before and pushed but found the wooden doors wouldn’t open.

She frowned, there must be a rock blocking it, she though and pushed again. She felt the door give way and kept pushing, eventually she heard something roll away and she nearly fell through the door.

A part of her regretted it as a strong and cold breeze nearly made her freeze. She wrapped her arms around herself and dove back into the cellar. She grabbed her bag and began to climb out.

She’d been told it was safer to travel at night than during the day cause the sun would cook you during such long treks.

As she walked through the empty streets of her home, she tried not to look at any of the bodies around her. She couldn’t stand to look back as she walked out the gates and left what was left of her life behind her.