CHRONICLES of DEON

CHAPTER 1

Ralthor stood in the middle of the street and watched the meteor shower sparkle its way across the heavens. The bustling throng of the city of Chathor parted around him as a river parts for an immobile stone. The watchmen shoving loiterers and beggars alike along claiming an end to the day’s business walked past him without so much as a glance.

It wasn’t that he was small and unnoticeable. At 7’6’’ with arms the size of a fat mans thighs and thighs the size of tree trunks, he stood well above head and shoulders of anyone in the street. Long flowing golden hair cascaded from shoulders that were as wide as some men were tall. He had chiseled features with an oddly sensuous mouth and a chin that could break bricks. Against any and all fashion sense, he wore a toga that probably could have housed a small family and sandals that laced up to his knee. His eyes however were what marked him as other than human. They were a pure ebony color with bright pinpoints of startlingly bright light coming from the center as if he carried his own parts of the night sky around in his head. He was probably the most noticeable being on Deon.

It was simply that Ralthor didn’t want to be noticed yet.

Ralthor was a Demon.

The Star Demon to be specific. He had created the display in the sky and preferred to watch his handiwork from below rather than above. From his dwelling in the heavens, falling stars were just streaks of light moving away from you very quickly but from the surface of Deon…

Ahhh…

It really made the job worthwhile.

Bright streaks of red, orange, and occasionally even blue streamed across the sky leaving trails that were actually a million leagues long. Everything moving so fast you could only see them when there were several together. Father Althair, but it was beautiful.

The demon sighed as he looked at the passing population swirling around him. His work was completely wasted on most of Chathor and the populace of most other cities on Deon. All they worried about was getting to their pathetic homes and pathetic families eat a pathetic meal, so they can crawl in bed and drone on with their pathetic lives again tomorrow.

He felt somewhat mollified knowing that all across the world there were royal counselors and magicians watching the shower very closely right now and trying to decide whether to tell the king and queen that this was a favorable sign or that they should hide behind their chamber pot for the foreseeable future. It was all the same to him. He never put any portents in the stars on purpose but every night funny looking men in funnier looking hats, and wearing robes that made them look like tall furry women glanced up and swore that the answer to life’s mysteries were up there. The only thing he had created on purpose was the constellations. Random stars were fun but they drove him nuts in the first billion so he decided to put some together into pictures and see if the humans could figure them out.

They had. With surprising ease actually.

Except for the one they called The Bear. That was actually supposed to have been a doggie.

Harrumph…

Oh well, they got the others, felt better for thinking they were able to tell the future, and Ralthor got something close to worshipers.

The only other siblings that came close to worshipers were Girian and Geal. Respectfully the Demon of the Sun and Angel of the Moon. Codla, the Demon of Sleep, swore that he was worshipped after the mortals had had a bad day but he was an annoying little imp and prone to lie anyway, so no one believed a word he said anyway.

The only real worship anyone received, of course, was Father Althair and Mother Maither. They were known as the only gods in the land and worshipped accordingly, with cathedrals in all of the major cities of Deon and chapels in the others. Ralthor had even noticed recently that the small chapels were cropping up on long roads; he assumed in the event that people were set upon by bandits and felt the sudden need to pray about it.

He wondered briefly for the umpteenth time whether the populace of Deon realized that most of the actual work was done by various angels and demons. Offspring of his mother and father. There were sooo many jobs but luckily his parents had children like those little furry things here on Deon.

Small and furry…

Cute…

Humans shot and ate them…

Bunnies. That was it.

His parents had progeny like bunny rabbits, (he shivered slightly thinking of his mother and father performing the act that created all of his brothers and sisters. He was a major demon but still…yuck) but he was glad that he was one of the first born. His new little sister was already being primed as the Angel of Insects.

Oh well, someone had to look over them.

As far as he knew, none of his brother demons or sister angels had ever received a prayer. They were prayed to the father and mother and disbursed from there. The closest any had come, as far as he knew, was the wishes (mostly from children) that would come straight to him if he set up a falling star (and if he felt like listening). He even granted some of them. After all what was the point in having all of the power in creation if he couldn’t channel it into a pony every now and again.

He didn’t resent his parents though. They were, after all, the first and he had no desire to take his father’s place on the throne. First of all, it seemed extremely tedious. He had no idea what his father did with his time other than listening to prayer and copulating with his mother(that thought caused another inner shiver)all of the time. He wasn’t allowed to come down and mingle with the humans. His power was too intense. The one and only time he had appeared to a holy man (or a Fearnafu as they were known on Deon) there wasn’t enough ash of the old man left to put in a pint mug. The other reason he had no desire for his father’s place was because his sister Sorile, the Angel of Storms, had decided to try it one time and is currently living out the rest of the millennium in a gilded cage in Fathers throne room as a small spider monkey.

Ralthor brought his attention back to the sky as the celestial mountains continued to roar across the night sky. He gave his work of art a waving salute and turning, wandered down the street.

Chanthor wasn’t the largest city he could have chosen but it was centrally located on Moorun, which was Deons largest continent. Being in the plains, he could enjoy the show from the time his stars flew over the horizion until they dissapeared off the edge of the world. The crowds were a little inconvienient. Even with the market closed and shopkeepers locking up for the day, the city was still crowded with traders from every part of the land and across the seas using Chathor as a rest stop which had been its original intention. Dwarven metal smiths with perturbed looks on their hairy faces rubbed elbows with Merlachian pirates from across the sea on their way to sell their “found” goods. Elves from th e forests to the west drank beside dark skinned trolls in the taverns. As long as you didn’t cause trouble, minded your own business, and, of course, payed the required bribe at the gate, you were welcome in Chathor. As with most large cities, when the shops closed, the taverns, inns, and houses of ill repute opened to all of the various traders, drovers, wanderers, treasure hunters, and, of course, the citizens themselves. That many people that lived off of their wits pushed together into such a small area made for some interesting entertainment. At one poinmt, a man came flying through a tavern window to land in the mud in front of Ralthors feet. He could see the man that was responsible for the throw and presumably responsible for the foot long dagger sticking out of the mans chest.

“I told you cheaters werent popular in this town” the grizzled man spat on the dead body in the street and returned to his game. Noone else seemed to notice or care about the corpse now in their path. Ralthor watched three people step over it before he turned and continued on his way. He watched more fights, a whore slice a man across the throat for apparently cheating her, (what whore wouldn’t get the money up front he wondered) and a small boy working his way through the crowd, small sharp knife palmed in his hand, cutting every purse string he could get his little grubby hands on. All these things and more made up the night life of Chathor.

The streets were still packed from wall to wall but Ralthor moved through them with ease, once again, a small hole in the crowds opening up about five feet in front of him and closing about five feet behind.

He was just thinking of finding a shady spot and disappearing back home when he saw her.

She was standing at the entrance to an alley, surrounded by three men of dubious looking character and fouls smelling clothes. The look on her face not only suggested her unhappiness with the current circumstances but shouted it from the rooftops. She was wearing peasant garb that reminded him of the wenches that worked at the taverns. A simple white cotton blouse was cut low enough to show an ample bosom and skin that was like the ivory that the humans in the west of Deon prized and hunted the giant eilifints for. A skirt made of the same material flared slightly over beautifully shaped hips. Raven locks flowed down to her hips in waves and came to a sharp widow’s peak on her forehead. High cheekbones, dark blue eyes, thick lashes, and a pert little nose completed her facial perfection, while what he could see of her arms and long legs looked beautifully turned and well muscled.

Right now she was looking slightly desperate. He could see the conversation get more heated as the men randomly reached out filthy hands to touch her. One hand playing with her silken tresses of hair, another sliding a hand over her nicely rounded rump, still the third reached out and grabbed her hand.

Ralthor saw her concern change to fury as she shoved the mans hand away and then reached and slapped the man with the hand on her backside. All he heard was a laugh and then the one in front, he assumed the leader of the merry band, grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her hard into the alley behind her. She fell after a whisper of a scream and was quickly followed by his henchmen. The leader took a cautious look around and after verifying noone cared what was going on, followed them into an alley.

Ralthor stared at the mouth of the alley. Strictly speaking he and his brethren werent supposed to get involved in the doings of the mortals but the concept of walking away when such a lovely creature was about to be gang raped in a dark alley set his bones (or whatever) afire.

“Well now” he stated to the empty air around him. “We cant have that, now can we?”

________________________________________

Rella gasped as her head hit the wall that she was forcibly thrown against. She couldn’t figure out how things had gone quite this wrong. All she had wanted was a ten minute break to watch the stars and now, here she was, against the wall, facing gang rape and most likely murder. God but she hated this city. The worst part of it was that the alley was halfway formed by a wall of her own inn. She had grown up there and took it over when her parents passed away. In a city where a innkeeper was fat, jolly, and, almost exclusively, male, she had fought to keep it running with no more help that old Jeff, who had been the horse handler for as long as she could remember. At the same time she had to fight off the advances of every young man that had decided an innkeep would be a nice way to live a life and retire. It still wasn’t the most popular inn in the city, with the older population set in their ways and refusing to frequent a bar room owned by a woman but it was still plenty crowded enough tonight to muffle any screams heard through the wall.

She had told Jeff she would return in ten minutes. There was a meteor shower flying the skies tonight, so bright, the astrologers said, that it could be viewed against the lights of the city. She had always loved the stars. They were her secret confidant in times of stress and disgust. She felt they always listened, they didn’t argue with her, and, most importantly, they didn’t try to marry or bed her. Tonight however, they might have killed her. It had only been a few moments since she stepped out of her inn before she was accosted by these three and she didn’t think the things they had in mind was going to take long enough for Jeff to come looking for her. It appeared she was going to die in sight of the same place she was born.

The first two of her attackers to follow her into the alley grabbed her by the arms and shoulders and held on like a vice. Her futile struggles seemed to do nothing more that make them laugh, and according to what she felt against her thighs, excite them.

The leader had finally come into the alley and walked up to her with a grin on his face. One hand holding his crotch and the other a rusty knife that looked like it had been pulled out of a kitchen board that night. She almost felt better seeing the puny weapon until an inner voice stepped in and ruined it for her.

Well, what do they use kitchen knives for?

Cutting meat.

Well crap.

“Ok lass, heres how its going to go.” The man had his mouth an inch away from her, more than close enough to smell rancid breath and almost make her gag. “Your not going to fight or scream or do anything else to make this harder on yourself. If you make ol’ Harry and the boys happy, we might even let you go when its all said and done. Hows that sound to you?”

Rella knew damn good and well that she would never walk out of here alive. When they cared to notice, the city watch was strict on such things as rape. It was bad for business. They didn’t execute them, this being thought to much on the lenient side. They simply broke both legs at the knee cap and let the offenders become beggars with what was left of their genitals tied around their neck on a string. It was usually a good deterent.

This was simply the way her luck seemed to run.

“It sounds like a bald faced lie you pizzle membered sonofabitch.” Harrys face went a bright shade of red with some purple around the edges and she realized after a second that the voice she had just heard was hers. Oh well, if your gonna die anyway…

“Hit a nerve did i? I bet you run with your friends is because they have to help you perform. Like small boys too I bet. How about sheep? You get off on the sheep Harry?”

She wasn’t going to stop. Terror had taken control of her mouth and she couldn’t have shut up for a bag of gold. Unfortunately harry and his friends did know how to make her stop and she felt a fist thud into her stomach at the same time Harry hit her across the mouth with a closed fist.

“Get that bitch on the ground” he snarled to his mates “You want to see what Harry can do? Your gonna find out, and then after the lads have had their rounds you can see what vharry can do with this knife of his. How do you like that idea you foul mouthed harpy?”

Rella lay on the ground, still dizzy and trying to breathe from the punches. Both of her arms were being held down and Harry was leaning down to cut a long strip up her skirt. Her thoughts chased each other around like a dog pack in heat and she couldn’t seem to concentrate on one thought.

Maybe it will be over quickly.

Wow, my lip hurts.

My but that’s a big shadow looking over Harrys shoulder.

This last thought came back around and tried to burrow in her mind somewhere as important. It was just starting to make a connection when Harry was lifted bodily by what seemed to be absolutely nothing and was hurled the fifty feet down the rest of the alley to smack into a back wall. She vaguley heard a sound like a melon smashing into a street and realized that the pressure had been removed from her arms. She opened her eyes and through the fuzz watched as the two men on either side of her were lifted up by their throats by arms that were only a shade darker than the dimness around her. It finally occurred to her that she had apparently been saved by a ghost when the two men’s heads came together with a resounding crack. The two bodies were thrown to the sides of the alley to leak out what was left of the few brains they had to begin with and Rella looked up as her heroic shadow took form into the largest man she had ever seen. He looked down at her with eyes as black and empty as the deepest pit in hell and spoke in a voice that could have rumbled mountains to rubble if it so wanted.

“Milady? Are you injured?”

Rella managed one head nod in the affirmative before darkness finally took pity on her and reached up to swallow her.

________________________________________

Rella opened her eyes and stared at her own bedroom ceiling. She was almost at the point where she could convince herself that it was all a dream when she tried to move. Her stomach seized up, her back muscles screamed a protest, and her face felt like someone had used it to clean a brick wall.

Ok. No dream. So what the hell had happened, how did she get to her bedroom, and did a giant ghost suddenly become real and save her?

A slight shuffling noise close to the window drew her attention and she managed to lift her head up, enough to see the giant standing by the window, now looking at her. He was not as tall as her nightmare riddled imagination had made him. He was simply a tall large boned man wearing what seemed to be a toga.

Why did I think his eyes were black?she asked herself as he walked over to the side of the bed. They were very clearly a vibrant blue.

“Milady, are you feeling better now?” His voice was deep yet not the thundering rumble she had heard in the alley.

“um…im sore and stiff but no lasting harm done.” She felt that something else needed to be said and she tried to light a fire under her creeping brain. “Thank you for what you did for me back there. I would be dead right now if it wasn’t for you. How did I get to my room?”

The mans eyes darted around , quite clearly looking like he was trying to think of an answer that made sense. “I saw you coming from the inn and when I brought you back in was directed here to let you rest.”

She could almost see him breathe a sigh of relief. Why was he lying? If he had brought her through the door of the inn, Jeff and some of the other regulars would have flown into a panic like a group of wet hens. They also would not have left her alone to wake up with a stranger standing in her room alone, no matter whether he was her rescurer or not.

Ralthor tried to think ahead of answers to the ladies questions. After turning her attackers bones into so much jelly , he had simply picked up the information he needed from her mind, flashed out of existence in the alley, and flashed back in to put her to bed in her own room. She very obviously didn’t believe it and knew something strange was going on, even though he had altered his appearance enough to seem human. He was currently trying to decide how much of her mind he was going to have to alter but he couldn’t bring himself to leave now. Even laying in bed disheveled and beaten, this was the most gorgeous mortal he had ever laid eyes on.

Had he been human, his blood would have boiled, his heart would have been beating out of his chest, and he was fairly certain he would have been drooling at least a little. As it was, being a demon, he simply made the conscious decision that he wanted her.

This happened on occasion. A physical relationship with one of his own kind was of course not permitted, all of them being his sisters and father tended to frown on incestuous relationships. Ralthor thought he was worried about the possibility of a three headed demon or an angel with twenty fingers and fifty toes being born just as much as the morality of such an act so on occasion, he and his brethren would visit Deon and search for a suitable man or woman that could handle the physical stress of making love to a deity. They tended to be extremely attractive, with an iron will, and an overly intelligent mind for a human. Most of the times they remembered the dalliance as a sort of dream. This was all well and good until someone got pregnant.

It was impossible for an angel to bear the offspring of a human male. The seed was too weak and it simply disappeared into the power that gave his sisters their physical form. On the other side of the coin however, he knew of several offspring brought onto human women by his brothers. Usually what happened was an extremely long lived mortal with some gift or ability. Amazing strength, an overly strong aptitude for magic, and without fail, they were boys. No one was really sure what would happen if a female deity was born of a human.

“I see,” she said, trying to keep a very neutral tone. She wasn’t sure what had happened but she didn’t want to upset a man that had beaten three men to death in as many heartbeats, somehow got her through a second story window, and was currently staring down at her in her bed. “Whats your name? Are you from here? Ive lived in the city all my life and im pretty sure I would have remembered you.”

“My name is Rahl” he stated after a moments hesitation. “I come from nowhere and everywhere. I don’t like to settle down in one place. I came here tonight because Chathor was the best option to view the stars.”

Her interest piqued as she found a kindred spirit. She couldn’t understand the reaction she was having to this strange man. She wasn’t panicking or suspicious of the total stranger in her personal space. She had a sneaky suspicion that it had something to do with the excitement of the attack but if she had to describe the feeling she was having, she would have to go with aroused. She didn’t think tha would be a common emotion after almost having been raped but there was no mistaking the speed of her heartbeat and her rushing blood.

“Oh”, she said, finally feeling strong enough to sit up. “Are you an astrologer?”

His look made her think she had just insulted him and couldn’t imagine why.

“An astrologer? No. We do however, have some of the same…ah…interests.”

She sighed as her thoughts turned toward the heavens. “Ive always loved the stars. That’s what I was doing outside tonight. I just wanted a break to watch the beauty fly past. After doing everything by myself for so long, its nice to be able to step outside and feel like your not alone. Surely with such an amazing thing as that shower tonight, there has to be someone up there watching over us.”

Ralthor looked into her dreaming eyes and wondered why it had taken so long to find this woman. He was usually drawn to lovers of his work.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “it was some of my best work.”

“Excuse me?” she was sure she couldn’t have heard what she thought she did or if so, couldn’t fathom what it meant. Rahl had sat on the side of her bed and his proximity was definitely having an effect on her.

“Oh nothing”, he waved his hand to dismiss the comment. “So tell me, have you never had a man to help you with the burden of life? Surely things would be easier with someone to share the work with.”

He was leaning toward her. His lips just a few scant inches from hers. Her breathing sped up noticeably.

“Oh, well, when you’re a woman and you own an inn in this town, everyone sees you as a conquest and a handy living rolled into one. Ive never found anyone that wanted me just for me.”

“I see” he said, his face an inch from hers. “I find that odd, since from the moment I saw you in that alley, I wanted you because you were you.

Her breath caught as their lips met. For just one second she thought she saw his eyes flash black and there was a tingling sensation and her face didn’t hurt anymore. Neither, now that she thought about it, did any of the rest of her body. It was all replaced with the physical want of the man in front of her.

“Your more than you seem aren’t you?” she said pulling back from him.

His lip quirked upward in a brief smile. “Milady, all of us, including the blessed stars, are more than what they seem but what I really want to know is, you don’t do everything by yourself do you?”

She reached up and unbuttoned what was left of her blouse while staring into his eyes.

“Not tonight I won’t.”

CHAPTER 2

Rella lay in her bed, sweat pouring off of her, legs balanced up on two stools, while Chartha the midwife sat and stared at her nether regions. She had been sitting like that ever since the pains had started and it was starting to get on Rella’s nerves.

“Do you have to sit and stare like that!!!” she screamed . “The baby isn’t coming yet and you look like you’re seeing something you haven’t before!!! You’re making my teeth itch!!!”

“That isn’t me” cackled the old crone. “That’s the two giant babes you have in you wrestling to come out.”

The midwife hadn’t been her idea. Her stable hand, Jeff, who had practically raised her while her parents ran the inn, had insisted on getting her. She was short, hunchbacked, had one tooth left in her head, and smelled of boiled cabbage everywhere she went, but she had birthed half the babies in Chathor and she knew what she was doing. Not long into the pregnancy, Rella had realized that the baby was going to be enormous. Chartha had told her after her first examination that in fact both babies were going to be enormous. She had no idea how to have one baby, let alone two, so she had given in and allowed the old witch to come and poke her (in some very uncomfortable places) once a week.

She had no idea what she had been thinking. She prided herself on getting along without a man and what did she do? Wantonly throw herself at a complete stranger for the now seemingly simple act of saving her life. She was the first to admit that he had deserved a reward of some kind, but what she had done was taking things a bit far.

Still…

There had been something about him that she couldn’t put her finger on. She had talked to Jeff about the entire incident after verifying that she had not, in fact, been brought through the barroom below.

Jeff had gone looking for her and when that turned up nothing, had gone to her room where he was stopped cold by the noises coming through the door. He was old but he wasn’t that bloody old.

They had come up with every possible explanation, from the mystery man being a Mage to him being an extremely potent hallucination. Rella discounted the first. She had met Mages before and none of them looked anything close to the tall handsome man in her bedroom that night. The other theory was, of course, proven false when she started gaining weight for no reason at all.

Another contraction hit her in the middle of the thought and she was fairly certain her stomach was being turned inside out, while simultaneously being set on fire, and hacked with a pitchfork…a dull pitchfork.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” If the entire inn hadn’t known what was happening before, they most assuredly did now. There were probably deaf old men on the other side of the city that knew Rella's babies were finally coming into the world.

Jeff held her hand and squeezed. “That’s a girl now, just another contraction; over in a minute and it will all be okay.”

“DON’T TELL ME IT’S A CONTRACTION YOU OLD FOOL! I KNOW IT’S A BLOODY CONTRACTION, AND STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE I WAS ONE OF YOUR BLOODY HORSES!!!”

“Just tryin' to help Rel” the old man said patiently. “If it gets to hurtin' too much, you just squeeze on my hands until its pas…OUCH!!! Dammit woman, you don’t have to break my fingers, I need those!”

“I see the head!” the old woman said. “Looks like a watermelon coming out of a lemon!”

“SHUT UP, YOU OLD CRONE!!” Rella could handle pain but the commentary, she could do without.

“Hush girl, save your breath. Now PUSH!”

Rella bore down with all her weight and considerable fortitude and tried to shove the pain out of her, almost ripping Jeff’s hand from his wrist in the process.

She and Jeff were now screaming together in harmony.

“AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” from Rella.

“YYYOOOWWWWWCCCCHHHHHHH” from Jeff.

“I can see the shoulders.” Chartha was the only calm voice in the room and that was starting to get on Rellas nerves too.

“OH THAT SONOFABITCH, IF I EVER GET MY HANDS ON HIM AGAIN, ILL KILL HIM!!!!” Rella screamed her hatred out with one more mighty shove of her entire body.

And a hearty SMACK followed by a loud lusty cry was heard at the end of the bed.

Rella lay back in exhaustion, knowing that she had to go through this again when the next contraction hit.

“No time for rest now girl, the other one is already coming!” The midwife had quickly wrapped the babe in a blanket and handed it off to Jeff, who had finally wrenched his hand away from Rella’s death grip.

The second twins’ entrance into the world was calm by comparison to the first. When the contraction hit, Rella grabbed the rails of the bed, gave what most everyone in the bar down below described as a battle cry and pushed with everything she had. The baby practically slid out into the old woman’s arms and while it was getting the same welcome into the world that its sibling had gotten, Rella closed her eyes and tried not to pass out. Pain still coursed through her ravaged body. She felt like she had been run over by horses, beaten with axe handles, thrown from the top of the church, and then someone kicked her in the stomach while she was on the ground. Through all of that, the following conversation was what kept her awake.

“Um…” Jeff’s voice sounded uncertain for the first time she could remember.

“Father Althair, preserve us, whats wrong with them?!?!?!”

Charthas shrill scream brought Rella back into full wakefulness with a snap.

“Jeff,” she said as loudly as possible. “Whats wrong? I don’t hear the babies. Whats wrong with them?! Are they all right?”

Jeff snapped his head around at the first sound of her voice. “Uh Rel…oh aye, they’re healthy enough. Fifteen pounds a piece if they’re an ounce.” He sounded nervous, he looked nervous, and he stepped in front of the crib that they had placed the two newcomers into.

“Jeff, whats wrong with the babies?” Rella frowned at them both as genuine fear started to creep into her soul.

“Um, well. You have a perfectly healthy boy and girl. Its just that their eyes are a little…different. I don’t know…they look…well, here.”

Jeff manhandled the babes away from the midwife and brought them over to their mother to lay them in her arms. They were both sound asleep. They were definitely the biggest babies she had ever seen, also the quietest. Both brother and sister had stopped any mewling or screaming within seconds of being smacked rudely into life by Chartha, who was now staring at them in complete shock. Their faces were perfect however, small ovals in the swaddling blankets they had been wrapped in.

Rel took them from Jeff after lowering her night shirt down below her breasts. The boy on the left and the girl on the right.

Both babies eyes opened at the same time as they felt the source of their mothers milk against their cheek. Rella drew a sharp breath in and held it. They were perfectly healthy and beautiful, and she could see a lively intelligence in them already. Both looked into her eyes as though they knew exactly where they were and what her role in their life was going to be…

…and looking into their eyes was like looking into the heavens. She thought they were completely black but as they gazed up at her, she realized that there were tiny pinpricks of light, just as if she was staring up at a midnight sky full of stars.

Chartha finally broke out of her shock and stumbled backwards until her legs hit a chair and she sat down with a thump.

“A Demon” she muttered. “You lay with a demon that night. That’s the only explanation for it. Rella, take those things away from your breasts and let me chuck ‘em down the rock quarry outside of town.”

Rella looked up at the old woman in shock and pulled her babes more protectively toward her. “Most certainly not!” She yelled in as strong a voice as she could muster. “Demon or not, these are my babies and you won’t get within a mile to hurt them!”

A Demon. Well that explained everything, no matter how improbable. She was surprised they hadn’t come up with that answer themselves after all of the other theories. It was simply so far fetched it hadn’t entered their minds. The love of Demons was told by the same story tellers that told of the wee men that lived in hills, granted wishes, and carried a pack of gold on their backs.

Chartha had started advancing on the bed with grim determination in her eyes. “You’re not gonna’ be able to handle that boy Rella and no one has ever had a girl off a demon before. Its impossible to know what them babes are capable of. Let me just get rid of them for you and you can chalk up the last nine months to bad debt.”

She had made it to the bed and was starting to reach down to pull the babes out of their mothers grasp. Jeff, who had paced himself to the other side of the room, made a motion to stop her when the twins both raised their heads.

Rella didn’t know a lot about babies. She knew already that she was willing to kill the old hag for the two at her breast right now. She also knew that a baby that was a couple of minutes old did not turn its head and look at someone. Especially with the malevolence she could feel coming off of them now. Chartha stopped dead as the gazes hit her like a wall. The power coming out of those eyes clearly stated that out of the three of them, if anyone was getting chucked into a bottomless quarry, it was going to be her. The blood drained out of her face as she held the tiny stares for half a minute, then threw her hands in the air and ran out of the room screaming as if all the banshees of hell were following at her heels.

The babies turned their eyes to Jeff for a heartbeat and clearly deciding he wasn’t a threat, looked back at their mother, love and comfort once again radiating from them, and began to eat again.

Rella looked into Jeff’s astonished eyes and tried to lighten the mood.

“Well, it appears they can take care of themselves and at least we won’t have to pay the old hag.”

Jeff sat down on the side of the bed, eyes glued to the two heads in Rellas arms. “Oh, no problem with that Id say. She wont step close to you again for all the gold of the realm, but everyone in town is going to know that there’s been a demon born in the city by the time the moon sets tonight. There’s people that will be after ‘em Rel.”

Rella lay back and sighed with pleasure. So what if they were demons, they were at least part her too, and by Mother Maither, they were hers.

“We’ll handle the problems as they come to us” she responded with slightly more conviction than she felt. “Lets see now” she said, looking down on her children. “You, I think will be Alazar, after the astrologer of the east that named the constellations” The baby boy in her arms opened his eyes and looked up at her as she said his new name. She looked over at the girl who already had her eyes open and was gazing in expectant attention at her. “And you, my little girl, shall be Zella, for my own mother.” Both babies closed their eyes again and snuggled even deeper into her arms. Rella closed her eyes as she finally gave into the exhaustion that had been dragging at her.

Jeff tucked the sheet in around the new family and put a blanket over the top of everything to keep them warm. Then he gave a kiss on the cheek to each of them in turn and just barely heard the last words out of Rella’s mouth before she dropped into sleep.

“’Some of my best work,’ he said”

CHAPTER 3

Ralthor walked from his quarters with some trepidation. When normal people are summoned for an audience with their father, the worst that can happen is a spanking or being disinherited. When a demon is summoned and your father is the god of the cosmos, the imagination tends to run away with horrible thoughts of what you’ve done before it simply runs away and hides. He had been frantically going through everything he had done recently and couldn’t come up with anything deserving an official summons. There was that thing with the temple, but from what he understood, all of the fires had been put out quickly and the lead Fearnafu had only lost one of his eyebrows and wouldn’t have to worry about shaving for some time. There was also that thing with the new constellation, but the astrologers had all thought it had something to do with hunting, taking the second person to be a weapon of some sort. So what had he done?

He walked around the columned palace heading for his fathers throne room. Their castle in the sky never seemed to stay the same from day to day as new angels or demons were born or the current ones took on some other duty or hobby. As it was, whenever someone needed space for something, they simply thought of it and made it as big as they needed. Its not like dimensions were a problem when your property line stretched to infinity. Several of them had attempted to give it a name over the years, all without success. So it was simply dubbed The Bailey by his father whose reasoning stated that since it was infinite, then the whole thing was the outermost wall.

He met several brothers and sisters along the way. Several waved a greeting and several others pointedly ignored him, depending on the current disposition of sibling rivalry. None of them tried to stop him or speak, proving to him that he was in fact the last to find out about the summons. When it came to gossip, a child’s school, a gaggle of women or a war camp held nothing on the Bailey. He could envision the groups sitting around talking about what his indiscretion had been and what punishment would rise to meet it. He wondered how many of them were looking forward to his demise.

He approached the outer door of the throne room, waiting for the guard to announce him and let him through the barrier. He had never understood why a being with all of the power in the cosmos needed a guard but his mother had always insisted on it. No one was quite sure how effective these guards would be either. Made of some unidentifiable stone, they stared straight ahead without moving until someone approached. Then the gritty eyes would shift and the arm holding the halberd would straighten until the door was blocked. The gaze was extremely unsettling and seemed to make the recipient feel like a bug under glass, but it didn’t move until the statue had telepathically communicated with its creator and been given permission to allow entrance.

Today the permission seemed to be given at the same time the arm was still in motion making the statue do a movement so fast it looked as though it was stretching its arm. It went back to its eternal vigilance and the doors opened slowly.

The throne room of the Bailey was quite simply that. It was the room where his parents greeted their children, made any ruling decisions that needed to happen, and meted out justice as they saw fit. He was reminded forcibly of this as he glanced in the corner to see the golden cage where his sister Sorile was hanging upside down by her tail.

The throne room itself had a fairly simple layout. There were a lot of marble columns in evidence on a floor made of the same material. One side of the room was empty, (save for his sisters cage) and the other held the Scrying pool that his father used to look upon the world. The water was a vibrant blue color and was once rumored to have frozen the finger off of Slich, the mountain demon, when he had unwisely gotten his finger too close while showing his father a new mountain range he was working on eroding. The rumor went on to say that Althair gave Slich a new finger (after cuffing him about the head a few times) but had never responded to questions about the incident and his brother wasn’t talking either, so who knew? It was always a possibility that his father had started the rumor just to get people to leave his pool alone. Whatever the reason, it worked well.

Ralthor walked straight up the center of the room on a blood red carpet that lead to the dais where his father sat. The dais was about six feet off the floor with a throne on either side of the steps leading up to it. His mother wasn’t present, but he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad news. Maither could give a tongue lashing that would literally strip the hide from you but when it came to actual punishment, she was considerably more lenient than her husband.

He walked to the foot of the dais, went to one knee with the same fist on the floor, other hand laid across his thigh, and eyes on the floor.

“Father Althair, I come before your majesty to receive wisdom as I was summoned to do.” The ritualistic words rolled off of his tongue flawlessly, but his inside thoughts kept screaming “What did I do?!?!”

The silence was becoming oppressive and he was half expecting a thunder bolt to hit him as he knelt there but without permission, rising would be certain obliteration or at the least, having a golden cage and a tail given to him. He felt his head was about to explode with anticipation when he heard the calm voice of his father.

“Rise my son.” Althair stood and began down the steps of the dais. “Let me look at you.”

Ralthor rose and lifted his head to meet his fathers eyes. There was no malice in them. Concern yes, impatience yes, but nothing to suggest that he would be leaving as a bag of ashes.

His father put his arm around his shoulders and gently turned him toward the Scrying pool. “Tell me Ralthor, how have you been. We haven’t talked in awhile, father to son, and I worry about all of you. I witnessed your last meteor shower, very impressive. I especially liked the blue bits.”

An official summons and his father was being nice? Ralthor began to think that a bag of ashes might be too much to hope for and he eyed the pool with some trepidation.

“Everything is fine father,” he began slowly. “I’m glad my shower pleased you. I worked on it for a year before it was released.”

“Yes, yes, it was very nice but tell me,” Althair asked turning toward his son, “did you go to Deon to watch your work?”

“Well…yes, the view is so much better from down there.” Ralthor started to ramble. “I’m sorry if I committed some transgression by going, I’ve always gone to view there and nothing was ever said before. I always thought it was okay. I didn’t mean…”

Althair patted his son on the shoulder and walked toward the pool. “Quite okay, there’s nothing at all wrong with taking pride in your work and wanting to witness it first hand. I completely understand. It’s a constant source of frustration that I cannot speak with my priests more directly, but tell me this; did anything else happen that night?”

Ralthor cast his mind back to the night in question. Lets see. Watching the storm, walking the town, saw a few people get murdered, saved that girl in the…uh oh.

“Oh…um…well, there was this…um…girl being attacked and I saved her…and …uh…made sure she got home safely.”

“I see,” said Althair with raised eyebrows. “And was this girl appreciative of being saved?”

Ralthor counted back in his mind the time frame. Hmm…about nine months. Oh no, Father Althair preserve us, a child had been born! “Um…yes father, very appreciative. I was there until I came home with the dawn. (Dawn in fact had just been heading out to do his daily task when Ralthor had stumbled into the Bailey looking like something the cat had drug in. He could still remember Girians questioning look as he waved him off.) “Father, has something happened with the girl?”

Althair gave him a long look and decided to ignore the question for now.

“My son, did it ever occur to you what might happen if there was a consummation between a demon and a human on a night like that, when there is soooo much power flowing across the heavens that even the humans can taste it?”

Ralthor had had enough. If the suspense didn’t come to an end soon he was going to blow himself into a pile of greasy ash.

“Father,” he pleaded “forgive me for whatever I have done but stop this game and tell me what has happened!”

His father answered by passing his hand over the pool, bringing to life a scene in a bedroom.

There was the girl he had spent the night with. Rella, his mind finally supplied to him. In her arms were two babies, each one nestled into the crook of her arms and laying their heads on her breast. The whole scene had a look of happiness and contentment and he finally realized what he was staring at.

“Twins.” He said softly. “I’m a father…twice.” He looked at his father, who was staring at him with a concerned expression that he still didn’t understand.

“Father, I understand that I’ll have to do something to protect the babes, but the official summons, and the way you’ve been acting, I still don’t understand what’s wrong.”

“Well,” said Althair after a deep breath. “I don’t know either. The one on the left is a boy named Alazar. Named after the astrologer who figured out most of your constellations. The Baby on the right is named Zella, after the girls mother.”

Ralthor felt he was missing something vital out of the information his father had just given him. Sure enough, he was staring at him waiting for him to process a vital piece of information in his own time. He looked down again at the babes in the woman’s arms.

“But even as quirky as humans can be, why on earth would she give a boy a girl’s name? It’s going to be hard enough to…HOLY MOTHER, SHE HAD A GIRL!!!”

Ralthor fell to his knees, wishing he had the ability to hyperventilate or throw up or something. Never had a girl child been born. No one knew what would happen, it could begin a race of beings that could take the world over. It could be a disaster. A boy being born with special powers and a long life was one thing. All he could do was dilute the blood line, thereby eventually destroying any divinity that might exist, but a girl could possibly pass the blood along. Conquest, slavery, war that the humans couldn’t hope to ever win. All of these thoughts went through Ralthors head but the overlying thought was always “I’m a father.”

His father squatted down to look him in the eye. ”The surge of power that night somehow allowed your seed not only to produce two offspring, but also allowed one of them to become a girl. That power was such that it even clouded my Scrying pool. I can see in your eyes that you know what this means for the human race.”

My children. “Yes, father I understand. It could be a nightmare throwing them into a dark age that they’ve never seen before, but what can I do about it?”

Some part of him knew. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew what the response was going to be, but even as his father opened his mouth to respond, the thought “my daughter” flowed across his head.

“The girl must die son. You can keep tabs on the boy and watch what he grows into but the girl child must be killed. If you can’t do it yourself then I will take care of it or have one of your brothers or sisters…”

“NO!” Ralthor took a deep breath, calming himself before he yelled at the Allfather again. “No father, if it has to be done, I will deal with it. This was caused by my mistake and I will fix it.” He went back to his knees before his father could get a good look at his face. “Please grant me leave and blessing to go forward and do thy will.” Once again the words rolled off of his tongue but his mind was far away.

My children.

My son.

My daughter.

I have to kill my daughter.

What if she were hidden? She could be put somewhere safe and raised properly so that she is never a danger. Could I do that? Could I hide it from him?

Althair placed his hand on his sons head and said in a voice that even Ralthor could hear the sadness in; “Go my son. Return here when you are done if you are able. If you would rather some time alone, I understand that as well.”

Ralthor rose, turned, and hurried out of the throne room as fast as possible without actually running. Once he was out the doors and past the great stone guardians, he did break into a run. Straight toward the gates that led to Deon. He vaguely recognized that some of his brothers and sisters were calling his name, asking what had happened and what was going on but he ignored all of them.

This had to be timed right and time was the one thing he didn’t have a lot of right now. He had spent a year creating the meteor shower that had created such a surge of power that fateful night, but he felt he could do enough for the same power surge and therefore enough to block his fathers sight from Deon, in just over a day. It was going to be messy and may cost some lives, depending on where everything landed, but it wouldn’t cost the life of his daughter. He had to find somewhere to work. Somewhere neither his father or siblings would come looking for him all the time. Ah…just the place.

Ralthor ran through the gates, into the limbo world that separated the Bailey from Deon, his mind working frantically.

My son…

My daughter…

My children.

CHAPTER 4

The castle in Chathor was an exercise in wishful thinking. When King Rioche had placed his cousin Vallon as Governor of Chathor, he had, of course, given him the funds necessary to build suitable quarters for his position. He had not realized at the time that his ‘honest and trustworthy’ cousin was as mean as a snake, crooked as a corkscrew and so jealous of his cousin the king, that mentioning Rioche in his presence made him turn a slightly greenish hue. Not to mention, he’d have the lips cut off of the offender out of general bloody-mindedness. So, firm in the belief that kingship should be his; he built a castle in the middle of Chathor. The difference between being able to build a fine house and a fine castle is huge. Some say that a man’s home is his castle while others insist that a bloody large amount of gold is required as well.

If the rock quarry hadn’t been sitting a mere 300 yards from the gates of Chathor, it wouldn’t have been possible at all. As it was, Vallon had built himself a miniature version of his cousin’s castle in the capitol, complete with bailey wall and tiny turrets flowering from the edges that you could almost see from the top of the next street over.

Vallon had grown up in his cousin’s shadow. He himself had been orphaned when his father had died in battle while helping Rioche the First, his cousin’s father, take the throne; his mother had thrown herself into the Raggon River out of grief. Rioche the First had felt obliged to take him in and raise him along with his own son of the same age. They had learned together, trained for war together, and even went wenching together when they were a little older. The younger Rioche had always impressed their instructors just a bit more, was just a little better with a sword. Not by much, but enough to make the Sergeant at Arms praise him instead of Vallon. As far as the women went, the women his cousin invariably went upstairs with were just a little more beautiful than the one that was sitting on Vallons knee. If he didn’t know any better, he would swear the little weasel had done it all on purpose, but Rioche seemed blissfully unaware that there was even a competition going on. When Rioche became ruler, he ran the kingdom with justice, fairness, and wisdom, but when it came to his cousin, he had a blind spot a league wide. Rioche, after all, had always been the one to keep Vallon’s spirits up and give him that extra little push when his cousin seemed like he would never get the battle move they were practicing or when the dates of famous battles just went out of his head like smoke on the wind in their classes together. By all rights, it should have made him his cousin’s staunchest ally and bosom companion.

It had made Vallon despise King Rioche with a hatred that is usually only used to describe child molesters.

In Vallon’s mind, there was no doubt that he should have been king. The fact that his cousin had put him here in Chathor, with its rich influx of merchants, and therefore taxes, just seemed to infuriate him more.

While Rioche had been extolling Vallon’s virtues to his advisers during the governor appointment, Vallon had been standing behind him wondering what the best way to kill him would be. Preferably in as painful a way as possible. If it had been a simple matter of shoving him off the castle walls or stabbing him in the back and blaming the first convenient peasant to wander by, it would be one thing. The main problem was that Vallon was a coward at heart. He was aware of the fact that his cousin’s reign of peace had kept him from having to serve as a commander in any battles and he was perfectly fine with that. He was also aware, after news of several dead assassins had reached his ears, that his cousin was extremely well guarded. He apparently couldn’t even go to the privy without an extremely well muscled guard, with enough steel on him to plow a continent, checking things over first. That particular attempt had been the last. The guard had opened the door and had a poison ring shoved into his chest from a foot away…right into his armor. What was left of the assassin wouldn’t have filled a beaker by the time the guard was done with him.

So, today, like most days, Vallon sat in his throne room (in most homes this would be the same size and referred to as a study) and thought of ways to kill his cousin and take his place on the throne. Each idea was more hideous and painful than the last, but they all had the large problem that they caused Vallon to get his hands dirty, or even worse, to be close to some form of danger.

He had just worked his way up to garroting his beloved cousin while he slept, somehow hiding in the mattress, when the door was thrown open and his Chief Advisor walked in.

He didn’t like Colmar. He had come with the position, having been the advisor to the last three governors of the city. There wasn’t any one thing he could put his finger on. It just seemed that he knew something you didn’t and considered everyone around him extremely stupid. He would be amazed to know that he was exactly right.

Colmar considered himself to be a scholar. He certainly looked the part. Tall and thin as a sapling, he had huge bushy eyebrows that looked as if they might possibly leap off of his face and attack someone and a wispy beard that he kept, not considering the fact that it refused to grow properly to be important. His studies had kept him inside most of his life and gave him a pale, hollowed out cast not unlike that of the living dead. He studied the heavens and their portents, he studied medicine, poisons, history, and pretty much anything he could get his hands on. Some in his situation would take advantage of the massive stupidity of the people the crown kept sending to rule but Colmar liked where he was. He could gently guide (never manipulate) the ruler of the city to whatever decision seemed best. His position had made him wealthy beyond reason, and, most importantly, when the citizens got fed up with something, it wouldn’t be him on the other end of the rope gently swinging in the breeze. His opinion of his current ruler wasn’t much different than his opinion of the others; dull, stupid, and prone to jealousy. This one, however, was only one step removed from the throne, which Colmar saw as himself only being one step removed from the position beside the throne. So, no matter how much he wanted to poison the bastard while eating, he refrained and made himself into the dutiful, helpful, and irreplaceable right hand man of the idiot.

“Master,” he said “there is news that you must hear immediately.”

Vallon raised his eyebrows in shock. Colmar looked as though he had been running, or at least walking fast. His robe was disheveled and his eyes were bright and wide. In anyone else this list of reactions would have equaled them running around the room and screaming at the top of their lungs in excitement. Colmar simply raised his voice a bit.

“In the city, Master, at the Golden Dragon Inn, twins have been born, demonic twins.”

Vallon stopped breathing. Everyone knew the stories. Demons or Angels coming to Deon to satisfy their more physical desires and occasionally getting a child on a human woman, which turned out to be able to fight dragons one handed or move a mountain with magic. No one living now could remember it happening but the stories had to start somewhere. Oh, what he could do with two children with the power of demons. His cousin wouldn’t stand a chance, no matter how many guards checked the privy. On the other hand, he knew that Colmar delighted in showing him his own stupidity and was wondering if this was another time. He went with safety and tried not to get his hopes up.

“You’re a fool Colmar” he said with the blandest expression on his face he could muster. “Everyone knows those are just stories.”

Colmar took a moment to take a deep breath. He had gotten overly excited and that was a mistake he never made. He needed this fool to believe quickly though, before their chance was lost. He took another breath, straightened his robes, and tried again.

“Master. In the city, at the Golden Dragon Inn, the owner, a woman named Rella, gave birth to twins of unusual size just last night. Both babies are rumored to have eyes that look like the starry heavens and it is also rumored that moments after their birth they picked up the midwife and threw her out of the room. If they are not of demonic birth, then all of my spies have been smoking drugai at the same time. It is further said that one of the twins is a girl which could change life as we know it. If we move quickly and raise these children under the correct influence, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished, least of which is your cousin’s throne.”

Colmar took control of himself again as he realized he was biting his words and was within an inch of shouting. He stopped and let the buffoon try and process the information.

“Have you seen them?” Vallon asked. “With your own eyes I mean, or are you giving me third and forth hand information from that network of thieves and cutthroats you refer to as spies?”

“Master, no less than five different informants came to me that said they had talked to the midwife herself who told the same story time and again. We must have these children…Sire”

That did it. Vallon leaned back and saw himself riding past his cousin’s head on a spike, into the capitol, flowers being thrown in front of him as he rode, the people cheering madly, and two children that looked to him as a father riding on either side of him.

“Very well” Vallon said leaning forward. “I'll believe you for now but if this is some kind of trick I’ll have you staked on an anthill and covered in honey. Do you understand me?”

Colmar almost breathed a sigh of relief. “Of course Master, I understand completely. How do you wish this to be dealt with?” He knew exactly what he was going to do but sometimes it didn’t hurt to soothe the big ox’s ego.

“Deal with it yourself. Go personally and extend an invitation to the palace to this new mother and her children. Tell her that the story has gotten around and her governor would like to see this miracle with his own eyes. When we have them safely in the castle, we simply don’t let them leave.”

“Of course master,” Colmar said, “but my reports have told me time and again that this woman Rella is extremely resourceful and not at all stupid. What do I do if she sees through our little subterfuge?”

Vallon sat back with a wide grin on his face. “Well if that’s the case, then it’s a bit easier. Take some of the guards with you and if she refuses the invitation, invite her again…strenuously.”

CHAPTER 5

Rella wiped down the bar and finished getting ready for the dinner rush. She still got tired fairly quickly but she had recovered with miraculous speed from the birth. She briefly ran the word miraculous through her head again and then decided it was better not to think about it. At least Jeff had been able to run things for the one day she had needed to stay in bed and she hadn’t needed to hire outside help. After so long of doing everything with just her and Jeff, a stranger coming in went hard against the grain.

She looked around the inn, noticing the cracks in the ceiling, the stones missing from the fireplace, and the various tables with one mismatched leg held up with a piece of wood to keep it steady. The old place wasn’t exactly falling apart, but there never seemed to be enough money for the basic repairs that it needed. As it was, it made just enough money to keep plodding along with a little left over for emergencies, like the wagons wheel bursting on the way back from the market this morning. She bought supplies in bulk as much as she could to get a better price on things and it would be almost impossible to haul back without the wagon.

“I should probably go check on them” she said to the empty room at large. They had been out there awhile, Jeff working on the wheel and keeping an eye on the children at the same time while they played in the yard.

The children. If there was any doubt in her mind at all that Alazar and Zella were the offspring of a demon, it had been shattered the morning after their birth. She had gone to sleep with two babies nestled in her arms and woke up with what was very clearly two toddlers laying on either side of her on the mattress. Initially it had terrified her before her memory of the other side of their parentage came back to her in a flash. She had, of course, heard the old tales of Demons having children through human women, but the stories were always about what had happened when they were grown and came into their power. No one had ever bothered to tell a story about how in the hell the mother is supposed to raise a demi-god. It would come in handy now, as a matter of fact. She had no clue what they were capable of and didn’t know anyone with even a good guess.

Her slight start in the bed that first morning had woken them both up. Midnight eyes staring at her with trust and love showing on their faces. She couldn’t tell what was showing in their eyes. No one could. They still resembled nothing less than a starry sky. She had wondered if it would affect their vision in any way when she had first taken them outside, but they seemed to see as clearly as any other child so far.

She had been wondering what to do with them while looking down at them. Jeff’s words came back to her with clarity. “There’s people that will be after ‘em Rel.” She imagined what the two could do once they were grown and it didn’t look as if that was going to take a long time. People would kill for power like that. How could she possibly think she could protect them? What was she going to do?!

Zella had curled a little closer to her leg and in a quiet voice said “Momma.” Alazar crawled sleepily over her arm and lay back down on her lap with one arm thrown protectively over his sister and went back to sleep.

Rellas’ vision went pink and fuzzy.

She was going to love and protect her babies, no matter what that took. That’s what she was going to do. Okay. So they were a little different. That was no excuse to let them be thrown to the wolves. No matter what their father was, they were of her flesh too.

No matter what scenario Rella envisioned, the best way to keep them safe was to sell the inn and leave the city. Jeff had traveled quite a bit in his youth and could surely find them somewhere to be safe. If all else failed, she would find the thickest wood she could and move into the middle of it.

Rella walked out the back door into the stable yard to see Jeff working on the wheel, sitting down with his legs under the wagon, which was being held up by a frightfully small block of wood. The children got up from playing in the dirt, ran to her and threw their arms around her legs.

“We missed you Momma” said Zella with her face pressed into Rellas skirt.

She laughed as she turned both of their faces up to look at her. “Ive only been gone for ten minutes and I was right inside the door.”

Alazar pouted his lips together. “Well it seemed like forever.” He promptly hid his face back into her legs.

Later that morning when they had awoken, she had learned that “Momma” was only the first word in an enormous vocabulary. They had been speaking in complete sentences and walking since day one, and seemed to have been born with a good grasp of how the world worked.

“Don’t be silly Alazar” she said, once more pulling his face up. “I would never leave my beautiful children. Why, I only just got them.”

Both faces looked up at her and grinned the impish grin reserved for small children and ran back across the yard to return to whatever game that she had interrupted. She smiled at them and felt her heart swell before returning her attention to Jeff.

“Jeff, is it exactly safe to be working like that? That piece of wood holding the wagon up doesn't look too safe.”

Jeff turned his head long enough to grin at her. “Don’t worry Rel, Ive been using this same block of wood to work on this wagon for almost twenty years and it hasn’t failed me yet.”

“Yes, I know. That’s what worries me, there’s a first time for everything.”

“Ill be okay Rella, and the babes are fine. Go on about your work. People’l be wantin’ their dinner soon enough and cold ale to wash it down with.”

“Okay.” She said, giving up. “Just please be careful. I cant afford to replace you or the wagon.”

“Children, I’m going back inside.” She yelled across the yard, to take care of any thoughts of abandonment. “Play nice and be good for Jeff.”

“Yes Momma” the two of them chorused, not even looking up.

So much for fear of abandonment, she thought, seeing the children apparently dismissing her completely from their mind.

She walked into the barroom thinking that she was lucky she had a friend like Jeff around. He seemed to take everything in stride including the two three day old toddlers running around under his feet. When he had walked in to the room that morning with her breakfast loaded on a tray and saw the two not only up, but walking and talking, he had stopped and stared, slightly goggle eyed for the space of a breath. Then he had shrugged his shoulders, decided to take their new situation for what it was, and gave Rella her breakfast. Nothing else had been said about it and she was pretty sure he would stop her cold if she attempted to have a conversation concerning the oddities of Zella and Alazar.

She had just made it back behind the bar when there was a loud CRACK from the yard and a scream that could only be Jeff. She wondered if she had cursed him by mentioning the ancient wood that he was using as a stand as she ran full tilt back to the stable yard.

Her first instinct was to check on the children who were still sitting on the ground looking at the wagon with open mouthed expressions of surprise on their face before running over to the wagon and Jeff trapped beneath it.

She reached him and fell to her knees beside him, tears already running down her face. He was still conscious and looked up at her, pain showing in every muscle of his face.

“Well,” he breathed “I guess you were right about the wood after all.” He tried to give a chuckle and it turned into a grimace of pain as the wagon shifted a little more. “Dry your eyes girl, the only thing I’m gettin’ out of this is a busted leg, but your gonna have to find somebody to lever it off of me.”

She patted him on the shoulder and said “Try not to move. I’ll go find someone.” She stood with the intention of going into the street and screaming for help until it came, when she noticed the children tottering over. “Alazar, Zella, stay here with Jeff, but give him some air. I’ll be right back. His leg is hurt very badly and I have to go get help.”

She was turning away when she was dragged to a halt by Zella who looked up at her and grinned.

“Its okay Momma, we’ll help Jeff.”

Rella was just getting ready to tell them to back away from him before the wagon shifted and they got hurt too, when Alazar crawled under the wagon, grabbed the axle that had Jeff pinned to the ground and lifted it off him.

“Get Jeff Zella” he said to his sister as he shifted the entire wagon over a foot and let it gently back to the ground.

Zella grabbed Jeff by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out from under the edge of the wagon and leaned him against a barrel being used as Jeff’s worktable.

“Jeff,” she said, shoving a admonitory finger under his nose, “you have to be more careful.”

Jeff looked her straight in her midnight eyes and said “Yes ma’am” in a voice that contained more shock than agreement.

Rella was still standing where she had stopped, staring at the children who were now sitting beside Jeff’s leg asking him how much it hurt.

“Oh” she said. Under the circumstances it was about the most intelligent thing that she could come up with.

“Ahem”

The clearing of a throat brought her attention back to the here and now and she whirled to find a tall thin man in brown robes standing in front of the door to the taproom wearing a knowing expression. Behind him were twenty of Chathors guard force wearing expressions ranging from ‘I’m about to be sick’ to ‘we should probably kill them now.’

“My Lady, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Colmar and I’m the Chief Advisor to the Governor. He has sent me to extend a formal invitation to you and your lovely children to come and visit him in the palace.”

“I see.” Rella knew full well there was no way out of this right now. “Do you often bring so many guards? I know it hurts some peoples’ feelings when an invitation is turned down, but this seems a little extreme.”

Colmar smiled at her and she realized she hated this man with a villainous passion. “The streets are fraught with dangers milady. These men are simply here to ensure you reach the palace safely.

Rella turned and looked at Jeff and the children who were looking at her. The children with mild interest and Jeff with an ‘I told you so’ expression. She turned back to the advisor and soldiers, giving what she felt was the proper response to the situation.

“Well nuts.”

CHAPTER 6

Rella marched down the city’s main road surrounded by ten guards on each side, Colmar leading the way. Alazar and Zella each gripped a hand as they walked beside her. Never once had they shown any fear of the advisor or his “escort” and they looked around them with the frank curiosity of a child’s first field trip. They kept up a constant stream of chatter that Rella was ignoring. She had, at first, attempted to answer their questions, but they simply ran over her with five more while she was explaining the first.

“Momma, can we ride those horses?”

“Momma, everyone is looking at us funny, should we look back?”

“Momma, what are those ladies doing only half dressed? Are they hot?”

…and so on.

She let them entertain themselves while she worried about what was getting ready to happen. She knew that the news would travel fast, but this had been lightening quick even by the usual standards of gossip. She was hoping that the Governor simply wanted to look at the children, verify their existence, and make a report to the king. An inner voice smacked her in the back of the head saying “sure, he might grow wings from his butt and fly around the castle, too.”

She sighed and glanced back at Jeff who was being carried on a stretcher by the last four guards. She had made such a fuss about leaving him that Colmar had finally promised to have the healer at the castle tend to him. He looked back and gave her a smile she thought was supposed to be encouraging, but it was a little forced and slipped a bit after a few seconds.

“Oh well,” she thought. “No use worrying until there is something to worry about.”

They had drawn quite a crowd on their little stroll. People gathered on each side of the road to stare at them and gawk at the children. Most of them had heard the story in one form or another already and they couldn’t quite believe their eyes, but what other children with jet black eyes could Rella possibly be leading? Some of her competitors (the ones that kept telling her that running an inn was no job for a woman) smirked at her as she went past. Others simply shook their heads with grave expressions and turned away. One man took his hat off as they passed as if a funeral procession was going by.

“Of course,” she said quietly to herself, “the way they’re seeing it, it very well could be.”

By this time they had reached the bailey to the castle and walked down a short tunnel to the inner courtyard. She looked up at the roof of the tunnel, noticing the murder holes that had been built in. Was the man expecting an uprising?

When they reached the courtyard, the advisor turned and directed the final soldiers to the infirmary, the first two to accompany them, and the rest to return to their various duties.

Turning to Rella with a smile that reminded her of a snake with hemorrhoid trouble he said, “This way if you please, fine lady. The Master is most anxious to meet you.”

Rella looked at the two large guards on either side of her and decided that it didn’t make a damn bit of difference whether she pleased or not and fell in behind him.

Jeff lifted his head from the litter and yelled as he was being carried away, “Don’t you worry about me girl, I’ll be fine. See you soon.”

She understood that was Jeff’s subtle way of saying that if you get a chance, run like hell and he would find her as soon as he could. A heavy oaken door closed her off from this thought as Colmar led them down a hall to two huge doors.

“Please take a seat while I make sure the Governor is in and prepared to receive you.” Colmar said, and he opened one of the doors a crack and oozed inside.

Definitely a snake, she thought to herself as the door shut behind him. She sat and looked around her. There wasn’t much to see but some other corridors leading off of the main hall, some tapestries, and a few suits of armor that Alazar and Zella were, even now, investigating, trying to look in the cracks to see if someone was in there. She considered calling them back but it wasn’t like they could go far…even if they had the run of the castle for that matter.

She had known that the castle was here, but in much the same way that she knew there were whore houses along the main road of the city. It existed, it simply had never been important to her. Now that she was seeing it up close, it seemed rather odd. It was like someone had built a castle for a child to play in. The courtyard hadn’t been much bigger than that of her own yard behind the inn and if she was any judge, the throne room would only be a little bigger than her barroom. She had just reached the decision that the man was trying to compensate for something and had gotten it backwards when the door opened again, this time all the way.

Colmar stepped out and to the side, extending his arm towards the open door. “Madam, the Governor will see you now.”

“Come along children” she said, as she rose from the bench. “A very important man would like to meet you.”

“Important to who?” asked Alazar as he took her hand again.

Rella was starting to wonder the same thing. “To all of us. We’re going to meet the ruler of the city.”

“Oh,” said Zella, grabbing her other hand. “Can we ride the horses on the way back home?”

Rella smiled down at the new loves of her life. “We’ll have to see. Now, be on your best behavior.”

The children seemed content with this answer and followed her past the guards, who had taken position on either side of the door, and into the great throne room of Chathor.

Yep, thought Rella. Just a little bigger than the taproom.

The first thing Rella noticed were the eight guards lining the walls armed with swords and crossbows. Nothing was pointed at her, but she had no doubt that they were all loaded and cocked back.

The second thing she noticed was Governor Vallon. Her initial impression was of a huge man but her brain finally interpreted what her eyes were seeing. He was indeed as big as a barrel…and shaped like one as well. She felt sure that he could have been a large man if he had ever lifted anything other than a tankard of ale as shown from his bloodshot eyes and his nose, which looked like a map with the roads drawn in red ink. He had a very bushy dark beard that looked like a rat’s nest she had cleaned out of the barn last week, matching a full head of hair that also looked like said rats nest. His arms and legs looked as if someone had stuck sticks on the barrel at various points, but his head was overly large, even using the barrel theory. His lips looked like slugs that had stretched out and at present they were smiling at her as if they didn’t do it very often.

Rella walked about ten feet from the throne and bowed at the waist, noticing the children on either side doing the same, with a mumbled “Mi-lord.”

“Mistress Rella!” he said. His voice was deep and raspy as if he spent more time yelling than talking. “I’m so glad you and your lovely children could accept our invitation to the castle.”

“Your advisor was most insistent mi-lord, as were the guards.”

“Ah, yes, well we wanted to make sure nothing happened to you after you had accepted my hospitality.”

His smile was slipping. She wondered how long he could keep it up.

“I completely understand mi-lord. Now what may I do for you?”

Vallon leaned back in the throne putting his hand partially over his mouth, perhaps so he wouldn’t have to smile anymore.

“Well, my dear lady, the rumors have been flying like gnats since you gave birth, and I simply had to see these two for myself. I was told they were only three days old, yet I see children of four, at least, standing before me. Where have you kept them hidden all this time?” he asked her with a smirk.

Here we go, thought Rella. Already seeing the personality behind that fake smile. Okay, here we go.

“No mi-lord, I’m afraid your information is correct. Alazar and Zella were indeed born three days ago. I assume that your information also revealed who their father was, which is the only explanation I can conceive for their growth and their eyes.”

“Ah yes,” said Vallon almost to himself. “Those remarkable eyes. I wonder what they see through them.”

“The same thing you do…mi-lord” said Zella.

“Yeah,” piped Alazar, who didn’t want his sister to show him up. “They’re just eyes.”

“I see,” said Vallon. Children had always made him a little nervous, especially these who seemed to be staring through the back of his head to the wall behind him. Other than their color, there was something unsettling about them he couldn’t put his finger on. “And how do you see when it’s dark?”

The brother and sister looked at one another with slightly confused expressions on their face.

“Don’t know” said Alazar.

“What’s dark?” said Zella.

Well that explains things, thought Rella, who had woken last night to hear the children wandering the bedroom and talking in low voices about her possessions. Her sleep fogged brain had briefly wondered how they could see what they were doing before she called them back to bed and passed back out.

Vallon looked like he had just swallowed a bug alive and was wondering what to do about it. They don’t blink, he thought. They haven’t blinked since they walked in here.

“Um…dark is...well…it’s dark. Never mind, let’s move on to other things. Mistress Rella, my advisor has informed me that they also have shown incredible strength as well.”

Damn, Rella cursed in her head. She was hoping the guards hadn’t walked out until Jeff had been against the barrel, but that seemed unlikely now that that particular cat was out of the bag. I should have grabbed the children and taken my chances getting over the fence.

“Oh, yes, Sir.” She laughed. “That came as a bit of a shock to everyone concerned, however, a happy surprise for Jeff.”

She could see the pit that was being dug for her and glanced quickly around at the guards wondering, once again, how to climb out of it.

“Ah, your man that was wounded by the wagon” said Vallon after a confirming look at his advisor. “Well, I’m sure he is being taken excellent care of and is resting comfortably. You can see him afterwards, but there is something I would like to discuss with you first.”

Rella briefly wondered ‘afterwards what,’ when the governor started talking again.

“The city is not a safe place for a single mother by herself with two babes to care for, even if the babes happen to be of a demi-god status.” He laughed. “There will be men who would do anything to get their hands on your children, not caring whether you live or die. My conscience demands that I offer you the comfort and hospitality of the castle, until such a time of course, that your children can look after themselves. It doesn’t seem as if that will be too long, anyway.”

“Mi-lord, your offer is incredibly tempting and generous, but my inn is my livelihood. Besides, we have Jeff with us and the children seem to be able to take care of themselves to an extent already.”

“Momma” Alazar said in a loud whisper, tugging on her skirt.

“Not now Dear, Momma’s talking.”

Vallon seemed willing to give it one more try. “I’m afraid I must insist Madam,” he said, with the same fake smile plastered across his face. “I simply couldn’t sleep at night knowing you and your family are all alone without any protection.”

Rella started walking backwards clutching the children to her closer. Something was happening. At the far edge of her hearing there was a slight buzzing in the air.

“Momma” Zella said insistently pulling on her arm.

“In a minute darling” said Rella still edging backward. “As I said Lord, it is a very generous offer, but really, Jeff is enough protection for us and I’m sure the children wouldn’t want to see him replaced in any way.”

Vallon snapped his fingers and eight crossbows were leveled at her from every point in the room. He stood up with a more genuine smile on his face. It was evil and cruel and it said that Rella would never see the light of day again. The buzz, she realized, had turned into a hum, as if a hundred swarms of bees were taking flight at the same time.

“And how would the children like seeing their mother riddled with crossbow bolts in front of their young eyes?”

“MOMMA!!!” both children chorused together, frantically pulling on her arms.

“WHAT?!?!?!?!” she yelled back, looking down at her children, who were staring at the ceiling as if they could see through it.

The buzzing suddenly turned to a high whistling noise and an explosion rocked the castle to its foundations.

“Momma, Daddy’s coming.”

CHAPTER 7

Another explosion rocked the castle from the rear and Vallon fell to his knees.

“Daddy’s coming? What do you mean Daddy’s coming?!” yelled Rella over the screams coming from around her and out in the city.

In answer, both children turned toward the two huge double doors at the other end of the throne room and watched as they were blown off their hinges. Vallon fell completely to the floor and began to crawl behind his throne, Colmar was nowhere in sight, and the guards were all looking around wondering how to protect their liege.

Ralthor strode quickly into the room glancing left and right, assessing the situation. He didn’t seem very concerned about the crossbows, the explosions, or the fact that he had just blown the doors off of someone’s home. He instead walked to Rella and placed a hand on each child’s head, smiled down at them and then turned his black hued gaze on her. He opened his mouth to speak but only managed an “I…” before a full armed slap caught him on the left side of his face.

“You bastard!” yelled Rella, as she watched his head rock to the side. There was no pain in his face, only a supreme shock, as if he couldn’t quite grasp what the hell had just happened.

He straightened and glared at her, all traces of a smile gone.

“Madam, I am Ralthor, the demon of the stars. I could turn you to ash with a thought, after that. I could make you wish you had never been born. I have come here to rescue you and my children. Now tell me, is this the usual way you act toward a demi god?”

The last nine months and three days of Rellas frustration burst out of her. “No, you sonofabitch, that’s the way I act toward the father of my children when he gets me pregnant and then is gone by sun up. Do you know how clueless I’ve been for almost a year?! Then after they were born, I was clueless about how to raise them. Where do you get off, randomly having sex with humans and then disappearing into only Althair knows where?!” She briefly regretted the last statement due to the irony involved but she was too mad to retract it.

In his defense, Ralthor looked slightly abashed. “Um, yes, well, that’s something we can discuss later. Right now, I have to get you and the children somewhere safe before the storm ends and my father can see us again.”

“Your fath…what?” Rella lost her grip on her anger when it sank in exactly who daddy dearest had to be and asked the only question that would come to mind. “What the hell is going on?!”

“Later. We must be under the sky for me to Travel.”

Vallon had, at this point, gotten some form of control over himself. The explosions were still happening, but they seemed to be moving away from the city. He was on firmer ground now. He was about to lose all of his hopes and dreams, that ass Colmar had ran at the first sound of danger, and the man in front of him was somehow making all of this happen. He definitely knew what to do in this kind of situation.

“Someone shoot him!” he screamed at the guards who were now looking from Ralthor to Vallon and wondering if perhaps Colmar hadn’t gotten the correct course of action. It went against the grain however to disobey a direct order, so as one man they raised their crossbows and fired at Ralthor at point blank range.

He never moved. The bolts left the crossbow as wood and simply turned to ash about three feet from him. Ralthor glanced at the guards and made a shooing motion with both hands and the guards were flung against the wall hard enough to make imprints in the wooden interior wall before falling to the floor unconscious.

“Now Milady, if you don’t mind, may we go?”

“No, you may not,” shouted Vallon as he stood from behind his throne. His desperation at losing the demon children had considerably outweighed his natural cowardice. He was pretty sure that the man was a mage of some sort, and he knew that mages got tired after such expenditures of magic as what he had witnessed since the man came in. Vallon had a lot of guards and the man had to wear down sometime. “This lady and her children are my subjects, to do with as I will. I don’t know who you are, but you have destroyed my property, attacked my guards, and are trying to kidnap people out of my city. I don’t know what wizardly order you come from but they will be hearing from me. I won’t stand for this!”

Ralthor gave the man his full attention and Vallon started. The man’s eyes, they were just like…the children’s. Well hell.

Vallon flew backwards taking his throne with him. He hit the back wall of the room and continued through it, coming to rest in what appeared to be a bedroom. A maid with an arm full of sheets looked through the hole at them with eyes like dinner platters and then very quietly knelt back down where she had apparently been hiding from the explosions.

Ralthor turned and extended an arm toward what was left of the door. “May we go now? Please?”

The concept that a demi god just said please to her took Rella slightly off guard, but she rallied quickly. “No, we have to get Jeff,” she said, walking toward the hole in the wall where there used to be doors with a child in each hand.

Ralthor sighed in frustration. “We don’t have time to get Jeff. Don’t you understand woman. I’m not supposed to be doing this, we have to leave!”

“Daddy, we can’t leave Jeff behind, said Zella, turning her head while being marched outside. “He takes care of us.”

Ralthor took one look at his daughter’s eyes and then his sons, exactly like his in his real form. He now understood a phrase he had heard a human use on time. “Wrapped around my kid’s little finger.” He could no more say no to those faces than he could become the Allfather.

“DAMN! Ok, where is Jeff?”

Rella threw him a look of gratitude and a small knowing smile, proving she knew what had been going on in his mind.

“He’s in the infirmary,” she said, starting to move a little faster now that she had the help that she needed. “Its somewhere over here.”

The small family ran out into the courtyard and Rella came to a dead stop. In front of her was a stone the size of her wagon. She now knew what had been rocking the castle and exactly what Ralthor had gone through to manufacture this rescue. “Where did you find stones that big to throw?” she asked as she picked up a run again toward the door Jeff had disappeared in.

Ralthor laughed as he ran. “A million miles and a day ago they were stars.”

“Oh.” said Rella. She didn’t feel that anything else would make any sense. She was trying not to think of the fact that she was running beside a demon, that her children were also demi gods, or that he had apparently pulled down several stars out of the heavens so he could come rescue her and his children. When there was time later for panic to set in, she would go through it all and very quietly have a nervous breakdown.

The infirmary was just inside the door they had carried Jeff through earlier. They ran into a room roughly the size of the throne room, with beds lining the walls and shelves, tables, and cabinets, covering the back wall which presumably contained the medicines and herbs the healers used for their profession. A door in between two of the cabinets led to the other parts of the castle.

The only patient in the infirmary at the time was Jeff, being attended by an old man in a long red robe. A Fearnafu. Many of the holy order chose to study medicine and traveled throughout the lands spreading healing and the word of Althair wherever they went. Some, like the one before them, had found permanent stations in their wanderings and would stay on until their services were no longer required or they got too old to be able to thread a needle. The heads of the order had agreed and even promoted the healing travelers, feeling a pilgrimage of some kind was needed to finish any priest’s education, but when they couldn’t sew up sword cuts any longer, it was time to come home.

The two men glanced up as the door flew open. They had been crouching against the side of one of the walls, protecting themselves from the small stones and dust that kept falling while Ralthor’s barrage of stars kept slamming to the earth around the city.

“Rella,” Jeff yelled, his eyes slightly wild. “What in the ninth circle of hell is going on?”

“Later Jeff,” she responded. “We’re apparently in a bit of a hurry right now.”

“A hurry? Well get out of here girl, you can’t have an old man with a busted leg slowing you down.” His leg was in fact wrapped to the thigh in thick bandages. She could see the shape of the splints on either side of his lower leg. He didn’t look like he was going anywhere for quite some time.

Ralthor walked to the edge of the bed and began to pull Jeff into a sitting position on the side of the bed, causing the healer to stand in offended outrage.

“Sir, I don’t know who you are but this man's leg has been broken in three places and crushed in another! There is no possible way he can be moved righ…”

As the full power of Ralthor’s stare turned on him, the man stopped talking and backed away until his legs hit the edge of another bed, which he promptly fell over, scrambled back to his feet and ran as fast as his old legs would carry him to the door leading into the castle.

Jeff looked up at the giant leaning over him. ”Uh…Rella?”

“It's ok Jeff. I’ll explain everything when we’re safe.”

Ralthor, in the meantime, had placed his hand over Jeff’s leg and closed his eyes. A glow lit around his hand as he moved it from the knee to the ankle. The look on Jeff’s face was initially of fear and then quickly changed to wonder and then relief as the pain in his leg drained away under the bright light of the giants healing touch.

Ralthor reached under the bandages and ripped them off with a jerk. He then stood and gave Rella and the children a look of utter exasperation and said, “May we please go now? No puppies or little kittens that need rescuing?”

“No,” said Rella giving him a haughty look. “That will be fine, we can go now. Come along darlings.” With that, she turned her back on him and began leading the children to the door.

Jeff looked up at the huge man before him. He was fuming so hard Jeff could almost make out smoke coming out of his ears. “I’m assuming that you would be the father everyone has been wondering about. Now, I understand that you’re a demon and you have the power of the heavens backing you and I want to say thank you for my leg, but just a bit of advice. You tangle with that girl and all the banshees and she devils of hell won’t hold a candle to how miserable she can make your life.” Jeff went quickly out of the room, leaving Ralthor to growl to himself and wonder if it wouldn’t simply be easier to turn the woman to a greasy pile of ash now. Hm…maybe after he knew how to care for the children. He would make the decision then. Shaking his head, he followed his children and their mother into the courtyard.

Ralthor looked up in time to realize the meteors rocketing past were some of the final ones he had created for the storm. Nothing like cutting it close, he thought as he walked to the center of the yard.

Ralthor raised his hands to the night sky and started gathering starlight into his hands. There was no other way to put it, Rella thought. He would raise his hands toward the sky, make a grabbing motion as if pulling something from a shelf, and then yank it down. Every time he pulled his hand down, a streamer of light would come down and join the growing nimbus around his hands and arms.

It was to a point that Rella couldn’t look at it anymore, but she noticed the children watching with wide eyed awe as their father shaped the heavenly power into a silver doorway that he reached out and gently opened, revealing a blank bright blue field standing in the courtyard.

Rella looked around her. The city had been all she had ever known and she was leaving it to go who knows where with nothing to her name but the clothes she wore, her children, and her best friend. Oh yes, and a Demon. Can’t forget that the father of her children was a demon. She looked over at Jeff and then down at her children. All three were looking at her with the utmost confidence and trust. She glanced at Ralthor who stood with his arm outstretched in a gesture that clearly said “ladies first.”

She took a deep breath, raised her head high, and stepped forward into her new life.

CHAPTER 8

…onto a sandy beach.

Rella looked around her as she moved away from the door to allow the others to step onto the beach and look around in their own wonderment.

Ralthor looked down as he felt a tug on his toga and found himself staring into two sets of serious eyes, brows furrowed in worry and mouths set in a grim line. “Daddy, is this our permanent home?”

He knelt down in front of Alazar and Zella and took them both into his arms. “Yes, my younglings, this is your permanent home and you will always be safe here.” He hugged them tight and gave them both a kiss on their heads. If his father ever found out what he had done it would mean not only the death of his beautiful daughter, but the death of the entire family, and him, more than likely clinging to a branch with his toes and screaming for bananas. His father’s rage wouldn’t allow any room for mercy. Putting a fast one by him every now and again, he saw as a lively imagination and an intellectual mind at work. Open defiance was dealt with swiftly and usually painfully. He looked again into the faces of his children. Alazar’s long golden locks, just like his, and Zella’s, the ebony color of her mothers, with the widow’s peak already prominent. Both of their eyes just like his. Although it couldn’t be seen with a human eye, he knew that the eyes changed to the view of the night sky in whatever direction they were looking.

The children pulled away and looked at him for one more long serious moment, and then, with a huge grin at each other, suddenly changed back into six year olds, gave a great whoop of delight and charged down the beach running in and out of the waves and shoving each other into the sand.

Ralthor looked after them and opened his mouth to warn them not to go far when Jeff spoke up.

“Don’t worry about them lad…er, I mean Milord. I’ll watch after them. I think you need to have a talk.” Jeff walked after the children and Ralthor turned to Rella, who was standing about ten feet away with her arms crossed, staring at him as if she wasn’t sure whether to hug him or slap him again and run like hell.

“Lady, I assume you would like to get on with some questions now?”

Rella wasn’t sure where to start. The sudden transition from the smelly, noisy, exploding city, to what appeared to be an island paradise, had left her even more unsettled than she had been to begin with. OK. Deep breaths. Questions? Oh yeah, she had questions.

“Well, I guess I know who you are now anyway. How did you know where we were? What does any of this have to do with your father? (She was still having issues with who the children’s grandfather had to be). If you didn’t care that I was pregnant, why go through the trouble to cause a bloody meteor shower to rescue us!? What is happening to the children and last but not least, where in the hell are we!?” Her voice had risen as the last months of being completely in the dark rushed out of her and the last few questions were delivered as a (not panicky, she told herself) scream.

Ralthor made a ‘come along’ gesture and began walking slowly down the beach. When Rella fell in beside him, he took a deep breath of the salty air and began to speak.

“Well, Milady…look, may I call you Rella, since we obviously have gone beyond a first name basis by now?” He looked almost relieved at her nod of assent an d went on. “I didn’t know you were pregnant until the day the children were born. I’ve been very careful to never let this happen. When I saw you in that alley, and later in your room, I lost my head and forgot to take the necessary precautions. I just wanted you.”

Rella turned a bright cherry red at this revelation, but kept silent. Ralthor smiled slightly at her embarrassment and continued.

“My father was the one that showed me you lying in the bed with two obvious newborns. This happens occasionally when a demon isn’t careful with his liaisons, but since the beginning of history, every child that has been born of these unions has been a boy. They are unusually intelligent, good at magic, have odd abilities at times…”

“Like amazing strength?” asked Rella, thinking of the scene in the yard of the inn.

“Exactly like amazing strength. The abilities, however, all seem to be random. One could speak to animals and I recall a story of another being able to turn any liquid into beer. As an inn owner, perhaps you should have wound up with that child. Haha…”

His attempt at levity was met with stony silence.

“Um…yes. Well, anyway. Our particular problem has never risen before. The star shower of the night we were together made an incredible amount of power fly around wildly enough to produce not only twins, but a girl as well. A girl child could, theoretically, begin a race of demigods, depending on who she wound up with. And believe me, children such as these draw some pretty fantastic beings to them.”

Ralthor stopped walking and cast his gaze toward Zella who was blissfully unaware of them and was building a sandcastle with her brother and Jeff.

“When my father realized that Zella had been born, he instructed me to have her put to death one way or the other.”

Rella took a quick intake of breath and turned sharply to face Ralthor who was still staring benignly at the group playing in the sand. She forced her mind to do some work and it realized that if that was what he intended, he wouldn’t have gone through this much trouble.

“I couldn’t do it. I saw those children sleeping at your breast and a most…human emotion came over me.” He looked almost disgusted with the word but there was an underlying sentiment of confusion. “I felt like I had melted and been reborn, I felt an odd warm feeling, and I felt like anyone that touched them would be killed immediately and without remorse. I had to protect them. From my father, from myself, and from any humans.”

“Congratulations my lord,” Rella said with a smile. “The first emotion you got to feel was love.”

“Yes well, and its Ralthor by the way. Be that as it may, I had to stop my father from seeing what I was about to do. So, I created another meteor storm to cloud his vision, came to Deon, tracked my children by their energy, and got you to safety. Apparently in the nick of time, if the crossbows were any indication.”

Rella’s brow furrowed in thought. “Okay, all of that makes as much sense as anything in this situation can, but where are we and how is it safe? Won’t Father Al…Althair (oh, how she hated thinking on it) just find us now that we’re here without any mysterious power being literally blown around?”

Ralthor looked down at her with what, if it was on anyone else, thought Rella, would have been the look of a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar…or his parents liquor stash.

“As to that, my uh…brothers and sisters and I realized years ago that there would be, at times, things we didn’t want our parents finding out. As a result we pooled our power and came up with this place.”

Rella looked at the beauty surrounding her. It certainly looked like it was made by deities, but still…

“I still don’t understand how you can hide anything on Deon from a God though.”

“Ah, you’ve hit the nail on that one. Did you ever have a place when you were little that no one knew about, where you could go and be by yourself, put treasured possessions that you wanted to keep to yourself?”

“Sure,” said Rella, thinking fond memories of a corner in the hayloft she always kept covered in hay.

“Well this place isn’t exactly on any map of Deon, because its not exactly on Deon. We pulled our power together. The power of the stars, the sun, the moon, animals, mountains, everything…and we created this space in a pocket of reality.”

Rella got slightly dizzy. “You’re telling me that where I’m standing doesen’t exist!?”

“Oh, it exists all right. You simply aren’t exactly in the same dimensional space as the continent of Moorun or even the world of Deon. I would suggest not thinking about it too much. It could make your brain smoke.”

“So, have your…brothers and sisters used this island for anything?” She decided that he was right about thinking on it too much. She had too much to process at the moment anyway.

“Oh, of course. We’ve all been using it for millennia to hide away and hide others away.”

“Others?” a small amount of alarm creeping into her voice. “There are other people on this island?”

“People? Oh yes, definitely people, but there are others as well. Don’t worry though, the entire island is a combat free zone, otherwise the dwarves would be after the elves, the vampires would be after the humans, and the giants would be after everyone. The Ainhithe take a bit getting used to but once you see an animal walking upright and saying good morning to you they’re really quite…What?”

“What!?!?!?” Rella screamed in his face. “Vampires, giants and part animals!? What exactly is your definition of safe!?”

“Oh, its okay,” he said putting an arm around her. She finally allowed him to draw her in and be comforted. “You and the children will be completely safe. I told you, everyone has reached a level of harmony here. If they don’t adhere to that, then they’re kicked off the island.”

“But where did they come from?”

“Well, that makes for some interesting stories,” he said, sitting in the sand. “The kids aren’t going anywhere for awhile, we may as well get comfortable and I’ll tell you a few.”

Rella sat beside her Demon…lover? Definitely not something to start thinking about yet.

“Most of the creatures here were being horribly persecuted in one fashion or another. Some were a mistake in nature, others a mistake of magic. The one thing they have in common is that they somehow caught the attention of an angel or demon that pitied them enough to remove them from the world in general and the sight of my mother and father in particular.

Your neighbors, i believe are the Ajunti. They wound up here, cursed by Mother Maither through sheer ignorance. It all started on Merlach...