Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 09:46:10 -0800 (PST)
From: JMH <trandar2002@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Guild/chp 3

Well here is the last chp of the prelude... after this one
the real story starts. I hope you have enjoyed it so far...
not gotten much response yet.

JMH

trandar2002@yahoo.com

Chapter #3

*********************************************************

Estelle now knowing she had been used, avoided all the Prime
Minister's attempts to placate her.  But as her pregnancy
progressed, extending her belly, she felt a growing
compulsion to return to the south wing.

One night... in the fourth month of her pregnancy she had gone
to bed early only to wake to find herself standing in front
of the security door leading to the Guild quarters.  Waiting
there was Falcon.  "Decided to take a midnight stroll?" he
snickered.

"What am I doing here?" Estelle demanded, disoriented.

"Looks like you were sleepwalking."

"I have never walked in my sleep in my life!" she said as
she looked at her belly suspiciously.

"You are right to look in that direction."  Falcon nodded.

"What is this child doing to me?"

"Our child is searching for its soul mate.  I told you Terra
is also pregnant.  As the child grows inside you he will
become more insistent that he be near the person he is
destined to protect."

"Protect."

"Yes, as I am a Guild Protector so will our son...  the sole
purpose of his life, as it is with my own, will be to protect
his Guild Mistress."

"So my child will be a slave."

Falcon chuckled at Estelle.  "Do I look or act like
a slave?"

Estelle did not answer... she was filled with too much rage.
"You don't even love me, do you?"

"I am fond of you and find you amusing, which is about as
much as you can expect from a Protector."

Seeing she only had one card left to play... she played it.
"What if I decide not to have this child?"

"My dear, go ahead and try and end this pregnancy.  It is
already too late.  Even though he is not pure-blood, the
child's desire to live is already too strong to let you kill
it."

"I don't believe you."

"Go to the doctor then... just try to ask him to end your
pregnancy.  The child won't let you."

Wanting to exactly that, Estelle tried to turn around with
the intent of making her way to the court surgeon she found
however that she could not even move.

"See," Falcon sighed.  "Now show some sense and come with
me."

"No..."  Estelle refused even while her left foot took the
first step toward the south wing.  The steps came painfully
slow at first while Estelle tried to fight the will of her
own child, but as soon as she was within arm's reach of
Falcon, she collapsed against him, letting him take her
inside the south wing, for while she knew the Protector did
not love her she could not stop herself from loving him or
more precisely her child from doing so.

*********************************************************

"So she has finally decided to join us," Terra snickered.
She too had felt her own child's desire to be with its
counterpart but with her Guild training she had been able to
resist it.  Now with Estelle in the same room with her, the
near panic she had felt coming from her child faded away.

"Yes sister, so please be nice," Falcon pleaded as he led
his wife to the bed so that both women were lying next to
each other.

Estelle also felt the panic that had gripped her fade away
into a deep calm.

"Now isn't that much better," Falcon asked as he watched
both woman place a hand over the other's belly.

"Yes... much better, brother, so why don't you leave so
I can have a nice chat with my sister-in-law."

"Very well."  Falcon grinned as he took Leopold's hand in
his and led him out of the room.

Once the two were alone Terra's gaze turn hard.  "You might
be my brother's toy for the moment and the bearer of my
child's future Protector but do not think that makes you
a Guild Mistress.  Your mask will always be of clay."

"I never asked to bear Falcon's child," Estelle said
defensively.

"But you are," Terra spat as he pushed Estelle's hand away
from her stomach.

"Why do you hate me?" Estelle asked confused.

"I hate you because you can have what I cannot.  I hate you
because my brother chose you to bear his child."

"And you wish you could?  Give birth to an abomination?"

"Our child would have been pure-blood!" Terra said as she
made to strike Estelle with her fist only to be frozen in
place.

"I see you too are a slave to the thing growing inside
you," Estelle laughed.

"For the time being I am, but do not think my brother's
love, nor my child will be able to save you once your brat is
born," Terra swore as she settled back down on the bed.

Estelle wanted to flee... to run away and never come back but
now that her child was so close to its soul mate, it would
not let her.

"Get used to this bed, my dear, for until our children's
birth we will not leave it," Terra said, not able to hide
her bitterness.

*********************************************************

It was a long five months for both women.  Estelle living in
fear knowing her time was running out as Terra counted off
each day with her threats.  Estelle appealed to Leopold to
save her, but soon saw he was nothing more than a puppet...
a husk of the man he had been before.  It was Falcon who
seemed to be in command while his sister was indisposed but
he only laughed when she would tell him of her fears.

So time passed as it always does.  The nobles of Wor, led by
former Prime Minister Toran, were now in full revolt.
Falcon, convinced in his control of the royal navy, did not
fear the rebellion as he should.  He forgot that while all
the officers were now Guild's men... the grunts that manned
the guns, fueled, and piloted the ships did not have any love
for him.  So when the royal navy itself turned against him...
it had taken Falcon completely by surprise.

By this time his sister's and lover's pregnancies were near
the end.

*********************************************************

Gerick could read the writing on the wall better than
anyone... the rein of King Leopold was coming to a violent
end.  He had watched from a distance as his former lover
forgot his duty to his people... entering into a life of
blinding hedonistic bliss while the people suffered under the
harsh rule of Prime Minister Falcon.

Gerick knew the king's days were number but he had not
expected to be ordered to hasten the day.  That was exactly
what he was asked to do however.

Reading the letter given to him by a man working for Toran
and the resistance, Gerick could not believe what he was
being asked to do... assassinate the king, his dearest
friend.  But then that was why Toran had asked him to do the
deed, as very few groundlings were allowed close to the
gold-masked monarch these days.

In the end it was not a hard choice to make.  No matter what
he decided to do, Gerick knew Leopold was doomed.  Gerick
needed to think of himself and his sister... how they would be
viewed by the new government that was certain to rise after
Leopold's downfall.

There was also the matter of Estelle's child.  During the
short visits he had been allowed with his sister he had felt
something strangely familiar... something he had felt in
another life.  His sister's child was going to be special...
Gerick was certain of that and for that reason alone he would
kill Leopold to ensure the child's safety.

*********************************************************

With the growing strength of her child, Estelle had became
lost in its thoughts.  It was almost as if the child was
singing in her mind, radiating happiness.  At times she even
felt she could hear another voice... a deep voice singing
a complex counter melody.  She did not understand all that
was happening to her but she was beginning to comprehend
Terra's anger to her for taking away a brother that she had
known and loved before birth.

Then the explosions began... the sound of klaxons filling the
air.

"We are under attack!" Terra said in fear as she tried to
get out of the bed, her brother shouting mental order's into
her head.

"What are we going to do?"

"We?" Terra spat.

"Do you think your child is going to let you leave without
me?"

Giving off a grunt, Terra helped Estelle onto her feet.  "We
need to make our way to the pier... a Guild ship is coming to
evacuate us."

Together, taking care to stay close, the two women hobbled
their way through the palace till they were outside, where
the sky was filled with manta-shaped warships, their canons
pounding away at the few ships still loyal to the puppet
king.

"This can't be happening... the navy can't be betraying
Leopold!" Estelle said in shock.

Suddenly, out of the clouds with all cannon's firing, came
the Guild war-liner, quickly destroying five of the largest
rebel vessels.  It was then... out of their mutual fear and
stress that the pains of birth hit both women simultaneously,
forcing them to the ground.  That was how Falcon found them.

"Brother save me!" Terra pleaded when her eye's came in
contact with her brother's red glow.

"I can barely save myself... rebel soldiers already control
half the palace.  Leopold is dead....  Gerick killed him.

"Our child, Falcon... please save our child," Estelle
begged, as she clung to his leg.

"I can only carry one of you.  I can only..." Falcon said
even as more wreckage fell on the palace.

Terra, enraged that her brother would think of leaving her,
went cold.  "Brother... you are my Protector, you know what
you have to do."

"Yes... yes...  I have to get help."

"No brother.  As your sister and Guild Mistress I am
ordering you to save me."

"But," Falcon said as tears stung his eyes.

"BROTHER!" Terra said with a mental sting.

His face now pale, Falcon went down on one knee and lifted
his sister up in his arms.  "I will be back for you,
Estelle, I promise," he said before running away towards the
Guild ship.  He never did come back.

Estelle was therefore alone when she gave birth to her child,
Falcon's desired son.  She did not remain alone for long,
for soon she was surrounded by familiar faces, the faces of
the once exiled nobles.

"Lady Estelle... consider yourself under arrest," came
Toran's aged and harsh voice as he took her clay mask and
smashed it on the stone floor.

************************************************************

"Guild Mistress...  Guild Mistress?" a clay-masked servant
asked with fear in her voice.

"Where is my daughter?" she asked with some relief... no
longer did she have that damn singing in her head.

"Mistress..." the woman squeaked before running away.

Sitting up, Terra saw that she was aboard the Guild ship, the
blackness of space outside her window.  Sitting in her room
holding a babe wrapped in a blue blanket was Falcon, tears
running down his face.

"Brother... bring me my daughter," Terra asked.

"Daughter... you have no daughter," Falcon spat, his red
eyes darkening.  "Estelle is dead... they executed her."

"Brother, I am so sorry.  I know how much you cared for
her,"  Terra said with false sympathy.  "Now bring me my
daughter," she said more insistently.

"I told you... you have no daughter."

"Then whose child you hold?"

"Yours."

"But?"

"Terra... you gave birth to a son."

"But that means!"

"Yes... sister you gave birth not to a Guild Mistress but
a Prelate...  a rival to the Guild Throne.  You have doomed us
all."

"Where will we go... what will we do?"

"We and all aboard this ship have been sentenced to death...
already three Guild war-liners are making their way to
intercept us."

"We can flee!"

"Flee where... there is nowhere in the light that we can
go."

"To the dark worlds then."

"Sister... I could survive it, but could you?  Even there
they would hunt us down."

"Then we will die."

"Yes we will, but not your child.  Not him.  I will send him
into the darkness and let fate take its hold.  He will be our
revenge against the Prelate.

"Yes he will," Terra agreed.

************************************************************

Gerick stood before the court a look of anguish on his face.
"Why... why do this thing." he demanded.

"The child is a half-breed and the son of a traitor... why
should you care about his fate?" Toran demanded from his
seat on the throne.

"Regardless of the crimes the parents committed... this
infant is an innocent!"

"Be as that may... the court has already made its decision...
the child is to be sold as a slave... has already been sold in
fact."

"But," Gerick protested... feeling he had killed his friend
for nothing.

"Gerick you served us well and will be rewarded for your
loyalty to your people but when it comes to the fate of this
child... he is not worth your time or effort."

"That is not for you to decide!"

"But it is, Lord Gerick... it is," Toran said with
a sinister smile.

***************************************************

Chapter six is now up on my yahoo group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adultwritingworkshop/