Prologue

18th of Gavos, in the Waning within the 3rd year, 9:00 a.m.

Alice stood, looking down at an expensive, dark, wooden casket, the lumber for it had been imported from Taevon. Yet they were not in debt because Brick had insisted on helping with the cost of the funeral. She was able to stand stress free due to the generosity of her and Rick’s friend, while a breeze blew her hair wildly around her head. The day as usual was hot, and muggy, the salt filled air came off the ocean causing her brown hair to become stiff from the salt content of the air.

She could not cry, not yet. Rick needed her to be strong. On the other side of the casket from her, dressed all in black, he stood, with bloodshot eyes. The local Reverend held an ornate box in front of Rick and opened it he took from within a tiny glowing green rock, a fragment of the Nexus, he then knelt and placed it into a depression in the casket below the engraved name MARGARET ESTLE.

He looked up at her and began to cry again. He was the last of his family. Alice had blood relatives; she was estranged from them. She stood strong though her jaw hurt from repressing the lump in her throat. Yet looking into Ricks tear-stained face she felt her strength began to break like a crack in a dam.

As tears began to flow down Alice’s face she reached for her wrist where a real gold bracelet with the two spears piercing a circle of the Guardian sat. Its twin hung from Ricks neck. They were found in his mother’s room, already wrapped. She had been going to give it to them on their second wedding anniversary that was in a few weeks. Her and Rick had both agreed, they needed to wear them to the funeral.

The pole bearers then lifted the casket, and they began the long walk to the Nexus from the Crick District where she would be entombed within the spire.

1:00 p.m.

                All Rick felt was numbness, as he reclined on the couch head held by Alice against her chest. They had gotten home hours ago and Rick had immediately poured himself a glass of the best whiskey Nexus city offered and had been sipping on it ever since.

                With a groan he sat up. “I want to leave Nexus city, cruise to the mainland, perhaps the G.C.P. or Taevo.”

                “I have heard the Seffalon Islands are pretty.”

                Rick grunted. “Good luck, getting permission to enter. Cuh’nok has hefty restrictions on who can come and go.”

                “What? You don’t think we could get permission to enter?”

                “I doubt it, though, I could try sometime and see if we could get permission. My parents… they… took their honeymoon cruising Seffalon so it would be cool to go.”

                Alice smiled, “we could be smuggled in.”

                “That has to be out of our budget and besides, I don’t want to go there bad enough to risk being thrown in whatever constitutes a jail in that nation.”

                Alice rubbed a hand on Rick’s back, “where is your sense of adventure?”

                “I expend all my desire for adventure chasing down and arresting people who want me dead.”

                “I suppose that makes sense.” Alice kissed him, “Let’s sit and watch a movie, you have a week off, lets waste it and vegetate for now.”

                Rick nodded.