Ardinia's War

The News

Lost       3/8/19

We are her children but we are lost

Set upon by the world

Even our stone walls cannot hide us

The enemy draws near.

They are our children but they are lost

Stolen by the world

We run, calling, but cannot find them

The enemy holds them dear.

I am but a child and I am lost

Abandoned to the world

I search for home but cannot find it

The enemy is here.

The News

 The messenger found Ardinia in the Jinnean Temple in Ashaden.  She was asleep on the smooth floor at the foot of the rusted iron statue of the Goddess.  The messenger looked around as he approached her.  The altar fire was still burning in its golden bowl on the altar, but it was the only light in the temple.  The marble carvings on the walls, illustrations of the stories in the Jinnean Covenant, stood out in stark relief in the flickering light.  The shadows made the carvings appear to move, to dance along the walls.  The huge statue of Jinnea looked severe in the light; lit from underneath like she was, her color became a deep red and her face looked angry.  It made the messenger shudder for a moment.  But the statue was still a statue, unmoving, as he stepped up onto the raised platform where the Goddess stood.

The messenger stood over Ardinia and looked down at her, pausing in his duty long enough to feel pity for the woman at his feet.  She was small, slimmer than most Durren women her age, but her hands didn’t bear the scars and calluses of much manual labor.  Still, she didn’t look appealing in her present condition.  She had been there for hours, if not days.  Her long, stringy, sand-colored hair was dirty and snarled in tangles and her gray penitent’s robe was covered in dust.  Her eyelids were red and puffy and her face was pallid.  In her arms, she held a child’s cloth doll.  The messenger looked down at the military insignia in his hand and wondered if he should just place it there beside her and leave her to sleep.  He shook his head.  His duty entailed more than that.  At times like this, he hated his job.

He put the insignia in his pocket and bent down to begin gently prodding her awake.

“Madam Diamond?” he asked gingerly, placing his hand on her shoulder and pushing gently.  He hoped she wasn’t dead.  No, her breathing had become apparent, quickening as she regained consciousness.  Her eyes opened, steel gray orbs that seemed to pierce straight to the messenger’s soul.

“Madam Diamond?” he asked again, making sure that he had found the right person. 

She nodded and struggled to sit up.  She looked up at him expectantly, questions apparent in her eyes.

The messenger reached out for her hand, then pulled the insignia out of his pocket and placed it gently in her palm.  She took a sharp breath, then pressed her lips together and tried not to let it out in a wail.

“He fell defending Kra’den,” the messenger said softly.  “The tunnel collapsed.”

Ardinia shut her eyes against the sudden vision of her husband, crushed and broken beneath tons of rock.  She shook her head to clear the image away. 

“I’m sorry,” the messenger said.  He closed her hand around the insignia and patted her closed fist sympathetically.  He watched her face for any sign that she would speak.  She took a couple of ragged breaths but said nothing.  The messenger, convinced that his duty had been fulfilled, let go of her hand and stood up.  He nodded to her formally, then turned to go.

“What about Jeuila?”  Ardinia asked suddenly.  “What about my daughter?”

The messenger stopped in his tracks.  The news he had already delivered wasn’t bad enough?  She wanted more pain?

“They’re gone,” he replied without turning around.  “We can’t find them.”

Ardinia opened her hand and looked down at the insignia, and without taking her eyes from it, got up off the cold stone floor.  Her grief transformed to anger.

“You bring me this and not my daughter?” she accused him.  “Take it back!”  She looked up and hurled the insignia toward him.  It missed him and skittered across the smooth, polished stone floor.  “Just bring me my baby!”

The messenger cowered for a moment, wondering if she was going to throw anything else at him.

“There’s nothing I can do, Madam,” he said apologetically while retrieving the insignia from the floor.  He placed it on one of the pedestals along the wall.  She’d want it later, even if she didn’t want it now.  “We’re doing all we can to find them.”

“Get out!” she demanded suddenly, her voice echoing inside the temple.  “Just get out!”

She stood and watched as the messenger backtracked to the huge stone doors of the temple, then beat a hasty retreat out of the main square.  Once he was gone, she sagged back to the floor and picked up the doll she had been holding.  Tears began to flow down her face as she hugged the doll as tightly as she could.

Her husband was gone, and with him had gone any hope she had of retrieving her little daughter from the animals who had stolen her.  After a few minutes of sobbing, she became solemn and thoughtful.  The golden insignia on the pedestal beckoned her, and she rose to retrieve it from its resting place.  She thought about the few days he had been home since Jeuila was taken: those horrible days filled with anger and frustration, each blaming the other for the disappearance of their only child.  It had been almost a year since Jeuila was abducted, but the pain and longing surged back to the surface as if it had just happened.  She wished she could take it all back, but it was far too late to ask his forgiveness.  He had been summoned too soon to muster at the army station at Kra’den, the place that was now his grave.  He was gone; his mission to find Jeuila had failed.

Ardinia closed her eyes and shook her head in dismay.  She reached through the slit in her gray penitent’s robe and dropped the insignia into her apron pocket.

Gradually, she turned and looked up at the statue of Jinnea.  Her eyes cleared as a firm resolve solidified in her mind.

“If you’re not going to do anything,” she told the Goddess softly, “then I will.”