Chapter 5

Lawson comes knocking on the once again hanging door with dark tidings. “I see it has only taken a week for the young lady to get you to make things right around here.”

“Well, you know, what the hell, right!”

“Language, sir knight.” Sorbo turns around and sticks his tongue out at Dakota who is sitting on the once and again fixed bed still wearing his royal blue uniform top.

“Have you heard anything?” Asks Sorbo, as he turns back around to Lawson.

Lawson motions with his head for Sorbo to follow him outside. They walk far enough to where he believes Dakota won’t hear them. “It’s true! Me friend has returned from the capitol and the word on the street be the royal family has been slaughtered and the princess has been kidnapped.”

Sorbo looks back over his shoulder before continuing. “Did they say who did it?”

“Apparently there is a Pralene zealot cult known as the Children of Method, Prophecy and Design.”

“What the hell kind of name is that?”

“You know how religious zealots can get.”

“Yeah! I can’t believe people from Pralene did this.”

“Yeah, it be sad for sure, but you damn well know who be pulling their strings.”

“Yeah,” Sorbo says, angrily.

“Sorbo?”

“Yeah, old timer.”

“You know they are going to be coming for the princess, for Dakota.”

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

“Look, I say the three of us head towards the Free Lands of Andromeda until something more be done.”

“Look, Lawson, for whatever reason Andromeda has seen fit to lay this task upon my shoulders, probably punishment for my failure earlier in life, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up your life here.”

“Me life here? What? Drinking my life away until Brako comes up with something for us to be stealing so we can drink more. I have always been a believer in Andromeda and I think maybe its time I start living in the light again. After all I’m getting old and I think I should get things straight with the universe before I be going.”

“You Lawson? You’re too damn ornery to die!”

“I be wish’n that to be true my friend, but of late my bones be feeling weary and I’ve been regretting some things. You know?”

“Yeah, I know. Listen, let’s give it a week and then we will go from there.”

“Alright, mate. Want me to be coming back over later and have a drink?”

“Sounds good, old timer. Until tonight.”

Sorbo watches his only friend go and then with a sad sigh he turns towards the cottage. As he is walking out of the tree line he sees Dakota waiting for him in the doorframe.

“Anything wrong?” she says, as one who really doesn’t want to know.

Sorbo sighs again and walks over to her and picks her up. He carries her inside and he sits down in his chair with Dakota in his lap. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but it is true, your family has been killed.” Dakota buries her head in his chest and starts crying. “The word is they think you have been kidnapped, but the bad guys know you haven’t so I assume they are looking for you right now.”

Dakota sits up and takes a shuddering breath before she says, “Why...” she takes another couple shuddering breaths while wiping her tears away. “Why did they do this?”

“Some people believe religion should rule not royalty and supposedly it was a radical cult of blind faith followers who have done this.”

“Fools! Don’t they know it doesn’t matter who rules because the rulers are only there to make sure everybody’s rights are allowed to flourish?”

“That is a very wise point of view for an eight-year-old girl.”

“Sorbo?”

“Yeah, sweetheart.”

“I know what is happening. I mean I know the ultimate goal of what is happening. Andromeda has been coming to me for years and we have talked about the Prophecy of the White Sorceress.”

“Okay.”

“The only way for one god to get power over the others is to get people to do the corresponding actions that make them stronger. Like Loki, negative thoughts and actions make him stronger. When the time nears for something like that to happen, the White Sorceress is born because it is only the White Sorceress who will have enough power to stop Loki, or whichever god is making a push to rule over the other gods and taking a direct hand in influencing humans.

“Loki’s time is coming and if I don’t fulfill my destiny the world will swim in negativity, especially us girls because Loki supposedly doesn’t think much of us. He is such a great deceiver that he has made decent people believe that suppressing their girls is actually for the safety of the girls, which is of course nonsense.”

Sorbo is looking at the petite and pretty little eight-year-old girl, with curly shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes, sitting in his lap and he cannot believe that such wisdom is coming out of her young mouth. He smiles and then his mind takes him back to another little girl he was given care over and his smile fades.

Sorbo roughly picks Dakota up and sits her down and just then another bright flash of light comes from the doorway. There stands the Goddess Andromeda in her flowing white gown, with her long curly blonde hair and pink eyes that radiate with love, understanding and power. Dakota runs over to her and she picks Dakota up and holds her. “Sir Knight Sorbo Harper, if you do not watch over Dakota, the future White Sorceress, until the time of the ascension, what she says is true, the world will be lost in an ocean of darkness. Will you answer the call?”

“Find another,” Sorbo says coldly. The look on Dakota’s face is as if she has just witnessed her family being murdered again.

“There is no other. You will succeed or the world will fail.”

“Damn it! You know what happened to the last princess I was given charge over.”

“Her death was not your fault.” Her voice is regal, but caring.

“Why can’t you get it into your thick little god-head that I have been broken since then? It crushed me and I am just waiting to die.”

“And this will rebuild you.”

Sorbo falls to his knees and bends over and starts to cry, but it only takes about ten seconds of that nonsense then his tears turn into rage and he screams his frustration out into the dirt floor of his cottage. He pounds his fists into the soil several times before getting up and looking at Andromeda and Dakota.

“Will you answer the call?”

Sorbo doesn’t say a word he just walks past them and out of the cottage.

As he is walking off Dakota calls out to him, “Sorbo, where you going?” Sorbo stops for a second, without ever turning around, and then walks over into the woods. The last word he hears is Dakota calling his name again. “Sorbo.”