Young Lord of Khadora Read Free

halted on the frail figure of a woman kneeling in the dirt and waving her arms. The woman was covered in dirt, obscuring the only colorful portion of her outfit, the broad, embroidered Clan Belt in the green and yellow colors of the Situ Clan. The rest of her attire was simply a dirty, brown tunic that signified the woman’s low status as a slave of Lord Ridak, Lord of the Situ Clan.
    The woman bowed her head to the ground and Marak could almost recite the words that were coming from her mouth. The slave was a soil mage and it was her job to prepare the soil for planting of the new orchard. Marak knew the spells by heart, but no one was aware of that fact. All four types of mages in Khadora were looked down upon as simple laborers. Soil mages tended the dirt when necessary for planting or to constrain erosion. Water mages ensured the proper amount of rainfall needed to nourish the crops, while air mages prevented damaging windstorms or dust storms. Sun mages ensured the appropriate sunlight to aid the crops towards a healthy harvest.
    Magic in Khadora was simple and menial and many of the mages were slaves, like the dirty, frail woman in the barren field. Marak’s eyes welled with wetness as he watched the woman toil over the soil under the thankless watch of her overseer. The slaves in Khadora were not treated much better than the soil the woman worked over and Marak’s heart wept every time he sat and watched his mother work. Marak spent many days in the fields with his mother when he was younger and it was at her insistence that he hid the magical talent he possessed.
    Marak dabbed at his eyes as he remembered his youth spent in the filthy, cramped slave quarters with his mother. The slave quarters consisted of run-down shacks unfit for habitation of even six people, but Lord Ridak filled each of the shacks with twenty slaves and refused to supply even the materials necessary to maintain the dilapidated structures. The fortunate slaves in shacks containing water mages were spared the discomfort of leaky roofs, but the others often slept on mud-soaked blankets. It was during his youth in the shacks that Marak discovered he had magical talent which, according to common belief, was only held by women. Not only did he have the capabilities of his mother, a soil mage, but he also was capable of performing the other three types of magic, as well. The slave women who tutored him as a child never knew he was capable of any magic other than what she, herself, taught him. They were surprised enough at a boy’s ability to learn any magic and each of them promised to keep the secret. Only Glenda, Marak’s mother, knew he possessed the skills of the four types of magic.
    Once Marak had become of age, he was sent to the Army to help defend the clan. Slaves were not allowed to enter the Army, but Marak was not a slave, his mother was. His mother had become a slave by telling a lie to Lord Ridak, the most serious of offenses in Khadora. Anyone caught telling a lie in Khadora became the property of the person the lie was told to. If a lie was told publicly, anyone who heard the lie could claim the offender as his property. The offender could be taken for a slave or legally killed on the spot. In fact, a slave could be killed by his owner at any time with no legal repercussions. A slave was nothing more than a tool, to be used or discarded at the master’s pleasure.
    As a child of a slave, Marak was treated as a slave until he came of age. At that time he was treated like any other laborer of the clan. Marak chose to try out for the Army because the living conditions were better than any other occupation, other than being in the Lord’s household. While the relative comfort of the barracks was a desirable goal in Khadora, Marak often punished himself for living so much better than his mother. As a soldier in Lord Ridak’s Army, Marak was not permitted to converse with slaves unless he was following orders; so, sitting in the orchard