Chapter VII, Reading 5

"I'm overwhelmed," she admitted in a tiny voice. "I have to confess that I feel unequal to the responsibility fate has allotted to me. I feel very ordinary and I definitely don't feel like the hero I will need to become to defeat the Ansu."

"You will come into your power, Flindra. Don't worry about that. You might be surprised to feel the energy you already exude. You will have come into your full inheritance before you leave the cavern and return to the world. You will be equal to your fate."

Flindra breathed in deeply. "I hope so."

"Trust me, my child, I know you will be ready. The Spirit will see to that."

"I hope so," she repeated.

Kewero smiled briefly before she returned to her story. "Before I left on my quest, the King and Queen both selected a gift which I was supposed to give to you when you came of age. Look at the golden comb you are wearing."

Flindra slipped the golden swan from her hair and looked first at it and then at Kewero.

"The Queen wished for you to remember her and all the women who came before her. Queen Kwenth's mother gave her this comb, and her mother, in turn, received it from hers. It is her gift to the child of her line. She reaches across time to give a mother's gift to a daughter."

Tears welled up in Flindra's eyes and she fingered the comb gently, almost caressing the graceful swan. "I am honored to have it and I will remember her always."

"That will please her memory."

"I'm honored that she thought of me."

"The King also gave you a gift which had been in his family's possession for generations, in truth from the beginning of his dynasty. His gift was Rigga."

Flindra looked down at the amethyst ring on her finger. "He told me in my dream that Rigga was his gift. How old is it?"

"Rigga is actually older than the line of King Meldh and dates from the time of the Ancients. It has been infused with their magic and powers."

"Oh."

"His Majesty also gave me the hereditary symbols of the King: the crown; the scepter; and a neck chain made from interlocking links of white and yellow gold. He told me I was responsible for their safe keeping for I needed to keep them for the future king of our world. I will give them to you, Flindra, when you leave. You will have to give them to your King when he claims you. He will have need of them."

"I will see that he gets them."

"Upon the conclusion of my meeting with the King and Queen, I immediately set out to search for the knowledge which would help our world in some distant time, but would not aid my beloved King and Queen in the present I shared with them. I was led here, to these caverns, and it has been here that the Spirit has shared much of the knowledge we need to defeat the Kwetwer and the Ansu armies."

"Did you ever see King Meldh or Queen Kwenth again?"

"No." Kewero shook her head sadly. "I spent several years in this cave complex, all the time absorbing the knowledge our world needs to survive."

Kewero's face grew deeply troubled and there was unmistakable pain in her eyes.

"When I finally returned to the world I knelt and wept, for all around me was destruction. The lush green of life had been supplanted by the dismal brown of naked soil and barren rock. I traveled for days through this wasteland until I came to the place, which had once been the proud estates and castle of King Meldh.

"The devastation was indescribable. Before me stretched a burned area which was roughly circular in shape and many leagues in diameter. Whatever it was that had caused the area to ignite had incinerated the soil, leaving only the bare rock beneath. The rock itself had been baked in the intense heat to the point that metamorphism of the minerals had begun. As I looked around in shock, I knew that what I looked upon was evidence of the power of one Kwetwer and I knew I still had much to learn before I could direct my future champion to stand fast against all of them.