Chapter 22: Nulara

There was a group of islands in the Outland Sea called the Larmar Islands…

Nulara stood on the stone cliff and looked down. Several knights gathered at the pier, their cloaks depicting coats of arms that Nulara could not remember. Her Father, Timnar Tossed, patted some big knight on the shoulder and laughed with him. "I can't wait," she thought, "at last I leave the harsh cliffs." Her father would not have taken her with him, despite reaching the age of adulthood by the standards of the larmarians, which was determined by the age of nineteen. The ancient symbol of the larmarians, representing the number nineteen when drawn, was very similar to a mast with a sail and was considered sacred.

The rain was drizzling, the waves beat against the coastal rocks from the other side of the island, but the bay seemed always calm, which is why the pier looked more like a small port, that could hold several dozen ships.

Nulara walked along a stone-soil road, leading a black old karkhash, whose karkhashhoe had worn out, and the larmarian did not want to injure the animal, so she did not sit on a karkhashback. She went down the path to the stone castle, where different larmarian knights had already arrived on their graceful and proud karkhashes. And she went into the castle.

It was warm and dry inside the castle. Skulds, stone trees, unique plants that grew directly from stone structures, perfectly absorbed moisture, and they could not be set on fire. Skulds adorned all the castles of the Larmar Islands, they had a cylindrical trunk and their branches were not very long, and the structure of the bark itself was as strong as a stone and a texture similar to a stone. They did not pierce the wall ceilings and did not reach the ceilings in the giant rooms of Larmar's castles, the skulds looked like low trees, with branched columns, on which there were no leaves. It was very difficult to cut and to saw skulds, but larmarians knows some secrets...

"Nulara, I'm sailing tomorrow at dawn," her father said when he saw her. He was alone, probably the sailing knights, after a long voyage, decided to rest before the meeting.

"'Then I shall go and get ready," the girl said with restrained joy.

"You will not go!"

"But, father!"

"You will not go because you will represent our islands on my behalf while I'm away."

"And who should I expect here? Tonnebeard sailors? Maybe our snunorf king will finally honor us with his attention, or maybe the king of Eileenelia himself will welcome me?!"

"Don't be childish," cut off the father, and with these words, he left the empty, huge throne room, where were nineteen skulds. This was the hall of the former kings of Larmar Islands, whose borders extended not only to the islands but also passed along part of the land of the most western and northwestern lands in Norvinoria and Farderland. Despite its proximity to Farderland, the Larmar Islands were formally subjects of Norvinoria, and Timnar Tossed was yarlantan, the lord of this territory, subordinate to king Ganrikter Chrisskarson II. But there were days in the past when on the Norvinoria throne sat a larmarian king…