The Last Kinmark - Chapter Two

The Tytans had always been a prideful race of beings who loved to name things after themselves. While engaging in the long process of conquering the Mizish people, they had even changed the name of the continent that the two groups shared from its traditional name of Miz to Tyte. They supposedly did so to honor their oldest forbearer, an ancient and godlike hero named Tyte. But the change also had the unsurprising benefit of honoring the Tytans themselves.

The Kinmark family was no different than the rest of their race. That is why their seat of power was the city they had named Kinmark. Set on a narrow cape extending into the ocean on Tyte’s northern edge, it was the largest of all the Tytan cities. However, it was not overcrowded or dirty as most large cities inevitably become. Early in its existence, the Kinmark scholars had developed a way to bring fresh water to every neighborhood in the city through a complex system of pipes. Even the Mizish slaves had the convenient fountains of fresh water flowing near their homes.

The city’s market offered every item that one could find in the Tytan world. There, rich and poor alike came and marveled at the eccentric goods available, although only the rich bought those goods of course. Like any place, there were classes of individuals. And while the poor certainly outnumbered the rich, the city still housed the vast majority of the family’s influential members. They had long ago flocked to it from the other regions of the kingdom and had since engaged in a never-ending struggle to improve upon the place that had become their home. Indeed, opulence was no rare thing in the capital. The presence of so much wealth and power made Kinmark the city stand out as the magnificent jewel in the crown of Kinmark the family.

At the center of the city was the Royal Palace of the King of the Kinmarks. The palatial estate was separated from the rest of the city by a thirty-foot-high stone wall. Within the wall, the estate was a city unto itself with all the food, materials, and people needed to survive on its own if necessary.

But the estate was just as beautiful as it was practical. The cobblestone path from the gate to the actual palace was lined with gilded statues of all the former Kinmark kings. Some stood with their arms and faces lifted to the sky, seemingly watching for another coming of Tyte. Others looked down protectively at those making the short journey to the palace’s entrance. Each figure was distinct, but they all were equally stunning due to their detailed craftsmanship. Adding to the scenery were gardens that stretched away from each side of the cobblestone path and seemed to always have blossoming flowers and neatly trimmed hedges.

The palace itself was the official home of the king, his advisors, and all of their families. In order to accommodate so many people in the constant state of luxury befitting their high station, the palace had been built as the largest building in the city and was staffed by hundreds of Mizish slaves. In addition to the royal palace, all of the most highly ranked members of the Kinmark family also had their own palaces in the area surrounding the palatial estate.

At this time, the King of the Kinmarks was Guoryden of Kinmark by Arr. King Guoryden, a man who retained all the typically dark Tytan features despite his sixty-two years, was widely regarded as the most powerful of the four kings who ruled the Tytan families. Part of this renown was simply due to the fact that he was the king of the preeminent family, but it was also largely due to the man himself.

Guoryden was known as a wise ruler as well as a trustworthy man. He had earned the respect of some of the most influential Kinmarks while he was still a youth of only twenty-three when he had ended one of the fairly common Mizish uprisings through negotiation rather than violence. For as much as the Tytans loved battle, they loved wisdom even more.

When his father had died unexpectedly at the age of ninety, a short lifespan for a Tytan, there had been none of the civil unrest that sometimes would accompany the ascent of a new king. The forty-year-old Guoryden had simply become king and life had moved on. Four years later, Guoryden’s wife, Queen Melisent, had given birth to the couple’s first children, twin boys who they had named Ahkdo and Kiv. It was not until three years after their birth that Melisent had learned she would never be able to conceive again.

Unlike his brother, Kiv was not the heir to the Kinmark throne. This placed both more and less pressure on him. On the one hand, he did not have to develop into the man to replace the king as the ultimate leader and decision maker of the entire family. However, he was still expected to do something important with his life. Whatever position he ended up in would bear less responsibility than what was in store for Ahkdo. But he had to actively decide what position that would be.

Kiv had always thought there was a kind of reassurance in having one’s destiny chosen by another. Unfortunately, he had no such reassurance. He had all of the expectations with none of the guidance. This is not to say that Kiv did not receive every bit as excellent training as his brother did. They both were extremely well educated in all subjects considered proper for a young Kinmark man.

Kiv had always been fascinated by history. That was why, at a moment when his future looked very uncertain to him, he was sitting in the gardens reading from the universally respected History of the Tytan People by Kasde of Lorwick by Ju. It was one of the few books not written by a Kinmark that the king actually allowed within the royal family’s personal library.

It had been written by a Lorwick scholar close to five hundred years ago in 2012E. The year was currently 2499E, with “E” symbolizing the years of Tytan existence. Kiv had read the book numerous times, but he was hoping that its insights into the past would enable him to forget about the future for a little while. Thus, on a warm summer morning, Kiv opened to the first page and began reading about the history of his people.

“The legends tell us that over two thousand years ago a being descended from the sky into a Mizish village near the center of the continent of Tyte. As the villagers gathered around to see this being, he found the creature that he was looking for. Her name was Danyehella, and she was the most beautiful woman ever to walk Fulorn and the mother to us all. The being took her inside one of the small huts, and they did not emerge until the next morning. The being told the villagers that his name was Tyte and that he would be watching them. He said if they allowed any harm to come to his bride, he would return and destroy them all. Then he disappeared into the sky from which he had come.

Three seasons after this visit, Danyehella gave birth to four boys. She named them Daren, Kinmark, Lorwick, and Yrica. These four boys eventually became the founders of the four families which continue to dominate everything in Tytan society to this day. They each lived approximately five hundred years. This long lifespan, when compared to the roughly one hundred and thirty years which a Tytan can expect to live today, seems to be explainable by the fact that these four brothers shared more blood with Tyte than we do now. Because all four were male, it was necessary for them to take Mizish brides to start their families. However, these original four Tytans established a strict rule that no other Tytans could diminish the blood any further by producing children with a Miz. This rule is rarely broken even in our time. As a result, almost all Tytans alive today are exactly one-quarter Tytan and three-quarters Mizish.

Before expounding on the lives of the four founders, I feel compelled to discuss what we know of Mizish history. After all, despite what we may like to think, we are mostly Mizish ourselves.

According to the Mizish people, they inhabited this continent for many millennia before the Tytans came into existence. They are of the belief that their ancestors came into being at a time when Tyte was dominated by a species other than humans. This species, which I have heard called a variety of names, was apparently somewhat reptilian yet intelligent enough to be capable of forming its own civilization. In time, the Mizish people were able to completely eliminate this mysterious species from the continent. None of the Miz I have talked with knows more about this ancient civilization or whether its members were wiped out from the entire world or if they simply fled to some other land. In any case, the ultimate victory of the Miz over this rival species is supposed to have taken place roughly one thousand years before the first Tytans. The thousand or so years between this struggle and our own inception is a time which the Miz look back on with great longing. It was their golden age, the only era of peace and freedom in their entire existence. Then came the Tytans.

Note: My dates are inexact because, in addition to having no written language prior to our existence, the Miz also had no formal method of keeping track of years. This obviously presents problems with the Mizish belief that their victory took place one thousand years before we came into existence. Such an event, if it took place at all, is just as likely to have occurred ten thousand years prior to Tyte’s descent as one thousand. A society without a formal calendar or written record is highly suspect when it comes to such ancient history.”

Kiv looked up from his book when he heard some muffled speech getting louder as it came closer to him. The authoritative voice of Guoryden was unmistakable even when Kiv could not make out his words. He saw the king and his brother, Ahkdo, the Heir Prince of the Kinmarks, round a corner into the row of the garden that was known to be Kiv’s favorite area in which to read his books.

As they came toward him, Kiv could not help but continue wondering what his role would be in the future. Would he be a scholar or a soldier? Perhaps he would be a judge or even a judge’s investigator. He did not know, but he knew it was expected of him to make his choice by his twentieth birthday. His time to decide was quickly running out.

Kiv was brought out of his musings by other familiar thoughts about how odd it was to be looking at his brother yet seeing himself. If not for their different clothing styles, no one would have been able to tell them apart. They each wore their dark hair to their shoulders and kept their brown faces shaved. They were large, even for Tytan men their age, at seven and a half feet tall with thin but muscular bodies. Kiv knew they were thought of as attractive young men with their strong jaw lines and high cheekbones.

At only eighteen, the families interested in marrying their daughters to either of the boys were already piling up. As the heir prince, Ahkdo was the real prize of course. But Kiv was not far behind. No one would turn down an acceptance from him in hope of possibly attaining the same from Ahkdo. Despite the many suitors, Kiv did not intend to marry any time soon. It was not considered unseemly for a Kinmark man to remain unwed into his thirties, and Kiv had no interest in tying himself down at such an early age.

Chapter Three of The Last Kinmark is available here!