Ash closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Exhaling, he cleared his head.
“Just one word, my dear mage,” she continued. “One word. I see you want it.”
“The first thing the monks taught me was to fight my desires.”
Anna’Bre laughed making ice flowers bloom on the windows. Even with her, there was an elusive, otherworldly beauty inherent to all fae.
“Silly boy.” She smiled. Ash flinched but didn’t argue. The fae called even the elven princes boys, rarely ever young men. “Why fight them? Wishes exist to be fulfilled.”
“Perhaps with your kin, but mortals have a slightly different opinion on that matter.”
And that was the end of the conversation. The witch waved her hand and disappeared, turning into a snowstorm. How many such conversations had they had? How many more would they have? Ash didn’t expect the Stumps to come rescue him. They weren’t his friends, and they wouldn’t risk their lives to save some worthless mage.
He couldn’t reach the staff. He couldn’t make Anna’Bre fall for any trick of his no matter how much he tried. Every time he had faced an immortal, he had magic and wit on his side. Now, deprived of the former, he couldn’t make proper use of the latter. All he could do was put on a brave face and pray for the best.
Ash shook his head and hugged his shoulders, trying to maintain the rapidly fading warmth. Anna’Bre would be back soon to start the same dance again. She’d tempt him, promising peace and eternal pleasure. Ash had never been prone to lust, but the last time he had been with a woman was back in the Aquel caravan, and two months had passed since then. Luckily, so far, meditation had been enough to resist.
Ash shivered and suddenly felt something hard and wooden touch his side. Red droplets of blood fell to the cold floor, hissing like hot oil. He carefully unclenched his bruised, numb fingers, and slipped his hands into his shirt. With slight puzzlement, he pulled out a black flute — a gift from Helmer.
“I could’ve sworn that you weren’t there yesterday...” he whispered, putting the flute to his lips.
The instrument replied with a slurping sound, as if it were trying to snort in response to the mage’s comment.
Ash would’ve liked to attribute the terrible sound that still lingers among the walls of Graven’Dor to his numb fingers and tired lips, but that would be a lie. He had never been a musician, and even the simplest shepherd’s son sounded like the yelps of a dying cat when he sang it. Fortunately, he had no audience, so he wasn’t ashamed of his lack of talent.
Having finished his performance, he watched as the flute crumbled in his hands. Only black dust on the blue palms was a reminder of its existence. For a good moment or two, Ash waited for any sign of Helmer. From his smirking face to the orderly march of hundreds of thousands of his nightmares. But as time passed, the mage became less and less hopeful of the demon’s arrival.
Sighing, Ash reassumed the meditation pose that’d make any normal person cry out that all of their muscles were aching. Ash, too, felt pain in everything that could possibly hurt in one’s body, but didn’t show it.
After all, he had to uphold the reputation of Mt. Mok-Pu and its monks.
Chapter 55
B y the time Irmaril had already caressed the western edge of the sky, Anna’Bre returned to her chambers. She approached the cage with a determined by still captivating and elegant step.
“My neighbor will be here in a few hours,” she announced.
Ash remained silent. Helmer had never shown up, so all the mage could rely on was his own head. Alas, he had never been known to be smart.
“You still have a chance, mage,” Anna’Bre continued, her voice sweet and gentle, clouding the mind and making it difficult to think clearly. “One word and you’ll be saved.”
Ash looked into her deep, blue eyes.
“Will you grant me my last wish?” he whispered.
For a moment, the witch’s face lit up with triumphant pride, but she was quick to put her mask back on.
“I’ll grant you whatever wish you desire, my poor, little Ash.”
“You know what I want.”
“I need to hear it.”
“Let me out of the cage,” he almost pleaded. “I don’t want to die in captivity.”
“Foolish boy.” She smiled. “You’re not going to die. There’s no peace in death.”
“Peace is worse than death,” the mage thought but remained silent.
Seconds ticked by, followed by minutes. Anna’Bre pondered for a while until she came to the solution that, in Ash’s opinion, seemed like the only correct one. The witch waved her hand and the cage exploded in a hail of snow dust. Ash had never liked these theatrical hand gestures. In his opinion, nothing expressed a mage’s feelings and intentions better than a good hit to the ground with a staff. Then again, perhaps he was biased since he couldn’t kill a fly with a wave of his hands even if he tried to.
Ash straightened up; the sound his stiff limbs made as bones cracked back into their place made Anna’Bre grimace. The mage grunted something obscene and blinked away a tear of pain. After sitting in the same position for a week, without food and a handful of melted snow to drink, Ash was an even more pathetic sight than usual. His cheeks were sunken and eyes framed with dark circles, and his skin was so dry that it stuck to the bones of his torso, making it a perfect model for anatomy lessons.
The mage swayed, threatening to collapse, but Anna’Bre supported him just in time. And it was in that brief moment, while the witch was occupied, that Ash felt his chest fill with hope.
He held out his hand and called out to his other half. The staff flared like a dry branch and flew over to its companion. However, it wasn’t faster than Anna’Bre’s reflexes.
The witch’s eyes darkened and she let go of the mage. Ash didn’t have the time to react so he fell face-first to the floor and felt all the air be knocked out of his lungs. He began to wheeze and clutch at his throat and chest.
“Idiot!” Anna’Bre shouted in rage. The chamber was instantly filled with spikes that shout out from the walls, floor, and ceiling. “I offered you myself and my kingdom, and this is how you repay me?!”
“Adventure,” Ash wheezed.
“What?!”
“I prefer adventure to peace!” the mage shouted, lips curling into a mocking smile.
The Word of fire flared, and his heart beat a little faster, and he was finally able to form a small ball of fire and throw it at the witch. Anna’Bre didn’t so much as flinch as she watched the flame die down before reaching her.
“Fool!” A blizzard began to form, swallowing her. “You dare mock me?! The Queen of the Winter Court?!”
The power of her rage was something that Ash had never experienced, not even during his apprenticeship with Hu-Chin.
“Die, you worm!”
She leaned over the mage. Her eyes went from dark to black, like two windows on a moonless winter night. A Word formed in her lungs and crawled up her throat. The echoes of it were already dancing on the tip of her tongue, making both Ash and the walls of Graven’Dor tremble.
If he had his staff, then, perhaps, and only perhaps, he’d be able to resist the power of a Word that could end any mortal being. But the staff, although it wanted to be free, couldn’t escape Anna’Bre’s spell. As much as he’d like to think that he was ready to face death without fear, Ash knew that that wasn’t true.
A scream he thought he’d never be able to produce escaped his throat. He screamed with all the desperation that a person on the verge of death could muster. If he had known that pleading would’ve had an effect, he would’ve prayed to all the Gods, all the demons, and even the Dark ones themselves, but he knew that it was useless.
The Gods wouldn’t descend from the Heavens to save their servant; the spirits wouldn’t answer the call of one of the few mortals that could speak to them; nor would there be anyone among the mortals who would risk their lives to save “a demon in human form.” Now more than ever did Ash
know how alone he was in this nameless world.
The first sound that escaped from Anna’Bre’s lips made Ash’s heart stop, and his scream to die in a wheeze. All she needed to sever the connection between Ash’s soul and body was a second. But before that could’ve happened, everything went silent. The blizzard settled and then disappeared, and Anna’Bre’s silhouette could be seen through the thin veil that obscured Ash’s vision.
The witch stared in disbelief at the black arrowtip that had pierced the back of her head and exited through her larynx, slicing through her tongue and breaking her teeth. The adamantium tip glittered menacingly. In less than a moment, another arrow emerged from her throat, then from her heart, and then her stomach.
There were no cries or groans or cursing. Anna’Bre’s eyes widened and then she fell apart like a broken crystal vase.
Alice ran over to her fallen companion, screaming healing spells as she did so. Ash wheezed, his throat hissing like a kettle left alone on the stove for too long.
“Man, you’ve got some healthy set of lungs!” Lari exclaimed, hopping frantically on his right leg while he poked his left ear with his little finger. “I think I’ve gone deaf!”
“Four arrows at a time?” Mary asked.
Tul stuck his chin out with pride and hit his chest with his fist.
The Stumps were fooling around, pretending like they hadn’t just defeated a great fae. In all the history of adventures and adventurers, there were maybe fifty lucky individuals who could boast of such a feat. To kill an immortal is an achievement paid not in gold, but in eternal glory. Then again, this, too, is paid in gold.
“Sss,” Ash croaked.
“What? What is it?” Alice asked, leaning over to hear him better.
“My... staff...” the mage breathed out.
“Yes, of course!”
Alice jumped up, frowned her thin brows, and said something. Her wind flew up like a swallow, and the spell holding the staff broke like a strained lute string. Ash stretched out his hand and in less than a moment felt a pleasant weight. His fingers gripped the warm wood. The Stumps stared with their mouths ajar as Ash underwent a metamorphosis. His eyes shone with a renewed light, and the circles under them seemed to disappear. The frostbitten blue was gone from his skin and replaced with a healthy shade of pink.
In less than a heartbeat, the mage was back on his feet, the usual mischievous smile back on his face. He grasped the staff tighter, flexed his fingers, cracked his neck, and bent over a couple of times to make sure that everything was working properly. Once he was done, he nodded with satisfaction.
“What... What was that?” Alice asked. She had never before seen something like that.
“A secret.” Ash smiled. He couldn’t let them know that a part of his soul was forever encased in the staff — the price of Firewood’s power.
While Alice was trying to persuade the mage to reveal his secret, Lari was digging through a pile of ice and snow. After a couple of moments of rummaging around, he pulled out a heart-shaped chunk of ice. It was so brilliantly red that it looked like a ruby.
“The fae’s heart!” Mary exclaimed, snatching the loot from her friend’s hands. “We’re gonna be rich!”
She wasn’t exaggerating. It was hard to even imagine how much such a thing could be sold for at an auction. Let alone how much any mage worth their salt would be willing to pay for such an artifact.
“The last hear went for almost thousand gold!” Her eyes shone with something between greed and pride.
“A thousand gold pieces!” Blackbeard exclaimed. “With all the taxes, one hundred and fifty gold per person.”
The Stumps fell silent. An experienced adventurer earned that much for two or three years of hard and very dangerous work.
Ash scratched the top of his head and looked around. He had expected the enchanted castle to shake and fall apart after the death of its owner, but it didn’t. The ice continued to glitter, and the shadows continued to dance. If you strained your ears, you could hear the screams of the fae’s slaves from somewhere deep within the ancient halls. Having lost their mistress, they were now prisoners of the wasteland.
The mage cleared his throat.
“What?” Mary asked.
“We can’t keep it.”
Silence.
“Are you out of your mind?!” Mary shouted.
“Don’t listen to him! He has lost his mind due to the torture!” Tul nodded.
“It costs a fortune!” Lari added.
“It’s too precious!” Alice joined in.
“He’s right,” Blackbeard said, combing his beloved beard. When everyone, including Ash, turned to look at him in bewilderment, he rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. “Look around. The place is still frozen. Whether we killed Anna’Bre or not won’t matter. When we return and report to Moron, do you know what he’ll hear? That we cowardly put an arrow in our enemy’s back!”
“What if we say that we just got lucky?” Lari suggested.
“Lucky and dishonorable.” Blackbeard grimaced. “Everyone will blow the story out of proportion and we’ll become known as cowards who won’t hesitate to stab their enemy in the back.”
“We don’t have to report anything,” Mary drawled thoughtfully.
“Do you really think that gold is more important than our reputation?!” Blackbeard exclaimed. He was getting rallied up. “How many squads can brag about having killed a fae? No one! Even guilds don’t have more than one or two demons mounted on their walls! We could!”
“But... But coin...” Tul mumbled, all sad.
“To hell with it!” Blackbeard snapped. “The king will give us three times more than that! Do you really think that we can carry this icy heart to the Fire Mountain? If it doesn’t melt there and curse us, then it’ll attract everyone and everything that can sense magic.”
Silence fell upon them and Ash could swear that he could hear the sound of cogs turning in everyone’s heads. Finally, Mary exhaled and unclenched her hand. The heart fell to the floor.
“You’re right,” she said. “If we tell them that we removed Graven’Dor’s curse, then it won’t matter that we stabbed Anna’Bre in the back.”
“As if no one ever played dirty in a fight,” Tul said.
Lari and Alice tried to seem cheerful despite tears that kept trying to swell up in their eyes.
“Esh.” Mary turned to the slightly shocked mage. He had never expected the Stumps to give up on so much coin. “Can you destroy it?”
“I’ll try.”
Having said that, he walked over to the heart and stood so that everyone could only see his back. Little did his companions know that his offer was less than noble. If a follower of magic absorbed something this powerful, like he did with Hu-Chin’s blue flame, then…
But before he could get down to destroying the heart, he had one more matter he needed to clear up.
“Why did you come back for me?”
“What do you mean why?” Lari grunted. “What else should you do when your friend is in trouble?”
The mage turned sharply. The Stumps smiled, warmly and sincerely. Even Mary. Even Lari.
“Hey, what’s on your face?” Alice asked quietly.
“Meltwater.”
Ash turned away and wiped a salty tear from his cheek. He then raised his staff and drove it into the heart. No one noticed the bottom flash with blue fire before the impact.
The Stumps covered their ears, trying to block the deafening ring that still managed to daze them even through their pressed palms. Icicles fell from the ceiling; the centuries-old ice cracked; and the zombies, finally at peace, crumbled to dust. The ancient abode was waking up from a long sleep. Shaking, it threw off the ice shackles.
Ash, who had surrounded his friends with a protective shield made of fire, was thinking about the world. The nameless planed changed again. For the umpteenth time in a very short period, its millennia-old foundations have been shaken. The First Master, eternal in his unshakable
indifference, spoke his Word; Helmer was getting ready to march again; Erlnd died, distraught in his rage; and now the Order of the Mage King had been awakened.
Something was happening in the nameless world. Ash feared the worst — the Gods preparing to turn the page of the Book of Fate.
Perhaps, only perhaps, the end of the Age of the Drunken Monk was approaching. And as the legends said — at the junction of two eras, amazing, but equally terrible things were bound to happen.
Chapter 56
1st day of the Month of Art, 313. A.D., the High House
T he High House, or, as it was called by the travelers, the Sea of Forests, was a vast area consisting of various forests, from deciduous and coniferous, to the jungles on the very south of the continent. Legends said that when the Gods were still young, and humans were still apes, one of the future Heavenly Ministers, then the very young Asal, planted the seeds of the first trees. A hundred years later, the first forest was born from them, and Asal called it the Crystal Forest, and it was from it that the first elf was born from the first summer leaf.
Asal embraced the elf and raised it as if he were his own child. The God of Nature touched the brow of the first Leafborn and put wisdom into his mind. He then touched his heart and filled it with love for every living creature. And then he dropped a tear on his lips, granting him and his kin the knowledge of Words and music that even today, hundreds of eras later, people flocked to the elven capital of the Crystal Forest to listen to the songs of their bards.
Centuries passed, followed by millennia, and the great tree scattered its seeds around. They sprouted, gained strength, and carried their fruit even further, whispering something to the wind. And so the High House was born, the boundless abode of the forest elves. No one knew exactly how many cities there were in this seemingly endless forest, because no one had ever attended the meeting of their rules. And if anyone had been lucky enough to be present at that event, they certainly wouldn’t tell us anything.
No, not because they were, as the good old Blackbeard would say “turned into hedgehogs,” but because only a friend of the elves could enter the Crystal Forest, and who in their right mind would betray their friends?
Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story Page 37