The nine-foot elf came back with a waterskin. “Lava!” he said, holding it out.
Deadeye asked, “Goldenrod, what does ‘lava’ mean?”
“Whiskey.”
The hunter took the skin with a smile and nod. He put it to his lips and took a cautious sip. “Jesus!”
“Bad?” asked Crusher.
“No. Well, it’s raw, but it’s like rocket fuel. Pure booze.” Deadeye took a mouthful. “Thank you, kind sir.”
When he tried to hand it back the elf backed away, gesturing for it to be handed around.
Crusher took it next. “Whoo, you ain’t lying.”
When he went for a second drink Newman grabbed it. “No getting drunk. We just met them. We know some want to hurt Aelion. So stay alert.”
“Okay, boss,” said Crusher. He passed the skin on.
Goldenrod asked Newman, “Could you do that dance? It would be good if one of us joined in.”
“Hell, no. I can barely follow the beat. They’re doing two separate interleaved rhythms.”
“I can’t figure the dance out either. Haven’t been able to tell if the footwork is repeating or if there’s just phrases they include.”
More treats were supplied. The same female elf held a basket of sweets out to each human, a wide smile on her face.
Newman nudged Deadeye. “Here’s your chance to make your move.”
When the elf came by Deadeye took a handful of sticky berries and said thanks without making eye contact. She completed her circle of the embassy before vanishing back into the dancers.
“So what happened to wanting a hot elf chick?” asked Newman.
Deadeye didn’t answer immediately. “The paintings I remembered aren’t like the real ones. They’re pretty, but they don’t do anything for me.”
“Same for me,” said Newman. “Too tall, too skinny.”
“If they’re too skinny what am I?” asked Goldenrod.
“Perfect,” he answered.
Goldenrod kissed him.
***
Newman tried not to be jealous of the elves’ gorgeous looks, or innate fashion sense, or their magical talents. Discovering they didn’t suffer hangovers pissed him off.
One of the tree platforms had been detached and set on the ground for the non-arboreal guests. Most of the humans were asleep. Lanyard and Rasp were on watch when Newman awoke. He sent them to bed. He watched the elves go through their morning routines, all as cheerful and agile as they’d been before the party.
Baskets of fruit and cooked meat were waiting at the edge of the platform. He couldn’t fault the elves’ hospitality. A quick count showed everyone was here.
“Good morning, Newman,” said Aelion. He sat cross-legged in the center of the platform.
“Good morning. Has anyone bothered you?”
“No. Having orc-killer bodyguards is keeping them away. How long are we going to stay here?”
“Shouldn’t be long. Just need to come to an agreement on trade.” Newman lifted a handful of red berries from a basket.
“Good. I don’t like it here any more.”
Goldenrod stretched without bothering to get out of her blanket. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” Newman knelt down and popped a berry between her lips.
“Ooh, breakfast in bed. I could get used to this.”
He fed her more berries, but necessity forced her to get up anyway.
Soon everyone but the night guards were awake. The baskets emptied out quickly. They’d eaten lightly on the trip. They would have finished mediocre food. Having the best the forest offered in front of them made them gorge.
The leisurely debate over who deserved the last of the fig-like things was interrupted by the arrival of headman Lomlil. He introduced the female elf with him as Fordeen, the head gardener. Verbena promptly began interrogating them about the village’s food production and storage.
Goldenrod sat back and listened until Fordeen described their food storage.
“Nothing placed in that cellar decays, but it was made by sorcery so we couldn’t help you with that.”
“Aelion thought some of the magic we did was sorcery,” Goldenrod said. “Who can we talk to about that?”
Fordeen flinched and went silent.
Goldenrod looked at Lomlil. He stood and walked off the platform, waving for her to follow. Newman went with her.
The headman stopped on the far side of one of the great trees. “Sorcery is not something we speak of lightly.”
“It’s not a light subject for me,” replied Goldenrod. “My own magic may be sorcery. I cast spells without intending it. I need guidance, teaching in how to use it.”
“Do not ask the sorcerer for favors. The mere request may make him angry. He is capricious and proud.”
“Was he at the party last night?” asked Newman.
Lomlil shivered. “No. He lives a mile from the village.” His tone was grateful.
Goldenrod leaned into the headman’s personal space. The effect was ruined by his being three feet taller than her. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“No one knows the sorcerer’s name.”
“He came from far away?”
“No, he was born here. He’s the oldest person in the village.”
“So why don’t you know his name?” pressed Newman.
The head twitches of someone seeking a way to avoid answering an unpleasant question were the same on an elf and a human . . . yet on the elf it looked graceful.
“Twelve hundred years ago . . .” Lomlil sighed. “Twelve hundred years ago the sorcerer killed the last one who knew his name. Now none dare speculate, lest a lucky guess bring death.”
“Oh,” said Goldenrod.
“Is that someone you want to apprentice yourself to?” asked Lomlil.
Newman muttered an agreement with the headman.
“Not an apprenticeship. But I’d like to ask some advice. Or buy some teaching if we have anything he’d want to trade for.”
Another sigh. “If I see any of his apprentices, I will send them to you. Perhaps then you will not need to bother the master.”
***
“So these are the orc killers,” pronounced the new arrival.
Newman looked her over. Brass skin, aluminum hair. Skirt made of strips of leather, more like Roman armor than the dress he’d seen on other elf females. The arms and legs bore rows of scars. Too neat to be from combat. Too ugly to be decorative.
She walked into their shelter, surveying the humans but ignoring Aelion. “I am Ymer. Where is the one who thinks she is a sorceress?”
Goldenrod stood. “I don’t claim that title. I have abilities I don’t understand. I want to speak to someone who knows higher magic.”
“You are getting what you want. I am one of the senior apprentices.” Ymer sat down before Goldenrod. “Speak.”
“Since we’ve arrived on this world I’ve done things I can’t explain. The first was the night we came through.” Goldenrod described cursing Belladonna, finding vineroot, healing Redinkle, and then . . . killing orcs with a word.
Ymer opened her mouth, clapped a hand across it to silence herself, and waved for Goldenrod to go on.
She described the experiments she did with her powers. Then forming the mage council to help others.
“Oh, my,” said Ymer when she finished. “The Master will want to see you. It’s disappointing you didn’t bring the one who could fly. How does she do it? Does she grow feathers?”
“No, Aster just wills herself to go up and she does.”
“Interesting.”
“So you’re familiar with what I did?” asked Goldenrod.
“Nothing exactly like it. But you seem to have a form of noroldwesru.”
“I don’t understand that word.”
The apprentice glanced at Aelion. “You wouldn’t. It would be easier to understand in your own language. If you’ll let me.”
Goldenrod braced herself as the hand touched the top of h
er head. The pain wasn’t nearly as sharp as when Aelion taught her Elvish, and it only lasted an instant.
“Let me . . . no, you don’t have the word either.” Ymer thought a moment. “Call it reality probability shaping. Hazardous stuff. I wouldn’t dare attempt it.”
“How would someone learn it?”
“Apprenticeship. Surviving apprenticeship long enough to attempt the higher magics. Surviving the trials of higher magic to attempt true sorcery. And if you survive that—then noroldwesru.”
“How hard is it to survive apprenticeship?” demanded Goldenrod.
“An apprentice dies once or twice a century.”
“And the rest?”
“That you’ll have to ask the sorcerer.”
“I will.”
Ymer smirked. “I’ll ask if he’ll see you.”
The apprentice stood and strode out, stepping over the seated guards as if they weren’t there.
Goldenrod watched after her. She heard Newman’s whisper in her ear. “Are you seriously thinking of dealing with that guy?”
“How else am I going to learn to use my magic?”
“He killed somebody for knowing his name. And he kills his apprentices.”
“There’s a lot of magical traditions where knowing someone’s name gives you power over him. And she didn’t say anything about him killing his apprentices. Magic is dangerous. Redinkle and Rivet nearly killed themselves with their own spells.”
“We can’t be sure of that.”
Aelion interrupted. “He has killed an apprentice. I heard one was disrespectful to him. The sorcerer poured out all his blood.”
“There!” said Newman.
“What? I can be respectful.”
“Says the woman who pissed off half the Peers into organizing a conspiracy against her.”
Verbena laughed.
“Look,” said Goldenrod, “gathering information is part of our mission here. This guy can help us understand our powers. He might have a clue how we were brought here. If there’s any way we can go back home it probably goes through him.”
Verbena stepped into the conversation. “I agree. Dealing with the sorcerer is dangerous. But this whole trip is dangerous. We just need to be diplomatic. And make a full show of force. We should have everyone there.”
***
“The master will see you now,” said Ymer.
Her face was well lit by the late afternoon sun but it gave no indication of whether she liked or disliked the news.
“Thank you, we will come at once,” said Goldenrod.
Newman snapped, “Get your gear. Like we talked about. Ready for action.” He watched his men scurry to get ready. Not that physical weapons were likely to be any use in preventing the sorcerer from hurting Goldenrod. But if he could offer a credible threat of retaliation it might deter him.
Goldenrod and Verbena flanked Ymer as they walked out of the village. Newman walked behind them. The rest gaggled behind in a loose clump. He discarded the thought of trying to make them form a line.
“Do you really need the damn axe?” hissed Goldenrod.
“Yes. It looks good.” Newman wore the axe in a harness that held it across his back, with the point of the blade peeking over his right shoulder.
Ymer didn’t react to all the humans following her. She did notice Aelion in the middle of them. “Are you afraid to stay here alone, wanderer?”
“If you had as many threatening to cut your throat you wouldn’t be alone either.”
Newman thought the apprentice’s laugh was musical but not pleasant.
The village was surrounded by garden patches except for here. The gap in the circle of cultivation was filled with shrubs, weeds, and bare dirt.
As they walked away from the village and into another grove of trees the ground became all dirt.
The trees weren’t healthy either. The branches opposite the village had few leaves. Sometimes none.
Ahead they saw a tree with no leaves at all. Branches had broken off leaving holes in the bark. A wide hollow gaped at the base.
Ymer pointed at it. “The Master’s Sanctuary.”
“I can feel the power here,” Verbena said as they approached the tree.
The opening of the hollow was wide enough for all the humans to stand in it, with room for Ymer and Aelion.
Newman studied the inside of the tree. It was lit by a glowing orb on the ceiling. The sorcerer was obvious. Not just by the rune-inscribed clothes, but the deference of everyone else. Two elves stood beside the sorcerer. Four kneeled at the edges of the room, faces down.
In the center of the beaten-earth floor was a circle showing an image of a forest from above. The sorcerer and his senior apprentices stood beside it.
All the elves had obsidian daggers. The sorcerer had a carved wood wand in his belt. No bows or other obvious weapons.
The walls were lined with shelves and cubbyholes. Some held books and scrolls, the first written material Newman had seen among the elves. Flasks and dried plants filled the rest.
“My wonderful vermin exterminators,” said the sorcerer. “I’m delighted to see you at last.”
Ymer bowed, “My Master, I present the short ones, who call themselves humans.” She introduced everyone to the sorcerer. Aelion was mentioned only as “their guide.”
The senior apprentices were Osdul and Ithuil. The latter was noticeably more deferential. The kneelers weren’t introduced.
The sorcerer ignored everyone but Goldenrod. “Come here, child. The story of your gift fascinates me. The energies of your world and mine must have combined to create something new.”
Newman tensed as she walked forward. The sorcerer waved his hands around Goldenrod’s head, then her torso.
“Yes, something I’ve never seen before. The greatest surprise I’ve had in over a millennium. I thank you. This will take years to understand.”
“The spells I’ve cast are more surprising than our arrival from another world?” asked Goldenrod.
“Oh, other worlds are no surprise. I’ve viewed many. No, you are different. A strange sensation, your magic.”
The sorcerer looked at Aelion. “There’s a touch of that feel on you. What spell did she cast on you?”
“She—she never cast a spell on me,” sputtered the elf.
“Oh, she did. Perhaps she summoned you to be their guide?”
“There was no summons,” protested Aelion. “I found them by accident.”
The powerful gaze turned back to Goldenrod. “Around her, there are no accidents. I will need new words to describe this.”
Ymer asked, “It’s not noroldwesru?”
“This . . . gift the human has is like noroldwesru as the purest lava is to a fermented berry hanging on the vine.”
The look on the sorcerer’s face worried Newman. It was greed. Not a man looking at gold. The greed of a scientist looking at a new specimen to dissect. His right hand rose toward the axe. No. He forced it down. He didn’t dare risk giving offense now.
Goldenrod looked up into the sorcerer’s eyes. “Will you help me learn to use this gift?”
“Of course. Of course. But we must be careful. Mere fire can only burn. This could do anything.”
“I know. That’s why I want help with it.”
“And you shall have it. But this will take thought. To begin we will need a day of storytelling. I must have every detail of what has happened before we tempt fate with this power again.”
Newman relaxed. Talking wasn’t a danger.
“Yes, sir. Oh, there’s something I forgot to mention to Ymer.” Goldenrod took the leather scroll out of her pocket. “The woman who cast the spell to bring us here had this. Have you seen anything like it?”
The sorcerer took the scroll, snapped its cord, and unrolled it. “The circle is complete at last. I’ve seen this. I wrote it.”
“You wrote—how did Belladonna get it?”
“Oh, I’ve written hundreds of them. Then sent them forth on the c
urrents of the universes like leaves floating down a stream. Each to a different world, seeking someone with the right gifts, right desires to use it.”
He traced the lines of a diagram with his fingertip. A reminiscent smile crept across his face.
“For centuries every night I would cast the spell to match this one. And never did anyone perform the partner spell. Until at last one of you did. I felt such will in her as our spells met. Where is she? I would thank her.”
“She was killed by orcs.” This would be a bad moment for Goldenrod to mention her role in Belladonna’s death.
“Inevitable I suppose. But you’ve killed so many orcs. It was a delight to see.”
Newman’s brain was frozen. That this elf was responsible for their kidnapping, their near starvation, all the deaths . . . He’d thought that responsibility was gone with Belladonna. Now the thoughts of blame and punishment were flooding back, too strong to handle at once. And as tempting as the thought of revenge was, justice must bow to survival. They needed help to make it through the winter. Picking a fight with the elves would doom them.
Goldenrod caught on the sorcerer’s last word. “See? How did you see it?”
“Oh, the simplest of sorceries.” He turned to the disk in the middle of the floor, waving the apprentices out of his way.
“A scrying pool. I can see where I wish.” A few gestures changed the view to above the human camp. “There is your home.”
Goldenrod’s voice rose. “You knew we were here all this time and you did nothing?”
“Of course I knew you were here. I cast the spell that brought you. The scroll only let you leave your world. Both were needed for the journey.”
“Then why didn’t you help us?”
“I did help you. I cast a protection spell on all of you.”
“But—we needed to find food, we needed warning of the dangers.”
“You managed quite well.”
Newman wanted to scream the names of those who’d died while they’d ‘managed quite well.’ He saw Goldenrod struggling with the same temptation. He didn’t know whether to hold her back or encourage her to blast the old bastard.
The War Revealed (The Lost War Book 2) Page 9