The red was different, Liam thought slightly distracted by the view of the island. Moving his gaze from the woman back to the horizon, he replied as he considered his thoughts aloud, “I am more conflicted about whether we should have killed those creatures. We basically destroyed an entire race of plant men. They didn’t think the way we do, but there was some form of intelligence there. Should we have just eradicated them so callously?”
Pursing her lips in a slight frown, the woman pushed back at a stray lock of hair. The winds on the ship would never let her hair remain perfectly set unless the wind wizard decided to use an air shield. Liam realized that the girl was barefoot and using no spell to keep warm. For a southerner, that was very unusual. Even the people onboard the ship still felt the cool air and wore clothes designed for winter or fall.
Annalicia didn’t seem to feel the cold, but the stray lock was another matter. Ignoring the annoyance to answer his questioning, the woman held the strand of silver and began to try to help sort out his feelings as she viewed them, “You were infected by them and probably know more than I do of what they feel. We all felt a certain amount of affinity for the creatures as if we were being joined to a collective spirit, but they were still individual. That much may make us want to think of them as living beings, but there was no central thought. It was merely instinct.
“Once you were free from the curse, you were the first to push to cleanse them from the fort so no one else would run the risk of becoming contaminated. If you truly believed them to be more than a cancer trying to take over healthy flesh, then your actions speak contrarily.
“While I was just in the beginning stages from having touched you who were further along, I did feel some of the urge to return to the fort. The curse makes those under its influence stay where it can ripen and take over a being. The plants didn’t work with their hosts. They let them die and merely live off of the dead flesh using the framework to manipulate the dead body within to seem like a man, Liam.
“After the salt dissolved the moss and vines, you saw the corpses for yourself.
“If we had left the curse in place, many others would probably wander into that cursed place and would have joined them in their curse. We couldn’t leave it in place because it was simply a rot living off the dead.”
He heard her words and considered them. The man had thought them all at one time, but seeing all the dead bodies in the fort made him question what they had done. “If a man dies in the forest, plants grow and use his flesh to replenish nature.”
“If someone wanders into the forest and stumbles across the dead man, the plants don’t usually try to attack them and turn them into nourishment for nature before their time,” the girl wagged her finger at his face chiding his attempt to flip logic. “Either way, what is done can’t be undone. Dwell on it this way and you may never get over it. We freed the dead to go on into eternity, if they hadn’t already more than a century beforehand.”
Hearing the soft footfalls as Anna wandered away to check on other matters of the ship, Liam gave the island one last look. His dreams had given him some insight into the orcs’ demise, but had the curse brought about new beings that should have been left alone? It was too late to worry over now and perhaps Annalicia was correct. They had to prevent the curse from spreading to the innocent that could wander across the island. The rest of the jungle and its dangerous plants had been left alone. It could defend itself and, without being brash enough to keep pushing at it, people could wander into it and still get out alive without fear of the infection.
Turning from the view, the water wizard went in search of better conversation to distract him from such morose thoughts.
Themenor looked on the fortress with a bit of fear and dread. He had watched as the plants had come to life and, from the safety of his place in the sky, he had watched as dozens of the creatures had swarmed the half dozen men and women. The wizard had watched as they fought their way free and knew which magic had done the best, but he had also watched as half of them began to get sick. He had watched as the plants consumed clothing and took root in the humans that had fought them hours before.
His strength wasn’t enough to watch how they had cured the afflicted, but by morning the same people were healthy once more. He had witnessed as the wizards had used the sea water to wash away the creatures. They had burned, so he knew that something involving the water was effective at removing the plants at least. If he were to get infected, Themenor would jump in the sea for sure.
What had happened to the north with the other group was beyond his witness. Ashleen had watched as she rode the wind and said that the jungle came alive to attack them. She had no answer for the strange lightning, but she knew that Sebastian knew the spell. Where he had gotten that kind of power for such a massive bolt of lightning she didn’t know, though the mage had managed many spells that the wizards felt should have exceeded his strength in the tournament also. He was an enigma and Themenor wished that he knew the man’s secrets. A simple battle mage, weak in magical power, had bested full wizards and made it further into the tournament than he had. Not only those beaten, but those who had fallen short could feel shame in that.
“What’s the matter, Themenor?” Dorgred asked loudly before clapping the air wizard on the back. “Don’t tell me a few plants and a decaying ruin, have you spooked. Do you think ghosts will attack you as well?”
Gritting his teeth, Themenor strove to hold his tongue. The fire wizard was brash and often boisterous. He loved destroying things with his fire and was uncouth to the say the least, the air wizard thought disgustedly. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” the man grumbled.
“Bah, you are too serious!” the muscular fire wizard said with a grin. “If we can’t stare death in the face with a smile, then what kind of wizards are we?”
“Live ones,” sighed Fedwin the other fire wizard as he rolled his eyes. The thin, smaller wizard with his pinched features countered the bulk of Dorgred with a more patient and calculated approach to both tactics and his life. Themenor could deal with the quieter fire wizard whose demeanor didn’t continually rub him the wrong way.
“Fortune favors the bold, my little friend,” Dorgred returned clapping the other fire wizard on the back staggering him, “though perhaps such a light weight as you is wise to avoid the strong winds of fate.”
“If you’re done goofing around, Dorgred, then maybe we can finally deal with the wishes of our new friends,” the balding, bulk of their earth wizard, Zenfar, interrupted the fire wizard as he continued to chide the others. Looking at the last wizard of Southwall, their youngest stroked his golden beard looking at the lightning wilder with an appraising eye. “If you could stop ogling the girl, Hyren, perhaps you could enlighten us as to whether you can use the spell that was used to bring sea water raining down on the fort.”
Ashleen continued to ignore Hyren’s stares, though she could hear Zenfar’s comment. Pulling his attention from the pretty, platinum blond beauty, the water wizard waved off Zenfar’s concerns as he replied, “I’ve already discussed the matter with their Wendle. We can create the water spouts and, with Ashleen and Themenor’s winds to drive them similarly to our friends on the Sea Dragon, we can achieve the same as our predecessors. Until we actually determine that it is needed, Wendle and I will simply transport our own personal supply of sea water in a large sphere of magic. That should suffice on a smaller scale, since it appears that they have removed the threat for us here already,” he finished gesturing to the grass and brush between them and the fortress.
The plant life looked burned in places and melted into rot in others. In either case, the flora appeared equally dead and lifeless. The wizards could see that something magical had happened to cause such unusual damage.
“Do you believe that they may have altered the sea water in some way?” Fedwin questioned as he squatted in the sand just beyond the first signs of death. “I can’t imagine sea water would have this effect on plants normally.”
Ashleen moved closer followed by Deiclonus and Wendle, “Themenor and I watched them use their spells. They drew the water out of the sea and used wind to make it rain over the land and fortress. There is magic in the land affecting the plants here. The jungle to the north fought the other team and drove them out of there with all manner of strange attacks. Only a nature wizard could do one part of what I saw, but it was the entire jungle.
“Now if you boys are done wasting time, let’s get this over with,” the girl who was almost a decade younger than the youngest Southwall wizard, Hyren, rebuked the elder wizards trying to appear unaffected by the eerie magic of the island.
Lord Romonus stood near a base camp by the longboats. The lord had already given them the mission to go to the fort and see if they could find any news of why the others had been to the island. No one wanted to test the main jungle and if they wished to keep within Themenor’s range for finding the Sea Dragon again, they couldn’t afford to spend that much time on the island. With the fort being the only likely candidate that a single team of wizards would have time to explore, it all hinged on this one mission.
For Ashleen, as she followed Deiclonus, the mission to find answers meant less than making sure that they didn’t harm Sebastian’s efforts. The young wizard questioned her loyalty to a lord that followed an allied country’s vessel without telling them. If they were there to truly help Sebastian’s team, then why were they skulking around without them knowing?
The team split up to cover more area as they witnessed the strange aftermath of the rain storm spells. If anything had survived, they figured it would be easily dealt with now that the fort’s power was devastated. Ashleen walked with Hyren as the water wizard used his magic to carry a large sphere of sea water hovering just behind his body. She would have preferred to have Wendle with her to avoid the man’s continual unwanted attention, but Deiclonus had chosen him to join them. Dorgred was their fourth. Despite the fire wizard’s often over the top persona, Ashleen was almost glad to have the large man nearby. His physical strength and fire magic were comforting for a small girl, even though the little wilder wielded great power in her lightning.
The rooms within the crumbling stone walls revealed little. Long decayed corpses could be found, but most of those had been closer to the entry. When the water had come, the creatures must have been waiting and hoping that the men would return through the doorway facing the beach. No traces of plant life remained. How the sea water had managed to wash away nearly every trace of greenery was still beyond them. Ashleen had a feeling that Sebastian and his people knew. Those afflicted by moss taking root in their skin and clothes were completely healed by morning after all. They had also taken the time to wash away the dangers of the fortress before taking their leave.
“Well, well,” Dorgred suddenly crowed, “it looks like they missed one.” The fire wizard had noticed a bush in one corner. A stone overhang had keep the plant from being hit in the storm, though it still seems trapped where it stood. It remained still save for a slow swaying as if being pushed by a wind.
Powering up a spell, the fire wizard brought his hands together in a clap sending a wave of fire into the moss man. Steam lifted from the floor as the fiery wave passed and struck the creature. Expecting to see the moss burn, Dorgred was surprised when the moss man suddenly lunged from the corner towards the nearest human. Being the one to use the fire spell, meant the powerful wizard was also the was closest of them and the target of the counter attack.
“Dorgred!” Ashleen screamed and lightning released in reaction to her fear. She was a wilder and her spells could overwhelm her control when overly excited or afraid. The room echoed with thunder as the bolt leaped to the moss man. Luckily for Dorgred, the strike slowed the creature long enough for Hyren to send a trio of tendrils from the sphere into the moss.
As water soaked the moving plant, it reeled back as the controlling moss burned and turned to liquid. Washed from the decayed corpse beneath the green, the plant could no longer control the body within and it collapsed to the floor.
“Dorgred, you idiot, didn’t Themenor tell you that fire seemed unable to harm these things? The water seems to be the only thing capable of destroying them and your fire steamed it all away when you attacked it,” Deiclonus complained to the gruff looking wizard. The big man’s eyes were still recovering from surprise and hurt to his pride. “Good work, Hyren, Ashleen,” their leader added as he looked at the decayed carcass on the floor.
Hyren nodded at the recognition and pulled the remaining strands back into the sphere. He had used some, but there was a lot more left in case of more stragglers. Ashleen said nothing in response. Her power had reacted, but it was a weakness that sometimes looked like strength. As a wilder, the girl still had control issues, though Deiclonus also knew that as her trainer.
“They’re plants,” Dorgred mused running his fingers through his thick, wild beard. “They should have burned. What kind of magic is this?”
“Magic that you might want to respect a little more,” Hyren chuckled at his companion. A grunted affirmation was a little disappointing to the water wizard, who had hoped to get a little rise out of the big man.
Looking around, Deiclonus added, “Let’s keep moving and if we see more of these things, we know that the water gets used unless defending you up close.”
When they found a large room that looked to have once been some form of hall, they also found the only set of stairs that they had seen so far. A second floor appeared to be at least partially intact, so Ashleen moved to investigate while the others remained below. Being the lightest by far, the girl was the least likely to fall through a weakened floor. Knowing her lightning was strong enough to buy her time wasn’t enough for the men below, however, so Hyren controlled his sphere and lifted it right behind the wilder. If another plant creature appeared, she could leap through the sphere protecting her against their touch.
The extra worry wasn’t needed she found when entering what was once an office. It would have been near the center of the fort, so she doubted that there were windows before the destruction of most of the stone walls, but neither room nor the wall facing the south beach remained. With the added light, the girl looked at a decaying desk and the remains of book shelves. If it was a commander’s room, he had chosen security over a view, she thought.
Drawers were still affixed. She knew little of life in the Dark One’s city and towns. Could they have to do paperwork like any commander in Southwall or Kardor? The thought nearly made her laugh, if not for the curiosity for the truth.
Yanking on a drawer that had swelled and warped with time yielded nothing on the first try. Reaching under the opening where the crumbled remains of a chair had once slid, let the girl pry the bottom lose. A few wrapped pieces of charcoal or something equally capable of leaving marks fell free. She was surprised that there weren’t feathers for ink as most messages were written that way in Kardor. A worn cube of soft material lay with the small rods. It was made of something that she had never seen before and was the only thing of interest in the smallest drawer.
A well placed spark of lightning blew open the fronts of the other drawers. A small metal box had weathered the last century quite well. Most of the others simply held decayed paper long since rendered unreadable. With her treasure found, Ashleen laid it on the worn desktop and double checked the broken shelves. There seemed to be nothing else beside her box to find. Taking the piece with her as well as a trio of the writing sticks and the strange worn cube, the lightning wizard returned down the stairs.
Hyren had pulled the sphere back closer to him while waiting for Ashleen and his eyes looked to her curiously. “Did you find something?”
Shrugging, the girl off
ered the box and said, “I’m not sure. I haven’t opened it yet, but it was the only thing that remained intact up there.”
Deiclonus moved closer to examine the box. It had a keyhole, but she had spotted no key to open it. For a wizard like Deiclonus, that wasn’t a problem. Using a spell he called ‘knock’, the elder wizard soon had the lock turned with his magic. Wondering why he would have such a spell crossed Ashleen’s mind, but she supposed at times like this it was good to know such a spell.
Inside was a book, but they were disappointed when they found that the words were written in a language that none of them knew. Leaving the book in Ashleen’s hands, they put her other oddities in the box with the book and returned to searching.
Twice more Hyren had to use the water in the sphere before they made it to the far side of the fort and met up with the others. They had run into a pair of the creatures as well and all were usually trapped in a corner by the remaining water. The spheres worked quickly and efficiently with both water wizards maintaining their vigil through a little more than an hour. With only Ashleen’s box of any interest, the team returned to Lord Romonus with the news and showed their item.
“Can you use magic to decipher this, Deiclonus?” the round lord asked as he thumbed through the book. The pages were still strong despite the years in the fortress. The box had kept its contents through the test of time and now it was just up to them to decipher it.
Deiclonus sighed before giving a shrug. “I believe that I have a spell that can find the commonality of words and eventually figure out the language. I’ll have to look it up once we are onboard the ship.”
Nodding the lord passed the book back to Ashleen, who promptly replaced it in the box.
Battle Mage: The Lost King (Tales of Alus) Page 21