If one wildly imagined a cross between animal and plant, this monstrosity would fit the bill. Eight feet long and nearly the same tall, a humanoidal torso sat grafted atop a bull-shaped main body patterned with giraffe-like splotches of olive and brown, the whole ungainly affair balanced on a tripod of legs descending into foot cups from which snaked writhing root extensions. Tentacled arms swayed menacingly, clamshell pods of green where hands should be, hinged across the middle with snapping lips edged by stoutish spines acting as teeth. The “plantimal” was grotesquely headless, its trunk topped by a sphere of grouped nerve cells functioning as a rudimentary brain ringed by a necklace of thorny, downward curving scarlet leaves. From the middle of its chest dangled a woody proboscis, limp and seemingly superfluous. Grey bark encrusted its limbs and upper body, crackling with each jerky step the monster took forward.
Caught by surprise between slugs and a walking weed, Garrich hesitated and the pause cost him. Drawn by the vibrations of the combating fauna, the legged Venus flytrap raised its tubular structure and the plump bulb bisecting the stiffened apparatus deflated, ejecting a leafed dart out of the funnel-shaped end. Reflex turned the Goblin warrior and he caught the missile harmlessly in the folds of his cloak even as the sac of air reinflated to expel a second barbed dart in his direction the moment he pivoted back.
Slapping at the dart suddenly embedded in his cheek, absurdly thinking himself stung by a jungle insect, Garrich strangely felt no pain. His fumbling fingers attempted to yank the shaft from his face, the numbed skin pulling taut as the hooks bit cruelly into the flesh, preventing extraction. His vision blurring, senses beginning to swim in a drugged haze, the darted Goblin softly called out, “Maldoch, I...” and collapsed face forwards.
Catching his sagging ward, the mumbling wizard sighted the predatory plant stomping towards them. Taking a shufti at J'tard bravely facing up to the wave of Mdwumps surging at him, Maldoch changed incanting mid-spell and blurted out the invocation for translocating. He and Garrich were gone in a flash.
Glimpsing back over his shoulder, the Troll gasped despairingly at seeing the empty ground the wizard and Goblin had occupied seconds before. Taking out the frustration of his abandonment on the man-slugs within bashing range of his redoubtable club, J'tard felt the fight slipping out of him. There were simply too many adversaries for a lone Troll to fend off. Not even the Herculean G'dok the Rock-eater, strongest Sulander in desertland history, would have been able to smash his way out of this predicament. Surrendering his will to live, J'tard lowered his club. His first outing to the Outside Lands was going to be cut fatally short. Wishing for a speedy demise, the defeatist Sandwalker calmly shut his eyes.
Death was late in coming.
J'tard peeped at the massed man-slugs, surprised to see them withdrawing. The rasp of bark on stem told him the cause for their retreat. Where one of the plantimals had felled Garrich and prompted Maldoch's selfish disappearing trick, there now loomed behind the Troll three of the monstrosities, with a further two pushing their way out of Jungular's vine-choked treeline.
Diving for his life, J'tard rolled to his feet spattered in mud and goo, then sprinted alongside the frantically hopping Mdwumps across the drizzly battleground into the whitish concealment of the nearest fogbank. An instant afterwards a barrage of poisoned darts punctured the swirling mist.
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Chapter Twenty Seven
Birth light invaded the womb blackness. Maldoch grudgingly opened his eyes to the closing day. The late afternoon shadows cast by spindly branches hanging outside the open window of the timber-paneled chamber he woke in thinned even more when playing across the mattress of soft ferns the wizard snugly lay upon. “What century is it?” he groggily asked.
"The twenty first, going by the Troll calendar,” a musical voice answered.
His muddled mind coming into sharper focus, Maldoch gazed hard at the regally dressed Elf standing unflappably at the foot of the bed. Robed in a mantle of colorful interwoven leaves hued every imaginable shade of green graduating from the lightest at his shoulder to the darkest at his knees, the leafy ensemble was finished off by synchronous bands of yellow, orange and red trimming the base of the living cloak, making the wearer appear on fire from his feet up. That impression wore off when one studied the composed sky blue eyes of the Treesinger set in an oval, elongated face unmarked by time except for the merest hint of age wrinkles. His once blonde hair had long since turned the purest of whites and sat tied back from the characteristic pointed ears in a loose ponytail. The thin-lipped mouth was set in a flat line of ambiguity, the slanted eyebrows positioned neutrally.
"Terwain,” acknowledged Maldoch. “Your smiley presence means I made it to Gwilhaire okay.'
"Barely,” noted the old Elf. “You materialized forty feet above the ground and were extremely lucky that the fall didn't kill you. I'm hoping it knocked some sense into that old skull of yours. Here I thought Parndolc was the lunatic go-getter. You really should look before you leap."
"I was aiming for the center platform of that big rhododendron in the northwest corner of the glade."
"The landmark evergreen was moved to the southern end. It likes the moister soil better."
Maldoch smiled slightly. Only Elves would take the trouble to replant an adult tree. Gingerly examining the bump on the back of his head, he enquired, “How long was I out for?"
"You popped in just before noon."
"A few lost hours aren't too bad."
"That was a day and a half ago, Maldoch. My nose tells me you and your guest weren't just dropping in for lunch."
The wizard groaned from more than his splitting headache. “The boy! I clean forgot about him. Is he..."
"In the land of the living still? Barely, as well."
Levering himself out of bed, Maldoch's probing feet found his boots, staff, and carryall heaped in a pile on the planked floor beside the divan. “I must see to Garrich."
Terwain restrained him with an effeminate hand. “He's being tended to. Are those new shoes?"
"Never mind my footwear,” growled Maldoch, slipping on his hooded cloak. He was about to ask after Garrich's broadsword when his sweeping gaze picked out the scabbard propped in the crook of the corner by the sole door in the otherwise barren room. Vaguely remembering the darted youth clutching the hilt tight with senseless fingers, he was relieved the treasured weapon had not been left behind in the rush to escape the hazardous jungle. Some kindly Elf must have pried it loose from the Goblin's fingers and returned the precious weapon to its sheath after cleaning off the bloody slug goo.
"You have a date with Merainor,” Terwain notified Maldoch in no uncertain terms. “The queen instructed me to bring you before her the moment you were well enough to move. Since you insist on getting up before you're ready to, I may as well usher you into her presence now.” Placing a beaker of clear liquid in the spellcaster's hand, the chief counsel to the Elf monarch recommended, “Drink this at least. It'll reduce the hammering in your head to a dull tap."
Accepting the medicine, Maldoch took a grateful quaff of distilled maple sap before asking, “Is Merainor terribly upset?"
"Course not, wizard. She openly welcomes the first and only Goblin to violate the sanctity of our woodland in over two thousand years of elvish settlement."
"That's a relief, Terwain. I thought she might be mad at me."
—
Lothberen was an aesthetic blend of new and old. The more recent architectural styling, such as the bungalow accommodating Maldoch nestled amid the roots of truly giant beeches, was the visible result of Illebard design influence and a sign of the times. A race cannot stand still forever and progress inevitably brings about renovation. Change had yet to make the climb into the ancient broad-leaved treetops. In the lofty boughs of their wooded capital city the Elves enjoyed a modicum of untainted conventionality, hallmarked with byways of interlocking branches linking the trees and supplemented by intricate bridges of rop
e latticework.
It was to this preserved regime of racial conservatism that Maldoch and Terwain ascended, carried aloft by means of an ingeniously engineered rope elevator rigged with pulleys and counterweights that would have made the mechanically minded Parndolc drool with interest. Stepping off the lift on to one of the branched aerial paths, Terwain wove his way through dozens of youthful looking, similarly dressed Elves individualized only by differences in height. It was as if the entire populace had been cloned from a physically perfect couple. Mingling amongst the foot traffic was the odd broad-shouldered Elf displaying Illebard ancestry. The staff-bearing mage calmly clacked after the royal adviser, unruffled by the dizzying 150-foot drop to the forest loam. The subtlety of Elf enchantment warded off the ruin of winter, guaranteeing the trees retained the green, leafy vigor of springtime year round, as well as shooting upwards half their height again and doubling their girth. That continuity added to the ambiance of everlasting tranquility cosseting the Elves, providing Terwain with the apparent source of his composure.
Gravitating toward a gargantuan red maple whose crowning glory of shimmering scarlet foliage towered a trunk length above the tallest beech, the elder Elf conducted the even older wizard into the throne room of his queen via a naturally arched cleft in the decoratively textured bark. The hollowed out upper trunk seemed to have formed naturally, though as in many cases appearances can be deceiving. Elves possessed a near supernatural affinity with their forestland, a magical, symbiotic ability to mould living timber and even communicate with trees.
The Elf Queen reclined on a high-backed throne literally growing out of the floor off-center to the middle of the cathedral-like chamber, hemmed in by the circular walls patterned with spiraling wood grain curling vertically to be lost in the muted shadows of the maple's airy upper storey. Likenesses of past queens were depicted on the curved walls, ethereal faces which seemingly glided across the grainy surface like smoke over water when glimpsed from the corner of one's eye, only to freeze when viewed straight on. Unlike the palaces of Men or Dwarfs there were no toadying court flunkies lounging in the audience hall, vapidly hanging on every word uttered by their monarch. The queen's chamber was refreshingly empty aside from a watchful Elf standing beside her chair and a kneeling musician blowing a haunting melody on a set of reed pipes. The pan flute player halted his composition on a mournful, lingering note as the Elven regent dismissed him to receive her visitors announced by the revealing shaft of pleasing sunlight streaming through the archway. Dust motes brought to life by the walkers danced in the filmy cone of light, Maldoch remaining a step behind Terwain while the adviser approached the throne.
"You are welcome always in Lothberen, Magnificent One,” was the queen's gracious opener.
Bowing his head, Maldoch not for the first time wondered what fool had coined his ridiculous appellation. “You are most generous, Your Majesty,” he answered with nonconforming politeness.
She indicated her male companion garbed in a loose-fitting lemon tunic, lake blue hose, and black soft leather shoes. “You know Eroc?"
Maldoch courteously inclined his head toward the Gerent of Janyle. “Not personally, milady."
"He is my lover."
"We do prefer the term Queen's Consort,” interjected Terwain, mortified by her forwardness.
The monarch smiled appreciatively at her counselor. “You and your sensibilities."
Appraising the haughty faced Elf city-leader, with his gem green eyes and dirty blonde locks flowing wildly down to the leaf-bladed long knife belted about his slim waist, Maldoch could not help but comment, “A toyboy, Merainor?"
"Eroc is only fourteen years my junior. Elvish eyes scarcely register the age gap.” She winked at the impudent wizard. ‘Having him in my bed helps keep me young."
Maldoch smirked back. Merainor possessed the looks of a mere slip of a fifteen-year old girl, her elfin face stunningly beautiful. Gowned in rainbow hued chiffon, a garland of pink and blue larkspur blooms adorned her head, complementing her silver-streaked golden hair that fell away to the ankle bracelets of amber teardrops gracing her bare feet. The same translucent ochre resin was fashioned in a koru shaped pendant about the queen's ballerina-like neck, accentuating her lily-white skin. Her eyes were pools of blue flecked with green, brimful of life experiences far beyond what her youthfulness suggested. Gwilhaire Wood's reigning monarch was in fact a childlike 211 year old who could expect to live, the Maker willing, a full quarter century more.
"I have a son,” added Merainor. “You'll like Gallohim. Eroc's grooming him to eventually take over the running of Janyle. What with following in his father's footsteps and his betrothal to my named successor, he's a busy boy assured a bright future."
Eroc's belligerent glance at the queen was missed by all but Terwain.
"When did all this happen?” the astounded wizard muttered with a confused shake of his white haired head. “I haven't been away from Gwilhaire that long."
"One hundred and thirty five years precisely,” Terwain mildly informed him. “That's not counting those delightfully rare moments when your head pops in to grill me."
"The day of my coronation,” recalled Merainor.
"You showed up uninvited without a gift,” Terwain further reminded the flabbergasted spellcaster on a denouncing note.
"I've been meaning to make it down here for ages. My, time flies when you're having fun,” said Maldoch, avoiding any discussion on his being a tightwad.
"Or fraternizing with the unclean,” Eroc spoke harshly. “How dare you spirit one of the Losther into Lothberen!"
Reaching up, Merainor softly placed her hand over the affronted gerent's pencil thin lips, stilling his outburst. “Hush, my love. I'm certain Maldoch has a reasonable explanation for his flagrant disregard of our categorical policy at not allowing a single member of the Losthers to contaminate elvish soil."
The sweet little girl act was at an end.
Dumping his civility as well, Maldoch rudely demanded, “Garrich ... my Goblin travel companion. Where is he being kept?"
"Someplace safe,” revealed the Elf Queen. “Due to the grave nature of his injury, I had him littered to the Shadult Greenthe while you were senseless. The sacred bole sustains him, for the moment."
"Take me to him,” requested the wizard.
Merainor denied him. “There are questions you must answer first."
"Terwain hinted that the boy is hovering near death. I must go to him."
"He'll be dead by nightfall tomorrow,” gloated Eroc.
"I insist that I be taken to him now, Merainor!"
"All in good time,” the queen refuted, putting her petite foot down. “Prilthar is tending to the poisoned Losther, against my love's wishes. I'll permit you to see him just as soon as you cooperate. This is my realm, Maldoch. I'd appreciate it if you did not have a go at manipulating me like you do my male counterparts up in Anarica and Carallord."
Fighting down his surge of impatience with a gulp of humble pie, the chastised spellcaster apologized for his abruptness, making the excuse of “being stressed out."
"These will become trying times for us all,” Merainor said insightfully. “This Losther is important to you?"
"The future peace of Terrath may well depend on him,” Maldoch assured her.
"Gwilhaire is our only concern,” butted in Eroc. “The other races can go to their N'drenoff Worhl in a handcart for all we care."
"Eroc, leave us please."
"Merainor?"
"Now, beloved."
"As my queen commands,” the dismissed gerent huffed. He deliberately pushed past Terwain and Maldoch on his way out of the throne room.
"His comments are counterproductive to this discussion,” explained the delicate little queen. “This Garrich belongs to the quest you are on?"
"He is pivotal to the outcome."
"There are no others?” probed Terwain.
"A Troll,” Maldoch said remorsefully. “I left him for dead up at Sha
dfenn. He was our guide out of the Great Desertland. That is, until we got jumped by Mdwumps coming through Misty Gap.’”
"They slew the Sulander?"
"Probably, Terwain."
"You don't know?"
"Not for certain,” admitted the wizard. “He was holding off the slug people when the Goblin and I made a break for the verge of Jungular Forest. Garrich took a hit from a Drakenweed on the treeline. After that, I magicked us out of there. I couldn't manage to bring J'tard as well and regrettably left him to his fate."
Maldoch took a major slump in Terwain's estimation. Only Merainor understood the mage's selfish abandoning of the Troll. “This Goblin friend of yours must be vital to your effort, Magnificent One. You are free to attend him."
Thanking her with a nod, the spellcaster said prior to heading earthwards, “I was on my way to secure help from you, queenie. It is time."
"We'll discuss that afterwards."
Glowering penitently, the wizard said, “If Garrich dies there'll be no need for our chat."
Merainor came off her throne, exposing her glaring shortness for an Elf. Grasping Maldoch's wrinkled hand in hers, she comforted the sullen sorcerer with an endearing smile. “Terwain, accompany his Magnificence to Oaken Grove. Make sure anything he requires is given to him."
Squeezing her milky-skinned, elfin hand, the grateful wizard said of the decorous queen, “What a charming girl you are."
Down on ground, the pair of oldsters stepped along at a brisk rate from the glade center on their walk out of Lothberen, pacing the short southbound lanes lined with wildly growing hedgerows dividing the scattering of low built cottages grafted onto the enormous base trunks. The layout of the capital city of the Wood Elves owed more to hamlet blueprints than large town planning. A core collection of public utility buildings huddling in the middle of the clearing under the leafed eaves of the surrounding beeches provided a common trading point for the dwellers in both the arboreal and land housing. It was at these that Terwain paused to lightly provision himself for the short journey beyond Lothberen. Barter was the currency of the Elf nation, though unlike the Trolls personal wealth was frowned upon. What an individual gained benefited the community as a whole. The ancestors of the Elves took the fundamentals of communal living to their harmonious extremes, extending it to their catchphrase, One tree, one forest. Their woodland home then was considerably more than the place in which they sheltered and lived off the land. For the Elven folk, it was an integral way of life. Gwilhaire Wood was to them the sun and they its planets.
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