by N. Saraven
“As you all know, our goal is to put Indrek in his place. But for this, we somehow need to get close to him, which is impossible while the scÿta is around. So we need to find a way to infiltrate their ranks, and for that we’ll need information about them. So I would start with this, trying to find out anything we can about them.”
“I know a person for this, Master,” cut in Eryn, unusually without any permission to speak. All eyes were on him now.
“Go on,” she gestured with smouldering eyes; however, a piece of fruit just splashed back into the bowl from her fork. She twisted her mouth and set down the fork, although it took only a short break for her to pick it up again, finishing the salad.
“My cousin joined the scÿta. We could contact him,” suggested the wraith with a slight hiss.
“No disrespect to you, Eryn, but how can we trust this person?” argued Neila, as she took another bite. The wraith just stared at her for a few moments, then he realised that she must be missing important information.
“Master, the one whom I spoke of is Carus.”
“Excuse me …?” gasped the Master, halting the fork in mid-air. She then put it down. It was the last bite anyway. The wraith continued patiently.
“It is Carus. The last time we spoke, he seemed perfectly trustworthy. He helps Elnor in the city. I see no other way to gather information about the scÿta.”
“Carus … to Elnor … what …?” stammered Neila. She looked utterly stunned.
“Why have we not heard anything about this before?” rumbled Enargit. His gaze showed clearly that he would have wanted to know about something this important way sooner. The wraith, however, just glanced at him as if he could not understand why he became upset.
“My Master did not require this information before now,” mumbled the mage with just enough mockery which made the dragon even angrier.
“Carus is one of the scÿta now? Who knew …?” mumbled Rita under her breath, yet everybody heard her in the silence. She and Kira sat in the most unimportant place possible.
“The second-in-command, to be precise,” added Eryn, which only made the astonished silence deeper.
“Well, that’s a surprise. I never knew what that kiddo was capable of,” muttered Agony, swaying his head.
“He always had great potential in him. I am not surprised at all,” cut in Halgor, with which he earned a few disapproving glances. But then those glares turned away and into questioning looks at each other.
“Not to mention that he is not a kiddo anymore,” added Neila solemnly. “He became a grown man, looking like a good thirty. A terrifying one of them too. I wouldn’t want to cross him if I didn’t need to.”
Because she got too many questioning looks, she hurriedly told them what happened at Indrek’s—that she saw Carus.
“Then I’ll send a word to him after we’re done here,” said Eryn. Neila only nodded.
“But how do you want to meet with him? He comes here, or we try to find a safe spot near Nightfort?” asked Agony.
“Do not need to worry, he’ll find a way,” replied the apprentice, which seemingly only deepened the warrior’s distrust.
Agony did not try to hide that he disapproved. Eryn proved himself to be loyal, but nobody could be sure about Carus. Maybe he was just a good actor, waiting for the right moment to betray them. Even if they fought side by side during the second and third Dragonwars, a lot could have happened after. Although this also could be said about Elnor just because his name emerged along with Carus’.
“I really don’t want to argue, but …” started Agony again, drawing all attention. “But how can we be absolutely sure that Carus is who he says he is? I mean, how can we be totally sure that he won’t lead Indrek’s armies here?”
Eryn stared at him as if he wanted to swallow him whole. After all, the warrior questioned his word, which meant the biggest insult among the wraiths. Agony only shrugged apologetically.
“We will see, I guess,” muttered Neila with a sigh.
“So you’ll do it? You’ll actually bring him here …?” gasped Talek, who obviously took Agony’s side.
“Why not?” The Master shrugged. “Just because he’ll see something, it won’t mean anything for him.”
“But … but …” argued the kobold, which made the golden eyes flare annoyance. “He’s a scÿta …”
“I think I can handle him, if needed …” The Warrior waved dismissively. Her voice became so cold it made everybody else swallow their questions.
“This is all fine, IF we succeed.” Veilon broke the momentary silence. “But then we’ll still face a huge overpower in Indrek’s armies.”
“The army is not a problem,” said Neila, although her tone and glance made the paragon very, very nervous.
He glanced at Enargit, who seemed just as uneasy. They would have liked to see many things in those golden eyes but this—there shone such strong power, which neither of them wanted to see in motion …
The companions exchanged questioning looks. Seemingly everybody was thinking the same, seeing those golden eyes—if something went wrong, they had to be able to stop her. Not even Kira or Rita missed the Warrior’s behaviour, who obviously was craving for blood. Or maybe even more …
The magical rampage which Neila could set off most probably would cause a lot of damage. Maybe, with all of its effects, it could even destroy the world as they knew it. Which nobody really wanted …
After they discussed some minor things, the companions got on with their duties. Everybody had something to do. Enargit and Agony managed the remaining dragons. With a few apprentices, they had to teach a language to them; no excuses remained this time.
But as it turned out, somehow the reptiles could not handle the common tongue. It was the simplest of all languages, so Agony stood puzzled by this.
Then, in a break during a class, the Leader overheard two dragons’ discussion about the common tongue. They missed the pure logic, which was a lovely characteristic of their own language. According to them, common seemed without rules, and they loathed how they could not know how to say a word even if they saw it in writing.
“We write ‘tree’, then say ‘bush’,” complained a dragon, which gave Enargit an idea. He then reached out to a kobold apprentice to give a lesson to the shadows. In kobold.
As astonishing as it sounded, the reptiles picked up the paragon dialect quicker than the apprentice could teach. Somehow they made an instant connection with the way more difficult kobold tongue. Agony stood baffled when he saw this.
On the other hand, as a problem became solved, another arose—most of the inhabitants could not speak kobold. So the few who could now had the responsibility to teach everybody else. Even Agony was assigned to a class, despite his protesting. He proved to be a slow learner. He just could not speak well; somehow the words babbled out in a deformed way, which made him embarrassed and furious.
Even if nobody chuckled or scoffed at his failed tries.
So at one time during lunch, Agony complained heavily to Neila, why could the mages not just help them? It was possible to learn a language by magic, so they should do their job, as he said. However, the Master dismissed every such reason.
She tried to explain that it would take a huge amount of energy. Moreover, there were some rules which the mages obeyed because they wanted to. For example, she said, the ‘just because we can, we won’t’ rule. This meant that until the matter became truly serious, they would not use magic to help somebody learn a language.
Agony had to accept the fact, especially when Neila silently added to the matter that if he would spend so much energy and time learning instead of complaining, he would not be in this situation in the first place. The warrior finally gave in, although not completely. After a while, because he could hardly speak, he did not even try. He understood paragon just as good as anybody else, but he only answered on the common tongue. So far nobody could tell what complications this would bring in the long run. It was more imp
ortant to move along with the work than to focus on an isolated case.
Just to make things even more complicated, Talek started to complain about the others’ terrible accent. He could hardly understand any of them, he said. Furthermore, he always stopped to correct them, which drove everybody mad. But he could just not stand by, listening to how they abused the language, as he put it. He argued with anybody who spoke incorrectly.
Obviously, he was not assigned to teach a class, even though there were far too few kobolds in the Tower.
“Neila, this has to stop! I cannot bear it anymore,” Talek complained to the Master at a lunch. The mage, however, only shrugged with a faint smile, saying all learning needs time. Then she added, if he was so bothered by this, he should help rather than scold.
The soldier grimaced at this, although he stayed silent. But after this little bickering with Neila, he spoke only in paragon to anybody—to help them practise, he said. Then he mentioned, if learning to speak in paragon was really that important, Neila should not allow any other languages in Varomor but that. According to Talek, nothing inspired one more than when one must speak, or when they could not communicate at all. If everybody only heard and used paragon, they would learn it even more quickly.
Although whoever heard this said that the soldier had gone mad, Neila found the idea truly fascinating. So she did as Talek suggested and forbade every other language for a while. After this, the soldier got a few unfriendly promises behind his back, although those disappeared shortly after it came to light that all other kobolds agreed with him.
The only exception under the ‘paragon only’ rule was the companions’ meetings, when it was more important for everybody to perfectly understand the situation.
If this seemed to be not enough to disrupt the life in Varomor, Halgor and Eryn proved the contrary. They got the assignment to teach the other magic-users for actual war, focusing on certain spells, which suited more combat situations, and to be able to work in small teams—to learn how to keep an eye on not just their teammates, but on the other teams as well. And last but not least, to learn about weapons that could be used against them.
Halgor said that if they wanted to know how they could win against a master swordsman or bowman, they needed to become familiar with the weapons themselves. So the elven arranged practice classes for them; however, the students hated them.
He made a really good team with Eryn, who helped him greatly.
Meanwhile, Neila herself was making plans against Indrek himself and kept an eye on everything else in the Tower. She also joined Enargit to help the shadow dragons train for battle. They were far from disciplined, or organised for that matter, as the Master put it. So this became her main priority. Nothing could mean a greater danger to them than panic—if one did not know what to do. A sole unsure or insecure soldier could set up a chain reaction, which could result in disaster. If this happened, they would lose not only the battle, but their lives.
Or even worse: see every other teammate fall because of them.
The Warrior could not allow this kind of negligence.
“I am pleased to see that the groups can follow each other very well now,” said Veilon as he and Neila waited in the line for their turn.
Even though every apprentice would gladly let them cut the line, Neila always waited as patiently as everybody else. She never let anybody be treated differently in any way just because they were who they were.
In that spirit, every inhabitant could give ideas about what kind of food they would like to eat. The kitchen staff then decided in what order they could do those orders. As a result, the meals became very variant, although everybody had to eat the same at the same time. Not even Neila had the power to order something else when she got something she did not like. For example, if she loathed what the wraiths considered a fine delicacy, if she wanted to eat, she had to take the tray.
With this kind of equality, she had earned the loyalty of her subjects.
“Yes, yes, practice finally got its results.” Neila smiled as she took the tray.
She waited for the kobold to have his, then they headed for the garden to their usual table. For some reason, most of the times they could eat at the same table. The Master could not work out whether they were lucky or the others let that bench free on purpose. Either way, she liked to eat at the same place. Somehow it felt that everything was in its rightful place.
“But as I heard, they are getting better in learning paragon,” she continued, after she took her usual seat at the end of the bench.
Soon the others had arrived too. Rita sat next to Neila, then Talek. In front of her was Kira, who had Agony on her side, then the farthest from her, Veilon.
Neila never asked the Ruler to keep his distance in front of the others, even though nobody knew whether there was anything between them. It just seemed natural to act the way they did, to keep their … little something in secret. Although the Master knew that the day would come when she must decide where all this was going.
But it was not that day, so the mage rather got rid of these unwanted thoughts. She turned her attention to her friends, who, because it was just an ordinary discussion, talked in the kobold tongue. At least, they tried.
However, for some reason the companions just wolfed down their meal, then they were off to do something. It was only a short time before Neila and Veilon sat alone again.
“They overwork themselves,” muttered Neila as she watched Agony marching inside, still eating as he walked.
“They’re only following your orders,” replied the paragon with a raised brow.
“That’s fine, but they shouldn’t push themselves like this. We are in a terrific pace. How many days have passed? Twenty or thirty since we started this whole thing? We are ahead of schedule.”
“Because everybody stopped whatever they were doing the moment you said so and started to work themselves to death to reach your goal,” added Veilon as he sipped from his cup. Neila only swayed her head. Silence fell on them for a few moments.
“Why … when was the last time YOU had some fun?” asked the paragon sarcastically.
“Last night …?” She gave a mischievous smile, but the other just shrugged.
“That doesn’t count. I am serious here. If I recall, back in the days you used to have contests from gamen, for example. But I haven’t seen anybody play anything these days.” The dark mage glanced around, then he finished his cup. Neila stayed silent, which was unusual from her.
“So that is why …” Veilon stood up, then without another word he disappeared. But the Master could not even blink twice when he reappeared with a wooden box in his hands. “I challenge you to a game,” he finished as he sat down; he started to open the box, then place the figures. When he finished, he handed her the dice.
Neila stared at him with widened eyes. She now opened her mouth, probably to complain or make up an excuse, but the mage interrupted her.
“You cannot get out of this. You don’t have that much work.” The paragon grinned with that typical ‘I-know-I-won’ grin. Neila just sighed and took the two dice with a smile. They both loved this kobold game and used to play a lot.
They finished the first match quickly, with Neila as the victor. The quickness of the particular matches was one of the reasons why kobolds liked this game so much. They never took that much time, and the opponents decided how many won rounds decided the contest.
The rattle of the wooden dice caught some apprentices’ attention, who then silently slipped behind their Master to watch the matches. A little later more joined them, curious about the gathering. The ‘opponents’ soon realised that their little fun became the entertainment to others as well. Everybody who had nothing else to do, or could afford to postpone their chores, soon stood around the mages’ table, cheering. Neila’s true laugh filled the garden, or her disagreeing cry when Veilon tried to deny her victory. Successfully.
After a while, the original opponents found themselves across fr
om another foe. At one point, a brave apprentice challenged the victor of the last match. Neila was the first to give up her seat. Veilon then had an easy win, but the next mage he underestimated, so he also left the bench for a while.
A nice little championship formed from the starting ‘let’s have some fun’ matches, although nobody started to bet or mentioned anything about what the last victor should win. Nevertheless, everybody, players and observers, had a great time. Even a few shadow dragons stood in the background, chatting cheerfully amongst themselves. They obviously found the game fascinating.
The opponents changed one after the other; the crowd cheered or cried out in dismay as they did.
“What’s happening?” asked Rita, who joined the small crowd with her friends. They had finished for the day and strolled in the garden when they discovered the gathering. The girl excused herself for pushing in closer to look better.
“Woooow … backgammon!” she gasped, when she finally got a glance at the game. Beside her, Neila looked puzzled by this.
“What?” she asked, as she eyed the match. She challenged the next victor.
“Backgammon. It’s a game. Looks same,” explained the girl, faulty and shortly because she did not get the hang of the kobold tongue yet. The others did not hide the fact how happy they felt about this fact. They always liked to tease Rita for being too much sometimes regarding her explanations. She liked to be absolutely sure the others understood her, which sometimes became more annoying than actually interesting.
When the game finished, Neila sat down in front of her opponent. Eryn eyed her with firm determination to defeat his Master.
“I hope that you will forgive me, Master, when you give up your seat,” whispered the wraith with theatrical coldness, obviously playing his part for the others. But Neila only gave a charming smile.
“We’ll see,” she muttered and threw the dice.
The games went swiftly. In the first match, both of them had some lucky throws, yet Neila won at the end. Eryn started the second one and he played boldly, maybe even recklessly. However, it paid off, so he won. The next round would decide who would be the victor of the match. It took an unusually long time, however. They both made mistakes, but after a few doubles, Neila could defeat the wraith. Eryn stood up with a smile, bowing at his Master. Talek slipped to his seat with flaring eyes.