Legon Restoration

by Taylor, Nicholas

  Ankle didn't really feel time slip by as they cleared the village. Some of those responsible for the atrocities in the village had tried to slip back in amongst the regular villagers; but they were soon found out. They took maybe ten prisoners, who they put to work clearing the bodies from the gate and burning them. Ankle sat at a little table outside a shop staring off into space, ignoring flakes of ash from the burning pyre of bodies. He wasn't seeing the dirt road in front of him or the people moving about, he was seeing Mors and Rachel.

  "Snap out of it," Barnin said his voice harsh and demanding.

  Ankle turned to look at him. "How..."

  Barnin's hard expression softened. "Apparently after the Elves came through, a group of villagers took the town over, they killed anyone who had been friendly to the Elves, or tied them up so they could be used later. There were some other things that they did too..." he paused and shivered going on, "but needless to say it was a group of sick people." Barnin shook his head breathing out, "The women were in on it too, some of them up and killed their own sisters and brothers in the sickest ways, I just don't get how people could go so wrong..."

  "I wish I could tell you," Ankle said hollow.

  * * * * *

  Heath was at a loss for what to do for Ankle. A week after they had recaptured the village Ankle still wasn't being responsive, Heath looked at Barnin seriously, "I'm worried about him."

  Barnin frowned, "Yeah, me too, but I don't see what we can do about it."

  "You could transfer him back to Manton," Heath offered.

  Barnin scoffed. "He'll be alright, he'll come back to us, it will just take him awhile. I can't transfer him back to Manton; I don't even have the power to do that. I just wish...sometimes...that I hadn't taken him to Mors," Barnin admitted.

  "Sometimes I wish you hadn't taken me either, but someone had to go and it may has well have been us," Heath said.

  "Yeah, but you and I didn't get affected by that place like he did. I mean, I have nightmares about it, heck I see those people killing each other in my sleep every night. But Ankle...something in him broke when we were up there."

  "Do you think maybe it was that Rachel girl? Seeing her like she was in that cage, do you think that's what broke him?" Heath asked.

  Barnin's brow furrowed, "Nah, she saved him, he was broke before her. I think having her to protect was the best thing in the world for him, it gave him some freedom from guilt."

  Heath was confused. "What should he feel guilty about?"

  Barnin eyed him. "Come on, you don't feel just a little guilty sometimes? We left those people there. And I know we couldn't have done anything...but sometimes," he paused, "sometimes when I dream I see the girls in those cages, the dead ones and living, and in my dreams they look at me...they don't talk but it’s written plainly on their faces. They’re saying, ‘Why didn't you save me?’..." Barnin's eyes watered and his voice grew thick, "and I can't say anything, so I turn away from them and behind me there are thousands of them, millions, the same dead faces all saying nothing." Barnin looked at him, "You don't feel guilty sometimes?"

  Heath swallowed hard. "Yeah, I feel that way most of the time; I just try not to think about it. But you're right, fact is Ankle did something we didn't, we could have each taken someone with us...but they’re dead now." He closed his eyes, "I hope now that they are dead that they aren't suffering anymore."

  Why hadn't Heath taken someone? He could have, they all could have. Two more wouldn't have had to suffer if only he wasn't a coward. But what if they had all taken someone, what if the weight would have slowed them down, got them captured? It was a sin he'd just have to live with; he thought of the White Dragon, forgive me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jump

  "The purpose in our life often times doesn't matter just so long as we have a purpose."

  -Conversations in the Garden

  Fire light lit the horizon to the west as Umbra flew. Several of the coastal cities had already fallen to the formidable Pawdin Navy. But as the fires in the distance attested, some cities still held on. Below her were the Laetuc Mountains, which split the Empire in two. Her mission was not to engage the enemy, strictly speaking. Hers was a game of cat and mouse. She glided in the silent night air looking for targets, not just land targets, like bridges and caravans but more importantly, she hunted Ascended. Stealth was her primary tool, she spent her evenings looking for other dragons, when she found them she would follow them and relay their location to Elvin Ascended who would then attack the Iumenta.

  It was hard for her to not engage the Iumenta, all she could do is watch as her kin did that work for her, but she understood why she needed to stay out of fights; she couldn't be seen. She wasn't the only one in the skies with this mission; there was an Iumenta equivalent to her in the air, a whole squad of them. Some she even knew from before the War of Generations. She'd been playing this game for over two thousand years, and the sad part was in a way those Iumenta were friends to her. Well, as good of friends as Elves and Iumenta could be. They had a working respect for each other.

  The Iumenta stealth units were also her greatest threat, like her they were experts in hiding themselves and in hunting down other dragons. On occasion she would catch a glimpse of one but could never follow them. She knew this went both ways, on more than one occasion she'd lost an Iumenta following her. Sometimes Umbra would act as bait. She'd let herself be found and when the Iumenta came to attack she'd be joined by other Elves. It was dangerous work, but Umbra fed off it.

  The night was clear, no clouds to hide in, and the moon was almost full lighting the landscape below her. She hugged the mountain tops doing her best not to be seen but on nights like this there wasn't much in the way of stealth that could be done.

  She decided to move closer to the coast, the lights from the cities would help keep those on the ground from seeing her. As she moved closer to the coast the air became thick with smoke. She flew high above the city, staying well out of the way of any Ascended fighting below her, seeing the flashes of light from magic to her north. Ships burned in the water as did much of the harbor. Streaks of fire licked the sky as Pawdin ships fired on the city’s defenses. Umbra wondered how much longer the city would be able to hold off the onslaught. She figured so long as the Iumenta controlled most of the city’s air space, the town would hold.

  * * * * *

  Sasha leaned back into her fiancé, Edling, wanting to take a break. She closed her eyes, tempted to call it quits for the day.

  "Why don't we go for a walk by the bay my love, it would relax you," Edling whispered sending her thoughts of the bay. "We could even talk about the wedding," he said and kissed her neck.

  Why was she fighting this? "OK, fine," she relented. "I'll test this last set of crystals and I'm all yours." She eyed him, "By the way, that wasn't fair," she accused.

  Edling smiled, stepping away from her with a chuckle. Before her were two crystals, one that was grown in the fashion of the Elves, the other was a hybrid of Elvin and known Iumenta techniques. She placed them inside a device that would test how much power each could hold, how quickly the crystals could be filled and drained of power, and their overall performance under pressure.

  Sasha started the test, watching a display that showed results as they came in. Every test prior to this, her hybrid crystals had shattered or performed under the traditional Elvin crystals. She and Edling waited for a moment for the test to run. As she waited she thought of plans for her own wedding, well the plans she had control over. Just as Sasha had planned Iselin's wedding, Iselin was planning Sasha's wedding. She was nervous; Sasha had gone a little over board with Legon and Ise's wedding. Since then she'd been asked to plan no less than twenty other weddings for heirs of Houses both Great and Minor. But in all those other weddings she'd never expended the resources that she had with Legon's. Now it was Iselin's turn to get revenge on Sasha. Iselin and Legon had wanted a small wedding, not unlike Sasha, but Sasha had made sure the affair
was anything but small.

  Edling tensed beside her, reading her thoughts. "What I don't understand is why I'm getting punished too," he said. "You planned that wedding not me..."

  She smiled up at him. "Sorry," she said warmly.

  The testing device beeped and Sasha turned, "Well, I didn't hear anything shatter, that's a good sign."

  She opened the device, removing the crystals and reading the display. "Edling," she breathed.

  "What is it?" he asked concerned.

  She pointed to the display and he gawked, "It's a fluke run, the test again," he said. "There's no way it out performed our current technology by thirty percent, nothing has advanced that far for a thousand years!"

  Sasha reran the test two more times with the same results. All thoughts of the bay left both of them as they looked to recreate the test crystal. They worked through the night Sasha calling in all of her staff to help.

  * * * * *

  Morning found Legon sitting with his wife on their terrace watching the sun rise. In the back of his mind he could feel Sasha frantic about something, but he really didn't care. He sipped his Poti and held Iselin's hand.

  "Her wedding is soon, do I need to do anything?" he asked her.

  Iselin sighed and smiled wickedly, "Yes actually, I have commissioned a new hall, it will be the size of one of the old human cathedrals, it will be a good thing for the people; they need the excitement. I need you to grow the super structure for it this week, all of our largest buildings were grown by class eights, it shouldn't take you too long in your Ascended form, maybe three or four days. From there, artisans will do the detail work."

  Legon nodded. "I can get to it in two days, I've almost mastered jumping. Do you think I have the skill to pull that kind of building off?" he asked.

  She laughed. "No, sorry love, Gratook will join you. Really, you'll just be lending him your strength; though he is your teacher I am sure he will use it as a educational experience too. Also your uncle Tenick will be there as well, he is a master builder. As for jumping, I think you'll get it figured out today, I am going to work with you on it," she smiled.

  Before he could say anything Sasha came bursting out of the Palace onto the terrace looking slightly psychotic, her hair strewn in every direction like she'd been in a wind storm, her red eyes shining. Legon wanted to make a comment but decided better of it. "Are you ok?" he asked.

  "OK? How can you ask that? Haven't you been paying attention to my thoughts?" she demanded.

  "Umm no...was I supposed too? I was asleep for about eight hours ya know," he said.

  She shook her head. "Of course, of course," then she looked at both him and Iselin. "We've done it!" she said excited.

  Iselin smiled. "That's fantastic dear," Iselin said. "Done what?"

  Edling walked outside smirking. "Sasha had a major break through last night," he said.

  Legon sat up as did Iselin, both getting serious. "What is it?"

  Edling handed Legon and Iselin a sheet of paper. Legon read it over, "How is this possible?"

  Sasha was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I can tell you, I want to tell you but Edling made me promise to make sure that you really want to know all of the mechanics behind it..."

  Edling placed his hand on her arm stopping her. "Sorry," she breathed. "I've had a lot of Socolata last night." Then she went on, still in a rush, "Right, right, in short these new crystals are stable in the extreme and can hold and transfer massive amounts of power without losing too much in the process. They are super efficient. They are tricky to make however, and we still have tests to run on them, but I think they will be ready for field tests within the next month," she said.

  Legon thought for a moment, they may not be in full production for the war. He sensed more of Sasha's thoughts. "There’s more?" he asked.

  She nodded. "When in testing we found the breaking point of the old hybrids, the fail point was in their Iumenta making, it's something small but we think there may be a way to affect Iumenta technology. Though it’s just a theory at this point," she said.

  Legon felt a chill run down his spine and Sasha frowned, "What is it?"

  "Are you saying there may be a way to attack crystals directly or weaken them?"

  "Yes," she said looking shocked at his concern.

  "This needs to be your top priority, if we can attack a crystal in a dragon dome we will have a lot simpler time taking the Capital. But also, if we can do it, so can the Iumenta; we need to find our own technology’s weaknesses and find a way to secure them," he said more firmly then he meant to.

  Sasha's face paled as did Edling's. "You're right," she said. "Should I take time from mastering Binnon?" she asked.

  Legon frowned. "No, you need to master that. Edling, this will have to fall on your shoulders then," Legon said.

  Edling's face hardened. "Yes Un Prosa, I will not let you down."

  After Sasha and Edling left, Legon sat talking to Iselin.

  "It's not likely the Iumenta have found a weakness in our technology," Iselin said with a surprisingly high amount of confidence.

  "But we don't know that for sure," Legon pointed out.

  "They have never done anything...." she started.

  "We thought we knew the Iumenta had stopped their breeding programs, but I'd say Mors proved we don't know as much as we think," he said matter–of-fact and then reading the worry on her face added softer, "Love, I agree they more than likely don't know about any weaknesses our technology may have, but it's our job to find and fix those weaknesses regardless." He squeezed her hand, "OK, let's get ready for the day, I want to get jumping down."

  * * * * *

  Iselin watched Legon's retreating figure. This was one of her favorite qualities of his. Legon was able to simplify everything to its most basic component. She knew that Sasha's news would have caused weeks of speculation in the other Great Houses and still likely would, but not for Evindass. There were going to be a lot of questions that needed answering about whether or not the Iumenta could hurt the Elves in a new way. For Legon it was simple, it didn't matter what the Iumenta knew or didn't know, there was a problem and he ordered it fixed. She also liked that even right after hearing the news he had, he was not dwelling on it. She could feel his mind; it was fixed with what he needed to do that day with the task he had at hand.

  She sat outside for a bit before deciding to finish getting ready for her day. She was going to be spending most of the day in her Ascended form which shortened her morning prep time significantly. If you always stayed Ascended you'd never have to worry about your hair she thought. Iselin met with her assistant, giving her a few things to do for the day, and then she made her way outside. Legon was already Ascended and flying out over the bay. She transformed and took flight.

  Iselin slid through the air coming along side Legon. "So, are you ready?" she asked him.

  They flew west out over the ocean and away from main shipping lanes. Once they were on their own, Iselin started to instruct him. "OK love, so far you are doing great. Remember the two key things needed to jump are knowledge of your destination and using your power to get you there." She'd been working with him for awhile on jumping, which so far had proven to be the hardest thing for Legon to learn. She broke teaching him into two different lessons. The first was fixing a spot in space to jump to, this he had mastered. She would connect with him fully and he would fix a spot for her to jump to. The next lesson was on the actual jumping itself, this too he could do, though not as well. Iselin would join his mind and give him a fixed point to jump to. Legon made the jump most of the time but wasn't proficient yet. The problem that Iselin was having was trying to get Legon to both plot a jump and execute it.

  Legon tried a jump. Iselin was in his head monitoring him, he locked on to a spot in front of him, and his magic was moving in him about to compel him forward. He started his countdown folding his wings in. A purple dot glowed in front of him. He sent power down his body and he started the jump. There was
a flash of lavender but Legon didn't move.

  "Ahh, what gives?" Legon said aggravated.

  "I don't know, maybe it's because you are so big, jumping could be difficult for you. There isn't any class eights around to ask."

  "Do you really think so?" Legon asked.

  She thought about it. "Yes I do actually, I mean Sasha picked it up no problem..." she stopped.

  He was incredulous, "Sasha? She can jump? I didn't even know she was learning!" He was flabbergasted, "How come I didn't know about this?" he demanded.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't teach her my father did, and she didn't want you to know because she thought you would get upset if you found out she mastered it in a day-"

  "IN A DAY?!" he said stupefied. "I have been trying to learn this for almost a month, how did she do it in a day? And how were you able to hide this from me?"

  She winced, "Well, you see it all happened rather fast, and you were in meetings that day and not connected with me, so really it wasn't all that hard you see." She looked over at him. He wasn't mad at her or anyone, he was happy for Sasha, but Iselin could tell that he was thinking hard.

  Finally he spoke, "No, this is good to know, nobody masters jumping in a day. I think you're right about the size thing, it has got to be what is holding me back."

  * * * * *

  Legon decided that he wasn't going home until he mastered jumping. Oddly knowing that Sasha had mastered it in a day motivated him. Not that he thought he was better at magic than her, he knew he wasn't, Sasha was extremely talented with magic. The only thing she didn't excel at was combat, but he knew that had little to do with her abilities but rather her attitude. He decided the latter was likely true for him as well. Legon had mastered many things with magic and in many ways was far ahead of most users, this was because he worked hard and never stopped trying. Iselin had been like that as well, she excelled more due to her attitude than because of raw talent.