by Joe Jackson
The friends received no time to reply. The wizard met Max’s gaze and his mouth fell open slightly. “Oh, gods, it’s you…”
“Forgive me, sir, but do you know me?” Max returned.
The wizard put his hands to his hips and blew out a long sigh. He scratched at the side of his head and grimaced, then gestured them all in. “Come in, come in. Find a spot to sit.”
He began moving around, clearing stacks of books and scrolls off of the few chairs. The wizard paused before the alchemical equipment and squinted at it, then turned a couple of knobs before letting forth a hmph. When he turned and saw Yiilu studying a potted plant on one stool, he impatiently gestured for her to get rid of it. “Just throw that stupid thing anywhere. They never produce fruit anyway.”
The druidess cradled the potted plant as though it were a child. “Why would it produce fruit here?”
The wizard spun back around and cocked his head like a dog hearing a strange new noise. “Why wouldn’t it?” he demanded.
“Gods, man, it’s barely warm enough for the poor thing to survive, much less bear fruit,” Delkantar laughed. “I’m amazed it’s even still alive.”
Rexis spun two complete circuits, his gaze whipping about the room. He dashed off in a flurry of papers and shifting furniture, and began tossing wooden boxes and cases out of a rarely-used fireplace. He sat back on his haunches with a satisfied grin until he realized he had no firewood. Turning to his left, he leveled a squinty-eyed gaze at a stack of books and papers.
Leighandra had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from guffawing at his antics. Rexis was such a contrast to Karinda. Wizards were typically studious, over-focused individuals who could get lost in their studies for years at a time. This one, however, seemed as though he had chanced into his power and never strode down the path of reason and logic that unlocked the mysteries of the arcane. Leighandra, as a sorceress, drew her arcane power from her mother’s blood: the blood of the elven people. But that same power could be tapped into by those who had the meticulous and single-minded drive to study and unlock it.
Rexis didn’t fit that profile at all.
The wizard stood straight after a few contemplative moments and closed his eyes, turning this way and that slowly until a smile creased his rir snout. He held his arms forth, then, and a pile of half a dozen seasoned logs appeared in them. He dumped them unceremoniously into the grate, and set them ablaze with a gesture. He was about to speak but then turned and closed the tower’s higher traditional windows and vents with short gestures.
“My apologies. I don’t get visitors very often, certainly not of this type,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of a table. It was as though he’d sobered up in an instant, and after taking in his guests for a silent stretch, he gestured a kettle of water to take its place over the fire. He busied himself with a few other short, menial tasks, but finally settled his gaze back on Max. “By the gods, I never thought to see you again in this lifetime.”
“Sir?” Max responded. “I believe you may be mistaking me for my father, Kalamaris.”
“Hmmmm… So you are his seventh son, then? Gods above, then Karinda was right. How does that woman do it…?”
“She was right about what, sir?”
“Must you wizards always speak in riddles?” Galadon huffed. “We got enough of the mysterious nonsense when we met with Karinda. Can you not simply tell us what’s going on and spare us the games?”
The wizard’s ears angled back sharply, so Leighandra held her hands up in a soothing gesture. “We’ve forgotten the most basic of niceties, sir. I am Leighandra Evenstar, chronicler of Solaris. And these are my friends,” she said before introducing each by name. Auremax’ name got the most telling reaction from the old wizard, but he was bemused by Galadon’s as well. “The guards downstairs told us that your name is Rexis, but that is hardly a fitting introduction to a master of the arcane.”
“Hmph! Indeed,” the wizard said with a snort. “I am Rexis De’Tourga, something of a court wizard to Her Majesty here in the city, but mostly just a foolish old man still bewildered by the mysteries of the cosmos.”
“Are you a member of Karinda’s council or whatever they call it?” Starlenia asked.
“Ha! No. I have better things to do than police the world’s fledgling arcanists. Well, I suppose I don’t, but not interested! I study time… the movement of the heavens, and of the men below them. And that is why I find your presence here so curious at this time. Karinda sent you to me, then?”
“Sort of,” Delkantar said, nearly losing his train of thought when he saw Yiilu coaxing the little plant to bear fruit. “She hinted we might come this way, but it was our friend Galadon who led us here, drawn by the call of the sword that belonged to Max’s father.”
“Just as she said it would…,” Rexis muttered. He shook his head. “We will get to that shortly. What do you know of all this, hmm? What is it you want with the blade?”
“We’re actually investigating the necromancers raising undead all over the continent. How large an issue is it out here?”
“Necromancy? You’d have to ask the fishermen. Our dead are committed to the icy sea, and I doubt there’s much left to be raised when the aquatic life has had its say on the matter. I do believe we sent a representative south to speak on such issues, but I’ve no idea what he may have had to say. However, contrary to what you likely thought before coming here, we are far from the only thing that wanders these frozen lands, and they have had issues with it, I assure you.”
“Did you know my father?” Max asked.
“Fought beside him, for all the good that did him in the end,” the wizard confirmed with a nod. “Bravest man I ever met, but not without his faults.”
“What do you mean?”
“That man… colder than the sword he wielded. Strange words coming from a crusty old fures-rir hermit such as myself, I’ll grant you, but true all the same. Never have I seen a man so driven to righteousness, yet without the slightest shred of social grace. And no braver man have I ever met or followed, not in all my many, long years. And that… are those strawberries?”
Yiilu held the little potted plant up as if showing off a newborn babe. “They are, though you will get few of them from this poor child. You neglected this plant for too long, leaving it to cling to life in the cold. Take better care with the next generation, sir.”
Galadon made a sound deep in his throat. “You were saying, in regard to Kalamaris?”
“Are your lives so short that you cannot grant time for even the simplest pleasures? That was Kalamaris’ greatest fault… single-minded devotion can be commendable, but not when it comes at the expense of all those around you, young man,” Rexis chided him. “Take care that you don’t make the same mistakes, and lead this young pup astray before he’s found himself and the crown that belongs upon his brow!”
Leighandra stepped over beside Max and lightly touched his hand. He looked to her at the contact, his eyes wide and searching. He shrugged after a moment; was he coming to realize that his father’s coldness may not have been specific to him? The chronicler was still piecing together everything she could about King Kalamaris Talvorus. No doubt the loss of his wife had a large part to do with his personality in his later years, but was that the entirety of it? Had he, too, had the crown thrust upon him too early on account of a superstition?
“So you were there when Arku was killed?” Delkantar asked.
The wizard laughed. “Killed? Hardly. Driven back to the underworld, no more. And he took a great number of lives before that and on his way out the proverbial door. Some of his men were scattered to the wind, trapped here without him. They are found over time, standing out too well amongst our peoples here, even when the mallasti try to hide among the gnolls. The other denizens of the underworld stand out even more obviously, and are put to the sword.”
Leighandra exchanged glances with the others, but Rexis shook off his words. “Yes, I was there. I saw Kalamaris fall,
saw Galadon take up his sword and stand against the demon. Even the great silver dragon Alamarise was there, lending his aid. The four flames of man, the flame of dragon, the bow and spear of the elves and the czarikk, even the savage claws of the gnolls… never have I seen so many united in common cause… not since the Third Demon War.”
Leighandra balked. “Surely you don’t mean…”
The wizard smirked as he walked over toward Yiilu. “Does it surprise you, young lady? That I would have no parents, but be old enough to count myself as a direct creation of Gori Sensullu so many years ago?”
“That cannot be,” Delkantar said with a shake of his head.
“Oh, it is, boy. It is. And when you gain the answers you seek, you will understand,” Rexis said over his shoulder. He was wiggling his fingers expectantly, but then he looked up to Yiilu’s eyes bashfully. “May I?”
“By all means,” the druidess said.
The wizard popped a strawberry into his mouth and his eyes went wide. “Are they always so sweet, or is this some work of your power?”
Galadon shifted, but amusingly, it was Starlenia who spoke before he could. “Look, she’ll grow you an army of strawberry plants if you’ll tell us what this is all about. Not to seem like we’re in a hurry to leave, but there is a broader mystery here, and we’re trying to head off as much of the damage as we can. There’s a lot at stake.”
“Ha! You have no idea. Which is why you’re here, of course. Because Karinda has no idea, either. She’s exceptionally bright and has foresight that borders on clairvoyance, but she doesn’t have the entire picture. No one does except for this old hermit, because he was there at the beginning – and gods willing, he’ll be there to finally see the end.”
Rexis popped the other strawberry in his mouth and then took the potted plant to hold high above his head as if it was some token of triumph from a great battle. “Oh, wonderful little plant! More strawberries or not, you will hold a place of honor in this study!”
Leighandra couldn’t help it; she started laughing openly as the wizard dance-stepped his way over to the fireplace mantel and found the plant a suitably warm spot. Starlenia attracted Yiilu’s attention and gestured for her to make good on the promise. The druidess looked around for other pots of unused soil, and began waving her hand over them. Leighandra figured she was trying to find the ones he’d planted other strawberry seeds in.
Rexis turned and beheld the impatient gazes of Galadon and Starlenia, but he looked to each of the companions before letting out a long sigh. “It was nearly sixteen centuries ago that this land saw its first major conflict. For so long it had sat untapped, only marginally populated by the frontiersmen among the humans and early rir people. Even my own people and our more warmth-inclined cousins had yet to touch upon this world, much less this island. And that, my young friends, made it a most tempting target for the Devil Queen.”
The wizard swept a pile of books and papers off of the centermost table of the study, but rather than clatter to the floor, they flew into the shelves and cubbyholes, seemingly of their own accord. His motions had revealed a map of the continent, an impressive thing to behold at any time, but much more so when Leighandra considered its weathered edges and the deep gold color of the ancient parchment. There she sat in all her glory: Terrassia, looking like some misshapen splatter of paint upon canvas.
“After two failed attempts to capture Askies, the Devil Queen set her sights on a much less inhabited land… a place she could move her armies quietly and freely, establish a foothold, and create war between continents instead of trying to wedge her way into one already tightly held by mortal hands. And so began what we now call the Third Demon War. The people here were sparse and distant from each other, and so the Devil Queen’s first incursions met with no small measure of success. And then, from the dust, Gori Sensullu made his countermove.”
He gestured to the far north, where this very castle lay, and then to the southwest. “From the depths of our cold home, we struck forth to do battle with her minions. We were a young people, newly created, a fledgling race full of our lord’s fire but none of his wisdom or any of the experience it would take before we began to form our kingdom. And from the southwest, the shakna-rir went forth, striking from the deep jungles and rainforests, places the serilian demons did not dare to tread.”
“Jungles and rainforests?” Delkantar repeated, walking over to the map. “None of this is here anymore. This is all sand and blasted rock, from one end to the other!”
“It is now, boy, but it was not always so,” the wizard agreed. “We struck from the north and the south, pinching the Devil Queen’s idle forces between us. The shakna-rir drove them into our northern forests, and there we held them. When winter came, the shakna-rir remained in their deeper jungles and rainforests, and left the bulk of the fighting to us. The serilian demons didn’t like the cold any more than our southern cousins, and we capitalized on that fact. After four winters, they’d had enough: They were defeated, and the Devil Queen had to withdraw to whatever hell she called home.”
Rexis coupled his index and middle fingers and waved them shortly across the map so that it changed. New cities and kingdom boundaries appeared, and though there were still deep forests in the southwest that weren’t there now, the land began to look a bit more like what the chronicler was familiar with. Most curious were two black pyramids that had appeared on the map, one in the Dragon Mountains and the other in what was now Laeranore.
“The Devil Queen was not the only enemy we fought in that war, however. While she and our armies were busy fighting, another otherworldly force made an incursion into our lands. These were the syrinthians, the snake-folk of the underworld, servants of their demonic deity known only as the Tempis’ra. While we warred with each other, they built their three cities, each a focal point that we would later discover were meant to breach the barriers between Citaria and the underworld.”
“You fought in this war?” Max asked, pointing at the map.
“Oh, I did, young pup. Almost sixteen hundred years ago. I was among the first of my people to grasp the arcane and use it to terrible effect. But let me tell my story as I see fit, for if I lose the line of my thoughts, you will learn little, and your human companion will get angry when I go off to eat more strawberries.”
Even Galadon cracked a smile at that. Yiilu brought over another pot, its soil beginning to burst forth with little sprouts already.
The wizard regarded the pot for a moment, but heroically stayed on topic. “The first city was in what we now call the Dragon Mountains. It was a citadel high on a mountainside, and there the snake-folk held their abominable sacrifices and ceremonies to their demonic god. They were slaughtered and driven out, their priestess and source of power ruined, and the survivors scattered to the four winds.”
“The second city was here, in the lands of Laeranore, before the elves came to closely guard their borders against outsiders. These, too, were slaughtered and driven out in the same fashion. Then, with the war against the Devil Queen nearly complete, we were able to set our sights on the third and final city, the very abode of the Tempis’ra.”
A black pyramid appeared in the jungles of the south. “Here he hid amongst the deeper parts of the shakna-rir land, away from the eyes of mortal and serilian demon alike. Here he built his great black pyramid, where the snake-folk who remained bent knee to him, sacrificed each other and whatever other sentient people they could to him, and served him as their god. And it was here that we confronted him, tens of thousands of men and women united in one single, common cause.”
Rexis looked up and met each of the companions’ eyes before he hunched over the map once more and began tapping relevant spots. “Four flames were brought to bear against the Tempis’ra. From the north, our future queen Sevulkra Tenari went wielding the Sword of the North Wind; from the east, the human king Paul Tercullin came wielding the Sword of Ascending Dawn; from the south came the shakna-rir warlord Fetarru Tumureldi, wi
elding the Sword of Southern Flame; and from the west was the human clan chief Randall Oliver, carrying the Blade of Twilight’s Doom.”
Leighandra didn’t have to look at her friends to know what they were thinking or what their reactions must have looked like. “And you led this army?” she prompted.
Rexis laughed. “By the gods, woman, no. We were united, yes, but though we found common cause, we didn’t unify behind a single leader. I suppose history would say that I led the gathered arcanists among our number, and that is what led to the tragedy of the southlands. For you see, though we were successful in defeating the Tempis’ra eventually, the death toll was far from the most staggering result. No, the worst of it you now see every time you travel to the land of the shakna-rir.”
He waved his fingers over the map again, prompting the final change. Gone were the deep jungles and rainforest, leaving several shakna-rir cities in their nakedness among the sands. “The Tempis’ra met our force with great force, our magic with greater magic. We fought not just some serpentine despot, but a god given mortal form, an avatar of evil, and a conduit of unholy power the likes of which none of us understood. And so our only and ill-conceived form of response was to meet his power and aggression with greater power and aggression. And we destroyed nearly a quarter of this continent, such that it has never been reborn, not even at the hands of the mighty elven druids who share this land with us.”
“This is what’s awakened?” Galadon asked, pointing at the map with sudden alarm. “Whatever you killed, it’s risen under this necromantic power?”
The wizard cupped his draconic chin with his fingers. “That is a possibility, but one I’m inclined not to believe. No, you see, much like with Arku at the end of the more recent war, we never killed the Tempis’ra. We subdued him, defeated him, and bound him, but we couldn’t kill him. He was a god! We did the only thing we could at the time, the only thing that was within our power: We buried him, sealed within his own pyramid, and sank him and his unholy temple beneath the sands of the Khalarin.”