Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  She smiled at him. “I was hoping you would say that.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Tell me again, about the dragon,” Vail commanded.

  They sat in the wizard’s private wing of the palace. The rooms could not be called sumptuous, but they were certainly not as austere as the rest of Castle Marbeht. Tapestries covered the walls of wizard’s suite keeping out the continual drafts that chilled the rest of the fortress. Woolen rugs covered the floor instead of the rushes found in the other rooms, providing additional warmth. And, most the most notable accommodation to comfort were the divans and lounges that replaced the wooden benches in the other parts of the keep. Jogli reclined on one of them now, thankful for the soft cushions that supported his aching body. Although healed from his tortures, his body would carry the pain for some time still, and the memories would remain forever.

  His eyes veiled his hatred for his adopted father as he spoke with careful deliberation, the last thing he wanted to do was provoke the wizard. “It was not one of Dakrone’s brood or Fraderk’s either, the markings and colors were all wrong. And, I am sure it wasn’t one of Jespar’s or Abeata’s for that matter because again, the colors and markings were all wrong. This dragon’s scales glittered like rainbows, Jogli paused searching for the words to describe something almost indescribable.

  “Its scales shimmered with a light of its own as if it was covered in jewels of every kind and the sun shone within it, creating its own light.” He shook his head at the unbelievable memory. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He looked up at his master and said, “It was beautiful. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  Jogli knew he risked another session with the torturer for that remark, but the truth of what he saw forced him to speak. He waited for the blow and the command for the guards, but it never came.

  “So its beauty is what caused you to let it escape?” The wizard’s voice was quiet as if he was thinking and considering some new idea or puzzling out some new problem.

  “No, no, not at all,” Jogli replied with quick forcefulness wanting to stop any misconception before it began. “I never let the look of the beast distract me from my mission. As soon as it began trailing us, I sent out the control command. I could see the silver chains wrap its wings and pull it in. It followed as I commanded for quite a while, and, then…”

  Jogli wanted to shrug his shoulders, but knew the wizard would never accept such an explanation so he again searched for words to explain what happened. “And then, it seemed as if the chains had been cut. They did not snap as if with the force of a struggle. The dragon never struggled against my control. He acted like all the other dragons we control, until he didn’t. The chains…the chains just disappeared. And, when they were gone, he attacked. I tried, I really tried to get him under control again, but he appeared immune to my magic. It had no affect at all. In fact, it seemed as if something else controlled it. He roared in fury, and not the roar of a beast about to kill its prey. A roar of anger tore from his throat. Like the kind of furious scream the dragons we control make when our magic forces them against their will.”

  Jogli rubbed a finger on the eyelid of his one good eye as if he could clear away any fog that might be obscuring his memory of the event. “I… he hesitated again, and this time not only fear, but terror that caused him to stammer. “ I thought, with my other eye, I thought I saw a golden chain around the dragon’s neck. One that pulled at it, controlling it.”

  Jogli’s fears were not unfounded. Vail flung his flagon against the wall where it splattered red wine on the muted colors of the tapestry before clattering to the flagstone floor. “Maura,” he hissed. “It must be her. Only she has the power to do this.”

  Spinning on one heel, he rounded on his apprentice. “You must get that boy before she does. Without him, I cannot control the dragons, and I cannot do that if she is interfering.”

  The wizard flung an arm across the table, scattering the silver service with its wine flagon and additional cups to the woolen rug below the table. Jogli looked down to see an eerie dragon-shaped stain forming on the beige fleece rug. He stifled back a shudder and tried to listen as his master spoke. “The fire started here,” Vail said, pointing to a spot on the map. “If he survived, and he had better” the wizard said turning to face Jogli, “his best hope of doing so would have been in the Avalond River. Find him, and bring him to me now. I will accept no more delays.”

  This time Jogli could not hold back the shudder that racked his body from head to foot and he still trembled as he made his way to the garrison. Yet his voice did not shake as he shouted out the command, “Mount up. We leave immediately!”

  Their horses's hooves sounded like they were wrapped in soft furs as the galloped toward the river. In fact, no sound penetrated Riesa’s barrier between them and the surging wildfire. No smoke, no smells, no sounds, no sights except the path before them. If they had not had each other to follow the lack of sensory stimulation might have driven them mad with fear, but the hope of the river and the sure knowledge of the Goddess’ protection kept them sane and somewhat comforted. Only somewhat because each one still grabbled with the ramifications of power changes.

  Ellora seemed to suffer most of all as her place in the world was no longer secure. In fact, she appeared to have no place at all. “She called me, “The Huntress,” and by all that’s holy I have no idea what that means, “ she said to Christol who rode by her side. “I have always hunted for the thrill, but I always hated the kill and only did it because it was required by the Goddess.”

  “I know,” Christol agreed at a loss on how to comfort her, and thinking it best just to let her talk it through.

  “I am a healer. That’s who I have always been; even as a child I healed the birds with broken wings, and the lame farm animals.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “Then as my priestess training began, I healed the folk, and when healing was not enough, I guided them to Her. Healing was good. I enjoyed helping the folk. Even guiding them home was a type of healing, really. The ultimate healing, a return to whence we came. To Her and Her care.”

  “All that you have said is true,” Christol said, reaching across and gently rubbed her shoulder.

  “The hunting was required for the sacrifices. For every life healed, one needed to return. I understood this, and I even helped their spirits to move on to their new homes. But, this? This Huntress business. I won’t hunt for her anymore. Especially, if I don’t even have the power to guide their poor spirits to the next world.”

  “We could marry now,” he offered.

  Ellora jerked back on the reins causing her mount to raise up, pawing at the air because it was still in motion. “Don’t you see, Christol? I am still in service to her. Riesa called me, The Huntress. Haven’t you read the legends? The prophecy. I am not free. I am in a worse position than I was as the High Priestess.”

  She turned her beast around to face him, ignoring Riesa and Stephye who charged past toward the river. The magical silence made her words sound like angry shouting even though they were only whispers of a horror still to come. “The Huntress will arise. She will fight for Mithlonde, and suffer loss, she will save, but she will lose.”

  Tears fell in the silence as she stared into his eyes. “I lost you the day I became High Priestess. I gave up my parents and my family. What is left to me, my life? Is my life next?”

  She spurred her horse from a standstill into a charge. “No! No, I won’t do it. Maura can set me free. Are you coming with me?”

  She threw the question over her shoulder as he galloped behind her, his answer unheard, but unnecessary. She knew his love for her would lead him to the gates of hell. And, by the look on his face, it appeared that is exactly where he thought she was leading him.

  Riesa and Stephye were also trying to puzzle out their new situation in life. Their planned wedding, two moon turns from now needed to be postponed, maybe forever, and Stephye
had no expectations concerning a continued relationship with the Goddess’ High Priestess. There couldn’t be one, not now, not ever.

  “Riesa, what’s going to happen now?”

  “We go to the river, and wait.”

  Stephye had expected Riesa’s cryptic reply. She had replied in short non-committal statements ever since the Goddess had consumed her. The woman he had grown up with, fallen in love with and had wanted to spend the rest of his life with was no more. The magic transformed her into some kind of powerful being he didn’t recognize. She appeared enthralled with the magic she controlled, and not for the first time wondered who controlled what.

  He tried again. “I mean between us.”

  She turned her eyes to meet his, and for a flicker of a heartbeat he thought he saw her behind the magic that shone through in them. But it disappeared before he could be sure he had even seen it. “There is no us. There is only the Goddess.”

  Stephye shook as if he were a lightning struck tree. Burned to the core of his soul, he tried to reconcile what she had just said to the woman who had started this journey with him. He struggled to compare Riesa’s service to the Goddess to Ellora’s and kept coming up with handfuls of puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. The facts that he could recognize kept tying themselves into tangled knots as he tried to arrange them into some kind of sense. Ellora and Christol had remained friends after she became the high priestess. They couldn’t marry, of course, but they remained friends. What was going on with Riesa? Her attitude didn’t fit that picture. She had become as frigid as the ice in the Draekhen Mountains whereas Ellora had remained as loving and warm as she had always been.

  He reached a hand across the saddle’s breath of distance between them, and then jerked it back. His fingertips burning red from the brief touch to her shoulder.

  “Do not touch the Goddess’ high priestess. It is forbidden!”

  “But Ellora and Christol hugged, held hands, embraced?”

  “Ellora broke the rules. She always broke the rules. I am not Ellora.” She spurred her horse ahead and shouted back to him, “The river lies ahead. We must hurry now. The Goddess’ magic is waning in me as I grow tired.”

  The charmed wind that held the flames at bay also carried her words back to the rest of the small group. Christol reached out to the exhausted horses, sending them an image of safety and release in the calm waters of the Avalond River. He also showed them the flames flicking at their heels and burning their tail fringes. It was enough, and all four horses dug deep within themselves to make one final charge for the river. They never hesitated as it banks appeared, but simply jumped from the solid ground to the foaming center of watercourse. Wet and tired, but relieved all four travelers relaxed as the fire crept with steady certainness toward them. They dismounted, but held the reins wrapped tight around their hands as they waited for the fire to consume itself.

  Looking around they saw that the fire burned on both sides of the river. “It must have jumped from treetop to treetop at some narrow point in the river, “Christol said. “Crowning like that is common in forest fires this large.”

  “Aye, it is. Especially one set by dragon fire.”

  If the four of them had not been so exhausted they might have harmed the poor lad surprised as they were by his appearance. But, in their physically, mentally and magically depleted state, they could only give his shabby clothing, skinny frame, and large, frightened eyes the briefest of inspections and make the hopeful assessment that he meant them no harm. What they couldn’t figure out is what a poor farmhand was doing in the middle of the Avalond River in the middle of a raging forest fire.

  “Your name boy,” It was the Goddess’ command, and not a question.

  “Bydern.” And they all heard the trembling in his voice

  “Where are you from?” The Goddess continued.

  “Bydern. Master Connelle’s farm to be exact. I was his hired hand until I was conscripted.”

  “And, how are you here?”

  “I…” The boy’s cheeks turned as red as a ripe strawberry, but he was too afraid not to answer so he continued,, “I was in the bushes, um, doing my business. When the dragon that had been following our troop attacked. I thought at first that Jogli was going to send him away, but then he turned on Jogli, on everyone…”

  Bydern paused, his body now trembling along with his voice. Christol waded across to him and put an arm around his shoulder. “It’s okay, lad. It is only the Goddess and she won’t hurt us, and your memories can’t hurt you once you release them. Tell us what happened next.”

  “The dragon roared, loud enough to shake the mountains it seemed. And a gust of fire shot forth like a volcano spewing out the guts of the earth. It…it turned them all to ash. Then, then I ran and ran and kept running. I could hear the fire growing and burning everything, and I knew the river would offer me some way to survive it.”

  He hid his head in Christol’s shoulder, and wept. His tears mixing with the healing river waters. When he looked up again, Riesa was watching.

  “Have you been, then, to the Halls of Marbeht?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “So, you know the entrances and the way out including those not known to the villages. It’s secret passages?”

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Ah, most excellent. Then you will guide us to them.”

  The boy shook in Christol’s arms, but he should have been more afraid of the stunned look on the faces of Riesa’s companions.

  “I can’t go back there. Jogli will kill me, if Wizard Vail doesn’t do it first.”

  “You will do as I command. You have no choice,” Riesa said.

  Christol, Ellora and Stephye exchanged a look, a look that said they knew that whatever now controlled Riesa was not the loving, Creator Goddess. Something else, something evil, worked within her, and they had no idea who or what it could be.

  “I am certain the High Priestess is still on her way to Marbeht,” Vail said. “I am certain the little forest fire you started delayed her a bit, however.”

  Jogli knew better than to misconstrue the wizard’s sarcasm as humor. Jogli knew the more sarcastic his master became the more his fury grew. He wisely chose to remain silent rather than trying to defend himself and thus incur further disciplining.

  “If they survived, which knowing the Goddess as I do, I am sure they did, they probably took refuge in the Avalond River.” He raised a knotted and aged marked hand toward his apprentice, and poked a bony finger in Jogli’s chest, emphasizing each word with another sharp jab to his breastbone. “You will meet them there, and you will get that boy that controls the horses. I will send a flight of dragons with you, ones I know that are completely bound to me, and me alone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Master.” At this point, Jogli dared not say anything else, although his mind was awhirl with his own plans.

  “If another of those strange dragons appears, do not attempt to fight them on your own. Let me do the fighting. Do you understand? I want no more mistakes.”

  Jogli nodded his head in humble submission even as his thoughts spun away on dreams of revenge and freedom. “Yes, Master,” he said at last as a plan formed in his mind. A plan for Christol and his talents that had nothing to do with the wizard’s plan. “Yes, Master, I understand completely.”

  Ellora rode ahead to talk with Riesa and Bydern, and Christol and Stephye had hung back, watching the two women and still trying to understand the changes they had undergone.

  “Can they hear us?” Christol whispered.

  “I don’t think so, but I sure would like to be an ear mite listening in on that conversation,” Stephye replied. “What do you think they could possibly be talking about? Ellora’s no longer high priestess and is The Huntress whatever the fires of Charonyde that means, and the Goddess only knows what’s wrong with Riesa.”

  “I can’t figure out what they might be talking about, either, “Christol said, “except Ellora might be trying to convince
her to go to Maura’s mountain before going to Marbeht. Or, Riesa is questioning Bydern on the best way to sneak into the castle and Ellora is trying to figure out how to stop her.”

  Stephye rolled his eyes. “Either of those ideas has about as much chance of flying as your mum’s cows.” Then he frowned. “Actually, yesterday Ellora could have convinced her. Riesa loves, well loved her, today…” He shook his head. “Today, she doesn’t seem to care about anything except being the High Priestess and letting the Goddess control her.”

  Christol reined his horse to stop and motioned Stephye to move closer to him. He leaned over the saddle and whispered, “I think I know what’s wrong with Riesa, but I don’t know how to fix it.”

  “And…”

  “Well, Ellora had years of training, of learning to put the needs of others first. A big part of learning to be the High Priestess is learning to heal and to sacrifice your wants and needs for the good of others. It is much more than just learning how to use the magic and letting the Goddess speak through you. You know, Ellora was chosen and started training for this almost from the time she could walk.”

  “Christol, I know all this. What are you getting at?”

  “Riesa wasn’t chosen. She hasn’t received all the training. She doesn’t know how to control the power or the magic. It controls her.”

  Stephye blinked in confusion, “But isn’t that what was wrong with Ellora? She didn’t want the magic or the Goddess controlling her. She wanted to be free.

  “Yes and no,” Christol said.

  This time Stephye just shook his head in negation. “You are making no sense at all.”

  Christol scratched his neck and then stroked his beard, letting loose of the reins and allowing Gallant to just ramble after the Ellora, Riesa and Bydern. Finally, he sighed and said, “Yes, it does make sense. Ellora's training including pulling magic from the Goddess whenever she needed it, and then releasing it back to the Goddess. Usually she only used it for healing, but sometimes for other things like protection of others or herself. However, when Wizard Vail became active in Haiwood, the Goddess broke through Ellora’s controls and took over.”