by Bill Albert
It wasn’t until talk of Gallif’s involvement that the conversation turned tents.
“I am familiar with her,” Zaslow said. She was the last face I saw both times I died.”
Jakobus took a drink of the sparkling, ticklish, clearer ale before he spoke.
“You saw what the splinters saw when they died. Do you know their thoughts?”
“Just his, the first one, the one whose heart she froze inside the mountain. He was the original one, the complicated one, and the connections with him were the strongest.”
“Then you know what he was doing. You know what his plans were.”
“Yes,” Zaslow said looking away. “I know what his powers in his plans were. His lusts and desires. Before you ask, I will tell you that’s, no, I do not mourn his loss like a brother or a friend. I am envious of his completeness, yet I also pity him his actions.”
“And the other, the second one to die?” Novelevon asked.
“He was desperate, confused, as if he’d lost something from the original. He lacked the confidence that the rest of us retained.”
“How many of you are there?” Jakobus had to ask bluntly.
“After the original jump, there were four of us,” he said slowly. “Now there are two remaining. We lose so much when one of us dies,” he said sadly. “I doubt we will survive one more loss.” Zaslow dropped backwards into the chair as if he had lost all his energy to move.
Immediately the kisertet’s swept across to his side of the table and Zaslow’s plate, glass, and utensils were removed.
“He needs sleep again,” Novelevon said as he rose. “Tomorrow he will hopefully feel energetic enough to navigate your memory streams and reread that the curse with you. Will you allow him?”
“I don’t know,” Jakobus said honestly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: NOBLE SECRETS
The next morning, with very little sleep and even less certainty, Jakobus agreed to let Zaslow into his memories. He was led to a small room and laid down on an incredibly soft bed. There were only two small candles in the room and burning incense gave off the distinct aroma of strawberries. Jakobus still wore his middle armor but, after much consideration, had agreed to leave his weapon outside. It wasn’t long before the comfort of the room seduced him, and he was fast asleep.
Jakobus decided hit taken enough guff and was going to bring it to an end now. That was it! Time to put the bully in his place. Jakobus got to his feet and walked forward with great confidence. After all, yesterday was his 8th birthday, he wasn’t just a kid anymore.
He started his walk to school in under city just like it was any other day. The incredibly large, open cavern that was this part of under city was just waking up. Dwarves, like Jakobus, were going to school while the adults prepared for their daily duties. Usually things were pretty quiet and there was very little disruption to the routine. That made it so much easier for bullies like Rabauke to operate.
Rabauke waited every day for Jakobus to pass his street on the way to school. Either he would scowl or glare at him and let the younger dwarf pass or stop him near the corner and demand something to be allowed to pass.
“That’s far enough, Jacko,” Rabauke said stepping out into the open as the younger dwarf reach the halfway point. “Time to pay up,” Rabauke made the thread clear as he stood to face them. Rabauke, at almost 5 feet, was quite large for his age. He had learned how to use it to his advantage.
“No more of this, Rabauke,” Jakobus said using the first tactic he decided to try to stop this bully. “Act responsibly and respectfully like a dwarf should.”
“I act responsibly and respectfully,” Rabauke smiled and added. As long as someone deserves it. Give me the stone.”
“The stone?”
“I know you found a focus stone. I heard about it at school yesterday.”
Jakobus sighed and cursed himself for his ego. He had found a bright, glowing focused stone during a trip through the cave system further north and the Stack Black mountains a week ago. He knew he should have kept it a secret, but the temptation to show it and brag about it to his friends had been too much.
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked Rabauke.
“I’ll learn some casts,” he laughed. “Then someday I’ll turn you into an ugly aquilus!”
“Rabauke, really, this is disgraceful,” Jakobus said after shuttering at the mention of those horrible creatures with the pointed ears. “You must reconsider your methods,” Jakobus pleaded with him preparing to go to his second tactic.
“You’re just a little baby, Jacko,” Rabauke said shaking her fist at them. “Give it up or all beat it out of you.”
Jakobus shrugged and realized tactic was his only choice. He sighed sadly, tilted his head to one side, then planted his boot forcefully and directly into one of Rabauke’s kneecaps.
The older, stockier dwarf collapsed to the ground in pain as Jakobus walk slowly and steadily away.
“I’ll get you for this, elf,” Rabauke called from the floor. “I’ll turn you in! You’ll never get away with this.”
“Go ahead and tell the officials. Tell everyone how you got beat up by someone years younger than you and only two thirds of your size,” he said and saw the bully realize he would have to admit it. “Then they’ll come to me and I’ll have to explain to them why I did it,” he said and walked off without another word.
Jakobus, older, much more experienced, and asleep in the swamps notices younger self leave and couldn’t stop a smile. He had not thought of that moment for years, but he remembered it proudly. He smiled at how Rabauke had never bullied anyone again.
Jakobus turn to take a look at the bully again but he was gone. Instead there was a tall, thin, man with sharp eyes looking at him. He almost drew his axe but recognized Zaslow, the aged and ill human male in the bully’s place.
“You weren’t supposed to come here,” Jakobus protested.
“I had no choice,” Zaslow said without moving. “This is one your thoughts started. I had no choice but to follow you. Now, however, we will travel at your will.”
As Zaslow spoke Jakobus felt himself moving and everything around him started to blur. It was as if he was floating in water but there were no restrictions in his movements. Everything he saw started to shimmer and soon he and Zaslow were hovering above a rapidly moving stream of colors. Most were calm and comforting colors, but a few were extremely bright and clear while others were nearly completely black.
“Where is this?” Jakobus asked.
“These are your memories. Each stream a different memory in your life.”
“What do the darker ones mean?”
“Those are the ones you want to hide.”
“From you?”
“From you.”
Jakobus looked down and concentrated on some of the darker ones. He saw himself, long time ago, as a rebellious punk. He saw the burning. He saw himself setting fires to a temple showing his disdain for outsiders, for people who weren’t dwarf. The fields were burning, and he was laughing in the light.
He looked at the burning cornstalks and then gasped as he saw it up close. This stock was now a person. It was Gallif.
“No, no, no,” Jakobus said shaking his head violently escape the memory. Once again, he was floating above the colored streams with Zaslow.
“That’s not right,” Jakobus said in confusion. “She wasn’t there. She had nothing to do with that.”
“No, but for some reason your thoughts have connected that memory to her. Plus, something else with her,” he added and was surprised that Jakobus did not know what he was talking about.
“What’s that one?” Jakobus asked quickly changing the subject. There was a bright stream of light flowing directly beneath them. Though the stream was clear the colors were muted and there was a columnist around it. The feeling that reminded Jakobus of a library.
Jakobus and Zaslow floated down to the giant library and watched the dwarf picking through the books. Ja
kobus was about to ask a question one Zaslow ordered him to be quiet and gently whispered for him to concentrate. Jakobus close his eyes and just floated gently around the room.
Zaslow, ever so gently, looked over the dwarf shoulders and started reading the book as well. He was in a unique position because he could read the words as they were written and here’s a thought of Jakobus interpreting them at the same time. Many of the passages in the book were clear and he was more than impressed that the dwarf had been able to retain those passages. There were some parts that seemed a bit awkward and he suspected it was possibly the cast that made them that way. The Dragon alphabet had 897 letters, even with the cast it was difficult to translate. The fact that he had remembered this much prove the Jakobus was no ordinary dwarf.
He concentrated hard on the words, let them wash over him, and was amazed at just how fiendishly clever the actual cast had been. It’s words so subtle and steadily paced if read like a poem. No, he suddenly realized. It was even more than opponent.
The more he read the more complicated it got, and he saw the logical path that Jakobus had followed. He also saw the trap that the dwarf it missed.
He looked at the Jakobus that had entered with him and together they floated above the stream and could see the flow the memories and beneath them.
A bright, shining memory caught Jakobus’s attention and he swam towards it. When he was closer to it, he started to feel the warmth and he knew what it was even before he entered the stream.
It was such a powerful and happy memory it completely overcame him as it engulfed him.
Jakobus was four years old the first time his parents had taken him on a trip away from Under City. It was the first time in his life that he was really scared. He had seen the forest and the sun and the spires of the Stack Black Mountains that surrounded Under City through the viewing portals but there had always been the comfort of protection over his head in a wall behind his back. Here there was none of that. Vast, open spaces leaving in every direction scared him. He didn’t want to leave the cover of the wagon and his parents almost dragged him from inside.
He stood in one place as if his feet had taken root there. It took considerable coaxing from his parents before he took one very short step forward, then the second, the third.
After more assurance from his parents he found himself standing near tree. With one hand on his trunk they handed him some leaves and asked him to take a deep breath. The sensation of the leaves against his face and their interesting aroma filled his senses and he took another handful, then another, then another.
Soon he was laying on his back in the grass laughing at the funny shapes of the clouds in the sky. After establishing a roaring campfire and having the juiciest cooked chicken he’d ever had in his life he reluctantly climbed into the wagon and headed back to Under City.
Jakobus joyously swam up and away from the memory stream.
He looked at Zaslow and knew it was time to go but another flash of light causes attention and he drifted towards it. He dived in and ended up in the same place he had been before. The fields were burning, he was laughing and enjoying the fact that the farm run by humans would be gone. He looked away in shame and saw Gallif on the edge of the flame, crying and looking at him accusative late. He looked at her glaring at him and then she pointed at the farmhouse in flames.
Jakobus tried to turn away but this time, like Zaslow, he saw something else, a strange shadow of some type, near Gallif.
Jakobus was wide-eyed back in the room with the two candles that smelled like strawberries. He sat up and wiped his gray hair from his face.
“I know why she’s there,” he said to himself. “How could I be such a fool?” He rubbed his eyes clears and then took another deep breath.
He remembered the look on her face when he told her about the terrible things he had done in his youth. About starting a fire that destroyed temples and farms. She had looked at him in what he had read a sadness. He knew now he had been wrong. She had felt betrayed that he had destroyed her home and killed her family. He lowered his head and prayed for forgiveness.
Zaslow woke quietly. He sat up and gently rubbed his neck as Novelevon approached him.
“Did you read the cast question mark Novelevon asked calmly.
“Yes,” Zaslow answered regretfully.
“Can we reverse it? Can we remove the curse on the elves?”
“No, even the powers of the Others won’t be able to do it. In fact, no one alive today can save them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE LAST OF US DIE
For days Jakobus had waited patiently for some news on the curse, possible ways to remove it, or just some information about what was going on. Despite Zaslow’s announcement Novelevon and Zaslow had gone to work. They immediately started sifting through Novelevon’s library for clues. Though it wasn’t as vast as the Dragon Library it was more focused on spells and casting. Despite Zaslow’s physical weakness and exhaustion he seemed to be inspired by the challenge and had worked nonstop Novelevon was like a maniac screaming in joy as he found some offhand reference as if he had discovered a treasure map and started researching more possibilities. He would frequently run from room to room comparing potions and powders with religious chants and hymns to discover the right combination.
Jakobus, much to his annoyance, had been forgotten in the process. He would follow one of the casters from room to room and try to engage them in conversation but could only get fragments of information. Knowledge of casts, potions, and other such habits were not his expertise, he couldn’t deny that, but he still wanted to support their work.
There was also a certain amount of guilt he had in his conscience. He and been certain that he had read the book right and that the Others would be able to help. What had he missed? Where had he gone wrong?
In the meantime, most of his questions were answered by a pat on the shoulder, nod, and go away type of response. He was getting more and more frustrated. He was relieved, after one particularly rude brushoff, that he did not have his weapon with him are you would’ve possibly split a wooden table and have to get their attention. Instead he had quietly grabbed a book at random and started reading.
On the third morning they broke from their research and drag themselves to the dining table. Just as each of them was seated the kisertets appeared with giant size trays of food. They ate plates full of eggs, bacon, read and fruit. A cool picture of milk surprise Jakobus is he had seen no signs of farm animals. It occurred to him that there were many types of animals that produce milk and decided not to ask. There was a bit of an odd aftertaste to it, but it was close enough for him to enjoy.
“It’s actually quite simple,” Novelevon said without enthusiasm. “There really is no casting involved in removing the curse.”
“Even without the recent hostilities you could never get enough together to make it work. Maybe, inside the swamp, you could get it right but never to affect that many elves. Not enough to make a difference.”
“Could you imagine the cost of lives trying to round the aquilus into the swamps? The number of giants, humans, dwarves, and everything else it would take?”
“I don’t understand how I could’ve been that mistaken,” Jakobus said taking his last review of milk. “It spoke of the Others in the book.”
“It talks about others, not the Others,” Zaslow said without accusation. “The others who lived in lives made of casts, casts of nature, who spent much of their lives in mystery. Who were the opposites yet duplicates of the leaders of the Land of Starpoint.”
“It does not describe the Others?” Jakobus asked. “They spend most of their lives in mystery. If not that, who would be the opposites yet duplicates? To those of us outside, you call us drysiders, the Others are a big mystery.”
“His reasoning is good,” Novelevon agreed.
“Yes, but you see the obvious mistake,” Zaslow said then quickly looked at Jakobus. “I mean no offense,” he added.
“Then tell me
what the error is,” Jakobus demanded. “The Others have casting powers beyond even the Giant Lords. They are duplicates, same basic build, but opposites in every way they live.”
“Yes, written today that would be the Others but that cast wasn’t written by the Giant Lords! It was written 1000 years ago by dragons!” Zaslow finally reveal the secrets of the cast.
Jakobus gasped as he now knew where he had gone wrong. “They were opposites of the dragons in their size and duplicates of the dragons in their casting,” Novelevon said gently.
“They could do it?” Jakobus asked. “They could release the elves from the curse?”
“Yes,” Novelevon nodded. “They were the pure essence of castings. Their songs, sung by millions, could produce the music that would clear the minds of my kind….” He stopped his grief overcame him.
“But they are gone,” Zaslow whispered with a sadness Jakobus would not have thought possible. “The fairies were killed centuries ago.”
“No,” Jakobus says as he counted the 42 focusing casting stones in the room. “They are right here.”
He might as well have just declared himself to be a giant, Dragon, are one of the others as he told them about Lincilara. They sat staring at him as if they had decided he was delusional and should be locked up in a cell with no square corners. It wasn’t until Zaslow spoke that Novelevon even considered his story to be true.
“That was the shadow, wasn’t it?” Zaslow asked. “That stream with the redhaired girl,” he added.
“That was Gallif, yes,” Jakobus admitted.
“But there was something else there. A shadow. I could feel it. You saw it too. Something other than the dragons that you didn’t want me to see. It was a fairy, wasn’t it?” Zaslow said with tears streaming down his face.