Zael walked off to the side and spoke with some of his cohorts, then returned to face Anson and the others. “Worad was a friend to us, one of few men I have ever trusted. We know four men beset him and blood was spilled. We think you are the ones who brought harm to Worad and desecrated elven soil. By council we have decided that you must also die.”
Upon saying that, Zael raised his hand and several of his followers stepped forward with ready swords. At the same time, a least a dozen archers appeared from places located all around them, including some over their heads in trees, but none had been seen until this moment because of their camouflage. At the sight of nocked arrows, Nevin lost the bravado he gained from facing wooden swords.
Orris spat a curse at them for not allowing him to die fighting. Faldon was too shaken to utter a sound and proceeded to wet his pants. Nevin stood to his full height and stepped in front of his friends, but Anson cut him off. “You are mistaken, Lord Zael! Do not sully your own soil with more wanton deaths.”
A few of the elves stepped forward grim-faced and poised to wield their weapons, until a look from Zael immediately stopped them. Zael looked over the captives again and shook his head in silent denouncement. As he brought his hand down, apparently as the signal for the archers to shoot, another human voice was heard, “Zael, stop! Stop!”
A lad who looked to be about fifteen years of age, came staggering toward the group escorted by two elves. Looking disheveled and distraught, he stumbled up to Zael and fell to his knees, as much out of exhaustion as supplication. Zael looked him over and signaled for some elves to help him stand. He said, “This human boy is Nibo, apprentice to Worad,” announced Zael. “Nibo, tell us what you know about the attack here.”
One of the elves brought the boy something to drink. As his panting eased, the apprentice spoke, “I was out collecting herbs when it happened. Yesterday morning four men came upon the house and surprised Worad. They covered his mouth so he could cast no spell, then beat him senseless and dragged him off. Before they left they tore through everything, then burned the house.”
Everyone’s attention focused on the boy. Anson bowed at the news of another lost mage.
Nibo shook his head vigorously and said, “I am sure these are not the men. Two of the attackers wore red uniforms”
The stern look on Zael’s face changed only a little as he glanced sidelong at his captors. It was clear he was deciding whether to act despite this new information. Nevin wondered how much this Zael’s obvious dislike of humans would weigh against justice. Four birds in the hand must be tempting quarry for this hunter.
Turning to Nibo, Zael patted the boy on the shoulder and said with a more kindly tone, “You have done well, lad. Worad told me how pleased he was with you. He would be proud that you came forth to prevent the wrongful death of these men.”
Four men sighed deeply.
Zael signaled for the archers to lower their bows, then walked over to his relieved captives. “Elves have no fondness for humans, and I, least of all. Still, we do not wish to slay you wrongfully. You say you are traveling to Sartell to meet with Lucan over his pathetic war with Meire. If this is so, it may be a noble cause though it seems doubtful you could succeed. You will be allowed to continue your journey through our Wood provided you bring no harm to any elfkind, our trees, or other creatures in the Wood. If you make a fire, use only downed branches.” Zael walked over to the wagon and gave it a careful look. “You will have to leave your wagon or send it back. It is too large to travel any further on this route. If you wish, we will care for the horses.”
Faldon practically leaped forward and said, almost whimpering, that he wished to return, but glanced nervously around not knowing whether to seek permission from Zael or Anson. Zael saw his dilemma and offered to dispatch two elves to accompany the man, assuring him he would return safely to the Public Road with his wagon.
With that assurance, Faldon quickly insisted he should return without delay and set about hitching up the horses with remarkable speed. Zael advised the others to be on their way as well.
Once the wagon was ready, Faldon gave a quick wave and a scant wish for luck to his former comrades. With two elves running alongside, he slapped the reins on the horses and set off. The pair of elves seemed to melt into the undergrowth beside the wagon, lost from view long before the wagon was out of sight.
In the meantime, Anson and Nevin had tied parcels on their backs but Orris was not permitted to strap on his sword. Nevin noticed that the elves seemed to be repulsed by Orris’ sword and moved away as the soldier secured it to his pack.
Nevin and Orris waited to start out, while Anson was off to the side speaking privately with Zael. With the Elf-lord nodding and pointing to the top of a nearby tree, he called over one of his troupe. A curly headed female quickly responded and handed over a small article to Zael, which he examined and then passed on to Anson. Anson put the article in his pack and waved courteously as he rejoined Nevin and Orris.
Once the three humans embarked, Zael signaled to his cohorts who disappeared into the forest cover almost instantly. Only Zael remained in view as Anson, Nevin and Orris walked off to the northwest.
* * *
They had walked about three hours, moving northwest when they stopped for a rest. Nevin asked Anson about his talk with Zael.
“He said he would arrange for us to follow the most direct route so we would not get lost. That bird up there,” he said, pointing to a large black bird nervously twittering on a high tree branch ahead of them, “has been our guide since we left.”
“It was nice of him to give us directions as the crow flies.” Nevin sniffed at the obvious pun, but neither of his companions saw the humor in it.
“I have no doubt he wanted us to take the most direct route so he would be rid of us,” said Orris. “It is plain to see that he cares little for humans.”
“You are correct, my military friend. And your testiness with him did not likely increase his love.”
“Aye, and I’ll be testy with anyone that threatens our mission. What say you, Sir Nevin? Shall I be the defender of our alliance?” Orris laughed heartily at the boast.
“Sure,” Nevin replied. “I’ll be glad to stand behind you whenever we get into trouble.”
With the danger passed, they shared a laugh over the tall man’s willingness to use Orris as a shield. Nevin was also pleased to see Orris so feisty, which suggested he was not suffering from blood poisoning or other ill effects from his injury. Orris had carefully heeded Nevin’s instructions in caring for the wound and they all marveled at how well it was healing.
At Anson’s nod, they started off again. Nevin fell in line, his attention frequently given to the bird they followed. For a moment, he was concerned about the magical implications involving this bird, but he pacified himself by recalling that the homing instincts of pigeons and other birds have been subject to training. There was no magic in that.
Eventually they turned to a more westerly direction and the heavy tree growth started to thin out. By early evening, the composition of the forest had changed from mixed hardwoods back to conifers and the ground was leveling out. They settled for the night alongside a stream, deeper and wider than others they had seen so far. They each took a bath in the chilly water to wash off the grime of several days travel, with Orris playfully splashing the other two. Spirits lifted to match their growing friendship. Each man carried out his own camp duty so that wood was collected, a fire started, and a meal prepared with efficiency. They talked among themselves and agreed that it was not necessary to post a guard this night. Even Orris felt a sense of security offered by the unseen elves they knew were watching them.
After Orris built up the campfire to last through the night, he joined the other two in repose on their bedrolls. He said to Anson, “I thought I saw Zael give you something?”
Anson reached over to his parcel and pulled out some kind of pipe or flute made out of a hollowed antler, which he passed around caution
ing them not to blow on it. It was beautifully crafted and marked with odd designs that Nevin likened to runes. “Should we find ourselves in their Wood again, Zael said we should blow this pipe. I am not sure what would happen, but I expect he would eventually appear.” Anson replaced the item for safekeeping. “It does not seem likely that we will have occasion to use it since we will reach Sartell by late morning.”
Anson added with a look of puzzlement, “Zael also said something about ‘our follower’ joining us. I am not sure what he meant.”
“He must have been referring to the crow,” Nevin suggested. “Or maybe he has one of his elves hidden to follow our progress all the way to the city.”
“Perhaps,” answered Anson. “But we would never see them unless they wanted it so.”
Orris straightened out his bedroll and asked, “Do they make themselves invisible by spell?”
The question piqued Nevin’s interest, but he surprised himself by being a little disappointed at Anson’s response.
“No. Elves do not cast spells. Elves are unseen simply because they hide amongst the coloration of leaves and trees. Not only do the hues of their clothing blend with these surroundings, but they seem to have a knack for moving quietly without disturbing plant or animal.”
Nevin found it interesting that elves did not use magic and asked a question of his own, “Can you make yourself invisible?”
Anson was in turn surprised that the question was asked again. “Oh, no. A spell of invisibility is beyond my skills, as you must surely know. No mage in my land has either the spellwords or mindpower to change the physical laws so greatly,” Anson said. With a wry smile he added, “Perhaps it could be done by one with a greater force of mind.”
Nevin missed the implication as his thoughts returned to the subject of spellcasting and the structural similarities in the spell passages he had learned so far. After a while, he asked if he could attempt another spell. Anson was willing, so they decided on a luminescence and spent about an hour as teacher and pupil. The lesson was not disappointing.
Nevin learned that luminescence would produce a cold light, something like mythical “witchlight,” except this spell imparted radiance to crystalline objects and did not form a nimbus around the spellcaster. Anson searched the creek bed for a small quartz-like stone and demonstrated on it, making it glow pale green. He said the color and intensity, as well as the duration of the glowing effect, would vary with the object of the spell, and probably with the power of the mage. Luminescence worked especially well on small articles made of crystal and sometimes glassy art pieces. Nevin guessed the glow resulted from some type of excitation of phosphorescent minerals in the object’s composition. Nevin asked, “Can you reverse this spell? Would that make the objects dark?”
Anson shrugged.
When he finally decided to sleep for the night, Nevin pondered the machinations of this newest spell compared with the others he had learned. This spell was different in that it required a low bass drone of spellwords syncopated with so-called mindpower. Maybe the auditory tone combined with radiant neural energy to produce some minute fibrillation in the crystalline structure. That was plausible. He knew that EEGs record voltage fluctuations from the scalp with the brain emitting at least four types of energy waves. Billions of neurons firing at once could be some kind of “mindpower.” Nevin laughed to himself at this deduction, remembering how skeptical people were about the first lasers not too many years ago. How magical that device seemed though it was little more than a narrow, focused beam of light passing through a ruby.
The plausibility of the luminescence spell was comforting, but Nevin was still troubled by his lack of an explanation for the heat-producing spell Bartram used on the aquarium. Raising water temperature required a potent source of energy, much more than eliciting phosphorescent light or firing a candlewick. Bartram must have drawn energy from some potent though unapparent source, possibly neural energy but that seemed far-fetched. Brain waves are electrochemical energy, more or less, he thought. The luminescence spell obviously had to draw on some power source, although small in consumption. In any event, Nevin was pleased because science still reigned—more or less—and what so easily passed as ephemeral magic had some possible explanations. In time, the conjuring of cold light might be as simple to explain as turning on a laser. He fell asleep, thinking of glowworms and fireflies and their photochemical mechanisms of generating cold light.
Chapter 15
Sartel
Nevin was the first to wake up. After searching for kindling to start a fire, he took another refreshing dip in the nearby stream. It felt wonderful and the water had a smell of purity about it, complimented by the strong smell of balsam and fir from surrounding trees. This was far better than the marginal camping experiences he had as a young scout. Though he was as robust as the other boys in his scout troop, his intellectual interests set him apart from the others. Nevin’s youthful scouting experience was thankfully short, but he found himself hoping the current chapter in his life would last longer because there seemed so much ahead. The land seemed unspoiled and bountiful, its people innocent if threatened by the vagaries of a primitive war. One person could make a difference here. Anson, who put the needs of his people and the land ahead of his own life, was such a person. It seemed Orris would fight against any odds to defend his king and country. Now, perhaps, Nevin was another who could make a difference here. His companions seemed to think so.
Since his campmates were still asleep, Nevin used the opportunity to wash his clothes. He left Hempstead wearing standard sportswear and shoes that were holding up well. After wringing his clothes nearly dry, he wore them damp and huddled over the fire to reduce the chill. Even chilled, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Things were going well.
Orris was second to stir. Nevin noted to himself how the soldier made an almost instant transition from sleep to full consciousness, probably an adaptive trait for a soldier. Orris’ quickness to react was immediately confirmed as the soldier sprang to his feet and doused Nevin’s fire, smothering the smoking ashes with dirt.
“Sir Nevin! It is not wise to make a fire during daylight hours when in unfamiliar lands! Worse even to use green wood because it causes more smoke than heat. A fire like this may be allowed at night, but not during the day unless safety is certain. We do not want to attract unwanted visitors like those rogues who dispatched that mage a day ago.” Orris frowned as he made final work of extinguishing the fire. Not only annoyed at Nevin’s careless act, he was evidently surprised that someone touted as a sage would not already know these things.
Nevin tried a lighthearted explanation that he was more used to flashlights than campfires, and that he never got too far into fire building in the scouts, but Orris was oblivious to these excuses. It seemed best to let the matter drop.
Orris also let the campfire incident pass and started fussing about, urging them to break camp without delay. Nevin could see that today’s impending arrival at Sartell was making the soldier a little edgy. All of them had reason to be a little tense. Nevin, himself, was full of an historian’s curiosity about many things, from the local form of government to the style of architecture in the city. Anson would soon get to meet with King Lucan, and the future of their alliance, as Orris liked to called it, was bound up in that meeting. Therefore, heightened emotions were understandable. As the soldier bustled around checking packs and exhorting Anson to hurry, Nevin imagined there were probably many things waiting for a Captain of the King’s Armsmen: friends and fellow soldiers to see, possibly relatives. Maybe a wife and children.
While Nevin was displaced himself, he was deeply intrigued by this strange land. There was so much innocence and simple beauty that he had no major regrets, except his inability to explain the mechanism that got him here. Everything was new and in many ways unspoiled. Even if given the chance right now, he might not go back to…that place he came from. Nevin laughed to himself as he momentarily forgot the name of Hempstead College
. This train of thought was broken as Orris scurried by. Nevin reached out to stop him.
“Orris, come have a seat while I look at your arm and change the dressing. I’d like to see how our handiwork is coming along.”
Orris was still impatient about breaking camp but he was as obedient as a young recruit in following Nevin’s orders about this matter. He was both grateful and relieved that his wound was not sending him the unfortunate way so many fellow soldiers had gone. He fetched some clean cloth strips and sat on his bedroll while Nevin attended to the old dressing.
Contorting his face in concentration, Nevin unrolled the old bandage and removed the crumbled mass that was left of the moldy cheese. His look brightened when he saw that the wound was still healing remarkably well. The stitches were holding and the skin was not necrotic. He massaged the wounded area and it did not ooze from infection. Orris reported that it was only mildly painful to the touch, which brought a satisfied nod from both of them. “You are a tough cookie, Orris.”
While Orris showed a confused look at this reference to bad baked goods, Anson came to look for himself. “That is a fine piece of healing, Sir Nevin. He’ll be so fit this rascal will not earn any sympathy from the ladies in Sartell.”
Orris smirked. “That’s fine by me. ‘Tis not sympathy I seek from the ladies. Thanks to our learned sage here, I will be as robust as I was on my last visit. Sir Nevin, there will soon be others in your debt for restoring my health.” That gave Nevin a better understanding of this soldier’s mounting urgency to get to Sartell.
Anson pointed to a crow nervously hopping from one tree to the next. “I believe our guide is ready for us to start.”
* * *
The coniferous forest gradually thinned, giving way to more open land and meadows with the first sighting of farms. After several hours of walking, they rejoined the Public Road near a fork which had a weathered sign indicating Sartell was a league away. They had walked half that league when Nevin first spotted the city. It was walled on all sides by large fitted stone blocks, probably limestone judging by the sandy color. The most prominent feature behind the wall was the castle, which had a blue cast to it and rose high above all else around it. The castle appeared to be a very large square structure with turrets at each corner and large pennants flying from numerous spire peaks located variously around the castle roof.
The Chronicles of Nevin Reasoner: The Complete Duology Page 12