Tales From Thac

by F P Spirit et al.

  “Quiet, we're getting out of here,” Wex smacked him upside the head to try and snap Hevik out of his dazed shock.

  “We can’t leave yet, where are the kids?” Hevik at least whispered this time.

  “They’re fine, the seal told me,” Wex lied.

  When they reached the far side of the ice, the creature had vanished underwater. There was a faint cracking sound, and at that moment the little iceberg broke completely free and began drifting away from the cove.

  Wex nearly screamed as a dragon’s head emerged from the water just inches from Hevik and him. It was the ‘smaller’ storm dragon, but its head was as large as a man’s torso; a frill of horned projections framed its beak-like mouth on either side. Its most striking feature was its eyes—large, luminous green with faint amber flecks that seemed to swirl as they regarded the two men. At this range, he could feel its breath upon his face, carrying the salty scents of the sea.

  “Do you think it can talk?” Wex whispered.

  “Yes,” the dragon responded, “and with a better mastery of pronouns than some.” The voice formed from the monstrous throat must have been some kind of magic. It was clear, surprisingly gentle, resonant, but soft, probably so as not to attract attention from shore. The voice was also young and decidedly female-sounding.

  Wex’s mind raced, wondering what a pronoun was, and whether he had in some way insulted the dragon. “Ah m’lady dragon, I’m sorr…” Wex swallowed quite a bit of seawater as the dragon pulled him under.

  He was too tired to even struggle at that point. The irony of surviving the huge dragon battle, only to be drowned because he inadvertently insulted a lady dragon, seemed somehow an appropriate end to his life. As he was pulled deeper into the cold depths under the ice, he took one last look toward the surface, thinking of how all his life he loved the sea. He always knew he would die in its embrace.

  Through the rippling waves, he could see a white-winged form circle the iceberg twice, and then fly off.

  “Next time you hide underwater, try not flailing around and blowing bubbles so much.” The dragon whispered after hauling him back to the surface. “By the Eternal, you’d think I was trying to drown you or something.” Wex definitely thought he detected amusement in her tone.

  “M’lady dragon, have you seen my son and daughter?” Hevik asked hesitantly. He seemed none the worse for the dunking, and it was not fear of the dragon that made his voice quaver; it was fear of her answer.

  “The valiant Meriwynn and her brave brother are safe.” The dragon’s voice trailed off, and she looked at the ice as if she could see through it back to the cove.

  Wex wondered where the kids were, how they could be safe, and how long they would remain that way.

  Time had little meaning to the sword Inazuma; the ancient blade had spent a millennium in battle, and perhaps another sundered and broken at the bottom of the sea or in a slumbering twilight dragon’s hoard. Patience, he had learned.

  Darkness also meant nothing to him—it was just another flavor to the world around him. It in no way limited the clarity of the magic senses he used. So, when the minor magic on the stick finally faded and went out, he could see the girl’s face clearly.

  The ancient sword had taken a thousand lives at the end of his blade, and seen the extinguishing of ten thousand more. Great dragons full of elemental power, proud elven masters of arcane lore, and noble human wielders of divine might—all had fallen within his witness. What was one peasant girl’s silent tears to all of that?

  The girl, Meriwynn, had her unconscious brother’s head in her lap, stroking his hair with one hand. And she was still clutching the driftwood stick with the other, even after the final light had faded from it.

  “Don’t worry, everything will be alright.” The girl’s quiet voice spoke into the darkness.

  Inazuma wasn’t sure whether the lie was for her brother or herself, but the sword felt that it was high time he made some truth of it. He renewed the sparks along his blade to shed some dim light. Usually a purely visual warning for intimidating foes, like a rattlesnake, his strike was just as deadly without the show. Since lightning was a natural aspect of his core enchantment and required no spirit energy, the sparks were easier to maintain than creating magical light.

  “Meriwynn, child of fish guts, we have dallied here long enough.”

  Inazuma had not projected the language of man aloud for unremembered years. It sounded strange, even to him, and the dim and inconsistent light from his blade could not hide the girl’s shocked expression from his sight. He felt it was probably better if he did not speak directly to her mind at this point.

  The girl jumped back, looking around for the speaker and holding the stick as a weapon. Hadn’t she heard him speak earlier? It was a good thing her brother looked like he had a hard head.

  Inazuma pondered for a bit; it was best when dealing with common people to project an illusion of life. Using his illusion power would drain precious amounts of his spiritual charge, but it would be worth it.

  Now, what image would children such as these respond to? He supposed the kindly old man route was best, but which to use? He had spent several decades in the company of the wizard Hergelmist, who pulled off the ruse of a bumbling senile very well; the children of that time seemed quite taken with him. But he surmised that considering the circumstances, these youngsters would want someone stronger-appearing, but not threatening.

  Inazuma summoned part of his magical energies and formed an illusion of old Marious in his simple blue robes and a wide-brimmed hat, with the peak half-collapsed on itself, perched upon his head. He remembered clearly the liveliness and power of the eyes set in the wrinkled old face, framed by the barely tamed beard and hair of grey, and he recreated it in detail.

  It was Marious who had first reached out to Inazuma’s spirit as more than an implement of war. Born from a forged spark of dragon spirit and the fervent prayers of man for victory, back in those days, he was wildly bloodthirsty and solely focused on battle. It was Marious who taught him that power without higher purpose was a blaze that would eventually consume itself in the fires of madness. More so than any of the legendary heroes who had wielded him, that great but gentle wizard was his spiritual father—and he was the greatest teacher of magic Inazuma had ever known.

  He formed one of Marious’ favorite staves and set a bright flame upon it. Such was the power of Inazuma’s illusions that the flames felt like they gave off heat, although they could not actually burn or harm anything. Although very draining to produce, the brightness and perceived warmth of those flames might go a long way to assuage the dread and despair of children trapped in this cold, damp, and dark chamber.

  “My apologies for startling you, dear child,” he began, forming the sounds from the illusionary mouth of the old man. “I am Inazuma, the sword, and the spirit in the sword.”

  The girl curtsied very nicely, with just the perfect bow of the head to an unknown lord. She obviously had at least some small training outside of fishing boats.

  “I am Meriwynn Fichgotz of Ravenford.”

  The girl emphasized the pronunciation of her last name; she seemed to have regained some of her spunk. He had seen her beating on a fire dragon with no more than a stick—there was some strong metal in this fisherman’s daughter.

  Inazuma smiled at her and bowed in return. A dramatic, theatrical gesture such as Marious would give to the old kings and queens in an age gone by. It was so much more effective to communicate through the illusion. With a dozen visual clues, he let her know she had nothing to fear from him, and he considered her an equal in this endeavor.

  “Well, Miss Fichgotz, let’s see how your brother is doing.” He certainly didn’t need to bend over the boy to see him clearly, but that action would make the girl feel better.

  “Will he be alright?”

  “He will be awakening soon, and we must prepare.”

  “How?”

  “First, you must take the sword.” Ina
zuma thought it best to refer to himself in the third person, to avoid confusion and enhance the illusion of humanity he was establishing. He ceased the sparks along his blade, and motioned an illusionary hand for the girl to pick him up.

  Meriwynn leaped back from the shock that jumped from his hilt to her hand before they had even touched. Since his re-forging, he had only been wielded by Rukastanna—not just a storm dragon, but an electro-master of profound ability who encouraged the free flow of power in both directions. Together, they could create lightning far more powerful than either alone.

  It had been several centuries since the hands of man had held his hilt. How had they found the balance, he tried to recall? He made an effort to focus all his elemental power down-blade, but it would require an equilibrium of charge he was not sure they could find between them, or that perhaps the children of man no longer possessed.

  The brave girl queued up her determination, gritted her teeth, and firmly grasped the hilt. The strands of hair that had fallen out of her braids rose like living things; she began to shake slightly, her eyes rolling.

  “Let go!” Inazuma shouted directly into the girl’s mind. The illusion of old Marious vanished. It took all of his concentration to suppress the current long enough for her to release his hilt.

  Meriwynn dropped to her knees clutching her right hand; she was flexing her fingers, getting the feeling back in them.

  “Burned by dragon fire on my one hand,” she said, holding up her left hand, “shocked by an enchanted dragon-blade on the other. It’s my day of extremes.” The girl looked over to Inazuma as she spoke. He was once again forming weak sparks on his blade to give the room some dim illumination.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to carry yourself,” she said softly.

  Inazuma’s re-formed image smiled sadly at Meriwynn as he made his illusionary hand pass several times through his own hilt. He omitted the staff and flame illusions to conserve power, and released the arcing sparks along his blade again for some dim light.

  If she had been able to, Ruka would have been back already. Inazuma was beginning to think he might spend the next century stuck in this room. He didn’t want it to be with the corpses of children if he could help it.

  “If you are to travel out of this room without me, the first thing you will need is light.” Inazuma’s conjured image squatted down in front of the girl to better hold her attention. Dear old Marious was a truly great teacher; the sword tried to remember how he had done it.

  “All people have the spirit of magic within them, but only the clever ones can figure out how to use it. And I know you are very clever,” he began.

  The symbol for light was not one of those permanently engraved in his metals. But among the many magical symbols of his being, Inazuma had the runic pattern for major illusion. And light was the most basic building block of all illusions. Therefore, he could recognize it when he saw it.

  All dragons have a phenomenal amount of spirit power, and Ruka, in particular, had an excess of youthful energy, with little finesse or restraint. So, when she casually placed the symbol of light on the stick, the afterimage of it remained for quite a while. With his spirit sight, Inazuma could clearly see it, even after the actual light faded. He stopped the sparks on his blade to plunge them into darkness, then he traced that image with lines of illusionary light and began the slow process of instructing Meriwynn to study the runic symbol and try to image it onto the wood herself.

  Inazuma was truly amazed—he thought he was humoring both the girl and himself, and expected them to be there for hours with no progress. But she definitely had the spark of sorcery and was fast on the uptake. He only had to show her the rune for light a half-dozen times and she began to envision and impose it on the stick herself.

  And a mere handful of minutes after that, she was pouring her spirit through the symbol and had the end of her stick glowing and illuminating the whole room. Granted, it was the most basic of cantrips, but she cast it spontaneously, with no memorization or formulas. She didn’t even need a mnemonic word like Ruka used to pull the symbol to mind.

  “Wow! That is so cool!” The girl’s younger brother had awoken while she was practicing her magic.

  “Yeah! Isn’t this neat?” Meriwynn turned to show him the now-glowing stick.

  “No. This!!”

  While Inazuma had been concentrating on teaching the girl and guiding her spiritual energy, the full force of his power flowed through his blade and hilt. He wasn’t prepared; he hadn’t suppressed any portion of his elemental charge.

  The boy, standing barefoot in a small pool of seawater, had firmly grasped his hilt with both hands. He couldn’t stop the surge. Inazuma didn’t want this small life added to the karmic debt he already owed, but there was nothing he could do—the circuit was complete; the power needed to flow.

  The earth tried to take some of his power, but it couldn’t contain it. Even wedged tightly between two stone blocks, the grip of rock could not hold him; his bronze blade slipped from its grasp. Inazuma was wrenched from the stone and thrust skyward, firmly held by small hands and skinny arms he would have thought too weak for such forceful action.

  With a great crack, Inazuma released a bolt at the ceiling. The tiny pieces of stone raining down did nothing to flatten the boy’s hair—every strand of which was standing straight up—or to diminish his huge grin as he held the Lightning Blade Inazuma aloft.

  “I am Gulhawk the Mighty! You can keep my axe; I want this sword!”

  3

  Dragon Halls

  Perovich Fichgotz painstakingly pried brick after brick out of the old archway. This section had not been accessible until a recent tree-fall smashed part of the old wall and revealed the bricked-up archway.

  He wiped some grime-streaked sweat from his forehead before it could run into his eyes, then looked for better leverage for a stubborn brick. This was it—the adventurous delve into the forgotten temple he had imagined all those years ago, only he hadn’t imagined it would be this much work.

  He remembered coming to these ruins as a kid, following his older brother Hevik around. They would roam the overgrown courtyards and skip stones across the murky pools, pretending they were princes in a palace. He idolized Hevik back then, his bravery and sense of adventure. Someday, they said, they’d follow that old road and see where it went.

  Father would shout at them to get out of there and be careful. Brave young Hevik would sneer at such concerns, making up stories for Perovich about the vast riches buried beneath the temple and how they’d find it and both become lords.

  That was before Hevik met that girl from Gelcliff. He ruefully remembered what a wretched brat he was to her back then. But, as Irweena pointed out to him numerous times since, if he hadn’t been such a scamp, they wouldn’t have survived the desolation of the dark dragon that took the rest of the family.

  When his constant pranks and tricks failed to drive the girl away from his obviously addle-headed brother, he decided to steal his brother’s wave-skipper and run away. They’d be sorry when he was gone, and he’d show them when he was a fabulously wealthy adventurer and shared none of it with them.

  Of course, Hevik knew exactly where he had gone, and found him in these very ruins before the sunset. Hevik had borrowed the Dreller’s small boat and packed food and a tent, and brought the dreaded girl with him. They stayed up all night and Irweena joined in their daring games among the ruins and told adventure stories of her own. She was good at stories, really good. And by morning, he was almost as addle-headed about her as Hevik was.

  That was the last of the golden glory days, at least for his brother. Returning home after that trip to the Desolation broke something in him. Hevik grew up overnight and retreated into the practicalities of work and risk avoidance. He would not approve of Perovich’s little exploration, and wouldn’t recognize an adventure if it fell out of the sky in front of him.

  With no warning, the remaining half of the bricks blocking the arch fell o
utward toward Perovich. He just barely avoided being brained by a large section. But that did it! He now had an opening big enough to get through. He stumbled upon the entrance several weeks ago without tools or gear to explore with, and he had planned to come back this very week.

  It was great fortune that Irweena had suggested the family fishing trip today. Not only would he have the big boat to haul his loot back with, he’d be able to gloat the whole trip home about his new-found wealth. Those fools out fishing were missing all the adventure.

  He crept carefully down the stone steps and into the depths of the temple ruins, using his stout oaken staff in one hand to test the steps ahead. The wicker-and-pitch torch sputtered brightly in his other hand; there were five more in the satchel at his side. He had prepared for this excursion carefully this time, carefully and secretly.

  The stairs curved left and ended in an arched entrance to a large vaulted chamber. The high, half-circle shape of the chamber brought the ceiling low at the sides where he entered. A row of pillars ran the length of the room on either side, a double arm’s length from either wall. In the center, a channel, twenty feet across, was cut from end to end and filled with still, dark water with neither wave nor ripple.

  As he cast his gaze down the long chamber to his right, his heart skipped a beat. The far eastern end of the chamber was bathed in an unnatural blue-green light that waved as if underwater. Standing there, in the center of the light, its scales dully glinting, watching him with its great emerald eyes, was a huge bronze dragon.

  Merry was worried about Gully. He was four-times touched by dragon power this day, stabbed by dragon claws, burned by dragon fire, healed by dragon magic, and now charged with dragon lightning, and he held a dragon-forged blade of terrible power. It was like one of her stories come to life, but it shouldn’t be happening to him. He was too young; it was too dangerous!