The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains

by Jason R Jones

  “Enough! I will not be fooled by this concoction of yours, Lavress whoever you are and from whomever you come. You are not the first elf to come through here with fantastical stories and to leave a wake of confusion! I am no puppet, not like my sister, no!” Alexei pounded his fist on the table. The scroll and those that carried it, his father’s death in Arouland years ago, James Andellis returning, Kaya leaving and supposedly killing branded traitors to cover her trail, it all surfaced in anger at once. Alexei stood, looking down at his slightly shorter guest, and felt bitter revulsion in his throat.

  “I am truly sorry to hear these words, Lord T’Vellon. You are troubled, beyond my words and presence it seems.” Lavress looked around, sensing that further pressure would result in more than a battered desk. He saw Alexei’s bust in the corner, another very similar next to it, although feminine, like twins.

  “Is that your sister, my Lord?”

  Exhaling some frustration, finishing the wine, and making to leave after turning away this vagabond savage, Alexei nodded. “Tis, yes. Kaya T’vellon, my older twin sister and former Lady of Southwind. She is either dead or hiding out, wanted, I am sure you have heard. The whole of the kingdom has.”

  Lavress looked again, rested his mind while he stood and looked with eyes closed. He felt the north, a city, past Chazzrynn, underground. Fear and darkness, yet there she was, he saw her masked figure. Not dressed as a noble like the bust here, yet it was her. Drawing on the pain from Alexei, he could feel where she indeed was running, surrounded by evil. A fight, her internal sins weighing against her, yet a glimmer of heroism was sparkling in her external battle. He saw others, then, Shinayne. His lover, somewhere far underground, trying to escape, this Kaya was helping Shinayne escape, near Willborne or perhaps western Harlaheim. Lavress could barely see her in the dark and intense speed in which their spirits were moving. Ogre, dark sorceries, two more bright lights, no, three. A minotaur, a man, and a dwarf, all rushing with them, trying to reach the surface in desperation and friendship. His eyes watered though closed, he willed them to dry before opening his mouth to the man beside him.

  “Your sister is not dead, she is with Lady Shinayne T’Sarrin of Kilikala.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Alexei stood a moment, intrigued yet angry.

  “I can see them. She is helping her escape---“

  The door slammed open, armored guards of Southwind hit a knee to the stone floor before their lord. Both Lavress and Alexei had blades half out from the sudden interruption.

  “Rise.”

  “My lord, King Mikhail sends word from the east, a messenger.” The Knight of Southwind stood and stepped aside.

  “His garrisons are flanked by ogre and troll and his supply trains to the east have been cut off. The King calls for aid from Southwind. He cannot reach Vallakazz or Saint Gavrielle, nor Silverbridge. War has broken out in the north at Hurne and south at Roricdale sire, and our King heads here to Elcram.” The messenger breathed in, having barely made the journey without capture and having not eaten nor slept in nearly three days.

  “For what reason was our King travelling with such a force? Is he not waging war in Valhirst over the latest dispute between the heir Prince and Prince Johnas? This all seems odd at best, messenger. Wars directly to my north and south? I have heard but skirmishes and little more.” Alexei did not trust it, he looked to Lavress, then back to the messenger that was worn and exhausted beyond sight.

  “I have not the answers for that Lord T’Vellon, yet I heard they are either completely surrounded, or worse. Word may not have reached you, if there is anyone alive to carry a message that is. I have the king’s seal, Lord T’Vellon.” He handed a parchment, rolled and dirtied, but the falcon seal was evident. The messenger from King Mikhail and the gathering Knights of Southwind in the stairs and cramped hallway all gleamed looks into the room with their lord and this strange elf. They waited for the answer, for the orders he would give, to save the king or prepare for war, or both.

  “Lord T’Vellon, I do not mislead here, and this is just the beginning. I believe this Salah Cam, whom I have brushed with before, is in league with whatever is happening. I may offer insight, for what I have warned is true.” Lavress rested his posture, also awaiting word before he left to his treacherous journey to return the last stolen book to his temple, so far from home.

  “So it may very well be, elf. I hope you are not too late.” Lord Alexei cast him a glance, then a half smile, curious about the words he had spoken of his sister Kaya. “Guards!”

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  Rats and starving cats peeked over what was left of the study, decayed tomes, the dust of ages marking their travels, and watched with feral curiosity at the bubbling beakers and steaming cauldron that threw so many lights into the room. The top room of the tower of Arouland, where no one had lived besides the rodent squatters and their feline predators, for over four centuries, now held two wizards in league with the ogre armies that still maintained the wastes of the west in Chazzrynn. One rat peeked too close, a scabrous skeletal hand seizing her and into the pot she went with a shriek and sizzle. The rats ran every direction, fleeing this old rotted man and his elegant elven companion. The cats stayed, agaze, enthralled, and far too interested in what was going on to move from their vantage points along withered shelves and dirty corners.

  Salah Cam could not smell his own stench, though he was aware it existed by the faces of others, not that he cared much. The oils were blending well, the cauldron held enough arcane necrosis to cover the task at hand, and he resisted the urge to smile in dark glee over his concoctions. He slid the platinum ring off his bony finger, sliding it into a worn pocket on black burial robes that covered his scarred and dead body. It was the duplicate to the ring that held Balric D’Vrelle enslaved to Johnas, just in case he ever needed one, and now he did. Salah lifted his bone staff topped with a polished human skull, and stared into the empty sockets. Human, am I now, was I once, soon not to be. He thought deeply as the wisps of shadow caroused from his own dying eyes through the room, sensing the living so opposed to his situation strangely in between.

  “What takes so long, old wizard? My pain is nearly gone, yet my hand is healing broken and bent at the wrist.” Eliah Shendrynn, highborne elf and wizard in exile from Kilikala, turned his focus from the cracked crystal orb he had been using to the old wretch.

  “Nearly finished my elven friend, nearly finished.”

  “You said that a day prior. I can find no trace of the book I seek, nor Lavress the savage that stole it from me. Are you sure this device still functions?” His good hand moved gracefully over more terrain, hills and forests, searching by arcane sight and sense for his lost treasures.

  “I am sure, very sure. I have used it for many decades without fail. The ogre have reported nothing, their wolves with no trails to catch?” Salah Cam stepped around the cauldron, cats hissing as he passed. He looked to the sound of a squish underfoot, his ear from two nights past, now evident indeed that it fell in this room.

  “Nothing at all. This Avegarne, he has the same affliction as you it seems?” Eliah was tired of the rotten smells, the ogre stench, the decay all around him. The cat and mouse games of stolen elven tomes and battles with Lavress Tilaniun had been ongoing for years, entombed for weeks from a Gimmorian demon’s wrath, and assaulted by a swarm of hungry harpies, this weeks’ rest was needed for certain. Yet, even with all the arcane supplies, stolen foods from ogre raids, and assistance from this half dead warlock, Eliah needed to continue on once his hand was restored. As soon as he located Lavress and his book, he would leave this cursed place and those that called it home.

  “No, Avegarne is one of few ogre that survived a horrible pestilence years ago here, yes. Mine, well, is more a mishap of arcane doing, not of my own mind you. I was interrupted at a very inconvenient time. You should know it was an elf, but not one as you are, much more foul and spiteful he is. His day is coming, yes, yes it is.” Salah Cam
raised the staff, looked to the cauldron, the black was thin, the greens the right thickness, and the steam was as the shadow of his eyes. It was time.

  “Who is this elf then?” Watching close the necronomic arts that would heal his hand, Eliah feigned interest as he searched the orb for his prey. Though repulsive, this old wizard had allegiance with trolls and ogre that numbered in the thousands and had a strong knowledge and practice in the arts. More treasures and enchanted regalia than he had seen with a human, he was sure Salah was far beyond most of his kind. Beyond life and archaic as well, but a useful pawn he would make for the time being.

  “Kendari. Kendari of Stillwood. A Nadderi, cursed by his own, well your own then, for whatever he had done centuries ago. His blades did their work, yet I am still here, yes, and he will know my face before his death, be sure.”

  “Nadderi are a myth where I am from, old man, a scary story to warn children when they learn of religion and history. I would not trust anyone that…ahhhhh, there you are Lavress. Strange I find you and my book in a city instead of the wilds, but there you are, there you are hunter of the Hedim Anah.” Eliah was attuned, euphoric, there was Lavress inside a room in Southwind with human men, and the book gleamed gold from inside his pack with the arcane sight. Eliah smiled, knowing where he would be heading in mere moments.

  “Invulistiri, Kalikastiri, houm huoris, Halsristiri!” he pointed the eyes of the skull on his staff and glared at the liquid as shadows danced into the cauldron at his command, completing what he need done.

  “It is time I leave for---“

  “Ah, ah, ah, master Shendrynn, it is complete. Give me your broken hand so that I may heal it with the darker arts.”

  Eliah had seen many old Gimmorian rites, studied the old passages far beyond this one, yet had his doubts on the way this old man prepared his sorceries. However, with his careful elven hearing, he had not heard anything out of the ordinary as far as foul play would enter in, and his hand was indeed useless. “Very well.” His good hand stayed on the hilt of his curved elven blade at his side, his mind on a magick blast of arcane fire should Salah try anything sneaky.

  Salah Cam took the broken and twisted appendage of this beautiful elven ally, noting with his peripheral vision the scowling repugnance upon his face. Salah smiled, putting his hand into the cauldron with his own. Slowly, fingers first, then the hand, then above the broken wrist and forearm bones. The sizzle at first from the heat, then the shadows danced, then the green flared and soaked in. Bones popped painlessly, flesh began to turn back to where it should have been. Not on Salah’s hand, as he was no longer among the living, only on his breathing companion.

  “Ahhh, I can feel it working, quite pleasant actually. Well done rotted one, well done.” Eliah closed his eyes a moment, some ecstasy and euphoria taking hold as his hand healed. He had expected pain, failure, anything but the warm embrace of magicked liquids to feel this good.

  Salah commanded a rat, just a thought and his shadowy glare saw it through. A rat scurried up his robes, grabbed the platinum ring, then crawled up more rot and bone under the garments, poked his head out the treacherous sleeve overhanging the cauldron, and plop, the ring fell in amidst the sizzling arcane formula. Salah wasted no time, feeling with his bony hand already submerged in the mixture, taking the ring, and placing it on one of the healing fingers of Eliah Shendrynn. Salah could sense the corpses watching him, all the prisoners he had killed in secret from Roricdale this past week, their blood and essence inside the cauldron. They glared at him as he acted upon his treachery once more.

  “Hinvicartes hishiriam!”

  Eyes and faces appeared, ghostly in the cauldron, they watched and moaned faintly. Eliah pulled his hand out with lightning elven reflex having heard it and knowing the arcane finishing words of command and sealing of powerful enchantments, though none had been cast prior that he had heard. His hand drew the curved highborne blade, his other pointed two fingers to unleash flame into this treacherous wizard. Shadow and wind from nowhere whipped his red and gold robes as shadows danced from the cauldron to his face.

  One slice, then a second, and he plunged his blade into the chest of Salah Cam. His newfound companion but smiled, worms wriggling between missing teeth, shadows crying from his eyes now aglow with green arcane sight. The blade had done nothing to the rotted and skeletal form beneath the tattered robes. “Die wretch, what foul trickery have you tried upon me?! I am Eliah Shen---“

  “Shut your mouth.”

  Eliah’s jaw tightened, he felt the urge to be quiet and say nothing, an urge beyond his will. He placed two healthy hands upon the blade, raised his stance to cleave off the head of this Salah Cam, then paused for a moment, noticing a platinum ring on his middle finger with two small emeralds glowing set into the metal. He went to strike.

  “Stop, and sit down in that chair over there.”

  The elven wizard lowered his blade, moved to the chair, step by infuriating step, and sat down. He could not resist the urge to obey, fear crept into his body for the first time in centuries.

  “Now, my young, whole, firm, and fine elven friend, what was your name again? Tell me.” Salah Cam grabbed a handful of blonde hair, placed his face nose to nose with his captive.

  “Eliah….Shendrynn…of…Kilikala….you will…” each word a struggle between his hate, the fear, and the magicks this one had somehow worked upon him behind his back.

  “No, I am now Eliah Shendrynn…and you can make your home in this rotten corpse awhile my friend, yes, yes you can! You may have it forever!”

  Salah prepared another rite, this one fresh on his mind, as his shadowy essence traveled from nostrils and eyes into the mouth of the elven body he would assume. The night was dark and quiet save for the foul winds and arcane light that radiated from the cracked and cackling tower of Arouland in the Western Wastes. Ogre and troll alike kept their distance. The cats stayed put, cowering in corners, unable to fend their own curiosity as the hair on their backs rose and the evil of night went on.

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  “You are making a grave mistake Lord of Southwind! The book in my pack will draw Salah Cam and Eliah Shendrynn here! This is madness! I came to warn you, so that you may save your people and survive what is---“

  Slam, clang, clang!

  Despite his pleas and yells, his captor would not listen and none at this moment seemed to wish to defy him. The barred doors shut in the hallway with iron force. Not a true prison or dungeon, yet imprisoned the same in comfort he was. An insisted upon and welcome guest of Southwind he had told Lavress Tilaniun. His pack and arrows were across from him on a desk. His blades and bow with him in the comfort of a well groomed room with bars on the window and the door. Locked inside, the hunter of the Hedim Anah waited.

  Night had passed, then the sunrise he could not see, just the pinks and oranges through the elevated window that faced the east. The food brought was acceptable human cuisine of lamb stews, eggs, breads, and potatoes. Wine he did not drink, a chamber pot he did not use, and the men of Southwind were nothing but quiet and kind. He had the opportunity, likely three or more, to kill a guard and break free. Then I will have to kill innocent men in the halls, get my things, kill more to escape, and my purpose and self would be compromised. Lavress remained in deep meditation, resting, waiting, refusing to harm innocents or kill to be free of this room. He tried to focus on Shinayne, yet she had moved beyond his sight. Something was watching him and the book, he felt it. Something else was watching Shinayne wherever she was escaping from, and it would not let his vision pass.

  Clang, clang, clang…

  “I am your prisoner here, no need to knock. By all means, enter.” Lavress stood, difficultly trying to remain pleasant in the situation. The barred door opened.

  “Hello there, I hope it is not too early for the elves. I apologize, I am up before dawn in my older years.”

  Lavress looked upon the robed man, older, a few scars fading on his shaved head, the stubble of
morning upon his round countenance. He did have a blade, the falcons of his kingdom upon his tabard underneath the open garments, yet those held the feathered crossed of Alden in golden thread upon the dark blue. The man sat, easily, without nervousness or foul intent it seemed. Lavress followed in turn.

  “I did not call for a priest, unless your weary Lord T’vellon has sent you for a confession before my execution.”

  “Baahh, ha, ha! He is quite under the thumb of stress and worry, that is evident to all, is it not? Alas, no, there is no execution my elven friend.” The man laughed heartily.

  “Then why a man of the Aldane cloth here to see me?”

  “I am father Marcus Mederris, Knight of Southwind and Chancellor here for the church. I am here to help.”

  “Then help by letting me free to start with.”

  “I cannot, not yet.” Marcus rubbed his brow, coughed hard, his chest still in pain all these years since the plague that nearly took him when they marched into Teirenshire and withdrew. The sickness the ogre had succumbed to took many soldiers as well, he recalled with every cough.

  “I need answers, my brethren of the church and many of the higher ranking and older of the seven families of Southwind are concerned you see.”

  “As they should be. And keeping me here will only make it worse.”

  “Why is that? Not that I intend on wanting you a prisoner, no, but I am intrigued by what it is that makes you think that.”

  “What I carry in that pack, one of eleven tomes of High Elven Magick from Kilikala, is the last of four stolen that I have to return to the Temple of the Whitemoon.” Lavress knew by sharing this, he could be removed from the Order, yet here and now, it mattered little as opposed to warning the people.

  “Who hunts you, Lavress of Gualidura?”

  “A renegade highborne elf and traitorous wizard, Eliah Shendrynn. He seeks to open the Gimmorian portals to achieve some ancient powers for himself, and these tomes are the only known books with the secrets to do so, so I am told. I am no wizard nor priest, yet I have full belief and faith in my superiors of the temples.” Lavress looked past the open door, only three guards, maybe, no, I cannot.