- “Teachings of the Green Facet” (453 AM)
- 1 -
Garet found Birch leaning against a battered stone wall, groggy and nearly unconscious with pain. His leather armor looked like someone had beaten him with a sack of rocks, but it was mostly intact. There was no sign of the demon. Garet fervently prayed for healing to ease some of Birch’s agony, but he didn’t have the strength or expertise to fully heal the Gray paladin. For that, he needed Perklet.
“Hang on a second, Birch,” Garet murmured, then hurried back out of the room. He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Perklet! James! Vander! Nuse! Emergency! Upper battlements!”
Garet ran along the battlements, past where Wein had fallen, and threw open the door.
“Perklet!” he yelled again, blowing the hair back of the very paladin he’d been yelling for. Perklet nearly fell backward trying to avoid being bowled over by Garet, but the other paladins were behind him and they supported the Green.
“Sorry,” Garet said. “This way, quickly. Birch needs your help.”
“What happened?” James asked as Perklet raced past them.
“I’ll fill you all in once we see to Birch,” Garet told them as they walked slowly back along the battlements.
“Where’s Wein?”
Garet shook his head. “I’ll tell you that, too.”
When they entered the room, Birch was already getting to his feet. He leaned heavily on Perklet, but at least he was vertical again.
“You must have done a good job, Garet,” Perklet said with a slight smile. “I just had to pick up the pieces, as it were. I can’t finish the job without making him comatose, but he’ll live.”
Garet frowned, but stayed silent as the Green continued. “Birch, you had multiple fractures in each arm and leg, and I don’t know how your skull survived with the rest of you so battered.”
“It would have been worse except for the armor,” Birch said, coughing. “Set me down over there, Perky. I’m still weak.”
Perklet nodded and left Birch sitting against a pile of rubble.
“Did anyone see what happened to Selti?” Birch asked before Garet or the others could speak.
“He flew down to the harbor and ducked into the waves,” Garet replied. “I saw him. Don’t know what happened after that, though.”
“Wein?”
“Down there,” Garet replied, nodding his head toward the edge of the battlements outside. His haunted expression told them the Violet paladin’s fate.
Birch shook his head. “Damn waste.”
“Will someone please tell me what the Hell just happened?” James said. “We were all attacked by demons, then we met up while coming to warn you. I’m guessing you had something similar happen here.”
“Sort of,” Garet and Birch said at the same time.
“So talk.”
Birch looked at Garet, who shrugged.
Garet told them briefly what had transpired: following Wein, the room full of demons, Birch’s miraculous gift of sight to Garet, Wein’s treachery and resulting death.
Garet didn’t mention that Wein had deliberately released his hand, thereby committing suicide. Garet didn’t suppose it mattered, since Wein would be judged in Heaven, not by his fellow paladins, but for now Garet would not disgrace his one-time friend’s good name any more than necessary.
“He was insane and kept babbling about how Birch was evil and had corrupted us, and how Lord Donnor had told him he was supposed to kill us all.”
“I should have dealt with that before,” James murmured to himself.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Birch said. “I think Wein was under the control of The Three. One of them was waiting for us inside, and they’re masters at that sort of thing.”
James motioned for him to elaborate.
“The Three derive their power from their unique dual nature. They’re individuals, but they share a common mind,” Birch explained. “I don’t think it would be normally possible, but the immortals can do virtually anything if they have enough power and the will to use it. The nature of The Three makes them masters of the mind, specifically in mind control. It’s one of their most dangerous aspects.
“One of them alone could probably influence and control a dozen people, depending on their mental strength, but all three together can actually twist someone’s mind and turn them to evil without their ever being aware of it.”
“You mean like in Dividha[46],” Nuse said.
“Exactly. When you have all of the cards for The Three, all your other cards are automatically counted as being in the Hell suit,” Birch said, explaining to make sure that Perklet and Vander understood. Neither was an avid Dividha player. “I have to wonder where that rule came from, since it so closely mimics the true nature of The Three.”
“We can worry about Dividha’s origins some other time, if you don’t mind,” James said.
“Agreed. Anyway, Sal was waiting inside, and it was his power that made the other demons invisible,” Birch continued. “I’ll bet the rest of you had no trouble seeing your opponents.” They nodded. “I don’t know how, but I made it so Garet could see them, and I would have done the same for Wein, but he attacked us. Garet forced Wein back outside while I fought off the other demons with Selti’s help until it was just Sal and myself.”
Birch briefly described the battle, and he went so far as to include the suit of armor he’d mysteriously created for himself.
“So that’s what you meant,” Perklet wondered aloud. Birch glanced at him questioningly. “When you were groggy, you mentioned that your armor protected you from the worst of the damage. Since you’re wearing leather, that didn’t make much sense. You could wrap yourself in a whole cow and maybe that’d help, but with a suit of our armor, which is designed to help absorb impact, that makes more sense.”
“So how’d you do it?” Nuse asked. “More super-paladin mumbo-jumbo?”
“Please don’t do that,” Birch said with a pained expression. Then he said, “Believe me, if I knew how I did it, I’d teach everyone in the world so it wouldn’t just be me.”
“Now how annoying would that be, if we could all just create our own armor out of thin air?” Nuse asked. “You’d put the armorers out of business, which would probably affect the business of the blacksmiths who work weapons, putting thousands more people out of business, and that’s just the commotion before the guilds get a hold of you. They’ll come after you for ruining them, and the Prism would have to protect you, and we’d end up slaying everyone who attacked you, who would all likely be wearing your mysterious armor no less, and then where would we be? I don’t see killing a few thousand people and disrupting the economy of the entire world just so you can be more comfortable. That’s awfully selfish of you, Birch,” Nuse said without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, tisking with his tongue.
Birch stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing. It hurt his chest to do so, but he ignored the pain.
“Thanks, Nuse,” he said. “I suppose it would be selfish of me at that. We can’t be putting honest smiths out of business, now can we?”
“Well, I don’t know about the honest part,” Nuse said with a shrug. “Do you know how much one wanted to charge me for a new dagger?”
- 2 -
The group of paladins made their way down to the harbor, stopping only to gather the dwarven survivors from their hiding place. Jerissa led her people with a fierce pride and determination that Birch found surprising in one so young. Strangely enough, he felt that the dwarven survivors, and perhaps the nation as a whole, were in good hands.
When they reached the water, they found Selti curled up beside the gangplank to their ship. Ben told them he’d healed the dakkan to the best of his abilities, which was really just enough to stop the damage from spreading. The gray dakkan was sleeping deeply and didn’t stir when Birch lifted his claws to inspect his injuries. The talons on the end of Selti’s claws were horribly pocked and one was missing entir
ely. They had been eaten away by the demon’s blood, and Birch worried that his mount was beyond even Perklet’s healing abilities.
“Perky?” he asked, concerned.
“I should be able to fix him,” Perklet said. “It’ll take me a while, and there may be some scarring, especially on his wings and flanks where the deeper wounds are. But his claws should be repairable.”
“Thank you,” Birch said in relief. “Can I help in any way?”
“Yes,” James answered for him. “You can go lie down somewhere and get out of the way. If Perky needs any help, we’ll provide it. You’re exhausted, Birch, and you probably don’t have the strength to fight a baby chick right now, much less help with a complicated healing.”
“But…” Birch began.
“Garet,” James said brusquely. Suddenly Birch’s feet left the dock as enormous arms wrapped around him and lifted him into the air. Birch struggled weakly, but Garet’s grip was firm. Birch found himself deposited gently onto a bed with Garet standing guard at the door. Birch fought to get free of the sheets, but found his arms and legs wouldn’t respond to his wishes. Before he could puzzle this out, he was asleep.
- 3 -
When Danner awoke, he found himself in a tent in the paladin encampment. Two Green paladins stood nearby, whispering as they pointed occasionally in his direction. Danner lay still a moment with his eyes mostly closed, trying to overhear their conversation. He couldn’t make out their words, so finally he opted to obey the sudden rumbling in his stomach.
“Mmm… hello?” Danner murmured opening his eyes fully and turning toward the two Greens.
“So you’re awake, eh, de’Valderat?” one of them said. Danner recognized him as the red-haired Green paladin he’d spoken to during their first training mission in the mountains. He hadn’t seen the Green since. The other paladin whispered something, then left.
“Yes, sir.” Danner paused. “What is your name, sir?”
“Jon. Jon de’Serrika.”
“I wanted to talk to you some more after the other training mission, but I couldn’t find you.”
Jon laughed. “I don’t normally take part in working with the trainees. I only agreed last time to replace a friend of mine who had a relative pass away, and the only reason I’m here now is because I got pressured into helping. A lot of other paladins are leaving and…” he trailed off, perhaps realizing he’d said more than he intended.
“Have they crossed yet?” Danner asked, then abruptly realized he’d said too much also.
Jon stared at him a moment, then nodded.
“I won’t ask how you know. You being Birch’s nephew and all, you probably have your ways. He always seemed to know what was going on, too. But yes,” he said, “they were to have left yesterday. We brought you all up here to get you out of the way. It’s also why your training has been accelerated, to refill the ranks left behind.”
“Is it still today?”
“You mean, how long have you been out? Yes, today is still today, Danner. You’ve only been unconscious a few hours.”
“So it was timed for the same day,” Danner mused.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sir. Just musing to myself.”
Jon eyed him skeptically, but shrugged. Danner glanced back at him, hesitating. Then he said, “Sir, were you… were you with the ones who came to save me?”
“Yes,” Jon said simply.
“Then you saw.”
“I don’t know what I saw, Danner,” Jon said. “You came back up the cliff, apparently under your own power. I wasn’t close enough to make it all out, but it looked like you had wings of some sort.” He paused thoughtfully. “Now comes the important question. Do you know what happened?”
Danner shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know what it was,” he admitted. “I was falling, and I was praying for some sort of miracle, then I felt pain in my back and I had the strangest feeling like I was wreathed in blue flame. The next thing I knew, I was hovering above the ground and slowly rising. When I cleared the cliff face, my friends were there and they told me what they saw. Then nothing.”
Jon nodded.
“That fits with what we’ve gathered. If you didn’t know it, apparently you destroyed a very powerful demon up there. One of The Three, in fact.”
Danner nodded.
“We ran into him before, on our first training exercise. I didn’t know then who or what he was, just that it was a demon.” Danner went on to explain the conversation he’d overheard with Flasch in the hallway, and suddenly something dawned on him.
“The plan he was talking about involved getting rid of a lot of the paladins, and a trap of some sort,” Danner said. “What if he was talking about the trip into Hell?” Danner remembered the nauseated feeling he’d gotten around the Council members. “If the demon was disguised as one of the Council members – we were beginning to suspect Lord Donnor – then maybe he was responsible for the excursion, in which case the paladins are walking into a trap!”
Jon listened intently, piecing together parts of what Danner was saying until they finally made sense. His eyes widened, and a look of fear and anger settled onto his face.
“Merciful God!” he whispered, then bolted out of the tent. Danner struggled to get to his feet and found he was strangely refreshed. He’d expected to be sore, but there were no bruises or wounds on him, not even where the demon had cut him while removing his cloak.
Even without a Green paladin’s healing, Danner wouldn’t have been very surprised by that. He had, after all, always been a quick healer. He’d had a few worse cuts that were all but gone by morning. He didn’t know if it was something else he’d gotten from his father, like his speed and reflexes, but he’d always secretly thought it came from his mother. He had no reason to think so, never having met her after the first moments of his life, but Danner allowed himself the sentimental thought.
Danner took only a few halting steps toward the door before Trebor and Garnet hurried into the tent.
“I heard,” Trebor said simply, “and we all think you’re right. Garnet and I came to get you. That Green, Jon, is doing some pretty fast talking with Morningham, and they’re on their way here. We came to support you.”
“Where’s…”
Flasch, Marc, and Michael entered the tent before Danner could finish asking about them.
“Sorry, we were trying to listen in on Morningham’s group.”
“They’ll be here in a second,” Trebor said.
“What do we tell them?” Flasch asked.
“Everything,” Danner replied evenly. “Not about Trebor, but everything dealing with me and what we know or suspect. This is beyond our control now, and somebody has to be able to deal with it. They can’t do that unless we share what we know.”
“And if they don’t share what they know?” Michael asked. “What if they decide we’re too young and inexperienced to be involved any further? That we’re meddling.”
“Then we keep meddling,” Garnet said grimly.
Danner glanced around and received nods of affirmation from his friends. He sighed inwardly in relief.
“We trust you, Danner,” Trebor said inside his head.
“I know, but it’s still nice to hear and be reassured every now and then.”
Just then the tent flap stirred and a group of paladins strode in. Jon de’Serrika and Gerard Morningham were in the fore, with four other paladins behind them. Danner blinked, then realized there was one paladin from each Facet. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad one.
“What in the sphincter of Hell are you all doing here?” Morningham demanded.
“We’re all involved in this, sir,” Danner said. “My friends have been a part to everything so far.” He left hanging in the air the question as to whether any of them would continue to be a part of anything. Morningham heard the unspoken query and stared seriously at Danner, then he nodded.
“Alright then, talk. Tell me ev
erything you know or suspect about what’s going on.”
Danner and his friends began with their first trip into the mountains and their encounter with the demon. They told the paladins everything they could think of about each experience, and slowly the picture began to unfold. The only thing they omitted was Trebor’s heritage and his abilities.
When Danner told Morningham of the conversation he’d overheard with Flasch, the Red paladin asked, “How is it Flasch couldn’t hear them?”
“Sir, I could hear every word they said, I just couldn’t understand them. They were speaking a different language,” Flasch answered.
The Orange paladin, a reedy man with a pencil-thin goatee and sharp, piercing eyes, leaned forward intently and asked Danner, “But you could understand what they said?” Danner nodded. “Do you remember any of the words they used? Either of you?”
“To me, sir, it sounded just like I’m speaking to you now,” Danner replied, shrugging helplessly. “It wasn’t until Flasch complained that I even thought it could be something else.”
The Orange paladin looked at Flasch inquiringly.
“Um, I think one of the words was ‘tokul,’ and I kept hearing ‘teiranon’. Oh, and something like ‘ash eyelet.’” In his mind, Danner automatically translated the first two words as “trap” and “paladin.”
“Could it have been Ash’Ailant?” the Orange paladin asked intently.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Flasch said, nodding. “What do they mean?”
“What you were hearing was the tongue of the immortals,” the paladin replied. “No mortal has ever been able to speak or understand it, but we do have some writings left to us by the immortals from Heaven. Only a few of them were translated for us, and the rest we keep in the hopes that someday we’ll be able to understand them. It’s an ongoing project in the Orange Facet to translate as much as possible from what we know and perhaps to extrapolate the rest.”
“So what do they mean?” Morningham asked, repeating Flasch’s question. His tone was light, but laced with impatience.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 41