by Steven Drake
“Fine, I agree, but no more questions about my business.” He opened his eyes and stared into hers. She still gave no hint that she was even the least bit intimidated. Her eyes seemed to glitter, the soft lavender touches to Miri’s gray eyes shone truer up close. She smiled an almost devilish grin.
“Alright, it’s a deal.”
As she finished the healing, Darien felt better, physically at least. He got the distinct impression that he had not truly succeeded in putting off the woman’s curiosity, but he had gained a respite at least. When Miri finished, she left swaying confidently like a willow tree in a gentle breeze. As he bristled at her presumptuous attitude, Darien earnestly hoped his convalescence would not drag on much longer.
Over the next few days, Darien kept to himself as much as possible. He found quiet spots in the town, an old abandoned smithy huddled against the western wall, a forgotten cellar beneath the burned out remains of a cottage, a closed off alley between the stables and the lodge accessible only via a hole in the wall in one of the backmost stalls. A month of idleness had weakened his body, so Darien started the process of building himself back up. He began by practicing his sword forms, a poor substitute for real sparring, but it gave him something to do. He practiced his magic as much as he could without attracting attention, fully intending to go outside the walls and out of sight to practice more seriously as soon as possible.
Darien particularly avoided Mirisa, Kellan, Garok, and Zitane, as he found the first one intolerable and the latter three did not seem to like him very much. One morning, however, Kellan accompanied the young woman into his room, and stared with a cross expression until the session was finished. When Miri took her leave, and Kellan remained.
“What do you want?” Darien asked curtly.
“I’ve been looking to speak with you, but you seem to vanish like a ghost during the day.”
“I can avoid being found when I wish.” Darien narrowed his eyes at the bearded woodsman. “What of it?”
“Nothing serious, but as it appears you will be our guest for an extended period, I thought it best to make some permanent arrangements for you.”
“I do not stay by choice, I assure you.”
The big man laughed heartily. “You wound me. I know my city is no paradise, but you could at least attempt to soothe my pride.”
“I did not mean to seem ungrateful, I simply have…”
“Business, yes, you’ve mentioned that, and with dragons of all things,” Kellan interrupted. “But if I may make an observation, you don’t look to be doing much of that business anytime soon, and I wish to discuss more practical matters.”
“Such as?”
“As I said, arrangements for your long-term stay. Don’t mistake me, I do not begrudge you the room in our lodge, nor are we so poor that we cannot feed one injured stranger. Still, we don’t encounter many with your unique gifts out in the wilderness.” Darien raised an eyebrow. So, Kellan wants to use my abilities, he thought. I suppose there’s little harm in that. I should at least make some recompense to these people. “We had a mage dwell here once, called himself Severin. He died when I was a young child. My father often commented on how useful his abilities were. I had thought to ask for your aid in some of our more difficult tasks.”
“I owe you a debt, so I will help you if I can, but magic has limits, and I am frankly better at destroying things than building them.”
“Good to hear. If you’ll follow me, there’s something I would like destroyed.”
Darien shrugged and nodded, then got up and followed Kellan outside. They wandered across town, then outside the city walls, until they struck an old path, one that had seen little use for several seasons, but nevertheless remained visible as a trail of light gravel, about a man’s width, where no grass grew. Darien felt the soft presence of magic beneath his feet as he walked. The earth below had been enchanted to repel the grasses and keep the path clear. They followed the path for perhaps ten minutes or so, until they came to a grey stone door built into a grassy hillside.
“Well here we are.” Kellan walked up to the stone door. “Severin preferred living out here by himself. Probably safer to practice magic without so many people around.”
“Indeed, a prudent precaution, but why have you brought me here?”
“Ah, well, unfortunately, we haven’t been able to open this door since the old man passed.”
“Ah. Let’s see then.” Darien walked up to the door and placed his hand on it. A charm of sealing, skillfully laid and intricate, but lacking serious strength. Unweaving it would take a while, probably most of the day. Moving the earth around the door would be quicker, but risky. A mage thorough enough to weave enchantments just to keep a clear path to his house would probably have been thorough enough to enchant the entire structure to collapse upon breach by any means other than the door. Since Darien didn’t want to spend all day at this, it left just one option, brute force.
“Stand back,” Darien warned. Kellan took a few steps back, not far enough. “If you’re closer than ten yards, there’s a small but realistic chance an extremely heavy stone door will land on you shortly.” Kellan dug in his heels and scoffed. “Fine then.” Darien rolled his eyes at the stubborn man.
Rather than breaking the enchantment in slow steps, or figuring out how to operate the door, Darien pushed force into the stone, as though he were casting a spell on it. It resisted the foreign magic as any magical trinket would. Breaking another mage’s enchantments required more power than most possessed, but this enchanter had never really counted on a mage as powerful as Darien the Executioner.
The door started to vibrate slightly at first, then more violently, until the vibrations became a series of rapid ripples, like tiny waves upon water. There it goes, Darien thought. It’s becoming unstable. The enchantment can’t hold against this much energy. If I’m right, however, it won’t shatter. I must choose the precise moment.
The ripples increased in size, becoming waves that crossed the door. Then, Darien felt the sudden change he had been awaiting. The force sealing the door shifted and turned outward. He withdrew his hand, and spun around, flattening himself against the grassy hillside. The door exploded out of the doorway with tremendous force, shattered its iron hinges with a clang, then flew several yards through the air, gaining just enough height to clear Kellan’s head as he quickly ducked. The stone slab crashed into the ground a few feet behind the shocked woodsman.
“I did warn you, arrogant fool,” Darien scoffed.
“How was I supposed to expect a stone that would take five men just to lift would go flying through the air?” Kellan fumed and stomped forward.
“You don’t have experience with magic. Size isn’t as important as force and momentum. Large objects are often more easily manipulated or destroyed than small ones, provided you understand how much force to apply and where to apply it. Whoever your previous wizard was, he was clever, not particularly powerful, but clever enough to lay a trap for any wizard strong enough to break his spell.” The large woodsman’s face was beet red. He crossed his arms in front of him. Darien chuckled in amusement. “Well the door is open now, what’s the problem?”
Kellan stopped, his red face contorted, and much to Darien’s surprise, he laughed. “Well so it is after all.” He clapped Darien on the back and started through the ruined doorway. “Let’s go. I want to see if he was hiding anything valuable in there.”
So that’s why he wanted in there, Darien smiled. He just wants to loot the place. Doesn’t matter I suppose. Not as if the owner will be using it again.
“You might want to let me go first, in case there are more traps,” Darien said casually, and a more appropriately respectful Kellan froze halfway through the door, then stepped slowly back out, seemingly wiser from being nearly crushed by a stone door.
Darien started through the door, running a hand along the wall as he went. As he had suspected, trying to go around the door would have triggered a collapse. Darien desc
ended a few steps into a narrow passage, just wide enough for a man to walk comfortably. It reminded Darien of the types of hideouts he had once favored during the years he spent wandering the Red Mountains following his theft of the Demon Sword. Darien conjured a light in his hand, just enough to light the darkness.
“Fascinating. Never seen that before,” Kellan commented. “Can many mages do that? Severin could conjure fire, but never white light like this. Is that talent rare?”
“Not rare exactly. Uncommon in human wizards. Most of those with elven blood can conjure lights like this.”
Darien led the way through the passage, finding no more traps or unexpected spells. The passage penetrated several yards into the hillside, farther than Darien had imagined, until finally terminating at a large, roughly square cavern. To the right was a heavy wooden desk littered with yellowed papers. A long-dormant fireplace was built into the wall next to the desk. Since there had been no chimney outside, Darien suspected a hidden opening, perhaps several, somewhere up the hillside. Along the left wall stood a long rectangular table cluttered with bottles, beakers, phials, and other glassware. Against the back wall was a bookshelf, well filled with various books, and an empty bed. A thick layer of dust lay on every piece of furniture as well as the walls and floor.
Kellan proceeded to rummage through the drawers of the large desk. He pocketed several gemstones of various colors and a few pieces of gold and silver jewelry. No doubt that was all the man was after in the first place.
Darien examined the book shelf instead, hoping to find some information about where he was, or perhaps a history of this area. Some of the books were common enough, familiar tomes on enchanting, alchemy, and various types of magic. Some were collections of old tales and legends, which most any village mage might own, and there were also catalogues of plant and animal species. Darien found only a few books that looked helpful to his current situation, but he could examine these later.
“Now that you have what you want, I assume you mean to allow me the use of these quarters,” Darien spoke to Kellan, who was just finishing his looting.
“That was the plan. Always knew old Severin had some valuables, and figured this would make a fair trade. I can sell these stones to the dwarves on the other side of the mountain. The gold and silver jewelry will probably fetch more in Boar’s Glade though.”
“Boar’s Glade?”
“Used to be a lumber town on the borders of Catarina forest, but these days it’s a trading town, at least twice the size of Exire. Been a busy place since the elves opened up trade.”
“The elves, you mean the kingdom Zitane and Mirisa came from? What do you know about it?”
“They don’t talk about it much. Zitane and the ogre insist on calling her ‘Princess’ so I’d wager they’re royals that lost a feud and ran. Wouldn’t be the first.”
“I had never heard of the place until I came here.”
“Well, as I understand, they don’t claim kinship with the eastern elves, call themselves the fallen elves, whatever that means. Sounds a bit grim for my liking. Up until recently, they haven’t had dealings with the outside.”
Darien rubbed his chin and lost himself in thought. He vaguely recalled the Demon King and his old mentor, Kirin, mentioning the fallen elves, but nothing specific, and nothing that suggested they might be important at all. Perhaps one of the books would have some information.
“Well, the place is yours,” Kellan said as he paced towards the passage out. “If you need help fixing the door, just let me know.” Then the woodsman took his leave.
Darien could handle the door himself. Permanently reshaping earth and stone using magic was beyond the skill of most mages, but not Darien. It would take several hours, perhaps a couple of days if he avoided taxing himself, but he would fashion a new door, or perhaps reshape the old one. The house, if one could call it such, was in dire need of dusting as well. The alchemy equipment needed cleaning, but most of it seemed in decent enough shape. In a few days, the place should be up to his usual standards for a hideout.
Darien allowed the light to dissipate. He didn’t really need it, and he found darkness soothing. He sat in the wooden chair by the desk and relaxed. Though he hoped it would not be his home for long, this was a drastic improvement over the busy lodge in the middle of town.
Chapter 7: Counting Losses
Jerris Tolmirran stood in the chill wind outside the rookery, watching the flames of Rana’s funeral pyre rise high into the night sky. Rana deserved better, but digging a grave in the rocky ground had proved impossible. Fortunately, they found enough rocks for a monument, and enough kindling for a fire. This fiery tribute was all they could do for her now. Wyverns circled around the flames that licked the night sky and shrieked at the fire, perturbed by the invasion of their territory, but smart enough not to attack with an elder dragon present.
Perhaps the worst part was how little they knew. From the damage to the rookery caves and from the corpses of Rana, Traiz, and the demon corpse at the gate, they gathered there had been a battle, but the details were a mystery, as was the outcome. The only reasonable conclusion was that Traiz had been a traitor all along. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, but he was dead with one of Darien’s throwing knives through his throat. Their only other clues were Rana’s body, and Elder Gransz’s insistence that the half-dissolved, rapidly rotting corpse outside the rookery had been a demon possessed dragon.
As unbelievable as it was that Traiz had somehow summoned an actual demon, all four of the remaining party members agreed with the elder’s assertion. All four had enough mage sight to feel the power of the demon as it had blossomed into existence like a fountain of horror. It wasn’t like a mage aura, more like the opposite of an aura, a void of death and emptiness that repelled all life, and thus all magic. Jerris had felt it as an unbearable cold that chilled him to the bone, even separated by miles of rock. It had gone, but none of them knew where, or even which direction it went, as it had disappeared too fast.
As the flames began to subside, Jerris felt the weight of Darien’s loss come crushing down upon him. With Darien gone, it would be up to him to finish the quest, a responsibility that had already called upon him to make the difficult choice not to search for Darien. Jerris honored the final promise made to his mentor and forbade any search for Darien, or the Demon’s Blade, a decision he now depended upon the Ebonscale tribe of dragons to enforce. Elder Gransz had agreed, but Jerris knew it was not over. Geoffray was far too stubborn to simply let this go.
It was long past dusk, and the moons had risen high in the sky, when the flames of the pyre finally burned low, leaving nothing left of Rana Geruda but a pile of rock partially fused by dragon fire to serve as testament to her tragic story.
“Are you all ready to leave?” the deep hissing voice of Elder Gransz called. He seemed ready to go himself. He had been kind enough to allow them a few hours to grieve, but the elder had other business to attend to, and nothing more could be done here. It was, indeed, time to go.
Jerris looked to each of the remaining party members in turn. Each nodded solemnly, except for Niarie, who had held his hand throughout the ordeal. She squeezed gently, and they prepared to leave.
Gransz carried them back to Kilnar, a journey that took less than two hours at the speed of an elder dragon in flight. They arrived in the dead of night under a clouded sky. Exhaustion lay heavy upon Jerris, but before he could rest, he had to break the worst sort of news to Archmage Eldrik and the members of the party who had remained behind. Jerris thanked Gransz for all his help, while the elder dragon assured that he would do his utmost to find out exactly what happened beneath the rookery. Then Gransz flew off to Ashpyre to inform the Greatmother of all that had happened.
Jerris, along with the weary companions, Niarie, Ceres, and Geoffray, walked wearily into town. Kilnar looked much the same as when he had left. Repairs had begun, but it would be a long while before the city was truly rebuilt. Jerris almost laughed when h
e remembered that just two days had passed since they had departed. To Jerris, it felt as if an age of the world had passed and the world was utterly changed since then. One of the Ebonscale guards directed him to the temporary barracks of the Order of the Golden Shield. Nia walked beside him, and Ceres Arloran walked just a step behind, silently supporting him. With Darien gone, Jerris needed both the experience of his elven bodyguard as well as the emotional support of the young woman who had so captured his heart. Once inside the barracks, a guard led them to a simple unadorned room with a large table at the center that looked to be a temporary meeting room. The guards brought several flimsy wooden chairs that might well have been put together in the past few days from battlefield scraps. Still, it was good to sit after the journey back.
They sat and waited for the guards to wake Eldrik and the others. Nia leaned on Jerris’ shoulder. Jerris might have been grateful for the closeness and the feel of her hair cascading down his back, but he was preoccupied with other problems. Geoffray sat several feet away down the table, silent and obviously stewing. The Shield Knight had said almost nothing since Rana’s burial. His eyes were cold, and Jerris had no doubt that the Grand Marshal of the Shield Knights still stung from being denied the chance to search for the Demon’s Blade by a young half-elf. Geoffray had shown only the barest respect for Darien himself, and quite clearly regarded Jerris as nothing more than a nuisance. Either way, Geoffray could never be allowed to have the Demon’s Blade. With such a low opinion of elves and a weapon to magnify both his power and his hate, he might become a greater threat than the Demon King himself.