“She’ll be fine, lad,” replied the dwarf, watching as Nola and Cirion emerged from hiding to take aim at the remaining archers, who’d been standing in shock. Now they fell lifeless one by one until some realized the battle was lost and fled. “A better question,” began Rognir, “is how are you? You took a mighty blow.”
Ryan had almost forgotten, the adrenaline having kept the pain at bay. He was about to reply when Morven came up to them, looking grim. Two elves had died and another lay badly wounded. The dwarf started to rise sluggishly, weakened by all the healing he’d done. He could only do so much before his own strength gave out.
“Maybe I can help,” began Eric, having clambered over the dragon to reach them. He gently pushed the dwarf back down and went over to the wounded, using the last of his ring’s spells on the more gravely hurt. One elf still had a broken leg, so the rogue had Matt come over and do the same. Ryan gathered his sword and lance, Eric retrieved his knives, and Lorian slid down from the balcony on a tattered tapestry. The sounds of men fleeing echoed from all corners of the ruin. Aside from a few dead, everyone was accounted for, with one exception.
Chapter 16 – Resolutions
Matt felt good as he watched the battle’s aftermath. While he seemed a one-trick pony, fire erupting from the staff was a fearsome trick, and he had cast a few spells aside from that. Only now could he look at the dragon with the awe and fascination it deserved.
“Has anyone seen Raith?” Morven asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“I saw him go through the gate,” Cirion admitted angrily. “I’m going after him.”
“Not so fast,” said Ryan coldly, clamping a big hand on Cirion’s arm. “You’ve already caused enough trouble.”
The rogue tried to pull free but got nowhere. He was no match for Korrin and knew it. He stepped back, eyes hard, while Ryan moved to stand between the gate and everyone else. If they wanted to get to it, they’d have to go through him, and for the first time in ages he was willing to use his strength to get his point across.
“Should we go after him?” Anna asked dubiously. “There’s no telling what’s on the other side.”
Eric shook his head. “Too risky. There are thousands of dragons there, and whoever opened the gate can appear and lock it behind us.”
Images suddenly flashed inside Matt’s head; of the black-robed figure that attacked him standing here just weeks ago with his identical staff inserted into the gate’s base; of that wizard fashioning the gate from soclarin ore; of a knight, rogue, and priestess in his company on a quest, dressed just like Matt’s friends were now; of the figure’s hand penning the original scroll describing their time here; of a rosewood cabinet opening to reveal the staff and robe locked within; of his own face as seen by the figure through the orb just before lightning flashed from it to electrocute the dark elf spy.
Matt’s mouth fell open and he just stopped himself from blurting out his realization. He’d known it earlier but had forgotten during the fight. Now Nola and Cirion stood here and this was none of their business.
“You two,” he said with such a commanding voice that he startled his friends, “get over there behind the fountain.” When the pair hesitated, he barked, “Now!”
Lorian nodded at his elves and a few escorted a glowering Cirion and Nola out of earshot. The others gathered around Matt more closely, perplexed.
“Soliander did it,” the wizard said in a quiet voice, amazed by the truth of it. “The real Soliander. He’s the one who opened the gate, and he attacked me downstairs. That’s who you heard screaming before.”
Expressions of disbelief surrounded him except from Lorian.
The elf nodded, looking grim. “I suspected as much myself.” Inquisitive eyes turned on him and he added, “When you did not join us in the dungeon I went looking for you and saw what I thought was you walking away, so I followed. It soon became apparent that it was someone else despite the identical staff, which was impossible. Or so I thought. It would seem that you each have a copy of it, presumably a result of the summoning spell always equipping the champions with whatever they need for the quest. I am not sure how that works, but since they could be summoned from anywhere at any time, they cannot expect to be dressed appropriately and the spell resolves this for them. I suspected the truth as I followed the figure, and when he opened a portal to depart through, he nearly killed me. I did not confirm his identity. You are sure?”
“Positive,” Matt answered. “He attacked me downstairs and tried to pull information from my mind with a spell of some kind.” He flushed at the memory. “He wasn’t very nice about it. I noticed our staves were the same, too. In fact, that was how I got away. He made my staff stop working but I was able to reach out to his and make it burn him, so I did. I don’t think he was expecting that. Anyway, I think I somehow got some of the info in his head by mistake,” he concluded, realizing he now knew what the real champions looked like.
Lorian made a sound. “Interesting. It is a two-way spell unless the one controlling it prevents that, as was undoubtedly his intention. His control would likely have slipped given the injuries he sustained.”
“So you learned things from him beyond his identity?” Eric asked intently. “Now we know at least one of the real champions is alive, which raises a ton of questions. What else can you tell us? Did you sense anything about the others?”
Matt thought for a moment and frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It’s not like that, I don’t think. I don’t even know what I know. I just know for certain it was him that attacked me, and when you wondered who’d opened the gate, I just knew that, too, as if his memory was mine.”
Eric asked, “Can you tell why he opened the gate?”
Matt paused but again shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not getting anything.”
“Maybe because you’re trying on purpose now,” suggested Anna, laying a comforting hand on him.
Lorian nodded, looking concerned about the revelations. “Yes, that could be. Since the transfer was involuntary, the memories and knowledge may be difficult to retrieve. We have more pressing issues, however, and can talk more of this later.”
Wondering if hypnosis might work, Matt brushed that aside and asked, “So we’ll leave Raith on the other side of the gate with the dragons?” As he wondered what was over there, images of a thick forest covering a mountain range popped into his head, but that was all.
“Yes,” said Lorian, indicating Cirion and Nola could return to them now. “We can discuss his motives later, but he’ll be unable to cause trouble once you seal the gate. We should act fast.”
Matt took the hint and started for the gate with everyone following, which made him a bit nervous. He may have struck at the dragon with people watching, but that had been emotional. This was different – everything depended on it. He glanced over his shoulder at the small crowd, prompting Ryan to make all but his friends and Lorian stay back. The image of Soliander standing here at least gave Matt some idea what to do. The staff sent a pulse up his arm, letting him know magic was afoot, though he assumed that was the gate itself.
He mounted the steps, looking at the gate’s misty surface in awe and tempted to touch it, but then the thought of dragons rising up through it banished that idea. He could daydream later. Flipping the staff upside down, he inserted the crystal into a hole. At once, a cone of blue light shot up into the sky from the gate before extinguishing, the gate’s glistening surface turning to smoke with a slight whoosh, tendrils drifting upward. He could now see through the empty oval to the floor beneath.
Matt sighed in relief and came down the steps. “I guess that was it.”
The staff sent another pulse up his arm, but he didn’t know what it meant. Maybe something else was causing that. With the gate off, he decided he didn’t care what else lay around here. Besides, maybe the gate always gave off that reaction. Once again he lamented the lack of owner’s manuals or general knowledge of how things were supposed to work. Mayb
e if he meditated or something, he could learn such ideas from Soliander’s memories.
“Now we can go home!” Ryan gripped his shoulder in congratulations. He sighed in relief. “I can’t wait to see Daniel.” His bright eyes turned to Anna and she frowned, looking away.
“We should return to my estate,” remarked Lorian, “on the way to Olliana. Let us depart.”
As Matt left with the others, he suddenly realized Cirion and Nola were gone and remarked on this.
“Damn those two!” Rognir spat, unhooking his axe. “I bet I know just what they’ll be up to when we leave, too. Looting this corpse!” He gestured at the dragon, which surprised Matt.
“Why?” he asked.
“These scales, teeth, and claws are worth a fortune,” the dwarf answered gruffly. “Lorian, as much as I love Arundell, I will stay behind. I have two heads to bust open.” With that, he quickly said his goodbyes and stomped off through a doorway, clanking all the way. He stood little chance of sneaking up on Cirion. Matt noticed Anna looking after him regretfully. Was she regretting not learning more from him?
Ryan sighed. “It’s just as well. I don’t trust those two and don’t want them with us anyway.”
“Agreed,” said Eric and Lorian in unison.
They left Castle Darlonon, making an uneventful return to Lorian’s estate, a group of thirty elves meeting the weary travelers along the way. The forest teemed with them as they hunted down ogres and restored peace below the mountains. Since many an elf stopped to offer kind words. The quest had finally become almost fun now that it was over, and their worries were largely forgotten as they gathered with Lorian in Arundell’s meeting room one last time.
In discussing Raith’s involvement, they concluded someone might have to return one day to deal with the wizard, assuming the dragons or any traps left by Soliander didn’t get him first. If he learned to use the ore, he could lie in wait for someone to open the gate and spring a trap of his own, so coming back sooner rather than later was agreed upon. With the real Soliander on the loose, the gate could be reopened again, and were a duel to happen between the two wizards, with dragons eager to destroy them both, the consequences could be terrible for Honyn. They assumed Soliander had opened the gate to get more soclarin but had no answers for why he’d left it that way.
Due to his questioning of Matt, they surmised Soliander knew nothing of where the other champions were and wasn’t involved in the substitution. It was now apparent that the summoning had been altered in some fundamental way, since Soliander lived and yet Matt had come in his place. The real Ellorians could refuse or were spared, but their replacements could not, which suggested they might be summoned again and again, which no one wanted to think about.
Soliander’s behavior concerned Lorian most, for it was quite unlike the man he’d known, raising serious questions. What had he been doing all this time? Where had he been? Did anyone know he still lived? It seemed unlikely, but then why was he hiding his existence? Did he have a new identity and a new life to go with it somewhere? Why was he acting this way? If the other champions lived, were their personalities so distorted as well? Soliander seemed to think they existed somewhere. Was he looking for them? And why? His actions suggested sinister intent, not a man searching for his friends, so finding them might spell trouble for the others.
Matt hoped answers would come soon so they could also escape the quests, but Soliander didn’t seem amenable to polite conversation. It seemed likely that the Ellorian Champions were free as well, and despite no reports of them appearing home, perhaps they had done so secretly so they’d be left alone. A chance to speak with them might come sooner than they wanted because the real possibility existed that, instead of returning to Earth, they would be returned to their counterparts’ homes instead if the spell couldn’t tell the difference between them and the real champions. If so, Lorian promised to visit. He recommended telling the truth of their masquerade to the elven court, which had the power to send him across worlds as needed. Such aid would be invaluable and the elves would certainly keep the secret.
They decided to keep the truth about Soliander from Queen Lorella and the rest of Honyn, however. It would raise too many questions about not only the real arch wizard but the four new champions, though this did pose one problem.
“There’s one more thing,” started Matt, “the queen will want to know who opened the gate and we can’t very well tell her it was Soliander if she thinks I’m him.”
“True,” agreed Anna, frowning. “So what do we tell her? I’d rather not lie, so can we just say we don’t know? Is learning the truth part of the quest?”
“No, it is not,” replied Lorian.
“Failing to admit it is still a lie, by the way,” Eric interjected, “but I think we just go with a better lie than not knowing. Let’s blame it on Raith. We think he’s a cult member and involved in the stolen scroll anyway, so this isn’t a stretch. As a cult member, he would have wanted to open the gate anyway but it was already open.”
“The queen might not know a soclarin item is needed to open the gate, but if she asks if he had one, we’ll just duck the question,” added Matt. “He went through the gate before we could have asked him that.”
Ryan nodded. “I think that is the way to go.”
“There’s something I should mention,” began Matt. “When Soliander did his mind meld spell on me, he learned our real names and that we’re from Earth, a name he seemed to recognize. I’m concerned he might track us down there and finish what he started.”
Everyone’s expressions became sober and serious.
Eric observed, “He could go after our families.”
“Daniel,” Ryan whispered, paling. Looking at Matt, he remarked, “I sure hope you can cast spells back home because if he shows up, you’re our only real chance.”
Matt exchanged a concerned look with the others.
They soon turned to drinking the night away in the safety of the elven estate, trying to forget the worst parts of the quest or what might lie ahead. On their way back to Olliana, each had their own preoccupation.
With help from Lorian, Matt practiced spells every day, hoping they still worked on Earth. He didn’t know what to expect but suspected he wouldn’t have the staff or books. He tried to memorize everything and spent all day with his nose buried in books to the point of rudeness. The others understood and left him alone.
Eric and Ryan both learned tracking from the elves and took seriously elements of horsemanship and wilderness survival that might be needed if they ever did another quest. Both expressed an interest in learning elven, so Lorian just cast the spell on all of them, then dwarven. Learning other languages like ogre came up but the elf said with a smile that they needed to absorb what they had already gained. There would be time enough for more later.
Anna had lapsed into quietness that prompted more than one to ask if she was feeling okay. She would nod and smile serenely but not say much about her inner world. She didn’t understand what she was feeling and had something to sort through on her own. When Rognir had healed her, she’d felt the powerful effect of a god’s compassionate touch in her. Part of her felt deeply shaken by it, but this was mostly psychological, her mind struggling to accept what had happened. Emotionally, she had never felt more at peace. She sensed that she’d been changed forever by it, and while that scared her a little, she felt eager to leave behind her old disposition and embrace something new. She been reading everything she could about the gods here, face buried in a scroll almost as much as Matt.
As they neared Olliana, people emerged from roadside homes and inns to offer congratulations, flowers, and even their chastity. Ryan exchanged knowing looks with Eric and Matt about the bounty of female flesh offering itself up, and how unfortunate it was that they had to be going.
“It’s good to be the champions,” remarked Eric, pulling up beside Ryan.
Ryan laughed, his banner snapping in the breeze atop his lance. “Yes, if only we ha
d time to enjoy it.”
Chiding them, Anna remarked, “Just think how many diseases you could bring back with you.”
Undaunted, Ryan suggested, “You could always cure us.” The boys laughed aloud while she failed to suppress a grin. The return to joking was nice.
They trotted through Olliana’s main crowded cobblestone streets with Lorian and surrounded by elves, though Morven had remained behind at the estate. The escort Queen Lorella had sent out to meet them led the way, steel-clad knights riding in formation. The crowd’s roar of appreciation greeted the champions and flowers flew, gifts were given, and ribbons were strewn around their necks.
From a balcony, the queen gave a suitable speech, declaring the day a holiday and that a festival of celebration was to begin immediately. Yet another banquet in their honor would be held that night, but first the champions gathered in the War Room to tell the queen, her wizard Sonneri, and the Prime Minister the details of the quest.
“I understand you were successful in sealing the Dragon Gate,” the queen observed, smiling from her seat behind the hexagonal table. “Please tell us precisely what happened.”
With a look at Eric to see which of them would speak for them, Ryan received an encouraging nod and replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty. When we arrived at the castle, we discovered that Cirion’s group had arrived ahead of us, but they were captured with some loss of life. We freed those remaining and set about dealing with the dragon.”
Queen Lorella asked, “And were you able to chase her back through the gate before sealing it?”
Resignation on his face, the knight replied, “No, my queen. We had hoped to subdue her, but her hostility was too great, and in the course of battle she was killed.”
The queen’s eyes widened in shock, a flash of anger appearing before she relaxed and assumed a look of resigned acceptance. “While I don’t agree with the Dragon Cult’s methods,” she explained, “I do understand their desire to see the dragons live well and prosper. I had hoped bloodshed could be avoided and the dragon spared, but I’m sure you only did what was necessary.”
The Dragon Gate (The Dragon Gate Series Book 1) Page 22
