by T Nisbet
Chp. 42
When I reached the tree line that marked the end of Grimhome’s killing fields, I reached out and willed the light behind me to stop shining. Hazarding another glance through the downpour behind me, I was pleased to see both of the blinding lights were out. As my horse sprinted into the shelter of the trees, I wondered how long it would take the blood elves to get organized and follow me. They couldn’t know I had escaped from the dungeon with their trapped Demon God, or that I had been in the dungeon at all. They would know someone left their city and had used magic to do it. They’d come after me. The question was how fast?
I slowed my horse from an all out sprint to a gallop as I started up the slow incline leading into the mountains and the fairy woods beyond. Between the darkness and the rain I couldn’t see the road ahead very well and was forced to slow my mount even further. A sickening thought struck me, sending fear through my ravaged nerves. Guldan had far better vision than me as evidenced by his being able to see Toby in the darkness of the hallways back in the dungeon. What if the blood elves shared his visual ability? They wouldn’t have to slow their mounts to see the road. They would catch me before I reached the top of the pass. I had to press my luck or face possible capture, so I sped back up trusting the horse to stay on the road.
I hadn’t gone very far when the strange light appeared at the corner of my vision again. I didn’t bother looking over at my fairy guard. It felt reassuring to have it back though. Despite the fact I couldn’t talk to it, I knew that the strange feeling of reassurance came from the fact that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t know if the fairy guard was capable of actually helping me if the blood elves caught me, but it didn’t matter.
Thallium had told me the blood elves didn’t go into the fairy woods at night, insinuating that bad things happened to travelers who entered the woods after dusk. I prayed he was right as I urged my horse through the sheets of rain soaking through my clothing. If that was true, all I had to do was make it to the top of the grade and I would be safe. It had taken a long time to come down from the mountain pass. At first I had thought it would be slower going up hill on a horse, than down hill, but I was wrong.
Making my way up the grade I realized that a horse’s speed comes mainly from its powerful back legs, which it can’t fully use going downhill, because it applies too much force and weight on the weaker front legs. Going uphill, the force and weight is distributed onto the horse’s rear, which allows the horse to fully use its powerful hind legs.
Still, fighting gravity going uphill had to be exhausting for a horse. Stairs were exhausting for me and I knew it couldn’t be much different for a horse. If the pouring rain helped keep my mount cool and able to run longer, I promised I wouldn’t complain about being cold and wet.
After a couple of hours had gone by, in which my ears had popped several times adjusting to the higher pressure of the mountains, I decided to slow to a stop and give my horse a breather. Dismounting, I bent down and pressed my ear to the wet stone of the roadway. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t hear anything. I imagined Toby laughing at me, and I got up questioning myself about leaving them behind. I led the horse up the road listening to its breathing slow and thinking about my friends. I couldn’t imagine my life without them. Regardless of what happened between Ivy and I romantically, I wasn’t ready to lose her friendship. I had almost come to accept that being immortal, I would someday lose Ivy and Toby to old age, but this quick?
I wanted this crazy dream to end. I didn’t want to live without them, but I knew in my heart that I had made the right decision. They would be furious with me if I had been captured or killed trying to save them and had doomed all of our friends and families. That knowledge wasn’t comforting in the slightest though.
I figured I had ten minutes at the minimum before riders would have been sent after me, so after what I judged to be five minutes I got back on my horse and set off once more up the switchbacks towards the summit.
The fairy light was back with me as I rode upwards. It seemed closer now than it had been and I couldn’t resist the urge to look. Much to my amazement it didn’t disappear, and was joined by another, this one less orange in hue. I nodded at them and returned my attention to the road. After twenty minutes or so, there were a dozen or more of the sparkling lights paralleling my course up the road. My level of anxiety increased accordingly. It was one thing to have a single light following you, it was quite another to have a crowd of them flying wildly at your side.
As I crested the summit and the ground leveled out, I relaxed some, despite the score of lights flying on both sides of me as I rode over the ancient paving stones. I slowed my winded horse down to a slow canter and pulled Gwensorloth partially out of it sheath to look at the blade. It was glowing dully. I should have done that earlier and protected my ear from the freezing stone. Live and learn.
“Indeed, and much have you learned my boy!” Thallium’s ancient voice said clearly inside my head.
It startled me.
“How long have you been…” I began.
“Awhile now my son. I wanted to give you time to gather your thoughts and figure out your priorities. You can do nothing to save them, Jake. They are safe for now and Guldan is wilier than you can imagine. All is not lost,” he said in a comforting voice.
“What about Bronn and Gill? Can I get them out with their help?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“Perhaps,” said the olden voice.
“But I’d never make it out of this world in time,” I sighed, as a deep sorrow fell over my heart. It was one thing to have little hope and another to have none at all.
“Indeed, you will be hard pressed as it is. Judging from the state of the stone under the strain produced by the Demon… I’d say you have perhaps three days, four at the outside,” Thallium stated.
Holy God! There was no way I was going to make it. If it was just a straight road with nobody chasing me I couldn’t make it on this horse in three days.
“You detest people that give up,” Thallium reminded me softly. “Will you give in so easily to defeat?”
“I’m not giving in to anything,” I growled. “But… I could use some help Thallium.”
“Indeed, but in the end it will be your choices that save or doom the worlds.”
“Great!” I groaned and kicked my horse into a hard gallop.
“You could light your way you know.” Thallium whispered sarcastically.
“How?” I asked.
“Why by gathering the magic around you and creating light of course, after all, you’ve gotten quite good at it,” the voice chided. “You saw Guldan do it in the passage to the dungeon. It is only slightly different to have the light follow you, or light your way forward. Imagine exactly what you want and will it into being. Concentrate and make your thoughts specific my boy.”
I pulled in the magic slowly and concentrated on the image of a headlight shining out from a car. When I felt I had enough magic, I closed my eyes and slowly released it.
My horse bucked up in the air nearly throwing me. I opened my eyes and held on for dear life until the animal eased once more into a smooth run. I blinked unable to believe my eyes. Thallium’s throaty laughter sounded loudly in my ears.
Twin beams of light coming from the horse’s eyes lit the road ahead brightly.
“That is certainly one way of doing it,” Thallium laughed. “Perhaps a little unorthodox, but effective none the less.”
However crazy it was to be riding a horse with beams of light coming out of its eyes, it certainly made riding through the pitch black forest a lot easier.
“Can you teach me how to turn the horse into a Porsche? That would make it a lot easier. A 911 turbo if you please,” I grimaced shaking my head. This was all way too weird for me.
“Too bad your skills don’t lend themselves well to... stand-up comedy,” Thallium said sarcastically.
His voice became more serious. “A blue mage creates, my son. We don’t break down existing complicated
matter. We can add to it as you just demonstrated with the horse’s eyes. It seems to be working quite well by the way… where was I? Yes, matter, we cannot pull apart complex molecules unless we constructed them. The bonds holding one atom to another are very strong. In most cases, our magic requires the very building blocks of matter.”
“Atoms?” I asked.
“Indeed. It is from the basic elements that we create. The more complex our creations, the more difficult and the more study required.”
“Chemistry! I barely got a B in that class. Ionic bonds, covalent bonds, it was so boring,” I groaned struggling to keep my mind on the conversation.
“Too bad, that. You never know when you’re going to need something you’re asked to learn,” Thallium said sounding like my physics teacher.
“At least using this magic doesn’t require Algebra.”
Thallium’s laughter was bright and lifted my spirits slightly.
“Oh, but it does my boy, it does. All learning sharpens the tool that is your mind. The sharper the tool, the better the magician or wizard as the case may be.”
“You sound like my parents.”
“Indeed…” he agreed curiously. “Do they know that you’re using a third of your brainpower in your classes?
“No!” I said as my bizarre mount cantered down the road. “If you don’t mind. I’d prefer it stay that way.”
“Of course you would,” Thallium chuckled.
I saw the light I’d created still hanging above the valley before I entered it. There were several hundred fairy lights swirling to either side of me as I rode out of the trees under the shining amber light. Thallium’s voice had grown stronger and he was just finishing a winded discourse on the complexities of creating food when my horse began to slow dramatically despite my urgings. It didn’t seem injured, but I decided to stop and check it anyways.
“This promises to be interesting,” Thallium said with his usual sarcasm.
I gathered some magic as I dismounted the black horse and turned off the light coming out of its eyes.
“Well done,” Thallium said.
“Thanks. I didn’t want the horse spooking itself. Walking all the way back to the elven woods wouldn’t be too much fun.”
I tried to ignore the pinpoints of light swirling around me and walked around the horse trying to see if it had any injuries. I didn’t know what to look for, but there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it aside from the fact it was covered in foamy sweat.
