The Shadows of Starpoint Mountain

by Bill Albert

  “Where did you get the sword, Gallif?” Jakobus asked.

  “Rayjen, from the school,” she stumbled in disbelief.

  “No, you lost the cast, remember?” Luvin added quickly. “In the fight with Zaslow he dispelled the cast. Who replaced it?”

  Gallif ignored the painful rumbling in her belly as the truth became apparent. The whispers of memory told her what she didn’t want to admit.

  “The Third Minister of the Giant Lords,” she said staring. “When he assigned me to come here he had it recast as a symbol of his good faith. How did he know?” she asked brushing back her colorless hair. “Of course! How could he have known it was flame cast? I didn’t have the sword on Festival Day when we rescued him,” she said looking at Luvin. Gallif bit her lip as all the pieces, no matter how hard they were to believe, fell into place. She had never dreamed of the possibility of a Giant Lord doing such a terrible thing. As hard as it was to accept there could be no other solution. “When he talked to me about coming here he said all of the Ministers had agreed to this expedition,” she said wide eyed. “Yet the Second Minister obviously didn’t know I would be leaving. One of the Circle of Ministers doing something like that? I never would have believed it.”

  “And a month ago we thought all elves were evil and that all fairies were dead,” Luvin said as Lincilara fluttered past him and winked.

  “It appears,” Jakobus spoke slowly, “that there were more secrets outside Starpoint Mountain than within. Now that the shadow of the mountain is gone they are all coming to light.”

  “Lincilara,” Gallif called.

  “Yes,” the glowing fairy giggled and zoomed to be next to Gallif.

  “I remember the myths of what your kind prospered at. The curse, the displacement, can you remove it but keep the flame cast?”

  “Yes,” she said with utmost confidence. “It’ll take some time, it can be pretty complicated, and I’ll have to really concentrate on it.”

  “Okay, what do you need me to do?”

  Acting on Lincilara’s instructions she returned the flame to its sheath. Then she removed the sheath from her belt and propped it between two green rocks so that it was standing with the handle straight up. Lincilara landed on the handle and wrapped her arms and legs around the grip. Then she wrapped her wings around her body and created a cocoon. Gallif watched closely and was amazed that her wings had extended themselves so far that the body could no longer be seen. The cocoon itself was so still she could not even tell if the fairy was breathing. They knew they would have to wait it out.

  Blinks and Luvin volunteered to stand guard several yards on each side of them and Gallif sat next to Jakobus.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked looking at his wounds.

  “I’ll be fine in a bit. The bleeding has stopped, and the pain is subsiding.”

  Gallif nodded and then sat quietly for a while trying to sort out the feelings cascading through her. In the relatively short time since she had been inside the mountain so much had changed. She was unsure if it was from fear or guilt, but she could not deny that she was a big part, maybe even the cause, of what was happening.

  “I never even doubted her. Marassa. I never questioned why she joined us and what she wanted,” Gallif said dejectedly.

  “She designed it so you wouldn’t, Gallif. She knew more than you, more than us, and worked to keep it that way. I didn’t depend on her or trust her completely but even I never thought she would go that far.”

  “I trusted her one hundred percent.”

  “We are all guilty of that mistake at some point in our lives; of believing something without question.”

  “Like the total evil of the elves,” Gallif suggested.

  “Or the total good of the Giant Lords,” Jakobus added.

  “You seem to be handling that possibility quite well.”

  “I don’t think of it as just a possibility. It’s clearly a fact.”

  “It’s going to be impossible for anyone to accept,” Gallif added. “We’ve believed they were always acting in our favor. We never suspected they were hiding anything from us.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Jakobus said as he sat up and looked her in the eyes. He was feeling much better now, but the muscles in his legs were quite stiff. “Have we, the citizens of the land of Starpoint, become so complacent in our lives it never occurs to us to question anything? To question authority? No matter what the Giant Lords have told us we’ve just accepted it as the truth. How long has it been that way?”

  “They’ve kept the peace for a long time,” Gallif defended them out of habit. “No one has tried to attack this land from the outside since they repelled the Blood Lords.”

  “But just how big of a threat were the Blood Lords?” he asked nodding to Lincilara’s cocoon. “And what about attacks from within? Was Zaslow the first? Was he the only?”

  “We haven’t needed for anything,” she feebly changed tactics.

  “But do we have all there is to have? When was the last time there was something new? When was the last time you heard of someone inventing something or a discovery? Have we, when it comes right down to it, been slaves or pets?”

  “Or puppets,” she said thinking of her dealings with the Third Minister. “We’ve always thought of things as simply good or bad. Black and white.”

  “We dwarves have believed for a long time that there is no such thing as just good and evil, just day or night, just black and white. Only infinite shades of gray.” He stood and looked down on her. “Walk with me, please, to loosen the muscles in my legs.”

  Gallif joined him and they walked in wide circles for several minutes. Jakobus still had a slight limp in his left leg but it lessened as they walked.

  “You mentioned before about all the secrets that have been revealed since Starpoint Mountain,” she finally asked. “What about yours?”

  Jakobus chuckled and took a few steps before answering. “You are so sure I have secrets?”

  “We all do.”

  “Yes, we do,” he nodded and looked around to make sure they were out of ear shot of everyone else. “Marassa referred to me as the ‘noble dwarf’ and you have all looked at me and treated me that way. Truthfully, it wasn’t always like that. Not as long ago as I wish I was far from noble, and not just by dwarven standards. I spent a lot of time hating anything that wasn’t a dwarf. There were those of us, there still are, who hate outsiders. We felt the Under City was ours only and anyone else was an intruder.

  “A group of us decided to make the outsiders pay for their intrusions. You’ve seen the ability to start fires that I have. I misused that disgracefully. I used it to burn down their homes and their farms.”

  Gallif stopped walking as an ice-cold shiver bolted through her. She prayed to her parents that he was not responsible for their deaths.

  “One night,” he continued, “a group of us isolationists decided to burn a temple. We set fire to it late at night and patted ourselves for a job well done. We stayed until morning to see the full extent of our success, and then we saw the people as they mourned. Male, female, child and very old, came to see what was left of their temple and they cried and prayed. We didn’t try to hide; they trusted us and blamed elves for their suffering. Their grief was so total that before we left I cried with them. Since then I have kept a much tighter control of myself but, even to this day, those demons sometimes call to me. As sad as it is, I am just as guilty of blindness towards the elves as everyone else.”

  Gallif’s mind was lost and she fought back the urge to either scream or cry. Could her friend now have caused that terrible fire then? No, this could not be, she told herself. It must not be.

  They walked silently until his limp was completely gone.

  “What about you?”

  Gallif ignored the question for a long time trying to settle her inner turmoil. She knew this was not the time or the place to confront him about that despite the urge to grab him and force an answer out of h
im.

  “Are you okay?” his concern was genuine.

  “You remember Maura?” she finally asked.

  “Of course, she saved us with her arrows at the Bitran estate in Primor.” Despite what she was saying he could not ignore the painful look in her eyes.

  “Something happened with her,” she said knowing she had to tell the truth. “We became very close very fast. I envied her at first because she had all of the things I’d lost. Her parents, her friends, her home, someplace to belong. In return she was jealous of me because of my life. I was on a journey most people just dream about.

  “It felt comfortable being with her. Even though there were other women at the school I never really bonded or grew close to them. Since I had spent so much of my early life with just my brother I understood and could deal with males easier than females.

  “On the last night, before she left us, something happened,” Gallif said with her throat suddenly dry. She forced herself to swallow and continued. “I wanted to be with her. Completely, emotionally, physically. I took her in my arms, and I kissed her and tasted her, and she did the same to me.” As she spoke, she could see Jakobus’s body tense up, but she was unsure if it was from the pain in her voice or the shock of the actions.

  “We connected that night. I know that kind of bond is looked down on in our society, almost as much as the elves are, but I know in my heart that it was right. When things slow down, and I let myself think about Maura, I miss her desperately.”

  Jakobus walked in step with her unsure of what to say. He remembered warning Luvin away from the evils of the women at the inn and felt ashamed about it.

  “Where is she now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted sadly. “She made it to the school but disappeared during the elven attack.”

  By now Jakobus was feeling limber and stretched his legs to prove his strength was back. Blinks and Luvin joined them but Acrufix stayed in his alcove in deep meditation.

  “How soon before we get moving?” Luvin asked.

  Gallif looked at the propped-up flame sword where Lincilara was still wrapped up in her own wings around the handle. “As soon as she’s ready.”

  TWENTY-ONE: TRADES

  They sat waiting for another attack from Marassa and for Lincilara to finish. Every so often they would look at the small, mighty fairy and be relieved to see the steady rhythm of her breathing.

  Jakobus said a few prayers and sat peacefully watching his friends’ backs. He was surprised how good it felt, after all these years, to finally have told someone about his past. He had never spoken to anyone about what had happened in his dark youth. Neither his family nor his community knew what he had done. Only those who had also lit the fires and spread racial hatred knew. One of them was a dedicated believer who would never betray the secret to anyone. Another had risen high in the dwarven council in charge of the Under City, she would lose her own status if she spoke, and another had fallen from his mount some wet spring morning and died face down in the mud. The rest had gone to parts unknown and every time Jakobus said his prayers he asked Ha’dar to keep them safe and silent. He also hoped that, by staying with Gallif and freeing the elves, that he would be forgiven.

  Blinks sat thinking about how rapidly his life had changed. Just a short time ago he had been minding his own business when he had heard a scuffling off of the side of the road. Now he was in the Dragon Burial Grounds learning some shocking truths about the Giant Lords. The fall of the mountain had only been the beginning of the changes they were about to witness. He hadn’t planned on getting involved with anybody, just thinking of visiting the southern coast, but like most times in his life he had ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He almost laughed when he thought of that habit. He remembered an uncle, or maybe an aunt, who had once told him that phrase should be put on his tombstone. No, come to think of it, it was his dad who had told him that. He thought how that might just happen sooner than anyone realized.

  As he waited Luvin thought carefully about some way to stop the growth in Gallif’s belly. He repeatedly went through every class he had ever taken and any scrap of information he could remember hearing. He knew that many people, experienced and wiser than him, had studied things like tarna eggs for years and had never found a cure, but he refused to give up. Maybe there was something, some connection that he would make. He occasionally snuck glances at her huddled figure and he felt his stomach turn when he saw how pale her skin was. He wanted to comfort her, but he refused to listen to his heart and kept a respectful distance.

  Gallif sat with her arms wrapped around her midriff leaning forward. She had found that the discomfort lessened in this position. She knew she had to be strong and live up to the expectations that Rayjen and the others at the school had for her. She used their confidence in her to bolster her self-confidence. She forced her thoughts to return to school days, but she kept getting interrupted by the whispers of her parents. Those moments were followed by the possibility that Jakobus could be responsible for that fire. Only a cruel god would allow this to happen and, though she knew Tebiet was a kind dwarven god, her faith was clouded and uncertain. She knew she would have to confront him about this someday but was sure this was not the time. She feared that, if it were true, she wouldn’t be able to forgive him despite her parent’s whispers that she could.

  Gallif was drawn from her thoughts by a flash of light passing near her. Her first thought was that it was more flaming arrows and she stood with her frost sword in her hand. Jakobus, Blinks, and Luvin saw her quick move and, drawing their weapons, hurried to join and protect her.

  “Hey,” Lincilara called with a pouty look on her face, “I’m one of the good ones.”

  Gallif managed to flash a smile and put the frost sword away.

  “It was a complicated casting,” Lincilara said proudly. “Lots of details and traps in it but I got it. It’s safe to use now. The sword, I mean.”

  Gallif boldly pulled the flame sword from its sheath and looked deeply into the fire of the blade. She relaxed and tightened her grip on the hilt and was relieved there was no tingling or discomfort. She stepped back and swung the sword in a complete circle, excited by the perfect balance.

  On impulse Luvin reached down and picked up two rocks. He called her name and quickly threw them at her. She zigzagged the sword and stepped forward. She struck and deflected the first rock away from her and then slammed against the other just as fast. The second rock shattered on impact. Luvin tried to catch her off guard with a third rock, but it was cleanly split in half. Gallif sighed in relief and Jakobus applauded as he approached her.

  “Well done, Gallif,” Jakobus said.

  “Well done, Lincilara,” Gallif made sure the fairy got the credit she deserved.

  Lincilara blushed timidly but their celebration was cut short as Blinks spoke solemnly. “Shiny Guy is gone.”

  They all ran across the cavern to the area where he had been sitting in. They looked in all directions but there was no sign of Acrufix anywhere.

  “I don’t get it,” Blinks said with his lids flapping quickly. “There are only two ways out of this place, and he didn’t go past me.”

  “Me neither,” Luvin added quickly.

  “He didn’t go either way,” Gallif said quickly calming them. She kneeled to check the ground and found only one set of footprints leading into the area but there was no track out. She remembered her encounter with the invisible attacker in Primor and waved her hand through the air to make sure there was no one hiding there. “He’s gone.”

  “He used a casting,” Lincilara said hovering above them. “I can see the trace by the rock surface.”

  “A jump casting,” Luvin said angrily.

  “Damn him,” Gallif whispered.

  “I should have kept an eye on him,” Blinks said guiltily. “I didn’t trust him at all right from the start.”

  Luvin started to agree what Blinks but realized that it wasn’t actually true. He
had fallen for his persuasion. “What do we do now?” he asked instead.

  “We have to get to the library,” Gallif said standing and facing them all. “That’s what we’ve been heading for since the beginning. The reason we were coming here, at least the one that was explained to me, was to see if the library existed and, if it did, try to find some way to remove the curse on the elves. All things concerned I’m not sure what we’ll really find anymore. I can only guess what the Third Minister and Marassa really knew.

  “There’s something else I want to make sure you are aware of…something we didn’t talk about before. The Giant Lords, at least one of them,” she corrected herself, “is keeping a close eye on us for his own purposes. After exposing Marassa and Acrufix I’m sure we have made some very powerful enemies and the closer you get to me the more dangerous it will become. Most likely they will classify us as Fugitive Kind before this is over.”

  Fugitive Kind were the most wanted and dangerous criminals sought after by the Giant Lords. The reward for turning them in was high and it didn’t matter whether they were alive or dead.

  “A lot of people have lost their lives because of me. I won’t go another step without you being aware of that and I can’t ask any of you to stay with me.”

  There was a moment of silence and Gallif felt her heart beat a few thousand times.

  Luvin stepped forward and took a stance by her side. He didn’t say anything and just stood there waiting.

  “May the gods bless us,” Jakobus said and stepped forward.

  Lincilara flew close to Gallif’s face and planted a light kiss on her cheek. “You’ll need me,” she said with all the might at her disposal.

  Blinks looked around and realized he was standing apart from them. “I’ll be damned if you’re leaving me out of this part,” he said. “But I swear,” he said pointing a finger at them, “I get first choice at new armor.”

  ***

  “Lincilara, what can you tell us about the library?” Gallif asked after they walked for a while.