by Simon Archer
Yawning widely, I stopped for the night, tucked my supplies to the small pack I had taken with me, and rose to return to the campsite.
19
I continued to work on my new spell as we traveled through the forest, but it took nearly a week for me to reach the point where I had what I had written memorized, and moved on to trying to get the magic to do what I wanted it to do. One night, when we were looking for an appropriate clearing for me to get started on this, we realized that we were closer to the edge of the forest than we had previously thought.
“I think I remember this tree,” Freyja said, gesturing at a nearby blackened tree trunk with large branches up above us. I followed her gaze upwards and thought that I knew what she meant.
“Yeah, it does look kind of familiar,” I said.
“If this is the tree that I think it is, we are getting close to Viktor’s fortress.” Excitement entered the fox-elf’s voice. “We are almost to the mountains.”
“I thought that we were still several days away,” Godfried said, looking around at the forest nervously.
“Yeah, we thought so.” I paused as I thought it over carefully. “The thing is, though, that the navigation spell doesn’t tell us where we are. It just tells us what direction we need to go to get to our destination. I guess we traveled faster than we thought.”
“Well, it is hard to tell day from night at the moment or how long we have been here,” Bernsten reasoned as he pulled out his pocket watch. “Even the clockwork seems to move differently, as if time itself has warped. One day, when we were in the center, I looked at it and was unsure whether the time it told me was in the day or in the night. We could very well have traveled longer than we knew.”
“This is good news if it’s true,” Ishida pointed out with no small relief. “We’ll be able to see the mountains soon, and we are closer to finishing your quest than we thought.”
“Alright, let’s keep going,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep knowing that the mountains are so close. I want to see if the lights the forest elves saw are still going on now that the forest has been ravaged like this.”
Freyja nodded. “I agree.” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully as her tail swished. “Viktor’s fortress shouldn’t be far from here. It’ll be a good place to rest and decide how to proceed.”
“Is that still standing?” I asked, surprised. For some reason, I had expected the forest elves to get rid of any remnants of the man who had made their lives miserable for so long.
Freyja seemed even more surprised by my question than I was. “Oh yeah. There’s no reason to knock down a perfectly good building. People can live there, though I’m sure its residents ran out of food and came to join us in the center shortly before you all showed up.”
“I guess I never thought about it like that,” I considered. The kingdom elves’ lands were filled with structures, castles, and towns, but the forest elves had far fewer… even less now that the trees had been killed. “So, people stayed there after Viktor died?”
“Yes, some of his longest-serving servants, I think,” Ishida said.
“Slaves, not servants,” Freyja corrected her.
“Slaves, then,” Ishida agreed. “They may have hated it there, but it was a safe place to stay once Viktor was gone. I think they fixed it up a bit, too.”
The fox-elf nodded as she led the way. “They did. I stayed with them once when I was out hunting. It was a much more cheerful place.”
“Bet it’s not anymore,” I said under my breath.
Nothing in the forest was cheery anymore.
“Then we will do everything in our power to make it so once more,” Nadeine said, shooting me a pointed look.
“Right,” I said, nodding. She was right. It was better to be optimistic. I turned to Freyja. “How far do you think the fortress is from here?”
She thought carefully for a moment. “It should only be a few miles further. We should be able to tell soon.”
“Alright, let’s go, then!”
I pulled on Bill’s reins and pressed him forwards. He acquiesced, and the other horses followed suit, trotting forwards down the beaten path. True to Freyja’s word, less than an hour later, the outline of Viktor’s fortress appeared in front of us.
“Is that it?” Godfried asked with uncertainty.
“Yes,” Ishida said. “That’s it.”
We grew closer, and the outline of a mountain appeared behind the fortress when it came into full view. The fortress itself was made out of wooden logs, just like I remembered, but it was better kept than before. The wood was darker, a fresh coat of varnish applied to protect it from the elements, and it was clear that someone had actively maintained it. Where once there were haphazard paint jobs and short-term fixes to broken parts, there was now an almost flawless exterior, amber-colored and well-finished.
“You were right.” I smiled and turned to Freyja. “It got fixed up pretty nicely.”
The fox-elf let out a sigh. “It was even better before the blight.”
“We’ll fix that,” I assured her, but before I could say more, Godfried let out a cry of alarm.
“Is… is that what I think it is?!” the kid stammered, pointing in the direction of the thin outline of the gray mountain shrouded in wispy fog poking out from behind the trees around the fortress.
“Indeed...” Nadeine started to say as Freyja and I turned to see what Godfried was pointing at, but before she could continue, a flash of light, brighter than anything I had ever seen, appeared in front of the mountain. It was so intense that it nearly blinded me for a moment. I raised my hand to cover my face and winced at the light, but by the time I had done so, it winked out almost as quickly as it appeared.
“Was that what your people saw before?” Bernsten asked Ishida, still wincing and covering his own face.
“I believe so,” she mused through the hands plastered over her face, “though Akash didn’t describe it as quite so bright.”
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t normal,” I said as I looked at the mountain warily. Godfried looked the most distressed, as if he expected the light to reappear at any moment… and to be fair, he was probably right. “We should go inside in case it comes back.”
“Indeed,” Bernsten agreed. “I do not wish to lose my sense of sight.” He continued to hold his hand up reflexively, and I guess that was a good thing for him, because, at that moment, the light reappeared, causing us all to call out in frustration. He pulled on his horse’s reins to lead him towards the large wooden double doors at the fortress’ entrance.
The rest of us followed him, obscuring the light to the best of our abilities. The horses, for their part, understood what we were doing and rushed in the direction of the building in hopes of saving their own sight. Once at the doors, we dismounted our horses, and Bernsten pulled them open, ushering his horse inside. The rest of us followed suit, and I shut the door tightly behind Bill and me. We all sighed in relief once safely inside.
“What was that light?” Freyja gasped as she rubbed her eyes, no doubt attempting to clear away the remnants of the light beneath her eyelids.
I couldn’t blame her. Whenever I blinked, I could see it again, and when my eyes were open, my field of vision was darkened.
“It must be part of his spell,” I said, gesturing vaguely off towards the mountains to indicate the looming presence of our unknown enemy. Then I pressed my palms into my own eyes to try to get my vision back to normal. It helped a bit, and my surroundings grew a bit brighter.
Just like its exterior, the fortress’ interior had been updated since I’d last seen it. It no longer had a dilapidated quality to it, and the amber wooden walls now almost glowed with their new finishing. It wasn’t musty and gross anymore, either, but rather invoked a kind of cozy cabin feel. I felt completely comfortable there in a way that I never had before. The only thing that bothered me about it now was the dead flora and fauna surrounding it.
“If that is so, it is a p
owerful spell indeed,” Godfried said, his eyes wide, nearly shell shocked from our recent experience. He blinked furiously, trying to fix his own field of vision.
Marinka leaned back against the wall and ran her hands through her horse’s mane. “It must have been, to render the forest in such a state.” Her horse huffed and shifted on its hooves like the others, unsettled by what had happened. Some light still came in through the cracks in the doors, but all it did was illuminate the interior eerily as opposed to being full-on blinding, like lightning strikes seen through window blinds.
“Should we go inside?” I asked, gesturing down the hallway to where I knew at least one room was located.
“I believe we should wait until it goes away.” Nadeine pointed to the light still flooding through the cracks in the door. “At least long enough for us to cover the windows inside the rooms.”
“Right, good call,” I said, nodding curtly. I wouldn’t want to walk in the room just to be blinded again.
Marinka bit her lip as she watched the continued glow in the cracks with some trepidation. “His spell must be escalating.”
“Or it’s been like that the whole time,” I quickly added in an effort to keep our team’s morale up. After all, wild speculation would only lead to panic. “It’s entirely possible that we just haven’t been near enough to the mountains to see it.”
“I do not know,” Bernsten said slowly. “It strikes me that we would have seen a light that shone so brightly.”
“Maybe.” I thought about it for a moment, and then something struck me. “But what are the odds that it started just as we could see the mountains? The light in the clearing was bright, but we couldn’t see it from very far back in the underbrush. Maybe that’s part of the spell, obscuring its effects.”
“Perhaps,” Marinka said, furrowing her brows together in thought. “That would make more sense unless our enemy somehow found a way to watch us and made the light for our benefit.”
Ishida’s eyes widened. “Now, that’s a frightening thought.”
“These are all frightening thoughts.” Bernsten sighed and ran a hand through his shoulder-length jet black hair.
“Indeed,” Marinka said as she tapped her head back against the wall with a deep sigh and slumping shoulders.
At that moment, the light from the cracks in the door disappeared, shrouding us in darkness, my illumination spell left to fall away the moment we were almost blinded.
“Let’s go,” I said hurriedly and gestured down the hallway in the darkness. “We should get out of here and cover the windows before it comes back.”
“Yes, we should hurry,” Nadeine agreed in the gloom, and we made our way down the hallway.
I fumbled with the first outline of a door I could find and pushed us all into it haphazardly. There was a window on the other side of the room, and just as Nadeine had predicted, its flannel shades were open. I ran over and pulled them together, covering the window so that the blinding light wouldn’t affect us as much.
Just as the curtains were closed, the light reappeared, illuminating the room for us.
“That will be bothersome when we are attempting to sleep,” Bernsten commented, glancing at the window with distaste.
He was right. Though the curtains kept the light from blinding us, the room while the light was shining was as bright as if there were high-power light bulbs on from back home. It would be difficult to sleep in these conditions.
“If all else fails, we will have to sleep in the hallway.” Marinka shook her head and sighed. “Honestly, it is the least of our problems.”
“You’re right,” I told her and turned to the rest of the group. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about, like what it all means.” I gestured towards the covered window and the blazing light beyond it.
“I am hopeful that this is not an escalation,” the scholarly princess mused, “but rather merely the way his spell has always manifested itself in this region of the forest.”
“I hope so as well,” Nadeine agreed. “Either way, we must decide what we are to do now that we have arrived at the edge of the forest.”
“Do we just start climbing the mountain?” I asked. I was a city boy, after all, who thought that a camping trip was roughing it before my adventures here. “Or is there a way to navigate between the mountains without going up and down all of them?”
Marinka shook her head. “We do not know. I am sorry we do not have more information for you, Leo. We know so little about the mountain elves and their realm.”
“It’s not your fault,” I sighed, though I did wish we knew more. “I guess the only thing we can do then is to just go for it.”
“Go for it?” Godfried raised his eyebrows in alarm. “What does this mean?”
“It means we should just go into the mountains and see what happens,” I explained. “That’s been the plan all along, right?”
“Indeed,” Bernsten said with surprising hesitancy, at least for him, “but I must confess that I was hoping we would have been presented with more information by now.”
“As was I,” Nadeine agreed. “Still, we knew this was always a possibility.”
“While this all sounds… necessary,” Ishida cut in, her whiskers twitching nervously, “I must ask: How are we supposed to keep going with that light happening? Won’t we be struck blind before long?”
“That is a good question,” Bernsten said thoughtfully. “Hopefully, it will not show up so often.”
Godfried turned to me with alarm in his eyes. “Is there a spell for this purpose? Something that could protect us, Leo?”
I furrowed my brow in thought as I mulled over the kid’s question. “Not specifically,” I said at last, “but there’s definitely one for darkening an area. We could try that.” And then another idea struck me. “We could try casting it together. Music can often be enhanced by a proper combination of songs, like a choir or an orchestra, so there’s a good possibility magic here works the same.”
“Do we have a scroll for this spell?” Marinka asked.
“I think so.” I reached for one of the packs still strapped to Bill’s saddle. “We’ve been focusing on combat spells for obvious reasons, but I brought a few others in case anything unusual came up, and this is awfully unusual.” I rummaged through the pack and looked through several scrolls that I dug out of the bottom until arriving at the one I wanted. “Here it is.”
I held it out to Marinka. She unfurled it and read through its description. Her eyes narrowed.
“Very well,” she said after a moment’s study. “I believe I can learn this spell this evening. It does not look terribly complicated.” She passed it off to Nadeine so she and Godfried could take a look at it.
“Indeed,” Godfried said after glancing over the scroll. “This is not a difficult spell at all.” Nadeine nodded, and she passed the scroll to Bernsten. He read through it, and with an exaggerated sense of distress, widened his eyes and returned it to me quickly, as if he wanted to be rid of it.
“I do not know, Leo Hayden, my friend.” My buddy shook his head slowly, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I do not believe that this magic business is for me. I may cause great unrest should I attempt to learn and execute this spell with you.”
“Oh, you’re not that bad.” I punched his broad shoulder playfully. “Just learn it and do your best.”
“Very well, Leo Hayden,” he said as he continued to shake his head, “but remember that you were warned.”
I laughed. “Okay, I will.”
“Perhaps your own attitude is holding you back, brother,” Nadeine’s voice was stern, and it was clear that the beautiful knight didn’t get her brother’s joke.
“Ah, you take everything I say and do so seriously, sister.” Bernsten waved away her concern. “Perhaps if you did not do so, you would be a much more pleasant person.”
“Oh?” Nadeine asked, arching her eyebrows in distaste. “Is that so?” She gave me a playful glance before shooting a glare Bernst
en’s way. “Shall we ask Leo and put it to the test?”
I laughed and waved my hands in front of me. “I am not going to get in the middle of this one, sorry.”
“Again, with the seriousness, I was merely jesting, sister, jesting,” Bernsten said hastily, raising his arms over his head as if in anticipation of a blow.
Of course, Nadeine didn’t hit him, but for a moment, it looked like she might… until I caught the faint quirk of a smile. She had caught on to the joke finally, and instead of slugging her brother, she simply made out as if she was going to, punching at the surrounding air.
“My brother,” Nadeine said when she finished. “Always jesting, always.” She rolled her eyes, and we all laughed.
It was a long-needed moment of brevity, and I felt a lot of built-up tension in my shoulders release that I hadn’t even known was there.
20
“I’m getting hungry,” I said when I recovered from my bout of laughter, rubbing my stomach and noticing that it had been grumbling for some time. “And the horses are still all cooped up in their reins. Let’s unpack and eat.”
“Indeed,” Bernsten agreed, moving to remove his own horse’s harness. “Let us eat.” We all removed our horses’ saddles and accompanying packs, allowing them to roam free. They seemed happy to be able to do so out of view of the dead forest, which had had them on edge for the duration of the trip. Hopefully, once we’d entered the mountains, they would loosen up, though I doubted it. We didn’t need to unpack everything since we were indoors now, so there was no need for me to use any of my spells. As I looked around the room, I realized that we were in the same place where we had confronted Viktor what felt like so long ago.
“Wow, this place looks different from how I remember it,” I remarked. “I almost didn’t recognize it.”
