by RG Long
She took a step towards him when she heard a shrill, commanding voice in her head.
“Laserie! No!”
In stark contrast to the warning voice of the elves she knew to be her parents, this voice was sharp and painful. It felt like death. It felt like agony. She didn’t want to turn to look at this voice. It felt like something she could not control. She looked back at her elf parents however, the faces were no longer warm. They were angry. Upset.
“Laserie? Don’t you love us? Don’t you want to be with your parents? End this quest! You have fulfilled your duty!!”
“I want to come home to you!” Laserie shouted, throwing her hands over her ears. Still the voices spoke to her.
“Do not step towards them!” that’s shrill command a voice said again. “Take a step backwards. One step backward.”
Laserie looked behind her. Where there had been a field, there was now a chasm. A canyon so deep and so black that it seemed to consume her. Her heels were just on the edge of it. There was no more earth behind her. To step back would be death. To do so she would fall and never stop falling. She will be trapped in that dark chasm forever.
She looked forward and now saw that her parents were laying on the ground. They were wounded. Hurt. In pain.
“Help us, Laserie!” her father yelled. “We’re dying! You have the cure! Help us!”
Her mother pleaded with her.
“Please, Laserie! Save us!”
Laserie look down in her hands. Where she had once held a dagger, now there was a vial. Medicine. This was what her parents needed to live. To survive. All she had to do was give this to them and she could have a home. A family. She could live in peace and not worry about towers, rimstones, or plagues.
Plagues.
Laserie took a deep breath. She steeled herself. Clutching the vial in her hand, she steeled herself for what she had to do. She looked at the two elves who lay on the ground in front of her, pleading for her to save their lives. Pleading for her to come and have a home with them.
And she took one deliver deliberate step backward.
She felt like she had fallen from the balcony of her tower. In reality, she had fallen out of the dream. The illusion that had sprung up around her. It all came crashing down with her one step backwards.
Tendrils of green still floated through the air. The Skrilx who had accompanied her stood still in a circle around her.
She looked up as she realized that tears were streaming down her eyes. Her cheeks were wet with her emotional subs.
Acred, who had called down to her, whose voice she had followed and listened to instead of the illusion of parents, reached down a hand and pulled her up.
“You are strong,” he said. “Much stronger than the acolyte who came before you. Come now. The worst is over. Let’s continue to make our way through the plague.”
39: Chapter
Blume dipped the cloth in the cold liquid again. She wrung it out slightly while trying to leave as much as liquid so it would not make a mess as she put it back on Galp’s forehead. Ever since he had passed out, he had been taken with a raging fever. He was moaning too. Moaning as if he were in terrible pain.
Blume worried for him. She did not know what the Court of Three had done to him, but whatever it was he was not recovering well.
She had sent Jurrin to go explore. His main quest was to find where the book had gone. To maybe ask the King if it was possible if they could get it from the headmistress. She had not yet turned it over to him. He had said as much.
But Blume was sure the king had other plans and concerns. If they were to retrieve that book, it would be on their own power and potentially, without the blessing of the king.
“Plague,” Galp said weakly.
“What’s that?” Blume asked as she dabbed the cloth on his forehead.
“Plague,” Galp said again.
He moaned again and shifted his body as if he was uncomfortable or in pain.
Blume hated to see him in this way. There weren’t any visible marks or scars on his body that she could find. Nothing that would speak of torture or mistreatment. Yet something had to have happened to him in the Court for him to be this way. He was normally so talkative and kind.
This sickness had to have come from them.
She hated for him to be in pain. She didn’t know what to do specifically, so she thought it might do him well to speak a spell of healing over him. Perhaps she could at least ease his fever or his pain.
Blume began to chant slowly over him, whispering a song of healing.
Galpin gasped and sat up so quickly that Blume spilled the bowl of liquid that she held in her lap. It’s shattered as it hit the floor.
Galp’s scream was so loud and so terrible that she covered her ears.
“No! No! Stop! Get away for me!”
Galp lashed out with his paws, claws extended. Blume barely got out of the way when he threw the chair she had been sitting on to the floor.
“Get away,” he said again weakly. “No more.”
He toppled out of the bed. He tried to raise himself up but couldn’t. He collapsed again onto the stones moaning.
“No more...”
Blume felt herself breathing heavily. What had happened? She’s only tried to heal him. To speak a song of peace over him. Why had he reacted so violently to her? What had they done to him?
She heard footsteps in the hall and tried to compose herself as Teresa and Urt came running into the room, followed by a servant who looked distraught.
“It’s okay,” Blume tried to say. “It’s okay. He just had a nightmare or a dream or something.”
“What’s this?” Teresa said, looking at the chair that had fallen to the floor. Very visible claw marks were scratched into the back of it.
Blume shook her head and waved her hands.
“Nothing, nothing,” she said. “Something that...”
She didn’t want to say it was something that she had done. It wasn’t. Nor could she have done. But she didn’t want to blame Galp for anything that might seem violent either. Rerial was so prejudiced against the felines.
“He’s just traumatized, that’s all”, she said moving to Galp and trying to pick him up off the floor. He was so light now it wasn’t difficult. She was able to lift him, but Teresa still moved to help.
He only moaned and squirmed a little as they put him back into the bed. The servant cleaned up the bowl and liquid before bowing and seeing herself out.
Urt watched her go.
“What really happened?” he asked.
Blume looked up at the powerful Skrilx and hated to lie. Besides, she could trust them both.
“He lashed out,” she said truthfully.
He looked down at her for some long moments before looking at Galp.
“See that he doesn’t again,” Urt said. “I would hate to think what would happen if a Skrilx harmed someone in the care of the Commodore.”
Blume nodded. She knew. They were lucky this time that it was only a servant who had come running. Lord Evan was kind to them. How kind would he be to a Skrilx in his care that lashed out unexpectedly. Teresa and Urt had explained a little of what they had found in the books from the library.
The library.
Teresa, she said looking up at the Skrilx and the woman. Could you do something for me? In the library?
40: Hideout
Ealrin felt himself breathing heavily. He did not remember all the details, nor could he bring himself to actually picture what had occurred when he was in rebellion against both his father and the king of the Rerial, but he knew with all his heart that he was in fact, a rebel.
He found himself stumbling in the bar. Both Tucker and Elise grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You think he’s going into shock?” Elise said.
“It’s possible,” Tucker replied. “We need to get him out here.”
Ealrin felt them tug him over the lifeless bodies of the two men and through a door.
He was a rebel.
He was working against his father.
He was trying to work against the king.
What had he done in his past? Who had he been?
As they came to the bottom of the stairs, they came to a lengthy hall. Several doors went off of the passage, but Elise and Tucker bypassed them all. They continued moving Ealrin straight to the end of the hall, until they came to another door that opened into a room smaller than the inn above but well provisioned.
There was a roughhewn table and chairs and a bunkbed. They sat Ealrin down on the bottom bunk and each of them claimed a chair.
“I’m a rebel,” Ealrin said. “Working against my own family. Elise that means you...”
“Calm down,” she said. “There’s a lot we have to explain for you to understand.”
“Explain?” Ealrin asked. “What is there to explain? I’m a rebel! Against the crown and my father. Who I was before I lost my memory? A traitor?”
“No!” Tucker said forcefully. “Ealrin Belouve is no traitor to the crown. We were loyal to the nation of Rerial and knew that it could be better than it was. A Rerial that could be a kingdom worth living in and being proud. One without a corrupt king or a war hungry army. You are not a traitor, Ealrin.”
Tucker pointed his chubby finger right at Ealrin’s chest.
“You’re a hero. Someone who does what’s right.”
“What’s right...” Ealrin let the words fall from his lips.
He had experienced time and time again the feeling that he needed to do what was right. That he needed to be someone who lived a right life and fought for peace and justice. Had this feeling come from the heart of a rebel?
Ealrin shook his head.
He had to listen. He had to get answers. He needed the truth.
“Explain it all to me,” he said. “From the beginning and don’t leave out any details. I need to know it all.”
He took a deep breath.
“I need to know who I am.”
He looked up from having put his head in his hands. The room was dark, only a small rimstone on the door panel lit the inside. It was just enough light to see the expression on their faces. They were both looking concerned. Tucker and Elise exchanged a quick glance and then Elise nodded at him.
“One condition,” she said as she looked Ealrin hard in the eyes.
He didn’t know if he had much of a choice so he shrugged his shoulders.
“If you say so,” he said.
Elise looked at him with a stern expression. He had not seen this look of determination on her face since they had come back. But something about it felt familiar. Like she had looked at him this way before.
She took a deep breath before she spoke.
“Don’t interrupt.”
41: Chapter
Governor Thamund rode this horse warily. He looked back to the see the flag of Severn flying proudly over them: A golden tree on a white diamond. The navy background contrasted with the milky gray sky. It was a dismal spring day.
If he was honest with himself, he felt exposed. The fortified walls of Severn had ultimately done nothing to protect his predecessor. if stone and guards could not keep away assassins, wasn’t it better to be in an open field riding to the next district over? At least this way he could see an assassin coming for him. They were so much open road and space that surely he would be able to tell if there was danger ahead.
Either he would see it, or his scouts would.
He had gone against his better judgment and taking only a dozen men. Truthfully, he wanted a full company of soldiers to come with him on his first official visit as governor. But, if the dwarves to the north west were beginning to march to war, he needed to keep his soldiers where they could defend the capital.
Besides, this was only a trip to negotiate with one of his Lords. He was not off to see an enemy, but a servant of Severn. A friend would be a difficult word to describe the person he intended to visit. They were more like rivals than anything else. Thamund had won the office of deputy Governor underneath his predecessor and beaten out this particular Lord. Whereas he had gone to be the Lord of a district instead.
They had not corresponded with him much sense.
But there was much they needed to discuss now. Strategies. Defensible positions of Severn. And most importantly, soldiers. Men at arms who could be mustered if it came to war with either Taystone or LaGrove or whoever may threaten their borders.
As the dusty road wore on beneath him, Thamund prayed that it would not come to war. He knew his nation could not handle an extended conflict. Not in the state it was in at the moment.
Not in the state it would be in another five years.
That was why Thamund needed allies. That was why he was on the road now.
They’re giving themselves plenty of time to make the long journey. It would normally take three days to ride the distance between the capital and the closest city. Thamund was hoping that they would be able to cut that time down by getting fresh horses and resting only as little as needed.
He did not normally enjoy traveling. He was not one to leave the capital in unless it was an emergency. This was certainly a time of emergencies.
“Sir,” one of his men said from behind him. “There’s a scout riding up.”
Thamund turned his attention to the road ahead and saw that one of his scouts was indeed making his way back towards the main group. His navy cloak flew in the wind as he sped his mount back to the main group.
For a moment Thamund thought about asking the group to stop so that they could receive the message. But he didn’t want to look weak and he didn’t want to lose any time. He kept them all marching on.
The scout came and met them and turned his horse around.
“Governor Thamund,” he said as he matched his mount’s speed to Thamund’s. “There’s already a delegation of dwarves at the city already. They’ve been meeting with the leadership for the last three days.”
“What?” Thamund balked. “I thought that delegation was returned back to Taystone!”
“I don’t believe it’s the same one,” the guard said. “I think it may be a different group of dwarves.”
“What other dwarves are there on...” Thamund began to ask as he looked out and saw the city beginning to crest over the road ahead. Then he remembered.
“The court?” he asked.
The scout nodded.
“That’s what our information tells us,” he replied.
“The suns spare us,” Thamund whispered under his breath.
He was already not looking forward to this trip. Now it was becoming even less desirable to him.
“Can the horses make it the rest of the journey?” Thamund asked the soldier behind him.
“We could trade them out at one more post at midday,” he replied. “Then we should be able to make the rest of the journey quickly.”
“Then let’s do so,” Thamund said.
Dwarves and elves. Severn and Taystone. The Court and LaGrove.
What was happening on their continent and what part would he play? He didn’t know what he would do with the power that had been granted to him. But he knew that he had to protect his nation at all costs. He was the governor. And he would ensure that Severn did not fall while under his watch.
Then let us make sure we reach our destination as soon as possible.
Governor Thamund had thought that his predecessor saw the worst of their times. The closer they got to the city, the more uneasy he felt that harder times were ahead of him.
42: For the Sake of Peace
Chief Rark was beside herself. Not only had they not had strangers in
their land for over a decade, they now had what felt like a dozen. And more seemed to coming with each passing hour.
Just after they had settled from the chaos of Firag bringing in an old man and sea faring captain, another one of her guards came up to say that an elf and a dwarf had washed up on the shore and were currently being brought to the council.
She sat in disbelief as she watched this gathering of friends. Or so they said. She still thought it was possible they could be spies from the mainland who wanted to see what the Skrilx were doing.
If they were spies, this was the strangest way to get information Rark had ever seen.
But there was no way they could know for sure.
On the one hand, these people didn’t seem like spies. They were genuinely happy to see one another, though their questions at each other were so rapid that she was having a difficult time keeping up.
“What happened?”
“Bah. Just got a little water logged is all. That dragon is what saved us. Flew us right to the island.”
“And what about you, Serinde?”
“I thought you all were supposed to stay back and settle things between The Blue Swords and the Night Watch?”
“That was the original goal until Miss Magic here decided she wanted to try to teleport us across the island.”
“Without our permission you know?”
“And so you landed here?”
“Not quite, more in the water. But not so far that we couldn’t swim.”
“What about the halfling? And Octus?”
“Apparently, they weren’t standing close enough to be absorbed in the spell.”
“Be thankful you didn’t land further out in the ocean.”
“I saw land when I attempted it,” the girl with red markings on her body said. “I just misjudged a little.”
“It took us three days to fly here on the Sky Dart! You misjudged by half of Gilia?”
