Dark Echoes of Light

by Michael James Ploof

  “What do you mean?” said Azzeal with an amused grin. “Cute like a baby bear cub, or cute like a lass beneath the maypole?”

  “Uhhh…” Ragnar groaned as Raene eyed him dangerously. “A little bit of both?”

  Azzeal gave a small satisfied laugh, but Raene didn’t find it funny at all. Who was this human…this bear of a man who was calling her cute? She was appalled, and she let him know with a stern scowl.

  “So, spit it out. What we lookin’ for?” she asked, snapping off a piece of the jerky.

  “Whill said that he saw the drekkon underground,” said Ragnar.

  “Yes,” said Azzeal, flipping through his small notebook. “And I believe that I will be able to detect such a lair. The drekkon will surely give off gases, and not only that, but heat will rise from the spot. With mind sight, or, I should say, a version of it, I will be able to see which hills, ridges, and mountains they might be inhabiting.”

  “What do ye make o’ the creatures, Azzeal?” said Raene.

  “I think that they are quite amazing. I would love to study one close up…alive, of course. To think that Eadon could have made intelligent creatures able to wield magic. It’s…it’s…well, it is amazing, to say the least.”

  “Amazin’?” said Raene with disgust. “Ain’t nothin’ amazin’ about ‘em.”

  “My lady, I know that they are appalling to you, as they are to me in some regards, but they are also the greatest beings that Eadon ever created.”

  “Eadon was a dark lord.”

  “Indeed, but he was also a master of the art of life-bringing. Not all of his creations were made for war, you know. Some were quite beautiful, and quite useful.” Azzeal sighed. “I believe that in the end, Eadon was misunderstood. He had a dark heart, that is true, but to be fair, he had a brilliant mind as well.”

  “It ain’t brilliant to be mixin’ dragons with elves, or dragons with dwarves, or dragons with anybody. It be the work o’ an evil madman. And that be that.”

  “I tend to agree with the lass,” said Ragnar, smiling at her.

  She scoffed and pulled two dead rabbits from her satchel and tossed them to Moonbeam.

  By morning they had flown far north of Lake Ellarin, and still Azzeal had seen no indication of the drekkon stronghold. The elf began to grow concerned that perhaps he had missed it, for they could see a distant mountain range to the north, and beyond that, Azzeal said, lay the long stretch of frozen land.

  Roakore had told her about the mountain range, for he had spotted it and another on an old map of Drindellia that Zerafin had given him. The map labeled the range to the north Olgen’Dy. And the other, a long spine-like range that reminded Raene of the Ky’Dren Mountains, had been labeled the Drogan Mountains. The names were Old Dwarvish, there was no doubt about that. But aside from their names, nothing else was known. Not even the elves, with their long histories, knew more about the mountain ranges or the dwarves who had once lived there.

  As they flew farther north, and as the Olgen’Dy range grew on the horizon, Raene began to wonder if perhaps the drekkon had made their home in the old mountain. The thought made her blood boil. Here she thought the dwarves had rid themselves of the draggard spawn, but they seemed to be worse than cockroaches.

  “It may be that there are powerful wards around the drekkon stronghold, for I have seen nothing with mind sight,” said Azzeal. “But I have a few other tricks. Come, let us land and I shall ask the animals of the forest what they know.”

  Raene and Ragnar glanced at each other with the same curiosity, and the big man shrugged. They steered their mounts down and landed upon the banks of a small river. The forest was sparse and young here, consisting of mostly small oaks and elms, with a spattering of pine and birch. Last year’s dried leaves crunched with the scurrying of small animals. Small birds and squirrels sang songs of warning at the sight of the dragon and silver hawk, and the area cleared quickly.

  “We will have to leave you and Moonbeam here, Zorriaz,” said Azzeal.

  The dragon looked south. “Take your time. I will be hunting.”

  Zorriaz leapt high and took to the air. Moonbeam cocked her head at the dragon, glanced at Raene, and took off after Zorriaz.

  “Follow me,” Azzeal sang.

  Raene took up the rear, not wanting Ragnar following her all day. She thought that he would probably be staring at her butt the entire time. Human males were just as bad as dwarves and had fewer manners. When her breasts had started to grow large at a young age, her mother had sat her down to tell her how males would treat her different, for if dwarves had such a thing as a tomboy, then Raene was it. She didn’t understand how the size of her breasts might make her young male friends act different, but act different they did. Her bubble butt—as her mother called it—only made matters worse. For years Raene had been wrapping her bosom uncomfortably and wearing baggy pants so that she would be treated like one of the guys, but little good it did her. It wasn’t until she broke the arm and bloodied the face of a dwarf lad who pinched her backside that she got the respect she wanted and deserved.

  She followed Ragnar and Azzeal and hunkered down with the elf behind a patch of thick brambles and briar bushes. He put a finger to his lips before pointing at himself and the distant songbirds leaping and flying from branch to branch in the trees beyond. Azzeal then pointed at Raene and Ragnar.

  “We get it. We stay here, you go,” said Raene.

  Azzeal stiffened, hunched, and glanced back at the songbirds warily. He then put a finger to his lips once more.

  Raene sighed.

  Azzeal ignored her and, to her surprise, began tweeting like one of the birds and popping this way and that through the bramble while pecking and kicking the dirt back. There was silence in the young forest, but then all at once the birds began to chirp and sing. They gathered around Azzeal as he hopped and pecked his way into a glen and, to Raene’s astonishment, proceeded to have a conversation with the flock.

  Ragnar was chuckling beside her, and Raene had to agree that it was a wonderfully ridiculous sight.

  After a few minutes of excited chirrups, whistles, and tweets, the birds all fell silent. Azzeal said something to them in their bird language, and as one, they all flew off to the north.

  “What did they say?” Ragnar asked when Azzeal returned.

  “They have seen the drekkon in this area,” said Azzeal, seeming quite pleased with himself. But he then frowned at Raene. “I am afraid you will not like the news, however. Their lair seems to be in the mountains to the north.”

  “Sons o’ bitches!” Raene kicked a rock, but it was not enough. She found the largest one she could find, lifted it with her mind, and shoved it with all her might. She grumbled and cursed as the stone crashed through the forest.

  “I think you were right,” said Ragnar. “She didn’t like that at all.”

  “Ye thinkin’ this be funny?” said Raene, squaring on the smiling man.

  His face dropped when he saw how serious she was. “No, I’m sorry. I was wrong to make light of it,” he said, and he pressed his right fist to his chest.

  “Bah! But what else the birds say?”

  “Quite interestingly, they told me that the drekkon use them in the same way,” said Azzeal. “They are spies, you see.”

  “Have they already reported our presence?” Ragnar asked.

  “They have. But I asked them to go to their master and tell them that we flew away. It will confuse the drekkon for a little while; that is, of course, until their other spies give us away.”

  “How we supposed to spy on the drekkon if they know we’re here?” said Raene, growing increasingly frustrated by the entire quest.

  “Very carefully,” said Azzeal, offering her a pleasant smile.

  Chapter 22

  Trouble at Home

  Roakore smiled when he and his sons stepped through the portal and saw the peak of his beloved mountain. He had only been gone from Agora for a few months, but now he was realizing how much
he had missed it. For this was home. And though the world was large and its wonders endless, Agora would always be home.

  “Ah,” said Ardmar. “It be Ro’Sar.”

  “It be home,” said Denmar with a sniffle.

  There were a dozen dwarves guards watching the portal, and when they saw their old king walk through, they promptly lowered their weapons.

  “Any disturbances?” Roakore asked the closest guard. “Anythin’…ye know, been comin’ to and fro from this here portal?”

  “Nothing, sire. We keep a good eye on it too, we do.”

  “Aye, then. Keep up the good work.”

  He mounted Silverwind and together with his sons flew for the mountain peak. As they approached, Silverwind gave a coo and banked toward the perch nestled high near the peak of the mountain. She landed deftly and proceeded to rush over to her favorite perch and kick out the silver hawk sleeping there.

  “Ah, be nice,” said Roakore as he dismounted.

  “Me king!” said the hawk trainer as he came rushing in from the adjoining saddle shop. “Me king!” he said again excitedly.

  “Aye, it be me. Go on and fetch some feed and hawksbane. Some water too. And tell the nearest guard to report my arrival to me son, the king.”

  “Aye, me king, aye. Glad to have ye home, sire, if I might be sayin’.”

  “Ye may be sayin’, and it be good to be back.”

  After seeing that the hawks were comfortable, Roakore and his sons met with Helzendar, who greeted them in his study, one that had been used by every king of the Ro’Sar Mountains going back for generations.

  “Hello Father, me king,” said Helzendar, slamming his fist to his chest and similarly greeting his brothers.

  “Aye, Helzendar, me boy. Ye look like ye’ve grown since I last saw ye,” said Roakore, moving to the bar and its vast collection of rare and expensive spirits.

  “I don’t know about all that, but I can tell ye I might’ve aged a little. I never understood how much work went into bein’ a king.”

  “Aye, the crown brings many a sleepless night.” Roakore poured four drinks and gathered his sons around the bar. “To me sons, the best lads a dwarf could ever hope for.”

  They clanged glasses and tossed them back. All the while, Helzendar watched his father. He knew something was up, but he was waiting for Roakore to tell it on his own time.

  Roakore cleared his throat. The words that he had to say were like bile. “I got some bad news, Helz. We…we had to evacuate the mountain.”

  Helzendar blanched. “Ky’Dren’s beard, Pa, what was it that drove ye out? Tell me it just be noxious gasses, and not the draggard.”

  “It weren’t the draggard. It be somethin’ new, some kind o’ telepathic creature. Albinos we be callin’ ‘em, on account o’ their pale skin and red eyes. They be like…well, they be like little hairless dwarves.”

  “Ky’Dren’s beard….ye think…ye think they really be dwarves?”

  “No, no, o’ course not. That just what they be lookin’ like. Probably one o’ Eadon’s hellish experiments.”

  “But that means…” Helzendar faltered, and Roakore knew what was on his mind.

  “Aye, if I die before I take back the mountain, then me spirit will linger in them halls forever. If I die before I take back the mountain, I’ll share me father’s fate.”

  “Aw, Pa, none o’ that talk now,” said Denmar.

  “Yeah,” Ardmar added. “We’ll be takin’ it back. Ye’ll see.”

  Roakore’s eyes watered, but he didn’t bother to try and hide it. He felt shame burning in him, and he found that he couldn’t meet his sons’ eyes.

  “We’ll take it back if it’s the last thing we do,” said Helzendar.

  Roakore threw back another shot and refilled his glass, downing this one as well. His throat burned with sorrow. How could he face the other kings? How could he face his people? Roakore had not only lost a mountain, but he had lost THE mountain, the ancient home of Ky’Dren.

  “Bah, but I shouldn’t have listened to yer mother,” he said to Helzendar. “I shoulda never ordered the evacuation. Better that we all died tryin’ to fight the beasts than turn tail and run. I’ve brought disgrace to our people. I’ve let ye all down.”

  “Disgrace?” Helzendar looked confused. He shook his head, his own eyes tearing. “Father, how could ye, the king o’ kings, bring disgrace to our people? After all that ye’ve done?”

  “It ain’t what ye’ve done, lad. It be what ye do what matters. And what I did was retreat. The gods have seen what I did, and surely they be shakin’ their heads in disappointment. For the first time in me life…” Roakore felt the burning sorrow grow in his throat, and he washed it down with another glass of liquor. “For the first time in me life, I feel…I feel like I ain’t goin’ to be welcome in the Mountain o’ the Gods.”

  “That just ain’t true,” Helzendar began.

  Roakore slammed his glass on the bar, smashing it and sending pieces flying in all directions. “It be the way o’ the gods!”

  The three young dwarves bowed their heads.

  “Bah!” said Roakore as he began pacing. “I ain’t been meself.”

  “Father,” said Helzendar, stopping his father in his pacing and putting his metal hand upon his shoulder. “We’ll get the mountain back. Ye hear? We be gettin’ it back.”

  Roakore tried to compose himself. He took deep, slow breaths, like Arrianna often told him to do.

  “Come with me to the Elgar and Ky’Dren Mountains. We’ll take Whill’s portals. I got to tell the others what happened. If we’re goin’ to take the mountain back, we’re goin’ to need more warriors.”

  “Aye, Father,” said Helzendar.

  “We’re goin’ back to Drindellia with an army, and we’re takin’ back that blasted mountain. There be other problems as well; I ain’t even told ye ‘bout the drekkon.”

  “Drekkon?” said Helzendar.

  Roakore sighed, and he began telling Helzendar about the newest breed of draggard.

  Roakore was scheduled to meet with his wives that night. He paced back and forth before the door to the dining hall, trying to calm himself. He was stalling, for his wives all waited for him in the dining room. With a sigh, he pushed through the doors. His twenty-six wives sat at the long table, and to Roakore’s surprise, they all remained silent as he walked in. They did not stand, as was customary. Indeed, they did not move, they did not blink; they just watched him, their faces blank and unreadable.

  He said nothing, but moved to the head of the table and sat.

  The wife closest to him glanced at a server and nodded. Intrigued and thinking that something was going on, something that he would not like, Roakore watched the server move to the door and let in a skinny but tall human man wearing a suit and carrying with him a stack of scrolls.

  “Who’s this?”

  His wives did not speak.

  “Hello, hello,” said the skinny man as he ambled over and extended his hand. Half the scrolls slid to the side, and so the lanky man struck an awkward pose, trying to keep his papers in order.

  Roakore ignored the offered hand, scanned the table full of wives, and scowled at the man. “Who in the hells this be?”

  “Ah, yes, of course.” The man put his stack of papers on the table and slammed his fist to his chest. “Greetings, good King Roakore. My name is Benson Heggle Kingsly the Third.”

  “Great. What the hells ye want?”

  “I’m a lawyer, like my father before me, and his father before him, and his father be—”

  “Ye really be testin’ me patience,” Roakore warned.

  “I have been employed by your wives to represent them in a litigation against you, good king.”

  “Litigation?” said Roakore, looking to his wives. They, however, remained frustratingly silent.

  “A lawsuit, good king.”

  “A lawsuit?” said Roakore, ignoring the man and glowering at his wives. “Have ye all lost yer damned fool hea
ds?”

  “Your wives’ demands are thus—”

  “Demands?” Roakore said, turning his ire toward Benson.

  “We want ye to divorce that Arrianna,” said Vergy, one of his first and oldest wives. “Or else we be divorcin’ ye!”

  “Divorce? Divorce! Ye be out o’ yer heads for sure! Dwarves do not divorce.”

  “Well, good king, if I may—”

  “Shut yer yapper, Benson,” said Roakore.

  “Ye gave us the same rights as males,” said another wife. “Ye remember? And we want a divorce.”

  “Ky’Dren’s sake. Look at the lot o’ ye. A bunch o’ backstabbers if I ever seen ‘em. Ye know what I been dealin’ with in Drindellia? There be albinos, drekkon—”

  “You chose to go there,” said Vergy. “And ye chose to only bring that whore, Arrianna. Sorry if we ain’t sympathetic to yer problems, but ye always got problems, Roakore, always, and ye never pay no attention to any o’ us. Ye want one wife? Fine. But we be gettin’ what be comin’ to us.”

  “Oh, ye’re goin’ to get what be comin’ to ye, ye can bet on that.”

  “You see?” said one wife to Benson. “Ye see how mean he be? He makes threats, he ignores us, he treats us like…like breedin’ heifers.”

  “Breedin’…” Roakore wanted to explode. He wanted to flip the table. He wanted to storm out of there and never look back. “After all I done for ye, this be the thanks I get? I made ye all queens, for Ky’Dren’s sake. Ye think I wanted so many wives? Ye think I wanted me clan to be nearly wiped out by the draggard?” He slammed the table with his fist, causing Benson and many of his wives to jump. “We needed to rebuild the clan, so we did what we had to do. And now I return from Drindellia with the weight o’ the mountain on me shoulders, and ye put this in me lap?”

  “We ain’t wantin’ it this way either,” said Vergy. “But ye done disgraced us by leavin’ us here and runnin’ off with Arrianna.”

  “It ain’t gotta be this way,” said Fuchsia, a sweet young dwarf whom Roakore favored over many. “We love ye, Roakore, but ye can’t forsake us all for but one o’ yer wives.”