Vlad'War's Anvil

by Rex Hazelton

  All of this led up to where they were now. The second voyage had been made across the sea of transition into the Realm of Vapor where the two were laying together in a loving embrace beneath a canopy of large round-shaped leaves. The Realm of Vapor was special to the waterkynd in ways the other realms weren’t. And Lylah was heading to this very point as the two conversed. For it was time Kaylan was told about this.

  Laying on his side as he looked at the Mythorian who consumed his attention, Kaylan said, “Let’s stay here.”

  Rising up on one elbow as she lay beside Kaylan, Lylah answered with a question, “You mean… make our home here?”

  “Can we?” Kaylan sounded suddenly earnest.

  “Live here?” Lylah looked out past the long, thin stems of the plants sheltering them beneath a roof of overlapping round leaves. The rolling landscape, washed in pleasant pastel colors, was both breathtaking and soothing. This was a warl of plenty, and for good reason, a reason Lylah was about to explain to Kaylan.

  “Yes, we can live here.” Lylah’s laughter was airy. “We’ll make this our second home.”

  “So, you’ll marry me then?” Kaylan’s earnestness was morphing into enthusiasm.

  “Marriage?” Lylah laughed like a mother who was enjoying her child struggling to use words that were beyond their working vocabulary. “I already told you… the waterkynd don’t have such a convention, at least not something with a ceremony that others witness.

  “But you have a mother and a father,” Kaylan pointed out. “Surely they’re married?”

  “They’re Together, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Together?" Kaylan frowned. "Do Mythorians take such things so casually?”

  “I wouldn’t say we’re casual about this. It’s more that things are what they are. And a ceremony wouldn’t add to or subtract from what is.”

  “So... you’re not saying your parents are together today in a way they might not be tomorrow; because if that's so, their relationship would be tragically transitory.” Peering at Lylah with a look that conveyed the depth of his commitment to her, Kaylan added, “I don’t want us to just be together, I want us to be bound by vows so sacred they could never be broken.”

  “You humans are always so serious." Lylah chided Kaylan. “That’s why you fight with each other so much. You don’t know how to flow with things. You’re not fluid enough.”

  Taking umbrage over how easily human behavior was being dismissed, though Kaylan didn't think of himself as being a typical person, he lifted himself up on one elbow to face Lylah. “No, we’re not like water, if that’s what you mean. We’re made of firmer stuff that doesn’t always take the path of least resistance. We’ll even swim against the current if our convictions tell us to.”

  “Hold on, Sweetheart,”Lylah spoke with a disarming smile on her face. She was obviously being entertained by Kaylan’s uncharacteristic outburst. “I don’t want to argue with you, nor do I want you to think Mythorians lack principles. We certainly don't. But our way of dealing with things is different than the humans. Our beliefs don’t make us rigid. Only the most inclement conditions can turn us to ice. Other than that, our beliefs can be bent like a river that sweeps around an obstruction."

  “But wouldn’t that imply the obstruction, let’s say a mountain for example, is stronger than the river if it has to adjust its course to the mountain's presence?”

  “For a time this might seem so," Lylah patiently explained. "But eventually the river, and the rain that feeds it, will wear the mountain down, and a plain will replace the once seemingly invincible obstruction. In the end, the rain will still fall and the river and streams will flow, unchanged as the things the Mythorians hold dear. What do you say to that?” She prodded Kaylan on with a challenging smile.

  Leaning forward and kissing the surprised waterkynd, Kaylan replied, “I think I’d like to flow with you forever, to go where you go, and do what you do. I choose water. Let the humans keep their stones.”

  “Are you saying you want to become a Mythorian?”

  “I think I’ve always been a Mythorian at heart. It just took you to come along for me to see that.” Kaylan kissed Lylah before he repeated his earlier question. “Can we stay here?”

  “As long as we want to. But Mythoria will always be our true home. We can come here,” Lylah smiled a most alluring smile, “to be Together.”

  Kaylan’s face took on a quizzical expression when he heard this. His eyes refused to blink as he tried to guess the meaning of Lylah's words. After a moment of sorting things out, he blinked once, swallowed hard, and said, “Together like… you know… your parents are Together?”

  “Of course silly. That’s why I insisted we come here… to be Together.” With that made clear, Lylah placed a hand on Kaylan’s chest and pushed him to the ground as she said with a measure of sarcasm, “Vows so sacred they can’t be broken.” After a throaty, playful laugh, she added, “Our way of coupling is so much better.”

  Little did Kaylan know that the Realm of Vapor was not only the birthplace of the waterkynd, it was the place where they came to conceive the next generation of Mythorians. It’s funny to think that Kaylan got what he wanted, even before he knew he had it. For this was no passing dalliance. When Mythorians mated, it was for life. Their physical and psychological make-up guaranteed that this would happen. In truth, the waterkynd had no choice in the matter… it was just the way things were. The magic that created them made it so.

  Back in Mythoria, Lylah had given her heart and mind to Kaylan. Here, in the Realm of Vapor she added her body and soul to the mix. The two were now joined Together like the invisible components that constitute water. And because of this, their individual identities were subsumed to the experience of Togetherness. A union had been precipitated whose bonds surpassed anything that verbal vows could produce.

  The next day, Kaylan and Lylah were resting on top of one of the trees that rose gracefully toward the clouds. Impossibly tall for its trunk’s narrow girth, the tree’s branches, and the tens of thousands of leaves they held, extended outward at its highest point to form the round, flat platform the two were seated on. Shaped like overly-plump pine needles, the leaves were soft to the touch. Growing closely together, the succulent foliage formed a carpet-like structure beneath the two of them.

  Lylah was still laughing over the startled look that crossed Kaylan's face when he saw her suddenly leap skyward and land on top of the tree they had been standing next to. She jumped so high, one might have thought she was flying.

  “Come on up, Kaylan” Lylah shouted while standing precariously close to the edge of the press of leaves. Supported by scores of branches, looking like slender arms spreading out to hold up the round platform she was perched on, the tree top provided a wonderful view of the surroundings.

  It took only a little playful banter to get Kaylan to try the jump. He made it on the third try, though Lylah had to grab him by an arm to keep him from falling backwards off of the leafy platform. He didn’t jump high enough the first time. On the second attempt, he ran headlong into the branches that held the round mat made of plump pine needle-shaped leaves aloft. Comforted by the fact that he was able to control his fall and land on his feet, he undertook the third jump with a confidence that led to success.

  The physical laws governing the Realm of Vapor were different from those governing the Warl of Man. Though Kaylan’s body felt the same as in Nyeg Warl, it was actually much lighter, lighter than say a cloud is lighter than coalesced water. And whereas in the Warl of Man everything was pulled downward by an invisible force not fully understood, in the Realm of Vapor things had a certain buoyancy to them, like everything was being drawn skyward. That’s why the trees were so tall and their trunks so slender.

  Sitting on top of the towering arbor, the two lovers ate sweet fruit Lylah had gathered the night before while Kaylan slept. In this place, life was sustained by the rain that fell and the wild fruit and seeds that grew there. Flesh was not eaten
here. Carnivores didn’t exist. Nor did plants have to perish to sustain the life of another. Even the grass that was eaten by the wild oxen grew back like hair on a man’s head.

  Feeling the succulent fruit's invigorating effects, Kaylan leaned in to kiss Lylah. With his ardor renewed, he was ready for dessert. But Lylah was not yet in the same frame of mind, though she struggled to control the urge that surfaced in response to Kaylan's advances. There was something she wanted to tell him first, something her mother had told her long ago.

  “Did you think it strange that you were drawn to me?” Lylah smiled as she placed a firm hand on Kaylan’s chest to keep his enthusiasm at bay.

  “Once I did, but not now,” Kaylan said as he leaned in to kiss Lylah again.

  “Stop it silly.” The waterkynd let out a deep-throated laugh over Kaylan’s welcomed persistence. “Not yet. I have something to tell you first, after you answer my question.”

  Believing he understood the rules to the game he thought they were playing, he took a deep breath and began searching his memories. The quicker I answer, the sooner we can get Together again, he thought as his impatience distracted him from his task.

  “Well?” Lylah looked a little miffed over the lack of attention Kaylan was giving her question.

  Seeing her blue eyes take on a steel-like glint, Kaylan cleared his mind and said, “Yes, I thought it strange, not because I didn't think you were beautiful, for you most certainly are. Since I’ve never seen a bad looking waterkynd, I don’t think that’s what drew me to you. Something else was in play." Kaylan looked at the delightfully strange realm that surrounded him, a place as exotically wonderful as the waterkynd he was speaking to, before he added, "At times, the pull was so strong that the other Mythorians became no more than a picture frame, and you the picture. It was like you were the only real person there."

  The more Kaylan said, the more the topic of conversation caught his attention. Furrowing his brow in contemplation, he was now fully engaged in the subject matter. Why was I drawn to Lylah, he wondered? Drawn is the wrong word, compelled is more like it. Why was I so compelled? This line of reasoning led to a question Kaylan wished to avoid. Was there magic at work, an enchantment, maybe? If this is true... why would Lylah do such a thing?

  Alarmed at the prospect of being manipulated by forces he couldn’t understand, wanting to dismiss his fears, Kaylan turned the tables on Lylah by asking, “Why do you think I was drawn to you? Did you have something to do with it?”

  Laughing good-naturedly, for the waterkynd heard the concern in Kaylan’s voice and understood its meaning, she replied, “Well, I hope so. If I didn’t, we’d have a problem. But if you’re asking whether I used magic to hook you and pull you into the boat as you humans like to say… silly, of course not. Why would I want to come Together with someone who didn’t really want to be with me?”

  Embarrassed over his insinuation, Kaylan said as convincingly as he could, “I want to be with you more than I could ever explain. Lylah... you mean more than life to me. Still, your question is troubling if you look at it from a certain angle. What do you think? Isn't it strange that a human and waterkynd are so drawn to each other?”

  “Kaylan, you mean more than life to me too. That’s what being Together is,” Lylah said before continuing. “Being drawn to one another, as we are, isn’t strange if you knew what I know. But I didn’t come to this understanding until I asked my mother why she thought I was so interested in a human. At the same time, I asked if this bothered her. After all, you’re not a Mythorian male. I asked if my interest in you would bring shame to our family. Would the other Mythorians be offended by my emotions? Would they accept a human as I wanted them too? That's when she said, I’ve been expecting something like this for more than twenty summers now, ever since the Mythorian elders asked me to dance at Jeaf and Muriel Oakenfel’s wedding.”

  On the day that Jeaf took Muriel to be his wife, a waterkynd maiden was seen dancing on top of the nearby Wyne River as the ceremony progressed. To the average onlooker, she appeared to be only a patch of misty vapor swirling above the expanse of water, but to Jeaf, Muriel, and any of the others who had the ability to see beyond the obvious, those with mystical proclivities, the lovely creature was seen for who she was, a waterkynd who had come to bestow Mythoiria’s blessing on the two who saved Nyeg Warl from Ar Warl’s evil incursion and broke the curse that Schmar had cast over the land.

  As it turned out, the waterkynd maiden was Lylah’s mother. She had been asked to do what no Mythorian had done before, to intervene in the affairs of men by blessing the two humans who had chosen to come Together. And the blessing Lylah’s mother bestowed on the couple was no passing thing, no pleasantry given to those one was fond of. No. It was much more. It was a declaration that the waterkynd had awakened to the plight of the humans who lived alongside of them in Nyeg Warl. It was the Mythorian way of saying they were allying themselves with those who resisted Ar Warl’s darkness.

  As it turned out, Jeaf Oakenfel was responsible for this unprecedented act because of the time when Alynd, the Elf-Man, brought him to Mythoria as they were fleeing from Koyer’s agents. His visit had an unexpected and profound affect on the waterkynd community that had found the human’ continual fighting to be wearisome, so much so that they had lost interest in those they considered to be no more than savages.

  Over time, the Mythorians had become barely aware of the humans' existence; that was, until Jeaf Oakenfel came calling. It was Alynd the Elf-Man who made this meeting possible. Since his unique nature, being both man and elf, made him interesting to the otherwise solitary community, he was invited to come to Mythoria. The particular view of life he displayed on his visit, and the way he chose to handle the magic he was entrusted with, made that invitation a perminent one. The fact that Alynd had Andara's tears in his possession didn't hurt his cause.

  By the time Alynd guided the leaf boat ashore with Jeaf aboard, his visits were now a common occurrence. The difference this time was that the Elf-Man had brought someone with him. Prior to this, he had been mindful to come alone. The waterkynd might have been troubled by Alynd's hubris to bring a savage into their midst if it wasn’t for the fact that their recollections of mankind had dimmed so much. And when the memories were finally aroused, the Mythorians chose to tolerate the man who Alynd vouched for.

  After being apprised of Jeaf’s plight, a telling they found only mildly interesting, like it was something one hears about a kingdom they had never been to, the Mythorian’s decided to help the beleaguered young man. Whether this was done on a whim, or that some part of their Powers of Intuition prompted them to do so, they didn’t know.

  Despite the uncertainty the Mythorians felt over the reason why they had chosen to help Jeaf during the passing moons that followed the event, the waterkynd focused a considerable amount of time and effort trying to sort things out. When they melded their essence together with Jeaf's own, so they could transport him back in time to revisit Koyer’s attack on his home, something they were compelled to do believing there were answers the human needed to discover through the experience, the Mythorian’s ended up being changed as much by their exposure to Jeaf as he was by them. What was inside the young Woodswane’s heart and mind, along with the particular relationship he had with the Warl’s Magic, a thing he was unaware of at the time, was indelibly branded on their communal soul. As a result, the waterkynd's desire to know more about the intriguing young man became an itch they had to scratch.

  As the most magically gifted waterkynd expended vast amounts of energy to unravel the mystery of why Jeaf had so unexpectedly impacted Mythoria, a prophetic word emerged that said Jeaf Oakenfel would birth the Mother of the Waterkynd. But this couldn’t be true, because human males didn’t give birth and the waterkynd didn’t have a discernible Mother. Drawn forth by a song that the Singer only sung once, they sprung out of the elements. So, the elders sought clarification for the things the prophets were saying.

  Followi
ng the progress of the compelling young man whose visit had set into motion a search for an answer to the prophetic conundrum, the waterkynd became aware that he had found a talisman filled with great magic called the Hammer of Power; they were informed that he had received Alegramor the Elf-Queen’s blessing that endowed him with powers that could tap into the magic that dwelt in both water and stone, and they were made aware that he had met a young prophetess who was destined to learn to sing the Song of Breaking, Muriel Blood the griffin-woman.

  “There it is,” the prophets cried out together, “the Prophetess and the Hammer Bearer are destined to come Together. That’s what we are seeing.”

  But others asked how they could possibly birth the Mother of the Waterkynd?

  To this the prophets replied, “The word birth must refer to their descendents. Thus, the Mother of the Waterkynd will one of their grandchildren or a child of their grandchildren.”

  “The question remains,” the others replied, “how could they possibly give birth to the Mother of the Waterkynd?”

  “Indeed, this is an enigma,” the prophets admitted. “Whether the interpretation to our utterances is literal or not is up for debate. Nevertheless, the Prophet and the Hammer Bearer will play a vital role in bringing changes to the Warl of the Waterkynd since its time for us to undergo another transformation, one we cannot yet fathom, let alone speculate on.”

  To assuage the waterkynd’s troubled minds, the prophets added: “Be not troubled, for the waterkynd play a part as great as theirs in the transformations that are coming our way, especailly the watekynd maiden who dances for the Prophetess and Hammer Bearer on the day they come Together.

  “What will her role be,” the others asked.

  “Only time will tell,” was the prophet’s final word on the matter. And once they told the others this, the prophecies were all but forgotten except by the waterkynd maiden who held the words close to her heart as she danced on top of the Wyne River during Kaylan’s parents’ wedding ceremony.