by Greg Curtis
And there was no way to stop the process.
“Time,” she addressed the golem with the markings of the jester on his shoulder, “you cannot see back to before you were here. But is it possible that others will be able to?”
“You mean mortals?” He stared at her in surprise. “But you are so limited.”
Elodie sighed. These golem elves were almost without emotion, but somehow they still retained their arrogance. Vanity and pride. It probably bothered them that she had taken charge. If they could truly be bothered by anything. But she was the Guardian, and they had to respect that.
“You forget, you're the one who has been limited.” And that was a troubling thought in itself. Why had their creators not wanted the thrones to know why they had been created? Or who by? More desperation?
She didn't know what the answer was, but she didn't like it.
Time wasn't happy with being called limited, so she gathered from his silence. But he also clearly didn't have an answer. Or at least he didn't give her one. He just stood there. Like a machine with no orders. So eventually she decided to give him one. To prepare a sending that could go to all those casters out there who had sat on his chair. The thrones couldn't actually make a sending, but they could prepare one which she could then send for them. For all their limitations and lack of emotion, they were incredibly good with things like logic. They could assemble her confused thoughts into something far more coherent. Still they really did need a guardian.
“And Dimension, we're going to need a map. A way in which the people, the casters, can know what sort of world will eventually arrive on their border and when the portal wall will fail. Something that can let them prepare for whatever they might have to face. Can you do that?”
“Some,” the golem elf replied. “But it will take time to prepare a complete map.”
“Alright, so that's what we do. We carry on with the plan.” Not that it was much of a plan. She made a sending – a number of sendings – and delivered copies of the books the sprites had taken from the library, and then sat back and waited for someone to start working out what to do. It wasn't so much a plan as simply telling people what she knew. Still it was all she had. Which was why she got up and headed for the portal room to do the sending.
Maybe someone else could work it all out for her. And in time life could return to how it had been. Or not. There was still one uncertainty that troubled her. The world might be returning to how it had originally been before the portal walls had been built, but what did that mean for the Temple? Because the wall around it wasn't the same. It bordered the void. And she didn't know why.
Chapter Thirty Three
Town was busy. But more importantly it was happy. Word of Elodie's sending had made it around the people of Charlton and there was relief. According to the criers the same was true across the entire realm. Maybe all the realms. Almost certainly.
They weren't all going to die – at least not immediately. Chy was relieved too. For so long it seemed, he had been living with a headman's axe hanging over his head. Now that axe was gone. Some days he actually woke up smiling like a village idiot.
Of just as much importance to Chy, Elodie was well and had somehow reclaimed the Temple. He didn't know how she'd done that – her sending had been brief – but regardless she was clearly doing better. And now he understood these perfect golem elves – the thrones – obeyed her. What they could do in terms of fixing all the problems that beset them was unclear. But at least they weren't an enemy. It was a good thing.
And now to add to his blessings he had somehow been given a morning free of calamities. A morning which he could spend restocking his larder and getting another couple of great coats.
He'd had a new type of great coat made up for him. One with a hood and the length to reach his ankles. It was becoming obvious to him that he needed more protection. Those damned flying snakes had taught him that. He'd also had the tailor sew in some leather patches on the front and back for just a little extra protection. It seemed like a sensible idea after the scrapes he'd got in. But on the other hand he was uncomfortably aware how much his great coats were starting to look like wizard robes. He didn't like that. He didn't like that the bards would make up songs about them. They were making up songs about everything else that was new and different, and wizards were high on that list.
The dozen or so other humans with the gift that he'd now met, had all faced the same embarrassment of having songs made up about them. Not to mention tales of their heroic adventures and epic quests. And everything that came out of the bards' mouths was if not a complete flight of fancy, a terrible exaggeration. When had he ever fought a dragon? Battled an army of the undead? Or turned a man into a frog? And his family weren't helping. They were making up half the tales! It was so bad, that he tried to avoid coming to town – not that he had a lot of time for such things anyway.
That was why his pack was so heavy on his back. He was stocking up his larder so that he didn't have to come back to town for a good long while. Of course the straps were cutting into his shoulders, and every so often he felt the need to sit down.
One thing he did like though, was what was happening to Stonely. The town might have been emptied out by the accursed sprites, with only a few – maybe a thousand – residents remaining, but now it had new residents. People from other worlds. Every time he went there he found himself staggered by how many newcomers there there. By how giants walked the streets beside dwarves. Elves rubbed shoulders with the sylph. And the few humans there were that still lived in the town, did their best to carry on as if nothing had happened. It was like a giant version of the Temple's terrace.
It was good to see the town recovering, even if it wasn't growing the same way that it had before. But at the same time he kept wondering – what was the plan for Stonely? Or even if there was a plan? Because it had started out as a base for people to plan their defences against the various disasters that were befalling the world. And the town hall which was now the heart of that operation, was overflowing with maps and messages and people rushing around between portals to send information. But there was more there now. New buildings. Houses being taken over. A trading post.
It might have started out as a base, but it was growing into something else.
And Charlton itself was changing. Not as dramatically perhaps. There were still a great many more humans than anyone else. But there were also dryads now walking through the market stalls, buying and selling. And they weren't just his neighbours from across the road. A second forest village had been formed not far away. But no one seemed to care that people with mottled skins and jagged ears walked among them. In fact they hardly even looked at them. It didn't seem to matter to the locals that there were sun elves in the streets either. That was almost becoming routine. Especially for him since they'd become his neighbours.
The giants from Stonely still attracted a few stares, but then they were nine or ten feet tall. People worried about them. But only because they worried about getting stood on. But as long as they had goods to sell or coin to spend, no one cared.
That was a good thing, he thought. And lately there was so much else out there that wasn't good. People should celebrate it somehow he thought.
Of course there were always some he didn't want to see.
“Whoreson!” A dwarf stumbled his way across the road, moving unsteadily between alehouses, but still somehow sober enough to recognise Chy as he passed him by. And then to spit on the ground.
“Yarin,” he replied with a groan. Why hadn't the damned dwarf gone home? The others had. But even as he wondered that, he knew the answer. Yarin had been named a coward. He couldn't return to his clanhold with that sort of stain on his honour. So he was stuck here for the time being. That was a pain. There were some people who no matter that they might be different and even interesting, didn't belong in Charlton. Or in fact anywhere near civilization.
“Piss pot!” The dwarf headed on down the street having
expressed his opinion as loudly as he could.
Chy sighed, wondered as he often did at how the man kept on his feet, shook his head sadly, and then continued on his journey up the road. There was no point in getting upset about the dwarf. He was like that with nearly everyone. And he wasn't going to change. The best they could hope for was that sooner or later he would run out of coin and have to sober up. He might be a better man without a belly full of ale and cider. But somehow Chy doubted it. The dwarf was horrid all the way through – drunk or sober.
“Wizard.”
A woman greeted him even as he was simply enjoying seeing the back of the dwarf disappearing into the crowd. “Not a wizard,” Chy replied as usual not bothering to look around. “I polish stones.”
“But you are the one the bards keep singing about?”
“I suppose?” He shrugged, and finally turned his attention to the woman. “But they make up nearly everything. They're muck spouts.”
Then he finally set eyes on the woman and stopped worrying about the bards and their lies. He worried instead about her – and what she was. Because she wasn't human, and she wasn't of any of the peoples he'd ever encountered.
She was of the right height to be a human, maybe a little taller, but broader across the shoulders. Oddly, despite her height her legs were shorter than he would have expected. She stood somewhere between the giants and the dwarves in physique. Her hair stood out like the quills of a hedgehog, not even bending at the tips. And it was the colour of midnight which stood out against the bone white of her skin. But then she had pointed ears, but unlike those of the elves, they pointed to the ground. Most troubling though were her ice blue eyes. There was something deeply disturbing about them.
Then there was the way she was dressed – as a man. She was wearing heavy trousers and a simple cotton vest. Some women, often farmers wives wore the same. But they would never have a six inch wide black leather belt with a couple of bronze buckles around their middle. Or a six inch wide black leather collar that fell over her shoulders to match. Or boots with metal points. There was something distinctly military about her outfit. Even before he saw the huge weapon – something between a pistol and a rifle with a cone on the end of it – attached to her belt.
“I'm sorry, Ma'am. But I don't think I've ever seen anyone of your race before.” And for some reason that troubled him.
“And?” She fixed him with a cold stare from those ice blue eyes.
“Sorry,” he mumbled back at her, realising he had spoken out of place. “I didn't mean to give offence.”
“And you fought a dragon?!”
“No!” He was caught by surprise by that. “No one's ever fought a dragon as far as I know! That's just poppycock! The bards making up tales for coin.” In fact it was probably his own family who'd made it up, he thought. They were making a fortune from their songs and tales these days. And of course they claimed every word was true – since their brother was the wizard in question and he'd told them everything himself.
“A hydra?”
“Giant frogs in a swamp – and I didn't fight it. I just froze the swamp.”
“A flaming thunderbird?”
“Haven't heard that one. But no.” He shook his head. And why was she asking about the stories, he wondered? It was pointless. They were all lies. Everyone should know that. Except that the feeling he got from her was that it was deadly serious somehow.
“Then what's your history?”
“History?” Chy didn't understand.
“How many have you defeated? Killed? Have you been bested?”
“Bested? You mean fighting?” Then he stared at her outfit and noticed the weapon on her hip again. She was talking about duelling, he guessed. He asked.
“Of course. What else would a wizard do?!”
“Not that,” Chy replied, wondering just where she'd come from that she should imagine that those with the gift should spend their days in combat with one another. “And there are no wizards,” he reminded her. “Not amongst my people anyway. And these days those of us who have gifts spend all our time just trying to stop the chaos growing all around us.”
“Then you're white!” She told him with a triumphant smile.
“White?” Chy didn't know what that was. But he knew it wasn't good. The look on her face told him that. Then when she yelled at him to defend himself and he saw her reach for her weapon, he gathered it was very bad. Which was why he instinctively numbed her arm so that it didn't respond to her will.
“Bastard!” She screamed at him, and then with a thought and a gesture from her other arm sent him flying across the road.
“Piss!” Chy barely managed to stop himself from hitting the shops with a cast of force himself, and then had to desperately throw himself to one side as a fireball came for his head. Something that wasn't easy with a heavy pack on his back.
The fireball hit something behind him with a terrible crash of thunder and people began screaming and running in all directions, while he realised she was trying to kill him. But he still somehow diverted the next two she launched at him with another wall of force, sending them flying straight up into the sky. Unfortunately that just seemed to make her angrier. And the ground under his feet began to tremble.
Chy barely managed to leap aside before a chasm opened up under his feet, and then had to take to the sky on a carpet of force as more of the ground opened up where he'd landed. But while that saved him from fallig into a chasm, it just gave her another way to attack him and he had to withstand a small hurricane as he floated there. How was she casting so quickly? With such power?
But there was no time to wonder about that, and instead he brought his own answer to her attack. He stunned her as soon as he had his thoughts in order, using his living magic to rob her of her awareness.
It worked. She fell to the ground, helpless, and for a moment he thought it was over. He almost smiled with relief. But it wasn't over! She only stayed down for a few seconds while he was still trying to find his calm and catch his breath. Then she sent a hail of ice blasting at him, and it was Chy's turn to know pain.
Fortunately he stunned her again, and the ice went away, as she collapsed once more to the ground, and he realised he had his weapon.
After that he kept stunning her every time she opened her eyes. It held her, for a few seconds at a time. Long enough to wipe away the blood from his face and wipe down his coat. And to see that Charlton had been badly damaged. Her fireballs had set several of the stores ablaze and the street was in ruins. A lot of people were going to be needed to fill in the chasm she'd created.
“Keep back!” he yelled at the townsfolk as they looked to emerge from the safety of whatever they'd been hiding from. “She's not stopped. I'm just holding her.”
But at least she was being held, he thought as he alighted on the ruined street. And as much as she somehow seemed to be able to throw off the effects of his stunning her in mere seconds, he could recast that magic just as quickly and all day long. But how was she throwing off the magic? If she was unconscious she couldn't cast a defence against the spell that had left her that way. He didn't understand that.
Cautiously he decided to find out, and he approached her. And when he did, when he cast his magical sight on the woman as she lay on the street, he realised that she wasn't what he'd thought. Not exactly. She was covered in runes and glyphs. Enchanted from head to toe. A lot of them were woven into the clothes she was wearing, but a great many more were tattooed into her skin.
Cogs began turning when he saw that. When he saw some of the magic woven into her markings. This was her version of armour – and weapons. And everything he could see on her was about either attack or defence. She was some sort of magical soldier. A duellist. Or maybe an assassin.
Chy quickly decided to do something about that, and with a thought he caused her clothes to decay. And then he cast a healing magic into her flesh, which he thought should remove the tattoos as well as heal her wounds.
&nb
sp; It took time though. The clothes rotted slowly. The leather quickly perished but the canvas and cotton lasted longer. It took long enough that he could give a street urchin a few coins and tell him to run off and buy a horse blanket for her before she ended up completely naked in the middle of the street.
The markings on her skin faded even more slowly. He had her wrapped up in the blanket long before they were even marginally less clear. But that was a good thing. It gave him time to call for one of the great steam wagons to attend to him and then haul her – largely naked by then – body onto one of the back seats. And to strip her of her weapons – and she was wearing a lot of weapons as he discovered. It wasn't just the huge gunpowder weapon on her hip. She had knives everywhere, and most of them were enchanted. There were needles in her hair too – poisoned of course. And iron knuckles in her pockets, complete with small poisoned spines.
