by Greg Curtis
What was she he wondered? Some sort of assassin? A killer of wizards? And of what people did she hail? What world? He had no answers.
But at least by the time he was half way to Stonely, and handing his pack to the dryads outside his home, she was more or less disarmed. And she wasn't waking up nearly as quickly either. The markings were fading and with that it seemed, her enchantments.
That was a good thing. But he knew she would still be a threat if she woke. This was not a woman who should ever be taken lightly. Which was why he had the driver fire up the steam engine and have them hurry on as soon as he saw his pack arrive on the patio in front of his home. He wanted to get her locked up somewhere secure with plenty of magical guards watching her as soon as possible.
Unexpectedly he gained some company for the rest of his journey as several dryads and elves joined him on the wagon. No sooner had he told them what had happened then they piled on board the wagon. He was glad of the company. Glad too to be able to tell his story to them. Because it still seemed too strange to be real. Speaking it aloud somehow helped.
By the time they made Stonely, the woman's markings were almost gone. They were barely visible on her skin. Shadows of what they had been. And by then each time he knocked her out, she stayed asleep for several long minutes at a time. But he still didn't know who or what she was. And the dryads as they probed her thoughts, didn't seem to have an answer either.
But he didn't care about that. What he cared about was the fact that she was becoming less dangerous. He didn't understand it. But the enchantments on her skin weren't just defences. They were a part of the way she cast her magic. And without them, she didn't have a lot. He could feel her gift fading. If she had a gift!
Maybe she didn't, it unexpectedly occurred to him. Maybe instead what she had were enchantments. Though that of course left him with the obvious question – who had cast them? But that question had to take its place with the others. Who was she? Where was she from? And what people did she come from?
But as he stood there and explained what had happened to the others as they came out to greet them, he decided that that wasn't his concern. She had attacked him, he had survived. After that the rest was a matter for others to deal with. Though he still helped them carry her limp body to the town gaol and watched as they locked her in it and covered her cell with wards. She wasn't getting free in a hurry.
By then she wasn't waking up either. Instead she was snoring, peacefully, on the cot. That wasn't the result of anything the others had done. He'd seen everything they'd done. Watched every spell they'd cast. He suspected it was because the lingering effects of her markings had finally faded. Something tattooed on her kept her awake and alert, ready for battle. And without it, she had to give into the demands of sleep.
Still she was secure, and so he was more than happy to leave the town gaol and follow the others back to the Brigand's Blessing where they'd set up rooms to sleep in and an eatery. To take a seat in the inn's spacious downstairs and tell them all he knew – once again.
But he didn't get that far. He didn't even make it more than a few steps from the cell, before the air was torn asunder by the angry shouts of an ogre.
“Nga Roth?” he asked once the yelling had stopped. “What's wrong?”
“This thing!” she yelled at the cell and the prisoner inside it in a voice that spoke of almost animal like rage. “How can one of the shades be here?!”
“Shades?”
“Vile people! Creatures! They hide in the shadows and work their evil upon those who do not know they are there!”
So the prisoner was from Prima's endless forest! That much she had confirmed for Chy. If she knew the race the prisoner was from, she had to know them. But what else did she know about them?
“She attacked me,” he told the ogre calmly, as always a little worried by the way she stroked her pet dragon and the fire it kept puffing out all around. Especially when it was hissing almost as angrily as her mistress. “She started a duel – I don't know why.”
But that clearly wasn't what Nga Roth was upset about. She was talking about striking from the shadows – and that, whatever else it was, was no duel. “There's more isn't there? What other sort of evil do they engage in?”
“The taking of children. The murder of the innocent. And the laying of curses upon the people and the land. Where they pass crops fail. The land sickens. Plagues arrive. And darkness is released. The darkness of the soul.”
“Darkness of the soul?” someone asked.
“All the festering evil that hides within the deepest recesses of a being. The things that they dare not ever reveal. That they will not even acknowledge within themselves. War, rape, murder and worse atrocities abound where they pass. Cities and towns have been destroyed by their mere presence. Fires have been lit and forests razed. Water ways have been fouled with the dead and even peaceful creatures have run wild. Friends have become the most bitter of enemies. The betrothed and wedded have killed one another. Order has become chaos.”
That did not sound good. In fact it sounded like some of the horrid tales the bards told about witches. Especially the part about lands sickening and dying. But nothing like that had happened in Charlton as far as as Chy knew. And how, he had to wonder could someone, even a caster do all of those things? And why would they? The only thing he knew about their prisoner was that she thought those with the gift should battle one another in contests of magic. And he didn't even know why she should want to do that.
It seemed ridiculous. But then a lot of the things he had heard of the other peoples of the realms had sounded nearly as bad. And she was from another realm, clearly.
“Well she's harmless – or much less dangerous – now.” He tried to calm the ogre down. “I healed her and most of the markings on her skin have faded away to nothing. The enchantments on her clothes have gone. I don't know what sort of gift she has left, but it's not much. I expect.” He added the last hurriedly because he truly didn't know.
“We should kill her!” The ogre told him. “Slit her throat and be done with it! Before she wakes up!”
“We don't do that Nga Roth,” Chy began. Then he paused for a moment, unexpectedly having to reconsider the matter. This might be Stonely in Ruttland. In theory a human town in a human realm. But he was surrounded by people from other realms. Giants and dwarves, elves and sylph, and more. Maybe some of them did do things like that. He didn't know. And he wasn't in charge of them. If anything it was the other way around. They after all sent to him when they encountered a problem he needed to deal with. They pretty much ordered him around. Or at least they gave him his assignments.
“The woman is deeply unconscious. Her dreams almost silent,” Mar Duon the sylph master announced. He seemed to lead in the new Stonely. “We will learn nothing from her for the time. But maybe we can yet learn a little more from Master Martin here.”
For a moment Chy almost felt a smile finding his face. It wasn't often that people called him “master”. Or anything respectful for that matter. He was just a commoner like everyone else. Though these days people kept calling him “wizard” which he didn't like. But then he realised what the sylph was suggesting. And he didn't like that so much at all.
But he supposed that Elodie had got through it. Even said it was alright. Not like when the perfect elves had ripped through her thoughts. He assumed he would too.
“Fine!” He sighed a little. “But I'm going to need something to drink! I assume there's still some barrels left?”
There were it turned out. But then there were only perhaps a couple of thousand people now living in Stonely, and none of them as far as he knew, drank a lot. So whatever was in the barrels in the alehouses was still mostly there. He was happy enough to leave the gaol then and finally head back to the Brigand's Blessing, and the others followed her. A couple remained behind to keep watch over their new prisoner, but most just wanted to leave this place like him. There was something disturbing about the prisoner, ev
en sleeping and rendered more or less harmless.
The Blessing was surprisingly comfortable he rediscovered when he walked inside. More so than he remembered from the last time he'd visited the inn. The new occupants had clearly been busy, putting more rugs down on the floor and covering furniture. They'd even hung up wall hangings. And the fire was burning bright which added a pleasant warmth to everything. It wasn't actually cold outside, but a fire was always welcome.
Soon enough he found himself comfortably ensconced in a chair with a blanket on his lap and a mug of hot spiced wine in his hand, letting the cares of the day pass him by – while the dryads gathered around him. He could actually go to sleep here he thought. Though it occurred to him that he really was different to most of his people. Most others would run in terror when they saw the patrons of the inn. Especially Nga Roth. To him they were just people. Friends even.
If Elodie was right and all the worlds were becoming one – or actually simply being returned to how they had been – there were going to be a lot of very confused people around. Frightened people. There was going to have to be some getting used to things.
But he was comfortable. The hot wine was pleasing on his tongue. And so when the dryads looked at him in question, he nodded. He took another sip of his drink and let the dryads sift through his memories.
It was strange. An odd feeling letting his own memories somehow simply take hold in his brain. But it wasn't particularly unpleasant. And the thing that struck him was that they hadn't learned the magic from the Temple. This particular casting was natural to them. And it was an impressive magic they had he thought. Useful. It saved him having to explain things over and over again. The elves didn't like it – they were a very private people – but he was comfortable with the casting. Maybe he just didn't have any secrets he cared about. And maybe, he thought, they would teach it to him in time. It might save him having to sit on the sphinx throne again in a hurry – not that he would necessarily learn this magic from that.
As he sat there and sipped his drink, he found himself unexpectedly wondering what would happen if the owners of the inn returned. Or the other people who had been abducted by the sprites. Because this was not the inn it had been. It wasn't their inn any more.
Until recently he wouldn't have considered their returning a possibility. But if the words were being reformed into one, then there was a good chance that the sprites were going to suffer the same fate as most of the other peoples. Their world was going to be scattered far and wide. It would be hard for them to maintain a slaver empire when that happened. In time the residents of Stonely might well return. Some of them anyway. Though of course they might arrive on the other side of the world, untold thousands of leagues away. But if they did make it back, then they would find people, strangers, in their houses. So might others who hadn't been taken, but simply fled the town.
And of course the same thing might happen in a hundred or a thousand other towns that the sprites had plundered. There might not be spell-casters from other worlds in their homes, but there would be others. Worse than that, they needed law to deal with these things. But there would be no law. Just as there would ultimately be no realms. There would be lots of laws and lots of little pieces of realms, all jumbled up, all trying make new lives for themselves in a single world that no longer made sense.
No matter how he looked at it, there was trouble ahead. Maybe he was lucky he thought. He didn't have to worry about these things. Not for the moment. He had too much on his hands just keeping the worst of the disasters from killing people. It was good to be busy.
It was late in the afternoon by the time Chy finally managed to make it home again – only to be trampled by the goats and his winged pig who was convinced it was feeding time. It was always dinner time as far as the damned pig was concerned. Piggy though, was out of luck as he sent the beast away with a yell.
And then he discovered a new shock. Somewhere between his leaving for Charlton that morning and his return, someone had started building a bridge over the river. Quite a large bridge. And just across the section of the river down from his home where he gathered his stone. Meanwhile, on the other side where new gardens were already being planted by a small army of gardeners, there was also a large building being constructed. A hall complete with a coloured glass dome waiting to be fitted on the roof. It seemed the sylph were taking up residence across the way.
Chy knew it was them moving in. He'd seen images of their buildings before, though he'd never travelled to their homes. And in Stonely they were building a hall, complete with dome.
But why did everyone suddenly want to live near him? Did he smell particularly good?!
Chy stared at the new construction for a bit, wondering at just how quickly his world was changing. And how. Only a couple of months ago he'd lived almost alone hiding his gift and enjoying the peace. Now he was surrounded by people from other worlds! Animals were taking up residence too! Often ones that didn't like him. Everyone knew what he could do! And now he was being targeted by magic assassins!
Still he thought, he should take a closer look at things. The bridge anyway. Because it was an impressive construction. Wide enough for three or four people to walk by one another and built of sturdy timbers. Sturdy enough that they didn't even creak when he stepped on them. And the bridge was only half built.
Someone, he thought, really knew their construction. Especially when he walked up the arched bridge to stand at the high point and stare down at the river floating by a good ten feet or more beneath him. This bridge was solid! Probably horses pulling fully laden wagons would be able to cross the river on this. And it had been built in a day. He wondered what it would be like when it was finished – which he guessed would be tomorrow. And what they were planning on building next. Was there going to be a road? Cutting right across his front yard?
Chy shook his head sadly. He was losing control of his home. Maybe it was time to put his foot down. To stand up for himself. Before he no longer recognised where he lived.
He was still thinking that when he heard a loud squeal coming from just behind him, a fraction of a second before he felt something sharp digging into his arse and then a huge weight knocking him forwards. Immediately after that he was tumbling forwards into the river. And then he was swimming!
“Bastard!” He yelled as he struggled to find his footing in the middle of the slow moving water. And then when he finally managed to stand up and see the winged pig staring back down at him from the bridge with a happy smile on her snout, he yelled it again.
Naturally though the pig wasn't bothered by that. If anything she looked pleased with herself, as she stared at him, grunting happily. But then he'd refused to the feed the beast. This was undoubtedly her response.
With her protest given the beast carried on proudly across the rest of the bridge, tail wiggling happily, heading for his house and the vegetable garden behind it. Meanwhile he stood there in the river spluttering and freezing to death
“You're bacon!” He threatened the beast. “Pork chops!” He even shook his fist at the sow while the animal trotted away completely unbothered by his threats. Actually she probably found them amusing!
Chy swore at the animal a few more times for good measure, before he finally found the wit to start wading out of the river. And then he stood there on the bank, water pouring off him, wondering what would be the best way to kill the winged beast. It needed to be something fitting he thought. Something slow and painful. Simply shooting Bacon would not be enough!
Eventually though, he forgot about the idea as he started to shiver. He needed to get warm. Vengeance could wait. Which was why he followed the pork menace to his house and the warmth of the fire which he hoped was burning. And he tried not to pay attention to the faces of the dryads across the way staring at him. How much had they seen, he wondered? Probably too much!
Maybe the world wasn't actually ending as Elodie had told them. And maybe it wasn't even being rearranged, just having a
few walls removed. But his world was absolutely being turned upside down!
Chapter Thirty Four
Stonely! They'd finally found it. Not so much by their own actions, as by the simple fact that the people of Stonely, casters, were expanding their spiderweb of portals further and further. Growing it until finally the chances were that any portal they found and used, would lead back to it.
Fylarne stood and stared at the town, surprised by how busy it was and by how much magic was burning all around them. He'd never found a place that felt anything like it. He was surprised too by the number of portals that were in the street. Actually they weren't just in the street. There was a big square garden block with a few big buildings surrounding it – the town centre he guessed – and the streets that surrounded it were all filled with portals.
And with casters. Lots of them, everywhere. Coming and going. And he noticed, for the most part looking happy. Or at least not grim. Since Elodie's sending there had been a better mood everywhere they'd been. The world – the worlds – weren't ending. Walls were simply breaking down. Ones they hadn't even known existed. He was relieved by that. Everyone was. But he knew that that didn't make them safe. It was still chaos out there.
