by Greg Curtis
“Oh!” Chy didn't like the sound of that. And he didn't like the shades. No one did. And their one prisoner wasn't doing anything to correct that emotion. She was sitting in her cell, refusing to speak to anyone, and somehow had put her mind beyond the reach of the dryads. They didn't know how. It wasn't magic. It wasn't a casting of any sort. It was something to do with the way her mind worked. It was simply too alien to be understood.
“The tower dweller got out?”
“No one knows. The tower was destroyed along with the town. There is nothing left of either. Just endless leagues of rubble and poisoned land. And the shades return there again and again.”
“Prima –.”
“Staal,” she corrected him.
“Must be a truly strange land.” Chy finished his thought. “Shades and these ruined towers.” Then an unexpected thought struck him as he stared at the tower. “But are they all towers?”
“No. They're all big, but some are buildings of many levels. Some are forts and castles. There's an arena not far from my home. And some are just walls and rubble. Why?”
“Because it occurs to me that that tower is a sentry tower. That the shades are more or less an army. The sort of army you field when your enemy is widely scattered as are your soldiers.”
“An army? Soldiers?” Nga Roth frowned. “They don't act like soldiers. Soldiers have a code! They're just monsters.”
That was a strange thing for an eight foot tall ogre to say, Chy thought. Most people would call Nga Roth the monster. But she was actually quite civilised even if she had the most appalling taste in tea and clothes. The shade who'd attacked him, had been the true monster.
“And exactly the sort of soldiers you need when your land has been scattered. When you can't assemble a brigade or a regiment let alone a full army because your soldiers are everywhere. Scattered to the far corners of the world. When you can't train them on a parade ground because it might be on the other side of the world. When you can't march your soldiers against the enemy lines, because there aren't any.”
“It's one obvious reason why the world might have been fractured into many. If it was really just part of the breaking apart of an ancient city. An enemy city. Break the city or cities or even a realm apart and you badly weaken your enemy.” After all how could an enemy field an army if his soldiers were scattered across the entire world? Or build war machines when his factories and workers and generals could be anywhere? How could you even maintain a chain of command? It seemed like an almost reasonable explanation for what they were finding. More than that, it seemed like the only explanation they had. They hadn't had any explanation before.
And then how would the enemy whose military might had just been shattered, respond? How would they fight back? By creating a new sort of army. One of trained duellists, who would then be armed with powerful magical weapons and defences, and then be sent out, crossing the world many times over, seeking out the most powerful of their enemies and slaughtering them. By building an army of assassins.
Chy stared at the crooked tower in front of him, its dark black stone now covered in a layer of ice, and considered the idea. But more than that he considered the question of who.
Because if he was right about how old the tower in front of them was – and if Nga Roth was too – then who or what was inside could well be a true ancient. The ones they had always believed lived in the endless forest.
They'd assumed already that the ancients had been the ones to break the world apart into smaller pieces through their magic of portals and walls. But seeing the tower in front of him, Chy finally had a theory as to why they'd done it. Even when that very act had surely destroyed everything else.
War made people do desperate things. Especially if they were losing.
The question was – who had done it? Who had the ancients been fighting? Had there been rival nations of ancients at war? Certainly the world had been large enough. There were nations and realms and kingdoms right across Althern – many of them. And Althern was it seemed, only a part of the entire world.
“Is it wine?” Nga Roth stared quizzically at him. “Or ale? Maybe even the mushrooms?”
“I'm not in my cups!” He protested. “In fact I can't even remember the last time I had a sip of anything enjoyable.” Which was regrettably true. He liked a drink. But for the last however many weeks or months he had simply been too busy for such pleasures.
“But the damage has been done!” She pressed on. “Such flights of fancy!” Nga Roth shook her head sadly. “You humans, so weak in the mind! All you little people really! And so plain! Truly the gods were not kind to you!”
What were you supposed to say to that? Especially to an eight foot tall, grossly obese woman with green skin and teeth that looked as though they were made for chomping stone? And one who was wearing the most eye-wateringly horrible dress ever sewn? Chy found himself trying to think of something and coming up short. There was nothing to be said. So he turned back to what mattered.
“But I'm right.” He didn't often get to say that. Not even to think it. Things were never as simple and straight forwards as they seemed to him. But this time he was sure.
“Or drunk!”
Chy groaned quietly. “So, are you done?”
“Yes. It will hold.”
“Good. Then we should head back to Stonely. I need to tell the others what I've learned.” He wasn't sure what good it would do, but maybe some of the others would be able to use what he'd worked out to help.
“From the bottom of a tankard!” Nga Roth finished for him. She didn't seem even vaguely convinced by his idea. And her baby dragon hissed at him as if it wasn't any more convinced. “You haven't learned anything, Boy. You've just come up with a wild speculation.”
“Which fits everything we know,” Chy pointed out. “Everything you told me.”
“Oh no! Don't drag me into your madness!” The ogre groaned as if she was in pain. “This is entirely yours!” But still she paused for a moment to consider the matter.
“But I suppose at least there'll be food to eat while you make a fool of yourself spinning your wild tales! And maybe some tea!”
Food was important to the ogre, and strangely she didn't consider herself fat. Instead she was firmly of the opinion that she was beautiful and perfectly proportioned while those all around her were tiny twigs that had almost starved themselves to death. She actually worried about losing weight. At the thought that men might no longer find her attractive.
Each to their own, Chy thought. And besides, who was he to argue with her? She might be huge and round, but she seemed to move easily enough, carrying her staff for reasons other than support, and never really complained about her health. So maybe she actually was the right size and shape for one of her people? He didn't know. She was the only ogre he'd met.
“Some tea would be welcome,” he agreed with her.
“Oh tea!” She murmured wistfully, her gaze suddenly far away. “If only you had proper tea here. Something to drink other than this wash water you call tea!” She turned her gaze to him. “You know I grow tea. Proper tea. Dark oak. Fennel and daisy. Witch-hazel. People love my tea, Boy!”
“I know,” he agreed with her as she took off, though really he suspected that he didn't want to drink any of the brews she called tea. They would quite possibly kill a man! Still, after one last moment staring at the now ice covered leaning tower, he took off after her, heading for the portal. He could also use something to drink. And a chance to discuss his theory – or wild speculations – with others. People who might be a little more willing to listen instead of mock.
But he didn't make it to his longed for mug of tea. Instead as they arrived in Stonely and headed for the inn and some rest, they were stopped in the street by a strange looking party of casters, one of whom was a human boy with his own pet dragon.
“You are Chy Waine Martin?” A tough looking sylph woman in heavy furs asked him.
“I am,” he admitted, wondering
at her choice of clothes. It didn't seem particularly appropriate for her people.
“Good. Then I am Dah Mi Lon and I have a story to tell you.”
Chapter Thirty Six
Stonely had changed a lot in the time since she'd last seen it, Elodie thought as she wandered its streets. It had grown – a lot. It had become one of the hubs of the new magical realm that was forming. Now instead of hundreds of people of casters of all races calling it home, there had to be thousands. And the inns and hostels were all full.
But it was the town centre that was the most changed. They'd moved their operation out of the town hall and into the streets – probably because there wasn't enough room. Everywhere she looked there were more portals, filling the entire town centre. There were people of all races coming and going too.
It was necessary she supposed. As the worlds slowly reformed into the one world they actually were and people and creatures of all kinds suddenly found themselves rubbing shoulders with one another, they had to bring some order to things. And Stonely wasn't the only town where this was happening. There were dozens more. Spread out across the realms.
This was chaos of a sort. But it was also the response to chaos. An attempt to wrest some order from the chaos. And maybe it was working – she couldn't be sure. All she did know was that here they sent out casters of all the various peoples to deal with crises that were unfolding all around them. And here for the moment, she had to be.
Ever since Chy had come up with his latest theory – which even to her sounded like madness – she'd been working on it with the thrones. And it was clear that he was right – at least in part. As soon as she'd heard it she'd gone to the library in the Temple, and pulled out some of the oldest books contained within it. Journals for the most part. And though none of them had the actual history of what had been there before the Temple had been built, many contained fragments of those times. Bits and pieces of that ancient history that supported his theory.
The world had once been one. There had been strife. And then it had been reorganised into a great many more through the use of portal walls. Portal walls that were now failing. And what sort of strife could force anyone to do such a thing? War!
As for the ancient ruins, they were prisons. Or at least some of them were. One at least according to Fylarne. Once, according to what she had been told, they had been a realm. A nation. A highly militaristic empire with massive fortifications. And a great collection of evil, that had had to be broken apart because it was too strong to fight.
So the portal walls had been created to divide it into smaller pieces that could be contained. And one by one those trapped within each piece of that nation had been overcome. Frozen in their little pieces of what had been by the ogres. At least that was Chy's theory. The ogres – perhaps the original people of that first world, she couldn't be certain – had learned how to freeze those within, and the danger had passed, even as the world had been shattered.
But over time the ogres had more or less forgotten why they had done what they had done. They had no history of the times before the world had been broken apart. And all they truly knew was that what lay within each of those ancient pieces of the realm was dangerous and needed to be contained. And of course, how to contain them.
She didn't know how long ago any of this had happened – if it had truly happened. No one did. The thrones had been through the library, analysing everything they could, mostly trying to create a new history of the times since the shattering of the world, and their estimate was that the world had been torn asunder anywhere between ten and fifteen thousand years ago. But that was the best they could do. And they weren't even confident that it was right. They were working with scraps of history, written down in journals and tomes, many of which themselves had only been legends at the time they had been recorded.
But that wasn't important. What did matter was that as the spells failed, it wasn't just the worlds that were slowly being reformed into one, so was the ancient realm full of ancient prisoners. Whatever threat the portal walls had been created to contain, was soon to be returned to how it had been. All while the rest of the world was trying to deal with the unfolding disaster. And the only people who might be able to tell them anything about the denizens of those ruins were the damned shades since they apparently came from one of them.
Elodie shook her head. Just when you thought you had one crisis almost in hand!
Of course that was only a part of what weighed on her. Chy hadn't just told her of his theory. He'd also told her of Fylarne. And no matter how she tried, she simply couldn't understand how any of that was possible. It couldn't be Fylarne! He simply couldn't have done what he had confessed to! All her friends, her fellow guardians, dead because of him. It just wasn't possible!
He was straight and true. Honest as the day was long. Dependable as the towering redwoods. He was a good man. The best. And he had betrayed them all!
Now he too was locked away somewhere in the prison. Sitting in a cell, awaiting his judgement. And she understood, explaining everything he had done in minute detail. Telling the sages of the exact changes he had made to every book he had given the sprites so that they might in turn work out how their enchantment had gone wrong. Not that they yet even knew what spell had been enchanted.
She wasn't ready to meet him. Not yet. Not until she'd had enough time to come to terms with what he'd done. To let her emotions cool. Because there were so many emotions running through her every time she thought of him. Anger and outrage of course. How could there not be when she had seen her friends after the attack? When she had had to say farewell to them? But sorrow and sympathy too after she had been told of his burying of his daughter's fingers. How could anyone do that to a child? Or worse, ask a child to do that to herself as she had been told had happened? It was monstrous!
But mostly what she felt was confusion. Betrayal and a complete loss of trust. In a way her world had been shattered just as had the actual one. She had always considered Fylarne a rock. Someone to look to in times of trouble. A stalwart friend to guide her. And if she had lived until the end of days she would never have imagined that he would do what he had done. That he could do it. And she might have to live that long again to understand it.
Still she did her best to put such thoughts out of her head as she walked down the town streets towards the prison, where the latest prisoners were held. The shades as they were called. She was here for a reason and thankfully it had nothing to do with Fylarne.
There were now a dozen of the shades, all stripped of their enchantments, locked up within the town gaol. A dozen miserable souls who refused to speak – save to abuse their captors and threaten to kill them in unspeakable ways. They were horrible people. Even without their enchantments they had only one thought on their minds – killing.
As she walked through the town, Elodie couldn't help but notice the signs of the new people living in the human town. The way they had altered it. They were mostly small things – thus far – but they were apparent to her. The sylph loved their colours, and there were more than a few buildings where stained glass windows had been fitted and front yards had new flower gardens. Her people loved their pets, and she spotted quite a few cats with tufted ears and giant squirrels making the town home. And someone, probably the wood elves, had started planting the clay and cobble streets with grass. Meanwhile the dwarves had brought a few of their steam powered battle wagons with them for some reason and they littered the streets. Were they planning on fighting a war?
The town was changing. And it wasn't just Stonely itself. It was the surroundings. There were small settlements popping up all around the town. Farms were changing hands at a surprising rate, and new structures being built. New livestock were filling the fields too. Breeds of sheep and cattle and goats that the humans had likely never seen before.
And of course, the people in the streets weren't human. This was becoming a magic town. And there were not too many humans with the gift.
&nb
sp; It was only to be expected she supposed. And while Stonely was probably more mixed up than other parts of this human world, the rest would be changing too. As would the other worlds. Her home town would be the same, Elodie guessed. Perhaps when this was over she would go back there and spend some more time with her family and see what had become of Gwillith Fey – or what was becoming of it.
Of course guardians weren't supposed to do that. Once they accepted their new stations in life they did not return to their families and former lives. But she was the only guardian left. She could make up some new rules for herself. And with everything else that was happening, she thought, why shouldn't she go home now and then? Before the end – if it came? Or when things had settled down – assuming that they did.
In time though, the gaol came in to sight and she put such thoughts out of her mind. It was time to concentrate on the reason she had come. It was time to get some answers from the shades.
