by Greg Curtis
Don't respond, he silently begged her. Just let it pass by and go to sleep. It would be easier that way.
Unfortunately the world didn't agree with him, and someone started thumping on the front door, no doubt to complain. He just hoped it wasn't one of Nga Roth's rivals in love. The house was strong but not ogre strong.
“I'm not getting that,” Nga Roth bellowed at him. “I just got comfortable!”
For a moment – a very brief one – he thought about asking Elodie. He was simply too comfortable. But that wasn't happening either he discovered as he found hands and feet rolling him out of the bed while she giggled happily.
“It's your house Love! And don't try to pretend you were listening to me!”
“Apparently it's my floor too,” he grumbled as he picked himself up off it. But then he found his robe, wrapped himself up in it and started along the passageway and down the stairs. Somebody had to answer the damned door he supposed! And he knew it wasn't going to be the cat. That little monster was glaring angrily at him from the rug in front of the fire, as if it was his fault he had visitors!
At least it wasn't the damned pig he discovered when he opened the door. That would have been too much. And Bacon did try to come in the house from time to time. But she wasn't the sort to knock. Unfortunately it also wasn't anyone he wanted to see – at any time. It was a sprite – minus his wings.
“Yes?”
“You're Chy Martin?” The sprite asked.
“I am.”
“Good! Then you have work to do!” And with that the diminutive little man pushed right past him and entered the house.
“What work?” He turned around to stare at the little man making himself comfortable by the fire and annoying the cat in the process. But that was only fair. The man had annoyed him too. Who was he to just push his way in to his home?!
“Saving the damned world of course!”
“Of course,” he agreed sarcastically. Before he shut the front door and headed for the kitchen and the kettle. Chy had a feeling that this was going to require a lot of coffee.
“Well that is what you do isn't it? You and this Elodie the Guardian?”
How did he answer that, Chy wondered as he filled the kettle? He didn't know. And he was simply too tired to think of anything clever to say. So instead he just asked the sprite to explain.
“Well now that you've wrecked the world, it's about time to put it back together.”
“Go on,” he waved tiredly at the man. “I don't remember wrecking the world.”
“No,” the sprite replied. “I suppose that was really the damned guardians! But you seem to be neck deep in everything!”
“It's late,” Chy replied irritatedly. “Get to the point!” He'd had enough of this conversation already.
“Especially the point about the damned guardians!” Elodie added as she came down the stairs. “Because we didn't wreck anything! And who are you?!”
“You're Elodie?” The sprite asked.
She nodded.
“Then I'm Kirkain, and I suppose I do owe you my freedom and my gratitude. Sort of. But yes you did wreck everything. And I won't be keeping my freedom for long. None of us will.”
It was then that Chy started opening his eyes fully and paying a little more attention to the sprite. In particular to his hands, which he noticed were covered in scratches and welts. As if he'd recently been forced to do hard labour, digging ore.
“You were one of the sprites that led the others. An overseer.” And if it sounded as though he was making an accusation, maybe he was. Chy still didn't know how much freedom the leaders of the sprites had had. Just enough to make their lives a little easier? Or had they willingly helped ruin the lives of all the others they'd enslaved? Had this man helped enslave the innocent? Maybe even the people of Stonely?
“I was,” the little man admitted. “And I had no choice. No one has any choice where the Master is concerned. But we didn't make this mess at the Temple.”
“Mess?!” Elodie snapped back at him angrily. “We were attacked – by you! Nearly all of us are dead! And you want to blame us for your mess?!”
“No,” the man mused unhappily as if considering the matter. “I suppose you don't know. Only the three of you who were involved. Fylarne, Edorn and Alur. But isn't that enough?”
Elodie's face paled with anger. “Fylarne is a traitor, and he will pay for his crimes! But I will not have you speak ill of my friends!”
“Don't be foolish. The Master owned all three of them. He would never be satisfied with just one. And Fylarne was the one who tried to stand up to him. The others gave into his will almost immediately. He had their loved ones. And then he had them enchanted. By the end they opened the doors and let down the defences without a thought.”
“What?!” If anything Elodie's face grew even paler.
“He took their families. It's what he does. And then the day before the attack, he had them brought to N'Diel. To walk through the Temple. They fought the enchantment. Everyone fights. At least at the start. But it's never enough. No one gets free. You can't fight your own beliefs – even if they're not yours. So they did what they were told to do, though they kept struggling. And because of that the attack was slowed, and some of you – you – were able to overcome the attack.”
“But Fylarne was a deceiver. He fooled the Master. He altered the books that the Master needed to achieve his grand plan. And that's when everything went wrong.”
“Explain that please.” Chy asked before Elodie gave into her anger and started shouting. He could see the fury growing in her face and he understood it perfectly. The sprite was besmirching the good names of her friends who were no longer around to defend themselves. And yet as he went to Elodie to wrap his arms around her and comfort her there was something in what the sprite said that rang true. Especially when they now knew about the sprites and how they were controlled.
“Edorn and Alur were at first only charged to do little things. They were not told of the Master's plans to attack. Only to report on certain things that meant little to them. So they bowed to his will, thinking there was little harm in it and he had their families. They had no choice.”
“Little things?”
“To report on the comings and goings from the Temple. Who had sat on which throne. And which of the guardians came from which towns and cities. In that way he found Fylarne's family.”
Elodie gasped when the sprite said that, and Chy held her tighter. He could only begin to guess at the pain she was feeling. But the more the sprite said the more he felt the truth of what he was saying. The Master had found first one and then a second guardian, and used them to catch the Head Guardian. The one who could no doubt get him what he truly wanted, the books in the library.
“But on the last day he took them to the Temple in N'Diel?” he asked.
“Even with their families at his mercy, he doubted that they would willingly lower the Temple's defences. Because they would guess it was in preparation for an attack. So he had to make sure they did as he wanted. And then he had them hide away at the last to wait for the time to act, so that none would guess they were in his thrall.”
“But he couldn't do that with Fylarne. The other guardians would notice his absence.” Chy put the rest of it together.
“No.” The sprite nodded. “Instead he deceived the head guardian, letting him think he still had time before the attack was to begin. Letting him imagine he could still come up with a way to stop it. But even as the Master deceived Fylarne, Fylarne had already deceived him.”
“He had sat on the throne of knowledge and used the gifts he had received to rewrite the books. It was so clever. The Master never expected it.”
Chy understood that. Two cunning souls had been locked in a battle of wits, each believing that the other would defy them in some way when the time came. Fylarne had not believed that he would get his family back, nor that the sprites would spare his fellow guardians. And this Master had not believed t
hat Fylarne would allow him to take the Temple. And so each had set about tricking the other. And ironically both had succeeded. And everyone had lost. No one had got what they wanted.
“Who is this Master?” Now that he had the first part of the sprite's story straightened out, that seemed to be what mattered.
“The Master of the N'Diel Temple. The one who all serve. Who we have always served.”
“And what is the danger?” He hadn't guessed that the Temple had a Master. But maybe he should have. Because it would be hard for a mere enchantment, even one powered by the soul of an ancient, to continue to enslave millions of slaves for eternity. The enchantment that bound the shades, was maintained by them. And the Temple in Staal had a dozen souls in their thrones and did no more than offer a service. It forced nothing on anyone. It also had a small cadre of priests to operate it.
“The Master never wanted the Temple in Staal. He never cared if people grew powerful in their magic. He only ever wanted one thing. He has only ever wanted one thing. The Heartfire.”
“Why?” Chy was curious, but he also realised the sprite was right. There had to be a reason the slaves were rebuilding a volcano.
“Because he's old. Older than time. And the Heartfire is the only thing that keeps him alive. And just to keep maintaining the portal walls so his army of slaves can keep bringing him the Heartfire he has to expend nearly all the power he has.”
“The portal walls have to be maintained?” Chy gasped. He simply hadn't guessed that. He hadn't even considered the matter. But suddenly things started falling into place. “And when this Master crafted his enchantment to drain the power of the Temple, Fylarne's alterations reversed the spell. Instead of gaining enormous power, he lost it. And the portal walls started failing.”
“Exactly. And he was already desperate for the Heartfire. The Master had already begun sending his servants out to capture more servants, from new worlds and ones that were better defended,” the sprite finished for him.
Like Stonely, Chy realised. Humans were tougher fighters than many others. They had weapons and armies. They could repel an attack. So this Master had left them alone for a long time, fearing that he would lose more than he would gain if he attacked. But if he was an ancient, eeking out his life through the last of the Heartfire, and he had no more Heartfire left, risks had to be taken.
“And now, let me guess, with the walls down, patrols marching in to N'Diel freeing the slaves, and Elodie's sending preventing any of his servants from organising affairs, he's got nothing left?” Of course he had. But why did the sprite care? Hadn't he been freed? Because it seemed like a good thing to him.
“No! He's got one chance left!” The sprite snapped at him. “And that's the problem! He's taking it!”
“Which is little one?” Nga Roth asked from the top of the stairs, having apparently decided that she could get comfortable all over again in time.
“He's going for the Temple.”
“What?” Chy was confused.
“He's pulled himself out of his stone resting place, gathered together every scrap of power he has left, walked out of the Temple and he's marching. He's brought his entire army with him. Every enchanted object. Every scrap of power. The portal walls are down so he can bring them all to Prima – and their only purpose is to get him there. The Temple's defences are gone so if they do he can enter whatever remains of it. And if he makes it to the Heartfire he'll become as close to a god again as anyone could ever imagine! Then he'll start binding the rest of the world to him!”
“And all of us who have been freed, will either be bound again, or killed. Our new found freedom is about to be lost!”
Damn! Chy groaned quietly as he held Elodie. Just when he'd thought that things were starting to come right! And he knew as he heard the water in the kettle bubbling away, there would be no tea for him now either. Instead they would be heading into Stonely to speak with the leaders.
He shouldn't have answered the door!
Chapter Fifty Six
This was not going to be a pleasant journey, Chy thought. Everyone was here and no one was happy. Most of all Fylarne and Elodie weren't happy. They were on opposite sides of the party, and they weren't only not speaking to one another, they wouldn't even look at one another. But they both had to be here. They were both guardians of the Temple regardless of what might have happened. And if the Master ever actually did make it through the rest of Staal and their forces, the two of them might be the only ones who could stop him.
Of course Elodie wasn't happy with him either since he'd been the one to tell the leaders that they needed Fylarne as well. Kikain and Nga Roth – in fact all the ogres – were snapping at one another because they kept calling him little man. Meanwhile the other ogres were also snapping at Nga Roth since she was their rival in love. He was worried that it might come to blows at some stage. Dah was simply in a foul mood snapping at anyone who got too close. And even the normally tranquil Allide was quiet.
This could be the most unhappy party in history!
But hopefully it wouldn't end in a battle with an ancient being. With a little luck the Master wouldn't make it that far. Kikain had said that he was old and weak. That he had little left in the way of magic. And thanks to his warning there was an army forming between the Master and the Temple. A big one – dispersed across half the realm of course as they had to cover all the nearest portals – but well practised in fighting the Master's forces. Fifty something patrols from N'Diel were even now taking up positions surrounding all of the nearest portals, and all of them were backed up by ogres and other, more powerful spellcasters. The Master wasn't going to reach the volcano.
“Alright,” Nga Roth announced as they pulled themselves together, “we march – that way!” She pointed at a pile of trees in the middle of the forest and set off, leaving the rest of them to catch up. She was in charge because this was her realm. She knew it. The rest of them would just have got hopelessly lost trying to find their way through the forest.
But just as he was about to set off after her there was an unexpected squeal, and he turned to see a winged pig behind them.
“Bacon!” He yelled at her, wondering how she could be there. Except that it was obvious. The portal's magic was still fading. She must have chased them onto it somehow.
“You can't be here,” he told the pig. But he knew it was already too late to send her back. This was the closest portal, the one their party had been chosen to arrive at, and even now it was being shut down from the other side. They couldn't allow the Master to arrive at it. Bacon was here to stay.
“Oh good! The provisions have arrived!” Gris announced with a rather blood thirsty looking grin.
“She's not for eating,” he told the wood elf sternly. “Unless she gets in my crops again!” He still had less than happy memories of her slamming him into his fence to get him to open the gate.
“But look at the meat on her!” Gris objected. “The whole group could eat for a week. Even with all these ogres!”
“And just what are you saying scrawny?!” One of the ogres growled at Gris.
“Only that you have hearty appetites,” Gris replied – tactfully for once.
“Nga Roth,” Chy called out wanting to change the conversation before it grew any more awkward. “How far is it?”
“Just shy of ten leagues, three quarters to the right of narward,” she answered him. “But that was before all these bits and pieces of worlds started appearing in Staal.”
“Thank you.” She was right of course. The way bits and pieces of worlds were coming and going, directions didn't mean the same thing that they once had. But hopefully even if they were a little off course, they would be able to spot a volcano. “I suppose we should go then,” he added a little belatedly as the others were already off. Then he had to catch up.
Nga Roth set a challenging pace. Maybe she was worried about the other ogres behind her getting too close. It wasn't easy for Chy to keep up – especially with a
pack on his back. Bacon was fine. The pig just flew overhead, occasionally snorting happily at them. And most of Fylarne's people were well used to wandering through forests. The ogres too seemed to have no trouble staying with her. But he and Elodie and a few others needed to call for rests every so often.
Still at least it was quiet as they travelled. The hostilities were limited to a few irritated swears hurled at one another. And nothing attacked them. They also made good time he thought, not that he had any idea of how far they'd travelled. All he could see were trees.
But occasionally he got to see other sights. Mostly the bits and pieces of other worlds that were inserting themselves into Staal. So at one point the forest gave way to a small oasis of sand, complete with trees full of scorpions. They had to stay clear of them – until Magnus set them ablaze. And not much further on, a section of mountain popped up out of nowhere. But though they had to make their way around it, at least it didn't have any scorpion trees.
