“Who are you?” Ethan finally managed to stammer.
“I am Illumis, Emperor of all lands. Who are you?”
Ethan took a step back and paled at the terrible historical reference. He felt he was speaking with a ghost. He wasn’t that far from the truth. Finally he managed to choke out, “Skalderholt. Ethan Skalderholt.”
“Well, Ethan Skalderholt, I can see and feel that you aren’t intended to be here. You still live, do you not? I can see that you are a fellow Wizard. How came you to bring my monstrous creation across time and space to this realm of the hopeless dead?”
Ethan struggled for many a moment to find his voice again, but when he did he choked, “I was a Forester of the Three Baronies, a follower of the order begun by your arch-nemesis, Lady Quinn. I am among the last and was the only one able to defeat the Troll.”
Illumis chuckled to himself, a terrible dark sound, and he returned, “Quinn’s whelps accept Wizards into their order as well now? Why would a Wizard want to live in the dirt with those fools? Are you not aware of the power at your fingertips, boy? Why, you could enslave barons with your might and bed with baronesses. The world is yours if you desire it!”
Ethan looked at his shoes and shook his head. He looked back up to Illumis’s brooding visage and explained, “I don’t want it, Illumis. I never wanted it, this power and responsibility. It unleashes only destruction among those I care about. I am the only Wizard left in the Three Baronies. After your death, Wizardcraft thankfully left the world, but I have for some reason been chosen to bring it back. My land, your land that you once tried to conquer, is reeling from the horror that I’ve unleashed. And I pray to the Ancestors above that with my death it will vanish again.”
Illumis smirked condescendingly at Ethan and sighed, “Such a waste, boy. You could rule the world like I did.”
“Illumis, you couldn’t even rule yourself. You lost your manhood because you couldn’t control your lust, and you lost your life because you couldn’t control your subjects. Still, after a thousand years of desolation here in the Soul Wastes, you delude yourself into thinking that you possessed grandeur and the might of a baron. Barons rule justly and a successful baron is loved and adored by his people. Barons show humility and passion like Baron Fernhollow of Greenwell and they show brilliance and resolve like Baron Ruauld of Vhar. You never could have amounted to what they are, Illumis. You were a tyrant, nothing more. I know love, something you never had the wits to notice in your dark vile existence.”
At that Ethan turned his back on Illumis the Wizard Emperor and his eyes began to glow blue. But before he vanished Illumis sneered and spoke to him, “I can see into your future, boy. Love won’t be enough to save you. With your last breath you will know only loneliness and betrayal. In that, you and I are the same, Ethan Skalderholt.”
Ethan winced as he vanished from the realm of dark souls in a brilliant instant of cerulean light.
Chapter Twenty Five
Naught but Ruin to Rule
Ethan returned to the world and to Greenwell City to find Kraegovich painfully disentangling himself from all the ropes that had been binding his body. May was knelt down assisting him slicing the thick hemp cords where she could. Frightened little Nythee stood off to the side of the room, as far from the startling mess of black gore on the floor to the right of the hardwood desk as she could get.
When he appeared, all of the room’s occupants looked startlingly at him. Nythee was the first to sprint forward. The young Wendlithian girl wrapped Ethan’s waist in an emotional hug and she sobbed into his side, “I thought you said there would be no monsters now!”
He knelt down in front of her and embraced the girl.
“I’m sorry, Nythee. I didn’t know. I think we’re safe now.”
The floorboards creaked uncertainly as May came forward, and Ethan stood to meet her. She thudded into his torso in a full-bodied embrace and began sobbing fervently. Her body shuddered in gasps. When many moments had slipped by in relative silence, old worn Kraegovich having strode over to the lonely Nythee and lifting the child up to carry her protectively against his chest, Ethan whispered, “It’s over, May. The Troll is forever gone.”
Sobs formed of a conglomeration of relief and despair at the loss of her mother and all of her friends overcame May as Ethan rubbed her back soothingly with a blistered tattooed hand.
“May,” Ethan began as he held her a little ways away from him so he could look into her glistening blue eyes, “we need to get to the Castle of Greenwell. I need to speak with Baron Fernhollow about the state of the barony. I fear that the wilds won’t stop reclaiming the Three Baronies until we are all dust and bones.”
May sighed with a quick nod and wiped tears from both eyes.
“We aren’t out of the woods yet,” Ethan continued.
He kissed her once, long and passionate, his hands sliding down her bare back, and when they parted mouths she was smiling again. The Wizard whispered, “I love you, May.”
Ethan turned from his lover to Kraegovich and as he strode to the huge elderly Vharian man he shook his head saying, “I was sure that we’d seen the last of Bear.”
Kraegovich shrugged, Nythee protectively in one arm, and returned, “It would seem that the Troll had other uses for me, storyteller. But it is gone now?”
Ethan closed his eyes and nodded, “Aye, the Troll is slain.”
“Dare I ask how?” asked Kraegovich.
“I would not, Kraegovich. It’s one story that I would be glad to forget.”
The old Vharian nodded in understanding and extended his free hand towards the Wizard. Ethan grasped the large open hand and they stared into one another’s eyes, Ethan’s blue and slightly aglow. “I’m very happy to see you again, friend.”
About an hour later, as the sun was creeping towards its bright and hot midday position, the quartet marched from the Forester’s Compound with washed faces and hands, new outfits, and some random equipment.
Nythee wore a loose-fitting light blue tunic, the smallest that they could find, as a dress belted at her little waist by a white ribbon that May had in her room. Finally shed of her scant Woodfolk outfit, May was garbed in dark leather boots, a pair of dark brown leather pants, a dark green short sleeve linen shirt with a low-cut collar, and her wet hair was tied into a short ponytail with a leather thong. Her new weapon of choice, Férfa’s stone dagger, was held in a small fur scabbard at her hip.
Kraegovich, Nythee still sitting in the meaty crook of his thick arm, wore simple brown trousers and dark leather boots, a grey short-sleeved tunic belted about his waist by a wide dark leather belt, and an old sword with a leather-wrapped hilt that he had as a replacement in his room rode at his waist. Ethan wore a loose white linen shirt with a tie-up collar that he left partially-untied, black trousers and dark leather boots, and one of the heavy brown wool hooded-cloaks that Foresters were seen to wear. He kept the hood up to cast his mysterious tattooed face in shadows, but he had to remain with gaze downcast so passersby didn’t easily notice his glowing blue eyes gazing out from the shadows of the cowl.
All of the former Foresters of the Three Baronies took pains to not take any of the armor or hand axes of their once-proud order. The order was finished and they agreed not to salvage pieces off of it like scavengers over some steaming kill.
As they stood there in the courtyard of the Forester’s Compound with the shadow of Lady Quinn creeping over the rim of the fountain, May stated the thought that all were thinking, “Do you think we’ll ever be back here?”
They were silent for many moments until Kraegovich spoke, “I’ve been a Forester for longer than either of you have been alive. It is my life, my reason for existing in the Three Baronies. But it pains me a great deal to say that I don’t believe I’ll ever be back here again. I’m too old to start something else, but the Foresters of the Three Baronies have fallen. The order is finished.”
The silence pervading the courtyard proclaimed agreement and resignation
. At that the trio, with young Nythee in tow, left the ivy-shrouded wrought iron gate of the abandoned headquarters of the Foresters of the Three Baronies, and all knew in their hearts that they would never enter it again.
When they walked into the Great Hall of the Castle of Greenwell the former Foresters possessed an anxious resolve, a determination to find what had befallen in the time that the Wizardcraft-changed beasts had to wreak havoc and carnage upon the folk of the Three Baronies. They found the dark chamber oddly empty of Greenwellian Knights. The sight of the royal stag emblem and the green banners about the bases of the pillars reminded Ethan of Sir Ross Silverstag, who he had abandoned in the warm company of Eikjard and The House of Chronicles. He pondered on the old knight’s life, obviously trapped in the Barony of Vhar with no hope of returning all the way back to his home in Greenwell City, no hope of returning to his order. Ethan, with his home destroyed and the Foresters disbanded, could certainly empathize with what the old knight must feel.
Marching through the forest of pillars in the dimly lit vaulted chamber, they caught sight of the throne upon the central raised dais in the center of the room, and they caught sight of the grim forlorn figure posed in desolation atop it. Baron Reynard Fernhollow sat upon it with his gold-gilded royal sword bare across his lap. His elbow was perched atop his knee, fist holding his downcast face aloft. There were none of his personal guard of Greenwellian Knights about, and from the look of things the Great Hall was utterly devoid of life save for the Baron and his four approaching callers. Their footsteps sounded like the echoing rumble of thunder in the empty stone chamber.
Without looking up Baron Fernhollow rasped, “Who calls now, to Baron Fernhollow, another landowner whose land has been overrun by monsters, another merchant with a ravaged and ruined caravan left to rot in splinters and gore upon the Three Baronies Road, another Knight Commander come to impart the ill news of the loss of his entire patrol, another wife inquiring after the whereabouts of her doomed lover, so obviously slaughtered in the wilds?”
The Baron slowly looked up as Ethan pulled off his heavy wool hood, eyes all aglow, and the royal presence finally asked, “Or is it again a Wizard, come to bear ill tidings, foretelling to me something that I already know?”
“And what is that, Baron?” replied Ethan when the four final reached the base of his high throne.
“That my barony is being erased, its folk slaughtered and its settlements overrun with monsters and chaos. And it is not just the Barony of Greenwell, mind you. Too few refugees from Wendlith have ridden their horses in a hurry northward, proclaiming an apocalypse of fire and carnage among their green lands. The Wendlithian people have almost been completely eradicated in a very short amount of time. Taedroke and Baroness Jhinae lay in ruins,” explained the Baron grimly, his dark green eyes falling remorsefully to the young Wendlithian child in Kraegovich’s protective arms.
“And Vhar, my Baron? What of Lumberwall?” asked May.
“Aye, contact with the northern barony has ceased. All couriers and patrols sent forth do not return. But, the resolve and tenacity of the Vharians makes me think that rustic Lumberwall will remain, proud and stoic, even when our fair Greenwell City is lost to nature and Wizardcraft.”
At the Baron’s statement both Kraegovich and Ethan couldn’t help but smile briefly in pride at the virtue of their fellows in the north. The Baron ran his thumb absently along his gleaming golden blade in his lap, a vacant stare evident on his hard, weathered face.
“Just how bad is it?” asked Ethan, blue eyes flaring.
Baron Fernhollow sighed and began his explanation. “It is so bad, Wizard, that my only daughter, Heiress Ambria, not older than that Wendlithian girl,” he said indicating Nythee, “will grow up to rule only this city as Baroness. There will be no Barony of Greenwell for Baroness Ambria in the dark days ahead. There will be no Barony of Vhar for the heirs of the Ruauld’s. And already the Barony of Wendlith is lost. The land of Two Baronies we are now, but soon I fear none will remain.”
He continued, “My few knights that have returned have informed me that every settlement along the East Road and the Three Baronies Road is in ruins. Enormous and cruel packs of Deep Wolves, filled with acid, slaughter all inhabitants systematically and move on, leaving smoldering wreckage in their wake. In the south, between here and the burning plains of Wendlith, brutally-powerful Emerald Wurms, no more than a myth to many, have slithered into all southern communities bearing bestial slaughter and destruction. Along coastal settlements, mythic and titanic Sea Wurms have ascended from the mysterious depths of the sea to pull the folk and the ruins of the towns they crush with their colossal bulk into the dark waters. Woodfolk tribe battles Woodfolk tribe in the shade of the Forest of Greenwell for supremacy in the chaos unleashed in the sylvan landscape. It is a matter of time before the savages are slaughtered as well. That, Wizard, is how bad it is.”
The weight of it all settled upon the shoulders and brows of all present and nary a word was uttered by any for quite some time. The Three Baronies was on a sword’s edge and about to fall into ruin, but there would be no heroes to rescue it at the last moment and pull it back to goodness and right. With Wizardcraft’s return, the land was being very quickly retaken by ancient primeval powers, by enchanted beasts, and there was no reason to believe that it would stop at the last moment, a band of merry heroes putting things to rights. Ethan was beginning to doubt that his own death would even take the powers away from the creatures in that Wizardcraft had returned to. If he knew without a doubt that his death would have stopped things from getting as bad as they were, then he would already be dead.
Finally Ethan had some information to impart to the baron, and he did so by stating, “As I told you would happen when we last spoke, the Foresters have indeed been disbanded. It wasn’t really much of a choice seeing as how we three,” he said indicating he, Kraegovich and May, “are the final Foresters that were left alive from the Troll.”
The Baron nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry for your losses and the dissolution of your order. And what of the Troll? My knights had not reported the beast attempting to gain entry into the Old District walls.”
“I have slain it, with my Wizardcraft. That foul creation from the Ancient Age has vanished into the powers from which it was ripped forth,” was Ethan’s cryptic answer.
“Aye, that is well,” Baron Fernhollow grumbled.
“I noticed, my Baron,” May began, “when I gained entry to the city that many of your Greenwellian Knights that remain are positioned upon the walls and gates of the Old District here in the city’s center. What of the greater portions of town, those outside of the old walls?”
The Baron sat there brooding before looking at her with weary shielded eyes and speaking, “Already, extensive packs of Deep Wolves and even sightings of Emerald Wurms have been rumored and even glanced at in the forests just beyond the edges of the city. Soon nature itself and Wizardcraft, old and mighty beasts and primeval powers, will besiege the city. When that happens, I will order my remaining knights to drop the portcullises and seal the gates of the Old District. I fear that anything outside of the old walls is soon to be vanquished.”
May and Ethan looked askance at one another and then at the statuesque unreadable face of Kraegovich. May then looked back to the Baron and said, “Well, my Baron, have you proclaimed as much to your city’s inhabitants? Shouldn’t you begin the evacuation into the Old District before lives are needlessly lost?”
“There will be no evacuation, lass. The Old District contains most of the old bloodlines of Greenwell, the College of the Three Baronies with its sages and scribes, the Grand Cathedral of the Ancestors, and the Castle of Greenwell. With the survival of this district our knowledge, faith and boldest folk will hopefully survive the onslaught. The old walls surrounding the Old District are stronger and higher than any settlement’s walls found throughout the barony. We will weather this storm here. And we will salvage some sort of future out of the ruin that
will be there when the tide has ebbed.”
Ethan furrowed his brow and asked a bit testily, “You mean to sacrifice most of your city’s inhabitants? Have you no care for your subjects?”
The Baron’s eyes turned cold and narrowed at the impertinent Vharian Wizard. He growled, “Your time for advice has passed, Wizard. I’ll have no more of it. Was it not you who brought all of this ruin down upon the land? Was it not you that changed all of the beasts and granted them the verve to reclaim the wilds from us? Was it not you that led to the destruction of your order as well as countless other enterprises across the Three Baronies? Was it not you who has brought all to their doom? Is it not you that is the one Wizard in the land? You, Vharian, have wrought more despair than ever was unleashed by Illumis in the Ancient Age. You are a curse, a plague upon the land. And you would be wise to use your Wizardcraft to vanish from my sight before I split you in two.”
The royal words of Baron Fernhollow were a confirmation to dark thoughts and feelings that Ethan had already come to suspect about himself. The glow in his blue eyes dimmed as they welled with tears. His arms hung loose at his sides and he slowly went to his knees upon the cool stone of the floor of the Great Hall. Tears dampened his red beard and he grasped fistfuls of his chin-length blond hair as he began sobbing.
May Kinsley looked up at the baron accusingly, her knuckles white about the handle of her stone dagger. Kraegovich held a confused Nythee warmly to his torso, but his Vharian hard brown eyes stared dangerous promises to the ruler of Greenwell.
The Azure Wizard Page 23
