Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  Each of these had names Nyeg Warlers no longer knew. The one Lylah chose to follow was called the Emaryth River, though it was far smaller than its designation implied. With a name whose translation was Mother's Milk, the lively waterway was the Pool of Transitions gift to a warl that was ignorant of the magic it dispensed, magic that Ab'Don had tried to bend to his own cruel purposes. But the enchanted water that spilled over the Pool of Transition's lip couldn’t be turned from its true nature. So, it flowed past the Hall of Voyd, into the Malamor River, and out into the warls seas where its virtue waited for those with good hearts to access. Sadly, other than the waterkynd themselves, few had tapped into its bounty, though it was available to all who lived in the Warl of the Living.

  Sensing, what was to them a fouled stream, the cretchym no longer tried to grab hold of Lylah's fleeing form. Instead, they watched her from an altitude that spared them from coming into contact with the annoying emanations that came from the strange, dancing waters.

  Continuing up the mountainside, Lylah was pleased to find another layer of protection had been given to her. As high as she had climbed, the colder air found at this elevation drew mists out of the robust tributary she had chosen to use, mists that were joined by other vapors emitted by nearby streams. Put together, they became a patch of cloud that clung to the fir trees and brush that were growing there. If one had a vantage point that allowed them to survey the area, other frayed patches of vapor could be seen on the mountain's face, all slowly rising up toward the snow-covered peaks above.

  In time, a gentle mist caressed Lylah as she worked her way toward the Pool of Transition. Being hidden from view added to her sense of comfort. So did the silence that surrounded her. It was almost like the welcome mist was mercifully shielding her from the cretchym's unnerving cries.

  Lylah was beginning to feel at home with the magic infused stream beneath her and the mist, now filled with flecks of rain that seemed to be suspended in air, embracing her. But though this was the case, Lylah couldn't help but wonder why a Pool of Transition was found as high up in the mountains as this one.

  In the Warl of Man, waterkynd gravitated to valleys filled with ferns and streams, places fronted with cliffs holding pools of water that fed the watercourses below. Other than in the Warl of Ice, waterkynd seldom ascended to the tops of mountains where the waters they loved so much first began to flow.

  While mulling over the question of the Pool of Tranitions location, Lylah wasn't surprised when she reached the mountain's tree line. Dim recollections of visiting the place in more than one of the many lives she had previously lived before warned her that this would happen. Still, her question remained: Why a portal here?

  When she finally reached her destination, Lylah's curiosity grew when she saw the boulders the zigzagging stream wound its way through. Ice Dragons are responsible for these, she surmised.

  Though she had never taken time to make this observation before, it was obvious. Massive claw and teeth marks, darkened with age, could still be seen in spite of the erosion that had taken place since they were strewn about. With the violent force needed to make such deep scarring, the waterkynd must have assumed their Ice Dragon forms to excavate the mountainside. But why? Most likely to unearth the underground stream that fed the pool she was approaching. But why were enchanted waters such as these found here?

  Things still didn't make sense to her, but it did give her an idea: She would go to the Warl of Ice if she was able to activate the pool's magic.

  An enclosure made with large rocks rose above the far end of the end of the morass of boulders, an enclosure who had to have creatures as powerful as Ice Dragons to form. A hedge made of rough stones was used to fashion the Pool of Transition Lylah could not yet see, but knew was there.

  The wall was made to keep magickers like Ab'Don away, she told herself. Did they know someone like the Sorcerer would rise to power?

  Reaching the jumbled barrier, Lylah slipped over it glad the low lying mists still hid her from sight. As she did, a sound of tumbling rocks was heard coming from behind; but Lylah didn't take time to investigate. The urgent need to get away from Ar Warl prevented her from doing this. If Lylah had to, she would morph into an Ice Dragon to fend off any attackers, though she knew this form was vulnerable to Laviathon's flames and the Hag's candles. To make such a transformation in a place like this would be easy to do, since the scent of the Ice Dragons who had made the pool permeated the surrounding stone.

  Normally waterkynd only became dragons when they traveled to the Realm of Ice, a form they used to protect their brothers and sisters who had succumbed to the Sleep of Rejuvenation, a sleep that ensued once a waterkynd melded themselves into one of the glaciers filling the spaces found between multitudes of rocky mountain peaks.

  As hard as ice and stronger than a team of well-fed oxen, the fierce Ice Dragons were built for battle. Functioning as warriors who were commissioned to stand guard over what was essentially the waterkynd nursery, the dragons gained their great strength from the rocks they fed on. These were violently broken off of the Warl of Ice's continually growing mountains with sharp teeth, rending claws, and pounding tails whose ends were armed with spikes or balls made of skin-covered bone.

  After living a long life, the waterkynd entered the Sleep of Rejuvenation to begin a new cycle in their unending existence. Once subsumed into one of the many glaciers found in the Realm of Ice, a waterkynd was vulnerable to attack from a Goar as they were carried along by the slow moving mass of ice. When they finally reached the Lake of Transition, they were calved from the glacier and fell into the water where the quickly melting iceberg birthed a new waterkynd whose previous lives were now but distant memories.

  Whereas, a waterkynd could only take a vaporous form in the Realm of Vapor, a watery form based on a paradigm roughly consistent with the creatures that swam in the seas covering the Realm of Water, and the Ice Dragon form in the Realm of Ice, the extraordinary beings could assume any of the three forms in the place that humans called the Warl of Man.

  The lone limitation to the Ice Dragon form outside the Warl of Ice was related to their capacity to use their wings to fly. Since the dragons' bodies were made of ice, an excessive amount of moisture was needed to activate the magic that made it possible for the mighty creatures to gain purchase of the sky. Heavy fog or clouds was the minimal requirement. Storm clouds dropping heavy rains were even better. Those spewing hailstones were best.

  In Lylah's present circumstance, the necessary amount of water was found flowing through the streams and rivers themselves, an amount that would restrict her to soaring close to the estuaries’ surface. Since she could travel just as fast as an Ice Dragon in her vaporous form, Lylah had chosen to avoid the more visible of the two forms, especially since she discovered Laviathon's fire could burn her. Still, if unable to activate the Pool of Transition she had just reached, Lylah would transform into an Ice Dragon and try to force her way past the Hall of Voyd's trap that was being set for her.

  ****

  Contoured like a trough, the Pool of Transition she approached was larger than the one found on Mythoria's cliffs. Lylah guessed that the elongated shape was chosen to make the pool appear to be just a bulge in the stream that poured out of its northern end than what it really was. The jumbled pile of stones that surrounded the pool gave a reason for its shape without drawing unwanted attention by being a better crafted berm.

  Lylah smiled when she saw that a field of ice, sitting just above the pool's southern end, was the source of the stream's water. One of the reasons why the Ice Dragons chose to dig here was answered by this observation. More snow and ice could be seen higher up, hidden from the sun's direct rays by the mountain's irregular face.

  Lylah slipped into the pool's water and transformed into the long, ribbon-like fish shape she became whenever she went to the Realm of Water. Water for water could get things going, she reasoned, though she figured that the Realm of Ice was a better destination to active t
he Pool of Transition's magic. After all, powerful Ice Dragons had torn up the mountainside to create the pool. Still, water came before ice, so Lylah stuck with her plan.

  Moving through the water in an intricate pattern that was used to rouse the pool's power, Lylah felt the resident magic tingling against her sides as it was awakened from its centuries’ long sleep. Tingling turned to prickling. Sporadic stinging followed like the water had jellyfish swimming in it whose tentacles stung Lylah as they brushed up against her smooth sides. The stinging turned to stabs of pain reminiscent of those delivered by a thornel bushes spike-like thorns. Still, the pool's magic failed to transport Lylah to another realm.

  Failing to activate the pool's power, Lylah became concerned by the increasing pain she was subjected to. Has the pool been damaged? She wondered. Has Ab'Don been able to distort its magic?

  Fear began to push concern aside. If Ab'Don has tainted the pool, what is the water doing to me?

  I need to get out, she decided as the stabbing pain reached unbearable proportions. But before Lylah could extricate herself from the pool, if that were now possible if the Sorcerer ruined the water, the pool's far end erupted with sounds of loud splashing.

  One after another, the crawling cretchym, that looked more human than the Sorcerer's other mutant children with the elongated torsos and multiple pairs of arms and legs that sprouted from them, began cascading over the rock-strewn border and into the water. Screaming through mouths that opened sideways in faces that were contorted versions of their father's own, the cretchym paddled along like dogs do, while those underwater looked like frogs that only use their legs for propulsion. The supple spines that were in keeping with the cretchym's insect legacy added a wiggling, wormy touch to both styles of swimming. The long hair that flowed from the mutants’ strange heads and over the top of their swiveling backs made the swarm look like an approaching bed of blond seaweed bent on catching the waterkynd in its tangled mass.

  Lylah guessed the cretchym's unnerving screams came from two sources: one being, the thrill they felt in catching up with her; the other from the pain they had to endure as they passed through the pool's stabbing, stinging water to reach her.

  Seeing the cretchym biting the water, Lylah at first thought the squirming monsters were retaliating against the tormenting water that was stinging them. Later, she decided the swarm was bent on biting her with their gnashing teeth. Then it dawned on Lylah that the cretchym wanted to do more than bite... they wanted to devour her watery form.

  This won’t happen, she promised herself. And once the promise was made, Lylah's form began to change. No longer ribbon-shaped, her body enlarged at an alarming rate. Wings sprouted from a reptilian torso that was awash in brilliant colors and harder than ice.

  A large oval of violet color- surrounded by a swath of yellow, followed by another of purple- covered her underside. Brilliant green covered the rest of her except for her claws and the large spikes that protruded from the end of her tail. These were as yellow as her eyes were. All of this had a polished metallic sheen to them.

  Forearms, with massive hands owning clawed fingers, grew out of the dazzling torso. Forelegs, with feet that were armed with even bigger, yellow claws, followed. A long neck and triangularly-shaped head rose above the dragon's quickly developing body, breaking the pool's surface as it grew.

  Yellow eyes watched as the mass of mutants covered her in a blanket of blond hair and nude bodies, Lylah roared and threw her powerful wings out in a move so violent it sent the swarm of cretchym flying through the air.

  No matter how tenacious the insect-men were, they were no match for an Ice Dragon, not even with overwhelming numbers on their side. Still, Lylah failed to be transported out of Ar Warl. Without this happening, her victory would be short lived since the Hall of Voyd blocked her way of escape.

  Enduring enough of the painful waters, Lylah flapped her powerful wings to get airborne so she could glide over the river top and back down the mountainside to meet the fate that awaited her. Instead, Lylah felt the weight of a house fall on her as one of the giant centipedes that had arrived launched itself into the Pool of Transition.

  Folding her wings against her back so she could face the monster that pushed her down into the water's depths, Lylah turned, opened her tooth-filled mouth, and bit the giant insect that struck at her with its venom filled stingers. Tearing the monster's head off, Lylah felt greater weight bearing down on her as the rest of the dead monster's body continued to fall into the water.

  A second bone rattling jolt told her that another centipede had thrown itself on top of the first. How many more would follow? Were there more than could be handled before the rest of the crawling cretchym joined the fray? And what of the Hag and their candles' lethal magic?

  A third jolt drove Lylah's massive Ice Dragon body against the unrelenting, trough-shaped stones that held the pool's water in its grasp, a jolt so violent that the scales made of rock-hard ice that covered her cracked beneath its impact.

  A fourth jolt followed pushing her into the stones that suddenly gave way to the careening bulk that assailed it. To her surprise, Lylah found herself being hurled into the air above the Lake of Transition that sat at the foot of a giant glacier in the Realm of Ice. Only a smear of white substance that stuck to her tooth-filled snout, a substance that must have been the centipede's blood, made the transition with her. Not taking time to consider how such a troubling thing could have happened, for only the waterkynd could use the portals, Lylah swept her wings out to gain altitude so she could dive back into the lake.

  Glad that the magic found in the Pool of Transition located in the Thrall Mountains' heights had finally been activated, her only thought was to get back to Mythoria as quickly as she could to rally help for Kaylan.

  Reaching the apex of the arc Lylah used to dive back into the Lake of Transition, she saw flocks of Ice Dragons rising up from the surrounding rocky peaks like they were amassing to fight off a GOAR. As a hummingbird's hues change with the angle of sunlight that hits them, brilliant one moment and subdued the next, Lylah's coloring did the same even without a celestial body there to help since the Realm of Ice didn't have a sun. The glaciers themselves were the realm's source of illumination that was cast into the blue-gray sky that mirrored the ice’s darker interior.

  Unable to detect an incursion from outsiders who wanted to raid the Warl of the Waterkynd and plunder their magic, she folded her wings against her sides and fell into the lake like she was a spear that had been hurled at the frigid water below. All the while, the throng of Ice Dragons closed in on her intent on watching her passing. And once she was gone, the agitated dragons swirled about the place where she had exited the Realm of Ice to make certain she didn't return, snarling and roaring all the while.

  Chapter 10: Alysha's Dream

  Bursting above the Pool of Transition's surface that sat on Mythoria's cliff, Lylah was surprised to see the waterkynd leaving the numerous pools they used as homes and hurry her way. Looking like ragged clouds driven before a storm, the Mythorians seemed alarmed by her arrival. Recalling the Ice Dragons that took to flight in the Realm of Ice, Lylah realized she must be the focus of attention. But why? What was arousing the waterkynd so? Surely, it wasn't her.

  Then she remembered the pain she had endured when using the Pool of Transition back in Ar Warl. Could it have been infected by the Sorcerer's magic? Did she carry that infection with her? If so, to what end?

  "Lylah, what is dripping from your mouth?" Foush, one of Mythoria's elders, asked her as a great cloud of waterkynd gathered about her. "It’s tainted with foul magic."

  No longer an Ice Dragon, Lylah's vaporous form wasn't substantial enough for the white excretion to stick to like before. Instead, it began to trickle down her ethereal face and onto her body. Reaching up and wiping some of the white stuff away, Lylah looked horrified by what she saw. It had to be blood form the giant centipede she had beheaded.

  Before any of the foul liquid cou
ld drop off of Lylah and reach the Pool of Transition, Foush ordered the cloud of waterkynd to close in on her and carry Lylah to the nearby Eyre River where they gave her and themselves a thorough washing. Their hope was that Ab'Don could not track the blood's scent back to Mythoria; nor use it as a way to break through their defenses and enter the Realm of the Waterkynd. To do so would make the Sorcerer the first Goar to come from the Warl of Man.

  Goar was a term used to describe attempts from those living in other realms to break into the Warl of the Waterkynd to lay hold of their magic. With this in hand, they could further unravel the secrets the waterkynd kept to themselves.

  There were more realms than even the waterkynd knew about. Those they had been able to visit were filled with both wonders and despair. With the despair they encountered outweighing the wonder, the waterkynd had chosen to stay away from the realms they had been able to access, though their desire for greater exploration remained. Satisfied in living within their own realm of existence made this an easy decision. Still, they had to keep guard against those found in other realms who had greater ambitions, those who found the waterkynd's sense of satisfaction a compelling aroma. After all, the love of power was not so different from the love of peace. Many thought them inseparable. How could peace be assured without having the power to protect it? Thus, the Ice Dragons.

  ****

  After listening to Lylah tell the tale of what had happened, Foush spoke from his place in the cloud of waterkynd that still surrounded her. "Your foolish flirtation with Kaylan has endangered us all."

  "It isn't a flirtation, we've Come Together just as it was prophesied," Lylah spoke with a firm but quiet voice, trying to avoid the misconceptions her relationship with Kaylan had engendered. She wasn't a rebel, nor was she willful in the way the self-absorbed were. Lylah loved her brothers and sisters as much as she did Kaylan. But to say she loved them more would be inaccurate. Somehow the human had found a place in her heart in a way none other had, not any she had been Together with in her previous lives, nor any parent she had known.