“One would think that, but I have no idea how that would happen. I have never studied the magic that could transcend planes of existence, which is what this is. We are on another plane, and if you’re hoping I can snap my fingers and send us home, you are sadly mistaken.”
“You could at least try.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Master Wellington. We are up against a magic far more powerful than mine.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“You should go to the Spellcrafter in Ebony City,” said a tiny, high-pitched voice from somewhere below me.
“Who said that?” I looked around and saw nothing that would possibly produce a voice.
“I’m telling you, go to Ebony City,” the voice said again.
I knelt to get a better look at the ground surrounding the twigs and dead brush that covered much of the surface of the ground around me. It was then I spied a small creature, barely larger than the palm of my hand. A mole.
“Are you talking to us?”
The mole propped itself up on its large hind feet. “Who else would be talking to you?”
“I wasn’t expecting an ugly mole to be talking to us. Wizard! I’m talking to a mole over here.”
“Who are you calling ugly, Mr. big-head?”
“I don’t have a big head,” I argued.
“You should see it from my angle.”
“What is your name, mole?”
“My name is Anni.”
I thought for a minute. Anni-mole. Animal? Coincidence. Has to be.
“Hello, Anni. I am Wellington. What can you tell us about this place?”
“This is Devigon, but your mage already told you that. If you want to get out of here, you need to make your way to Ebony City. Find the Spellcrafter. He can craft you a spell to get out of this place. It will cost you, though.”
“It’s a good thing I have some money with me—”
“Hahaha! Money is no good here. Where do you think you are?”
“What will it cost me?”
“That is something you will have to work out with the Spellcrafter.”
“And how do we know we can trust you, little mole?”
“Have you ever met a talking mole you couldn’t trust before?”
“No, Anni, I can’t say I have.”
“I think the mole can be trusted, Wellington,” the wizard said. “Anni, would you show us the way to Ebony City?”
“What is in it for Anni?” the mole asked, speaking of herself in third-person.
“I have no idea what to offer a mole of your stature.”
“I’m just pulling your leg. You have nothing I want. But someone will have to carry me. My legs are far too small to keep up.”
“I know the feeling. Here,” I said, reaching out to pick up the ugly little talpid. She stepped onto my palm, and I stood up, placing her on my shoulder. “Comfortable?”
“This will do, but at the first sign of trouble I am jumping down and making a nice hole for myself in the ground. At least on your shoulder I won’t have far to fall.”
“Is that a short joke?”
“Payback for calling me ugly earlier.”
“Fair enough.”
“Do you see the light to the west? Go there.”
“Go west, Anni says,” I announced to the rest of the party.
“Then that is where we shall go,” the wizard agreed. “Let’s keep our eyes open for danger. You never know what might be lurking in the shadows.”
“Your friend is correct. There are dangers everywhere in Devigon. He’d better have his best spells ready, and your archer better have lots of arrows that fly true, as she’ll need them. All of them.”
“Then I suggest we waste no time making out way to Ebony City,” the wizard suggested. “Let us not waste the bright of the moon.”
As a slight blast of cold wind hit us in the face, we began to trudge through the bramble around our feet. Gnath had no trouble, but some of them were almost knee-high to my tiny legs. I found myself again walking at the back of the pack, where much of the dead overbrush were trampled down by Gnath and the larger members of our party.
The wizard bought us to a stop for what seemed to be no reason what-so-ever. When we began to question his motives, he raised his hand for us to be silent. He cocked his head and squinted, as if to sharpen his hearing. For some reason I found myself doing the same thing.
“Something’s not right,” he said in a hushed tone. “Look, out there.” He pointed to the area ahead of us and swept his hand across the horizon.
I looked but didn’t immediately see anything unusual, except that everything in Devigon is usual. But then I saw it. The ground ahead seemed to be rippling, much like a wave coming into shore. Several waves, actually.
“Anni…?”
“Subterranean spiders,” her little voice peeped.
Chapter 11
“Um… I’m sorry. What?”
“Subterranean spiders. Spiders underground. Big spiders. Big fast spiders.”
“I hate big fast ugly underground spiders!” I said in a bit of a panic. “Wizard, can you do your shield thing around us? Quickly?”
“I am trying, but my magic is not working as it should here. Something is wrong!”
“Great! Gnath, hand the wizard your knife, things are about to get ugly.”
And ugly it did get. Skinny, spider-like legs sprouted from the ground and began clinging to our boots with razor-like barbs. Rika screamed as she realized her camouflage did not work in this land. Like crazed lunatics we began plunging our weapons into the dirt hoping to immobilize the attacking spiders. On a rare lucky strike, the shriek of a dying spider could be heard as a sword would pierce the abdomen of one or more.
As we became surrounded by the wave under the ground, we stabbed at the ground for all that we were worth. And then we heard Rika scream again, this time with more conviction than before. Three huge, black and hairy spiders had emerged from under the surface and were attempting to restrain her with webbing. She struggled against the sticky threads around her legs, but soon she became immobile and fell over onto her side.
“Gnath! Rika!” I yelled.
More spiders emerged and began tugging at her, pulling her under the surface.
Gnath, pulling his sword from the ground, a bluish goo shiny on the blade, turned and grabbed one of the spiders with his massive hand, tossing it aside like a rag doll. I pounced on one of the spiders myself, impaling it with my tiny sword.
As Rika’s head was about to go sub-surface, Gnath grabbed her hand and pulled her free of the spider’s grips, but they didn’t let that stop them. As he set her down to unwrap the webs that bound her, more spiders began clawing at her, some breaking her skin. She screamed in pain and horror.
Spearing more and more of the spiders, their blueish blood spewing onto the ground and up my forearm, I frantically fought to keep the spiders at bay. Gnath finally managed to free Rika from the web, as Nyssa and the wizard did their best to eliminate the spiders as fast as they showed themselves.
Rika, now free, retrieved her own knife that she had dropped and was now fending off the arachnid attackers with a vengeance. By the time the last spider that we could see was exterminated, we were all exhausted.
“Well, that was easy,” the tiny voice came from my shoulder. I had forgotten she was there.
“I thought you were going to hide underground if things got bad?”
“Go underground with the giant subterranean spiders? Those things eat little rodents like me for breakfast.”
“Lady Rika, are you all right?”
“I have a few scratches, but I should be okay. Thank you, and brave Gnath for saving me.”
“You’re lucky that these spiders weren’t poisonous,” Anni said. “Some have poison on their claws to paralyze their prey. Humans do not wake up from the poison without the help of a mage.”
“The wizard is a fine mage,” I said.
“Not in this world. T
his world has a completely different magic structure, as your wizard has already found out. You need spells crafted specifically for this place. Your old-world magic will not work here.”
“Shall we keep moving?” the Arick the wizard suggested.
“Okay. No need to rest or anything. Middle of the damn night, we rescue you, run from orcs, fight off giant underground spiders, and we’re all fresh, ready to go some more.”
“Would you like to camp here, and let the spiders come and drag you to their underground lair?”
“Good point. Let us keep moving.”
As the others started off to the west once again, I sighed. Anni changed her position on my shoulder. “Is this a long trip?” I asked.
“It is if you have small legs.”
I laughed and followed in behind my party of misfit friends.
The terrain changed as we traveled west. From the brambles and dead overbrush, we entered what seemed to be a dead forest. In fact, with the mist in the air it appeared to be very much like the Forest of the Damned, but for the fallen trees, rotting timbers and fallen limbs.
“There could very well be a link between this forest, if you can call it that, and the one we left on the other plane,” the wizard said as though reading my mind.
“It is said,” Anni said, “that often visitors from your world begin their existence in this world within these vary woods. They call this place Dead Wood Forest.”
“Appropriate.”
“Has it always been this way?” I asked my little friend.
“Devigon has been this way for hundreds of years. Once it was a thriving world, rich with resources, and beautiful countryside. But one day, for no reason that anyone can explain, a dark curse swept over the land. Some say it was an angry sorcerer that visited from your world, angry that his dragons had been killed, but that is all folklore.”
“Zaleus!” Arick scoffed.
“Oh, you’ve heard the legend too?”
“No, but I know the main character. I didn’t know he would take out his anger on an entire world.”
“But why wouldn’t he punish Neverwind? That is where you were, wizard?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe his magic is stronger here? It would take a very powerful sorcerer to do all of this, at least in Neverwind.”
“And your magic is useless here?”
“I don’t know about that. But it didn’t work when I tried to make a shield around us to fend off the spiders. This place has a strange effect on my energy. I have a hard time focusing it.”
“And I can’t vanish, either,” Rika said, walking ahead of me.
“Well, at least swords still work here.”
“That, my little friend, is most definitely a good thing,” the wizard confirmed.
The forest grew darker as the trees blocked out more of the moonlight, and the mist that hung in the air blocked even more. We paused a moment to find some sticks for the building of torches. Gnath had an old night-robe that I was always picking on him about, and he offered it be used for the torches only after I promised to buy him a new one if we ever got out of Devigon.
We managed to get three torches lit, and Gnath, Nyssa and Arick each carried one. We continued onward, fighting fatigue and cold.
I don’t know when it started happening, but at some point in our arduous journey, I noticed that there were little lights dancing around the torches. Some were jumping between the three torches; some seemed content orbiting one torch. Fireflies? I thought. They didn’t look like fireflies. All the fireflies I have ever seen in nature would be bright for a moment, then disappear. These were larger and seemed to stay lit. The others hadn’t noticed them. And the longer I watched, the more showed up.
“Anni, are you awake?” I asked the little talpid on my shoulder.
“Yes, what is it? Are we dead?”
“No. I need to know what those are,” I said, pointing at the lights around the torches. By this time there was quite a number. Nyssa and the wizard heard me ask the question and looked up at the torches to discover the lights as well.
“Those are pixets. Fairy lights. They are supposed to bring good luck. They are here to guide you through the forest. You are very lucky to have encountered them.”
“Pixets, huh?”
Gnath finally noticed the lights swirling around his torch, and he began waving it around as though trying to shake the pixets free from his torch, with no luck.
“Gnath! It’s okay, they’re friendly.”
The others took some pleasure in twirling their torches around and watching the pixets dance around them. Rika and Nyssa seemed to really enjoy the light show, while Arick looked at them with an analytical eye, as though he were studying them.
“What are they?” Nyssa asked.
“No one really knows for sure,” Anni said, propping herself up on my shoulder, as though addressing the crowd. “Some say they are fairies; some say they are magic energy that attracts itself to light when conditions are just so. No one has ever caught one to study.”
“What was that bit about good luck?”
“It is merely folklore. Stories are told of people being lost in the wilderness and being led to safety by the pixets, another story tells of the pixets blinding a band of goblin thugs long enough for their victim to get away.”
“So, are they here to help us, then?” the wizard asked.
“We will find out when that happens, I suppose,” Anni said, turning again and lying down on my shoulder. “But they will be gone by dawn. Pixets only come out at night.”
“Then I would imagine they will be leaving us soon,” the wizard remarked. “The sky is starting to lighten. I believe it will be dawn soon.”
It was only s a short while before we left the dead forest as it opened unto some rolling hills and valleys, mostly rock covered and dead, beginning to glow, if you could call it that, in the morning sunlight. The dull gray of Devigon still persisted, but not as dark. The pixets began to swirl, then they quickly rose into the morning sky and disappeared.
We stopped for a moment. Before us, the path was clear enough to follow, but it also appeared that it was the only path to take. To our dismay, below us in the valley, we could see a makeshift settlement. It wasn’t a city, so-to-speak, but more a tent village, or encampment.
“This could be bad,” I said.
“That it could, my little friend,” Arick said.
“Anni, do you know who these folks are?”
“How should I know? Maybe you should go ask them who they are?”
“I don’t see any way around them,” the wizard said. “If we are to continue onward, it looks like going through them is our only option.”
“Sure. Why not. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Anni shifted again on my shoulder. “You guys have guts.”
Chapter 12
As we descended the rocky path downwards towards the encampment, the pixets made their departure, flitting off into the sky over our heads. I felt a bit of sadness with their leaving, as they had given me the feeling of not being alone in this strange land. They were, no pun intended, a bright spot to this gloomy world we had found ourselves in.
“Well, that helped. That was, um… lucky. They could have stayed with us long enough to get us through the camp.”
“They just let you know they are here for you. You might see them again when you need them. Or not.”
“As long as we need them at night, I guess. Am I right?”
Anni didn’t answer.
As we approached the settlement, we could see that the populous of the site were mostly human, though their nature could not be determined. They could be barbarians, thieves, ruffians, or an evil army looking to loot any strangers passing through. Still, the wizard and Nyssa led us onward, with Rika and I hanging back behind the massive Gnath.
“Put away your weapons,” the wizard asserted. “We don’t what their first impressions of us as being hostile.”
“So, t
he easy target impression is better?”
“The wizard is right,” Nyssa agreed. “Sheath your little toothpick, Master Wellington.”
“Toothpick? To my people, this is a sword.”
“To my people, that’s a letter opener.”
“Don’t make me hate you, Lady Nyssa.”
Two men stepped forward, swords drawn, to block our progress as we neared the entrance to their camp. They were dressed as warriors; a white tunic covering chainmail armor, a dark red lion embroidered on their chests that matched flags on either side of the path.
“You’ll be going no farther,” the man on the right said, pointing his sword directly at our wizard.
“We must get to Ebony City. We merely wish to pass through without any trouble.”
“There will be no travel to that retched city. We will be attacking at dawn to take back what is ours, even if we must kill every person in the castle.”
“That is good to know. How do you plan on doing this?” Arick asked. “It doesn’t appear as though you’ve enough army to take on a castle.”
We have over one-thousand willing and able warriors here and elsewhere ready to set Ebony City back on a path of prosperity.”
“Why do you wish to conquer Ebony City?” I asked.
The warrior looked at me and blinked as though his eyes were playing tricks on him. Hadn’t he seen a half-elf before? Or maybe he was looking at Anni on my shoulder?
“Damn, you have one big head for a little man.”
Nope, he was looking at me.
“I get that a lot. But I ask again; what quarrel do you have with Ebony City?”
“Their king, King Willum has declared that all property in the land is his and that all will work for him and pay him tribute.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Ever since the darkening. Now everyone lives like rats, but the king is secure in his castle with his army of well-fed minions, torturing his nay-sayers for pleasure. These are dark times. We cannot allow anyone to enter the city to warn the king.”
“We have no desire to warn anybody. Your battle with the king is your business. We only wish to speak to the Spellcrafter in Ebony City.”
The Dragons of Neverwind Page 7
