by Greg Curtis
Nor had Sir Neeveon passed by the S’mon Gorge to the north, so he could tell him nothing of the necromancer’s home. But he had wandered through any number of ancient cities, faithfully recording vast tracts of runes and carved letters as he attempted to unravel the script and secrets of the ancients. The same vast tracts that Alan was having his army of tiny clay elementals transcribing on to the acres of parchment he had brought just for this express purpose, and under the watchful eyes of the librarians. The elementals, being the essence of a mixture of clay and graphite, were excellent at drawing and sketching things, and because of their complete lack of free will or intellect, they copied things absolutely faithfully, down to the minor smudges. They were also fast. He had promised the librarians to leave them the dozen or so elementals as a present after he departed, so that they could in turn copy any other ancient works as they wanted. It seemed the least he could do for the gift of their wonderful library, and one day he hoped, he might be allowed to return and browse for himself.
Though Alan had spent some long months studying the ancient languages, learning to translate them as best anyone could, he didn’t understand most of what had been faithfully recorded by the ancient knight. And his spells of translation, which he would try when he had finished reading and copying everything he could, were unlikely to be highly effective since the people who had built these ancient monoliths, were all long since passed on. But he did know of one group of ancients whose knowledge he could ask for on his return, and as the sheaf of papers grew on the table in front of him he suspected they were going to be busy.
It might be best though if he asked Ant to pass the papers on to the Huron to study. If he did it the ancients might well burn them in front of him out of spite.
The Book of Days which he had heard of if only through legend, was a vastly older document, supposedly written by the ancients themselves, long before they had started their great war, and they in turn it was said, had only copied it from their predecessors, the progenitors, a race who if they had ever truly existed, had been the very first people to walk the lands, and who some believed, had created them.
They were even less than a legend; they were a myth of the ancients themselves, and yet some still believed in them. A people older than the dragons themselves, a people who had wandered the world hand in hand with the Earth Mother herself, a people from whom all had come forth. If they were a people. There was nothing so useful as a description of them, and even in the ancients’ time the few relics and writings of them that had been found had been argued over. Most of them had then been destroyed in their war, leaving nothing but a few relics to be found. And in front of him was one of them.
The pages of the book had survived if only just, simply because they weren’t written on paper and with ink or graphite. They were written on some form of thickened papyrus that still bent and twisted as though it was newly made, and which had somehow never faded, and the ink that had been used, a substance blacker even then pitch, was as clear and sharp as it surely had been the day it was written. That was the good news. The bad was that the book itself was really just fragments, as some form of terrible magic had been done to it, and it was likely it had been all but destroyed by the ancients’ war.
The high elves had a grand total of eight pages from the book, all of them only partially restored at best, and the script written on them though both tiny and neat, surely didn’t come anywhere close to the full text of the original document. Yet even so they had power. He could feel it, the magic bound up not in the pages themselves, but in the words, and he knew the high elves were right to keep this work secret.
It was primal magic that the book had recorded the original magic of the lands, perhaps even the magic of creation itself, and many a spellcaster would have given his life simply to understand what was written. Not all of them though would have done so for the purest of reasons either. The pages had more than just knowledge within them. In fact the power of life and death, and perhaps even immortality lay within the book; perhaps even within the pages he held. The creator only knew what else had once been contained within the book itself. Perhaps the spells of the creation of the world itself and the origin of magic, or how even the ancients had managed to learn it? Thankfully that was gone, though as he gazed upon it and felt the echoes of its power, he had an overpowering feeling that there might be some more pages out there. Pages that the book called to and pages that he suspected, the necromancer himself might have. Pages that related to the creation of the undead.
That was something he wasn’t willing to discuss with the librarians, or even with Norelle; the temptation was simply too great for any mortal, and the danger if he was right, worse than anything they could have conceived. If he had some of the other pages from the book then nearly anything was possible. Life and death it was said were simply states of being for the progenitors, certainly death was no barrier to them doing anything they wanted to, and that was power. With that knowledge, assuming he actually had it, the necromancer himself, an ancient by all accounts, could actually be dead and simply resurrecting himself as undead rather than going to his rightful rest.
An enemy with that sort of ability was beyond frightening, and perhaps even beyond defeating. And yet it agreed only too well with what they already knew of him. An ancient who had sought ultimate power at a time when perhaps more of the book of days had existed, Alan had no doubt that he would have sought it out, and sadly he had probably found it, or at least some of it. After all he had already returned from the dead twice, and he was busy raising them as fast as he knew how.
There was more to worry about of course. The progenitors had not been human or elf, no more had they been Hurons or ancients. Arriving tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe millions of years before the mortal races had walked the lands, there was actually no known description of them. But what was known or suspected, was that they were older than the dragons themselves and that maybe, just maybe they had even had a hand in creating them. If that was so and the necromancer had that knowledge, then the dragons themselves were in danger. That was something that Sera needed to know of, and soonest.
The chances were though, that she’d simply laugh at his mortal concern in that oh so delicate thunder of hers. After all, she had sent him to find and read the books, she probably knew what he’d find, and in the end, she was a dragon.
Still, duty was duty.
Chapter Sixteen.
“Greetings Alan.” Alan leapt up from the floor of his cottage where he was busy cleaning up the edges from his lime washing of the walls. The wash went on easily enough, and it left behind a nice light surface that could be properly white washed or plastered later, but it went on almost as thin as soup, and it tended to splash everywhere, and so cleaning up was a very important step in the process. Especially when he’d already gone to such an effort to seal and polish the newly restored floor boards.
“Ashiel!” Spinning around he saw her standing in the doorway to his home, looking not much happier than she had the day his elementals had freed her from her betrothed’s chains barely a month or so before. In some ways she looked even worse. The pain and the tears were gone, but in their place there was a deadness in her eyes that frightened him, as if a part of her very soul had passed away. And this was after the dragons and surely her own family had been with her, helping her, trying to bring her comfort. That could not be good.
He had tried in his own way to bring her some comfort, seeking her out several times in the village and wanting to say something to break through her death mask, to bring her a smile even if only for a second. But each time it had ended badly. He did not know what to say no matter how he tried, and each time she had lost complete control, screaming at him and sending him running like a little child. Yet just then he would have welcomed that anger. It was so much better than what he could see in her eyes now.
“Acolyte Anthony asked me to come and see you before you left. He said that as part of my trai
ning I should help you with the planting of your gardens while you are away.” Alan’s first thought was to tell her no, that she and her people had done enough to his home already and that he would rather she leave, but seeing her there, shoulders slumped, head bowed, barely seeming to be able to stand, as if a mammoth was sitting on her shoulders crushing her into the very floor, he couldn’t. She might not have always been his friend, but he could not hurt her in any way. That would be unforgivable. Besides, Ant had asked this of him, and there was a reason for it.
“He is a very thoughtful man. How are you? I meant to call in and see you in the new lair, but I have been kept very busy of late.” Which was true but a falsehood at the same time. He had been busy but he would have found the time if he could have found the courage to face her. But when she and the rest of the village had moved into the lair, he had found it so much easier to simply keep busy with his other duties. It was disgraceful but cowardice was still his most powerful emotion where she was concerned. Even now, staring at her obvious misery he wanted to run to her, to hold her and tell her things would be all right, but he couldn’t. Even if she would have accepted it, and he suspected the anger was simmering just below her dead eyes, a part of him simply wanted to run away and try to pretend that none of it had happened.
“I am alive, thanks I am told, in no small measure to you.” But there was no look of gratitude on her face, and deep down he suspected she would still rather have died. He didn’t want to know what that meant. In his very heart he was afraid to find out.
“You are alive because Han’gre has a heart as large as a castle, and because he believes that you can grow within the Order and in time achieve greatness. No thanks are owed to me.” It wasn’t modesty that made him deny her words, it was shame for his failure to help her as best he could, and suddenly he found himself unable to face her. Unfortunately she saw his inability to look at her in a different light.
“You were there, you know my shame, even though you did not show yourself. You know I will never achieve anything. I have soiled my honour. I have betrayed my family and my people. I have lost my magic.” The death in her eyes was matched by the downfall in her voice, and that was not good. His heart was almost breaking from her words, and yet fortunately Alan had the answer. Not because he was clever or wise, but because Ant was and Alan was just smart enough in turn to finally understand why he had sent her to him, why he had drilled into him so many truisms over the previous month, and why he had given her the tasks he had.
“None of those things are true, and you have spent enough time wallowing in sorrow and self-pity. You are not a child any longer, and I will not treat you like one.” Alan was harsh as he had to be, and it hurt him to berate her. Ashiel had suffered enough. But he knew it was necessary even as he saw the surprised hurt on her face.
“Honour can be reclaimed by good deeds and hard work, if it was ever truly lost. Family and friends will always forgive if there is a need for them to do so. Your magic such as it was is gone, but that does not mean that there is no more magic for you to find within yourself. And you are young, there is plenty of time for you to achieve all that you once dreamt of and more. Acolyte Ant has sent you here to begin all of those journeys.” It was the plain truth but he knew it would take a lot to convince her of it. She believed her life was over, on some level she wanted it to be while Ant and Han’gre believed it was just beginning, and they intended for her to start down that road as quickly as possible. They meant for him to start her walking it. It was a duty he had to take seriously.
“First, your magic, and despite your doubts you still have magic. You just cannot control it, force it as you once did. That is the binding. What Afri did to you was not permanent; the binding however is. Ant has sent you here to learn of true magic, and gardening and planting are part of the very essence of magic. Magic is life and life is magic. Your people forgot that simple truth a very long time ago, and they tore the world apart as they ripped the magic from it, but you can relearn that if you apply yourself to the task he has given you. You can find the magic in yourself that the world gives freely. In time you may well become a powerful mage again, though not as you were. A mage such as I am and the druids, or a mage such as the elves and their priests are.”
“As you wish.” He tried not to notice the complete lack of enthusiasm she had for his words. Like Afri she also had little respect for his magic. Perhaps some of his evil had rubbed off on her. Then again, Afri had described himself as near to godhood shortly before his end, and after falling from such lofty heights of arrogance, it was surely hard to find the value in menial things.
“No! Not as I wish. It must always be as you wish. I cannot help you to reclaim your magic if you do not wish to, and if and when you choose to it will be a long and perhaps difficult path. But if you take it, it will also be a rewarding one, the joys you find along the way far more rewarding than the pain. And need I remind you that the strength you thought you had was merely an illusion. I am but a youngster and a druid, and I defeated Afri in combat as well as a demon. You could not have done either of those things then, but now with time and study you may yet do greater things.
“But only if you choose to.” She stared at him, weighing his words and he knew, remembering his battle with Afri. She was he realised, an ancient, and his strength that day had impressed her. Maybe that would lend her a little hope, even as it bothered him.
“As for your honour, it is not lost, just hidden from you in your self-pity. You have no reason for shame. By helping to repair my home, you are helping to restore the honour that many of your people threw away when they destroyed it. They betrayed my trust as they blamed me for the fate that befell them, and not themselves. You will be helping to prove that your people are not betrayers. To show that they have honour.”
“You are also here to teach. To teach me that my hurt and distrust are unfair, and that the Huron are a worthy people who I can and should trust. That is a hard thing for me to learn, as all my life I have lived apart and wary of others. The only time I have ever let others in was when your family came to stay with me, and when your people and your family blamed me for their fate, when they treated me with contempt and hatred, and when their people destroyed my home and desecrated my parents’ graves, that wounded me in a way I still cannot fully comprehend.”
“It is a very easy thing for me to retreat into myself after that, and also a thing that as a member of the Order of Sera, I am not allowed to do. Just as you are not.” That last caught her attention, even dragged her a little out of her pain if only to object.
“I am not a member.” It was so strange how like him she sounded as she said it, as he had tried to deny those same things time and again.
“Yes you are. You may not have asked for it as I did not. You may not want it, as often I do not. But you have been chosen and you serve the Order in whatever capacity you are capable of, as do I. You are a part of the House. In this world that is a great honour.” Finally something he said seemed to impact upon her as he watched her mouth drop in surprise. Even had her role been to scrub floors she was a member. She had not realized that simple truth, lost as she was in her personal realm of shame.
“We are both very damaged people. The pain from what others have done to us, what we have let them do, what they have believed of us and what we have let them believe, is terrible, even as we have always struggled to do what was right and been punished for it. But you are no more responsible for your shame than I am for mine. You sacrificed your innocence to try and save your people, I was born a dark elf. There is no dishonour in either of those things, and perhaps in time, if we are lucky enough to do all of Ant’s assignments and listen to his wisdom, we may be able to accept that about ourselves.” It was funny how he was almost echoing many of the things Ant had told him not that many months before.
“Your words are wise.” But she didn’t mean it. She was just being polite as she gave into her despair once more and tried to hide it.
“No, Ant’s words are wise. I’m just barely clever enough to understand the intention behind them. But it is your deeds, your work that will prove them true, and no one else can perform them save you.” He decided it was time to become still more firm with her. She needed it.
“In the morning I will be leaving on my next assignment and no doubt it will prove challenging as have the others. I will be gone for perhaps two or three weeks. When I return though it is perhaps selfish of me to ask it, I would like to see the gardens once more returned to their former glory. They were my mother’s pride and joy and through them I remember her.” Though in truth it was through working on them as he had when he was with her as a child that he remembered her best. He didn’t want others messing around in the garden, he wanted to do it himself. But that was a sacrifice he would have to make.
“You will need to buy some paint and materials. There are four or five ounces of silver in the jar on the kitchen table which you can use for trade in Silver Falls, and a couple of horses still in the back yard and a wagon as well. You will also need to start cutting back and replanting those plants that have survived your people’s vandalism. Those that cannot be nursed back to health will have to be replaced. Most of the flowers are wild flowers that grow on the banks around the lake to the south and new plants can be found there. The stones in the path will have to be re-laid into the dry sand bed, a simple matter of lifting and resetting them one by one, and tapping them into place with a small wooden mallet. But the stones in the small walls that raise the vegetable gardens will have to be pulled out and the broken mortar replaced.”
