“Sorry. I can’t let you get away, girl,” Trinity states before she releases a black tendril from her palm. The magical tendril lances across the river in order to wrap around Sari’s right leg. Trinity smiles victoriously at her prey until she notices that Sari doesn’t look scared at all.
“Are you going to pull me across the river?” Sari inquires, her voice more amused than scared.
Trinity shrugs and nervously laughs. “I doubt you would walk over here, so I guess I will have to. You can’t weigh more than a hundred po . . . what in the name of the great goddess Ambrosine are you made of? Why won’t you budge?”
“I’m not going to make this easy for you,” the gypsy promises as Trinity pulls with all her strength.
Trinity tugs furiously on the tendril until sweat runs down her face. Sari remains glued to her spot while the chaos elf increases her strength with a spell. Her arms grow to the size of tree trunks before she tries to pull again. A high-pitched scream of rage and frustration escapes Trinity’s lips when she realizes that she would have better luck pushing a mountain than trying to move Sari. A final, desperate yank at the tendril causes it to snap and whip back into Trinity’s palm. Near exhaustion, the chaos elf stumbles against a tree and slumps to the ground.
“I would ask how you did that, but you probably wouldn’t tell me,” Trinity says, gasping for air.
“All I will say is that it was neither an illusion nor a spell. Now, are you going to leave me alone?” Sari asks while she rubs at her bruised leg.
“Not a chance. I love a mystery and you are much more than you seem,” Trinity declares with a hungry grin. She can feel a tremor run through the ground as she gets to her feet.
“I am?”
“Don’t play stupid with me.”
“I’m not playing stupid.”
Trinity launches another tendril at the gypsy, catching her off-guard and wrapping it around her neck. A savage yank sends Sari stumbling toward the edge of the waterfall until she crashes to the ground. Trinity leaps across the river to pin the gypsy down just as a rumble begins to grow in the distance. The chaos elf ignores it while she tries to lift Sari to her feet.
“I’m through playing games with you. It was fun at first, but my patience is wearing thin,” Trinity announces. She gets a solid grip on Sari’s wrists and pulls at the gypsy. Again, it is impossible for the chaos elf to move Sari.
“I don’t know how I’m doing it,” Sari cries, her voice rising to a scream. “Stop that! You’re going to rip my sleeves! I only have two other dresses and one of them is already dirty.”
“Stop lying to me,” Trinity demands. “You have to know what you’re doing. Just tell me how you are doing this without a spell.”
“Leave me alone!” shrieks Sari before a deafening roar erupts from upriver.
Trinity looks behind her in time to see a wall of water rushing towards them. It is ripping bark and small branches off any trees that are in its way. The churning flood drowns out every other noise as it gets closer to the waterfall. The only way to survive that Trinity can think of is to hold onto the immovable gypsy. She grips Sari with all her might as the large wave crashes over them. The force of the water is strong enough to strain Trinity’s arms while she fights to stop herself from being launched over the waterfall. The water continues to rush over her as she tries to make sense of what is going on.
Her thoughts are interrupted by Sari frantically yelling. “You’re tearing my dress!”
Before Trinity realizes that she clearly understood what Sari said underwater, she feels an increase in the wave’s strength. Her eyes burn when she opens them in the rushing water, but she keeps them open long enough to see that the sleeve she is holding is starting to tear. It feels like an eternity as she feels the stitching snap loop by delicate loop until the sleeve sloughs off Sari’s arm. Trinity goes limp to let the water send her flying over the waterfall. She stays within the wave while it makes its arc toward the over-flowing river below. A single hand motion sends a purple ripple of magic through the rushing water. Trinity can feel the temperature drop before a column of ice erupts from the river below. The chaos elf crashes into the column’s smooth surface, which sends cracks dancing down the length of the icy pillar. She refuses to move at all until she is sure that the damaged column will hold.
“That was too close,” Trinity gasps. The remainder of the wave drenches her from above. She is shivering while she casts another spell, which wraps her body in fire and melts the pillar of ice.
“Will you leave me alone now?” Sari asks from the top of the waterfall. The gypsy’s clothes are already dry and her sapphire hair is perfect. Trinity would never have believed that she was in the monstrous wave with her if she didn’t have the girl’s sleeve clutched in her hand.
“No. Just run away and I’ll catch up with you later. It isn’t like I can get to you before you vanish. Shoo, girl,” Trinity replies once she gets out of the river. The chaos elf drops to her knees and rolls onto her back before closing her eyes.
“I guess I’ll see you later then. By the way, my name is Sari,” she announces. The gypsy cautiously backs away from the edge of the waterfall until she is out of sight.
Trinity waits for the sounds of the escaping gypsy to disappear and chuckles. “I think I was just beaten by a simpleton.”
*****
Yola Biggs lazily sprawls across the eyeless head of a Sword Dragon. The cold metal of its smooth hide sends shivers up the goddess’s naked body. She looks around the vast factory where enormous limbs of metal and wood hang from the rafters. Yola entertains herself by watching three hazy distortions in the air struggle to attach a leather wing to a serpentine body of wood. They meticulously attach each of the wing muscles to leather straps embedded into the body. The goddess eventually loses interest and spins herself on her back until her head is dangling off the side of the dragon’s head.
“I’m bored,” Yola whines from her perch.
“Then go somewhere else. There is an entire continent for you to play on. Go torture some chaos elves. It isn’t like they’ll fight back,” Nyder callously responds. He has thick goggles over his glasses while he works on a pulsating mass of iron and flesh. The dark red mass quivers whenever he prods it with a ten-inch long tool that ends in a three-pronged claw.
“I did that already,” says the giggling goddess of chaos, kicking her bare legs in the air. “Did you know that baby chaos elves don’t bounce if you throw them off the continent? They can’t swim either.”
“Have I told you recently that I find you insane, evil, and disgusting?” asks the gnome, moving his goggles onto his forehead.
“I brought them back to life after I was done with them. Trinity taught me to clean up my toys,” Yola proudly announces.
“Do you have a reason for being here?” Nyder asks.
Yola’s eyes begin shifting through every color combination imaginable until she stops at bright yellow with purple swirls. She rolls backwards until she gracefully flips off the dragon’s head and lands on her feet. Sparks erupt from where five of the hazy distortions are welding the bladed head of an Axe Dragon to the rest of its bulky body. Yola is mesmerized by the sparks and quickly plucks seven of the bigger ones from the air. The goddess begins juggling the balls of light until they fade away.
Nyder sighs in defeated exhaustion. “Hi, Yola, how are you doing? What brings you to the factory?”
“Hi, Nyder, I’m fine, but a little bored. The master sent me to get your report on that gypsy. I think. Maybe it was for me to tell you the report on the gypsy. I might have a scroll here somewhere,” rambles the goddess as if she had not spent the last hour hovering around Nyder.
Nyder watches Yola pat her body down in an attempt to find the scroll in a pocket that doesn’t exist. He finds himself amazed at this ancient goddess who has the memory and attention span of a mentally deficient troll. The gnome can only imagine what Baron Kernaghan was thinking when he recruited her. Beyond her god powers
, Yola was rather useless in the egotistical gnome’s eyes. It was rare that she left the Baron’s realm due to the bounty on her head and when on Shayd, she spent her time lying around. If it was up to Nyder, he would have handed Yola over to the other gods without a second thought
“Oh yeah! There was no scroll,” states the goddess, her voice becoming child-like. “I did the test on that guy. My findings were very interesting.”
“I see,” says the gnome before putting his goggles back on and going back to work. “Why bother telling me? My job is to maintain the Weapon Dragons and design tools for the master to use. Vile is the one who is responsible for hunting down and capturing any threats that we uncover.”
“You’re both short, so I thought it wouldn’t make a difference,” Yola innocently contends.
Nyder drops his tools and hurls his goggles to the ground. “That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard you say! Don’t categorize me by height, you over-powered monkey.”
“Calm down, Nyder. Arguing with Yola is pointless. She will forget your words before the day is done,” Vile interrupts as he approaches the pair. The halfling is wearing the worn clothes of a traveler and reeks of cheap alcohol. He takes off a filthy eye-patch and tosses it onto a nearby work table.
“What happened to you?” the gnome asks.
Vile takes a seat on a crude stool, grunting in sore discomfort. “I have been investigating some leads about another champion. Unfortunately, he entered the kingdom of Darkmill, so I had to come back here.”
“Why didn’t you follow him?” Yola inquires, her head turning on her neck until it is upside down.
“I have no interest in facing Queen Ionia,” Vile declares as if the answer should have been obvious.
Yola’s head snaps back into its upright position. “Why?”
Vile groans and looks to the distant ceiling. “You explain it to her, Nyder. I don’t have the strength.”
“Being a goddess, you never had a reason to look into the history of mortal kingdoms. Either that or you learned the history and forgot it because of something shiny,” Nyder explains, noting that she nods at his accusation. “Anyway, the eastern kingdom currently known as Darkmill has always been ruled by a caster. The casters who are given the throne are usually well traveled and immensely powerful. I do believe that there was one caster in the region’s history who knew only one spell and his reign lasted a week before Regal the Illusionist usurped him, but none of that is important. The kingdom has a complicated history because the capital, which the kingdom is named after, changes with every ruler. The reason for this is that the ruling caster creates the capital city from his or her aura.”
The gnome looks at Yola who looks to be paying attention, but she could just as easily be dreaming about cows. “To put it simply, the caster and the capital city are bonded. The city vanishes and is replaced by a new capital with every new leader. You must be careful when going near that kingdom since a caster who can create a city out of his or her own aura is nothing to underestimate That’s all the history you need to know and that I am willing to talk about. Now, I have a lot of work to do. I would appreciate it if we got this unplanned meeting over with.”
“I agree,” the halfling concurs.
“Me too,” Yola joins in.
Nyder clenches his fists and is about to say something until Vile puts a strong hand on his shoulder. The halfling waits for the gnome to calm down before looking at Yola with a smile. The goddess grins back and waves to the halfling.
“Can you please tell us if the gypsy we captured has been confirmed as a champion?” Vile kindly asks.
“Not a champion. He’s just a very good warrior,” Yola casually answers.
“Damn it!” Nyder growls in frustration. He stabs a scalpel into the metal and flesh construct on the table. A jet of dark blue blood splatters across his shoulder, which causes him to swear in gnomish. “We took a big risk wiping out those gypsies and all we have to show for it is a useless prisoner. That means we still have three unknown champions out there somewhere.”
“Calm down, Nyder. You’re letting your stress get the best of you,” Vile warns the angry inventor.
“Even though the boy isn’t a champion, he had the remains of a champion’s aura on him,” the goddess mentions.
Vile and Nyder stare at her in stunned silence before turning to each other. Nyder pulls out a gold coin and flips it into the air. Vile’s hand is a blur of motion as he catches the coin. He looks at the smiling face of Cessia on the coin before pointing at the grumbling gnome. The halfling pockets the coin while Nyder takes a deep breath. He notices that his hands are still shaking, so he takes a few more deep breathes until he is calm.
“What do you mean he had champion aura on him?” Nyder asks, trying very hard not to raise his voice.
Yola smiles sweetly at the old gnome. “There was a champion in the gypsy clan that we attacked. This champion cast some kind of spell on the boy and traces of the aura were still on him. We believe this champion is already coming into his or her powers because the strength of the aura is consistent instead of fluctuating. This would mean that this champion is further along than either of the two that we are hunting.”
“Does this mean that we killed the champion?” Nyder asks in a soft and pensive voice. “That was the alternative to capturing the target alive, so this still counts as a success. Congratulations all around. Now, get out of my factory.”
“The girl,” Vile snarls. He slams a fist on the work table, which causes some bottles to crash to the floor.
“A girl?” Yola and Nyder repeat. The gnome glares at her while she stretches her hand into his face and waves at him.
“There was a girl who tried to help the boy, but she escaped. Trinity was sent to capture her and we were including the girl as part of the deal with Kalam,” Vile rambles to no one in particular. “This makes the most amount of sense since I refuse to believe that we were lucky enough to have accidentally killed a champion who possesses stable powers. The girl was obviously close to the boy and she could have put a spell on him before the battle. We attacked the clan after a night of celebration, so magic must have been thrown all over the area. Also, Trinity has not returned or contacted the Lich. She must still be chasing the girl, which means that this gypsy is stronger than I thought.”
“Then, we should keep her away from Kalam,” Nyder states.
“Does she have pretty hair?” the goddess asks.
Vile ignores her and focuses on Nyder. “I would like to keep her for our own uses, but it is too late for that. We can’t risk Kalam refusing to help us. He may be the type to take offense at us changing the deal and side with our enemies in an act of revenge. There is an easier way to fix this. We can take back the girl after Kalam has served his purpose. The worst that happens is that he kills her before we finish with him, which means we don’t have to worry about the champions being at full strength again for a while.”
“That’s a high risk plan, Vile. It could backfire on us,” Nyder points out.
“It could, but we won’t be the ones to get blamed,” Vile claims with a grin. “This is all in the hands of Kalam and Tyler. That fool of a Lich will take the fall if things go wrong.”
Nyder matches the halfling’s grin. “That is true. I think I will miss him. Not as much as Trinity though. Once the Lich is gone, Trinity takes his place as the expendable pawn.”
“I doubt it would be the same. Trinity is harder for us to push around and she’s actually useful,” Vile admits with a laugh.
Yola clears her throat and her voice becomes serious. “What do you think we should do with the boy?”
“Let the master do whatever he wants with him. In the end, it is his decision that we have to obey,” Vile replies, scratching his chin. Nyder and Yola can tell that he is already thinking of a plan.
“You have an idea. Can you share it? Pretty please? I’ll . . . have Nyder do something for you,” Yola pleads, bouncing up and down excitedly.<
br />
“Don’t bring me into this. I don’t care about the boy,” the gnome claims.
“I don’t have any concise ideas worth mentioning anyway,” Vile bluntly states.
“Awww. You never share,” Yola whines like a child.
“Excuse me,” Nyder interrupts. “I would love to continue this discussion, but I really have to get back to work on this dragon heart. Please leave.”
Vile bows to his allies. “I have a report to file. Have a good day.”
“Bye-bye!” Yola giggles, vanishing into a swirl of black and white that makes Nyder a little queasy. He turns away to see that Vile has disappeared as well.
“I thought those two would never leave. I hope this dragon heart hasn’t gone bad,” the gnome sighs, putting his goggles on and going back to work.
3
Gods’ Voice, the blessed heart of Serab, is nestled in the large valley forged into the eastern hills by the strongest part of the L’dandrin River. While the city is not as big as Gaia, it is still crowded and bustling with life. Elegant private vessels, covered with a variety of holy symbols, clog the docks as they wait to release their excited passengers. These majestic ships are the main source of income for the thriving sailor population because of the lucrative cruise and ferry businesses maintained by the local priesthoods. Travelers of every race and creed make a pilgrimage by boat to this city because it is the only city on Windemere with a temple or shrine for every deity. Even followers of lesser known deities can find a simple altar to their patron. It is the existence of these temples and shrines that makes Gods’ Voice a neutral city since invaders would not risk destroying a holy structure made to honor their own god.
At the center of Gods’ Voice, is a white stone castle with clusters of redwood cabins built flush against the wall. A saltwater moat, home to trained sharks, circles the entire royal property. The drawbridge is usually kept up so people can see the diving griffin emblem burned into the solid oak. The main castle has no open courtyards due to the paranoia and fear of the fourth Duke of Serab. The first of the post-cataclysm rulers covered the open courtyards with roofs of one-way glass bricks, which allow light to filter onto indoor gardens and studies. Illusionary archers walk along the battlements alongside real soldiers who are trained to avoid walking through their fake allies. The throne room is easily pinpointed from outside because of the stained-glass dome that acts as its ceiling. It is rumored that the knights and casters depicted in the unbreakable glass have been enchanted to come to life whenever the Duke is in danger.
Legends of Windemere: 03 - Allure of the Gypsies Page 6
