“This is my old adventuring gear,” Ilan states with a heavy sigh.
“You’re giving me these?” Luke asks, putting his right hand against the cool glass.
“They will never be used again if I have anything to say about it,” Ilan sternly answers. He grits his teeth and takes a deep breath as if someone had just stabbed him in the stomach.
“This isn’t the same bow that you used during Kalam’s first attack,” the half-elf points out.
“The bow of the bull and the unending quiver were given to me by your great-grandfather. They were the first tools that I used in my adventures, but I retired them when I found these,” Ilan explains with a twinge of pride and sorrow in his voice. “In the case are a coffin bow and a quiver of flame, which allowed me to fire flame arrows capable of turning whatever they hit into wood. The magic was a powerful combination that earned me the nickname, Ilan Forestfire. Only Selenia, Duggan, and Kevin would ever think of calling me that nowadays. The other items are nothing important. The boots granted me the ability to leave a copy of myself wherever I was standing, but the illusion would vanish after three minutes. The ring is enchanted with minor invisibility and the torque transformed lightning magic into healing magic. That last item helped whenever I had to sit in a tall tree during storms.”
Luke softly closes the wardrobe door. “This is nothing more than a harsh reminder for you.”
“Yes. I look at it from time to time to remember those that I-” begins Ilan, his voice trailing off.
“Those that you failed to protect,” Luke interrupts, a knowing smile creeping across his face.
“Well, you had to get that flaw from someone,” Ilan states with a laugh. He slaps Luke on the shoulder and stomps on a floorboard seam. The wardrobe suddenly locks the secret back door and spins back into place.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened to them?” Luke asks, taking a seat on the bed again.
“I’m not sure you want to hear the details,” the elf warns his son, cringing as he remembers some of the details. A shiver causes his body to spasm hard enough that Ilan is forced to hold onto the windowsill. It takes a minute for him to regain control and face his son who is nervously watching him.
“I don’t think you can handle the details,” Luke mentions. He gets to his feet and takes his father by the arm. Ilan resists briefly before allowing Luke to lead him across the room.
Ilan sits in his chair and sighs. “You should know my story.”
“Only if you can handle telling it, dad,” states the half-elf. He picks up a stool from a corner and paces it in front of the chair.
“It will be difficult, but I believe that I can ease myself into the story,” Ilan promises. He takes a few deep breathes to calm down. “I was talked into adventuring by Selenia. At the time, I was working as an archer for the Freedom military while training to be a blacksmith. I was a Callindor who became bored with fighting pirates, so I took her up on the offer. Within the first week of our venture, we recruited a fellow blacksmith student named Duggan Ironcaster and a wild warrior who had given Selenia some extra training. Kevin Masterson and I became quick friends after a scuffle over a barmaid. Neither of us got the girl, but we fought to a draw and gained mutual respect.”
Luke clears his throat to interject, “You’re rambling a little.”
“I said that I had to ease myself into it, so be patient. We recruited several other adventurers over the next four years including the noble born, Daniel Skyblade. Our little mercenary group gained a solid reputation thanks to his contacts who gave us some very important missions during the Gaian Territory Wars,” Ilan slowly explains, choosing his words carefully. “I can’t deny that the life of a mercenary can bring good money, but the money blinds you to the danger. You become very blind when you have never lost a single companion. We believed that we were invincible and this mentality led to a series of decisions, which culminated in an event that I still have nightmares about.”
Ilan pauses to fight back his tears and steady his breathing. “It was about thirty years ago that everything fell apart. We had heard about a forest overrun by undead, so we took the job to clear it out. The truth was that the undead were created by demons that were using the forest as a trap for adventurers. Nobody knew about the demons, so we were not ready for them. Those monsters tore into us like we were helpless children. Many of the people, who I called friend, perished within minutes. Selenia, Kevin, Duggan, Daniel, and I were the only survivors. I had to be dragged out by Kevin because my leg was chewed up by one of the demons. The nearest town was Haven, so we came here to heal. I met your mother while I was at the healer’s house and she put the final nail in the coffin of my adventuring career.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Luke admits, shifting uncomfortably on the stool.
Ilan leans forward in the chair to place a hand on Luke’s knee. “There is nothing for you to say. You cannot change the past any more than I can. I still have trouble accepting that there was nothing I could have done. Part of me knew that the job was a mistake, but I didn’t say anything. Not that Selenia would have listened. She was adamant about so many things that it was a waste of energy arguing with her.”
“Selenia hasn’t changed much,” Luke mutters under his breath.
“She has, Luke. The incident forced all of us to retire from the road,” Ilan insists, taking a look at the distant sun sitting behind a patch of light blue clouds. “The Selenia you met is a lot more protective of those under her charge and she is not one to let someone handle their own problems. She’s become a lot more intrusive and smothering to those around her, but that could also be caused by her age.”
“You aren’t as young as you used to be either,” Luke says with a warm smile.
“I know that every time I think of you,” Ilan admits with a tired laugh. “I’ve never been able to keep up with you, Luke. I guess I waited too long to have children.”
“You have nobody to blame, but yourself,” Luke teases his dad, shrugging innocently.
Ilan laughs while his mind continues to wander toward darker thoughts. He considers telling Luke more details, but the quivering in his heart tells Ilan that he is nearing his limit. He can barely imagine how he would describe the sight of his friends being shredded by shadowy claws and devoured by mouths full of needle-like teeth. Just the thought of talking about the sixteen-year-old Rakiva makes Ilan nauseous. He had promised to protect the girl and she never made it to her next birthday. Ilan gags violently at the memory of Rakiva pushing Kevin to safety before she was swallowed whole by a demon. It was this moment that made Ilan realize that a person can only do so much before things move beyond their control. It was a horrific lesson that he wishes he could make Luke understand.
“I should see if they need any help with setting up,” Luke whispers. He gets to his feet and is walking past Ilan when the elf grabs him by the wrist. Luke is slightly surprised by the strength of his father’s grip.
“Promise me one thing, Luke,” Ilan nervously requests.
Luke eyes his father suspiciously before nodding. “I will as long as it’s within reason.”
“I can’t stop you from adventuring. It’s in your blood just like it is in mine and our family never ignores the call of our blood,” Ilan says with a sad smile. “All I want is for you to keep yourself safe. Promise me that you will never do anything to put yourself or your friends in danger.”
“We’ll see what happens, dad. I can’t tell what the future will hold,” the half-elf contends.
“I know that far too well,” Ilan whispers, letting go of Luke’s wrist and goes back to staring out the window. He can hear Luke leave the room and gently close the door behind him. A few tears well up in Ilan’s eyes, but he tries to hold them back with all of his strength.
“Just let it out, son,” Talos suggests, stepping into the room.
“You must be happy about this. You always wanted him to follow in your footsteps,” Ilan snaps before he can calm d
own.
Talos leans on the windowsill next to Ilan. “There is something that I have wanted to say to you for a long time.”
“And I have something to say to you,” Ilan counters with a challenging smile.
“When it comes to Luke and his adventuring, you are full of troll dung,” Talos bluntly declares. He tries to temper his words with a small smile, but it is a smile that does not reach his eyes. “You always knew he would choose this path, but deluded yourself into thinking that you could stop him. As you said, we all heed the call of our blood. To think that Luke would be different was selfish and disrespectful to all of the heroic Callindors who came before you.”
“You’re right.”
“Of course, I am. So, what did you want to say?”
“I just said it.”
“I was right? That’s all you wanted to tell me?” the old warrior asks, messing up his son’s hair. “You are too much like your mother.”
Ilan swats his father’s hand away, moving away from the window and going to the middle of the room. He pushes down on a floorboard with the heel of his foot, causing the board to flip up and reveal a narrow compartment. With a swift motion, Ilan scoops a folded piece of parchment out of the floor. The compartment slams shut with enough force that Talos is sure it would severe a few fingers. Ilan limps back to the window while he unfolds the parchment.
“Another secret? This is a big day for the Callindor family,” Talos sarcastically jokes.
Ilan hands him the parchment and leans against the wall. “I always knew Luke would become an adventurer like you. So, the day he was born, I made those plans for his sabers. I used the metal from a Sword Dragon’s throat and combined it with sky ore to forge the sabers. I added pressed gold from the belly of a Kelynmire Dragon and the gems in the pommels once contained spells for a powerful caster. That caster died decades ago and his estate was scattered about the black market by thieves and mercenaries. Selenia helped me obtain the gems.”
“Those are a lot of rare metals, gems, and ores,” Talos mentions, surprised by Ilan’s confession. “Where did you get the design from and what does it mean?”
“Rakiva came to me in a dream with a message from the gods on the night Luke was born. They said that he was destined to play a major role in upcoming events and would need special weapons. I was given that combination of ingredients before the end of the dream,” Ilan explains, scratching his head as he thinks back to the dream. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what it means. The swords are not magical, though they are impossible to break. All I was told was that they are his swords and their full potential can only be awakened by Luke. Of course, I cannot tell Luke about this or he will do something foolish. Unlocking his abilities and how they connect to these swords should be done naturally.”
“Luke would probably try to force it and cause trouble. He’s always been like that. Whenever he tries too hard, he makes things more difficult for himself,” Talos says, flashing a proud grin. ‘The gods only know what his training would have been like if he knew what was waiting for him. It is probably a good thing that you made him fight for the swords. I’m guessing that was your plan all along.”
“No. I wished he would settle down and avoid the life of an adventurer,” Ilan proudly admits. “There is nothing but pain and loss waiting for him.”
Talos is about to argue when Ilan takes the parchment back and tucks it into his shirt pocket. He avoids his father’s eyes and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
19
“So, did we win or lose?” Yola Biggs asks, her voice coming from a bronze scepter that has been stabbed into the soft earth.
“I’m not sure, but I feel good after watching that scaly bastard die,” Trinity answers with a mischievous grin. She mindlessly runs her fingers through the thin branches of a willow. A strong wind blows the stench of decay into her nostrils, forcing her to wrinkle her nose.
Trinity turns to see the Lich gliding up the side of the willow-crowned hill, leaving a path of blackened grass in his wake. The chaos elf queen cranes her neck to see if the trail of dead grass leads back to Haven, which quietly sits several miles below the hill. She doubts the thick grove of willow trees on the hill would be enough to hide them with the Lich leaving such an obvious path. The Lich notices her nervous stare, but he refuses to do anything to put her at ease. Instead, he looks at her with crimson eyes of eerie glee.
“You seem happy with yourself,” Trinity mentions suspiciously.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” the Lich inquires.
“It doesn’t look like we accomplished anything,” the chaos elf says, striding to the edge of the hill. “Excuse me for a second. As always, I have to fix your mess.” She gently exhales a blanket of glimmering, green fog that sticks to the dead grass. The fog shimmers like water until it transforms into thick, healthy grass.
“Are you better now?” the Lich asks.
“I used to eat fresh grass when I was a child. My family couldn’t afford real vegetables,” Yola Biggs announces through the scepter.
The Lich ignores her and repeats his question. “Are you better now?”
“I’m fine, but we should be concerned about how our master will take our failure,” Trinity argues while taking a seat under a young willow tree. “We lost Kalam, we lost the treasure we paid him, we lost a Sword Dragon, and we never retrieved Kalam’s spellbook. There was nothing gained from this entire plan.”
“You forgot the gypsy girl,” the goddess interjects with a childish laugh.
“She’s less important than everything else you’ve mentioned. The Sword Dragon was an expendable model, which Nyder has wanted to be rid of for months. The treasure can be regained by pillaging the remains of Kalam’s lair. Nyx melted a lot of his treasure, but he had more than one horde in that mountain,” the Lich explains with a victorious glow in his eyes. “As for Kalam, he was nothing more than a tool that had out-lived its usefulness. If you think about it, we would have had to dispose of him at some point. A necrocaster like Kalam would never allow our master to conquer Ralian. He would have joined forces with our enemies if left unchecked. We simply removed him before he had time to get involved.”
“I hate that glint in your eyes,” Trinity admits with a full-body shudder.
“Then, don’t look at my face,” he snaps.
“If only it was that easy,” Trinity bitterly counters. “It’s a hypnotic explosion of gore that I just can’t look away from no matter how nauseous it makes me.”
“I’m bored,” the goddess whines.
“A more terrifying statement, I have never heard,” Trinity nervously mutters.
The Lich violently coughs up a clump of dirt. “You don’t have to stay here, puppet queen.”
“I’m going to ignore that only because I want to go home,” the chaos elf growls, gently cracking her neck.
“What if Kalam never got involved in our business? Nyder analyzed his . . . something and noticed that the only thing to stir Kalam has always been his brother. If we had left Kalam alone then he would not have become a problem,” Yola says in a monotone voice followed by a few seconds of loud snoring. She suddenly snorts and whimpers as if someone hit her. “Vile wants to know if this adventure was nothing more than a student’s grudge against a teacher who deemed him unworthy of all his knowledge.”
The Lich lashes out at the scepter with a blast of purple energy, which is viciously twisted into a knot and hurled back at him. The spell knocks him against a willow tree and he feels his ribs crack under the impact. The Lich slowly rises to his feet, reaching into his robes to set his ribs. The longer he touches the willow tree, the more it twists and drips thick, black ooze. Wracked with pain, the Lich walks around the puddle of ooze and sits in front of the steaming scepter. The sound of muffled laughter from the other end of the scepter can be heard clear enough to make the Lich grind his teeth in anger.
“I’d ask if they hit a nerve, but I’m not even sure you have any,” Trinity says, a
grin across her face.
“Is that a physiology joke or an insult about my bravery?” the Lich asks in a stern, defeated tone.
“I mean that I honestly don’t know if Liches have nerves,” Trinity answers, her curiosity growing. “You look like you’re in pain, so I guess you have something.”
“I don’t know,” the Lich admits. “I assume my aura mimics the nerves that my body lost long ago.”
“So, are they right? You simply wanted Kalam dead and used all of us to take him out?” Trinity asks with a shine of depthless pride in her violet eyes. “If so then I have to give you some credit. This entire plan was so elaborate and thought out that I’m genuinely surprised you came up with it. Doing all of this to kill a single necrocaster who wronged you during your early studies makes it even more impressive. Your hate for him must have run deep.” She mockingly claps her hands, but stops when the Lich glares at her with blind anger.
“I had no hate for my old teacher. He was a father to me when I left my flesh behind,” the Lich declares. The air is filled with the sound of his bones shaking with a rage that is barely under control. “In all honesty, I never wanted to kill him, but he left me no choice. I told him that he could gain more power than his brother if he joined us, but he thought I was being foolish. As far as I’m concerned, he received the only ending that he ever wanted.”
“I don’t get it,” Yola admits, scratching her head.
The Lich laughs hysterically, sending a flock of crows racing into the sky. “It is rather complicated. My teacher’s obsession with Isaiah is what led to our falling out. The existence of Isaiah plagued Kalam’s mind every night, so he could never concentrate. His wards and alarms would go unheeded some days because he was too wrapped up in the dream of destroying his brother. Yet, he always feared that something would rob him of his victory. If it wasn’t the fear of losing to Isaiah then it was the fear that someone would kill Isaiah first. I had no reason to believe that he would expect so much of me, but one day he abruptly stopped my teaching. He said that there was nothing more to teach me, though I knew he had yet to share his most powerful spells. The truth was that he did not want me to get too strong.”
Legends of Windemere: 03 - Allure of the Gypsies Page 45
