Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens)

by Heath Pfaff

  "Johndin!" She called out, and was answered by a grumble. "Johndin Shawl, get up! There is something in the mist outside!" The mage almost jumped out of his bed.

  "Something in the mist?" He said hazily as he slid his feet into his shoes and staggered his way towards her. "What did you see?"

  "I was just looking out the front window and I saw something really large move through the fog away from the cabin." Haley explained.

  "And you're sure you really saw it? It wasn't just your imagination?" He made his way to the front window as waking clarity began to dawn on him. A second later, as though he'd just realized something horrible, he added to his list of questions. "Wait, did you say there was fog around the cabin?"

  "Yes." Haley said, feeling somewhat exasperated. Johndin wasn't particularly functional in the mornings. The mage almost ran the last few feet to the window. He pressed his face against the thick glass and looked out with an unpleasant expression on his face.

  "This isn't right. This fog shouldn't be here. We're surrounded by fairyroot trees. I built my cabin here specifically because this clearing was surrounded. The glimmer mist can't come here!" Shawl was explaining things, but Haley wasn't entirely certain what he was talking about. She knew that the glimmer mist was some kind of fae weapon, and that it wasn't good for people. She wasn't certain what fairyroot trees were, or why Shawl was so upset about the fog. Certainly the glimmer mist couldn't get into the cabin? Fog didn't come inside.

  Haley voiced her reasoning. "We're inside, so it's not really a problem. Fog doesn't come inside."

  Shawl was shaking his head. "This isn't just a fog. This is glimmer mist, it's a type of fae magic. The cabin may keep it out for a time, but only because the walls are made from wood of the fairyroot tree, and even then I don't know how long that'll help. This is a very dangerous situation. The mists are not to be trifled with."

  "Can you cast a barrier like you did to keep the sciarwolf away?" Haley's concern was rising.

  "It would be like pitting my magic against the entirety of the fae magic in the area. It might hold for a second or two, if we were lucky. No, I'm afraid there is very little we can do but wait and hope the sun dispels the mist." Johndin was pushing his bed mangled hair back out of his face. "This is a very bad sign." He mumbled this last bit to himself.

  Kassa approached, yawning and stretching as she came near the windows. "What's going on out there?"

  "The glimmer mist is acting strangely, and I think there is something out there in it." Haley explained briefly.

  This seemed to snap Kassa into a state of full wakefulness. "Something? What kind of something? What would be wandering around in that mist?"

  Shawl answered the question. "If you saw something in the mist it's either the mist playing tricks on your mind, or the fae. It might have been an animal. They don't seem to have anything to fear from the glimmer mist, but it would be unusual for one to be wandering around like that."

  "It wasn't an animal." Haley said quickly, not willing to let what she'd seen be passed off as some wild imagining or simply a mistaken deer. "Whatever it was, it was walking on two legs, and it was big. Taller and bigger than any man I've ever seen."

  A shadow of worry passed over Kassa's face. "That sounds like it could be an Enforcer. I thought the Fae didn't live on this island."

  Shawl was worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "They never have before, but the mists have also never come into my clearing. If we make it to morning I'm afraid it may be time for you two to leave this place."

  Haley looked at the mage in shock. "What do you mean 'you two?' If it's dangerous for us it's equally dangerous for you. You'll have to come with us."

  Shawl shook his head. "I've never told you my story, but perhaps it's time that I do. There is little else we can do other than sit here and wait for the sun to clear the haze. There is a good reason I can't go with you when it's time to leave. Beyond Dreamer's Isle I'm dead."

  Chapter 2

  The Raft to Nowhere

  "I came here because I felt certain the Order of Mages would never be willing to follow me to this place." Shawl began his story as he, Haley, and Kassa sat huddled around the window. None for them were completely willing to take their eyes from the glimmer mist and the skyline they hoped would soon be lit with morning's brilliance. "I hadn't left under the nicest of circumstances and I knew there would be trackers on my trail quickly enough. My magical gift was valuable enough to them that simply letting me go wasn't an option. I, however, did not leave without first making plans. I had friends outside the Order that were willing to see to it that I could have the bindings of silence removed, and they were also willing to provide for me so long as I applied my talents to helping bring down the Order. I was more than willing to help. In fact, I considered the removal of the Order of Mages from power to be my life's work. I hoped it would be my legacy. I was a younger man then, and still full of dreams and big plans. Ambition is the disease of the naive and young.

  "My connections amidst the rebellion had prepared a place for me in the north amidst the high reaches of The Ragged, but I'd done my own research and had other things in mind. After the procedure that removed the bindings on my tongue, I began a two year process of recovery. In my day, the process wasn't as easy to recover from as it was for Xandrith. I could barely walk with a cane in the first year. During my recovery I lived in the north as my contacts had intended. They had prepared a wonderful place for me, a large home with an entire staff of servants to do my chores for me and to coddle me while I grew stronger, but I didn't want a life of complete ease. Nor did I wish to live in a land of constant ice and snow where the winters flowed into the spring only briefly, and the spring flowed directly back into the winter.

  "While I recovered I bade my new compatriots to let me move south to Dreamer's Isle. I knew it was a place feared by men, but I also knew that men were superstitious and often feared things they didn't understand. I believed that the isle was a challenge I could overcome. My new allies had no intention of making a prisoner of me, so they let me go as I would. I kept in touch via bird and letter as I began my trek south. It was a difficult trip, but it helped strengthen my body. I think if I had stayed in the north I would hardly be walking at all now. I still keep my cane, but I rarely feel the need for it. The trick to remaining spry is to keep moving, but I digress."

  Beyond the window something hulking and dark moved through the fog between the cabin and the woods, and it was followed a moment later by something of equal mass. The old mage's eyes tracked the movement until both figures vanished back into the tree line. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and calmly. Haley thought for a moment that Shawl would address what he'd seen, but instead he went on with his story as though unperturbed by the terrifying sights beyond his window.

  "Getting so far south was hard on my body, in a good way, but it wasn't truly difficult. Getting to Dreamer's Isle was a little more challenging. Even asking about booking passage had most people labeling me as mad. Those who didn't laugh me off their ships had me thrown from the docks rather unceremoniously. I tried booking passage with the hunters who travel even further south to capture queens for the wealthy and foolish, but they weren't interested in stopping on Dreamer's Isle or in helping a strange young man who, by their consideration, was fulfilling some kind of death wish. So I lived in Terrial for some time. I spent my months there researching the fae, or at least attempting to research the fae. We've lived side by side with them for a long time, but very little has been written down about their nature, and most of what has been written is just hear-say. Legends and tall tales get mixed in with actual information and it becomes quite difficult to know exactly what one should expect. Of course, I'd hoped that Dreamer's Isle would put me in a position where I wouldn't be dealing directly with the fae. However, I knew I would still need to figure out how to deal with the glimmer mist. Dreamer's Isle had been swallowing up people for years, which made it the perfect place for me to vani
sh, but I also had no intention of actually vanishing. I wasn't actually insane, even if the people of Terrial believed it was so.

  "Eventually, my solution came to me. Teremy Lihn showed up at my door one day and asked me how much I'd be willing to pay for transport to Dreamer's Isle. He said he'd be willing to make the trip as long as he didn't have to stay at port for any great length of time, and as long as we made the trip early in the day. That worked for me and I jumped on the opportunity. The very next day we set off for the isle. I left Teremy my belongings in Terrial and started to make a life for myself on the island. I was nervous, of course, but I was confident that I could handle anything the island had to throw at me. True to his word, Teremy dropped me off and even agreed to come back in one week's time to pick me up if I were still there. He didn't believe I'd survive the week, and I wasn't sure I would either, but it seemed like a good idea to have an escape plan in place. Once Teremy was gone, I set out into the woods looking for a place to make the sight of what would be my new home.

  "I knew from my reading that wherever one found glimmer mist, one could also find fairyroot trees, and that's what I went looking for. Fairyroot trees were said to feed on glimmer mist, and so I knew that if I could find a grove of those trees I could use them as a protective circle in which to insert myself. At least that was my theory at the time. In hindsight I was taking a huge risk with this idea. I had a few different books that agreed on the effectiveness of fairyroot, but I hadn't actually seen the trees work myself. I was younger then though, and the risk didn't really concern me as much as it should have. I had visions in my head of becoming the master of the forbidden isle. It was all very romantic and full of adventure in my mind. Well, my idea worked. I found this grove which was completely full of fairyroot trees. Once I cleared the trees I could use them to build my cabin, and then I'd leave a parameter a few trees wide to keep the mist at bay and a home built of the same protective wood. I'd never built a cabin at that point, and I had grand plans. The whole structure was to be three stories tall, and nearly twice as large per floor as it is in total now. As I said, I'd never built a cabin from scratch before. For one man it is a monumental task.

  "I tried on several occasions to get men to come in and help me, and for a few months I had a whole team willing to do just that. Eventually though, one of the fools wondered out into the woods and became lost just before nightfall. When we could not find him the work crew refused to come back. Luckily they'd built most of what you see here. I finished the rest myself, though it took me another eight years to do. A more experienced man might have done it faster, but I had other concerns with which to deal. I still had my research and my work for the allies, so I couldn't dedicate every hour of daylight to building. Have you ever tried to move a tree by yourself? It is no easy task.

  "The entire time I worked on the house I constantly kept in mind just how dangerous the mists were that crept up to my clearing every single night. Sometimes I'd stand outside and watch them, trying to understand what they were, but the damn mists confounded any reason. They came whether or not the night was calm or stormy, and regardless of the season. Always they rolled in with the coming of night, and burned off with the dawn. It was as though they were so fragile that sunlight tore them asunder. I quickly learned that spending the night staring into the mists was a bad idea. If you look long enough, you begin to see things out there in the dark. At first I saw only shapes and insubstantial shadows, but the longer you search the twisting glimmer mist, the more substantial those things become.

  "One particular night I thought I saw a woman I'd known many, many years ago. It wasn't some fleeting image of her either, but a full, solid apparition of her smiling at me from just beyond the tree line. I could even move closer and still see her beckoning with one hand for me to join her in the mists. In that moment I wanted to go to her. It had been so long, and she had been very dear to me, but I wasn't a complete fool. I knew it couldn't be her. She'd died long before, and there was no way she could be waiting for me in the mists. I returned to my cabin and decided I'd spent enough time gazing into the glimmer. Perhaps the promise of finding lost companions would lure some, I thought, but it wasn't going to be my undoing. I was smarter than that. I had determination."

  Beyond the cabin window a deep clicking and grinding moan dragged through the air, so loud that the walls of Shawl's cabin and the windows rattled their frames in protest. The sound was so low that it seemed to grab at the bottom of Haley's stomach like it was trying to shake her apart from the inside. It stopped after nearly a half a minute, and then a silence that was too deep followed. No one spoke as the seconds passed. Shawl looked as though he were about to say something, and then another bass declaration sounded, similar to the first but further away. It seemed to go on for a shorter time, and then silence fell over the companions again.

  "What in the deep-hells was that?" Kassa asked, looking troubled.

  "It sounds like fae heralds." Johndin answered quickly.

  "Heralds? Like at a noble's court?" It was Haley's turn to get a question in.

  "Something like that. The heralds of the fae are used to communicate across long distances, usually between different queens. A queen can send thoughts to her underlings, but separate queens still have to transmit messages aurally." Johndin explained.

  "That first one sounded really close." She hated to point out the obvious, but Haley felt it needed to be said just to be certain they were all thinking along the same lines.

  Kassa nodded her agreement. "Yes, really close. I thought the fae weren't on Dreamer's Isle?"

  "Well, there isn't anything stopping them from crossing the ocean to this isle, other than the water. I don't really think it's a deterrent. They've just never had a reason to move this far north before." Johndin noted. "Apparently that has changed."

  "Well, that explains why the mists are heavier than normal." Kassa added. "Do you think they pose a threat?"

  Johndin shrugged. "That’s difficult to say. The mist certainly poses a direct threat, and if the fae decide that this is their territory they will most certainly pose a threat to us. It's almost impossible to judge their motives. They don't really think the way we do. The most we can do now is hold our own until the morning clears the glimmer mist. We can't go outside now."

  "You might as well finish your story, then. We've nothing else to do." Haley prompted, deciding she'd prefer to take solace in a story of past events than in the turmoil of the fear she was currently feeling.

  Johndin nodded. "Of course. Where was I? Ah, yes. I returned to my cabin and decided that I wouldn't spend my nights staring out into the mists anymore, at least not from outside the safety of my walls. It's one thing to watch them through glass, but quite another to experience what they can do to your mind when you're outside. They don't speak, yet they can convince you to do things you wouldn't normally do, or to believe things you know you shouldn't. They have a subtle method of changing your thoughts without you noticing. Honestly, after years of living on this island, sometimes I wonder if I am the same man I might have otherwise been. What has living out here in the mists done to me?" He paused for a moment, looking off into the distance blankly. Haley was about to try and call him back from wherever he'd gone when he suddenly shook his head. "Sorry, I'm getting distracted."

  "With my house built, and my work coming along quiet efficiently, I found myself with a surprising amount of free time. For the first time in my life there wasn't something necessary occupying every moment of my life, so I actually became quite bored. I won't bore you with all of the distractions I discovered to occupy the quiet time, but I did start cataloguing the local plant life. Dreamer's Isle hosts an incredible array of different plant specimens, some I'd never seen or heard of before. When I wasn't busy working with the alliance, I spent time seeking out these new species of plants and studying their effects under controlled conditions. I had a great many books sent here to make sure I wasn't wasting time on specimens I had merely never he
ard of. Through these I soon discovered that Dreamer's Isle was home to many previously unstudied and unclassified plants, probably because of the island’s proximity to the fae lands. While I'm sure that's very dull for you ..."

  Haley nodded sincerely, which earned her a frown from the old mage.

  "I was enthralled by my discoveries. I fancied myself a famous botanist for some time, imagining that my findings would be published in some of the updated books I had done my own research in. So it was that I found myself deep in the woods one evening, cataloguing a particularly impressive specimen of bark-growing shade flowers, when I began to feel exhausted. It had been a busy day. I'd spent much of it climbing trees and sketching flowers in uncomfortable positions. I was getting older by this time, and this sort of work really did take a toll on me even if I enjoyed it far too much to quit. I checked the time and judged it to be about three hours until nightfall and time to start heading back to the cabin. The walk back would take me at least an hour.

  “As I was collecting my equipment and preparing to return home I caught sight of a variation of the flower I'd been cataloguing that I hadn't yet recorded. This was the first such variation I'd ever seen and I realized that if I didn't take a moment to write down the details, I might not be able to find the exact same plant again later. I knew I should just make note of where I was and try and return on the morrow, but I was compelled to try and get this last group of information jotted down. Before long I was deep into my notebook, making detailed descriptions of leaf patterns, color variation in the pedals, and length and width of stem growth. It should have only taken me a half an hour, maybe a little more, but when I next checked the time I knew I'd stayed too long. The sun had dropped in the sky, seemingly far faster than it should. Night was less than an hour away, and some of the darker corners of the woods were already becoming very, very dark indeed. I gathered my gear and started back for the cabin, moving as quickly as I dared, cursing myself the entire time. I was maybe half way home when the mists began to sweep through the woods.