by Ember Lane
“We could use this,” said Aezal. “I’ll bet it runs all the way to The Silver Road.”
“Both a boon and a vulnerability,” Lincoln said.
“If you build this second settlement how I think you are, it may not remain a secret for long.”
“That might depend on Crags—I have plans for him.”
“Like what?” Crags asked.
Lincoln let slip a laugh. “Let’s just say folks don’t like traveling through haunted forests.”
“Oooh, sounds like fun,” Crags said, smiling.
14
The Sacred Tree
After going upstream for a few hundred yards, they decided they’d done enough exploring for the day. They’d come to a small clearing in the forest, and by Lincoln’s reckoning, it was near enough where he thought the center of the second settlement should be. Slumping to the ground, Aezal fished in his sack and brought out the last of their food, sharing it between them all. They munched away in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.
This was the ideal place, but could he afford the distraction? Lincoln wondered if he could split himself in two, or would mistakes start getting made? He needed a steward, not a warrior or a gnome, a steward whom he could rely on to do the right job. If it wasn’t for his need for wood, he wouldn’t even consider it. Lying under the moody sky, he fought with his dilemma, shifting, fidgeting on the damp grass.
“This is hopeless,” he growled.
“Aren’t you going to flip the token?” Aezal asked, as Lincoln sat up and scratched his head, trying to reach a decision.
At first Lincoln didn’t reply, just stared at Aezal, wondering if the warrior could do the task, could run the settlement, but he knew, deep down, it was not Aezal’s destiny.
“Nope,” he finally said. “By my reckoning, we’ve got enough time to get back to the vale before the sun sets. If we try for the city now, we’ll have to build the cottages up to the doors and set the guide going. No, a day or two won’t make any difference.”
“Sure?” Aezal asked. “I could stay here and get things going.”
“I could too,” Crags added.
Lincoln stood up again, restless, eager to get on, and put his hands on his hips, at odds with his choice, but knowing it to be the correct one. “You two will be at each other’s throats before the moon has risen,” he said, kicking at the grass, and then he started marching into the forest. “Come on, let’s get back,” he muttered. “Besides, Ozmic and Grimble have got the cottages down pat now. No, we’ll go look at the mountain tomorrow, see what we can find there, and then come…”
When no reply came, he looked around, but Aezal and Crags were nowhere to be seen.
“Aezal! Crags!” he shouted. “Aezal! Crags!” He began retracing his steps. Soon back in the clearing, he looked around but could see no sign of them. That feeling of being watched engulfed him, shadows darting around in the surrounding foliage, the rustle of leaves, the knock of branches. It was like there was a whole load of folks lurking, hiding, waiting for some signal. Then a soft voice called out, it almost floating on the air until it finally kissed his ears.
“Are you the Builder?”
Lincoln jerked, glancing around from trunk to trunk, from bough to bough, but he could see nothing.
“Yes…Lincoln,” he shouted back.
Silence, then… “Why do you stain our forest with the gnome? They are nothing more than a plague, a disease upon the land. Why do you blight us so?”
“Crags? The gnome?” Lincoln still couldn’t see anyone, but his gut told him they were there—he guessed elves, and he guessed they had come in force. “He’s my friend.”
Then he heard the nocking of a dozen or so arrows, and from the shadows, a circle of elves slowly emerged.
Lincoln raised his hands in the air. Their faces still partly shadowed, but he could see their sharp lines, narrow eyes atop high cheekbones, nearly all with brown, raggedy hair down to their shoulders. They were a little smaller than him and dressed similarly to Crags, like rangers. Each had a whitewood bow, charged and leveled at Lincoln’s chest or back, dependent on his direction as he spun around, looking for a way to escape. He felt his breath come fast, knowing he was about to die. He quickly pulled his respawn menu up, changing its location from the troll mound to the middle of the vale. Taking a breath, he prepared to die.
“You think we’re here to kill you, Mandrake-kin?” the voice now sang out, much stronger than before, and Lincoln looked toward its source. Standing astride a branch was an elven woman. She rolled off the bough, somersaulting down and then walking straight toward him, a mist-like glow flowing all around her. “When has House Mandrake taken their alliance with the elves for granted? When has Mandrake marched onto our lands without an accord? Glenwyth, my name, well a name you can at least pronounce. And you are Lincoln the Builder. Tell me, Lincoln, will you answer my question? Why is Mandrake on our lands, eating our forests?”
Tree Elf. Name: Glenwyth. Level = 13 Status = Hostile.
“I, er…” was all Lincoln could reply, mesmerized by her aura.
The elf approached, closing the distance between them until she was standing just inches from him. “Are you wed to one of our sister’s? The smell of our kind is on you, and yet not. It is tainted, somehow.”
Glenwyth had beautiful, green eyes that stared up at him, and her lips still seemed to hold unasked questions, trembling, trying to hold them back. He felt her breath on his neck, his chin. It tasted sweet, like almonds.
“What have you done with my friends?” Lincoln rasped.
“Friends? The warrior is safe. We are treating him with the respect of an ally. The gnome must die…eventually. We’ll play with him for a bit first.”
Lincoln reared. “No!” he shouted. “The gnome must live.”
“Gnomes are a stain on the land. Are Mandrake allied with those miscreants now?”
“Mandrake? You keep saying that like it’s a chain that binds. All are welcome in my village. All are judged by their actions, not those of their ancestors—all, without exception. Gnomes, ceratogs, dwarves, and elves—everyone who proves their worth is welcome. I’ll not turn someone away because I don’t like the smell of his or her relatives.”
Glenwyth took a step back. “Humans often say fine words and rarely stand by them. Maybe a test would be in order.” She smiled, skipped around and jumped back onto her bough as though it was only a couple of feet off the ground. “Tell me. Lincoln the Builder, will you accompany me to our village? I should probably show you where it is else you put a mill near it and tear it down.”
Glenwyth jumped back down and grabbed Lincoln’s hand, pulling him with her toward the river, almost playfully, but with an underlying force.
“What about Crags?” Lincoln asked.
“Crags?”
“The gnome?”
“Like I said, he will be kept…entertained. The only reason he is alive now is that he is wearing the green of a ranger. No, he will live; all the while we think he can tell us where the bandit, Digberts, is. The king of the gnomes must die. It is written.”
“Where?” Lincoln asked.
“Where what?”
“Where is it written?”
Glenwyth laughed. “You should control your clever tongue, else those luck points you so cherish will run out.”
Arriving at the gloomy riverbank, Lincoln was surprised to see a small rowboat now moored there where another elf sat with oars primed. “This is Elleren, and she will take us home.”
Lincoln reluctantly got into the boat, sitting in the bow end. Elleren turned and welcomed him.
“My friends?” he asked again, but neither elf replied.
Elleren pushed the boat off the bank with one oar, and began rowing. Lincoln had fully expected to be taken south and deeper into the forest, but Elleren took them upstream, toward the mountain and waterfall.
“Rhangnarg,” Glenwyth told him, lighting a lantern hanging from the boat’s stern. “
You were wondering what the structure over the valley was. It is the ruin of Rhangnarg, and no one has entered its halls for an age. Even the deep-down dwarves steer clear of its tainted stone. It is said that the very rock bleeds tears for its past, that its bowels are fire and its rooms are as cold as ice. Do not awaken Rhangnarg, even if your blood runs Mandrake.”
Lincoln grunted. He looked at Glenwyth, she appeared to be trying to be mystical, to be mysterious, but though her movements were fluid, they were those of a warrior, and not the peaceful type of elf that usually inhabited these types of fantastical lands. She was also looking at him strangely.
“So, you have taken an elf as a lover? Was she half-elf?”
“My business,” Lincoln muttered, but Glenwyth laughed in response.
“Bashful, Lincoln the Builder, very bashful. Tell me why? This land is bountiful. Why be ashamed because you supped from it?”
Shifting uneasily on his seat, Lincoln tried to contain the guilt that was rising in his gut. “I betrayed my true love,” he said, his teeth gritted.
“Is she here, in this land?”
Lincoln fixed Glenwyth a steely stare. “No, she’s dead.”
He noticed Elleren missed her oar stroke, and Glenwyth stared out over the shade-filled river. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “We would celebrate that. Find joy in a life shared. The land wouldn’t expect you to mourn forever.”
“So the land respects that things change,” Lincoln said.
“All things change.”
“Then how do you know that Crags is bad, that all gnomes are bad?”
Her laughter tinkled around, then abruptly stopped. “Digberts,” she snapped.
It was Lincoln’s turn to laugh. “Now he can be quite the character.”
This time, Elleren stopped rowing, and Glenwyth sat bolt upright. The boat started drifting back with the current, but neither elf seemed to care.
“You’ve met the demon king?”
“Digberts, yes, he was okay. A bit…chaotic, but just a little playful.”
“No,” Elleren said. “What Glenwyth meant was, ‘You’ve met the demon king and survived.’” She grabbed the oars and started rowing again, her strokes more urgent now.
Confusion filled Lincoln’s mind. He couldn’t work out the elves at all. They just didn’t seem right. Glenwyth appeared genuinely confused by the simple fact that he had met Digberts. He tracked back over everything Digberts had done, but nothing was that odd. Lincoln was sticking with his original thoughts that Diberts, Marngs, and all of them were no more than hooligans.
“Why did he let you live?” Glenwyth asked again.
“Probably because I’d done what he asked. I killed the troll, Esmeralda. He searched her cave for loot and moved on.”
“What did he find?”
“Nothing. It was too well hidden. Once he’d gone, we found the way.”
“And where did it lead?”
Lincoln smiled. “That is for me to know. Maybe once my friends are freed, maybe then I’ll tell you, but for now, no.”
Glenwyth glared at him, but said nothing in reply. Lincoln sat and stewed, worried for Aezal and Crags, especially Crags. Eventually, the way became lighter, and Lincoln heard the constant rumble of what he assumed was the waterfall he’d seen earlier. He craned around to see it, but they burst out of the forest and were soon rowing toward it.
Soon at its base, Lincoln looked up at the cascading fall, his eyes drawn to its power. Spray bloomed all around it, the water fighting, jostling as it fell, losing the surrounding gray mountain in roiling silver mists. It fell to the semi-circular lake now around them, pinned against the craggy mountain by the thick of the forest.
Elleren turned the boat toward the distant red cliffs, and Lincoln saw that a sizeable chunk of land had been hidden from him by the curve of their ridge. A rough wood jetty welcomed them once they’d traversed the lake, and Elleren skipped from the boat when they drew alongside it, offering Lincoln a helping hand.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“You have your secrets, we have ours,” Glenwyth said curtly, as Elleren spun him around and tied his hands behind his back before he’d even gained a good foothold on the jetty.
Glenwyth walked up to him, and face-to-face, smiled at him, though not in pleasure, and pulled a hood over his head, dousing his day to night. She pushed him around, shoved him in the back, and he stumbled forward. Lincoln felt a rope fall around his neck, and a noose drew shut, tightened by a tug. “This way,” he heard Elleren order him.
Branches whipped his face as he entered the forest; nettles swiped at his feet as Lincoln was dragged along like a captured fugitive. Neither Glenwyth nor Elleren said a word. Elleren pulling him forward with sharp tugs, Glenwyth prodding him on, the tip of a stick or shaft digging into his back every dozen or so paces.
Sweat poured from his forehead, streamed down his back. The air was muggy with the waterfall’s spray. He felt exposed, vulnerable, and wondered how he had been tricked so easily by these elves. As for Aezal and Crags, he doubted they lived now, everything clearly a trap. That the elves and gnomes were enemies was plain to see, but elves and humans? And if Digberts was the gnome king, then he’d certainly treated Lincoln better than the elves. What had happened that Elleren and Glenwyth had turned so? Could it really be because he refused to tell them anything? He was beginning to wonder whether elves were, in fact, evil in this land. He saw his energy falling, thirst raking through his body.
“I need water,” he shouted.
“You’ve still got fifty points left,” Glenwyth shouted back and gave him another sharp prod for his troubles.
Lincoln’s consciousness became blurred. He staggered forward with every tug, feeling his neck welt with burns from the noose. His health wasn’t tumbling, but was bouncing up and down as the odd point was stripped, only to be replenished by his regen.
“Why?” he shouted.
“Why?” Elleren growled. “You expect some measure of respect when you come to ravage our forest? You expect to ally when you bring our mortal enemies to our home?”
Lincoln felt a kick in his back, and he went tumbling forward, falling, rolling down a slope and coming to a crunching halt against cold, hard rock. The hood was ripped from his head, and he saw Glenwyth’s booted feet standing over him. “You sure you don’t want to tell us?”
“Tell you what?”
“What you found in that tomb.”
Lincoln tried to get up, but his tied hands gave him no leverage. “What does it matter? What I found, I left, and then I sealed the place and hid it.”
“You hid it?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t a thing that needed looting. It was…sacred…”
Glenwyth spat on the floor right by his head. “Liar. You took something. You took her mark!”
“The Mandrake thing?” Lincoln cried. “I didn’t loot that! It just appeared.”
“Mandrake scorched the world.”
“And yet the world recovered,” Lincoln told her.
Glenwyth scoffed. “Come, he will decide.”
Elleren yanked the rope and dragged Lincoln to his feet. Lincoln now saw that the forest had thinned, the trees no longer a lush green, more a blighted yellow, and the red rock of the ridge now loomed high above them. He saw a long, wooden stockade that led away in both directions, and he saw a small gate to which they headed. Looking up at the top of the stockade, he saw elves patrolling up and down along some concealed walkway. Tiny caltrops littered the ground in front of the wooden palisade, a ditch running its length for good measure. They crossed through, and Lincoln entered the elven village.
It was a jumble of wooden huts, of vine walkways, stacked timber, and elves crisscrossing each other, barging, bumping as they went about their business, and they all looked so…so angry. Lincoln could only liken it to a city back on earth, where everyone seemed unbearably sad at life.
Though he too was angry, he had to know why. “What is up with all
these folks?”
“We are forced to live here, forced to live like this, because of the gnomes,” Glenwyth growled.
“Why?”
“We have to protect her. If Digberts comes back, we will fight to the last,” she said.
Lincoln heard a great roar, and looked to try and see where it came from. As they rounded a small line of ramshackle huts, Lincoln saw the source of the commotion. In the midst of a square of dirt, a cage sat on top of a ten-foot-high wooden pole. Crags was looking out through its wooden bars, ducking as a mob below threw rotten fruit at him, jeering with every hit, booing with every miss.
Bursting forward, Lincoln forgot about the noose around his neck. It snagged tight, tearing at his neck, pulling from his feet and nearly snapping his neck.
Damage! You have received 20 damage points. Your health is reduced to 58/80.
Lincoln stayed on the ground, gasping for air.
Caution! Your energy is 40/100 and falling.
“Why?” he asked, but was just dragged to his feet.
“I’ll show you,” Glenwyth said, taking hold of the rope and pulling him past the pole, past Crags. Lincoln scrambled up. He thought he heard Crags cry out, but his brain was muzzy, his vision coming in waves. He staggered through the elven village, ever closer to the red cliff face, and there he was forced to his knees in front of a skeletal tree, all trunk and withered branches, not a leaf adorning its angry boughs. Sadness tinged Lincoln’s angry heart, for the tree looked as though it had once been mighty. Its trunk must have been ten feet in diameter, but from it, only ghosts of what must have once been grand branches limped out.
“This is what the gnomes did to her, to the One Tree.”
“How did they do this?” Lincoln asked.
“Digberts opened a chaos portal right by it. His poison blighted the land.”
“When the ridge rose up from the land?”
