The gothican rose back to his full height and looked down at King Rayden. His eyes twinkled with something akin to glee. “Just imagine the number of lonely women, with fatherless children, all awaiting a mighty leader such as you to guide them. They will serve you any way you desire.”
After hearing that, and understanding the truth of it, King Rayden could do nothing but smile.
Part I - The Wilderkind
Chapter One
The elves, dwarves, and all the humans, for that matter, couldn't be happier to feel solid ground under their feet again. Everyone except for Braxton Bray. He wasn't paying attention to the fact that he was back on land at all. The odd thought consuming his mind was how weirdly wonderful it felt when one of the deck hands, and then Captain Pickerell himself, had referred to him as a wizard.
Is that what I am now? he wondered. I've healed a dragon and stopped a ship from sinking, and I've soared over the ocean as free as a bird, but a wizard doesn't do those things outside of his body, does he?
He wanted to ask Suclair about it but was afraid that another long, frustrating interrogation would ensue if he did. He kept his thoughts to himself and let Nixy lead him from the half-sunken ship that had carried them to Baily. The little fishing village only had one inn. That was hopefully where they'd be spending the night. Warm food, a bath, and a bed were things that, only half a day ago, he thought he would never know again. As worn and weary as they all were, the group would depart in the morning and the elf, Vinston-Fret, was already making preparations.
The good people of Baily seemed to be in shock. First, a ship that should not have been floating had made it to the dock. Then, to their onlooking amazement, three elves followed by a pair of dwarves and a bald-headed human lady had come ashore. Some of them hurried home and locked their doors. Braxton saw windows being shuttered in fear of the group. Others were reluctant but helpful. Apparently, they had never seen the wild-looking yellow-eyed elves, or the gnarled stumpy dwarves, but not all of Baily's citizens were so afraid. Many stood and gawked at the motley procession as it moved down the dock and wound through the town's only road toward the inn.
The inn was fittingly called The Shipwreck, and since the innkeeper said he hadn't had a tenant in months, they gladly excepted the dwarven gold they were offered and started preparing a meal for the evening. The owner, a round-faced older man, was as happy as a lark when the braver souls of Baily started filing into the common room to have a drink and take a look at the new arrivals.
The Shipwreck Inn had only four rooms available, and the dwarves paid for them all. To Braxton's surprise, they actually paid enough to rent the whole place for most of the month, but the dwarves weren't concerned with gold. Gold to a dwarf was like water to a fish. As Darblin had told Braxton on the ship, "When you live underground, precious metals en't so precious."
Darblin and the other dwarf that was with them, Big H, were happy to be drinking and eager for a hot meal. The things Nixy was worried about, like bathing and changing clothes, never crossed their mind. Braxton, however, was tired of feeling the grainy salt in all his cracks and crevices and couldn't wait to wash the sea from his skin.
When they got upstairs in the privacy of their room, Nixy awkwardly tried to talk to Braxton. She was saying they might need to slow it down and take a step back, but seemed frustrated he wasn't that concerned with her.
It wasn't that he didn't care, he was just preoccupied with what lay ahead of them. He didn't intend to make her angry. In fact, he agreed with her.
The tub at the end of the hall had been filled with hot water, and Nixy left for it with a frustrated huff. Oddly, she stopped at the door, took three long steps back toward him, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. Braxton had been sure she would throttle him, but now the door was closing behind her, and he was alone.
Braxton had no regrets over having been intimate with Nixy, but he felt like the only reason she had given herself to him was because she thought they were going to die. Lately, every time she looked at him, she seemed either deeply in love, frustrated, or maybe just confused. He hoped she didn't regret what happened, but he agreed that, with the journey that was ahead of them, they needed to keep their emotions in check.
At the moment, he had things on his mind that were far more important than either of them. If she wanted him, or to talk to him, he supposed she would.
That night in the common room, Darblin and Big H halfheartedly complained about having to dine at a table by themselves. The wrinkled noses and wide-eyed cringing that happened whenever someone passed too close was lost on them. Between their complaints, they were busy eating from the mounded piles of roast mutton and vegetables on their table.
"Don’t worry, I'll make sure they bathe before they pass out," Nixy told bald-headed Suclair, daughter and student of the old wizard called Debain. Braxton was in some sort of daze so Nixy didn't even bother to address him.
"Maybe if we leave them be, they'll scare away the creatures of the Wilderkind with their smell," Sorrell, one of the three elves, joked.
"To scare away most anything," Vinston-Fret added, his yellow elven eyes twinkling with mirth, "all Darblin has to do is drop his pants."
"Now that is scary." Suclair made a face. "Please change the subject."
"I must have missed something," Nixy said, noticing the grins around the table and the red splotches on Suclair's bald head and cheeks.
"I don't know how you possibly could have missed it," said Sorrell with a grin.
"Don't feel bad," said Cryelos, the other elf in the odd group of companions. "I missed it, too, as I was drowning in the sea while they were busy gaping at the poor dwarf’s privates. I did, however, see how you saved yon dwarf by severing the tentacle that would have surely taken him."
It was Nixy's turn to blush. She didn't think anybody had noticed what she'd done to the creature that had crippled their ship. She wasn't the type to gloat, but she had to admit it had been quite an acrobatic move to get her sword over Big H's head without taking part of it off and still bring the blade to bear on the deadly creature's appendage.
"Speaking of that, how is your arm?" Suclair, her expression half-pride, half-embarrassment asked Vinston-Fret.
"A little sore, but not so much so.” He smiled at her. "You did well, Suclair. Your father will be proud to hear about it."
"Yeah, Sue,” Nixy patted her on the shoulder. "You blasted that thing good."
"Speaking of my father," Suclair said, obviously unaware that her bald head glowed crimson when she was flustered. "He should have contacted me by now. I'm starting to get worried about him."
"Why don't you try and contact him?" asked Nixy.
"I'm not that practiced yet," Suclair answered. "My father has to make the connection. I cannot."
"I'm sure that he's so busy he's just forgotten," said Vinston-Fret. "After telling King Barden about the amassing gothicans, and the scummy man who put the bounty on Lord Braxton and Lady Nixalia, I'm sure he was put into service to help fix the situation."
"They better be torturing that grave robbing liar," Nixy said angrily.
After more light conversation, the elves excused themselves, saying there were a few more things that needed to be tended to before they retired.
"I recommend you ladies get some good rest this evening," Vinston-Fret added. "We depart at dawn and will be sleeping on the ground until we have found what we are after and return."
"Better the ground than on a sinking ship," Suclair joked.
Not long after the elves left, Braxton surprised Nixy when he blurted out, "Watch!"
Her lover pointed at his empty pewter goblet and, as everyone in earshot watched, the cup slowly melted into a puddle, then reformed into a pewter rose. When it was done, Braxton picked it up and proudly handed it to her.
So pleased at the magical gift, she forgot her intent to restrain her affection and gave him a giant kiss.
In the night, as Nixy lay sleeping in the soft bed, Brax
ton was absorbed in reading the newly revealed passages of Taerak's journal. He could only read the words it wanted him to read, and even then, only by looking at the script through the gem in the medallion he'd found on Taerak's withered corpse what seemed like ages ago. For Braxton, sleep would not come this night. His blood was like liquid fire as he read page after page of information that was as terrifying as it was extraordinary.
He was so consumed with the knowledge he gained that he didn't want to sleep.
Dawn broke on a beautiful day, and Braxton was glad he wasn't tired for the quest to find the Sapphire of Souls was now underway.
Three humans, three elves, and two dwarves made their way out of Baily on the Scarlee road. To call it a road was a stretch for it was only an overgrown set of wagon tracks. More than one villager called out a dire warning about the stretch of the trail that passed through part of the lower Wilderkind Forest. Braxton even heard a pair of old men wagering on their chances of surviving the short, three-day journey to New Scarlee, which was just the first leg of a trek that would take them deep into the Wilderkind. All of this made for a somber mood as the village slowly disappeared behind them.
Vinston-Fret had purchased two cart horses that seemed happy to not be in front of a wagon. The cart that might have come with them had a broken wheel and there was no one in the village, nor any parts, to fix it. The animals looked to have no trouble at all with the bulky gear strapped on their backs.
Braxton thought of his horse Prism and smiled. What he'd give to be riding that frisky stallion right now instead of tromping on foot behind the graceful elves.
He started to talk to Nixy about the amazing things he'd read while she slept, but each time he got close to her, a different expression crossed her face, and it made him wary, so he kept to himself and thought about what the journal had revealed.
The last passage in particular hung in his mind, and he tried to figure out what Taerak had meant as the morning wore on.
Though many wondrous things you will do and see, the cost of them will be high. Having been in your boots long ago, I find that part of me envies you very much, while another part of me mourns, for when you feel the full nature of the jewel, there will be so much pain. All that you love in your life you will have to lose as you transcend time. The future, however challenging and exciting, will become a lonely one.
Braxton wasn't sure what Taerak meant, but he figured he would find out sooner or later. After pondering it a while, he decided to think about the other things he'd read. There were exercises in meditation and examples of how powerful he would soon become. Some of it scared him. It was implied that he, someday, might be able to cause fear to ripple through thousands of people with only a thought.
He couldn't fathom it.
He had barely been able to transform the goblet into a rose. He decided not to dwell on any of it and began trying to find the gem in the void while walking across the grassy plains of Nepram.
Early on the dwarves looked to be in bad shape. But as the day progressed, they sweated out the indulgence of the night before. They wore soft leather armor and carried their oversized weapons on their shoulders at their ready. By afternoon, they both looked to be alert and a little over-serious in their cautiousness.
As promised, Nixy had gotten them to bathe, and then at Darblin's request, she helped the dwarves re-dye their hair and beards, only this time Darblin's was a dark, forest green color. Big H had opted for a reddish-brown dye and explained it was for camouflage in the thick undergrowth of the forest. He assured them all they could become as good as invisible. Braxton thought they were joking, but now watching them tirelessly taking two steps to everyone else's one while moving through the lightly browned waist high grass, it was clear that if either of them stopped and stood still they might blend in. Darblin's head looked like the top of a bush poking out of the grass, and if Big H were to stoop down a little he might look like a stump or even a dried-up shrub.
For most of the day, the Wilderkind Forest wasn't visible to them, but by evening, they could see the dark line of trees that marked its edge. They followed the wagon trail as it ran a parallel course with the tree line for some time. Their path slowly drew near to the foreboding looking blackness that lay in the places where the canopy kept the sun from shining. It was almost full dark when they came to the point where the road actually entered the woods. It was there that Vinston-Fret called the halt and picked out a place for them to camp for the night. They decided to make a fire, a big one, to keep the curious creatures from getting too close. Braxton thought it would have been an understatement to say they were all feeling a little uneasy. The big moon lit the world with its yellow glow and the forest beside them took on a life of its own. The sound of the insects and creatures within were like nothing they'd ever heard before. A distant wail that sounded like a crying baby, and long screeching calls that caused things up in the trees and in the bushes to jump with a start, came sporadically. Deeper grunting huffs that came from low to the ground, and not so far away, were more frequent.
Vinston-Fret and Suclair took the first watch. They were to be followed by Nixy and Darblin, then Braxton and Cryelos, and finally Sorrell and Big H. Vinston-Fret explained the dwarves shouldn't be on the same watch because they might start drinking, and that Braxton and Nixy shouldn't be on the same watch because they might get caught up in other things. Everybody had a laugh about it, save for Braxton and Nixy. Nixy because she was too embarrassed, Braxton because he was trying to turn a leaf into anything he could turn it into.
Braxton wasn't due up until third watch, but he didn't sleep at all. His state of meditation was so deep and all-consuming that his mind and body were getting more rest than they needed. Amazingly, by sunrise, he'd managed to turn not one leaf, but three leaves to stone. One of which he kept, the other two he gave to the girls for no other reason than it was a nice thing to do.
He realized his mistake when Suclair took out a journal and somehow managed to balance it and an ink vial while writing vigorously the description of the stone leaf. Braxton was forced to spend the morning answering Suclair's numerous questions, but he finally distracted her by pointing out several different species of plants for her to catalogue. One of these was a bright yellow flower growing from a vine full of blood red, angry looking thorns. The vine only wrapped itself around the base of certain trees. Another example was a small bush with sky blue leaves. Swarming around the growth were hundreds and hundreds of tiny lemon-yellow flies.
In the daylight, the forest wasn't nearly as scary, but still the feeling of being watched by horrible unseen creatures, the ones who'd made those awful noises all night long, was unsettling. Though the sunlight that fought its way down to them made it not seem so creepy, it also cast all sorts of wild shadows. By midday, the foliage was so thick Vinston-Fret had to use his short sword to hack a passage through it all. Sorrell, Cryelos, and Braxton kept their bows in hand and ready, and by late afternoon, it became clear that they wouldn't make it out of the forest by dark fall.
It was one thing to make camp beside a dark, creature-filled forest. Having to sleep within one was another thing altogether, but as Vinston-Fret hacked them a clearing to make camp in, he made it clear this was only a small section of the Wilderkind, and compared to the main body of the forest where they were eventually going, this might as well be a common room at an inn.
After his little speech, they built an extremely large fire and slept closer to it than was probably safe. The sounds of the night were even more terrifying, and they came from just outside the fire’s light, but nothing disturbed them until just before dawn when Darblin scared them all awake by screaming in terror.
What was odd about his warning, was that it wasn't even his watch.
Chapter Two
Immediately after Darblin's blood-curdling yell, there was the sound of a violent struggle. One of the elves threw a log on the fire, sending up a swirl of cherry embers, but it didn't help visibility much. Luck
ily, Suclair was thinking on her terrified feet, for she cast her light spell just as Sorrell and Cryelos brought arrows to bear on the now visible tangle of Darblin and Big H struggling with something that no one else could see.
"What is it?" Nixy yelled at the dwarves. "We can't help you if we don't know what it is."
"It's a blasted snake!" Darblin screamed. "Get it Hannival! Get it off me."
The other dwarf was already wrapped around Darblin, patting and feeling for the culprit. "I think I've found it," he said through clenched teeth.
"Kill it, smash it!" ordered Darblin.
Big H brought his fist down with tremendous force and Darblin screamed again, "That's not it," he wailed in pain, "that's me pecker you pickle head!"
Big H jumped off Darblin and quickly wiped his hand on his pants with an appalled expression on his face. The elves watched the fray while methodically scanning the lighted area for any sign of danger.
Braxton was in another world. He stared into the woods as if he wasn't aware of any of it, though he was more aware than any of them. His attention wasn't focused on Darblin and his snake, he was keying in on the approaching group of man-ish creatures the others hadn't yet detected. Nixy finally went over to the squirming, wide-eyed prince of the dwarves. She reached down the back of his shirt and pulled out a little snake that wasn't any longer than her forearm and no bigger around than her finger. "No doubt, Prince Darblin," she said with a grin as she tossed the little creature out into the blackness. "It must've thought your hair was a bush."
"That or it thought it found a mate in his britches," Sorrell said with a laugh.
"That's just wrong," Suclair said distastefully. "Can I put the light out now?"
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