by Joseph Lallo
Suddenly there was a wave of something, something unbelievably powerful. It came from the northwest. The intensity of it blotted out all else. It continued, growing more and more powerful until Myranda had to pull herself from her meditation or be overcome by it. There was no doubt in her mind what it was. Even her unfocused mind was vaguely aware of the pulsing, surging force. The shape shifter. Only she was capable of a force of such intensity and purity. And where she could be found, so too would be Lain, surely. She turned her eyes to the northwest. Even at this distance, violent winds could be seen shaking snow from trees. Then she turned to the northeast. Something was there. Something that may be very important.
"This way, Myn. We may not be able catch Lain by ourselves, but we may still prove Desmeres wrong," she said.
Myn cast a second glance, understanding and not pleased at the fact they would not be seeking Lain. Always faithful, though, the dragon stood, ready to move. Myranda looked at the sky. The clouds had the glow that seasoned northerners knew as midday. She hadn't slept or eaten yet. She should seek some kind of shelter and rest. With the aid of Myn and her staff, she struggled to her feet. Her mind lingered on the essence she felt. Rest could wait. She could eat as she walked. She would find whatever it was she had felt or die in the process. As she plodded off, pushing aside weariness and hunger, she was unaware of the minds that followed her.
#
In a dark hut, surrounded by books, Deacon strained his eyes at the last flickering images of Myranda. The minutes that had just passed had brought with them something he had been hoping for since she had gone. Every day had been spent searching for her mind. The best of days offered a glimpse of her as she pushed herself to the limit to cast a spell. Today was different. Today she too had searched. She was not aware of it, but in those minutes that she cast her mind far and wide, her thoughts and his had met. He saw her, clear as crystal. He heard her. What she said, what she thought, what she felt. He knew where she was going, what she was trying to do, and what had happened. As the moment passed and the connection was broken, he turned back to his tomes. The words were burned into his head. The path is changing. Go where it leads. He searched feverishly for the pieces he would need. No spell existed that would meet his needs. Not yet. He worked now with a renewed intensity, for just as he knew what she knew, he had learned something that she did not.
#
Elsewhere, a darker mind was similarly intrigued by the girl's foolish decision to cast her mind so visibly about. Epidime took care to conceal himself as he felt her mind shift to and fro. He had been busied by other things, but the girl who had managed to resist him was never far from his mind. He was a skilled observer of spirits and souls. When the time came, it would not take long for him to find her unless she learned to hide herself as he had, but her spiritual equivalent of an alarm bell chiming had quickly drawn his attention. Had the newly arisen shape shifter not suddenly presented herself as a far more enticing target, he may well have intercepted the girl and finished what he had started, but for now that could wait. Conquering the girl would be satisfying, but his purpose above all others was to learn, and the shape shifter offered a peerless opportunity for that. He had already learned that the one called Lain had joined forces with it, or at least fought beside it more than once. The pair was formidable. It was best, then, to make use of someone disposable and observe as he had before. When he had learned the latest target's allegiances, strengths, and weaknesses, he would return for Myranda. She would be simple to find. After all, he knew where she was going.
#
Far away, Lain sprinted due east. Desmeres had done his job admirably. The others had been delayed, and he had managed to put a considerable amount of distance behind him in that time. He knew better than to believe that he could easily put the shape shifter off of his trail, but he had been pursued by mystics before. Though they used different senses, they followed the same rules. There were ways to obscure these senses just as any other. His task was complicated by the fact that she was undetectable to him, however. When the being turned to wind or fire or any other elemental form her scent was absent, or at least indistinct. Worse still, when she did have a scent, he could not be certain what it was. These concerns were now the last in his mind, though. The being had grown close. Very close. She might be by his side at this moment if not for the arena that lie between them. He knew the place well. It was stocked with all manner of vicious beasts, and of late had been used to punish those the Alliance Army wished to make an example of. Long ago, the D'karon had turned their dark wizards to the task of creating ever more formidable beasts to fill the cages and face the condemned. Now the creatures that the combatants faced were twisted, crude, hideous parodies of nature, the results of those dark pursuits. The windy, swirling form of the shape shifter had only just become visible to Lain on the edge of the horizon when the arena passed below her. Suddenly she turned the totality of her considerable might to the task of eliminating these creatures, drawing the attention of the full compliment of guards in the process. The maelstrom she brought about was every bit the intensity of the one a few days earlier in the field outside the fort, and would no doubt result in the same rush of soldiers to investigate. He had to make it out of the area before that happened.
#
For a moment the mighty being surveyed her work. The ground around her was littered with the broken remains of black blooded abominations. They varied in shape and size greatly, but some things were common to all. There was a roughness to them, a tainted simplicity. They were creations, attempts at duplicating nature. While they failed on most levels, she did briefly admire the almost mechanical efficiency that some displayed. She analyzed the primitive "blood" that stained her now stone hands. Briefly she considered shifting to the form of one of the smaller beasts. She had squandered much of her remaining strength in striking these D'karon creations down. Spending some time in a simpler form would aid her recovery. Her reflection on the subject was cut short by the arrival of a mass of armor clad soldiers. She swept her gaze across the ranks. Humans. They were doing the work of the D'karon. She would be justified in bringing them to the same fate as the beasts. Indeed, destroying the whole of the structure was quite within her right, but she decided against it. For now she would save her strength for travel. Her stone form gave way to wind, and she set quickly off in the direction Lain had been heading.
As she took to the sky, she marveled at her fellow warrior's uncanny ability to obscure his uniquely powerful spirit. There were beings half of a world away that she sensed more clearly than the divinely anointed creature she pursued. Even that infuriating human he seemed to show undue favor to was simpler to locate. It was, of course, a testament to his worth as a warrior. Perhaps, just as she watched over him until she was certain he was worthy of his place, so too was he testing her. Yes, that was most definitely the case. Once she located him, he would be satisfied and together they would wipe the scourge of D'karon from her land.
#
The shape shifter continued her search, but she had underestimated Lain's skill. In more than ten days of scouring the countryside, not once did she turn up the malthrope. All the while, Myranda trudged toward her own goal. She had no horse, and no way to get one, but it didn't matter. Over low mountain, icy field, and thick forest the human marched. She slept only when she had to and ate while on the move. Myn faithfully by her side, the girl pushed herself toward an indistinct point in the mountains to the east. She didn't know what she would find there, but she didn't care. With each step she grew more determined and more convinced that ahead lie something, anything, that could help her. That was all that mattered.
She now stood a short distance from the last town she would find before the mountains began in earnest. In truth the path was already steep and rocky, but beyond here she would have to climb. To this point Myranda had avoided the towns. Indeed, Grossmer’s mining village had been the last semblance of a town that she had set foot in. She thought long and
hard. Hunting had been difficult for Myn, and the bag she held had been stripped of provisions days ago. The mountains were nearly bare. Myn would be hard pressed to turn up enough food for one, let alone two, among the rocky cliffs that stood intimidatingly between herself and the target she sought. She would need to enter the town. The risk was small that she would be recognized. After all, only the Elites and Epidime knew what she looked like, and Epidime alone seemed to still be interested in her capture. Of course, there were still concerns.
Myranda looked down at Myn, who gazed pleasantly back. As well behaved as the little dragon was, she would not be able to join her in the town. It was a shame. The thought of a bed had appealed to her, but she would rather spend the night by Myn's side than in comfort. Not that it mattered. Regardless of what she needed, she hadn't a single coin to buy it with. She patted the little creature beside her on the neck.
"Well, another night out in the cold for the two of us . . . " Myranda began, before something she felt stopped her.
There was a dip in the scales of her neck, the place where the nearman had grabbed her. Her thoughts drifted back to Desmeres gathering up her discarded skin. He claimed it was valuable. She rummaged through her bag and found the trio of smooth red scales. As her stomach growled and she stared with concern at the rocky mountainside she would have to climb, she made her decision.
"Myn, meet me on the other side of the town. I will be there soon," Myranda said.
The little dragon quickly took to the air. Myranda had nearly forgotten the creature could fly. She shook her head as it flitted directly over the town. She should have told her not to be seen, but it was too late now. Myranda headed into the town, unsure of how much success she would have there. A frosted-over sign proclaimed this place to be Verneste. When she entered, she realized that, for a town, it was rather small. The streets were utterly deserted, the people indoors, away from the harsh and constant winds. No one had seen Myn fly by, at least. Squinting against the biting wind, Myranda attempted to determine what type of markets were lining the one and only street in town. Not until she scraped the icy snow from the fourth sign she encountered did she find something that might help her. In faded blue on ancient gray wood was painted a set of scales, an assayer or appraiser. They were common in places such as this. Miners were certainly the only regular visitors to this place, and the services of an assayer are quite essential to determining the worth of their mine. At the very least she could find the value of what she had to bargain with.
The heavy door swung closed behind her and, for the first time in too long, she enjoyed the heat of a fire and shelter from the wind. As she warmed herself by the low flames in the fireplace, she slowly took in her surroundings. There were scales of various sizes, ranging from a small one on a desk at the far side of the room to one large enough to weigh bags of grain. Cases with jars and pouches containing samples of various substances lined two walls, while a third case sloppily held an incomplete set of reference texts. There was no purveyor in sight, though beside the scale on the desk was a large chime with a small hammer tied to its base. When Myranda had warmed enough that she had stopped shivering uncontrollably, she gave the chime a ring.
After a second and third ring, heavy footsteps could be heard above, and soon a door was pushed open by a weary looking older gentleman. He wore furs that had yet to see a tailor, still in the shape they had been in when they left the skinner. His face was unshaven and weathered looking, with wiry gray hairs scattered among the black. Plodding over to the desk with a pronounced limp, he slapped both hands down, cleared his throat loudly, and looked her in the eye.
"What have you got?" he asked.
Myranda dropped the three dragon scales on the counter. He glanced them over.
"Dragon scales. Haven't seen many of these in a while," he remarked, picking one up. "The dragon these came from was young, eh? Baby scales are hard to come by. Usually the hand that drops them on the table is missing a few fingers."
He smelled them.
"Fresh," he remarked.
He scraped at one with a fingernail. Satisfied at whatever it was he was trying to determine, he placed them on one end of the balance, placing small pieces of brass on the opposite side until he was satisfied here as well. After thumbing through the appropriate book, he scratched a few figures a scrap of paper with a quill.
"An alchemist would give you forty silver for the lot. Good luck finding one. I will take them for fifteen, if you can afford the loss," he said.
"That will be fine," Myranda said, happy to get anything.
"I thought you might feel that way," he said with a grin that showed teeth at least as poorly kept as the rest of him.
As she picked the coins off of the table, she noticed a rather official document among the scattered papers there. It bore the seal reserved for statements from the king himself, and judging from the state of wear the other papers showed, it was quite new.
"What is that?" she asked.
"Eh? Oh. I was supposed to hang that outside, but I thought the king would be better served by a message that would last longer than the next stiff breeze," he said, handing the paper to her.
It was indeed an official announcement. As she deciphered the excessively elaborate wording of the document a slow realization dawned on her. The words proclaimed that, due to recent escalations on the battlefield, all large labor facilities would be hereby transferred in their entirety to emissaries of the throne to be owned and operated by the Alliance Army in order to assure strong and reliable supply lines. The owners, it claimed, would be rewarded handsomely with both gold and exemption from military service. Not only that, but recently dissolved mines, plantations and similar places would be re-formed and re-staffed to bolster supplies. It went on to list the harsh and numerous consequences that would result from the attempted sale to those unaffiliated with the Alliance Army.
It was madness to suppose that such actions were called for, or even worth consideration. The one thing that the army had in spades was military supplies. Virtually all of the iron in the world was pulled from northern mountains like this one. The one thing that was in truly short supply was leadership, and the administration of dozens of enormous enterprises would take all that the Army could spare and more. At first glance there seemed no justification, but Myranda quickly realized one.
Epidime had scoured her mind, and though he didn't manage to break her, he did claim that he had learned all that he needed. He must have learned what Lain's motivations were, that he spent every copper he earned to free those who were forced to work in the very places that were now forbidden to change hands. This was a blatant, heavy handed, desperate attempt to smoke Lain out . . . and it bore the official seal of the king. It was still not clear why the army was so interested in the Chosen. There was still the possibility that the military wanted their help, but from what she'd seen of those in command, the motives were likely far more sinister. The fact that a dispatch from the king himself was serving their interests chilled Myranda, as it meant that even he was not beyond their influence. Or worse, that he endorsed their methods.
She pocketed the coins, replaced the page, and tried her best to force the maddening thoughts from her head. With the transaction complete and silver jingling in her pocket, Myranda reluctantly returned to the frigid street. There was a surprisingly well stocked general market that replaced her ragged boots and provided her with a few days rations of salted meat. The addition of a canteen, a pair of gloves, a blanket, and a more appropriate bag left her with five silver left. There was no reason to save any, so she fetched a few things that she didn't so much need as desire. A small knife with a sheath was a shade more useful than the dagger Deacon had given her which, until now, had managed to do little more than perforate the bag. That too was fitted with a sheath that best fit it. She dropped the last of the money into the keeper's hand in exchange for a small bag of potatoes. Myn would be pleased. It had been a peculiar discovery back in Entwell that th
e little creature positively adored potatoes, and was even willing to tolerate visits from Deacon in exchange for one or two.
The dragon was fairly prancing with delight as Myranda tossed her one of the treasured treats. The new boots made the difficult task of scaling the icy slopes a fair amount easier, and the pack that hung on her shoulder freed her hands for the task as well. With the aid of her staff, she and the dragon were covering twice the ground that they had before. Periodically Myranda would stop to determine where the thing she sought could be found. It was drawing nearer. When the wind stopped whipping long enough for the blown snow to settle, a pass between two peaks could be seen ahead. She felt certain that what she was looking for, whatever it was, was on the other side. If the weather calmed at all, she just might make it through within the day.
Alas, weather is seldom obliging. The winds grew steadily as the hours passed, and though it was difficult to differentiate fresh snow from blowing snow, by the time the light began to fail Myranda knew that she was in the midst of a steadily growing snowstorm. The nearest thing to shelter was a claustrophobic alcove beneath an over-crop that would at least keep the snow from their heads. There was nothing to burn for a fire, so once again body heat would have to suffice. They slept huddled together, Myranda's cloak and blanket wrapped around them both. Myn's snout was the only thing exposed, thanks to the over-sized garment. She could have pulled it inside, but her reason for leaving it out became clear when she huffed out the first of several bursts of flame over the course of the night. The heat that surged through her body afterward lingered in the warm folds of the cloak, likely the only thing that made the night survivable.
