by Cindy Dees
As Will looked on, the elf lunged forward and, with a mighty thrust of his sword, impaled the troll upon it. In so doing, however, he opened himself up to a vicious slash from the troll’s axe from shoulder to opposite hip.
Both men toppled over to their deaths simultaneously. The armies roared with one voice, whether in glee or dismay he could not tell. A cadre of elves rushed forward from one side, and the orc regiment charged forth from the other side. Will winced, waiting for the clash of battle, but instead, the two forces made for their respective fallen champions.
The orcs hefted the body of the gigantic troll onto his nearly body-length shield and commenced carrying him from the field in a rough procession. A chant rose up from their throats, taken up quickly by the rest of the greenskin army. “Roo. Dath. Roo. Dath.”
Will didn’t know the meaning of the syllables, but the greenskins roared it over and over, adding in the clanging of clubs, axes, spears, and swords against shields and the stomps of armored feet until the cacophony was painful to the ear.
As they pulled back from the battlefield, the more quiet grief of the elves became audible. A lament rose from the elven army, made loud by the thousands of throats issuing it.
The entire elven army knelt in its grief. And then a shimmering appeared in the air before the fallen king and his grieving guards. The shimmering took on a greenish cast, and from within it a figure stepped forth of a young and terribly beautiful lady. She looked human, but not entirely. Her figure was wreathed in a glow of green light, and her clothing was adorned with living leaves and flowers.
She spoke in a normal voice that somehow could be heard across the entire field. “I am sorry for your loss this day. But know this. I can and will save your king.”
Oh, great. Now he was dreaming about kings, too. At least this one had the good grace to be dead and not sleeping eternally.
The phalanx of elves surrounding the body of their leader looked up hopefully.
The lady continued, “Give me his body, and I give you my word. He shall not perish permanently. I shall use all my power to keep him safe.”
The elves glanced around at one another, unsure, muttering among themselves.
One of them called out, “But, my lady, Gawaine’s spirit has flown. Our healers saw it leave him!”
The lady’s voice rang out, terrible in its power, “Do not underestimate my abilities, mortals.”
The elves bowed their heads in apology for doubting her. As no one seemed to have any more objections to voice, the lady glided to the body of their fallen king. As if he weighed nothing, she scooped up the elven king in her arms. She turned away from the army and made for the green shimmering that still hung in the air.
From his dreaming vantage point Will could swear he saw the lady’s skin glitter faintly, almost as if covered by tiny metallic bits. He also saw her smile in dark triumph, her back turned to hide the expression from the grieving elves, as she swept through the portal and disappeared.
Heat spread outward from his chest, an uncomfortable itch beneath the wood disk. It grew into a piercing blade of burning agony that finally roused him from his strangely vivid dream.
Rebellion surged within him as he awoke. Father, I cannot take up your quest. Aurelius will not stand for it. He issued a death warrant for me, for stars’ sake! Selea suggests I take up the search in the heart of the Forest of Thorns, but it is certain death to go there. You are dead and cannot make me change my mind. Begone with your cursed hallucinations!
Something rumbled deep inside Will’s mind. Almost a chuckle. A wordless promise by some otherworldly spirit to have his way with Will, like it or no. And the first order of business was to go north. To the Boki lands. Where his father and the others had left off searching for the Sleeping King sixteen years ago.
* * *
Raina found the procession the next morning across Dupree with Hyland, his son, Kendrick, Kendrick’s jann companion Eben, Cicero, and a half-dozen guards deeply reminiscent of when Lady Charlotte used to take the children into Tyrel City to shop with their assorted nannies and watchdogs. She found it odd how familiar moving with an entourage was and yet how foreign to her now. The fall from grace was so very easy in this empire.
The Heart building was not far from Hyland’s house, and the walk did not take long. Long enough, though, to see broken storefronts, looted warehouses, and the sullen faces of the townsfolk.
Raina was not entirely certain why Hyland insisted on her visiting the Heart building this morn. She hoped it did not include an aggressive sales pitch by some high-ranking Heart personage to join the White Heart. It had been awkward enough to turn down Hyland. He’d insisted on her taking his wife’s White Heart tabard anyway, and she had stuffed it into the farthest, deepest corner of her pack.
The Heart common room was crowded when they arrived. A brightly shining solinari with golden skin was there, along with a squad of big, armored men wearing the Golden Dragons of the Celestial Order of the Dragon on their royal blue tabards. Any number of healers loitered about, and two fellows wearing the red shield on their tabards behind their Heart emblems—Royal Order of the Sun—watched everyone carefully.
They piled inside adding to the crush. Only then did Hyland reveal his purpose in coming here.
“Raina, there’s a youth here with an unusual malady. I would like you to try to heal it.”
“What illness could I possibly heal that Heart healers could not?” she asked, surprised.
Hyland shrugged. “I am no healer.”
The High Matriarch looked younger than Raina would have expected of someone of such rank. Lenora’s eyes lit with interest, and mayhap even recognition, when Hyland explained that Raina was an exceptionally talented young healer.
“Come this way, my dear,” Lenora said gently.
Raina followed the High Matriarch across the room to the hearth, where a perfectly healthy-looking youth sat beside a lovely dark-haired healer. She recognized the pair. They were the ones who’d caused the fuss at the council meeting by reporting an orc raid.
Raina eyed the young gypsy with interest. That could be her life—living in a Heart house, sitting with patients, fetching potions, and patching wounds. The girl, who turned out to be called Novice Rosana, seemed reluctant to leave the handsome young man’s side.
“This is Will Cobb.” Lenora explained. “He’s lately come out of the country with a strange affliction. Show her.”
The youth, a tall, lanky boy on his way to being a large, powerful man, threw her a long-suffering look. He reminded her of Justin, and a pang of missing her childhood sweetheart stabbed her sharply.
Will opened the top of his shirt, and she leaned forward with interest to examine what turned out to be a thin disk of wood partially grown into his chest. A lip of his skin formed a ridge around the edge of the disk. It reminded her of a piece of jewelry with a thin rim of precious metal ringing a gem to hold it in place.
“Does it hurt?” she asked doubtfully.
“When people pry at it, it does.”
She grinned at his aggrieved tone. He sounded just like Justin. She looked up at the matriarch. “What am I supposed to do to this thing that you cannot?”
Lenora shrugged. “Mayhap cast more magic into it than I or any of my healers can. Landsgrave Hyland says you’ve a fair bit of power.”
Novice Rosana muttered, “Who’ll life him when you people kill him?”
Personally, Raina agreed with the novice. She was no expert at these sorts of things. It looked like a job for a ritual-casting healer. But she did not air her untrained opinion. “Do you mind if I touch it? she asked Will. “I promise not to pry at it.”
“Have at it. Everyone else here has poked at it.”
She reached out to touch the disk of wood. It was satin smooth beneath her fingertips, with only the faint ridges of the carvings upon it marring the surface. It was also warm. As if it were alive. How odd. “Do you feel it tingling?” she asked Will.
&nbs
p; “Sometimes.”
She rubbed the pad of her right thumb across the seductively smooth surface and jolted as something poked her painfully in the hip. She looked over her shoulder sharply. But no one was there. Where had that jab come from, then? Her pouch rested on her hip right over the spot where she’d been stabbed.
Had she accidentally forgotten to sheathe her herb knife? She reached her left hand into her pouch to check. The instant her fingers touched the bumpy stick of wood stowed there—the Wand of Rowan—it was as if lightning shot up her left arm, across her shoulders, and down her right arm into Will’s disk of wood.
“Ouch!” he yelped at the same moment she yanked her hand away from the wand singeing her fingers.
“What did you do?” the High Matriarch demanded.
“I … nothing … I just touched it,” she answered. She wasn’t eager to explain where she’d gotten ahold of a powerful magic item like the wand hidden in her pouch. Particularly since she supposed she had technically stolen it from Kadir that night in the barn.
“Can you remove the disk?” Lenora asked.
“If I had a ritual scroll and the components I might be able to cast something to take it off, but I have no idea what ritual to even try.”
“Just cast some healing into it,” the matriarch suggested.
“How much?”
“As much as you can.”
Hyland dived in quickly. “Why don’t you just start trickling healing into the disk, Raina? The matriarch can tell you when to stop.”
She glanced sidelong at him, her eyes twinkling. Careful to keep her left hand out of her pouch, she commenced guiding a thin stream of healing magic into the disk of wood. There were two methods of delivering healing—gathering a big wad of magic and throwing it into a target all at once in a fast, painful explosion of healing or trickling in the magic less painfully but much more slowly. The first method was used mostly in combat when warriors needed immediate and radical healing to stay alive and continue fighting. Apparently, it was excruciating, and only the life-and-death demands of the battlefield could induce most people to endure the agony of fast healing,
Which wasn’t to say that slow healing was that much less painful.
Will, however, seemed unaffected by her magic. “Are you feeling this?” she asked him in surprise.
“No. Whatever you’re doing is going completely into the wood.”
She frowned and upped the amount of flow. “Are you all right?” she murmured.
“As a duck in water,” he answered jauntily.
“Open the gates a little,” Hyland muttered to her.
She nodded and increased the flow of magic significantly.
Will’s only comment was, “The disk is getting warm.”
“Let me know if it gets uncomfortable,” Raina replied, pouring magic into the disk at nearly the power level she would perform a ritual-magic casting.
“Is it loosening up at all?” Novice Rosana asked anxiously.
Will reached up to give the disk a tug and shook his head in the negative.
“Enough, child,” the matriarch told Raina. “As I thought. That thing’s going to require a ritual to remove. But thanks be for trying. By the by, child, if you’re planning to run around casting that kind of healing magic, I’m going to have to insist you join the Heart. The Empire can’t have healers of that kind of power roaming free and not properly inducted into one of its guilds.”
Raina threw Hyland a distressed look. He answered smoothly for her, “I’ve spoken to her already regarding that, High Matriarch. She understands the Empire’s position on unregistered mages and is taking a few days to consider her options. Personally, I think the White Heart would be ideal for her.”
“Indeed?” Lenora replied sharply. She looked back and forth between Hyland and Raina intently. The High Matriarch nodded and said slowly, “Yes, Landsgrave, I concur. The White Heart makes sense. I would happily approve such an appointment. Do you wish induction into the Heart and directly into that order, child?”
Raina answered in alarm, “I have made no decision, High Matriarch.”
“We would love to have you in the Heart in any capacity you choose,” Lenora said sincerely. “I promise we would do well by you—”
Blessedly, Hyland interrupted the unfolding sales pitch with, “Sadly, my son has business elsewhere this morn and must leave presently. If you will excuse me, I wish to make my farewells to him.”
“Of course,” the matriarch responded. “So, young Kendrick. How are you doing for healing potions? It seems I’m forever having to resupply you.”
“But I use them on other people, mostly,” Kendrick protested.
“So you say,” the matriarch replied tartly. But Raina saw the glint of affectionate humor in the woman’s eyes. Rosana was sent to fetch a handful of healing potions. While they waited for her return, Lenora asked Kendrick, “Where are you off to now, rapscallion?”
“To Talyn. My friend, Eben, and I have business there.”
Raina glanced over at the jann sympathetically. She had not heard whether or not Landsgrave Hyland had been able to learn something of Eben’s missing sister, Marikeen.
“Talyn, is it?” Lenora commented. “Last I heard, Patriarch Hiru Nightblade is up that way. Give him my greetings if you see him, would you?”
Kendrick grinned and nodded. Infectious charm the young man had. But Raina’s affection was back in Tyrel with another charming young man who likely did not even know she’d had a crush on him.
Will asked, “Talyn is near the Forest of Thorns, is it not?”
At mention of the Forest of Thorns, Raina perked up. It was there she wished to go with all due haste. If her strange dream was true, it was where she would find the Great Circle that might have some idea where to find the Mythar. If this lord of the nature guardians had enough olde magick to restore the Great Mage and could be talked into sharing it, mayhap she could finally go home again.
“Aye,” Eben answered Will’s question. “Talyn includes the southern margin of that forest.”
“Might I go with Kendrick?” Raina asked hopefully. “I should like to see more of Dupree.”
Cicero threw her a questioning look but made no comment.
Hyland smiled broadly. “I would rest easier knowing my son travels with a healer of your talent. And it might be wise to remove your skills from the roving eye of—”
Hyland did not finish the thought, but she had no doubt he referred to the governor. Out of the corner of her eye, Raina caught Rosana whispering in Will’s ear. He nodded and whispered something back in return. Her heart ached to see how close the two of them were. It reminded her of Justin and herself.
Hyland asked for parchment and quill to pen a letter to the Patriarch, and the matriarch led him away. Raina turned to Cicero and murmured, “Would you be willing to visit the Forest of Thorns with me?”
He made a face of distaste. “Willing, but not eager. Why there?”
“I had a dream. I think I might be able to find what I need there.”
“And what exactly might that be?”
Raina had never been the type to rely overmuch on her dreams, and she felt silly answering Cicero’s question. But she owed him the truth if he was going to put his sword and his life to the task of protecting her. She answered reluctantly, “The Great Circle.”
Cicero visibly started—a dramatic reaction out of an elf, even a demonstrative kindari. “What need have you of that?” he demanded under his breath.
“To help me find the Mythar and solve the problem that forced me to leave Tyrel.” Suspicion knotted in her gut at the suddenly closed expression on Cicero’s face. She asked, “Do you know something of the Great Circle?” It would make sense, after all. The kindari were forest elves. If any would know of the great tree spirits, it would be them.
He shrugged. “It has not made an appearance in a long time.”
She wondered what constituted a long time in kindari lore. “What more ca
n you tell me of it?” she asked eagerly.
But Cicero was forestalled from answering by the solinari stepping up to Raina. The elf half-bowed formally. “If I might have a moment of your time, youngling?”
“Of course…”—she took in the five stars on his shoulder—“…, Guildmaster. How may I be of service to you?”
“Perhaps you might turn your magic to a small favor for me?”
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
He planted the tall, beautifully carved staff he had been leaning on before her. It was made of some rich, dark wood covered in intricately carved vines. The weapon was topped by a rose so perfectly carved as to be indistinguishable from a real rose in full bloom. Only the wooden grain in the petals gave away its true composition. She’d seen some stunning carvings in her day but nothing came even close to the exquisite workmanship in this staff.
“I brought this here for the High Matriarch to attempt to reawaken. It should take care of Will’s problem with that wood disk. However, Lenora’s other duties have required her to expend her magical energies elsewhere already, today. Are you perchance, ritual magic capable, youngling?”
Raina nodded respectfully. “Yes, Guildmaster. I am.”
“And are you familiar with awakening artifacts?”
“Yes, Guildmaster.” In fact, it was a relatively simple procedure and did not even require a full ritual to complete. She’d mastered the technique years before. “What can you tell me of the magics within this staff, Guildmaster?”
“They are spiritual in nature.”
She nodded confidently and took the wooden staff into her hands. It was as smooth and sleek as mink, and warmth coursed through it. Yes indeed, the magic within it did have the feel of spiritual energy.
“Do you know how much it will require?” she asked as she poured a fair bit of energy into the staff.
He shrugged. “I do not.”
Surprised that the artifact had not already awakened given the magic she’d just cast into it, she took a deep breath and gathered magic to herself once more. After the past few days, it was growing easier to draw large amounts quickly. Where her fists grasped the staff, a white glow began to dance across the surface, highlighting the sinuous carvings until they looked alive.
