by Philip Smith
“Nice shot!” she called to Jesnake. He ran to where the deer had fallen, crouched by the animal, and drew his arrow out of the deer’s head with one hard jerk.
“I believe you beat me on that one, princess,” he said, smiling.
“Can’t win them all,” she said. She pulled her own arrow out of the deer and checked the steel arrowhead to be sure it hadn’t nicked or shattered on impact. She looked down at the deer. “What is it?”
“It’s an Impasca, or Bayneharn as the elves call it,” Jesnake said, examining the animal.
“Bayneharn? I don’t know that one,” Paige commented.
Jesnake stood. “Different dialect. In the west we speak a whole other language from your mother’s kin. In the eastern dialect, it would be Boghehern,” he said.
“Ah,” she said, looking at the beautiful creature now dead at her feet. Again her mind flashed back to the last buck she and Papa had taken down together. She shook her head again and looked up at the sound of running footsteps. Duelmaster and Woodcarver, who had taken the rightmost flank of the hunting line, trotted over to the pair.
“Aw, acorns,” the dryad spat. “I wanted a shot at that sucker.”
“Sorry,” Paige said without an ounce of sympathy. What was left of the group joined them soon enough. Robert carried his own quarry over his broad shoulders. Dinendale followed along behind him. Twostaves and Broadside carried the smaller buck between them. If she’d have been a gambling princess, Paige would have bet Twostaves had done the killing. His chubby, jovial face held a grin the size of one of Eirensgarth’s moons at half season, and the skull on the animal had been bashed in by a large, blunt object. The mess reminded Paige of the squashed pies she’d given Twostaves’ guards back in Hanburg’s village.
They all pitched in the butchering process. Dinendale, Robert, and Broadside cut up the carcasses into large chunks of meat. Duelmaster, Woodcarver, and Twostaves cut those into smaller strips and gave them to Paige and Jesnake, who wrapped them in some fern leaves they cut from nearby brush. They worked hard, and an hour later, they put the meat in everyone’s packs. The hides were kept folded and placed in Dinendale’s pack while Twostaves carried two of the Impasca’s heads on one of his staves like a yoke. Once the dirty business was complete, they shoved the carcasses under a tree and marched out again.
It took a couple more hours of walking before they came to the end of the plateau. The ground sloped into a gigantic valley between two ridges that made up this section of the Raychels with pines and bushes growing thick in all directions.
“I see a river!” Twostaves cried out as they descended the valley slope to the bottom. The heads of the Impasca were bobbing on his makeshift yoke in a comical, yet gruesome cadence as he stomped along.
“I thought I felt a wee trembling in my toes,” Broadside said, adjusting his pack as they trudged for the riverbank.
“It’s a feeder to the Great River to the south,” Woodcarver explained. “We can store up on water and camp here for the night.”
The crew finished jogging down the slope and reached the river just before sundown. It was about as wide as a bowshot with a steady flow of deep, sapphire blue water that looked cool and refreshing. They dropped their gear in exhaustion when they reached the sandy bank, taking long, deep drinks from the cool river. The icy water felt amazing as Paige splashed her sweaty, tired face with the clean, clear liquid.
“I can’t remember the last time I was this exhausted,” Dinendale moaned, laying on his back.
“I hear ya,” Duelmaster said. “I could use a steamy, hot bath right about now.”
“No time for that. We have meat to smoke!” Twostaves said, dropping an armload of wood he’d gathered from nearby.
“You said you’d smoke it, so I’m leaving you to it,” Robert yawned, a smug grin on his face.
“Oh, come on you guys, more hands means faster finished,” Dinendale grunted as he stood up again and stretched, beginning to also search for more wood. Paige huffed and stood up. She began helping them pick up dried pine branches to make a good smoking fire. She caught up a large stick and began to gather the kindling.
“Duelmaster, got your flint?” Dinendale asked once the threesome had built a firelay.
“No,” Duelmaster sobbed in mock distress. “I do believe I lost mine back in our latest scuffle.”
“Famengher,” Woodcarver muttered, waking his fingers at the fire in a lazy gesture. The wood made a popping sound, smoked, and then little flames licked at the seasoned wood like baby birds popping their heads from the nest to get a bite at the worm their mother had brought.
“Impressive,” Robert muttered, but his tone conveyed a hint of annoyance. Paige figured he probably thought the magician was just showing off now.
“You seem to be mighty useful to have around,” Dinendale chuckled as he tossed more wood on the fire.
Woodcarver eyed him. “Am I wrong to assume you can also wield the Mist, Dinendale?” the wizard asked.
Dinendale’s smile melted off his face as quickly as it had appeared. “I’ve had some… complications with magic in the past,” Dinendale muttered.
Woodcarver nodded but didn’t press the matter. He turned to Jesnake, an eyebrow raised.
“I unfortunately was not one of the lucky bloodlines,” Jesnake said, almost bitterly. “So no, I cannot wield it either.”
“What’s the Mist?” Paige asked, no longer able to control her curiosity. They all turned to stare at her, astonishment written on every face.
“What?” she asked.
“Your parents never told you about the Mist?” Woodcarver asked, disbelief laced in his words.
Paige shook her head and looked them each in the eyes, getting frustrated at their shocked and stunned silence. “Well!?” she snapped after a few moments. “Don’t everyone fill me in at once!”
“Princess, do you know how the world even came to be?” Jesnake asked quietly, searching her up and down with his eyes.
“Obviously the Creator made it,” Paige said, indignant. “But what does that have to do with-”
“My dear, the Mist is what the Creator used to create this world!” Woodcarver exclaimed. “The Mist is all around us, the magic breathed into this land on the day the Creator spoke it into existence. When you wield the Mist you wield the very power of creation, the fabric of existence!”
“So, the Mist is magic?” she clarified.
Woodcarver rolled his eyes but the rest all nodded assent. “I suppose if you are going to use broad, lose definitions, yes,” he admitted.
“Well you could have just said that,” she muttered, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “So why can’t some people use it?”
“It’s all about the bloodlines,” Jesnake muttered.
“It goes back to the very beginning,” Twostaves said. “To Aya and Eya.”
Paiges’ ears perked up. She recognized the names but couldn’t place where she’d heard them.
“Who?”
“My dear, when the world was created and new, the Creator put two of his angels in charge, Aya and Eya, the Stewards of Time,” Woodcarver explained. Duelmaster stacked a few more logs around the fire to begin making a bed of coals for smoking. “Their task was to see to it the new races and creatures filled the earth and to create environments for them to thrive. So the Creator gave them the Mist to wield and use to shape the land and create what would become Eirensgarth.”
“But Eya was emboldened by his new power,” Duelmaster added, spreading the logs of the fire out to let the new logs begin smoking. “He began using it to create things the way he wanted them.”
“Quite right. His greed led him to pervert the new, clean world the Creator had made. In doing this, Eya created the Darkness, a part of the Mist where all manner of vile, evil things lurk and practice perverted, dark magic,” Woodcarver continued.
“What happened to him?” Paige asked, soaking in these new tales like a sponge, wonder and confusion both
mixing about in her head as questions began piling up.
“Aya confronted him, and they battled on the Plains of Gharath,” Broadside interjected quickly. “They still have the scars in the earth where the angels fought!”
“Not only that, they brought with them armies that fought as well,” Woodcarver explained. “Men, beasts, elves, and dwarves all fought the perverted servants of the Darkness that Eya had twisted and moulded in his own, greedy, power-hungry, vengeful image. The battle was hard fought and went on for days.”
“A battle that went on for days,” Paige gasped, her jaw agape in disbelief.
The men all nodded solemnly.
“From our youth they told us of the great heroes that fought and fell there,” Broadside said, staring into the coals Duelmaster and Twostaves were raking into a pile.
“It was the same for us,” Jesnake said, pulling one of his throwing knives out of his strap and began polishing the edge with a whetstone.
“So what happened to Eya?” Paige pushed.
“Eventually he was defeated by Aya, at a heavy heavy price,” Woodcarver said, a somber expression in his face. His eyes reflected the dim, red glow from the fire Duelmaster was now rigging a wooden smoke rack for. “Eya was imprisoned in a tomb, buried alive and deep in the Barbial Desert far to the west of us, where the sun rises from everyday, baking the sand into an inferno no man could ever withstand long enough to release Eya and his evil.”
“So angels, or Stewards, or whatever, could use the Mist. But what has that got to do with bloodlines?” Paige asked.
“After the battle and Eya’s defeat, his servants scattered, waiting in the dark to terrorize the world with the evil they had been bred to spread. Eya was gone, but not before he had left his servants with a tool of absolute evil, the Book of the Dead,” Dinendale said, opening several packs and laying strips of meat across the drying racks. “The people here needed a way to fight against the Darkness when Aya had gone.”
“So before he returned to the Creator, Aya built the people of this world the World Doors,” Woodcarver said pulling off his bladed gloves and stashing them in his small satchel. “He blessed ten males of each race with the ability to wield the Mist so they could use the World Doors to battle the creatures and servants of the Darkness until they were no more.”
“So anyone who is descended of those original magicians has the ability to use magic?” Paige asked.
“More or less,” Jesnake said. “It did not take long for some of the races to begin maximizing this potential. The elves began arranging marriages and trying to selectively breed all our people so they would all have the power to wield the Mist. I am one of a handful that still remain that cannot wield it.”
“There’s hardly any dwarves that can use it,” Broadside pitched in. “Our mages tended to die unmarried and so we had to resort to our craftsmanship and wits.”
“And even ‘wits’ got lost in the those bloodlines somewhere,” teased Duelmaster. The group laughed as Broadside scowled at the dryad.
“And what of these....these World Doors?” Paige asked. “Are they still around?”
“No,” Woodcarver sighed, clearly growing more and more tired as he lay there gazing up at the stars. “They were magical contraptions that helped the races cover great distances quickly, but no one alive today knows how they worked. All we know is they were destroyed over twenty-five hundred years ago.”
“Boy wouldn’t that come in handy right about now,” Dinendale chuckled. “How bout it Duelmaster, those coals ready for the rest of this venison?”
They continued putting the meat on the drying rack as Paige and Robert kept adding green wood to the fire to let the smoke begin building and billowing up to the sky.
“So, how do we plan to cross this river?” asked Robert, who had been abnormally quiet during the discussion about magic Paige now realized.
“I tested the depth a few minutes ago when I went to fill my canteen,” Duelmaster said. “It’s at least eight feet deep in most places, but there is a small strip of shallow area downstream about a quarter of a mile away. We can ford it, easy.”
“Wait. You don’t mean actually getting in the water, do you? I mean, we’re building a raft or something, right?” asked Broadside, in a shaky voice.
“Oh, suck it up, bloomer-boy,” Robert cried out.
“You know I had no control over the pants I was forced to wear in my captivity. And that’s rich coming from a guy who basically wears a brown dress!”
“I’ll carry you, little man,” the giant offered.
The dwarf turned beet red with embarrassment. “I may be slightly concerned about water,” he started.
“You mean ‘terrified at the slightest sign of dampness,’” interjected Robert.
“But I will not have anyone carry me across a stream,” he finished with conviction. His eyes narrowed at Robert, who merely smirked. Paige caught his eye and glared at him, but Robert kept on smiling. She laid back on her pack and gazed out at the twilight sky, taking a breath of clean mountain air. A shooting star dashed across the sky as if chasing the moons, and Paige thought of the summer nights she and Olivian had spent wishing on stars from their garden deck back home.
She felt for the scrap of leather in her moccasin and touched it gently. No wonder the Shahir wanted this page; so much pain, suffering and death accompanied such an evil power. Her stomach ached with the flood of realizations hitting her all at once. Her father and mother had died trying to keep it out of the world, and she silently vowed she too would do all she could to be sure such and to keep such an evil at bay, starting with freeing her sister from it’s clutches.
“I’ll find you, Olivian,” she whispered. “ I promise.”
◆◆◆
Dinendale knelt down next to the riverbank, untied the top of his shirt, and began splashing cool water on his dirty neck and collar. It felt good to get the grime off; he wasn’t one to enjoy being dirty. He dunked his head into the icy river, shaking his long hair free of grime.
He stopped after a while and looked up at the night sky to stars that had shone down on his forebearers. As trivial as it might seem to some, it gave Dinendale a great deal of peace and comfort to know despite all the twists and turns his life might take, there were a few things that would never change. Losing himself gazing at the celestial wonders above him, he failed to notice soft footsteps coming up from behind him.
“Dinendale,” a soft voice said. He stared as the willowy figure of Jesnake materialized through the brush to his left.
“Aye?” he answered, composing himself and taking a short but deep breath to whisk the momentary fright away. The western elf slunk over to him and crouched on his heels beside the dark elf.
“Something wrong at camp?” Dinendale asked. The elf shook his head, looked over his shoulder looked Dinendale straight in the eye.
“No. But… I have a very bad feeling about this river,” he whispered. “A gathering shadow has been gowning in my heart ever since we reached it’s shore.”
“What do you think it is? I’ve not noticed anything out of the ordinary,” Dinendale asked, sceptical of his friend.
“I can’t quite articulate it, but… I feel as if someone… or something… is watching us.”
“Just a gut feeling?”
“Aye. It may be nothing, but I don’t think it wise to cross here. I think we need to find another way.”
“There is no time, Jey,” Dinendale said. “We cannot delay in getting to Aschin. You know as well as I do what will happen to Olivian if we don’t get there soon. What might already be happening to her. And where else are we to go? Back down the cliff and to the main trails and roads?”
Both of the elves crouched as a sudden and resounding splash echoed across the river, the sound resembling a stick snapping when it cracks with too much tension. They froze for a few moments, waiting for another sound. None came.
“Probably just a fish?” Dinendale offered. “Could have been a be
aver.”
“Or it could have been something a lot bigger than a beaver. I’m telling you Dinendale, if we cross tomorrow without knowing what's in this river we may live, or rather not live, to regret it.”
“We’ll be fine, Jesnake. We’ll try to be quick and not linger in the river longer than absolutely necessary. It’s shallow and it isn’t terribly wide. We’ll be fine.”
“For all our sakes, I hope you are right, my friend,” Jesnake said soberly, slinking back into the rushes.
◆◆◆
Paige awoke the following morning to the smell of hickory burning. She had fallen asleep where she had lain gazing at the sky, but she had had the good sense to wrap up in her wool blanket and cloak. She yawned and sat up, her joints creaking with stiffness as she sucked in a deep breath of air heavy with the smell of the sweet wood smoke. She rubbed her sore limbs to life, trying to get them warm in the early morning chill.
