Smart Alec in the Dark Lands

by Donald Wigboldy

  "We usually cook our meats to make sure that there isn't anything dangerous left in it," the boy said interrupting the conversation between the other two briefly.

  "Hmmm, your kind are pretty touchy, maybe delicate too."

  "No, it's just safer. Well, I guess maybe if you eat that uncooked maybe our stomachs are more delicate, I suppose."

  Sighing, the hobgoblin placed the meat in a pan over a fire on the stove. "Do I need to cook the cheese and crackers too?"

  Even though the question might make sense to ask, the boy sensed that this was sarcasm from the shorter creature.

  "Just cook the meat, Glint," Helios ordered sensing the hobgoblin's teasing easily enough.

  As the creature moved about lighting the stove in a nearly magical way, though Alec sensed no magic in Glint at all; Helios continued to talk, "Though Ediyem didn't sound too encouraging, I wouldn't let that worry you. If nothing else, your argument for her best interests was likely accurate enough for the woman to at least try to get rid of you."

  "I would," Glint said with an evil chuckle and Alec had a feeling that the goblin didn't mean it in a good way.

  Clearing his throat and giving the cook a frown, the silver dragaoin continued, "From what I know of the spell, and my knowledge is a bit limited, the biggest issue would be finding your world again. You wouldn't happen to have left a powerful source of magic to track, would you?"

  "I am not even certain how I would do such a thing. I have cast regular spells, but nothing that lingered like that as far as I've noticed," the novice answered wondering what the process to find his home world would require to actually find it as the dragaoin suggested. He hadn't thought that part through. Based off of what he believed of this group, the Ciemnosci had found and conquered a number of worlds already. The che'ther and mar'goyn'lya had come from still another though it was burned out by their sun's continued expansion, according to the history he had read about it. The Dark One and his creatures had come from yet another making the boy wonder just how many worlds might be out there.

  Rifts happened fairly regularly from what he had heard. Whether more creatures and worlds were tied through those, the novice didn't really know for certain; but it was already a significant list making him wonder how hard it would be to find his. He also wondered how these worlds resided close enough to use the portals, yet there didn't seem to be any other types of contact with them otherwise. Wizards had been trying to explain such things for a long time, and Alec realized that his fourteen years were rather insignificant to the centuries given to that pursuit by the various wizards of Alus. He could hardly be expected to understand it all, since no one else seemed to have decided the matter during all that time.

  "Hmm, that is disappointing," the dragon man replied to his lack of connection to his world. It was the first time that Alec felt like his being a novice might be a severe detriment to his new mission of finding a way home. "Without a tether, the wizards involved will need to find another way to locate it for you, I suppose."

  "So it will be impossible?" Alec asked beginning to feel a little more hopeless than he had. Even carried in the rovdyr's claws into the storm gate, the boy hadn't lost hope of finding his way back to Alus. Of course, part of that was his need to act in the heat of the moment; but he had never thought that his getting away from the beast might leave him forever disconnected.

  Venting a sigh, Helios replied, "Not necessarily. There is the possibility that you can be used as a focus. Maybe your body and the way it was affected by your own world might be able to lead a portal sorcerer to find it somehow. Again I have to remind you that such magic is not something I have been able to learn outside of a few theories about it."

  Then there was the worry that by helping him, the Ciemnosci might use the portal to follow him to his home. If they wanted to steal magic and life from a world, Alus was rich in both; the boy thought with a little worry.

  "Does Shaelamee or that other Zmaj know the spell?"

  "Know, yes, but neither can perform it and the related spells it would take to find your home," Helios replied and sat down beside a table onto a bench next to it. The novice took a place opposite him and decided to put off what he didn't know of the process for returning home. There were other things that he needed to learn and the sooner the better.

  Watching the hobgoblin working beside a stove that was high enough that Glint required a wood box as a step to cook on it, Alec considered what else he should ask. Helios had been surprisingly helpful to a stranger. Shaelamee was also quite friendly, while the others he had met were neutral more or less. All in all it was a good start, but that also worried Alec a little bit. Was their positive welcome something to worry about? The young wizard wondered.

  "I suppose that we will need to find you a room for sleeping," Helios mused aloud.

  "I am guessing that there are a lot of spare rooms here," the novice replied and realized that he had asked about the lack of people but hadn't received a specific answer. "This keep looks like it could hold hundreds, but the lack of activity here makes me think that there are relatively few of you. Isn't that a problem with those hollows outside your walls?"

  Grunting at the boy's inquisitive nature, the dragon man answered almost dismissively, "There are the walls and we have magical defenses in place in addition to them, besides the hollows aren't that much of a problem. While they might be a bit dangerous for one or two of us outside, it isn't like they have any real drive to attack Naermere. We aren't even certain why they move aggressively against us in the field.

  "Anyway, when we are inside the fort, the walls seem to confuse the creatures. They don't appear able to figure out that there are people inside; or if they do understand it, they don't seem to care. Every once in awhile one draws closer, so one of us will clear them from the safety of the walls."

  "Like Shaelamee is doing now?"

  Helios nodded. "It is boring work most days. Sometimes we won't see any of the hollows for a week or more. When it grows too quiet, that is when one of us will go out to check whether they have migrated past Naermere."

  "Since they were there today, I assume that they've never completely moved away," Alec commented as he realized that it should be obvious that the hollows were still nearby since they were attacked earlier.

  Silver scaled shoulders shrugged, "I suppose that is true, but there are far fewer these days than there once were. When the first watchers returned, they were supposed to be everywhere in much larger numbers."

  Tapping his lower lip in thought, Alec asked, "Is it because magic is equalizing in the world or because the magic which animated them is wearing out, I wonder?"

  The dragon man's brows lifted in surprise. "You have been here for a few hours and already you are asking questions that took decades for them to consider. We're not even completely certain what made the hollows.

  "When the black sands were released on Atropos, those who couldn't hide from them or weren't capable of using magic to resist the affects aged to dust. Hollows aren't made out of bones alone. I mean, bones are inside the creatures, but they are mostly intact bodies, at least until we break them apart again. It is possible that some come from buried bodies reawakened by white sand or the effects of the two kinds of dust being made, but they didn't find a lot of open graves. Many of my ancestors preferred burning the bodies on a pyre making it even less common to find whole specimens to reanimate."

  "So their magic ripped apart the world making two kinds of time magic and then helped to create these hollows besides? As conquerors, I guess that the Ciemnosci haven't bothered to make any reparations to your people or any other worlds they have attacked similarly."

  "I guess that is one way to look at it. Since it has been awhile, I don't think many of my people think about it that much. We live mainly on Cenestraya and most have decent enough lives. We might not have Zmaj to lead us now, since the Ciemnosci rule the worlds that they have taken; but my people have opportunities that can lead to comfortable
lives. It might not be ideal; but from the records I've found about Atropos, there were many kingdoms here ruled by an elite class anyway.

  "The elite rulers are simply Ciemnosci now instead of Zmaj."

  "So what of the other races? There are those creatures that have the heads of bulls and those with rams. There's also Glint's race and Shaelamee's as well. Where do they come from? This is your world not theirs, right?"

  The dragon man nodded. "Atropos didn't have any other intelligent races living here. There were many diverse creatures around before the destruction of most life here, but none were the others you've seen.

  "The Genasi come from another world. It is still rich with life from what I hear. Unlike Atropos, which was one of the first worlds to be conquered, the Ciemnosci had learned from the destruction and took Gamrahna and its moons in a more gentle fashion, I guess you could say."

  "Gamrahna and its moons?" Alec questioned wondering at the specifying of more than just the single world.

  "You'd have to ask Shae about it. What little I know, I have learned from her and a few other Genasi that I have met. All I know is that apparently her people once used some form of ships to move between Gamrahna and its two moons. They managed to settle them, I guess, and so their world is actually made of three."

  Alec thought of the three moons which circled Alus and wondered if anyone had ever considered going to one of them. Would they even be capable of sustaining life? The novice wondered at such a thing and marveled at the idea.

  "The Taurens, the creatures that you say have bull heads, come from another world that was conquered. From what I have heard, their people weren't that advanced. None that I know of can use magic either. The Koze, or goat men, came from the same place, I think.

  "Glint's people are from Cenestraya, if I am not mistaken. Glint?" Helios questioned the smaller blue creature.

  The hobgoblin, as he had heard them called briefly by his people when they had appeared, looked up as if he hadn't been listening to their conversation. Alec had watched Glint close enough to know that the little cook had been listening without being obvious to the dragaoin.

  "Yes, my people have been allied with the Ciemnosci for a long time."

  While he managed to sound sincere, there was something in the smaller creature's eyes that made Alec wonder if the hobgoblin might be liberal with its use of the word 'allies'. He also wondered if the dark elves had enforced their rule on his people as much as it sounded like they had the others. They were conquerors, even if they had managed to conquer physically larger races. Their magic was devastating and obviously the chief reason for the control that they had over the others. That and the fact that the dragaoin in particular were refugees thanks to the release of the black time dust that Helios had spoken of briefly.

  The thought of this time dust also made Alec frown. Could his people stop such a thing from happening to Alus even with all the magic that they had? He had never heard of anything so destructive and feared what the Ciemnosci would do if they decided that they couldn't win a fight by other means.

  A platter of cooked meat was placed in front of the two waiting on the hobgoblin. A loaf of bread, that looked remarkably like something he might find in White Hall's dining hall, and some cheeses were added as well. It was a simple meal; but as Alec tentatively dug into the foreign food, the boy found the taste close enough to what he was used to for eating it. His hunger made it easier most likely, the novice also noted.

  The meal was eaten by both Helios and Alec mostly in quiet.

  Afterwards, the silver dragon man led him to a room on the second floor.

  "You can use this one for now," Helios said gesturing into a room with a window facing towards the entry gate of the outer wall. A flicker of green magic arced out from the tower manned by the blue genasi. He couldn't see what it might have targeted, but it proved that Shaelamee was still apparently on duty there.

  Perhaps he would try asking more about her world. The genasi had joined the Ciemnosci without having their world destroyed like here on Atropos from what he had gathered, so he had more questions about that decision as well.

  As Alec was left to his devices in the room when Helios closed the door behind him, the boy took a deep breath. He was doing his best to learn what he could of his new acquaintances as fast as he could. Placed in new, foreign surroundings; Alec felt that he was lucky that Helios or one of the others hadn't just chosen to kill him straight away. He was an intruder after all; and the way Ediyem had spoken made him think that her first instinct was to delete him immediately.

  He also worried that they might be keeping him alive in the hopes that he might lead them back to Alus. Uncertain of how much he should relate to the others if asked, the novice wizard turned his thoughts to how guarded he needed to be or if he had already said too much.

  Eventually a knock came on his door letting Alec know that evening dinner was being served.

  Chapter 5- An Evening Meal

  The dining hall was a large room on the first floor of the keep. Stone walls rose about twelve feet to the ceiling. Wide chandeliers extended down from the stone above them. There were enough to light each wall and corner, but only those in the center were lit now.

  It was the first room that had as much decoration as Alec would have expected for a keep that had existed for some time. While the hallways had been simple with neither rugs nor hangings, lamps with glass covers had lined the walls a little above his head height and walking to the dining hall now many had been alight to guide his feet.

  Unlike the hallways, the dining area had several tables. Two lines of three were placed to either side of the door Alec and Helios used to enter the room. They were long and could probably fit a dozen people at each easily, though the room was big enough to hold twice as many tables. At one, a pair of Tauren soldiers already sat looking at one another and speaking in low tones. A goat man or koze sat a couple feet from them at the same table. It was listening to the others, but seemed to be trying to give them a bit of space for now.

  The bronze dragon man called Nadron sat at the far corner of the same table. A pair of books rested beside his right elbow which leaned on the table top as Nadron's head bent slightly while the Zmaj read a third book opened in front of him. The others ignored the dragon man and with so much space at the table it appeared quite easy.

  As Alec and Helios entered the room, the novice began to notice the first paintings he had seen since coming here. They were shadowed thanks to the light. If the other lines of chandeliers had been lit, the colors would likely have been very noticeable; but shadows held the surrounding walls beyond the center of the room. The farthest tables of each line remained shadowed as well. Only the first four tables, two on either side of the doorway, rested beneath lit chandeliers.

  Shaelamee appeared to jump up from the closest table to his left. The genasi had remained at a table opposite the others oddly enough; but at the sight of the newest arrivals, the blue girl's face lit up and she practically skipped over to greet them. Wearing obvious clothing for the first time, the girl's green skirt looked lightweight but damp. It was still short, only coming down to her upper thighs and low enough to expose her navel, but it was at least better than her wearing nothing at all, Alec thought with relief. Her top was simple, lightweight and wet as well. Looking like just a rectangular piece of cloth held in place by strings tied around her neck and her back below her shoulder blades, it was better than nothing. Light green like her skirt, it left her shoulders and collarbone exposed as well as most of her stomach.

  Alec thought again that Shaelamee was attractive, even if she was blue. His mind could almost make him believe that she was human, if that girl had painted her entire body blue for some strange reason.

  "Hello, Alec... Helios," she greeted both with a big smile though her eyes lingered on the human boy after nodding to the Zmaj.

  "Good evening, Shae," Helios greeted her with a nod abbreviating her name.

  "You're wearing c
lothes," Alec practically blurted letting the words out without the filter of his brain. The boy had never been that great at mingling, especially with girls; but Shaelamee made him many times more nervous than the ones he knew at White Hall. Though she might be young, he could tell that she was at least a few years older than he was and the comfort she had in her skin was unnerving to the boy. "I mean, good evening."

  Her smile turned amused and the genasi giggled, "Yes, I am wearing clothes, Alec. I do have them, you should know." Glancing towards the other creatures in the room at the other table who had barely given them a look, she added with a frown, "But it would only matter to Ediyem if I wasn't. They're practically beasts and don't care what I look like."

  Looking at him with that amused look on her face, she appraised the novice wizard before adding, "Clothes are impractical for my people." She pulled the skirt outward letting it fall back onto her skin where it seemed to stick until she gently drew the cloth away enough that it moved freely again. Her grimace at the stickiness and wet before looking at him again told him that Shaelamee found it unpleasant. "Water genasi in particular, at least where I come from, use the moisture that clings to our skin to mask ourselves when we feel the need. Clothing like this, a Ciemnosci skirt by the way if you can believe it, weighs us down. It is uncomfortable, especially in heavier materials. This cloth is light enough that I can nearly ignore the feel at least."

  Her eyes caught his looking at her wherever her hands touched the cloth on her body. Though he managed not to blush, Alec pulled his eyes back to her face feeling a bit embarrassed. Shaelamee was just a bit too much for him; the boy thought to himself and managed not to blurt it out to embarrass himself further.

  Glancing at the floor, he noticed her bare feet. The girl looked down and sighed, "Shoes and boots on the other hand... well, luckily they aren't necessary inside. I hate walking around in the soggy things."