by Ember Lane
Picking myself up, I smiled a broad smile. “What’s not to love?” Cronis’ words came back to me. Yes, this was one hell of a land. Yes, I’d had a fortunate start. But by whatever god I was going to worship in this place, I was going to wring this game by the neck and conquer it. I’d faced a demon, but part of me knew that demon had meant me no harm. Part of me knew that I was baited there. Why? To rescue the shaman or meet the beast? That I couldn’t decide. Quazede had planted something in my mind—I could feel it, but what, I had no clue, and Krakus had told me he had the solution to my magic, so that was no chance meeting, either. I would have to dwell on those conclusions. Maybe Krakus would be able to enlighten me.
I strolled out of the last crease in the foothills with a smile on my face, and was soon walking along by the lake. Poking my head around Lincoln’s cabin, I found it deserted, and so I carried on toward the village. I started getting odd stares from folks who then steered around me, purposely avoiding my path, but I knew I was a mess, and so I shrugged them off and carried on. A short, stout little man all dressed in green blocked my path as I rounded the last cottage. He looked out of breath.
“Are you?” he said between gasps.
“Alexa Drey?” I answered.
He nodded. “Crags, gnome, come quick.” He turned and darted toward the tavern.
Running after him, I saw Cronis, Shylan, Flip, Star, and Lincoln, all sitting outside. The hero, Mezzerain, was with them, his usual scowl somehow lighter.
Lincoln jumped up, and sprinted over to me.
“Are you all right? We looked everywhere and then the mountain…”
I stopped in my tracks, eyeing their table. It was packed with empty mugs and stacked up plates.
“Just how hard did you look?”
Lincoln shifted from foot to foot. “Well, this morning, very hard, but then, like I said, the mountain erupted, and—”
“And I said,” Cronis hollered from the table. “I said, ‘There she is’ and pointed to the funnel of flame erupting, and I’ll bet I wasn’t far wrong.”
Lincoln steered me to the table. Shylan’s grin said it all.
“Been up to much, Alexa?” the wizard asked. I took a gulp of the offered ale, and smacked my lips as its divine flavor sated my dry throat.
“Bits and pieces,” I replied.
“So it’s true,” Mezzerain muttered. “She is full of surprises.”
“She always seems to have one up her sleeve,” Flip told him, smiling from ear to ear.
“Or my sack,” I said, and dropped it on the floor then reached in. Krakus’s hand met mine, and I pulled him out, and he stood there in front of them.
Congratulations! You have completed the subquest: Free the gambler, end his torment and confront one of five. You are rewarded with 3000 XP.
You have passed through the first Veil of Lamerell. You solved the riddle of the bridge. Your intelligence is increased by 8 points.
Congratulations! You have opened up the next Subquest: Catch a thief. Watch for a sign from the heavens.
Congratulations! You have 15000 XP. You have leveled up and are now level 8. You have 6 unallocated attribute points.
I felt that familiar glow in my stomach—that warm sensation which ran through me searching out every synapse, every nerve in my body. It pulsed through me, and I felt my cheeks flush, felt myself floating up as white light shot from my middle, spreading into an orb and enveloping me in its purity. It held me like that for a moment, and then it faded, and my feet touched the ground again.
Crags fainted, I think it was more the sight of the shaman than me leveling up, though. Lincoln put his old coat around Krakus. “Dead man’s coat,” he mumbled and grinned at me. “And just as I was catching up with you—not that I’ve got a clue what level you are.”
No one else was looking at me though. All eyes were on Krakus.
“No!” Cronis said, his mouth agape.
Shylan got up, sat down and got up again. “Are you?”
Mezzerain looked disgusted. “What’s all that…stuff…” He pointed at Krakus’s ruined body.
Crags groaned, opened his eyes to see if anyone noticed he’d fainted and then sat up.
“You’re dead,” he told Krakus. “You can’t just come back from the dead and mess up everyone’s plots and plans. There are no shaman covered in stone or what not.” He stood up and stamped his feet. “Wait till Digberts hears about this.”
“Digberts?” a voice thundered out. I looked around to see a massive warrior, his skin like midnight, standing in the tavern’s entrance. He glanced at me but glared at the gnome. “And how would you be contacting Digberts?”
“Digberts?” I asked.
“King of the gnomes,” Krakus whispered to me. “You don’t see them very often; they’re trapped in a chaos portal.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering how a man who’d been locked up in a demon’s prison for countless years could still know more about this world than I did.
“I meant…if I happen to see him, that’s all,” Crags said sheepishly.
“Aezal,” the warrior in the doorway said to me by way of introduction and I took it to be his name.
“Alexa, Alexa Drey,” I said, offered him my hand but withdrew it when he didn’t take it.
Aezal nodded slowly. “You have something to do with that?” He pointed toward the mountain. “Only I’ve got a few tables of drunk dwarves who are still telling tall tales about how they fought off a demon or two and saved the dale—how they should have free ale all night and day for their mighty deeds.”
“No fair,” I said and pretended to stamp my mismatched boots, but then grinned.
“Well, Alexa Drey, why don’t you and your friend come inside? You can bring one of them.” He pointed at the packed, gawking table. “That way you’ll get to tell your story, and whoever you choose can retell it while he eats.” He pointed at Krakus.
Shylan made to walk forward, but Cronis held him back. “You’ll just muddle the story all the more. Star, you are the most qualified information gatherer here. You shall go and report back.”
Star leapt up, and we went into the tavern. A table of drunken dwarves fell silent, gawked at me, gasped at Krakus, and slowly skulked out one by one, as though they were afraid of the disease he carried.
We sat at a table, and I told the tale of my day. Aezal served us food and ale. Krakus nibbled his way through his plate in complete silence, chewing as if every mouthful was a necessary chore, as if every swallow caused him pain. Star looked astonished. “Why? Why on your own?” She pressed her lips into a firm frown. “Why did you go on your own?”
“The question you should be asking,” Krakus said, finally breaking his silence, “is why do demons and Alexa Drey seem such ready partners. Tell me…”
“Star.”
“Tell me, Star, how much do you know about demons?”
“That they look after dungeons. That they are usually outfoxed by the adventurer. That they—”
“That they rule the underworld, a land far more chaotic than this one,” Krakus interrupted. “I ask you, plead with you, to never underestimate them. If they decided to truly walk this land’s surface, we would all be obliterated. What you must ask yourself is this: ‘Why did the demon, Quazede, choose to set me free? Why did he choose Alexa Drey?’”
“You mean it wasn’t you that called me?” I asked.
Krakus laughed. “No, not me—look at me—I’ll be lucky to survive long enough to teach you everything you need to know. I couldn’t have called you even if I’d known you were close. No, Quazede said another was being fashioned, he said another was coming, that the shaman had to tame the demon again.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because ShadowDancer seeks dominion over the underworld. Because the boy, Zender, covets their power and grows stronger every day. Because the end is getting nearer day by day, and if he shackles the demons, it will be at your walls before you’ve time to blink. The demons are the onl
y true way he can break the mists.”
I gulped and looked at my stats. I pumped all six unallocated attribute points into wisdom. Somehow, I thought my magic was about to become useful.
Name: Alexa Drey. Race: Human. Type: Chancer.
Age: 24. Alignment: None. XP: 15,000.
Level: 8. Profession: None. Un/Al pts: 0.
Reputation: Known.
Health Points: 270/500 - Energy: 170/170
Mana: 260/260 - Shadow Mana: 0/750
HP Regen: 50/Min - EN Regen: 17/Min
MA Regen: 19/Min - SMA Regen: NA
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Vitality: (12, 38), Stamina: (12, 5), Intelligence: (26, 0), Charisma: (6, 6), Wisdom: (11, 8), Luck: (7, 5), Humility: (2, 0), Compassion: (3, 0), Strength: (3, 20), Agility: (7, 0)
Skills: (Level, % to next level, Boosts %, Level Cap)
Running: (6, 0, 25, 12), Perception: (5, 0, 0, 15), Commerce: (1, 0, 0, 6), Magic: (5, 10, 0, ∞), Concealment: (5, 0, 0, 15), Night vision: (4, 18, 0, 10), Blades: (8, 12, 0, 25), Spell Casting: (2, 0, 0, ∞), Close-Q-fighting: (5, 0, 0, 25), Archery: (6, 0, 0, 28), Swordsmanship: (7, 10, 28, 20), Staff fighting: (7, 5, 0, 60), Horseriding: (3, 0, 0, 8), Climbing: (3,8,0,14), # Stealth: (1,0,0,22), Rope law: (1,0,0,4)
Talents:
Tongues of Time, The Veils of Lamerell.
Quests:
Seek out the Legend of Billy Long Thumb. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Unknown.
The Veils of Lamerell. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Death.
Subquest: The master is now the slave, his command now his prisoner. Free the gambler, end his torment and confront one of five. Status: Complete.
Subquest: Catch a thief. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Unknown.
9
The Last Shaman
Though it was only early evening, Lincoln took us back to his cabin. Aezal had insisted on it and reared up to any that raised their voice in protest. Krakus was looking decidedly ill; the fatigue of constant intrusions, the endless questions, had become too much for his frail self. The revelation that a shaman still walked the land appeared to be a colossal one, and one that was of great importance to all around. All I saw was a man hovering on a knife edge between life and death, and I think Lincoln and Aezal did too.
Lincoln made to put him straight into his bed, but Krakus asked for a seat on the stoop. He wanted to look out over the lake and ring every last one of the sun’s rays from the day. Tears of relief were his cheek’s constant companions.
Glenwyth was there, the shy elf, the tortured elf whose soul appeared to be in turmoil. She looked over the shaman, nodded to herself and then vanished into the forest, promising to return with healing poultices. Krakus watched her go. I noted a wry grin on his face, but then he appeared to lose focus and just stared out over the lake, almost certainly lost in its beauty.
Aezal told me that he came from a land called Atremeny, and he told of its affiliation with the old shaman, and their beliefs. It appeared he had appointed himself Krakus’s bodyguard. “Atremen,” he said, “valued the knowledge of the shaman above all others.” Aezal offered to take him there to convalesce, an invitation that Krakus turned down.
So we sat there, the four of us, on Lincoln’s stoop, and waited while the shaman rested his eyes, waited while he gathered his thoughts.
“Magic,” he finally said. “I mentioned it, mentioned that you feel awkward using it, that it just isn’t working for you.” His hollow eyes focused on me. “Was I right?”
“I can…” I made to say, trying to explain exactly how I felt about it, but failing dismally. “I understand it, but I just don’t see the point. Well, I do, but I don’t. Like the glowsphere I conjured to see in the sluice—that was useful. Like that. I can see the point…oh damn, I don’t know.”
“Why did you create the glowsphere?” Krakus asked.
“To lighten my way.”
“Look in your sack,” he near whispered. I looked in my sack and saw Sakina’s glowsphere spraying its radiant light around. Krakus reached out, his dry, flaky hand touching my own. “Could you not just have used that and saved your mana?”
I nodded, biting my bottom lip.
“So, answer me this. ‘When has magic been useful to you?’”
I noticed Aezal had his mouth slightly parted, as though he was drinking from Krakus’s wisdom. The awe he held the man in was so plain to see, and I saw Lincoln just looking out over the lake. It was then I realized it was Krakus’s voice. It commanded that it should be listened to—it demanded it.
“When I vanquished the katrox…”
“Ah yes, Quazede told me about that. You know, for an age he never talked to me, just left me there at the mercy of his spell. It kept me hovering a point or two above death, and let me tell you, death would have been preferable, but recently, he called to me through the tunnel. He told me Sakina had fallen, and another was being nurtured. He told me of the katrox and of his brother Alastor’s meet with you. It was strange, odd…”
“Why?” I asked, my stomach in turmoil, the ale sloshing around in it, making me feel sick as a pig. Or was it the nerves, of what he was telling me—of what might come?
“Who knows what plans the demons have for you—of that, I was not a party to. They have your arm.” And he indicated my armband, the one of the Warriors of Estorelll. “And they have your leg.” He nodded at the black shackle hidden by Zybandian’s gifted boot. “The light of Darwainic and the darkness of Ruse so aptly symbolized.” He looked at Lincoln. “Tell me, Lincoln, I sense a great good in you, and I would never overstep your hospitality, but I find myself a little more wanting after so many years of nothingness. Tell me, do you have a spare pipe? I haven’t smoked a leaf in an age.”
Aezal scrambled within his robe, bringing out a pipe and some leaf. “It would be my honor if you smoked mine,” he said.
Krakus nodded, and took the pipe, allowing the Atreman to light it for him. For a while he seemed lost in the ecstasy of his first few puffs, and he nodded silently to himself. “Tell me, Alexa. How else could you have bested the katrox?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Why was the katrox able to take Aragnoor’s body?”
“Because Aragnoor was old and feeble.”
“Yes,” Krakus whispered. “So, I ask again, ‘How else could you have bested the katrox?’”
I looked at the old shaman, long and hard. Though his skin was still covered in scales, he had a measure of color back in his cheeks. Yet he clearly hovered on the edge of this land. He was also clearly testing me.
“I could have given Aragnoor strength, the strength to cast out the katrox.”
Krakus smiled. “Yes. You could have infused the dwarven king with power, nurtured his spirit to rise up to cast out the katrox.”
“Instead…I killed him.”
“And…”
Glancing over the lake, my eyes glazed with tears. “And the instant I did it, I was filled with nothing but revulsion.”
“That, Alexa, is why magic doesn’t sit right with you. Any other wizard or sorceress would have seen it as a great victory; you just saw the loss.”
Aezal was nodding, as if he saw truth in every word spilled by Krakus.
Lincoln scratched his head. “But surely, if you can just magic an enemy away, it’s better than having a thousand people suffer?”
Krakus puffed on his pipe. “Two men were in a duel. One bests the other, and disarms him. For a while, he holds the point of his sword at his enemy’s neck, but then he says, 'Be gone!' and snaps his enemy’s blade over his knee and strolls away. The enemy gets up and takes a knife out from his boot, stabbing the victor, killing him, then stealing his sword.” Krakus laughed. “You’re right, some enemies do need killing. I’m just saying, there are times when there is another way.”
“So you’ll teach me?” I asked. “You’ll teach me your lore?”
“We haven’t answered all the questions yet. Though I fear we will never get to the bot
tom of the demon’s intent—this is not just Quazede’s meddling. Tell me, why did he increase your shadow mana? Why that random, chaotic magic?”
I laughed at that, because I knew the answer, and it was simple. “Because they hanker chaos and despise order.”
“And,” Krakus added, “Order cannot beat chaos. Why do you think Ruse is built on lies—why fashion it that way?”
“Because it can’t be beaten.”
Krakus narrowed his eyes. “Not quite. It is because you have no idea what you’re trying to beat.”
I gulped my ale, scratched my head, and wished I had a pipe, partly because it confused me why people had to talk in riddles, mostly because I completely understood him, and a pipe, well, it just seemed to settle people. Glenwyth returned shortly after that, a basket full of plants in the crook of her arm. She bid me to the stoop’s side, and asked me if I wanted to learn how to make poultices.
“Will they heal him?” I asked, but she shrugged and told me that no one had ever turned a graveling back into a shaman, though he was only partly afflicted. I wondered at that, and at all the information the demon had hidden in my mind. Could the answer lie there?
We set a small fire and boiled up a pot of water. Glenwyth laid out the plants she’d gathered, and I used my perception to identify them.
Glowwort…A bark fungus that glows blue in the moonlight. Glowwort can be used to clean a wound and prevent infection.
