“When?” asked Doppelganger.
“She awaits.”
They dressed quickly, and the soldier led them to the elevator basket. Dymphna and her entourage stood by the basket waiting to depart. There were other soldiers, but one stood out from the rest: bigger, blonder, and with magnificent white armor. “Who is that with the princess?” Dangalf asked.
“Her Highness’s personal guard. A Templar.”
“Look at that armor,” said Nerdraaage.
“You must be quiet now.”
The soldier delivered the four to Dymphna, bowed, and stepped aside. The Keepers also bowed or curtsied. Dymphna’s bearing was now very formal. Her Templar glowered at Doppelganger like a jealous boyfriend.
“I will send each of you a gift when I am returned home. And I will spread word of your noble deed. Please call upon my house if I can someday assist you.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” said Dangalf.
She turned to leave but turned back. “One other thing,” she said. “I had a vision of you all. It was so vague that I thought not to tell you. But I sense it forebodes great danger, and I will tell you as it may mean something to you. It may be an answer to your mystery. I see an outsider living among strangers. He was drawn to this world as you were, and he in turn summoned you. Forgive me because I must leave you with one final riddle. You will meet this outsider where the sky touches the center of the earth. Good luck and farewell.” The princess and her entourage entered the basket and were lowered to the earth.
Doppelganger and Dangalf stood together by the railing as they looked down upon Dymphna. The Templar assisted her onto a unicorn. The procession of Dymphna and her Templar on unicorns and six others on horses rode away from Templa Taur.
Doppelganger stewed. Not once during Dymphna’s farewell did she look at him. He tried to explain away her behavior as a requirement of her position, but that required empathy and the more warrior he became, the less empathy he had. He could only imagine grabbing her delicate wrists and yelling at her about how she had shamed him.
They went back to the inn and had breakfast. For the first time, Ashlyn was enjoying real elf cooking, the preparation of which involved very little cooking. The cook did not prepare portions that filled Doppelganger or Nerdraaage, but they filled up on basket after basket of bread.
Between bites or, to Ashlyn’s disgust, sometimes during bites, they discussed the princess’s vision. They were all quite excited to be part of a prophecy by a real seer, even such a vague one. In fact, the vagueness only made it more appealing. How less exotic a prophecy it would have been if she said, ‘Go to Wyrmhold Castle and see Nil the Stormbringer.’ (Which is not where their prophecy would lead. It’s just an example.)
Ashlyn finally had to excuse herself to go to her training. Dangalf was happy that Ashlyn was excited about her training even if he couldn’t help but notice she had not brought back to the room any books. After all, she was apprenticing for his White School!
She had described her training as a manipulation of the trainee’s mind by the trainer to create any environment or scenario. Dangalf understood perfectly. It was his internal library but created and manipulated by another and much more expansive and fluid. She enthused about her training’s superiority to the training gotten by the others. Doppelganger objected. To be a warrior, you needed to feel real pain and taste your own blood during your training. Ashlyn insisted that signals to the brain are why pain is felt and blood is tasted, so those elements could in fact be duplicated through mind manipulation. She agreed there were limits to how far this virtual training could take you. It was beneficial for muscle memory but less so for muscle conditioning. But Doppelganger stubbornly refused to agree even to that compromise statement.
Lastly they told her that they intended do some hunting that day. It would keep their skills sharpened, and also the cook had said that he would cook anything they brought back. The Blue School did not recognize cooks as craftsmen, but still, like the other workers they had met across Acadia, they took pride in their work.
LXII
The three went back to the room, and Doppelganger and Nerdraaage began packing their rucksacks for a day away from Templa Taur. When Nerdraaage saw Dangalf not packing, he asked him why. Dangalf said he thought he might instead go to the town library, which he had heard contained a great collection of magic books, even if they were in Elvish. “You don’t speak Elvish,” said Nerdraaage.
“No,” answered Dangalf. “But that won’t stop me from capturing the books to my memory until I learn Elvish.”
“You’re going,” said Doppelganger, and Dangalf did not argue the point. He packed his own rucksack and started to head out before he thought to take Clay with them. Dangalf had been quite the bookworm lately and did not want to be an armchair wizard. It would benefit him to have a day out. He had almost died by battlepig because his practical experience had been lacking. And gods help them if Doppelganger or Nerdraaage violated the Lonelywood Concordance in elven lands. And Dangalf was the only one of the Keepers who had read it.
LXIII
The Acadian Concordance on Sapien and Animal Coexistence, oft times referred to as the Lonelywood Concordance for its place of signing, is the ancient document governing the righteous treatment and allowable harvesting of animals by its human, dwarven, and elven signers. The dwarves in all their cleverness had learned that animal husbandry allowed for a much greater production of animal product than traditional hunting and gathering. The elves, however, with their especial connection to the flora and fauna, found it completely unacceptable that animals would be born into captivity for the sole purpose of slaughter. Humans also found it particularly unsporting to kill an animal in a cage or pen when that animal had no reasonable chance to kill or escape its attacker. And so did representatives of the three great races early on in their alliance meet at Lonelywood in Nemetia to once and for all settle on the proper sapien treatment of their fellow ambulatory inhabitants of this world. And though many dwarves who were invested in animal husbandry objected, as noble as farming is, they were not of the Blue School and had no great body advocating for them. But the hunters seeing animal husbandry as a debasement of their great class, and likely a threat to their own prosperity, fully supported the elimination of the slaughter of captive animals, and it was so that the Red School did support the Concordance. The dwarves themselves were sympathetic to those of their clever race invested in animal farming and might not have agreed at all except that at the last minute a passionate plea on behalf of the White School was made by Grand Templar Bardrick, who told the attendees that to know the right thing to do they had only to look at their unrighteous opposites. And they all did know the terrible crimes of the trolls, goblins, and orcs, and that they sacrificed animals and killed more animals for only bloodlust and leaving their corpses to ravens and worms, and did fight one animal against another in cruel sport, and did monstrous experiments on animals. And from this they degraded into sapien sacrifice and wanton murder and forced mortal combat as entertainment and even experimented on living sapiens. And as the righteous magician bends the very elements of the universe, and as the elven naturalist reshapes himself and the forest, the wicked trolls learned to twist animal flesh into wargs and battlepigs. And this gave rise to the new witchcraft of necromancy and slavery even beyond death and so forth even unto creating that abomination Dimmuborgir, that monument of depravity, the great mound of living flesh, living but not life, where their unfortunate prisoners do go. And so with the support of the Red and White Schools and without the objection of the Blue School, the Concordance was signed by representatives of the three great races. And though it is too great a document to recreate here, we can touch upon some of its important elements affecting sapiens even today: There is nothing about the concordance that would inhibit a sapien from killing an animal to defend himself or another. Animal husbandry for purposes other than slaughter is acceptable when done without cruelty. Working animals are to be
treated without cruelty. No animal is to be kept for only the vanity or amusement of its keeper. Familiars and other animals seeking the company of sapiens are permitted such that the animal’s departure is not restricted when it finds sapien companionship no longer desirable. Hunters are responsible for taking prey quicker and more painlessly than if that prey were taken by a pack of wolves. Trapping or any method of capture or killing likely to cause extreme and prolonged pain is forbidden. Hunters will shoot birds in the sky and not those upon the ground. Fishers mush fish by hand or spear and are not to use nets excepting upon great bodies of water. No animal or fishes are to be taken in excess of what can be used without waste. Animal sacrifice is forbidden. Animal experimentation is forbidden. And so on and so forth. One jester was able to sum up the entirety of the Lonelywood Concordance in just six words: When in doubt, ask an elf. And that sect of fearsome elven rangers known as the Horns of Cernunnos was charged with enforcement of the Concordance for those crimes rising to the penalty of death.
Cronica Acadia
LXIV
Nerdraaage followed Doppelganger down the first ladder they came to, but Dangalf kept walking until he reached a lift. Just because they were going on a he-man hunting trip didn’t mean he was about to be shamed into climbing down a thirty-foot rope ladder when there was a basket lift on the next tree.
They walked deep into the woods. Doppelganger led the way, purposefully, like he had a specific destination in mind. They passed many animals that Dangalf thought would provide the Red School’s recommended daily allowance of bloodlust, but Doppelganger pressed on.
Nerdraaage seemed unconcerned that the alleged hunt had turned into a forced march. And they marched and they marched. It was all Dangalf could do to keep up with them. A bright red snake suddenly appeared within striking distance of Dangalf before slithering off.
“Whoa,” said Dangalf. “I just came this close to a red snake.”
“So?” asked Doppelganger not changing his stride.
“They’re probably deadly poisonous. Red is a universal warning.”
“I thought we were in a new universe,” said Doppelganger.
“I still think red is a natural warning.”
“Like that?” asked Doppelganger. And as Dangalf pressed through the greenery to where Doppelganger had stopped, the sky before him turned red. No, it wasn’t the sky. It was a great red wall thirty feet into the air and as wide as could be seen. The Crimson Wall. The elven contribution to the three pillars of the Legion defeat (with the sinking of the Trollish Armada and the Battle of Nemetia) during the last Great War. A wall not constructed but grown from this world’s deadliest plant, gravewhisper. It had stopped the Legion dead, literally for many, in its tracks before they had conquered all the elven lands.
LXV
For Princess Dymphna was the first righteous sapien ever killed with malice. And for this first murder to be committed against the purest of spirit, Dymphna, and by the foulest of beings, Kejavik the Naught, was too much for even the gods to bear. And so did Woden command that Sulis grow a new flower that would cover Dymphna’s Rest. And that flower would be so poisonous as to kill all who would disturb her rest instantly and without antidote. And then Woden sundered this world so that elf and dwarf and human and troll and goblin and orc should be each separate and alone forever. And this we know through the oral tradition, as the Sundering did follow with three hundred days of darkness when all wisdom not precious enough to be carved into stone did perish. And in time did the sundered world drift back together so that elf and dwarf and human and troll and goblin and orc did again discover the other sapiens. And as is so often the history of sapiens, the trolls did undo Woden’s will and after countless deaths they learnt to cull gravewhisper and use its poison as a great weapon to make many righteous sapiens dead. And for ten thousand years did gravewhisper grow only in Sylvania and only on Dymphna’s Rest. And the noble Sirona, supreme among all elven naturalists, the creator of the elves’ secret Hierarchy of Life, in answer to this threat made the perilous journey into Sylvania. And Sirona, who was wise among all others and ancient even in that time, did know what the plant whispered as it was in the first tongue that all sapiens spoke before the Sundering and the other languages were born. And it is supposed that the plant whispers in the voice of Dymphna herself. And the gravewhisper did tell its secrets to Sirona and gave up itself to Sirona, who brought back cuttings of the plant to the elves. And during the Great War, when amassed Legion forces threatened to slash and burn their way straight to the heart of Oira Nomo, it was Sirona who, in only three days’ time, was able to cultivate gravewhisper into the Crimson Wall, a great wall of thirty feet in height and three hundred leagues in length, in the path of the invaders. And she had told the king of the elves that once grown the Crimson Wall could not be undone, but he did consent so long as the gravewhisper was grown so that the precious flower grew only on the elven side. As the Legion hordes approached the red wall, they scoffed at the flora as they had lain waste to many forests and ancient trunks, and they were not wise enough to see the foe they now faced. The troll witches and lycans and necromancers who rode at the back of the army with the generals too late realized that they were marching upon a heretofore-unseen growth of gravewhisper. And as the orcs cut and burned through the red vines, the vines did grab and entwine, and great poisons were released, and the invaders fell one hundred times one hundred and sent many more to retreat in fear and confusion and not wanting to tempt elven magic evermore. And this great Crimson Wall stands as impenetrable today as it was then, and it is recorded by the sages who record such things as the only example of both a crafted Great Wonder and a natural Great Wonder.
LXVI
“You idiot,” said Dangalf to Doppelganger. “You’ve marched us all the way to enemy lines.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s the Crimson Wall.”
“Gravewhisper,” said Doppelganger. “That’s worth a lot of gold.”
“There’s a reason for that,” said Dangalf. “None of us could harvest it without dying.”
“Vines,” sneered Nerdraaage. “We can cut them off.”
“Cut gravewhisper?” asked Dangalf. “Didn’t you read your poison books?”
“Some of them.”
“Let’s just take a closer look,” said Doppelganger as he moved forward.
“You bastard!” whisper-shouted Dangalf. “You’ll get us all killed!”
“Mayhap,” said Doppelganger laughing. “Mayhap.” Dangalf sat down and wrote a quick note before releasing Clay. He feared they would not be back in time for dinner. Or at all.
They approached within about twenty feet of the wall with Dangalf standing well behind the hulking warrior. Doppelganger noticed her first. A she-troll’s body lying five feet from the wall. And her head eight feet from the wall. He nodded to the others. “Let’s get out of here,” said Dangalf.
“Why?” asked Doppelganger as he readied his axe.
“She looks like a witch,” said Dangalf. “Maybe a necromancer. Whoever killed her can snuff us out without blinking.”
“If he killed a troll, he must be on our side.”
“You think trolls wouldn’t kill each other for a wealth of gravewhisper!” Doppelganger moved closer to the body, and the others followed him. Dangalf couldn’t turn away from the gruesome sight. She wore a black cloak that covered most of her body and gave him no clues to her class or rank. He looked to her head, and the two white points of her fangs barely showed below her upper lip. Dangalf tilted her head under his boot to make sure it was actually detached and not attached to a body hidden underground to lure them in. “Look here,” said Nerdraaage as he unappeared.
Doppelganger and Dangalf walked to the spot where Nerdraaage had vanished. “Where did you go?” asked Doppelganger.
“I’m right here,” said Nerdraaage’s disembodied voice.
“Did you hide for a reason?” asked Dangalf.
“Two more b
odies,” said Nerdraaage.
Not far from the witch were two trolls in armor. They had been attacked mercilessly by the looks of their wounds, and their blood had spilled on the ground. “They put up quite a fight,” said Nerdraaage.
“They didn’t land a blow,” said Doppelganger. “Look at their weapons.” Now even Doppelganger was apprehensive. These trolls were not mercenaries or even soldiers but full-blown warriors. The three of them wouldn’t stand a chance against one let alone two first-class warriors. “They stood back to back to protect themselves from their attacker.”
“Attackers?” asked Dangalf.
“It’s hard to say,” said Doppelganger. “There’s no footprints. Maybe we should go.”
Suddenly Doppelganger’s axe was plucked from his hand and tossed away. Dangalf raised his wand, only to have that also snatched away from him. Nerdraaage, still unappeared, was kicked in the ass. He appeared when he hit the ground. “What the—” he blurted.
They heard him laughing before they saw him, and it was a familiar laugh. Icil appeared sitting on the ground and still laughing. It was a great relief for the Keepers. “Where is my she-elf?” demanded Icil. “Is she ready to pounce on me from the trees? For the life of me, I could not find her.”
“Icil!” shouted Nerdraaage as he ran over and embraced him.
“Where is she!” shouted Icil.
“Ashlyn didn’t come,” said Dangalf.
“More’s the pity.”
“This,” said Doppelganger referring to the corpses. “This is nice work.”
“Did you think I made assassin just on my good looks?” asked Icil. “But the witch was the real problem. A deathspeaker. Can kill with just one word. So I had to kill her first.”
Cronica Acadia Page 22
