“There was a unicorn in my vision,” he explained nervously. “Perhaps I lost the Templar in the unicorn’s aura.” Suddenly he saw that this same unicorn had gone dark, murdered by the she-trolls who had brought him here tonight. He shuddered despite the effects of the drink.
“Now the princess and her family have been alerted, and we will not again have such an opportunity because of your corrupted vision,” said the armored lich. “Drink up. It will numb the pain.” The seer looked wide eyed. “Yes,” said the lich. “The pain is coming.”
The troll gulped down the last of his drink. “Sire, my vision was good! Free will is the enemy of all seers!”
“Free will is a bitch,” said the man in his strange vernacular, laughing. “But still your vision is lacking. Henceforth you will move in to the tower. The slaves will see to your needs.” The lich took the cup and saw that it was empty. “Especially until you adjust to your new circumstances. But your vision will be purer than ever before. Girls, help Kaldmunnr with his sight.” And with that his twin minions appeared behind the seer, and each plucked out one of his eyes with a fingertip hook designed just for that purpose.
Kaldmunnr fell to his knees screaming and covering his new skull holes. It was not from pain—the drink had seen to that; but the horror of knowing that his eyes were gone and could not be repaired. The fresh eyes were ripe with nourishing electroplasm, and the trolls handed them over to their master. “The royal seers are blinded at birth so that they are not confused by worldly sights,” said the lich. “You will serve me all the better now, and in return I will make you rich. You will live here and enjoy our hospitality.” Trollish also had no word for irony.
Kaldmunnr rose up on his knees and uncovered his face. Blood ran from his empty eye sockets. In haunted voice he pronounced, “The otherworlders that you summoned are arrived.”
LXXVII
Several weeks passed, and Ashlyn was close to completing her training. They all looked forward to her joining the other Keepers, no longer a neophyte, but as a metamorph, a third-class druid, ready to quest and explore and, most importantly, to heal her comrades. With their healer in place, they felt that they would be a formidable force.
And then the Legion Pangaea attacked Templa Taur.
Dangalf saw them first. As he watched from the comfort of their usual table at the King Bee, and being considerably buzzed, the three hundred warg riders bearing torches against the night looked just unreal enough to give him pause as they rode up on the town.
Elf horns sounded, and Ainnir went to their table, took their glowing bug, and told them that the four might want to return to their rooms.
The rope ladders had already been pulled up for the night, but there was a basket of elves that had just left the ground and were being pulled up to the town. The orc attackers concentrated on this target and barraged it with arrows. Multiple arrows hit each of the elves. “I’m going to get my bow,” said Doppelganger as he ran off.
“Me too,” said Nerdraaage.
“I’m going to help heal,” said Ashlyn. She morphed, and all her coins fell to the floor as she ran off.
“Wait for me,” said Dangalf as he absently picked up her coins.
These warg riders were orc archers. They shot flaming arrows up into Templa Taur. Soon small fires broke out in dozens of places across the town.
Rainmakers took their perches high in the trees and spoke their ancient words to the sky. The sky obliged with light rain. The town’s falcons were dispatched to allies in all directions.
Nerdraaage returned to the King Bee because of its panoramic view of the enemy and because that’s where the beer was. Short, strong, and well trained, Nerdraaage was deadly accurate. However the warg riders were accompanied by lycans, the trolls’ bastardized version of the druid. Users of black magic, they were not true metamorphs, instead changing into a corrupted lycan form, a trollwolf. Still, they were able healers and they healed Nerdraaage’s victims who returned fire at him en masse. Nerdraaage retreated behind the bar where he had a beer. He could not think of a better way to spend the evening.
Doppelganger, impatient for combat, fired at the orcs from the Keepers’ room. He hit one orc and knocked him off of his warg. He saw a nearby lycan casting a healing spell over the orc and shot her through the neck. She crumbled to the ground and, despite all the carnage going on, an especially angry call arose over the killed lycan and soon spread among all the attackers. Doppelganger found himself the target of hundreds of arrows fired over a few seconds. He crawled out of the room as ricocheting arrows tore at his body. Only his chest and back were unscathed as he had had the foresight to put his adamantine on.
Doppelganger, now taken by his bloodwarp, was a frightening sight when he came upon Dangalf and Ashlyn. With some Elvish words and flourishing gestures, Ashlyn healed his wounds. Dangalf shot fireballs at the enemy below, but they were small blasts as the enemy archers did not give him time to cast the larger ones before he was targeted.
The Keepers all drew the wrath of the warg riders by specifically targeting their healers. The lycans congregated so that they could heal each other. This only meant more orcs died due to their unattended injuries. The Keepers were forced to move constantly along the protected walls against the heavy volleys they attracted.
The rain soon poured forth, and the fires were all extinguished, and no new ones took hold. The wargs bogged down in mud meant the orcs were easy targets, and many died. The lycans hissed back and forth to each other about the human warrior and mage, the dwarf hunter, and the she-elf druid who appeared to work in concert. A troll horn sounded, and the warg riders and lycans, once free of the mud, left as quickly as they had come.
The other Keepers were happy to find Nerdraaage unharmed. For some reason he seemed even drunker than when the battle had begun. Ciar joined them and told them that they had lost three elves versus “dozens more” orcs dispatched that night. She said this raid, with so many lycans present and with no real hope of taking Templa Taur, appeared to be designed as a training exercise for new healers. She figured that they got more exercise than they intended with the Keepers specifically targeting them. The orcs were little more than fodder in this exercise as they had been throughout their long history with their troll masters.
Of the three fatalities, only one had been captured by the enemy: an archer who had fallen to the ground. It was not her death alone that was troubling but that the raiders took the elf corpse with them. “For their black ceremonies,” Ciar supposed quietly.
“How long was the battle?” asked Dangalf.
“Just under an hour.”
“Seemed longer. I’m exhausted.”
“Longer?” said Doppelganger, his bloodwarp subsided. “It seemed only a few minutes!”
“And how would you know?” challenged Dangalf. “You weren’t even here. It was your doppelganger. Your id monster.”
“There was still a little of me in there,” said Doppelganger smiling.
Ciar took their scrolls and certified their defense of Templa Taur and authorized payment to the Keepers who were per diem. They thanked her, and she bid them farewell, but the Keepers stayed where they were talking about the battle. The excitement of combat and the thrill of victory wired them all up, and reliving the battle in words seemed to be the only way to unwind.
It was daylight when a sudden cracking and whooshing startled the Keepers. They looked about on the ground for another attack even more terrifying than the last. But Ashlyn saw it first, and she pointed to the sky. It was a flight of dragoons and astonishing to behold. There were only about twelve, but they seemed to cover all of the sky, so enormous were the dragons and with such great wingspans. The dragons were gold or green or black or red in brilliant, glistening scales. “They’re beautiful,” said Nerdraaage. And then almost angrily, “Why are they beautiful?”
“They’re males,” said Ashlyn. “You want ugly and about ten times bigger? Those are the females. No one rides a female drago
n.”
“Then where do little dragons come from?” asked Nerdraaage.
The dragoons themselves, some of the largest mesomorphs in this world, seemed insignificant on the backs of these beasts. The elves waved and cheered each as they passed in pursuit of the raiders.
One human dragoon passed closest of all, rocking gently with every great whoosh of wings. He blew a kiss to Ashlyn in passing. Dangalf turned to share a laugh about it only to see her blowing a kiss back to him. “They’re going after our lost sister,” she enthused.
And for Doppelganger it was settled. He was not locking himself away in some temple with a pile of books and a vow of poverty. He wanted to be a dragoon floating past the admiring women and she-elves blowing him kisses, Princess Dymphna among them wishing that she had written to him as she promised. He was still daydreaming when he followed the others back to their room and was caught off guard by their angry looks. Then he looked in at the room and their belongings scarred by a hundred orc arrows. “I’ll get the maid,” he said.
LXXVIII
When Ashlyn completed her training, there was a ceremony celebrating the occasion. Since it was held in a white hall, only Dangalf could join her. Doppelganger and Nerdraaage were not allowed past the white archway. And though the blackguard’s ability to unappear, the ranger’s ability to command animals, and the warrior’s bloodwarp drew upon the magic of this world, they were all classified as being of the blood school and not the magical school.
Dangalf had been excited all day to attend his first ceremony in a white hall. He had had no such ceremony for he had trained in a human town that had only a small red hall. So Dangalf told Doppelganger and Nerdraaage that he thought it “sucked” that they couldn’t attend, but he really didn’t mean it. He enjoyed the air of exclusivity especially since he was one of the exclusive. He liked that Ashlyn had only him to share this special moment.
Earlier he had gone out shopping and bought the best hat he could find. He chose a large, brimmed floppy hat. The new hat was more Gandalf and less Merlin. He then spent more modestly on a new robe and boots. But he was satisfied that the expensive hat and his flying cloak made him look like an esteemed member of the White School as long as he kept his cloak closed.
Inside, the white hall was not very white and wasn’t much like a hall. Grass, flowers, and moss grew on the floor as if it were the ground and not fifty feet in the air. Pristine white birch trees served as the hall’s columns, and it was lit by shafts of sunlight.
Other druids had come to celebrate their new comrade, and many assumed various animal shapes. There were sea lions and tygers and bears. Dangalf wandered about them, smiling joyfully at the sight. He stopped and spoke to a unicorn. “Pardon me,” said Dangalf. “I did not know that druids could take on the unicorn form.”
“That is a unicorn,” whispered Ashlyn from behind.
Dangalf nodded to the unicorn before turning to Ashlyn. She looked lovelier than ever. She wore her same furkini but her hair was up and adorned with white feathers. Streaks of blue and purple paint, her tyger colors, decorated her face. “New hat?” she asked.
“I treated myself on your occasion,” he said. He wasn’t sure if the hall counted as indoors or outdoors, so he carried his hat in his hands.
“I like it.” Ashlyn extended her arms and he obliged her with a hug. He had not been this close to her since the unhappening they shared on her bed after Nerdraaage had insulted her. He was probably lingering on the hug more than she had intended, but what the hell? “I only wish Doppelganger and Nerdraaage could be here,” she said.
“Mmph,” he breathed into her neck.
“I have to work the room,” she smiled as she undid the hug and stepped away.
Still, Dangalf stood by the unicorn, drawn by its spirit. He slowly raised his hand and gently stroked its white coat. He could feel his own protoplasm surging at this thrilling connection. Just to touch such a creature rejuvenated him. He remembered what the Cronica Acadia had said of unicorns: Sexless and immortal…a hundred times a hundred did the great crafter make…now less than half that number…an hourglass on this world…and when the last is gone, so shall the magic of this world be undone. He was humbled as he realized that he was touching a warm, living being as old as the world itself. He shuddered as he thought of the troll blackguards that had killed Princess Dymphna’s unicorn and finally understood how that was a crime against this world.
Another druid in sapien form approached the unicorn, said elven words, and touched its coat. Dangalf moved along so as not to monopolize the unicorn.
Most of the attendees were she-elves, but there were a few elf druids. The male druids were better fighters than the females—they were bigger and stronger in animal form—but the females were the better healers. And since druids were primarily valued as a healing class, belligerent elves tended to pursue the wizard or ranger classes, which also suited the ectomorphic race.
From the entrance a large, glorious bird flew in and in a fiery flash turned into a stunning she-elf. Dangalf watched her in awe as he realized she was a fenix, the druid master class.
Cronica Acadia, among its many mysteries, provided clues to the uncovering of its ancient predecessor, the Cronica Oceania. Where the Acadia was thought to number 1,200 copies, the Oceania was thought to exist as only 120 copies. Each volume was written by the same hand and untranscribable. (The most learned sages of Vinland who had tried to copy one of the Cronicas found that they had only written gibberish.) It was clear that the author(s) meant that if you were to benefit from the wisdom of the Cronicas, you must first come into actual contact with one.
Upon studying the Cronica Oceania, scholars found reference to the lost land of the same name. This led brave humans to the island continent lost for ten thousand years when the sundering of the world had sent it off beyond the edges of the map.
Those same first explorers found dragons and griffons and wyverns and other flying creatures no longer extant in Acadia, where they had been hunted to extinction during the three hundred days of darkness following the Sundering, when sapiens battled with the creatures of the sky to remain at the top of the food chain.
As these flying beasts were returned to Acadia, members of each school’s master class were provided a flying mount as they became available. Among the rarest of the flying creatures, the dragons were appropriated by the master warriors, who named themselves dragoons. The other master classes appropriated griffons for their flying mounts, smaller and tamer than the dragons.
The Sundering had also destroyed writing not cherished enough to be carved into stone. And now ancient monoliths of wisdom in the form of broken tablets or rubbings from Oceania were presented to the greatest minds of the White School. Among these ancient runic carvings was the lost secret of druidic transformation to flight form. The druid masters learned to metamorphose into flying creatures, and they named themselves after the indestructible fenix. Where other masters would ride upon flying creatures brought back from Oceania, Oceania provided to the druids the ancient secrets to again become flying creatures.
The fenix was a sight with her great mane of hair, adorned in feathers and ivory and other treasures “of the flesh.” He bowed royally as she strode past, and she smiled at him. She was a powerfully magical creature. He could tell that just by her brief passing. He had not before been in the presence of a sapien who exuded such a pure and overwhelming magical aura. No, wait, he had been. But his senses were too coarse to identify it when he had encountered it. But it was not only electroplasm that stirred in him as he watched the she-elf strut by in her fur loincloth. He watched the fenix go to the unicorn, speak old Elvish, and touch it. The unicorn stepped lively as if the fenix’s touch had also stirred something in it.
The druids, now all in sapien form, lined up, and the fenix took her spot at the top of white stone steps at the front of the hall. Dangalf stood with the druids thinking that the elves certainly know how to do things right. His and Doppelganger�
�s graduation ceremonies were basically handshakes, and he was not sure that Doppelganger got even a handshake. Nerdraaage had at least gotten a commencement address when Icil placed his hand on his shoulder and told him, “Kill. Steal. Escape.”
The fenix spoke in Elvish, and Dangalf wished he had studied the language. He was studying Trollish because he thought that would benefit the group most since they already had party members who spoke Dwarvish and Elvish. And Trollish was the common language of the Legion. He studied modern Trollish as spoken by all the members of the Legion Pangaea and Olde Trollish, the Trollish of black rites, the Trollish that had no vowels and was spoken properly only with a forked tongue.
The fenix called Ciar before her, and Ciar curtsied. She also presented Ashlyn, who stepped forward and curtsied. Dangalf struggled to understand. He recognized “elves” of course and a few other words: “sister,” “druid,” “nature,” and “learning.” He ascertained that Ciar was formally swearing to Ashlyn’s training and proficiency, that Ashlyn was now, or would soon be, an associate member of the White School under Ciar’s auspices.
Ashlyn, who like Ciar stood a step below the fenix, was about to speak when the fenix said, “You have a guest here. Perhaps you would like to speak Acadish.”
Ashlyn confidently recited: “I move through the forest stepping from falling leaf to falling leaf. I nurse the righteous, for they make the world good. I smite the unrighteous put here to test my resolve. I am of divine symmetry, begotten of the stardust that made adamantine and the feather. I was animal before I was elf, and I know how to be animal again. I will be humble before the smallest life and bold before the gods. This I pledge to the druids of the sacred grove of Nemetia.”
Cronica Acadia Page 29
