“Captain Fineblade,” Elderon called out. “It is us, your friends, allies. Have we been away from your company so long that you have forgotten us?”
“Friend, you say? Ally? You encroach on the Kingdom of Deepwood. You should know that the elves prefer solitude, Master Mage.”
“We are here to aid you,” Elderon went on, imploring, “to free King Daynor and the great Kingdom of Deepwood.”
Max heard the bow strings creak under tension. Fineblade walked forward.
“Darius,” Max said lightly, as friendly as he could manage with arrows pointed at him. “There is darkness in these woods. I fear it has clouded your mind. Remember when we last spoke? We must aid your king.”
“And who are you to offer the elves aid, stranger? No one knows you here. No one knows you anywhere. Maybe this is why I have been charged with bringing you and your party into my custody.” Fineblade drew his sword.
Max whispered to Elderon. “The darkness in this forest is powerful indeed. If the king is released and the dark shards destroyed, maybe there is hope that all can be restored.”
Elderon nodded. “I think they mean to take us before the king.”
“I think they mean to destroy us,” Max said.
“Do you have a plan?” Elderon said as Fineblade walked closer still, his sword held forward, the tip aimed at Max’s throat and only a few sword lengths away.
“I think I do have a plan. If I follow this road, will it take me to the elven city?”
“Yes,” Elderon said.
Anita backed away from the approaching elves, Jahrod too, the party getting pressed closer together. Max in the middle of them all.
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> Max casts Summon Fog
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The fog billowed up from the ground, from the road under their feet, and from the branches of the trees at the roadside. In a moment, all was shrouded in a thick white fog.
“Be safe,” Max said. “I will move as quickly as I can.”
Max pulled up his Hood of Sneaking and activated his Sneak ability. He moved through the fog, close to Fineblade, and then past him. He moved to the edge of the fog. The elves voices were raised in confusion and shouted threats to the party to remain where they were. Max emerged from the fog and saw the road stretching ahead of him, deeper into Deepwood.
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> Max activates Dark Movement
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The road in the far distance came racing towards him, the edges of the road no longer lined by trees but shrouded in deep black. Max stepped forward and moved over the road with steps that carried him a hundred yards at a time. He moved on, the forest surging past him with every step. He saw the darkness closing in on all sides, the area around him in full sunlight shrinking, darkness closing in. The end of the dark tunnel was getting smaller and further away. He took one more step and traveled a league and a half and then stepped out of the portal.
Max collapsed to the ground. He was on the same road, the same broadleaf trees on either side of him, but he was leagues from where he had started. He looked behind him. The road was long and straight, a brown beaten-earth road bounded by tall thick trees. The road vanished into the distance. No sign there of fog or elves or his party.
He needed to act fast.
Max checked his Sneak ability but it had been deactivated as he stepped into or out of the Dark Movement. He checked that he still had his Ring of Shadows and his Hood of Sneaking. He activated his Sneak ability and again was hidden from sight. He started down the road at a jog.
He passed through a hamlet as the road traveled through a collection of huts with white timbers and red roof tiles. Elves both young and old sitting and staring, their eyes shrouded by darkness. He went on and came to the glittering towers of the elven city, deep in the forest. Trees grew up through elaborate buildings and along the sides of streets paved with pristine white stone. The city was as much a part of the forest as the forest was a part of the city.
The tallest towers stood out of a white stone wall. The palace at the center of the city. Max felt the darkness within. He moved carefully through the city, closer to the tall palace walls. He used dark movement to travel swiftly along wide streets and came to the barbican in front of the palace.
The barbican was set in the palace walls and was a small castle in its own right. Two towers stood on either side of a heavy gate. Just beyond the gate was a courtyard with loopholes for archers to aim into the courtyard from the outer ward of the palace. At the far end of the courtyard stood another gatehouse, tall round towers with loopholes and battlements on the top. Any invader would have to fight through the killing ground in the courtyard of the barbican. But for now, it was open, and Max walked through. Guards stood at the gates but were lost in dark thoughts. None challenged him.
Once past the barbican, he was in the outer ward of the palace. A path led to the main gate. Again, it was open, guards staring blankly into the distance. Max walked in.
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He was drawn upwards. Up stone stairways. As he climbed, he heard distant screams and cries, whimpering and then howls of agony.
Guards at points along Max’s route were lost in dark thoughts, vacant eyes staring, some streaming with tears as dark thoughts brought pain and fear to the immobilized elven guards.
Max followed the draw of the darkness. It tugged at his chest. As he got closer, he felt the sadness growing until it verged on the point of despair. He dismissed the feeling, steeling himself to be bold and confident: it was only the dark shards creating the negative thoughts. He walked deserted corridors until he came to the vast white throne room.
Highly colored windows at the far end of the throne room towering twenty or thirty feet up to the high pointed roof let bright sunlight stream in and project colors on the white stone floor. Sitting on the throne before the colored windows was the elven king, old and frail but shrouded in a dark veil. The dark hung like a cloud around him, the light stripped from the air. He was pale and gray. Before him at his feet, a pile of black shards, glittering and sparkling with dark beauty.
Max walked forward along the center of the room, his Soft Boots hardly making a noise on the stone floor. At the sides of the throne room stood elven guards. Near the king, a pair of dark elven witches, black holes for eyes, a black hole where a mouth should be. They were sucking the darkness from the crystals. Their clawlike fingers were hooked on the king; they sunk into the king’s flesh through his robes that were tattered and torn, crumbling slowly, and falling to dust.
Max reached out to the pile of dark shards. He felt the fear welling up inside him. The witches shrieked, dark eyes searching about for a presence they felt nearby but one they could not yet see. Their voices were like a dry wind filled with sand and dust.
Max touched a shard. It evaporated in his hand, turning to dust.
The witches’s dark empty eyes fell on him.
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> Witches attack Max.
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Max reached for another shard as the witches’ claws scraped at his face.
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> Max takes minor damage.
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The shard evaporated. The witches howled, the dry wind shot through with the sound of nails scraping over a chalkboard. Max twisted in pain at the sound. He felt the sound run down his spine and lodge in his ears, making his teeth shiver. He reached for another shard.
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> Witches attack Max.
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> Max takes minor damage.
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The pain and fear were strong. He felt a presence at his back, someone kind and encouraging. Anita, Elderon, maybe it was Janet. The witches’s shrieking made him shout out in pain. He grabbed another shard.
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> Witches attack Max.
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> Max takes minor damage.
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And with every dark shard evaporated, the witches’s attacks came faster and harder. He had to ignore them and take the pain. He let another shard evaporate in his hands, and the pile was reduced to one last shard.
Max took hold, his eyes clamped shut. The witches clawed at his face and delivered more stinging damage. He let the shard evaporate. The clawing pain and the dry screeching stopped abruptly. He opened his eyes.
His hands were black and cold. He turned them over and watched with relief as the darkness faded, and they returned to his normal skin tone. The lines retreated from his wrist and to his fingertips. He felt a stabbing pain like tiny pins stabbing under his nails and at his fingertips as the darkness finally left him. He collapsed to the floor before the throne, hands clenched in tight fists and pressed against his body.
Max looked up into the eyes of an old King Daynor. His hair was gray and fine and brittle. His face dusty and pale. He smiled at Max, blood on his lips.
The guards recovered from the darkness and came forward. Spears leveled at Max. One challenged him, but Max was too exhausted to respond. The king responded for him.
“We can thank this young Mage,” the king said. He smiled, then his body was wracked with a convulsing.
A shout echoed along the throne room, a young voice. A young lady. She came past the guards and up to the throne, pushing past Max. She wrapped her arms around the king and held him.
“Father. Oh, Father. A nightmare. I had a terrible nightmare.”
The king laid a withered hand on her rosy cheek, and he smiled.
“The nightmare is over, child. We can thank this Mage.” The king pointed down to Max. Then he shuddered and sank down into the throne.
The young princess grabbed her father’s robes and pulled him up. The robes disintegrated in her hands. She yelled at the guards. “Bring help, now.”
Max tried to stand up, but his legs were weak. “There is no more we can do for him now, Princess.”
The princess looked down at Max.
“I don’t know you, Mage. Who are you?”
“I am Max Lightfoot. A student of Master Mage Elderon. We are here to save the Kingdom of Deepwood from the darkness.”
“Where is Elderon?” the princess said, looking around the throne room.
“He is with Captain Fineblade of the elven company in the forests of Deepwood.”
The king rested in the princess’s arms. He looked up at her. “The Mage is good, Daughter. He saved me, saved us all. I feel the old kings calling me. You are monarch of the kingdom of Deepwood now, Daughter.” His hand slipped from her cheek and he fell into the eternal sleep that comes for king and commoner alike.
The princess held the king for a moment before standing up from the throne. She pointed down at Max.
“This Mage killed the king,” she said. “Take him away and hold him prisoner and bring me this Captain Fineblade and Master Mage Elderon. I will have answers, then I will have his head.”
The guards seized Max, who was too weak to resist. They dragged him from the throne room. The palace corridors were white and bright, but as they went down the wide, white stone stairs, the way soon became dark and narrow. The guards dragged Max through a heavy timber doorway to a set of narrow stone stairs and into a dark and cold dungeon. A heavy cell door was opened, and Max was thrown inside. The door slammed shut.
“Guess you were always likely to end up in a cell at some point,” Janet said, appearing before Max.
Max lay down on the stone floor. A rat squeaked somewhere in the shadows. He caught his breath and checked his wounds before he looked at Janet floating before him.
“I think that technically this is a dungeon,” Max said.
Janet smiled at him. She sat on the floor next to Max, knees up, her arms wrapped around them. “Are you always this funny? I didn’t realize before. Or are you just incredibly brave?”
Max felt extremely tired and extremely vulnerable. Not brave or funny at all. He looked at Janet. She was beautiful, her red hair swirling around her. Her smooth skin glowed. But there was a sadness under it all, sadness beneath that cheery smile.
“I’m not brave,” Max said. “But just brave enough to tell you that I think you are beautiful.”
Janet looked away.
“And a little sad, I think. Why are you sad, Janet?”
Janet gave Max a harsh stare, defensive and attacking at the same time, then she softened. “Maybe it’s because my friend is in trouble, and I can’t help him.”
“Friend?” Max said with a smile.
“Let’s just say you are growing on me.”
“Like mold?” Max said.
“Something like that,” Janet replied. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. She faded away into the darkness.
Max watched her go and then slipped into sleep. He drifted on a dark sea in a dream of dark boats on wild, heaving waters, all boats streaming westwards towards a small port town, the port of Eastcrossing. Dark beasts and dark goblins and a dark general utterly consumed by darkness. The general stared at Max from within the dream. The dream became a nightmare.