Kashur

“I recognize ye not, Dwarf of Silverkeep! Who are ye?” the leader of Gloombriar Conclave boomed.

The Dwarf with the close-cropped orange beard and headlamp wrung his hands, the fingers ringed with red tattoos. “The name’s Bayne, an engineer from Silverkeep. These shards are useful! Their power can be converted for use in machinery.” He dug in his pocket, looking confused when he came up empty-handed. “I had one just here!”

Your friend stole it, Kashur thought.

“Look, Friend Bayne,” the Alchemist said, spreading his hands, “I’m sure these crystals must have many uses, and I’m not suggesting that the Wizards take control of them forever, just long enough to study them and understand their potential for good and for evil...”

“You’re not the only ones who can study them. We can do our own studies. We have our own scientists, engineers.” The Dwarf was muttering at no one in particular as he shrugged off his cloak and shook it. “Where did that crystal go?”

“Perhaps he’s right,” the Gloombriar Dwarf rasped. He raised his voice. “Alchemist! The Dwarf Conclaves request a recess to discuss.”

The room erupted with more doubts, rumblings, and complaints. Fists thumped on the tabletop. The dragoons were on their feet now, most of the Dwarves, too. The Sky Engineers exchanged perplexed looks with one another. Kashur watched a new storm pass over Mol Morin’s face.

“Summoner... with me,” he growled.

Kashur’s cape swirled as he spun out of his chair and joined Mol Morin by the waterfall. They’d been so close to getting a consensus, and then this. Mol Morin’s anxiety was contagious. Kashur now felt the urgency buzzing in his own veins. He leaned in close, where the whispering water was noisiest, so he could hear his mentor. The old man probably wanted to thank him for his quick thinking with Kenji Zamora and to tell him, finally, what this crystal threat was all about.

Instead, Mol Morin bared his teeth. “You drool over her all day long, yet when I ask you to bring her here, you fail!”

Kashur recoiled in surprise. He was talking about Yelora? Now? “I-I sent the kestrel!” he stammered. “Did you mean for me to ride after her? I thought that would be too much!”

“We need the Elves’ support in this! We cannot have Dwarves and Imperials manhandling this magic like river clay!” Mol Morin growled.

The noise level in the room had grown exponentially.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked Mol Morin.

“Find her, Summoner! Use a portal. Make her come.”

“I don’t even know where she is!”

“Useless boy! Fetch me a bowl!”

“Where am I supposed to find a bowl?”

“Find one!”

Mol Morin shoved Kashur into the melee. He ducked and dodged the arguing people, searching for something bowl-like. It’s not like they’d served stew, just mead. Finally, he reached across the table and snatched Kenji Zamora's gold-plated helmet from where it lay.

Mol Morin scoffed as he flipped the helmet upside down before passing it under the waterfall. The water sloshed inside. “This will tell us where she is, and then you will go and get her.” Mol Morin directed his gaze to the shifting water, scrying.

“Right.” Kashur cast a nervous glance at the roiling room. The other Wizards were working to calm the agitated Dwarves and Imperials. Among the crowd flitted the pickpocketing Dwarf. He or she didn’t even move like a Dwarf. Too light-footed. Perhaps Kashur should say something. Pickpocketing during a Council was just wrong.

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But an image in the scrying bowl pulled his attention back. It was a great Elemental, ice-chip eyes burning, boulder fists at the ready, legs crashing over a burnt, smoking landscape as it roared in pursuit of something. Or someone.

Kashur peered closer. “I thought you were looking for the Elf Queen.”

“I am.”

And then there she was—Yelora! Fleeing towards the still-smoking meteor, its innards like rows of sharp, sparkling teeth.

She was at the crash site! The Elemental was chasing her!

Mol Morin cursed. His rheumy eyes scanned the heightening tensions in the room. “They must not see this.”

His mentor’s fear was contagious; it leapt to Kashur and tingled up his arms into his chest, mixing with the worry there for Yelora—she couldn’t fight an Elemental alone. A few feet away from them, Kenji Zamora was stalking toward the sticky-fingered Silverkeep Dwarf, who was slipping yet another purple crystal into a pocket.

“This one keeps stealing them!” Kenji shouted, seizing the thief’s hood. It fell away, revealing the Dwarf’s face.

But it wasn’t a Dwarf. It was an Imperial girl!

Kashur’s throat felt like he’d swallowed a turtle. The girl was holding a crystal, and, like Zamora, she wasn’t ill. Not only that. She looked so much like...

“The Wizards lied to us!” Kenji shouted, snatching the crystal from her. He spun on his boots with it held high. His gaze swept the room, finally settling on Kashur. “It was a trick!”

“Summoner, go!” Mol Morin hissed from over his shoulder. “Fetch the Elf Queen!”

But now Kenji Zamora was striding toward them, gold armor flashing in the sunlight filtering through the glass dome. Kashur readied his hands with a protection spell, but in this tinder box, it would be better to start with diplomacy.

“Ho, Kenji! It’s been awhile!” he said, flashing his teeth, but Kenji shoved him aside, grabbing his helm from the Alchemist. The Alchemist didn’t let go.

Kashur glanced down to see the scrying picture still there—Yelora locked in battle with an Elemental over the crash site, the cracked meteorite looming over her like an open hand. He hadn’t known of the queen’s plan—they, the Wizards, hadn’t known.

But that’s not what this would look like. It would look like the Wizards had schemed with the Elves, sent them ahead to the crash site, and then distracted the Imperials and Dwarves with a sham Council. It would look like it was the Magicals of Terris against the Non-Magicals, just as it had been during the Rift Wars, until even those alliances broke down.

It would look like an act of war. And it would be clear whose side the Elementals had taken.

If the water spilled before Kenji Zamora saw the scrying picture, everything would be fine. They could table this Council, serve a meal even, calm everyone down, and regroup as Kashur made his way to Yelora and whisked her back here to take her place and end this madness. They were all in this together, weren’t they?

Kenji Zamora wrenched the helmet from the Alchemist’s grip and tossed the water aside.

Good, Kashur thought. That’s over.

But the thought disintegrated into horror as the water from the helm did not fall to the stone floor but instead launched through the air, meeting the liquid in the waterfall with an audible slosh. The scrying picture that had a moment ago existed only inside the helm—the one Kenji hadn’t even noticed, was now playing out on the wall-sized waterfall on one side of the room: Yelora, with the Elf Queen’s crown atop her head, battling an Elemental amidst a jagged, charred moonscape of glistening purple crystals.

A silence spread across the room as everyone watched. It was as if a time-lapse spell had been cast.

Kenji Zamora's face contorted in a combination of fascination and horror and glee. “Behold!” he cried, breaking the silence. “Behold what the Wizards and Elves do behind our backs! See how they lie to us about this new magic, then seek to hoard it for themselves! Even Terris herself battles their evil plot!”

“Go, Summoner!” Mol Morin cried. “Go now! ”

The roar in the Council room pressed against Kashur’s back as he ducked through an arch and slipped behind a tapestry, heading for the blue light of the last active portal. Yelora was at the crash site, but he didn’t know where that was. How was he supposed to re-aim the portal? If he had something of hers, he could use that to lock onto her location. But he didn’t.

He cast a time-lapse spell to give him time to think. War was breaking out in the Council room. It was terrifying even in slow motion. They had to put a stop to this. All of Terris was counting on him. Not to mention Yelora. She was in the path of a raging Elemental, alone.

No, not alone. Her companion was with her! The Wood Elf! She’d given him something!

Kashur flailed in the pocket of his cloak, pulling out the toy bee. He closed his fist around it and whispered the spell. The blue portal light glowed. As it did, the time-lapse spell fell away, and the battle cries in the Council room overwhelmed his ears in a dizzying tide. Mol Morin was in danger. His friends, too.

“I’ll be back soon,” he whispered to no one.

He turned to the blue light and leapt through.