You
You remember this place. Countless battlefields spanning the globe lurk in the depths of your memories, but so very few stand out as to be noteworthy. This is one of them.
You know not what name it now goes by, nor what those before called it for it did not exist before you arrived. The pass, that is. The mountains rose long before you and have survived virtually unchanged to the present, as they would for countless millennia to come.
Rising and falling on a timescale that makes even you feel small.
Using them as a landmark you can gather you aren’t far from where you raised your mausoleum. A week’s march or so. Worth noting, but otherwise irrelevant.
Dismounting Arma and running your hand along the stone as the others followed into the pass behind you, flashes of the exhilarating clash between you and your rival of the time consume your vision.
You wonder if any of the ignorant humans that now called this peninsula home knew they walked a path carved by the breath of the mightiest of the elder wyrms.
Not intentionally, of course, he had been aiming for you.
Obviously, he’d missed. Had he not, then the world might have been spared your wrath, at least those parts of it you hadn’t already conquered by that point. But he did, squandering his greatest and final opportunity to slay you, and it cost him his life.
Ngrakken, the Amethyst King. Once, you were furious he’d sided with your foes and not your legions, as did many of his kin. His refusal wounded your pride, left a scar on your psyche that lasted centuries.
Now you look back and bite back a self-deprecating chuckle at how petulant you used to be. If your places were switched you would probably refuse that version of yourself as well.
Your musing is interrupted by Endrea. “What is it? Is something the matter?”
“I am just… recalling the last time I was here.” Of course, you don’t think to mention the man hiding behind the rubble or those on the cliffs above.
You have not lived so long by dismissing the threat a determined group of the lesser races could pose, even to you. But after several silent moments of assessing them, you are not impressed.
Bandits and rogues, scum even by the standards of humans, with equipment as miserable as their lives.
You decide to let things play out, curious as to the reactions of your companions. However, your arrogance is, and always has been, trumped by your paranoia. And so you do not leave your ambushers the chance to prove you wrong.
Muttering under your breath and hiding the dextrous twisting of your fingers, you subtly weave a piece of spellwork of your own creation. Designed in your later years as you became more focused on efficacy than spectacle, the invisible strand of magic flows from your fingers and up to the cliffs.
Like a spectral serpent, it slithers through the air until it reaches the first of the ambushers you sense. It can’t pierce flesh, but that is not the task for which it was designed. Instead, it curls around the bandit’s bowstring, wraps itself around her belt and crawls into her boots alongside the laces.
Though you cannot see it, you can picture how it corrodes them. Weakening the tethers that bind them together until they are on the precipice of breaking entirely. All it will take is a slight increase in the applied stress and they will snap. Impossible to notice without a thorough inspection, something that these scum will never get the opportunity to do. If they even inspect their equipment at all.
In only a few heartbeats it has spread to each of the rogues, moving at the speed of thought under your expert control. Releasing the magic, the damage already done, you happily return to your nostalgia and continue on in silence.
That is, until you notice the half-breed watching you like a green-eyed hawk from the carriage. Subtle though it may have been, it seems Inalia caught your spellcasting. Probably because of the somatic component, but it is possible she has a sensitivity to magic and noticed the spell itself in action.
You note to yourself to uncover the truth at a later date. Such abilities are a rarity.
But for now, you do not have any desire to converse with the half-breed and ruin your little experiment, so you silence her with a wink. Loathe as you are to come across as even remotely friendly or approachable, thus encouraging future annoyances, it is the simplest way to get her to play along.
You watch as she glances expectantly around and up to the cliffs, searching for a sign of what you have done and practically vibrating with excitement, but remaining otherwise silent.
“Ho there, friends! I seem to have found myself in a spot of bother, I wonder if you could help?” The rogue finally says as he reveals himself, spooking Leroy and his horse as they come to a sudden halt.
The portly merchant splutters out a reply, obviously savvy as to the circumstances but playing along. “Well… well of course, I’d be delighted to help! What seems to be the problem, young man?”
His usual enthusiasm is nowhere to be seen.
His yellow-toothed grin growing even wider, the bandit responds. “My pockets, they’ve been rather empty as of late. Have anything in that cart there that might help me with that?”
Leroy swallows nervously. “Just… er, just some tools my good fellow. Nothing special.”
As he speaks, several of the bandits began quietly abseiling down the cliffs behind you. Rather unfortunately for them, the moment they put their weight on the ropes they snap, and two screams echo out followed by satisfying thuds, and then silence.
At this, the man before you draws his weapon, but the stress on the scabbard tied to his belt causes it to unravel. His trousers fall down to his ankles leaving only his briefs, and the menacing step forward he intended to take causes him to trip and faceplant into the stone.
You hear his nose crack at the impact, teeth shattering on the rock, and his blade clatters to the side. Were he one of yours, you’d have his entire cohort decimated and his commander burned alive for instilling such miserable discipline.
Leroy, to his credit, does not hesitate. With a “hyah!” he sends Daphne into a gallop that thrusts the cart onwards.
“Run Vindaruil!” he cries behind him as Endrea and Inalia grasp tightly to the rails of the cart at the sudden lurch in speed.
Up above, you hear the twangs of snapping bowstrings and are in no rush as you step over the mewling figure of the prone bandit. To finish him would be beneath you, a waste of effort.
That does not stop Arma from lashing out and crushing his skull with a hoof as she trots up alongside you, just far enough away that none of his brain matter splatters on your clothes. None of it sticks to Arma’s coat anyway.
Without even a glance back, you mount Arma in a single, graceful leap and she sets off at a moderate, unhurried gallop to catch up to the others.
----------------------------------------
Inalia
Letting out a sigh of relief as Vindaruil catches up to them, Inalia can’t stop the grin that has risen to her face. She knows he did it, she knows it!
Either they were the clumsiest baddies she’d ever heard of, or the pretty hand movements of the elf, and the odd feeling it had given her, had somehow made the bad man’s trousers fall down!
The memory already makes her giggle, and she imagines him trying to tell that story to his other bandit friends later. The sheer humiliation! She wonders if he can ever face robbing anyone ever again!
This is what she always wanted, going on adventures and fighting baddies! Well, sure, they are only going to see Auntie Jemma, and Inalia had been down here before. But somehow, with an elf and a unicorn beside them, it feels so much more… well, magical!
Leroy glances back with wide eyes, sees Vindaruil riding up beside them and lets out a wild, stressful laugh. “Everyone alright?”
Endrea is fussing over Inalia, making sure she isn’t injured and glancing over to the elf with a knowing look.
“I… I think so,” she says with a heavy sigh of relief, hugging her daughter fiercely and mouthing ‘thank you’ to the elf.
He doesn’t seem to acknowledge it.
“Well, I’ll be… Thank Solaris we ran into the most incompetent bunch of bandits I’ve ever seen!” Leroy exclaims, clutching his necklace as he slows Daphne once more to a trot.
Inalia’s grin only grows wider, not necessarily out of deceiving the nice man, more that Vindaruil got away with it so easily. She wants to be like that, so utterly confident, so effortlessly competent.
She could picture it now, her future self dealing with bandits and saving people just as easily. She was an adventurer in this daydream, obviously. On her way to save the world like in the stories!
Her thoughts turn to what her mum said the night she met Vindaruil, about a prophecy, and she almost squeals in excitement. All the best stories start with the hero being part of a prophecy, destined to destroy some bad guy or save the world. The thought that it could be her is almost more than she can bear, already full to bursting with elation.
Then her mum pokes her playfully in the cheek, snapping her out of her daydream.
“What are you thinking about Songbird?” She asks with a gentle smile, glancing down at Inalia’s bright smile and apparently pleased her daughter isn’t taking the near-robbery badly.
Inalia’s grin doesn’t waver and she looks up at her mum, whispering her answer so Leroy doesn’t hear. “I want to be a hero like Vindaruil when I grow up!”
Endrea’s smile falters at her words. “If you want to be, Inalia. But you don’t have to be, I need you to know that. You can be anything you want, and don’t let anyone force you to do otherwise. Do you understand?”
She didn’t, not really, why would she ever want to be anything other than a hero? But she nods anyway, bringing the smile back to her mother’s face.
“And Songbird?” she asks after a heartbeat, and Inalia meets her gaze expectantly. “It’s 'heroine'. 'Heroes' are boys.”
Inalia’s face scrunches in such a way it makes her mum burst into laughter. “Then I want to be a heroine, definitely a heroine!”
----------------------------------------
You
After that mild inconvenience, the journey through the pass is otherwise uneventful. You continue to admire the elder wyrm’s handiwork with something approaching respect for the old lizard, all the while trying to ignore the puppy-eyed stares from the half-breed.
You heard what she’d said to her mother and draw a measure of amusement from it. It’d definitely been the right choice to go along with her, you’ll be getting a first-hand look at what made heroes, or heroines, like her tick. Get the chance to understand the source of their disgusting self-righteousness, condescending morality and exhausting faith in ‘good.’
Whatever that was.
And maybe in understanding you will finally be able to silence the voice in the back of your head that is growing more and more incessant, and acquire the ammunition to prove yourself right all along.
By the time you come out the other end of the mountains, the sun has almost set entirely. Leroy quickly sets up camp once more as you look out with your arms crossed over the forest that stretches on into the horizon, and the road that splits it in two.
Once this had all been nought but ash, and yet life has returned as though nothing even happened. It hadn’t necessarily been your intention to bring devastation to the land itself, life was never your enemy. Fighting it would have been an exercise in futility, and the evidence for that lies before you now.
It was merely a by-product of the plagues you engineered, the volcanoes you drew from dormancy to become violently active, and the great celestial rocks you pulled from the void in order to make the extermination of your enemies just that little bit faster.
Upon reflection, you don’t know why you were in such a rush. You only unleashed such calamities near the end, when you grew irritated at back-tracking constantly. It just seemed easier at the time.
Frowning, you try and pinpoint exactly when your quest for vengeance shifted from domination to extermination. But before even that, in the beginning, humanity had been your only target. Yet by the end, everyone had taken a side.
You realise that there was no single moment, no revelation or decision that decided it. Just an ever-growing escalation as you achieved one goal only to find your rage unquenched and your agony just as raw as before, so you moved on to the next.
It was not the hollow victories that kept you going, it dawns on you, but that you could forget your own pain when you were inflicting it on others.
This revelation troubles you. To your own mind it makes you feel petty, pathetic even, and that sensation wars against your rightful arrogance.
For is your greatness not proven by what you achieved? By the obstacles you overcame? By the power at your fingertips?
You would dare any being to come forth and claim otherwise, you would make their suffering legend, prove them wrong with every cut and scream. But there are no others. It is just you, in your own mind where it is near impossible to hide.
This… this is exactly what you were trying to avoid. These thoughts. These… feelings.
The urge to hurt something becomes almost overwhelming.
You consider turning upon your companions. You just know that hearing their screams will make these thoughts go away, bring back that bliss of ignorance.
But that really will be pathetic. Now that you have identified the behaviour, willingly giving into it will only be weakness, and you never, ever, submit to weakness.
As ever, you will face this fight head-on.
Only this time, your opponent is yourself, and a tiny voice whispers that maybe that is a fight which cannot be won.
You watch the sun set to the west, and are so distracted by your inner turmoil that you don’t even notice as the half-breed sneaks up to your side.
Your instincts are silent for they do not view her as a threat, which is stupid, you know better than most that children can be just as dangerous as adults. A blade in the back is the same no matter who delivers it. So how has this girl slipped past your defences?
She keeps her arms by her side as she stops next to you, though you get the sense she desperately wants to hug you or at least grab your hand.
“Thank you,” she says with an oddly sincere voice for one so young. “…for dealing with the baddies.”
You hold back a derisive snort, wondering what the girl might do if she knew you’d seriously considered flaying her and her mother alive only moments before. Would she scream? Would she run and hide? Or perhaps just freeze in place and soil herself like so many before her?
Nevertheless, something compels you to answer. “I did very little. They dealt with themselves.”
Inalia giggles, a melodious sound that reminds you, not for the first time, of her.
Your fingernails dig into your palms and draw a trickle of blood as you resist the memories.
The half-breed appears ignorant of your struggle, and looks up at you with her almost impossibly wide eyes. “Will you teach me how to do that?”
Closing your eyes, you draw in a deep breath and let the tension leave your body, relaxing your hands. Opening your eyes, you turn to look at the half-breed properly.
“We shall see, that was no mere parlour trick but a high-order spell. There are many who would train their entire lives and never be able to recreate it.” You answer truthfully.
A smirk climbs onto the girl’s face. “I’ll be able to.” She tells you with a level of self-confidence that…well, it reminds you of yourself at her age.
Against your will, you find a tiny smile crawling its way up your face too. “I believe you may.”
----------------------------------------
Archibald
“And you are sure of this?” his royal highness King Oskar Rendinium asks the stuttering curator, who is rather embarrassing himself before the gathered royal court.
“Y…y…yes Your Majesty,” the old fool mutters before the throne whereupon sits the King and, just to one side, his wife the Queen. “It was d…definitely an e….elf. There can be n….no d…doubt.”
Archibald watches with thinly veiled disdain from amongst the crowd of courtiers lining one side of the throne room. Eyes downcast and practically shaking, the curator does little to make himself sound convincing.
Looking at the king, a man a few years younger than himself, Archibald can tell Oskar isn’t impressed.
“So this wouldn’t happen to be a tall tale told by a foolish, withering academic searching for a sliver of relevance and fame in his twilight years?” the young king says with a bored but scathing tone, his cheek resting solidly against his fist as he looks down at the man.
Oskar’s brutal and cutting honesty, along with his outright refusal to play nice with those he considers lickspittles and idiots, has won him many friends at court.
But it has won him a great many more enemies.
Archibald likes to think he is neither. He isn’t really part of this court at all, only the role he plays is. He is glad, then, as the court erupts into giggles and laughter as though the king has just made the funniest joke imaginable.
Those who do are the lowest of the low, worthless sycophants and social climbers who don’t realise they embody all that the young king despises. Archibald does not join them, but it is proof to some degree that his work in this place has been a success.
Let them dismiss what they perceive as fanciful, let them wallow in their ignorance. If they do not believe elves exist, then they will dismiss the rumours and reports of more fantastical, albeit terrible, events that are to come.
They will downplay them, justify them, and inevitably respond without the strength and decisiveness they will most definitely need.
And when they are too late, and the day of reckoning dawns, they will look back at their idiocy and wonder how they could be so blind. They will see that it began here, and Archibald will be there to revel in that.
“Y…y…your majesty, I…I…I….” the academic begins, trying to plead his case but failing to overcome his nervousness.
The King holds up his free hand to silence the stuttering man. “Enough! I have heard enough. Go home, old man, and speak no more of this. Lest I find cause to punish this… waste of time with more than harsh words.”
Archibald observes the light dying in the curators eyes before he bows lowly and begins shuffling slowly out to the sound of the king’s frustrated sigh.
Whether he believes the old man or not, Archibald knows it is his duty to investigate the matter and determine the truth either way. Not to this spotty brat of a monarch, but to his true liege.
Slinking away from the court, he disappears through one of the several side entrances with those of import none the wiser. As he walks through the marble halls, nodding to the guards as he passes and listening to the echoes of his footsteps, Archibald slips one of his many masks into place.
A figurative mask, that is. He has a few physical ones, but none he can get away with using in the palace.
This particular one is that of an earnest smile with a curious glint in his eyes. He changes his confident stride into an excited skip as he catches up to the dejected curator.
“Professor… Orgovis, was it sir?” He greets as he comes up beside his latest mark.
The curator perks up, startled. “Um, not professor any more I’m afraid. How can I help you, young man?”
Archibald knew Reylen Orgovis had since cut ties with the College, it was no slip of the tongue. He holds out his hand to the former professor of history. “Archibald, Archibald Vance. An old student of yours.”
“Oh!” the brightness returns to the wrinkled, bearded face before him, “Yes, yes. Vance, of course.”
Archibald Vance has never attended any lectures in the College of Athaca, indeed he has only stepped foot inside on two separate occasions, and only once officially.
But the old curator didn’t know that, and with his poor memory and even worse social anxiety wouldn’t admit to his own ignorance.
“I must say, Professor, It wasn’t right what happened in there. For the King to say such things…” Archibald lets the unspoken end to that sentence hang in the air.
“Now Mr Vance, it does nobody any good to speak ill of the King,” Reylen mutters reproachfully, but the way he seems to stand up straighter tells Archibald he’s hit his mark.
Looking appropriately abashed, Archibald nods in agreement. “Of course, you’re right… still. Was it true, did you really meet an elf?”
His words are infused with a childlike wonderment rather than accusation, and they seem to strike a chord in the greying curator, spurring him to open up rather than close himself off.
“Indeed, it was… the most amazing moment of my life. A shame people are so close-minded these days. Where is the wonderment? Back in my youth, the search for the fair folk was all the buzz, now it seems like no one even believes.” Reylen answers, reflecting Archibald’s excitement before turning melancholic.
Of course, his words are further proof that Archibald and his… predecessor have borne fruit with their efforts in Athaca, and indeed all of Tordon. But Archibald doesn’t let his glee at that thought show through his mask. He is far too professional for that.
Nodding sadly in agreement, Archibald lets himself fall silent for a moment before responding. “What… what was it like? Sorry… if you don’t mind my asking professor?”
Reylen’s face takes on a wistful look, then he glances around and notices they’ve stopped in the middle of the corridor. “Would you walk with me, Mr Vance?”
Archibald smiles and nods, matching the pace of the shuffling former professor as he begins walking.
“It was… well, it was actually quite terrifying if I’m being honest. In a good way, of course, if that makes any sense. I all but forgot about that little rascal that broke in, and Johann and Francis were struck dumb as well, those being the night guards. The way he moved, for I am certain it was a ‘he’, was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It was so… so fluid, like a ballet dancer in the midst of a performance but without any of the effort. I think… I think I upset him. You recall I ran that elective on the Elvish language?” Reylen asks.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Archibald nods, “not one I took myself, but I recall it.” He lies effortlessly. All he knows is that there is no recognised ‘Elvish’ language, so he struggles to understand how there was an elective on the subject.
“Yes, not many did,” the former professor mutters mournfully, “Anyway. I tried to communicate, assuming, what with being in a sarcophagus for the last gods know how many millennia, he wouldn’t know a lick of Torish. I don’t think he liked me that much, froze me solid with barely a glance. It felt like my entire body was trapped by a vice, it was all I could do to breathe. Did the same to Johann and Francis, seemed rather interested in the girl though. Then, next thing I knew, I was out cold. Woke up the morning on the exhibit floor with the worst back pain of my life.”
Scratching his chin in thought, a genuine reaction for once that serves his mask all the same, Archibald tries to determine whether the old man was having him on or not. It seems unlikely, Reylen didn’t strike him as a man with a single deceptive bone in his body.
And Archibald is an excellent judge of character. It is the greater half of his job, after all.
But still, it is farfetched even by his standards. He knows of no magic that can revive a corpse, or keep a person entombed for so long without decaying into nothing. Yet he will not fall victim to the same failings as his marks.
“Could you show me this sarcophagus?” he asks. Then, as he observes the constipated, approaching suspicious, look on Reylen’s face, immediately backpedals. “Sorry, what was I thinking? I can’t ask that of you. Just my curiosity getting the better of me professor, my apologies. I’ll leave you to your evening…”
There is a tense moment where Archibald thinks Reylen won’t cave and he’s blown it, then the old man mumbles a response and he has to hide his predatory grin. “Oh, what does it matter! Why don’t you follow me back to the museum? Just so long as you keep this between us, of course.”
This time, Archibald lets his glee shine through and makes a zipping motion with his fingers and mouth. “My lips are sealed professor.”
The walk over to the museum is a quiet one. It is a clear summer night and the full moon illuminates that which the scant streetlights fail to, the warm breeze ruffling Archibald's dark, wavy locks.
It becomes troublesome when they have to climb the steps, and he is stuck waiting patiently for the old man who pants like he’s climbing a bloody mountain the whole way up.
Of course, being the thoughtful former student he is, he offers to help Reylen but is turned down repeatedly.
When they, at last, reach the main entrance Archibald watches as Reylen pats down his pockets in search of the key. “Bugger, it’s here somewhere. Oh, that reminds me, the wards! The elf brought them down as he left. No circle, no focus I could see, just like that. They weren’t even broken, just gone. Never seen anything like it. Ah! Here it is!”
Now, Archibald would be the first to admit he was no expert in the arcane, but he’d dabbled in his past. The wards on the museum were hardly top tier, but they would certainly have been beyond his own meagre ability. The thought is troublesome, if Reylen is telling the truth that is.
The curator opens the heavy doors with a pained grunt as his old bones rebel against the exertion.
“In you go Mr Vance, best not to linger. I’m technically not allowed to do this, makes the investors nervous you see, but what they don’t know can’t hurt them.” Reylen tells him, waving him inside.
Archibald gives him a nod and skips inside, then steps in to help close the door after Reylen.
“Forgive me if this is a stupid question, professor. But what does a museum need investors for?” He asks after a moment, one of the rare times Archibald asks a question he doesn’t already know the answer to.
“Ah, like I always said, there are no stupid questions Mr Vance. We don’t charge admission fees you see; the glory of our history is open to the public as it should be. But free admission doesn’t keep the wards up, you understand. We get plenty of donations, do not get me wrong, and the crown is very generous. But there is more to the museum than tours and exhibits. We use our expertise to pursue archaeological endeavours, more often than not funded by our entrepreneurial investors. They get their pick of some of the more valuable or dang… er, I mean, interesting artefacts, and we take the rest. They also hire our services to study and store such artefacts on their behalf, which is why we have a private exhibit. A win-win, all things considered.” The curator explains animatedly as they walk.
Raising his eyebrows in surprise, leaning into his mask, Archibald asks. “Forgive me professor, but I find it difficult to picture you crawling through dusty old tombs and uncovering ancient artefacts. Rather sounds more like an adventurer’s job than an academic’s.”
Reylen erupted into chuckles. “Ho! Quite right, my boy, quite right. I gave all that up before I started teaching. Should have seen me in my youth...”
He slows and stares up, wistfully, into nothing before shaking his head and keeping on apace. “But those days are long gone, I’m afraid. You are right, of course, we work very closely with the guild. But I find adventurers lack the… ah, how to put it politely? Patience. They lack the patience to appreciate the significance of the tombs they often plunder. I assure you; we treat the history we encounter with a great deal more respect than your average adventurer.”
“Not difficult, I imagine.” Archibald jokes with a laugh of his own.
The curator’s chuckles continue until they reach the entrance to the private exhibit, and he ushers Archibald inside with a quick, paranoid glance about the museum proper.
“Well, here it is.” He says as they stop before the now open-topped sarcophagus.
“Woah!” Archibald injects as much awe into his tone as he can get away with, skipping right on over to the red stanchions but going no further. “And he came out of this? Alive?”
“Indeed. I can still hardly believe it myself.” Reylen replies, similarly starstruck by the thought.
With a keen eye, Archibald orbits the sarcophagus. He takes in the runic inscriptions on the stone, their meanings and purpose going entirely over his head beyond what he can guess at.
Again, Archibald is no great learned wizard, he merely meddles. But it is enough to tell him the symbols covering the coffin are not simple decorations, but components to a spell far beyond his ken.
Being in the same room as it, he finds he no longer needs to question the night shift guards for their side of the story. He believes Reylen, for his, admittedly limited, knowledge tells him no human wizard would be capable of this.
And he is more of an authority on the capability of elves than the foolish old man before him.
Turning to the curator, he asks with an innocent smile. “You said he disappeared with a girl, a thief you caught. Did you happen to catch her name?”
----------------------------------------
You
The night passes silently, you do not need to but you find yourself scouring the forest for something edible, if only for Arma’s sake. Inalia stays behind this time so it is without issue, and as you return you find mother and daughter asleep by the fire on their bedrolls, curled up with one another.
You listen to their heartbeats and confirm as much.
Leroy is still awake, though, sitting on a piece of deadwood and poking the fire absentmindedly with a stick. His eyes are glazed over and you get the sense he is very much lost in his thoughts.
As you sit down crossed-legged in the grass to his side he startles, his hand shooting to his chest in shock. “By the gods! Warn a man! You could have given me a heart attack!”
You do not dignify that with a response, staring into the fire and watching the embers dance as you try to distract yourself from the thought of making his words a reality.
The portly merchant goes quiet, but you can practically hear the gears turning in his head as he stares at you from the corner of his eye. “Vindaruil, may I ask you something?”
For once you are glad of the interruption, even an inane conversation with a fool is better than dwelling on your most recent revelation.
“You may,” you say without breaking your eyes from the twisting flames.
“What drives a man to ask such a question as you did yesterday?” he sounds hesitant as he asks, with the demeanour of a man approaching a cornered hound.
“Which one?” you ask back, obtusely because you are fully aware of what he means. If only because you find amusement in the way his face goes red as he struggles with his next words.
“About… my son.” He eventually settles on, looking away once more and over into the forest instead of risking eye contact.
“I was curious as to the answer a godly man might give.” You answer honestly.
Leroy frowns heavily, and goes quiet. Several minutes pass, and just as you think he’s going to give up and turn in for the night, he speaks.
“And what might your answer be?” The question is almost forced from his lips, and you struggle to gauge the confusing mix of emotions battling behind his eyes.
Naught but the wind, the fire, the snoring girls and the grasshoppers can be heard as you weigh your answer. You take your time, but you feel the human’s patience waning so you make up your mind before he retires.
“Wrong. Or so time has proven, though I see not why.” The words leave your mouth and surprise you with their sincerity.
You feel Leroy’s confusion, but it soon gives way to a hesitant understanding. “We… we all do things we aren’t proud of. There is always a time in our lives when we look back on our choices and realise we made the wrong ones. Some, perhaps most, lay the blame elsewhere to save themselves the pain. But in doing so they only ensure they will repeat those mistakes in the future. It is one of the most difficult things to recognise our own failings, but one of the most important. Understanding why we fail can be hard, but without the admission of culpability we cannot even begin to do.”
Your lips curl up in distaste and you stand, unwilling to listen to another of the man’s self-righteous lectures. As you are walking away, however, he speaks once more.
“Was it a son?” he asks gravely, and you freeze to the spot.
The urge to turn and beat the man to a pulp with your bare hands is almost overwhelming, but you catch yourself. To answer, to give it voice, is perhaps the last thing you want to do in that moment. That is also why you know you must, because in your experience the hard road is always the road away from weakness.
“A daughter…. And a wife.” Your voice is little more than a coarse whisper, barely louder than the sound of your teeth grinding against one another.
Nevertheless, Leroy hears. You do not turn, for if you were to do so and see a pitying look upon his face then it really would sign his death warrant, but his next words are loaded with sadness. “My condolences. Did you…?”
You twist your head slightly, barely stopping yourself from completing the motion and glancing back at him. “Yes. And many, many others.”
As you stalk off into the forest it feels as though you are fleeing, running from a battle for the first time in millennia. Your heart thumps violently in your chest and you hear it roaring in your ears.
The need for destruction consumes you, and you spy even Arma cowering across the camp as she senses your violent mood. Nations have burned and entire peninsulas have fallen into the ocean after rages not half as fierce as this one.
It is impossible to resist.
You do it anyway.
But you need an outlet lest you be torn apart from the inside, and so instead of reaching for your magic or swinging your fists, you begin to run.
You let your disguise fall away and your garments return to their natural state, allowing you to feel your bare feet on the forest floor. It is not so crude a thing as a ‘sprint’, you practically fly through the trees, your figure a mere blur to any potential spectators as you kick up a storm of mud, sticks and leaves in your wake.
It is the only form of destruction you can justify, and so you indulge with abandon. There is no shouting or screaming or even laughter, as ever your fury is utterly silent. Beyond the gale that you kick up with your feet, that is.
After an hour you’ve gone further than the entire distance you travelled earlier today, heading deeper into the forest and away from the other humanoid heartbeats you sense in the distance. If only to spare yourself the temptation.
By then, however, you manage to wrangle your choler back into its cage, your mithril will regaining control. Quicker than usual, far, far quicker. Without adding fuel to the fire it seems it burnt itself back down to an ember.
Your chest heaving, sweat pouring from your hair and into your eyes, you allow yourself to fall to your knees. Not out of exhaustion, you could have continued until the sun rose and long after, but because the fading anger reveals something far more raw and painful.
For the first time in thousands of years, you feel wetness on your cheeks.
The tears threaten to bring back your anger as you wipe them away furiously, enraged by the display of weakness. But, at least for now, they feel like the lesser evil.
How peculiar it feels to embrace your grief after so long pushing it down. How utterly agonizing. How shamefully cathartic.
You feel the stars and the moon staring down at you as though in judgment, perhaps the only witnesses to all that you have inflicted and endured. In that moment you are certain they find you wanting.
How terribly miserable that you feel more kinship with the celestial bodies than any living, breathing being.
In a moment of crushing weakness, you allow yourself to question why you even seek answers at all. Why not just be done with it and slip into the eternal dream?
Its call has grown so incessant, offering the false promise of unification with all you have lost. You know this is a lie, but you find that, if you really wanted to, you could make yourself forget that fact.
But the voice is drowned out by the tidal wave of resolve reminding you that the only road worth taking is the one that leads onwards. For good or ill, only onwards.
All things considered; you do not let yourself wallow for long. There is only so much indulgence you allow before you retain a grip on your composure and return to your feet.
Looking back at the mess you have made, images of an ashen wasteland flash in your vision, and you feel the urge to fix it. That, and you never have condoned leaving a trail behind that can be tracked.
Not that you have any enemies worth worrying about anymore, but the habit has stuck.
By the time you return to the camp, there remains no evidence at all of your tantrum, and the sun begins to poke its head over the horizon. You make sure your disguise is back in place for the sake of the humans, and have since cleansed yourself of the filth and grime you accumulated.
The only waking being, including Daphne, is Arma. She trots up to you as you return, swishing her tail and cocking her head in question.
You know what she is asking, and step forward to stroke her head. She leans into your touch and you allow yourself the comfort of her presence. “This new path of mine is proving more troublesome than anticipated.”
Arma huffs and her silver eyes pierce your own. It makes you laugh, a harsh, fierce sound that holds little mirth. “And when hath thy ever known me to give up? No, I shalt see this through to the end. Leave, if it bores thee. I will not keep thee.”
Rearing back, Arma lets out a fierce, and by no means quiet, neigh in response. As she slams back down she butts her head into your shoulder with a blow which would break the bones of a lesser being.
You place your hand back on her head and lean in closer as she settles. “I was merely offering. I called thee for a reason, more than just to ride. I am… glad of thy company.”
Predictably, the others begin to wake. “What was that?” Inalia asks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she sits up.
“Arma merely grows restless, she is eager to be away.” You say lightly, stroking her mane.
It doesn’t take long for the three of them to ready themselves, spurred on by Inalia who you hear muttering under her breath about ‘disappointing the unicorn’.
You note the gregarious merchant appears rather sullen this morning, sending narrowed glances your way every now and then, even once you’re back on the road.
It results in an enjoyably peaceful journey as only the mother and daughter seem inclined towards conversation, muttering quietly to themselves on occasion but mostly wanting for anything to say.
That is, at least, until Inalia apparently cannot take it any longer. “What’s the matter, mister Leroy? I’m sorry if I said something yesterday I didn’t…”
She was interrupted by the portly merchant turning and shaking his head. “Oh no, nothing like that my dear girl. Just woke up on the wrong side of my bedroll is all, my apologies if I made you think otherwise.”
He is a terrible liar, and though Inalia appears convinced her mother does not, sending a suspicious glance your way.
“We should be approaching Hartonville this evening, must just be sad to see you go,” Leroy adds weakly with a smile.
Inalia lasts only another fifteen minutes before she throws back her head and releases a groan. “I’m so booooored! Vindaruil, Leroy told us all his stories yesterday, don’t you have any?”
“You want me to tell… a story?” you ask with a raised eyebrow from your position atop Arma, moderately amused by the thought.
“Inalia! Don’t bother the nice e… man.” Her mother scolds, though it goes entirely ignored by the bored girl.
Endrea sends you a pleading look whilst Leroy barely manages a quick glance in your direction before hastily looking away.
“Pleeeeease!” Inalia begs in a sickly-sweet tone as she casts her wide eyes in your direction.
An idea comes to mind, one that might prevent such annoyances in the future, and so you decide to humour the half-breed.
“Very well. There once lived a… little girl, her name was… Ophilia. Ophilia wasn’t just a normal girl, no, she was special. You see, Ophilia had the most amazing singing voice in all the realms. When she sang, the birds would stop their tweeting, the trees would cease swaying and the insects would fall silent, all to hear her voice that much clearer. So beautiful was her voice that one day, as she was frolicking and singing in the forest, she came upon a great and terrible beast and, rather than devour her, it stood still and listened. This beast was known to Ophilia, for her parents had warned her of how it roamed the forest and told her to stay home. But she hadn’t listened, and now stood staring into its fanged maw, big enough to swallow her whole. She dared not stop singing, but as she moved away it would follow, entranced by her voice. She realised, of course, that if she went home it would eat not only her but her parents and her siblings too. So she stayed, and she sang. She sang for days, without food and water, until her throat ached and tore. Until, eventually, the beast was satisfied, and slithered away to seek its next meal elsewhere. Ophilia ran home, finding safety in the arms of her family. But the next morning, as she woke, she found she could no longer speak. She could no longer sing. And she, and all the forest, wept for the loss of her voice.”
You tell it slowly, unhurriedly. Being far from melodramatic but inserting a measure of depth in your tone that you usually avoid.
“…and? Did she get her voice back?” Inalia asks, enraptured.
“Hmm,” you hum quietly, “… eventually. She was healed by a unicorn, but that is beyond the scope, and message, of the tale. It means you should listen to your mother, little one, for she is wiser than you.”
The half-breed glances up, almost guiltily, at her mother who gives her a fierce look that quickly softens into something gentler.
Endrea mouths ‘thank you’ in your direction, but you pretend not to notice. If she would stop her daughter from irritating you, that is all the thanks you need.
And, thankfully, Inalia does a much better job of reigning in her boredom after that.
The rest of the day passes quickly, the forest giving way to yet more forest but soon enough you can hear the whispers of civilization on the wind.
In that time, you have done a lot of thinking. Namely, about the conversation you shared with Leroy the previous evening and its aftermath. Though you are loathe to admit it, it is clear that the portly merchant’s input holds a degree of relevance to your goal. His insight and infuriating empathy have led you to speak aloud that which you have hidden for so long.
Not because he holds the answers you seek, or beliefs worth adopting, but if nothing else than because he stands in opposition to you and is not afraid to challenge your words. Not that you have given him a reason to be afraid, of course.
You do, in the end, conclude he may be worth keeping around.
Weaving a quiet spell you send Inalia and Endrea into dreamless unconsciousness.
“Leroy, halt.” You command, riding Arma in front of his cart to give him no other choice but to stop.
“Vindaruil, what is it? Is something the matter?” he asks, confused and a little suspicious by the narrowing of his eyes.
With a thought, you drop your disguise and return to your natural state. You hear his sudden intake of breath and his eyes go wide in shock.
“Wha…I…I don’t understand.” He stutters, his pupils flicking about wildly as though he does not quite believe what he is seeing.
“I am an elf. I have been in disguise. You do not need to know why.” You tell him, allowing steel and ice to enter your tone as when you commanded your underlings.
He swallows nervously and nods his head, fear filtering into his features. As it should well do.
You decide to go with the carrot first. “You have proven yourself… useful, human. When we reach Hartonville you will find reason to stay. I can offer you gold, if you desire it, and much else in exchange. More than you would earn plying your measly trade.”
His mouth flaps open and closed without making a sound, utterly lost for words. But you are patient, and you wait. Levelling with the full weight of your glare, it is all he can do to stare at the ground as he composes himself.
“Bu… why?” He asks dumbly.
“Because I am telling you to. Because I need an independent mind to challenge, one biased against me. You have shown yourself as much.” You say sternly, leaving no room for doubt.
“I… I have… responsibilities, I have a delivery, I… I…” his continuing mumbling only serves to infuriate you further, and you know the carrot has failed.
Time for the stick.
“Leroy, look at me. Look at me!” You do not raise your voice, you cast no spell, but against his better judgement the human raises his eyes to meet your own, and they stay there. Virtually unable to do otherwise after your command, not out of some physical compulsion but because of a failing of will.
“I have lived thousands of years, and I have killed billions. Do you think me incapable of ending your pathetic existence? Do you believe I would not dedicate years, a mere speck in my lifetime, to punish you if you defied me? Do you think anything you could do, or anyone you know, could stop me?” The question is not rhetorical, you are looking for an answer.
Leroy has frozen solid to his seat, shivering like a terrified child. Pathetic, but predictably so.
“Answer me.” You command after a moment of silence.
“N…n…no” he manages to stutter out, shaking his head violently as he does so. You know he is being honest; you can see in his eyes that he believes his answer.
“Good. I am not asking you to do this. I am telling you this is what will happen. If you refuse, I will kill you. If you try to run, I will kill you. If you tell anyone, or in any way reveal this arrangement, I will kill you. If death does not appropriately motivate you, then I will hunt down your son and kill him. Tell me you understand.” You tell him harshly, a thin grin rising on your face as you revel in his fear.
“I… I understand.” He replies as the scent of urine hits your nostrils.
Your face twists in disgust. “Tell me what you are going to do.”
“I… I’m going to find a reason to stay in Hartonville and… and do whatever you say.” Snot and tears run down his face as he trembles underneath your crimson gaze, and you frown.
The human is actually too scared. You see with sudden clarity that despite his best efforts he would inevitably fail you anyway, incapable of hiding his terror, unable to speak out against you as you wish.
You frown at this, for it is not how you intended this to go. You are used to intimidating hardened warriors and chosen heroes with unlikely resolve. This man is neither of those things.
With a growl of frustration, you have no choice but to resort to your magic. It… bothers you, that you have lost your way with words over the centuries. It seems your old silver tongue has blackened and rotted for lack of use.
Just another thing you have lost. Although… perhaps something that can be regained, in time.
Reaching over from Arma you grasp the man's head with your hand. He is powerless to stop you, or even flinch, so consumed is he with fear.
Once more you delve into the unpleasantness that is mind magic. The sensation of rooting through another’s consciousness is universally unsettling, like wading through a river of filth that does its best to stick to your clothes and drag you under.
But you are unparalleled in your craft, delving so deeply no longer holds the danger, or the thrill, it once did. You erase most of Leroy’s memories of your last conversation, and instead plant a more subtle suggestion that he wants to settle down in Hartonville. Sell off his wares and find a place to stay, at least for a little while. A holiday of sorts, he so deserves one after all.
You are careful, for it would be inconvenient if the man simply broke. It is always tricky manipulating memories and planting suggestions without destroying, even for you.
So fragile is the mind.
Making the suggestion sound reasonable is key, it ensures the mind does not rebel against it. Such a rebellion only ever results in two things; the suggestion unravels, or the mind does.
You allow him to keep the memories of you unveiling yourself as an elf, but beyond that you make him believe you told him out of a hatred for deceit, ask him not to share your secret and that you’ll explain more later. He of course, as a godly man, wouldn’t betray the confidence of someone that has shown him trust.
Finished, you cleanse him of the byproducts of his fear and release him. He falls unconscious as the memories settle. You feel Arma’s tail swish against your leg, and she turns to give you the side-eye.
“Cease your judgement, horse. Long has it been since I hath favoured guile beyond power. It shall return to me, with patience.” You mutter darkly, but Arma recognises your humour for what it is. She snorts in amusement, just as Leroy begins to stir.
Snapping your fingers, you awake the girls just before he startles back into wakefulness. “My! I must be more tired than I thought. Nodded off for a moment. All good back there?”
Endrea fixes him with a slightly confused but gentle smile as he turns to check. “Just fine, Leroy.”
“Ah well, almost there.” He says as he sits back straight, glancing oddly at you and Arma but giving you a meaningful nod nevertheless.
With a flick of the reigns, the cart begins moving once more and Arma continues close behind.
----------------------------------------
Archibald
Archibald stands in the empty house and runs a hand through his hair in frustration. The whole stupid day he’s spent chasing down girls named ‘Inalia’ in Athaca. It is hardly a common name, but not exactly unique either.
Bright and early he’d gone down to the census office looking for answers. Supposedly they had a register of everyone officially in the city, and though it had involved greasing a few palms, as well as dropping a few names of his ‘business partners’, he had been happy to sit and wait for them to dredge through the records.
Six painful, boring hours they’d combed through their piles of paperwork, pulling out the name ‘Inalia’ countless times. Only for them to be long dead, last names instead of first names, grown women, etcetera etcetera. And then when they had pulled a birth certificate in the right age range they had no address, no further records, no nothing.
He'd been just about ready to reach across the desk and strangle the stupid clerk, damn the consequences, when he had an epiphany. Something his master had made sure he would not forget came to mind.
‘Spare not your conscience in pursuit of your duty, all is justified before the greater good. But beware. Easy it may be to pull the wool over the eyes of men, but when it comes to their greed they are meticulous. Make not an enemy of those who count the tax, for they see all, and their inquisitiveness surpasses all others when provoked. So learned your predecessor. Do not fail me in the same way.’
Without another word, he had gotten up and walked all the way down to the tax office. They knew him well, he was a prominent merchant in Athaca with a fleet of ships at his disposal after all, and yet it had still taken not only a substantial bribe but a careful lie and far too much paperwork to access their records.
Yet, sure enough, within minutes of signing the last sheet they’d slid over a piece of parchment with the addresses of every household in Athaca with a dependant named ‘Inalia’.
There were only three, but the first two sent him running all over the city only to find children little older than toddlers. And now, at long last as the light fades through the windows, he finds an empty house cleared of all meaningful possessions.
On the one hand, Archibald is quite certain he is in the right place. Not often does a home look as though it has been burgled whilst possessing both a locked door and intact windows. No, he has seen such quick getaways before, he knows what it is he is looking at.
But whoever this girl is, she has well and truly slipped through his fingers with the elf. And her mother, apparently. Not only that, but to disappear so quickly implies a certain paranoia about discovery which in turn hints at some greater conspiracy which Archibald cannot even begin to understand.
And he so hates not knowing.
Aching, exhausted, covered in ink and dried sweat, he is reaching the edge of his patience. The idea of returning to the census or tax offices to search for the girl’s relatives, which is the only possible string he can follow without assuming they disappeared entirely, fills him with such terrible dread it makes him ill.
Unfortunately, his distaste of bureaucracy is dwarfed by his unwavering commitment, and absolute terror, towards his master.
Deciding he has at least enough for a report, Archibald pulls out the small stone tablet he hides in a hidden pocket in his jacket. It is inscribed with more familiar magical runes, and as he kneels on the rug over the wooden floorboards and places it down before him, they begin to glow a soft blue hue.
Archibald bows his head low, casting his eyes down to the floor as a spectral illusion of a tall figure masked in the visage of a snarling devil appears before him. If one looks closely, they can just about make out the pointed appendages pushing up the fabric of the hood on either side of the figure’s head.
“My lord Phobos,” he greets his master with respect, and an almost impossible-to-perceive tremble of fear.
“Athaca, make your report.” Comes the slightly garbled reply through the arcane device, spoken in flawless Torish with a surprisingly gentle voice that is neither particularly masculine nor feminine.
“The mission continues apace, my lord, but a situation has arisen. I have confirmed reports that an elf awoke from an old sarcophagus brought to the museum. From what I can gather he went with a young girl back to her home, a home that is now empty of the girl, her mother, and their belongings. I am in the process of locating relatives, but it is unclear if that will bear fruit. Requesting advice on how to proceed, my lord.” Archibald answers, keeping his voice confident and clear with conscious effort.
For the first time Archibald has ever witnessed, there is a break in his master’s composure. Their hands, which are usually held magnanimously behind their back, fall to their side. And that ominous mask, which now that Archibald looks up to it he notices seems to actively shift into an even wider grin, arcs closer to the kneeling agent.
“What do you know of this elf, the girl, and her mother?” his master asks expectantly, with an impatient ring to their voice that is rare indeed.
It causes Archibald to break out into a cold sweat under the full weight of his master’s attention. “I have tax records regarding one Endrea Ollivier Ulnorin, thirty-six, unmarried, and her dependant Inalia Serendia Ulnorin, eleven, her daughter most likely. A witness described Inalia as blonde-haired, white-skinned and with green eyes. They indicate the pair have lived in Athaca for just over ten years. This ‘Endrea’ works as some kind of public librarian, though I suspect she has not called in at work in the past three days. For the elf, I also have a description. Tall, long-white hair, pale skin, red eyes. He managed to freeze three men with some kind of magic, before knocking them unconscious. Said his name was…”
Archibald quickly reaches into his jacket pocket to pull out the crumbled piece of paper he’d written on after Reylen had told him. “… Vindaruil of the First Court of Orur-Silgoth. Apparently, he seemed quite interested in this ‘Inalia’, whilst he totally dismissed the other men, including the curator of the museum he woke up in. That is all I have gathered thus far, my lord, and there have been no reports of any sightings of an elf beyond the curator’s. The King has dismissed the sighting outright.”
His lord leaned back once more, and Archibald got the sense their eyes were staring off into the distance behind the mask. He felt it like a physical weight as their gaze returned to him, and he bowed his head once more.
“Finding this girl is now your primary objective, I will send another to oversee the Athaca operation. You are now Hound, stop at nothing to pursue your objective, even if it means burning what you have built. Be honoured, Hound, for success will ensure your place by my side in the future we are building. But fail me, and nowhere, in all the realms, will you be safe from my wrath. I expect your next report to contain her location. Understood?” Phobos dictates with absolute authority, causing the usually calm agent to physically tremble before them.
“Yes, my lord.” He manages to hiss out before the illusion fades and he can finally breathe again.
The loss of years of careful, patient and infuriating work, handing it straight into the lap of some greenhorn in exchange for what looked like a hopeless pursuit, enrages Archibald to heights he did not think possible. But still not enough for him to consider disobedience.
He has seen what happened to those who ‘disappointed’ Phobos, and he swore long ago he would not meet that same fate.
Yet thinking of returning to those mangy, duty offices full to the brim with the most anal, unlikeable individuals imaginable ensures Archibald doesn’t get up off his knees for a good while yet.