Morning came quickly, and with it, the dawning reality of his position. Ashyn Rune was captured. He looked down at the clothes he was wearing. His armor was gone. His knapsack with all that he had taken from the Onyx Tower was gone. His bow was gone. His skinning knife, too. Ashyn was defenseless.
Even his cat Ginger was gone. Did the feisty feline survive? Last he saw, the bull flung it into the night, and then nothing. No crack, no thud, no cry of pain.
The one thing they had not taken from him though was the single braid of platinum hair. It remained, attached to the bracer on his wrist. For how long, he couldn’t know. Still, he would not be deterred. This was what he wanted. Not necessarily in this fashion, but he had accomplished what he set out to do. He was here, and if he was here, Julietta had to be here too! All he needed was a way to find her, a way to escape his confines, and then a way to get out of a mythical hidden city.
He would figure out what direction to go once he had her and how they’d escape a legion of Ferhym who were hell-bent on the destruction of them both . He had to outwit some of the best known trackers on the continent and survive the magical prowess of the Druids. All while having almost no connection to magic and towing along someone who was blind.
No problem.
Suddenly the cage jarred. Ashyn grabbed the nearby bars to hold himself upright. A hand lanced out of the opposite cage and locked around his wrist tightly. Ashyn looked over in surprise.
Uriel had his arm in a vice-like grip, his crusty cracked nails digging into Ashyn’s tanned flesh. “Time to go to your fate, Blood Wizard!”
Uriel let go and Ashyn pulled his arm back quickly. Uriel smiled wickedly at him with filthy yellow teeth. “I’ll be listening for your screams.”
Ashyn ignored him as he noticed that they were rising. The wizard looked up to see vines wrapped around the four corners of the cage and they were slowly slithering back up the craggy rocks to the world above.
Druids.
In reflex of the thought, Ashyn flexed his once wounded forearm. It had taken weeks to heal, and now, like his stomach, it too bore a bright pink scar against his dark-toned flesh. No, he wasn’t fond of druids.
Ashyn watched as another set of vines slithered like snakes to the other cage, latched on, and pulled it upward as well. People in that cage whimpered and cried. Ashyn could only guess at the horrors these humans were going through in order to achieve their reclamation.
They blamed him for it too, just as Xexial said they would. Blamed him for abandoning them. He understood. He felt like he abandoned them. Soon the first signs of more than rock crested over the edge.
He was in a glade. Rolling green plains stretched out before him, for what maybe a mile, perhaps two. Beyond them, he could make out a cliff-face, how high it was he wasn’t sure at his distance and vantage, but he recognized the massive trees that grew above it. They were the sequoias. He looked back and forth along his horizon. It was all the same. The glade boundary always ending in a rocky wall with the massive timber sentinels standing watch high above.
Ashyn laughed darkly to himself. How close did he get and didn’t even know it? How long had Jenhiro skirted him around his destination? A day, a week?
Ashyn turned around to see if the cliff face continued all the way around. He gasped. Dozens upon dozens of buildings lay before him. They averaged one or two stories in height built from the woods around him. The small squat structures were naked. Devoid of any kind of paint or varnish, the wood on most of the homes was beige to dark grey.
All of the buildings had thatched roofs, much as he had seen growing up in Bremingham. These thatches were made from branches instead of the traditional hay. The roofs were flat, not arched, and Ashyn knew growing up that a flat roof with no way to dispose of running rain water often leaked heavily or even collapsed under enough weight.
He could see here that it was no different. After the storm passed through, a number of elves, and what he assumed were skewers, were busy rebuilding at least twenty roofs.
Ashyn assumed that the hidden Elven city of Feydras’ Anula would have buildings, but what he didn’t expect to see was what they surrounded. Looming high above all the buildings was a single elm tree.
Its size defied everything Ashyn knew about the deciduous tree. Growing up on the outskirts of the woods, and even having a small copse of elms by his house in Bremingham, the tallest elm he had ever seen was no more than one hundred feet. This one put all of those to shame. In fact, Ashyn was positive that it was even larger than a sequoia. The elm before him had to be almost four hundred feet tall, with a trunk at least forty feet in diameter.
Like other elms he had grown up with, the elm supported a canopy like an umbrella over the entirety of the city. Since it was spring, the leaves were bright green, and even from where he was at he could make out small purple flowers dotting the lush crown. The wizard had no doubt that this was his destination, and now he understood why they were called the Council of Elm.
Over one hundred feet up the tree he could make out a gnarled knot that was twice the width of the trunk. It looked that at some point in the tree’s life it must have been diseased or struck by lightning, and then continued to grow resulting in such a natural deformation.
Within that warped ball of wood, Ashyn could see an alcove cut into the tree. Winking lights flickered inside telling him that was where the council oversaw their people.
He could just make out a series of steps carved into the tree from the alcove circling downward.
Just then his cage shuddered to a stop. Three Wild Elves stood before him.
Like Jenhiro, and the branch commanders he had seen before, these elves wore nothing but loin clothes to cover their genitalia. The females wore bands of leather to hold down their breasts.
All across their skin was their woad, paintings on their flesh that seemed different from one elf to another. Today their woad was white, and Ashyn hoped, like Jenhiro, it meant that these elves were not part of the wizard hunters. For those that had attacked Czynsk had worn red and brown like the blood of an animal.
They all held their spears, and he could see the deer hide quiver of javelins on their backs.
Ashyn watched as the wooden bars warped and bulged, creating an O from what had once been tight, straight bars. The lead elf beckoned him forward.
Ashyn did as he was bade, but he looked around for where the druid may be. He didn’t see it. Neither had he seen the druids right away when they created the fog that descended upon Xexial and himself in the lowlands, nor had he ever seen the one that controlled the Bristle Wolves that attacked him and his sister in the fields.
His forearm tightened once more at the thought, but he also grew curious at that. At what range could they manipulate the tendrils of magic? How far could they beckon to it and it answer? Ashyn’s training, the use of magic had always been directly at the source, him. All magic flowed through him and he focused it elsewhere, well in theory anyhow. The only thing he had been extremely skilled at was using fire, and for some reason he had very good control over wards.
Even then, the farthest he had ever propelled fire had been no more than fifty feet. As Ashyn looked around, he could see no druids, which meant their range went much farther.
The trio raised their spears to Ashyn’s chest. If not for his predicament, Ashyn might have smiled at the sight. Normally when pointing a weapon at an adversary it was level, or lowered. These elves were almost twenty inches shorter than he was. Most of their spears rose above their heads to make it level with Ashyn. Still he knew how talented the Ferhym were with those spears and the humor was quickly lost.
The leader motioned with his spear to head towards the tree. Ashyn knew what he wanted, and he obliged. The only way he was going to be able to find Julietta was to look for her, and he couldn’t do that standing in front of the cage. Ashyn headed towards the great elm.
Behind him he could hear Uriel heckling him every step of the way.
~ ~ ~
It didn’t take long for Ashyn to see the pond that Uriel had mentioned the night before. It was where his escort was leading him.
As Ashyn passed down the narrow fairway he looked at the Ferhym in their natural environment. He was surprised to see that they weren’t all training to be killers, and that there weren’t daises with elder Wild Elves preaching about skewers and the need for balance. In fact, everything that they were doing appeared rather normal.
The males worked in fields, tending crops, or herding elk, while the females busied themselves in their domiciles, cleaning, cooking, or making wicker objects of use. What surprised Ashyn immediately, perhaps due to his lack of experience with the opposite sex, was that all the women were topless.
Ashyn felt his ears flush red as his eyes fell to one female’s breasts. Flustered he quickly looked away at anything else he could find, something else he could learn.
He wondered why these females were topless while the ones he saw on the battlefield and even behind him had their breasts covered. Was it something to do with station? Was there the rank structure amongst the Wild Elves? Upper class, lower class, poverty, and such?
Curious at that thought, and thankful for the mental diversion amongst seeing so many half nude females, Ashyn tried to categorize the town while searching for his sister.
Aside from those few skewers who were rebuilding the damaged roofs, there were no others in sight. None visible tended the livestock or tilled fields. Ashyn had no idea where they could all be, unless there weren’t as many as he thought.
A cold feeling entered the pit of his stomach. What if Julietta isn’t here? He hadn’t encountered her in the woods after all, but out in the fields. What if they were scattered amongst the Shalis-Fey? Then he might have gotten himself captured for nothing.
He pushed the dismal thought to the back of his mind. It was too soon to think like that. He hadn’t even been awake a day yet, and by the looks of the glade he was in, there was a lot of land he was going to need to cover. He couldn’t afford to give up so soon before even trying.
He felt a sharp jab in his back, and Ashyn realized that he had stopped walking. He glared at the Wild Elf who had poked him with the spear and was surprised to see the Ferhym wither a little under his glare. They were afraid of him.
Ashyn stood up straighter and continued walking towards the elm. He wondered to what extent they feared him. He resisted the urge to rub the pricked part of his back though it stung like the dickens. He needed to appear strong.
Soon they broke away from the domiciles and a large series of ponds came into view. To the east he saw more tilled farm land growing crops, as well as irrigation channels running away from several of the ponds and into the fields. Beyond them he spotted more buildings on the horizon. To the north, and closest to him, was a brackish looking circle of water, and the land around it turned surprisingly craggy. Broken rocks stuck out in jagged lines against the filthy green water, skeletal fingers trying to grope their way out of mud.
As Ashyn got closer, he saw long slender bars of wood that ran about twelve feet into the air, ending at sharpened tips. Soon he realized that this fence ran the entire perimeter of the craggy shore. Ashyn found it curious, until he saw movement on the rocks.
They made a prison cell out of the shoreline? Ashyn thought incredulously. That made no sense. All one needed to do was jump into the water, swim to the other side, and they were free.
He watched as the bodies mopped across the ragged granite in shuffling gaits. As Ashyn passed by the bars of the cell he knew why the Ferhym didn’t fear these skewers would flee.
Hollow empty eyes looked at him through gaunt sallow faces. Atrophied limbs shook as the people tried to remain erect enough to walk by the cell to see this new skewer. They were a defeated people.
One person, a woman with shaven scalp whose hairline was so thin, there were actual balding spots, wrapped thin, wiry fingers around the bars and looked at him.
Her eyes lacked the life in them like all the others, but when they fell to Ashyn’s own, he saw a spark. She smiled. Hideous cracked teeth, black and rotten, filled her mouth through pallid, thin lips. Her mouth croaked hoarsely, “Meat.” She waited and whispered again, “Meat.”
“I have nothing to give,” Ashyn told the woman apologetically.
Arms so emaciated that Ashyn could actually see her bones tried to shake the bars. He noted how they didn’t budge. “Meat!”
Ashyn shrugged. “I cannot help you.”
Narrow, threadlike fingers reached out for him. She growled as she grabbed the tattered fabric of his small clothes. “Meat!”
That spark in her eyes that Ashyn thought might have been hope turned wild as she ripped at him. Her shattered teeth chattered, and she leaned her face between the pikes and distended her jaw trying to get at him.
A spear flashed by Ashyn and the woman howled. Ashyn stumbled away from the woman suddenly. He looked down to where she had been holding him, and he wanted to vomit. Her hand was still gripping the fabric of his clothing. Yet past her wrist there was nothing. Just a well of red seeping out of from the gripping hand.
The woman grabbed her forearm staring at the stump where her hand had once been. “Meat,” someone said from behind her.
She turned and looked away from the Ashyn who followed her gaze. Another person looked upon her through deadened eyes now flickering with something feral.
“Meat,” another voice said from behind him.
The woman backed against the bars hissing and spitting at the men, as blood poured down her arm. Ashyn looked back to the guards expecting them to do something.
The one who had severed the woman’s arm prodded his spear forward once more at Ashyn. The boy quickly moved away just as he heard the weak men fall on the even weaker woman. Her screams turned into a gurgle. Ashyn distinctly heard the wet squelching sounds of tearing flesh. His stomach roiled and he quickened his pace.
Right behind him, her own people were devouring her. All because they saw her blood and the elves did nothing to stop it. He had learned about the Wild Elves from Xexial, but not this.
“Maker help me,” Ashyn whispered as the reality of his predicament settled on him. How had Julietta survived this for so long?
They pushed him along the perimeter of the piked fence until he reached the other side, and he found himself standing at the base of the massive elm tree. So close to it now, he found its sheer size unfathomable. It was an Elm. An Elm! The sequoias were large, but an elm tree? The one that dwarfed him now looked just like any other elm he saw as a child except for the fact that instead of a four-foot base he was looking at a forty-foot wide trunk. And in that trunk were carved steps no wider than ten inches circling upwards. The Ferhym behind him pointed with his spear.
Ashyn looked from the elf to the stairs raising his eyebrows. “You want me to climb that?”
The Ferhym eyed him with dark orbs and brought the spear forward sharply. Ashyn raised his hands. “Okay, okay.”
The wizard looked back at the narrow stairs and then upwards. He could see the thick knot way above him. Ashyn was not afraid of heights, but looking at the narrow path before him, with no rail on his right and nothing but rough bark on his left, he knew it would be a straight drop to the earthen floor if he stumbled.
Ashyn eyed all the roots rising from the ground nearest the ancient tree. They were thick and sturdy, and hitting any single one of them on the way down would shatter his bones like glass.
The elf chittered in Ferhym for him to move, and Ashyn knew he was testing their patience. After watching how callously they disregarded the woman’s life just moments ago, he knew it was likely that they would kill him just as simply. Ashyn ascended the narrow stairway to whatever lay above.
~ ~ ~
The climb didn't take as long as Ashyn feared. Though when he reached the top, at the thickened growth, things looked harrowing. The stairs flared outward from the bark, and pitched him into open space. It was completely disconcerting, and he felt at any moment he was going to fall over the side. He now found himself in a most curious chamber.
Immediately Ashyn could see that the route he had taken was the only access into this carved room. There were no lifts, nor ladders, nor obvious ways to escape.
To his left, the chamber opened up before him and offered a view of the Ferhym city of Feydras’ Anula and the glade upon which it rested. To his right was the inner sanctum. Deeper within, intermittently at points in the high arched ceiling, there were openings carved into the wood.
Ashyn knew the design was to let in sunlight. The few thin beams that entered were limited. Torches aided, flickering their amber luminescence in recesses of the room.
The floor itself was the tree, sanded smooth and polished until it shone. Ashyn could see the rings of the tree within and he was amazed. They were so tightly compacted next to one and other that he knew without a doubt that this tree was millennia old.
In the center of the room there was a singular pillar, with a basin of water. Ashyn approached it cautiously and looked within. Still, tranquil blue waters reflected worn grey eyes back at him. Ashyn saw beginnings of a red beard in those waters, and even though he knew it was his reflection, he did not recognize the man within.
The cold, hardened expression his eyes now wore was not one of playful, childlike jubilance, but one of a man who had seen too many things. The ghosts of his memories rippled across those eyes in the water.
Ashyn looked away, feeling sick. He did not need to see that boy again. Did not need to see his own haunted visage. Nor did he want to see those lean features of his face, so set, so hard as if he was solidifying himself into something.
The wizard focused his gaze past the basin to a short dais. Twenty high back wooden chairs sat in a semi-circular fashion towards the back of the chamber. They, like all that he saw thus far, were naked of any adornments or colors other than the natural wood. Unlike other council chambers he read of in tomes, there were very little to the chairs that showed any kind of comfort. The wood was hard and natural, only polished smooth through centuries of use.
They sat so close together that he imagined the elves’ knees must touch, if not have their legs interlocking with one and other. He could only imagine the heat generated by having twenty bodies so close together.
Behind the chairs, against the long expanse of carved wall, Ashyn saw a relief. It took up, perhaps a quarter of the length of the wall, its true measurement hard to decipher due to the curved nature of the chamber. Entranced, it occurred to him what he was looking at. This was their library. This was how their stories were conveyed. It was their history.
There were great monuments to the smiting of the chief enemies of what the elves considered balance. Ashyn saw dragons. He saw strange monsters that were clearly sentient by their garb and weaponry. Ashyn noted creatures of darkness and death. Carved in remarkably dazzling displays of action and violence, the details were so acute, so real, that it reminded him of the Rheynnaus’ chamber in the Onyx Tower. This was a place of reverence for the Ferhym. A place where they honored the accomplishments of their ancestors.
Ashyn turned to regard his entourage. They watched him quietly, though they looked slightly more at ease now that he was up here. Was it because he had nowhere to go? Or was there something else? Perhaps protection from magic, wards, or glyphs that he couldn’t see? With his attunement to magic in such a state of flux, he couldn’t feel anything like he used to. He couldn’t even feel the threat from the Ferhym as he had in the past.
Ashyn looked back at the relief certain he had missed something. There must be wards of some sort. The elves had feared him up until this point. What would cast them at ease so readily?
The young wizard moved around the high-backed chairs and examined the exquisitely crafted artwork closely. Each scene depicted was of an elf viciously slaughtering a skewer. Ashyn was amazed to see so many creatures he hadn’t even known existed.
As he searched, he found himself looking for the bovine hunter that had harassed him for weeks. He didn’t see any such a beast present. Perhaps Jenhiro will now earn a place on this wall, Ashyn thought. The wizard was certain that they wouldn’t let him take credit for it, even though the act gave him no comfort. He hadn’t a choice he reminded himself. Ashyn had extended his hand in peace too often only to have it batted away.
Ashyn reached the end of the relief and was about to give up on the idea of wards when something stopped him. It was a very familiar image. There was a bearded man in robes. He looked larger than a human, and Ashyn could see that his canines poked up from his lower lip giving him a bestial appearance. The amazing detail of the work gave the man a strange cracked look, as if he were made of rock. In one hand he was holding a tome, in his other a long tendril lashed out from his palm. Ashyn saw this only once before. It was from Xexial on the day he died.
The elder wizard had lashed out with an obsidian-like whip of magic that severed the legs of a druid right at her knees. There had been no cutting or breaking of bone. No tearing of muscle or ripping of flesh. Just the absence of what once was. Where there were muscles, sinew, flesh and blood, now there was simply nothing. A complete line of emptiness, and a wave of unnatural cold. Ashyn shuddered at the memory. It was Destruction.
Ashyn studied the concepts enough with Xexial, but never committed to the magic. He hadn’t been ready. Ashyn knew the picture he was looking at. This was a wizard.
The image wasn’t alone. Within, as in all others, was the hero to the elves. This one was a female. She was much smaller than the wizard was, and she had ducked nimbly underneath the whip of magic. In her hand, she held what looked like a crystal. She was driving it towards his heart.
A feminine voice suddenly spoke only inches from his side, “That was nineteen winters ago.” Her words were in heavily accented Trade Tongue.
Ashyn turned and felt the color drain from his face. A Wild Elf female stood before him. Not a Wild Elf. The Wild Elf, the one he had just been looking at in the relief. The wizard killer.
She was very short. His chin almost touched his chest as he looked down upon her. This elf looked similar in complexion to many of the other Ferhym females. She bore raven-colored, shoulder-length hair and copper-hued skin. Her eyes were dark, like chips of black glass, and she looked at him with sharp intensity. Those eyes didn’t resonate the usual hate he felt, nor did they show fear. They showed him confidence and through that confidence was power.
Unlike any of the other Ferhym he had ever met however, she wore leathers. It was still scant, by human standards, only a short leather tunic that bared her midriff, and a barded leather skirt that cut off at mid-thigh. She had no brace rs or greaves, revealing tightly woven cords of muscles in her arms, legs, and abdomen.
Also unlike the other Ferhym, she wore jewelry. A necklace sat upon her breast, a string of thick amber beads. In those beads, in the Ferhym script, he could see words written, names. The name that was clearest was on the central bead. It was turned slightly downward, but he could just make out the word: Windsong.
She was different from the other Ferhym, that was clear. More so than everything else that identified that were the markings on her skin. Ashyn saw these markings many times now. A woad in various patterns across their bodies. Often it didn’t make much sense to him, just swirls and slashes, crescents and circles, or vines twined together. The colors were either in white paint, red, or brown.
But this was different. It was a deep red, almost maroon, and it wasn't made of paint that crusted and flaked. This was part of her, etched into her flesh like a tattoo. The surface was not raised, but as smooth as the rest of the coppery landscape. Even more striking to him was it looked like it glowed in the light. Ashyn almost wanted to reach out and touch it.
She was beautiful and dangerous, and oddly familiar to him. She held her spear casually in her right hand, indicating that he was no threat to her.
As Ashyn took all this in. He responded, “Funny. I’m nineteen-winters-old.” Not his most elegant moment.
Her dark eyes sparkled, “Truly? You are but a child.”
Those words rankled Ashyn a little, but not as much as the way she was eyeing him now. Those eyes were hungry for something that she knew he had. Ashyn didn’t delude himself into thinking this exotic elf was attracted to him. No, this hunger was not carnal; it was feral. “What is it you want?”
The elf’s eyes traveled across his narrow body, to Ashyn’s growing discomfort. She even walked around him, observing him from all angles. “What do I want?” she repeated coyly. Ashyn was surprised at how easily the words tumbled from her lips in Trade Tongue and how unique a Wild Elf’s voice sounded when forced to talk so much slower than their dialect usually dictated. He doubted few, if any people, were graced with hearing such a unique accent.
“Why, I want your help,” she told him.
Ashyn couldn’t help but to laugh, even knowing he was surrounded by imminent death. “My help?” He looked to the three guards one by one, his laugh apparently startling them into raising their spears towards him. “You have tried to kill me,” Ashyn fired back darkly, then added, “Repeatedly.”
The raven-haired elf nodded, “Yes. And now we need you.”
Ashyn watched as she gave a subtle head motion to one of the guards. He walked to the edge and whistled in six short bursts, forming a quick, strange melody.
“Follow me, Blood Wizard,” the elf told him, as she walked away from the reliefs.
Ashyn reluctantly did. She didn’t take him far, just off the dais and towards the edge of the compound. She stood, comfortably, at the very edge, her toes extended over the hundred and thirty foot drop below. Ashyn walked behind her and to her right, but kept a full step from the precipice.
The elf noted this. “Do heights bother you?”
Ashyn shook his head, “Just the fall from them.”
“You know what we do, yes?”
Ashyn stared out at the vista before him. The glade was a stunning sight to behold. He could see everything from this vantage. Even the cliff-faces beyond, the sequoias high above and all the Wild Elven settlements dotted throughout the glade.
She didn’t wait any longer for an answer. “We maintain balance from those that seek to skew it for power, be it personal or otherwise. We protect nature from something like this ever happening again”, she said with a flourish of her left hand to the glade before her.
Ashyn looked at her confused, “This is gorgeous. It is lush and green, and well cared for by your people. It is one of the most impressive natural wonders I have ever seen.”
The dark-eyed beauty nodded, “Now, yes. It has taken millennia to make it this way. Before that, it was a circle of devastation and blight caused by a skewer.”
The tattooed elf spat with sudden vehemence. She cursed for a moment in Ferhym, before looking back at Ashyn. “I know not how to convey the words in your tongue.”
“Then tell me in yours,” Ashyn answered back in Ferhym.
The wizard heard the three behind him shift as he spoke. The elf before him showed no surprise. Instead she nodded, and spoke in her own language. Who was this Ferhym?
“This land is a swallet. Do you know what that means?”
Ashyn shook his head no.
“Over one-thousand and six hundred winters past, a being of great power sought to destroy the Ferhym. He came and chose this spot, which was thick with the strong sequoias you see on the horizon. It was beautiful, and isolated, but it was also where we would meet for our annual summer joinings.”
Ashyn didn’t know what summer joinings meant, but still he listened. He never read this in any tomes.
“He came using powers that no one should possess. A power of wizards,” she told him. “When all of the Ferhym were in one spot,” she said pointing down at the ground below, “he destroyed the very earth beneath them.”
“Like the lowlands?” Ashyn asked, thinking of the destruction that Xexial had wrought.
She shook her head no. “Not quite, but infinitely more awful.” She gestured, “Look around, Blood Wizard. Do you see that cliff-face in the distance?”
Ashyn nodded.
“All of this actually used to sit above that face. It was a hillock that rose high over all of the Fey.”
The wizard’s eyes widened as he looked around now at the cliff face in the distance. It had to be two miles away, in all directions! Not to mention its height! The level at which it sank was unimaginable, especially if it was a hill first.
The elf continued. “Yes. There were many of us back then. We flourished. We loved nature and ignored the wider world around us. Then my people were virtually annihilated on one single day. Very few of us survived.”
“Wh-why?” he stammered. “Why would someone do this to your people?”
Her void-like eyes looked at him curiously for a moment before she answered, “Because it is in your nature. There is no logic for your kind. You have power, you abuse power, and nature suffers.”
Ashyn shook his head. Colder than he meant to, he responded, “I have done nothing to your people that hadn’t been provoked by them first.” The sting of Xexial’s death still burned in him. “I just want to live.”
“But how can you truly live when your very existence perpetuates the suffering of others? Of the pestilence you inject into the very ground you walk upon? Of the lies you spit from your venomous tongue.”
Ashyn ignored her fanatical litany. He heard it before. Instead he countered with his own question. “So this man who waylaid your existence and destroyed all this is the reason you hound wizards?”
“One of many,” she answered. “His ruination enlightened us to a very real truth. An epiphany if you will. We learned our calling.
“After my people recovered from the effects of our assailer, do you know what is it we found?”
Ashyn shook his head.
She pointed to their feet. “This tree. This single Elm survived where all the sequoias around it splintered and fell. This solitary elm was left behind amongst the tragedy of death and destruction. It remained tall, unwavering, and firmly rooted, even though the soil beneath it may have changed.
“The Ferhym learned from this tree. That though the world around us may fall to chaos and discord, we cannot. With our roots in the soil, with nature as our ally, all things heretical must be set right. To merely live life, ignorant to those who seek to abuse others, is no true life. The skewer’s unnatural, defiling power showed us that we, as nature’s servants, are here for a reason. That we survived for a reason. The spirits of our deceased did not demand vengeance. They demand balance.
“Our world is skewed, Blood Wizard. Everyday something unnatural bends the order of our world to fill their twisted devices. Dragons, wizards, monsters, and creatures of pestilence and death. They are a blight, you see. A sickness that wastes away at the land, tilting it towards darkness and decay. We seek to eradicate that skew and put the world on its right path. That is why we are here. It is our cause.”
“Pretty words,” Ashyn told her, “but how does the action of one person, no matter how revolting, condone everything you have done down there?” The wizard pointed down below, to the rocky outcropping next to the pond. From his vantage he could see a red stain on the slate grey rocks. He knew it had been the woman. And further he could make out stone forges, billowing white smoke, something he missed on his initial approach. There he could see humans hauling buckets of stone.
“Harbingers of chaos have many acolytes. Any seeking to parlay with the skewers inevitably cast their lot in with such evil. They seal their own fate with their choices; we release them from it.” The elf’s dark eyes glittered with intensity.
Ashyn knew she believed every word she said, that the men and women below were guilty, just through association whether with him, or Xexial, or even the Jasian Enclave. She’s mad, Ashyn thought bitterly. They are all mad.
“We offer those who are not truly lost a chance at reclamation. They learn how to care for and love the land. Like all children, they must first start by working it.”
Ashyn grabbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Working the land?” he repeated her words. “Reclamation comes at the price of slavery?”
“Ferhym serve nature. The reclaimed too must serve.”
Ashyn knew slavery. He had once thought himself a slave to the Jasian Enclave as a child. His salvation came at a price. A Charity Fee, which his toils of labor had to pay back. It had made him harsh and bitter to the bishop at the time. It took Xexial’s explanation to help Ashyn see that while he was indeed living a life of indentured servitude, the reasons for it were not for profit or malice on the part of the Enclave, but to keep a growing population of orphaned children under control.
What this elf before him was telling him was nothing like what Xexial explained. These people were suffering hard labor because the Ferhym didn’t agree with their ideals. Because they thought that those below were in league with skewers. His stomach rolled in disgust, leaving the bitter taste of bile on his tongue. He fought down his growing anger. He needed to know about Julietta.
“So what does that mean for the Nuchada?” He asked. “Am I to be reclaimed as well? Are we parlaying for the Spirits’ forgiveness now?”
The elf laughed at him. The sound was dark and cruel, and Ashyn knew she was mocking him. She shook her head no. “There are no terms here, wizard. You are a skewer of the foulest kind. You are the terror our people have fought beyond centuries. You desecrate all you touch. You are a poison.”
“Then why are we talking?”
The elf smiled widely at him. Ashyn noted that she had perfect white teeth. “Even though your spirit was damned the moment you came into this world, Blood Wizard, you can still save those you care for.”
Ashyn heard struggling, and he saw two guards pulling a figure up the narrow stairs. He could tell by the shapely form that it was a woman. But there was a bag draped over her head. She wore tattered white robes, so filthy they now looked beige, held together by a cinched cord at her waist wrapped around several times and now frayed at the ends. He could see that the robes liberally ripped at her leg line up to her hips. Her arms were thin and emaciated, and Ashyn felt his world begin to fall apart. How did they know?
They threw the woman to the hard wooden floor and she tumbled down with a cry of pain. Ashyn was on her in an instant, helping her sit upright. He reached behind her head and loosened the cord that kept the bag pinched tight around her neck.
Quickly he pulled the bag away from her. Ashyn stared for a moment dumbfounded as a tumble of straw-blonde hair cascaded down around her head falling down past her shoulders.
Elated that it wasn’t Julietta, yet slightly confused, Ashyn reached up and parted her hair so he could see the face that lay underneath. Worn blue eyes, in sunken sockets, looked up towards him. Ashyn could see dark freckles dancing across her face. She was older now, a woman grown, but he knew that face.
“Ashyn?” she whispered.
“Avrimae?” he responded in disbelief.
She launched upon him in a tight hug, heaving in deep sobs. Ashyn put his arms around her as well, and he let her cry. He looked up at the female elf, hatred of his own for her now burning in his eyes. How did this elf know so much about him?
Another elf walked beside her then. A male. He was taller than her by half a head and he had long dark brown hair that was pulled into a ponytail. His face, like many of the Ferhym was covered in paint, and through that paint he could see deep brown eyes staring down at Ashyn. In those eyes he could see pride and triumph.
The elf was holding some sort of tome in his hands. It was thick and heavy looking, and seemed to be made of some kind of leather binding. It definitely didn’t look to be made by the tribal Ferhym. It looked old. Ancient.
The female took it, and held it up for him to see more clearly. The cover was indeed nothing the Ferhym had ever worked with. The binding of it was aged and well worn. There were no discernable markings or words to be seen, but he knew a tome of its sort when he saw one. The Onyx Tower had many just like it.
“Here is what you will do, Blood Wizard,” she said matter-of-factly. “You will decipher this book for us, and,” she paused long enough to accept a strange shard from another elf, “you will teach us about this.” It looked like a crystal that emanated a strange, cerulean glow. The male who’d handed it to her looked as if he’d dreaded even touching it.
Ashyn gently pushed Avrimae off him. She continued to sobbing gently. He ran his arms across her shoulders in an effort to comfort her. She nodded at him, grateful, and held her hand to the back of her nose to stifle her tears.
He stood and walked back over to the female elf. Even though he towered over her, she wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. She held the book up to him.
Curious, Ashyn opened the crumpled leather binding, and gently touched the archaic yellow pages within. He recognized the harsh scrawling letters across the page. Draconic.
Though there were many markings across the page, it only translated into a single word, which he whispered, “Craetorian.”
The elf’s dark eyes were alight with fire. “What does the next page say? Just the heading, if you will.”
Curious himself, Ashyn gently turned the page. There were many words on this page, but one word lingered there boldly. “Netherphage.”
“Netherphage,” she repeated.
Ashyn looked from the tome to the crystal. Was this the Netherphage? “What is that?”
She held it towards him. As Ashyn reached out to take it, his fingers brushed the smooth crystal. An unearthly cold penetrated him instantly. It felt like he was thrust into a frozen river. He gasped. He felt this before. When Xexial had saved him from the druid.
This shard contained destruction magic.
Ashyn withdrew his hand. He tried to cover up the recognition in his eyes but it was too late. She said flatly, “You will decipher the book.”
Ashyn closed the tome. He knew now why she wanted him to decipher the tome. The Ferhym wanted to learn how to wield destruction. It was a wizard’s most coveted magic, and none but master wizards knew how to call upon it.
What the elves did not know was Ashyn had no power over destruction. He had not finished his training. Though he may have turned his back on the Wizard’s Covenant to save his sister, he would not betray his people of his vow. He knew how to read schemata. He could figure out the principles of the spell even if he couldn’t cast them. He looked down at the closed tome and then handed it back to the elf, the words of the first two pages seared into his mind. Craetorian. Netherphage.
“No,” he answered her.
Faster than he would have thought she could do, she swiftly backhanded him. Like a snake launching forward to bite its prey. His lip mashed against his teeth. The pain was instant and fierce as he felt his lip split. He could feel blood trickle from the wound.
Anger like a blazing inferno showed in her eyes, “You are in no position to tell me no skewer!”
Ashyn reached up with the back of his own hand and held it against his bleeding lip. Salt and copper touched his tongue. He had to wrestle within himself, fighting down his anger. He was here for his sister, he reminded himself. His eyes fell on Avrimae. And now her and Macky too.
Still, what they were asking him to do? What unseen horrors could these people unleash? What was Netherphage? The young wizard looked back out to the natural earthen barrier than separated the glade he was in from the rest of the Shalis-Fey. What if the tome possessed the same access to that? Or worse.
In the past, he would have thought such a thing ludicrous. Now, seeing what Xexial had done to the lowlands, hearing what he had done with the firestorm he created, it didn’t seem so unimaginable anymore. Xexial had learned the ability from someone, from somewhere. Just as Ashyn had learned his meager abilities.
Most of that came from tomes of knowledge. Vast books of spells, and scrolls of the arcane. He looked down at the book in his hands. Ancient. Who knows what devastation the Netherphage may bring?
The very words were enigmas to him. Craetorian. Netherphage. They felt archaic, born from a time so long ago that their use was now defunct and forgotten. Yet, there was something that resonated in that first word. Something familiar to him. What answers could he find? Perhaps even answers to his own injuries?
He thought to barter for the freedoms of everyone he loved. He could free Julietta, Avrimae, Macky, and everyone else. He could give the elves what they sought, and earn those he loved a quick reclamation.
All he had to do was teach them. Teach them how to use a magic that was denied to them. He could do that couldn’t he? He could teach them the art of destruction. In his heart, Ashyn knew he could learn the incantations, even if the magic wouldn’t answer him personally. He could do it.
Besides the wizards were likely hunting him now, were they not? Bent on destroying him because they didn’t count rogues amongst them. They didn’t allow Recreants. They wouldn’t hesitate in destroying him. Why shouldn’t he give the elves equal footing? No.
Ashyn steeled himself. With more conviction he thought to himself, No. If he agreed, they would kill those he loved anyway. If he agreed, it would only strengthen the Ferhym’s campaign against skewers and even more would die or become enslaved at the hands of these crusaders. Even if he tried to lie to them, the druids would pry it from him. They would find a way to get the truth from him. This was the one time where his own ignorance could protect the ones he loved.
But if he defied them, would they kill him? If they killed him, how could he save Julietta, Avrimae, or Macky?
Indecision gripped at Ashyn. In his mind he could hear Xexial’s voice, deep and powerful, telling him that there was no real choice. Death was his only true option. “Few for the many,” the old man’s voice echoed in his head.
What was his death, or Avrimae’s, or, as much as it ripped him to shreds inside to even consider, what was Julietta’s death in comparison to what the elves would do if they could wield the power of wizards?
Ashyn looked into the lead Ferhym’s dark eyes. They needed him. They wanted him. This is their chance, and he had delivered himself so simply to them. He had given them an opening, a chance to command a power they felt no one but they should have.
Ashyn did this. “Xexial, what have I done?” he whispered. Standing before this elf with her tattoos etched across her flesh, and seeing the thirst in her eyes, he knew he’d erred in deviating from his promise to his master.
He should have gone to the Seven. He should have pleaded and rallied the wizards. Now he gave his enemy a modicum of strength. An advantage against those he respected and those he loved. He did this.
Ashyn snorted then at his own idiocy. His very presence may make it worse for Julietta. His best option, his only option, was if they didn’t know she was his sister. That meant he had to defy them, even if it meant his death.
Xexial’s words were so loud in his head that he thought the elves before him should surely hear it. “Would you rather they die violently, glorifying you? Or live long lives, hating your very name?”
Ashyn did exactly as Xexial had said the day they left Czynsk. He mistook the obvious choice for the correct one. His judgment was so clouded over his sister; he didn’t see the bigger picture, until this very moment. He gave the Ferhym exactly what they wanted. Worse, he had done it from the very beginning. How many mistakes had he made in his hellbent quest for Julietta? How many people died, or still may die just for her? Or for him?
His anger fled him then. He felt empty and hollow. Just a vessel that no longer deserved his humanity.
Few for the many. He looked at Avrimae, at her blue, tortured eyes. “The few for the many,” he said aloud.
He dropped the book at her feet. It landed with a dull thud. “I will not teach you what is in this book.” Ashyn spit a glob of his blood right next to the book. It splattered against the yellowed pages. “Not now, not ever.”
Her eyes exuded fury, but her voice came out calm, “We shall see wizard. We shall see.”