Ashyn heard the screams and wild cries of the elk in the distance and he knew that his distraction worked. He just hoped it was enough for the Wild Elf to save Avrimae. He stared down at the gaur who was bent over, its head supplanted onto the cold hard ground. After several moments its amber eyes opened, and it looked up at him.
Ashyn never saw the creature look more exhausted, not even when they had battled each other. Feedback was draining Rizen mercilessly.
Rizen nodded his weary head towards the water, and Ashyn obliged him. They walked to the filthy shore and sat down. Ashyn stuck his fingers into the muck right after the gaur. It is much harder without my totem, Rizen told him wearily, but it is done.
How many did you reach? Ashyn asked.
The gaur’s amber eyes looked out beyond the water pens. Most of them. The elk are in a panic. Tell me Totem-Brother, how will what I have done to nature aid us?
Ashyn wasn’t surprised to hear that question. In fact, if anything, he was surprised to hear it so late. After Jenhiro left, Ashyn told Rizen what he wanted the Shaman to do, and the creature did it on blind faith alone. They went from trying to kill each other, to becoming totally dependent upon one and other in the span of a day. He was grateful for it too, because his alternative was to attack the perimeter fences until the druids came and stopped the magical bars from killing him.
He wanted to chuckle at fickle fingers of fate, and how their reach plucked up the most unlikely of allies, but he knew he had some explaining to do first.
I know you hate the elf that came to this cell. He was rewarded with a snort of anger. It didn’t bother Ashyn; he already knew what Jenhiro had done to warrant such seething hatred. Instead he appealed to the gaur’s own inner conflict. Like you, he made a terrible mistake. In killing your herd, he has paid a terrible price. I think he is trying to atone.
Nothing will make up for the loss of my herd, my pundit, and my life. The gaur complained.
No, Ashyn agreed. But that does not preclude one from trying does it?
Rizen didn’t answer. Ashyn knew he was thinking and thinking was a good thing. The Gaur was far from simple-minded and he wasn’t letting his anger drive him, not this time.
I believe Jenhiro truly wants to help. And in time, with a lot of luck, I think he could be instrumental in our escape.
And what would make you trust your gaoler? Rizen asked.
It was a good question, and Ashyn was not certain why he trusted the hunter. That he did gave him hope. Jenhiro had the opportunity long ago to kill Ashyn and hadn’t. To beat Ashyn like the other elves and he hadn’t. And once, when Ashyn hung in the Council of Elm like some perverse decoration, he felt Jenhiro there, watching him, conflicted. Ashyn believed with Jenhiro’s help, they actually had a real chance at saving his sister.
I understand, Rizen’s thoughts interrupted his own.
Right. Ashyn supposed he didn’t really need to explain at all, not while they were connected through water.
These droods, they have your sister? The bull’s thoughts continued.
Yes.
The gaur nodded its massive head. Then that is where we need to be. I know of the place; it was where they first studied me. Rizen let the words linger. Ashyn was certain the druids were not kind in their study, just as Brodea had not been kind in her attempt to get Ashyn to translate the tome.
Can you find it again?
The gaur nodded. But I will need rest, he added. And we will need to find a way through these bars if we are to save your sister and escape this place.
Ashyn’s gaze drifted from the monstrous form of the Gaur to the wooden poles that kept them from their freedom. You have never tried to manipulate them?
No, Rizen returned quickly. That ability is too advanced for me.
Ashyn thought about their predicament. If Rizen was unable to open the bars then someone else would have to do it. Either they would both have to be on the other side of the pens, or they would need to use a druid.
Ashyn sighed and rubbed his hand over the coarse stubble on his head. They could never sway a druid to their cause. Druids worked too closely with the council, and Ashyn was a wizard, worse he was the dui Nuchada. No druid would work with him, or get to know him on the level that Jenhiro had. They would rather die than free a skewer.
Then a thought hit him. A dangerous and terrible idea. It was three parts foolish, one part brilliant. Could he do it? Could he pull it off?
You have thought of something? the large bull remarked, still sharing each other’s thoughts.
Ashyn nodded. I need to fine tune it. I need to think it all the way through.
I know not what these images mean, totem-brother, but I know the feeling, Rizen cautioned. These ideas, they feel treacherous. They feel deadly.
I don’t think we have a choice. Ashyn projected back to the bull. We know where she is, and we know where we are. We can’t be in both.
Rizen nodded his agreement. Do not be impulsive on this, totem-brother. A lot can, and likely will, go wrong. If what I feel from you is true, you will only have one shot, and if it fails you damn everything and everyone.
Then I can’t get this wrong, can I?
Ashyn felt the bull’s eyes studying him intensely. The wizard knew he was being reckless, and that he was going to break every rule that mattered to him over the last decade of life, but he believed he had no choice.
I am going to sleep. I suggest you do the same, Rizen said quietly into his mind. We will discuss this again, after you have had a better chance to think things through.
Ashyn couldn’t argue with that. All he needed was time to sort it out and a little rest.
~ ~ ~
Ashyn was just about to drift off into his usual restless sleep when his body was ripped violently off the ground. He yelped in surprise. Hard appendages like bones wrapped around his arms and legs pinning them to his sides. He was lifted up and over, left hanging upside down by his legs.
There standing in front of him, right side up, was Brodea, Eigron, and two Exemplars.
Rizen whistled in surprise as Ashyn watched the bars come alive with wooden vines and wrap the great gaur up as well.
The vines lifted Ashyn higher so that he was almost eye level with Brodea. Behind her, he could see the druid looked angry. Nausea filled his gut. Did Jenhiro fail?
Brodea stepped into the cell just as confidently as when he first met her in the council chambers. Her copper hand reached out and grabbed his face, her sharp nails bit into his cheeks. “I hope you’ve had time to heal,” her head turned to the gaur, “and perhaps get attached to a pet?”
Ashyn didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to give away Rizen’s intelligence. The druids discounted him as a stupid animal. It was the only advantage they had, and he wouldn’t lose it now.
She stepped aside and one of the Exemplar stepped in with her. It was the one he encountered in the chambers. The one that had tried to control him.
“Tell me if our dangerous wizard friend has his powers back,” Brodea commanded sinisterly.
Swirling platinum eyes danced before him, quickly Ashyn shut his eyes.
“Oh no, not this time, wizard,” Brodea said mercilessly. “I do not have time for these games.”
Ashyn heard a startled scream from the other pen. Soon there was a commotion and then a cry of pain. Finally, seconds later there was whimpering.
Her mouth inches from his ear, her hot breath against his skin, she said, “Open your eyes or I will have Father Mactonal’s bones removed from his legs in front of you.” She continued to whisper, “And then after I have hurt him in the most terrible of ways, I will stop feeding the skewers in the pens. How long do you think they will last this time, before they eat your precious friend alive?”
Ashyn quivered with rage. She had him again! Already! “You are a monster.”
“I am a votarist. I will do whatever it takes to balance nature in this world. If that means I have to use abhorrent methods to see balance restored, then I am willing to make that sacrifice. Now open your eyes or the next sound you will hear will be the sounds of bones being pulled out of flesh. Tell me wizard, have you ever seen poultry deboned? I wonder if it will sound like that, but with screams. I couldn’t even imagine what that will feel like.”
Ashyn knew he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t do it to Macky, not again, not over this. He beat the will of the Exemplar once before; he would do it again. Ashyn opened his eyes, and she was there.
A swirl of silver gripped him and pulled him towards her like a strong current of water. It was stronger, more powerful than before, and it was insistent.
“Well?” he vaguely heard in the far off distance.
Then just as suddenly as the pull was there, it was gone. His mind reeled and his head swooned.
“He still has no connection,” the Exemplar answered. “But we are fast running out of time. The magic is there; I can see it. It is denied to him, but it is so strong.” Her voice was breathless. “It’s out of his reach. Imagine it is on the other end of a gorge. Too far for him to reach. He must have hurt his mind terribly to cause such a wound.”
“You are certain he still has no power.”
Amid the haze of spinning objects Ashyn saw the elf in front of him nod. “Yes, First Councilor. But not for much longer.”
My magic is there, Ashyn thought to himself. She could see it. It is there! Then he felt his stomach tighten even more at Brodea’s next words.
“What about the beast? Check it for a connection.”
No! No! Ashyn wanted to scream. She couldn’t unravel it, not now. They were close, he could feel it, and they were so close!
The druid interjected, “First Councilor, my peers did extensive tests on the animal, we found no indications of any kind of connection to magic, let alone any real sentience. A simpleton monster landed its hands on a powerful artifact. If anything, what branch commander Jenhiro saw from it was from the artifact not the beast.”
Ashyn watched Brodea wheel on the servant of nature. “I would trust the word of a Voïre dui Ceremeia child before I would listen to a druid again. Your knowledge has been severely lacking as of late,” she chastised before turning and regarding the other Exemplar with a polite bow. “If you would, check the creature, my Voïre?” Brodea asked, with a surprising courtesy and compassion.
“Of course, First Councilor,” the Exemplar said.
Ashyn tried to struggle in the vines to see what they were doing behind him. He wanted to look at the Exemplar. He wanted to see Rizen. Could the gaur fight off the power of her will?
Agonizing seconds ticked by before Ashyn heard her melodious voice once more. “It is as Genrus Eigron declares First Councilor. I detect nothing from this beast but a very limited intelligence, and fear. It knows fear.”
Ashyn let out a breath. He wanted to cheer. It was a small victory against the Wild Elves, but it was their first. Ashyn wanted to smile in Brodea’s face to rub it in as the Exemplar moved out of her way; instead he kept his face passive. Well as passive as he could will all the blood beginning to rush to his head. Already pressure was building in his ears.
Brodea leaned forward right in his face. He felt the druid tightening the vines against his body so he couldn’t even so much as spit at her. “If I find out you were responsible for this afternoon’s little excitement, I promise you that I will be back, but it isn’t you that I will break. It’s Mactonal.”
She turned and strode through the bars. The other elves beyond the vines retreated into the bars, which unceremoniously dropped the two prisoners to the ground. Ashyn landed hard on his shoulder. Pain raced up his nerves like lightning.
“Stop feeding the neighboring pens,” Brodea ordered, her eyes never leaving Ashyn’s. “Let them all know that their starvation is because the Blood Wizard refuses to cooperate.”
The druid nodded. “Shall I order his rations cut as well?”
“No. Feed him and the large cow well. I want his peers to see how little he regards their lives. And if the wizard is caught giving any of them food…” She trailed off.
“Yes, First Councilor?”
Brodea’s dark eyes glittered, “Cut off their hands and let them bleed out.”
Ashyn lowered his head onto the hard ground defeated. She had snatched his small victory against her right out of his hands, crumpled it up, and threw it away. He was running out of time. He needed to begin his plan.
“Perhaps it’s for the best that you are no longer with us Xexial,” Ashyn whispered to himself. “You would damn me for what I am about to do.”