It was the latter weeks of spring by the time we set out from Liddarn again. Some of the delay was logistical. Sirs Rennin and Orland needed to be outfitted with lighter armor for a journey without horses, and which would likely run well into the heat of summer. Elana brought her own armor out of storage to be cleaned and refitted. Our whole kits needed to be retooled for a venture into true wilderness instead of a return to civilization.
Outfitting us for the journey, however, did not take so long as soothing the court into agreeing that our departure was the correct decision. In the end, it came down to this: divination and sense both agreed we needed our Great Wizard, and it followed that there was no point in having him and ignoring him, and there were enough romantics at the loyalist court to be swayed by the logic of an epic quest.
When we finally did set out, it was with all pomp and circumstance. A feast was held the night before, honoring the prince and her bravery, and us, her companions. Then, in the morning, we gathered on the stage of the great hall once more to be seen departing in honor and good cheer.
The prince wore her grandfather’s heroic breastplate, shaped and detailed like muscular pectorals and abs, emblazoned with radiant gold-colored solar disks on both the front and the back, and marked across the pectorals with twin images of priapic Strife and bare-breasted Victory, each brandishing a spear. The helmet she carried under her right arm was her own: polished steel adorned with the serpentine black dragons of the Traianum House and a golden horsehair plume on the crown. The shield she wore on her left was a treasure from the height of the empire: small, by modern standards, intricately tooled and chased and engraved to depict a spiraling procession of nine conquered kings bringing tribute to the first emperor, and the emperor kneeling at the feet of the sun god Althaeruh, and enchanted to utter indestructability. Under her armor she wore a chiton of her own signature sapphire blue, and around her shoulders hung a crimson chlamys. The sword at her hip was no hero’s weapon, just the same well-crafted but utilitarian rapier that she had worn since she had come of age.
Sir Rennin Ösh wore the same formal Iron Guard hoplite’s armor he had worn to Derrek’s welcoming feast – lightweight but strong, sculpted to resemble a powerfully muscled chest but otherwise unadorned, polished to a shining finish. He wore his family’s sword, a steel xiphos, at his hip; it was well-made, but plain, a soldier’s weapon. His shield bore the crossed-swords crest of the Iron Guard that had protected the scions of Trianum House since before they had first ascended the Rorgoth Throne.
Lord Sir Orland Borgon wore his own idiosyncratic amour: a breastplate in the domed and unadorned Handari style, with pauldrons that made his shoulders seem even broader than they really were, and a hoplite’s kilt of steel-reinforced leather panels. His circular shield bore the apotropaic face of Tal Thannuu, three eyed and snarling, the demon god of storms, popular with soldiers across the Compact but rare in the personal guards of Traianum House, and he wore his maternal grandfather’s curved kopis at his hip.
Derrek was dressed in a rougher version of the Georgi peasant’s clothes that he worn for our first journey, trading his velvet vest for leather, and his damask pantaloons for rough linen. With his wide pattern steel bracelets on his wrists, and his longsword stowed in his wizard’s chest, he looked more like a squire or henchman than a wizard, let alone one of the most powerful wizards in the world.
For my own part, I was dressed in another Vencari approximation of elven hunter’s garb, gifted to me by Elana for the journey: soft, cool linen, woven of unevenly dyed threads that gave it a dappled, shimmering look in darkening shades of green. I wore my bow and quiver on my back, my long knife on my hip, and my wizard’s claw on my right hand.
When everyone in the hall had had enough time to take in the sight of us, Elana raised her hands and gave a speech.
“My friends and countrymen,” she began. “As you all know, many obstacles remain between us, now, and the restoration of our Traianum Dynasty. Last and most necessary among them is the execution of the Usurper Aemillian Solirius, which is not possible so long as he enjoys the protection of his magical aegis. With the help of our new friend – our own Great Wizard – Derrek Rowan, we have learned that the secret to overcoming the Usurper’s aegis is a weapon buried in a hero’s tomb, deep in the wilderness. As you have no doubt heard by now, we have also learned that, if we are to use this weapon, the hero’s ghost requires that it must be we who retrieve it.”
Elana paused for dramatic effect.
“Messengers have already been sent to our friends in Georg and Handar, Namora and Naal. Soon they will know that we have evened the odds in this conflict. It is my hope, if the gods are willing and generous, that we will return to find that they have already sent reinforcements. When we return, it will be time to make the final preparations and then to step out of the shadows and into open insurrection. The Court of the Sun has named Traianum House as the rightful emperors, and we will reclaim that right from the Usurper and restore justice to the throne.”
Another pause, this one longer.
“And so we go,” she concluded. “We go east into the wilderness to seek this weapon. We do not know how long or hard the journey will be. It pains us to leave you all behind, even more than it has pained us when we have left to go by more hostile roads to less-than-certain welcome, begging for aid and support. Keep us in your prayers and we will keep you in ours. The gods will aid us, for our cause is just.”
Vencari do not cheer or applaud during a speech, but they do, after. When Elana lowered her hands, they did so thunderously. I half imagined that the room shook with the sound of them all, and I schooled myself not to wince.
Together, we stepped down from the dais and paraded to the elevator through a crowd that consisted of nearly every person in the mine. The mood was tense but hopeful – hopeful in a way that I had never seen it before. Elana stood and waved to her people, the soldiers and nobles, priests and servants, of the court in exile as the rest of us moved past her, loading into the lift carriage. A final cheer went up as the door closed behind us.
Once we were alone and ascending the shaft, Derrek pulled some small objects from his belt pouch.
“Here,” he said, handing each of us a wooden figurine carved in our own likeness and encrusted with symbols of power. “These will help hide us from the eyes of our enemy, and make it possible for me to find you if we are separated and lost.”
The figure was small, fitting easily in the palm of my hand. It was a crude portrait, but recognizable enough, and proof of both Derrek’s keen memory and artistic talent. I spent a moment trying to decipher the characters, but the light in the elevator shaft was poor, even for elven eyes, and I did not wish to seem more suspicious than curious. The Vencari looked theirs over briefly, as well, then tucked them away inside their clothes. Veralar looked longer, her face bemused as she turned it over in her hands, then finally slipped it into her belt pouch, adding it to her meager stash of possessions.
The carriage came to a halt at the surface with an unnerving shudder. The guards in the warehouse at the top of the mine stood and saluted as we went by.
We stepped out into the sun and I let out a long sigh of pleasure and relief. The grasslands of northern Vencar stretched out before us, green and gold and swaying with the spring breeze. The sky above was blue and clear, dotted with white clouds.
“Well, wizard,” Rennin said with a bit of irony, “do you care to take the lead?”
Derrek Rowan glanced at me. I merely raised my eyebrows at him. I would endure most any small test he threw at me, but reading his mind was above and beyond and I had only been included in a handful of the planning meetings.
“You know this terrain better than I do,” he said. “Take us to the Wolf River. The river will lead us west. When we come to a ford, I will take us north. When we find my friends among the Children of Enhyl, they will led us into the east.”
Rennin looked to Elana. She nodded. He turned north, and so the quest began.
Rennin and Orland took the lead. As always when we crossed Vencar overland, they stuck close by morning, then ranged ahead in the afternoon to scout for trouble, and game, and set camp. Elana and I watched for the signs our knights left for us, forming a loose triangle formation with Derrek. Veralar followed behind the three of us, ever vigilant for threats on the horizon. Elana set the pace.
It was good to be walking. The bright sun and the mild spring air were beautiful. I had made my peace with the mineshaft tunnels of Liddarn, at least as best as I could, and I was a better rider than Veralar, but I preferred the open air and I preferred my own two feet, and it was good to use them. I knew for a fact that Veralar was of the same mind. Derrek, whatever his thoughts, kept up with us without complaint.
We spoke little, that first day, but it was a companionable sort of quiet. I think we were all grateful to be free of the intense social pressures of the court-in-exile, where every word or silence was weighed and measured. We had great deeds ahead of us, challenges to meet which might require some planning that had not been covered weeks ago, but we had weeks to prepare ourselves however we saw fit.
When we caught up to Rennin and Orland, they were in good spirits, too. They had caught a handful of rabbits to augment our rations and were roasting them over a small fire. When they saw us, they put the camp kettle on for tea.
Elana sat down beside Rennin. I sat down on her other side. Veralar took the spot on the far side of Orland, leaving a spot for Derrek Rowan at my left.
We kept our dinner conversation casual. Derrek told stories about his life as a blacksmith in So’renner. Orland told stories about his youth as the son of the Vencari ambassador to the King of Handar. Elana and I listened. I knew human dialects enough to know that Derrek spoke like a man who had lived his whole life in Vencar City, but he had the look of a man of Handar, and there was a tension about him while Orland spoke. Veralar, laconic by nature, interjected little until Derrek made a point of inviting her into the conversation.
“You know, Veralar,” he said. “I saw you fight in the Imperial arena on several occasions, but I don’t recall having seen you wield that enormous sword. How did you come by it?”
To my surprise, Veralar laughed.
“The people of the arena would have loved it, wouldn’t they?” she said. “No, I didn’t have it, then. After a few years as champion, the arena lost its appeal for me, and I went north in search of new challenges. I was in western Georg or eastern Handar when I heard rumors of a monstrous satyr, a tyrant who was leading raids against the border towns at the foot of the Alsan Mountains. I was high on the northern slopes when I found evidence of a battle – bloodstains, split rocks, torn ground. In the valley below, I found the sword and a shield to match. I kept the sword on a whim.”
Derrek nodded and seemed satisfied.
“Fascinating,” he said. “Did you ever find the tyrant?”
“Yes,” she said. “The next summer. I spent the winter with a pair of Citrine Knights who were on the same quest, and in the spring we joined a party of Georgi royal guards and a delegation of elven hunters and sorceresses. We spent the whole summer skirmishing before we found his keep and were able to have a real, decisive battle. It was one of the sorceresses who killed the tyrant, though, not me. I was pinned down fighting his giant bear.”
The next day we made good time, and we reached the Wolf River in the afternoon. It was an impressive sight. Our side of the river was woody grasslands. The far side was the thick magical forest elves called the Draddial, and humans called the Wolfwood. It was thick, and dark, and green, and it reminded me of home. This was the southern edge of the territory of the Children of Enhyl. My childhood home lay on the westernmost edge.
We made camp early, and set up lines to fish, and took advantage of the river to bathe. In deference to Veralar’s modesty, we let her go first, then stand watch – blushing furiously even as she stole furtive glances back at us. Given what little I knew of Georg, I thought that Derrek might bathe in private, too, and Elana offered him the same courtesy we had Veralar. He only shrugged.
“I appreciate the consideration,” he said with a small smile, “but I lost whatever modesty I ever had by the end of my first year in Vencar. Nor did I ever relearn it in So’renner, much to the chagrin of my neighbors”
He stripped down with the rest of us.
I was accustomed, by now, to djuunan bodies, so surprisingly and fascinatingly different in proportion to llamenan: their broad shoulders and wide hips, their oversized hands and feet, the odd proportions of their arms and legs. The immense variety of colors and textures of their hair. I will even say that I had learned to appreciate their beauty.
I knew that Elana and Rennin were considered particularly attractive among their own people: him broad shouldered, strong and muscular from hours of travel and training; her slim-waisted and sinuously curved; both waxed and oiled so that they kept none of the hair that I knew most humans grew on their bodies. And, was it my imagination, or were the two of them stealing glances at each other, just as Veralar was of all of us?
Orland was a massive slab of man, broader and more muscular than Rennin or Derrek. He was more meticulously courteous than the rest of us, stripping and bathing with his back to the group, giving us all a clear view of the stunning and colorful tree tattooed across his shoulders and down his spine. His body, and Rennin’s, was criss-crossed with old scars from battles and duels.
Derrek was leaner and softer-looking than I would have guessed, with a slender waist and round hips. Unlike the Vencari, he did not shave or wax. Fine golden hair adorned his forearms and calves, and ran down the center of his chest, with a line of darkening golden-brown descending from his navel to his mons. He also had a tattoo: a circular design between his breasts that I could not quite make out without crossing the line from “glancing” into “staring”.
We bathed quickly. The late spring air was warm, but the river was still bitter cold, and the sun was setting. It would be some weeks before night swimming would be a pleasure. Veralar, Elana, and the knights retreated immediately to the camp site, where Rennin had left a fire waiting to be lit. Derrek and I dressed with the same alacrity, but lingered, our eyes toward the Draddial.
“May I ask you a question,” I said after a while. “Possibly an offensive one?”
“I won’t promise to answer,” he said. “But ask.”
“You humans have only existed for such a little while,” I said, turning to look at him. “The first generation of you was born at the foot of Mount Kashrin, what, two thousand years ago? You went out into the world, and when elves found you again, there were so many kinds of you. How is it that Vencari and Georgi and Namorans all look so different?”
He turned and met my eye, a shrewd smile tugging at his scar.
“It is true that all of us djuunan are descended from the same stock,” he said. The way he pronounced the elven word, it was clear to me that he knew its full meaning. “When we left Mount Kashrin, fleeing the ogre hordes, we all looked – to the best of anyone’s ability to determine – much as the Namorans do. And then the gods sent us the various prophets. The prophets of Shiithaia and Astennu were pale-skinned and black eyed with blue-black hair, and within a generation or two, so were most of the people who would become Illustrians. So, too, the prophets of Althaeruh and the bronze-skinned, brown-haired, violet-eyed Rasyri.”
“And Handarmen? And Vencari? And the Naalar?”
Derrek shrugged.
“That’s less clear,” he said. “I believe that Venthiir and Dalaan and Torh and the others were less invested in reshaping humanity into their own images. Esthraal and Dalthuu already had their own special children. Torh only cares about keeping the dead in the ground.”
I nodded.
“Thank you,” I said. “I have often wondered, but … well, if my old master knew, I never thought to ask him, because I knew so few other humans, then. And it seemed an impolitic question to ask the wizards of Elana’s court.”
He smiled, nodded, and looked back across the river.
“Some of them may have known,” he said. “But it is a matter as little discussed as the works of Arcmedus. It paints our gods in an uncomfortable light, and it contradicts various temple’s claims that we are the creations or children of Althaeruh or Shiithaia or Enhyl.”
We sat in companionable silence, then, watching the Wolfwood darken as the sun set.
“May I ask you a question in return?” he asked after a while.
“I will not promise to answer,” I said, smiling.
“What is it like being the only elf wizard, perhaps the first ever elf wizard?”
My smile faded.
“Lonely,” I said. “Most of the wizards I have met so far see me as a novelty more than a peer. And most elven sorceresses find me disturbing for reasons they cannot articulate. I am fortunate to have our prince as a patron, and have been chosen by my few friends in the rebellion well, but … I work in the Liddarn labs at hours when they are used by few others, and I have given up trying to make more friends among the llamenan here than I already have.”
“You have my sympathy,” he said, sounding sincere. “Being one of the Great Wizards can be much the same. My … our … the Usurper … was powerful enough, politically, that his magical might seemed a natural extension of that to most people. But I … I was no-one from no-where. A Handari bastard and exile. My power, and that the unlocking of Illustria’s secrets was my deed, not his, was a contravention of the supposedly natural orders of the Obsidian Cabal and of Vencari nobility.”
I nodded slowly, adding these facts to the few real things I knew about Derrek Rowan.
“I do not think many, at least in Elana’s court, know you are an exile,” I said, slowly. “I did not. I know that my own master withered under the weight of that rejection. I do not imagine, though, that your apparent thriving means it hurt you any less to have been cast out. And now you have been driven from a second home, because we came to beg your aid. I’m so sorry.”
The look he gave me was more open than most: appraising and interested in a new way.
“Thank you,” he said. “Most have forgotten. That was a scandal of fifteen, twenty years ago. And you are right, I have thrived. But, yes, you are right, too, that it still hurts, sometimes.”
He sighed.
“I bear a bastard’s name because my father saw my green eyes and refused to acknowledge me, claiming his wife had been unfaithful and given birth to a magical changeling.” He gestured to the scar on his face: the pale white line in his tanned ruddy skin that helped make him one of the most inscrutable people I had ever tried to read, and which I had heard many in the court describe as ruggedly handsome. “This was given to me by my brother, when we were both just children, using a knife given to him by some adult who had coated the blade with poison. I lived, obviously, but I remember nothing before that day. What I know, I have learned through divination.”
Such an utterly cruel rejection of a child. My heart went out to him. And, as the daughter of a people whose sons die too young and often, I could not imagine such hate and wastefulness.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
I think he tried to smile, but I was sitting on the scarred side of his face and couldn’t quite tell.
“Come on,” he said. “The others have probably made dinner by now.”
< Previous Chapter | Home | The World | Next Chapter >
Thank you so much for reading!
New chapters drop every Sunday morning barring unexpected circumstances. New maps and art drop when I finish them, any time except Sunday morning. For the inside scoop, other stories set in Dathl’lyr, access to new chapters six weeks before they go public, and/or a look into all the other things I do, please consider joining my Patreon campaign! Don’t like Patreon or just want to support my work? Drop a tip in my jar over at Ko-Fi!
Leave a Reply