Chapter II: Attack
The body had barely hit the floor when, at a nearby table, four burly men stood and drew their blades. One said, “That was my brother, wench! We’ll teach you to fool around with your betters.”
Ogador reached for his sword, but Bidmaron shook his head and motioned for the three to sit. “We sailed in on a coastal cog, and, as you can see, several of the crew have taken a liking to the Valkara.”
Stefir promptly pulled out a chair and joined the ranger. The prince hesitated, but the ranger slid a full tankard of ale toward Ogador. The prince licked his lips, removed his right glove, and downed the better half of the tankard before sitting beside the ranger.
Jessar turned to watch the Valkara. The fluid grace of her movements transfixed him.
The four men advanced abreast toward the solowen. The female warrior said, in a lilting soprano voice, “Come now, men. Let’s be reasonable. I cannot guarantee your safety if you insist on fighting me.”
The man who had spoken growled. Sabretha calmly evaluated him as he rushed her. He aimed his sword like a spear, straight for her chest.
In disbelief, Jessar listened to his friends. Ogador said, “Do you think she can take four men?”
The ranger replied, “If you’re talking about combat, my money would be on the Valkara. Just watch how she handles the guy charging her.”
How could they let her face four opponents? She was the Valkara of Prophecy. Someone had to help her. “NO!” He grabbed the sword hilt of a man sitting to his right. Unfortunately, the customer clamped a thick hand around Jessar’s upper arm and jerked him around.
Catching a glimpse of a fist flashing toward him on the edge of his vision, Jessar reflexively turned his head. Ogador’s fist swept by a whisker away from the half-elf’s nose and impacted squarely on the sword owner’s jaw. The prince calmly sat back down in his chair and finished off his beer, drawing the back of his ungloved hand across his mouth and issuing a long exhalation of satisfaction.
Jessar muttered, “Thanks,” to the prince and turned his attention back to the sword owner. “Sorry, but I really do need to borrow your sword since none of the louts in this place seem willing to come to the solowen’s assistance.” He launched his own punch at the man’s midriff, collapsing the unfortunate fellow onto his table head first. Jessar tugged at the sword again, but it still wouldn’t budge. A comrade of the doubled-over man thrust back his chair and confronted Jessar.
Without rising, Bidmaron aimed a preemptive slug at the stomach of Jessar’s new adversary. “The peace string, half-elf,” the ranger said.
Jessar found and released the loop of leather securing the collapsed man’s sword to its sheath. By the time he turned around to face the Valkara, she had side-stepped another of the attacker’s lunges. As momentum carried the new assailant past, the solowen bashed the pommel of her sword onto the base of the man’s neck. He too struck the floor beside the first man and made no move to rise.
Her three other opponents, however, now more cautious, moved to encircle the Valkara, swords held ready. Jessar whipped the helpless man’s blade from its scabbard and started toward the stage. Behind him, he heard a whisssh, followed instantly by a metallic clang. Stealing a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw that Ogador held his long sword and had struck aside a short sword aimed at Jessar’s back. Was that a tinge of red on the tip?
“Thanks again.”
“Don’t mention it,” Ogador said while Bidmaron kicked the legs out from under Jessar’s most recent attacker.
He quickly threaded the maze of tables toward the sword maiden. Other customers rose around the establishment, fumbling to release their own swords. Several moved to cut him off. He pressed on, reaching a position on the stage beside the Valkara and turning around just before the closest patron could interfere.
Back at the front of the bar, rapid strokes of Ogador’s weapon indicated that Jessar’s sword theft had escalated into a full-fledged brawl. Bidmaron also arose, drawing his own weapon.
Stefir started a deep-voiced chanting. Jessar recognized the language as ancient Solonese and fancied he half-remembered some of the words. What was the wizard planning?
As for Jessar’s half-baked plan, things certainly weren’t going as he’d hoped. Before he could help the solowen, he’d have to face his first opponent. The sword hilt felt awkward in his hand, and he had little more idea how to use it than if it were a knitting needle. Fortunately, his opponent didn’t look so eager for the half-elf’s blood now that he was alone on the stage. Jessar scowled in what he hoped was a calm, confident look.
His foe’s uncertainty gave him a chance to check on the Valkara. She maneuvered expertly, still facing the three men. At least Jessar’s position at her side prevented any of the men from getting on her right flank. However, as she wove an intricate series of blows next to him, he realized that his position also limited her sword’s motion in his direction.
Nevertheless, she seemed to take the restriction in stride. She parried a blow with a cross near her attacker’s guard. Then in a blurred motion of her wrist she whipped her blade to the left to meet her second opponent’s thrust in such a way that the flat of her vertically oriented blade tip caught the intertwined quillions of his sword. She twisted her wrist subtly again, causing the other’s blade to careen away.
Then Jessar witnessed the results of the sword maiden’s expert move. Instead of falling harmlessly, her assailant’s errant sword fouled the low slicing maneuver of the third man now on her left flank. Meanwhile, she followed through on the first man with a feint. Off balance from his earlier parried thrust, he over–reacted, taking his sword too far to his right, which prohibited a speedy recovery. She darted her long sword through the resultant gap in his guard. He stared in surprise at the slow–to–bleed gut wound left by her snake–like thrust.
Unfortunately, another customer jumped to the stage behind Jessar’s foe, forcing the half-elf to focus his attention on his own plight. Reinforced, his first adversary found his courage. In a clumsy rush, he thrust forward. As a simple function of reflex that had nothing to do with skill or thought, Jessar allowed the weight of his short sword to slice it downward like a pendulum before him. Miraculously, the unplanned maneuver knocked aside the poorly executed sword thrust. Jessar leaped to his right, and the man plummeted headlong into a wood stove and collapsed.
Somewhat pleased with himself, Jessar turned to the beautiful solowen at his side, hoping she might at least acknowledge his existence. Effortlessly blocking the concerted attacks of her remaining two opponents, she cautioned, “You won’t be pleased with yourself for very long if you do not immediately bring your sword to the defense over your head.”
Something in her businesslike tone communicated urgency, and Jessar complied. His smug smile turned into a look of shock, however, when his swinging blade contacted metal somewhere in the vicinity of his face, producing a spark that leaped stinging onto his cheek. The force jarred the hilt from his hand, and the weapon clattered to the stage. Before it could complete its fall, however, another lightning-like lunge from the Valkara skewered the fleshy underside of his adversary’s sword arm. The injured customer yelped. His arm failed to obey his will and fell uselessly to his side. Meanwhile, the solowen’s blade was already back at work, shielding a flurry of blows from both men still on stage.
Blushing, he muttered, “Thanks,” and bent to recover his sword. Pain shot up his back as he straightened. Had he pulled a muscle? He turned his attention back to the Valkara at his side.
The sword maiden fought on, sweeping her blade in economical but effective strokes timed to keep both men on the defensive. “Look after yourself, Half–elf, whoever you are. These men are mine.” She forced her opponents back a step to the edge of the stage.
Throughout the bar, knots of customers marked individual fights within the spreading fray.
Ogador held his own against three customers, one wielding a cruelly spiked morning star. Something in the way that Bidmaron stood against Ogador’s back suggested the two were accustomed to fighting together. All told, half a dozen men and a scimitar bearing half–elf ringed the odd pair.
At least two other fights had broken out closer to the iron–shod bar. Even those who weren’t fighting stood with drawn weapons, warily scanning for trouble. Many patrons backed slowly toward the exit.
Jessar had only a few moments before he’d be in trouble again. Several men were making their way toward the stage. They stared at him with determination. Any one of them, he now realized, could probably finish him quickly. How had he gotten himself into this mess? An unbidden memory from his hidden past flashed into his mind: “Thinking with your glands,” he could almost hear an aged elven voice lecture him, but who was it?
He looked toward the wizard hopefully. Whatever the chronologist was cooking up had better come soon. With the din in the establishment, Jessar could no longer make out the wizard’s words. Surrounded by a scintillating green aura of pale light, Stefir commanded a wide open clearing, with patrons shoving to get even farther away. A table knife floated an arm’s length over the chronologist’s head. At chest level, in his left hand, he spun his staff, now recalled from wherever it had been, in a dizzying swirl. Still chanting arcane words, he flung a pinch of a black dust, iron filings perhaps, into the air with his right hand. The dust streaked to and clung on the table knife like metallic hairs.
Just as the closest man stepped onto the stage, the wizard held his clenched right fist straight out before him. Bellowing the words, “Lavek Idron,” he jerked open his hand. Green sparks leapt from the tip of every splayed finger to his staff, transforming the gnarled rod into a glowing green blur as arcane energies accumulated. Finally, when it had become a pulsating, painfully bright luminous sphere, he ceased his staff’s motion. The collected energy arced from the wood to the hovering knife above in an ozone and thunderclap-generating bolt. The knife suddenly plummeted, blade downward, radiating secondary luminescent green tongues throughout the room.
Everywhere, voices at the ends of those green bolts cried out in sudden pain. One of those voices belonged to Jessar. A cold burn jolted his hand. All around him, weapons clattered to the floor. The magical power striking his blade surged into his arm, which jerked uncontrollably like a marionette’s. His hair also stood at attention and his mouth tasted metallic.
All he could think about was dropping his weapon. As he let go, his arm ceased quivering and his hair slowly relaxed against his head. Examining his hand, he found no damage, but he shuddered in memory of the wracking pain. Only a sharp pang in his lower back remained, together with a surprising moistness. He hadn’t realized he’d been sweating so badly.
Throughout the tavern, silence reigned and all stood motionless.
“Enough.” The wizard stood under an ozone-laden cloud, pivoting slowly and pointing his staff around the bar. The green sparks had ceased. Beside him buried two knuckles deep in the table top, the heat-deformed knife quivered. No trace of the iron filings remained. “Begone from this place unless you wish to sample my wrath again.”
Most customers retrieved their fallen weapons and hastened to file out. The others glanced suspiciously at their blades and simply abandoned them, moving at the fastest pace their shattered dignity permitted.
Only the Valkara still held her own sword. With its flat, she slapped the cheeks of her opponents. Panicked and flushed with embarrassment, the two deserted their two unconscious friends and ran from the tavern. The wounded men labored after them, clutching their bleeding injuries.
Smiling and sighing his relief at surviving his first combat, the half-elf turned toward the sword maiden. Ogador, Bidmaron, and Stefir approached the stage just in time to hear the Valkara exclaim, “Half-elf, I had things well in control. Your interference was certainly one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in my life.”
Smile evaporating, Jessar deflated like a collapsing bellows. However, he at least managed to match her harsh stare.
“With a life of nine thousand years, that’s an accomplishment,” the black man pointed out.
“Must you always make my age such a big issue?”
The ranger shrugged. “Gentlemen,” he said, sweeping an arm toward the sword maiden and bowing slightly, “in deference to the exquisite Valkara’s status as the eldest among us, may I present Sabretha, last and undoubtedly greatest of her noble warrior people.”
Stefir inclined his head and closed his eyes briefly. “Bidmaron, I am not certain that Sabretha pre-dates me—“
Sabretha tossed her long golden hair in a way that suggested she was accustomed to being the center of attention. “I am not some artifact for academic debate.”
Ogador, in a manner and tone Jessar knew the prince reserved for potential female conquests, said, “Fair Sabretha, I must disagree, for you are an artifact of divine loveliness.” The prince grasped her sword hand.
Rolling her eyes, she attempted to extract her hand, but Ogador forced it to his lips for a gentle kiss, revealing that a strip of black cloth was wrapped around the setting of her star ring. Fuming, she shot him a look fraught through with the chill of the very Ice Cliffs themselves.
“What, gracious solowen, led to the altercation?” the prince asked.
“The lout tried to kiss my hand.”
Stefir stifled a chuckle with only partial success.
Jessar didn’t know whether to take it as a good sign or not when she gave him a plaintive look and asked, “Why are males such slaves to their passion?”
That was a poser of a question. While Jessar wondered what to say, Bidmaron offered, “Sabretha, if you would wear clothing that is not so revealing, men might find it easier not to be so forward.”
Bidmaron was right — about the revealing clothes, at least. Her suede tunic, if it could be called such, had less fabric than the average lap cloth. The garment’s back covered only the area between her shoulder blades before wrapping beneath her shapely arms. Like two pennants, the front draped over her shoulders and fell loosely over her breasts, terminating in a knot secured by a silver brooch just below her navel. Complementing her tunic was a pancho-like short cape fastened together by a length of silver chain at her perfectly sculpted neck.
Shockingly beautiful, she stood with her hands on her hips. Graceful and long-nailed fingers covered the woolen fabric of her low-slung, loose skirt from its top to its hem. A star ring glinted on her right hand, and a fragile-looking gold chain encircled her well-formed ankle. Hard-soled leather moccasins completed her ensemble.
Gulping involuntarily, Jessar thought that if he’d found her sitting in a tavern, he might well have been tempted to kiss her hand just as the unfortunate man lying on the stage had done. Thinking of her hand reminded him of the black strap. Why did she cover her star ring with the black band?
Noticing Jessar’s appraisal, she scowled at him. “I just can’t see how my attire has anything to do with it.”
Jessar took his turn acknowledging his introduction to Sabretha. “Nor do I,” he offered, failing to recognize until the sword maiden’s gaze turned to disgust that she was not a female to be patronized.
The prince shot Jessar a nice-try look.
Bidmaron continued the introductions. “Sabretha, the distinguished solon gentleman, as you no doubt noted, is a powerful wizard, the Chronologist and currently serving at the pleasure of the West-realm crown as the court wizard and principal advisor. May I present Stefir?”
Sabretha returned the masculine gesture of respect rather than the curtsy customary for females. “I am honored. Your magic,” she said, gesturing expansively at the empty lounge, “probably saved several lives.”
Stefir adopted a disingenuous oh–it–was–nothing expression. “Thank you. A minor spell, actually. By the way, I once knew one of your sisterhood very well long ago. I even met you once -- it was during the Tournament several hundred years ago. You fought in the exhibitions, if I am not mistaken.”
She smiled charmingly at Stefir. “Yes, a great man to whom I owe much helped me to enter the games. But this year, I have a sponsor nation and hope to be in the competitions rather than the exhibitions.”
“Sabretha, this gentleman,” Bidmaron coughed lightly, “is Ogador, heir prince of West-realm and Governor of Walanar.”
Ogador blessed the Valkara with his best hope-to-get-to-know-you-much-better smile. For her own part, Sabretha glared at the prince over her slightly upraised shoulder. It was her turn to acknowledge the prince’s introduction. “I should be delighted,” she said neutrally. “You wield a blade well. Perhaps one day we’ll spar? I don’t suppose I could be so lucky that you will be a contestant in the Tournament this year? I shall win.”
Unphased, Ogador replied in silken tones, “I am certain you shall win. Your sheer beauty alone will smite your foes. I regret that, as a delegate to the Council this year, I am barred from participation.”
Sabretha again rolled her eyes in disgust, but Ogador moved on with the next introduction. “Jessar, as you’ve probably deduced, this is Bidmaron, who the Queen would say is the best ranger in all of West-realm. He is also my old friend at the Academy and tent mate in the Border Scouts.”
“I’ll look forward to the tale of how you located Sabretha.” Jessar gestured his respect to the ranger.
“The Queen is a kind woman who is prone to exaggeration, no offense, Ogador. Besides, if she knew half the women – I mean things – I’ve done, she’d probably never let me back in the palace.”
“Sabretha and Bidmaron, this is Jessar, Foreign Minister of Galbard.”
With a surprisingly warm smile, she commented, “Yet another statesman? I might have guessed.”
“If by that you mean I’m no swordsman – guilty as charged. I’m not really much of a statesman either. I inherited the post from my mother, and, trust me, it’s far from an honor here in my country.”
“Maybe something can be done about your swordsmanship,” she suggested.
The ranger bent to retrieve the short sword Jessar had used. “Glad to meet you, Jessar. With what your two friends have told me about you, I feel like you’re already a good friend. Take this blade, you’ve earned it,” the ranger said, offering the hilt to Jessar.
Ogador nodded. “I’ll find you a suitable scabbard shortly, Jessar. The lovely solowen is right, Jessar: It’s time you learned the ways of the sword. Consider yourself my student.”
Sabretha nodded. “Actually, I was thinking I’d teach him, but perhaps the prince would do better. It has been a long time since I used a short sword.”
As delighted as he was to be the prince’s student, Jessar couldn’t help a sigh, contemplating what it might have been like under the Valkara’s tutelage.
“All of this talk about swords reminds me. Sabretha, how were you able to hold on to yours during the spell?” Ogador shot a nasty look at Stefir.
The wizard said, “Obviously, her blade must be ensorcelled. Sabretha, if you do not mind my asking: What are its properties? May I examine it?”
“For now, I choose not to reveal its magic, but you may see it.” She drew her long sword and placed it hesitantly in the wizard’s hands.
Stefir turned it in his hands, raising his eyebrows. Silver wire spiraled around the hilt to form a grip. The pommel was a sphere of blue–tinged metal. “A pneumium pommel, the classic mark of an enchanted weapon. There is a strange pattern to the fuller I have not seen for a long while.” Stefir ran his finger down the trough in the middle of the blade.
Ogador leaned eagerly forward and held out his hand. “Sabretha, may I?” She nodded uncertainly, and Stefir handed the weapon to the prince. Ogador repeated the wizard’s critical inspection, caressing the blade and guard wonderingly. He leaned over to Jessar and pointed at the blade’s groove. “Jessar, look closely at this blade, for you may never see its like again. See the shifting pattern in the fuller? It isn’t embossed, as is often done today, sometimes mimicking this very pattern. This is how that dagger from your gate once looked. This masterpiece is the finest example I’ve ever seen of the ancient smith’s art.”
“Pattern welded?”
“I see you paid attention, Jessar. Yes, and I’d bet my inheritance the same swordsmith crafted this at his prime. Such metallurgical techniques are lost to us now. In the days of this weapon’s forging, there were only two kinds of sword: Those of excellent quality, like this one, and those that barely sufficed. Wielders of the inferior weapons occasionally had to pause in the middle of combat to straighten their blades. Today, smiths can fabricate alloys strong enough to withstand most rigors of combat. In fact, the best weapon smiths in the Swordland can produce swords as strong as this one using Rudal’s weapon steel. But they have never made one that will hold an edge like these pattern welded blades of old.”
Ogador sighed and pointed to an etching on the center of the guard. “Ah, see, I was right. There is the craft mark on the écusson. From the way the cross is fixed to the tang, I’d guess the master weapon smiths near the end of the Sacred Age crafted this heirloom. Though many lesser known smiths copied this particular craft mark, I believe this is a genuine Vendunel. He was the elven weapon smith of great renown I told you about while we were walking here. He perished in the Sacking of Saldevar just one century before the Dooms.”
The prince reached out to Sabretha, which made her inexplicably nervous. Her body went rigid, and she didn’t relax even when it became apparent he was only reaching for a silvery–black, coin–sized spherical stone. It hung from her scabbard by a silver chain. Ogador smiled briefly at her nervous reaction and clasped the gemstone experimentally. “Yes,” he said excitedly. “Hold this in your hand, Jessar.”
It was unnaturally warm. “That is hematite, warriors’ stone. Even in its natural state, it has some virtue against wounds. But the ancients amplified these effects somehow. Knights in training or those in competition adorned their sheaths with life stones like these. Touching one of them to any wound inflicted by the attached sword stanched all bleeding. And the wound healed without a scar. However, if the chain ever parted or the blade sheathed in another scabbard, the healing token lost its powers. I have heard of such marvelous weapons, but we lost most of our heirloom swords in the Fahor Armory when the Emperor conquered that ancient stronghold. You are fortunate, Sabretha, to wield such a weapon.”
She sheathed her sword in a swift graceful movement. For the first time, she looked at Ogador with something other than disgust. “You are correct, Prince, Vendunel crafted it in his own smithy. Ralia, the solowen enchantress who fell defending the Sacred Hall in the Fertility Massacres, enchanted it. And the stone functions just as you described. The sword came to me at the hands of an apostle of Arien on the Day of Dooms. I have borne it ever since.”
Jessar felt even more inadequate. He had tucked his first blade — which he couldn’t even use properly, a ‘mediocre’ short sword, as Ogador had put it — behind his belt, without even a sheath. Yet the Valkara held an ancient, magical long sword in a calf skin sheath bound and reinforced with brass.
The half-elf reached for the renewed spasm in his back and found his tunic soaked. When he pulled his hand away, he stared at it in confused shock: Blood covered his hand. The last thing he heard as he passed out was Bidmaron saying, “Help me get him on the table.”
On one level of consciousness, Jessar knew he dreamed, but he reveled in it nevertheless. It had to be the Dance of the Thousands he was seeing. He stood in an awe-inspiring stone coliseum, filing through the male half of the seating and awaiting his chance to pair with someone from the female half. Then time jumped forward in the dream reality. Now he and an unworldly beautiful elwen in a flowing red dress danced on the central field of honor. Again dream time leapt. He found himself bleeding from a sword wound on that same dusty field, with the elwen kneeling over him, holding his hand gently.
In the next instant his eyes opened, and he found the hand holding part of his dream at least was true. He lay on his left side on the cushioned bench in his treehome. Sabretha knelt on the floor beside him, one hand on his forehead and the other holding his right hand in her open palm. Unaware Jessar had regained conscience, she stared at his hand, a look of confusion knitting her lovely brow.
“What happened?”
The Valkara jerked, letting go his hand and yanking her palm from his forehead. “Your foolish stunt earned you a nasty wound to your back.”
Jessar started to sit up, and felt a sharp pain. A tight dressing covered his lower abdomen. “Is all this really necessary?”
“Bidmaron said it is a grave wound. A knuckle higher and you might have lost a lung.” She picked up a pouch from the floor. A faint, familiar odor emanated from the container. “Starting tomorrow, he advised I boil a leaf of this herb in water and massage it gently onto your back around the wound until the scar tissue disappears.”
“That smells like spearmint to me. I’ve never known it to have any particular curative properties.”
“Jessar, Bidmaron may be a disgusting, insensitive, chauvinistic womanizer, but he is also a competent ranger and therefore as skilled in the medical art as anyone short of the Healers themselves.” She paused a moment and continued, “Of course, I wouldn’t want him to know I thought he was competent.”
“Of course. Where is everyone?”
The brocade separating the kitchen from the common room on the first level of Jessar’s hexagonal treehome slid aside. The wizard emerged, smiling. “Jessar, is that some of your stew I smell here in your kitchen?”
“Yes. I have a few other preparations before dinner. Where’s Ogador and Bidmaron?”
The Valkara stood up next to the bench, reminding Jessar again just how short her skirt was. He fixed his gaze on her face uncomfortably.
“Bidmaron is attempting to soothe the tavern master’s fury at the damage you caused. You’ll have to leave the dinner preparations to us, Jessar. You need to rest as much as you can tonight. We have a long journey to begin tomorrow,” she said.
“What do you mean, journey tomorrow? Where’s Ogador?”
A clatter erupted below the trapdoor one hexagonal flat toward the dining table and kitchen. Ogador’s black-haired head quickly pushed the trapdoor open, and he struggled into the half-elf’s treehome. “I see you’re conscious again. Jessar, something is happening below.”
“It will have to wait a moment. Welcome to my home, Ogador.”
Jessar watched the prince’s quick survey of the dwelling. Ogador nodded as he noted how the majestic tree trunk passed through the center of the hexagonal house. The half-elf followed Ogador’s scanning eyes. The triangular wedge to the prince’s left contained the dining table. To his right beyond where Jessar lay was the chipping table for gaming. Sunlight beamed through the wide-open shutters of large windows in each hexagonal wall. Bare branches passed through canvas-lined openings in the walls and served as natural rafters for the ceiling. An occasional leafy twig sprouted along the roof. Several bushy branches concealed Jessar’s napping hammock over the parlor wedge where he lay.
“Nice place, but it was sure difficult hauling your unconscious form to the landing below. That hammock would have come in handy.” The prince’s smile faded. “Jessar, I’m very serious about something happening below. A crowd of elves was headed this way from the north. I barely managed to get inside your estate before they arrived. They may have seen me. I fear another mob scene like my last visit may be brewing.”
Jessar groaned. Only this last year had he completed repairing all the damage to the perennials from before. Shouts emerged from the grounds below, together with a clatter directly below them. Despite the pain, Jessar swung his feet to the floor and started to stand.
Sabretha grasped his shoulders. “No, half-elf, you must rest if you are to travel tomorrow.”
From the dining room window where he’d gone at the noise below, Stefir motioned to Jessar. “Sabretha, you must let Jessar rise if that is his wish. As much as it may hurt, it appears he will have to confront his countrymen if he is to have any hope of saving this estate. Silentwing has shown me that the crowd is larger even than last time.”
“Well, I still think it’s a mistake. Typical male-think.” She let Jessar stand. The half-elf turned toward her, hoping to lean on her as he walked to the westward window. She backed away with a sweep of her arms in an after-you gesture.
Struggling to keep the pain from his face, Jessar walked in as normal a gait as possible.
The prince looked concerned as the half-elf passed. “I don’t like this.”
Stefir nodded. “Nor do I.”
Steadying himself by leaning on the sill, Jessar surveyed the scene below, a knot tightening in his stomach. The only good news appeared to be that large-scale trampling like before hadn’t occurred. Unlike last time, however, the many elves crowded onto the estate pathways bore torches, even though darkness was still an hour away.
Jessar watched in horror as first one, and then another, touched torches to the holly bushes bordering the garden paths. Others tended the flames, keeping them from the hedge but permitting their progress toward the central tree supporting his treehome. Jessar started to lean over to examine the base of the tree below, but winced as stitches stretched under his left shoulder blade.
Beside him, the wizard bent over the sill. “Jessar, they have piled brush around the tree, and it looks adequate to turn this scentwood and your house into a bonfire. As of yet, however, no fire burns,” Stefir reported as he stood up.
Before anyone else noticed, Sabretha went to the window to Jessar’s left. “We must do something,” she observed.
Jessar turned at the Valkara’s words: “Sabretha, please get back from the window. If they see you, it will just make things that much worse.”
Too late. A shout of “there they are!” erupted from somewhere below. The half-elf turned back to the scene on the ground. He recognized most of his neighbors down there, but two strangers in particular caught his attention. The first was a typically beautiful elwen in a tight-fitting, randomly color-splotched, close fitting tunic and several layers of brightly colored skirts--a gypsy. As he watched, she set a brazier on the ground before her. She was not just any gypsy, but a Yitrava, a witch. The coals leaped into flaming life beneath her clenched fist.
The other unfamiliar elf wore the green tunic and brown-pocketed breeches of any other tree dweller, but he was short for an elf. In most other respects, he exhibited the common Galbardian elf characteristics: gray eyes, beardless face, pointed ears, straight white hair, a smoothly handsome countenance, and the appearance of a thirty year old man. Although Jessar had never met this elf, he seemed familiar. Where had Jessar seen a short elf before?
Then it hit him: The dagger-throwing elf earlier had been uncommonly short, and the elf’s working clothes looked exactly like those of the fleeing culprit. Whoever he was, the short elf appeared to be the leader of the mob, barking instructions to the others. “Light those azaleas. Watch the hedge.”
The short elf looked up, exposing a long scar from the corner of the elf’s brow to his left earlobe. Since elves only scar from the gravest of untreated wounds, the mark probably indicated the elf was a Border Wars veteran. “Jessar. So, you came to watch us cook your vegetables? And I see you brought your lovely sword maiden.”
Struggling both to stay back from the window and yet see below, Sabretha harumpphed behind the half-elf and muttered, “I am not his sword maiden.”
Jessar must have failed to hide his emotions completely, for the leader laughed. “Oh, yes, we heard about the fracas at the tavern earlier. I suppose there are a few less men to plague Galbard from the elwen’s handiwork. I hear you did not make such a good showing though.”
The half-elf summoned his resolve, trying not to show his anger. “No, I am not here to watch the destruction of my gardens again, any more than I’m sure peace and nature loving Galbardians are here to destroy them.”
The remark seemed to have the desired affect. Several elves paused at their work of devastation, and the crowd turned their attention to the treehome.
The leader stamped his boot to the ground, crushing a carnation. “Galbardians will do what they must. Twice now foreigners have fouled our city because of you. We will not stand for it!”
Cries of ‘Aye’ and the like accompanied the leader’s remark, and those tending and spreading the fires returned to their tasks. Findar, the elf who owned the estate west of Jessar’s walked up beside the leader and shouted, “After what happened the last time you brought that man, the wizard and his unnatural owl pet to our fair city, I can’t believe you have the audacity to bring them back again.”
All the while, the flames spread, creeping inexorably closer to the scentwood below.
The scarred elf turned to the small crowd gathered behind him. He raised his arms and they cheered. He looked back at Jessar sternly. “Findar is right. Last time, we trampled your gardens. And still you brought them back. Now you’re going to pay the price for ignoring us.”
Jessar thought back three years before. The leader had said “we.” Yet, Findar had been the ring leader of the previous attack. The half-elf scanned his memories and was unsurprised to discover that the short elf had been present, standing behind Findar the whole time. Now the short elf was the leader.
Findar nodded his head in agreement and looked at the leader. “You’re right, Ludar. And what about his guests?”
The elves hissed angrily. The leader, showing a keen understanding of mob dynamics, again raised his arms to resounding cheers, before motioning for silence. “Yes, Jessar, tell us about your guests. The elwen, who shames all her fair sex by bearing a sword, we see her, as well as the aged elf who bends evil forces to his will. But what of the man? We know he’s up there in clear violation of our laws. Does he hide in fear or is he plotting to raze our city again and rape our elwen as his vile brethren did so long ago?”
At the mention of the Great Plunder, the crowd hissed like a bottomless pit of vipers. Cries of “burn him back,” “to the Pits with Men,” and even “kill them all,” issued from around the gardens.
Feeling compelled to say something, Jessar rebutted, “But he is a prince of the West-realm.”
Stefir whispered, “Jessar, think before you speak. If we are to have any hope of defusing this, you must beat this elf at his game, and he is quite good at it.”
As if to prove the wizard correct, the elves below hissed even louder. “Even worse. That makes him our sworn enemy. It was his nation that burned our city long ago, or have you forgotten that?”
Jessar looked helplessly at the chronologist. “Stefir, I don’t have the skill. What am I to do?” In response, the wizard, who now held his staff again, began searching through his myriad pockets. The half-elf figured that his friend was looking for a magical conduit, something with which to cast a spell. Recalling Stefir’s magic at the bar earlier, Jessar felt more confident.
He acted on the only thing that came to mind. “Ogador, can you hand me that dagger from earlier please?”
With a broad smile, Ogador placed it in Jessar’s outstretched hand.
The half-elf held it out the window. “Disfigured elf, whoever you are, I think my neighbors here might be interested in this.”
Scanning around uncomfortably, the short elf seemed speechless.
“Yes, this is the weapon you cast at us earlier today.” The crowd again paused at their tasks and turned their attention to the treehome window. The half-elf theatrically swept the dagger over what had become his audience. “First, maybe you’d all be interested to know that, at first glance, it appears to be a gypsy blade, as the loadbeast skin around the hilt suggests.” Jessar peeled the leather completely off and let it flutter down to the mob.
Beside him, Stefir whispered, “Very good, Jessar. Keep it up.”
Findar caught and examined it. “Yes, he is right. Ludar, what is the meaning of this?”
The leader started to speak, but Jessar pressed his advantage. “I thought you might find that interesting, particularly since he seems to know the Gelvenum, the gypsies, well enough to summon a Yitrava for some as-yet-unrevealed mischief.”
Voices cried out “Why the Yitrava,” “He lied,” and “He’s a gypsy!” The game was getting interesting. He actually enjoyed the confusion on Ludar’s scarred face, but Jessar wasn’t finished yet.
“But wait! It gets worse. Would you like to know what reveals his true colors?”
“Yes!” the throng roared.
“Under the leather is a mark of ancient evil, the very icon responsible for our exile from the Sacred Realm so long ago.” Jessar whispered a silent prayer to the Creator to guide the dagger as he flung it at the holly bush next to the leader.
Stefir muttered, “I wish you had not done that. We might have had use for it yet.”
The weapon momentarily vanished into the bush before clattering to the paving stones at the elf’s feet. Findar quickly grasped it and passed it on to the other curious elves. He looked back at Jessar questioningly.
“It is the Temple of Fertility.”
The massed elves hissed at the mention of the infamous site. Over the ages it had become synonymous with the evil of greed and excess, second only to the Pits as a symbol of deviltry and chaos.
Jessar’s moment didn’t last long, however. Another elf stepped up to the leader, holding the wooden case with Jessar’s gardening instruments. The scarred spokesman took the box and held it above his head, turning slowly before the crowd. “Friends, do not let the half-man distract you with the token I found by the roadside. Are you not more interested in this? I ask you, is it fair that this half-man has grown Bordana every year since he arrived when we must all struggle to get the flower to blossom once every ten years?”
Jessar realized the leader had just come to the crux of his countrymen’s dislike for the half-elf. But, he could take little consolation that their hostility toward him stemmed from envy rather than some intrinsic character he exhibited.
The fickle throng shouted “NO!”
Ludar opened the case containing Jessar’s instruments. The half-elf felt his anger building as he looked on helplessly.
A rapid motion behind the mob attracted Jessar’s attention. A tall elf shoved his way through the crowd and broke through the front rank. He was the half-elf’s southern neighbor Mishar, and he pointed at the case. “You have no right. Leave it alone.” Mishar briefly glanced at Jessar with a look of shame.
“What, Jessar’s growth potion? Why should you care?”
In response, Mishar simply jumped forward to grab the container from the leader. Before Jessar’s neighbor could touch it, however, a flash and white smoke erupted from the witch’s brazier.
Jessar’s courageous neighbor froze in mid-lunge. Off balance, the tall elf toppled like a felled tree. The scarred spokesman motioned to two others, who dragged Jessar’s nearly immobilized neighbor out through the gate.
After the crowd quieted down, the leader smiled up at Jessar. Ludar removed the pipette from its niche and dashed it against the pebbles at his feet. The vial, however, he held high, tossing the case aside into the flames that were consuming the last of Jessar’s Bordana plants. “Jessar, soon you won’t be needing your instruments any longer. Your use of these traditional elven tools and your production of the growth potion has always been an insult to and a perversion of our heritage. Well, no more!” he pronounced as he smashed the flask containing growth potion down onto the paved path.
The crowd roared, chanting, “Burn the tree. Burn the tree.”
The instigator nodded his approval, and several elves carried flaming brands toward the scentwood, out of Jessar’s sight below.
Sabretha leaned over the window quickly. “Half-elf, they have started a bonfire around this tree.”
Jessar saw the compassion in her eyes and wanted somehow to tell her how much it meant to him, particularly as he stared back down at the fragments of his flask and the transparent red fluid spreading in rivulets among the paving pebbles. It could hardly have felt worse if it were his own blood. This time there was no recovering: Without his potion, he could not grow Bordana, and without that pollen he could not formulate the magical fluid.
“Jessar, you may be wondering why I said you would no longer need your accoutrements. It’s because we, your neighbors,” the short elf swept his arms around him to the encouraging shouts of the others, “have had enough of your family. Your mother was bad enough, and I thought I’d solved the problem when I sold you into indenturement—“
Pounding the sill with his fist, Jessar lashed out, “So it was you!”
Briefly, fear stole across the leader’s visage. “Perhaps – yes, it was me! The king bade me to sell you for thirty years. With the money from the contract he bought an entire company’s worth of weapons. And now here you are back again, before even the thirty years is up. The only thing he wants from you now is to know how you got back here before your contract is up. So, you see, there is little you can do about it now. Anyway, we will no longer tolerate you and the foreigners. We have the ear of the king and I can promise you: You will be exiled.”
There was a flaw in his plan, and Jessar smiled. “You cannot exile me. I am the foreign minister.”
The spokesman laughed. “True enough, you are the foreign minister. But who do you think fulfilled that role in your absence?”
Jessar turned with a look of disbelief at Stefir, but the wizard shook his head negatively.
Pumping the crowd again, the scarred elf asked, “Who was it friends?”
“No one!” they responded.
“Yes, Jessar, and we did quite fine without a foreign minister. Did you or your mother ever get us any help with the Border Wars against the Bulk-men?”
“No!” the mob replied.
“Besides, you demonstrated your ineptness for the job by twice allowing foreigners to defile our streets. Not since the Great Plunder two millennia ago has this happened. What kind of foreign minister would permit this?” The elf turned to his audience.
They shouted “none!”
The leader glanced at the bonfire. “Jessar, your roost is about to roast. If you and your guests leave soon enough, you will live, and the citizens will not interfere with your escape from Galbard. If you do not....”
Sabretha said, “Half-elf, we don’t have much time.”
Embers rose on the heat waves wafting by Jessar’s window. He turned to the wizard with an unspoken question.
Sabretha voiced the question for him: “Are you not the Chronologist? Your friend’s life is being ruined and you stand there watching.”
“Sabretha, you do not know what you ask. To alter what has passed is not only taxing to the limit of endurance, but is also fraught with peril.”
A shout returned Jessar’s attention to the mob. “Jessar! I’m not through with you.” The leader addressed the crowd. “Shall the witch give this half-man his due?”
The mob roared a deafening “YES!”
The leader then pointed to the brightly dressed elwen, who already crouched at her angrily glowing brazier. “Yitrava, proceed.”
The witch took a wooden rod from her brazier and, with its charred end, scratched a crude drawing onto the pavement of the path. It was some kind of animal, perhaps a cat.
She looked up at the half-elf, her eyes glistening unnaturally bright. “You and I are more akin than you will ever dream, Jessar. I have seen this, just as I have seen that you and I will one day be lovers. Among my people there is the legend of a beast who roams the lands alone, with whom few will dare consort, and who unwittingly brings grave misfortune to those who find the bravery to walk beside him. Thus, I name you the Lynx of my people’s folklore. Lynx, now that I have met you, I do not wish to do what I am bound.”
The elves, who had formed a tight circle around the Yitrava, hissed, and the leader gave her a threatening glance. “However, I have sworn the water oath with the scarred one, and no gypsy may put that aside.”
Using a pair of short tongs, she extracted something from the coals of her witch fire. Jessar winced as she dropped the item into her bare hand. But she didn’t even flinch as she held up a white hot iron effigy of a serpent with a man’s head.
She said, “I call upon thee, Urgon, God of Curses, at the behest of these gathered elves to award this half-man his due. Let it be that every star name he knows or comes to know will be that of a friend to whom Fate deals an injurious blow.” Then she tossed an orange sandy substance into her magical witch fire. Red smoke billowed from the coals in roiling columns.
Jessar tightened his grip on the sill. He didn’t need to know much about gypsy witches to know she had just cursed him. Galbardians recognized the Yitrava as powerful witches but respected them most for their terrible curses.
As Jessar pondered what the Yitrava’s words meant, he heard Stefir behind him shout, “Lavek idron!” completing whatever spell the wizard had been casting.
Dimly, Jessar realized he’d been staring profoundly into the pulsing orange depths of the witch fire, and the whole scene suddenly reeled before him. Sheer, ragged rips in the air and the smoldering ground opened onto an emptiness far greater than the simple ebony absence of color. Bodies twisted like corkscrews before flowing very fluid-like from where they were to other positions, some very close, some farther away. Jessar himself felt as if his body were being drawn through a minutely fine mesh of cruel wires. Not even his voice would obey his impulse to cry out in pain.
Somehow, though he was hardly sure it was through the vision of his own eyes, his consciousness registered the sudden disappearance of the scarred leader. In the next moment everything instantly snapped back to where it had been before the warping experience began, except for the leader. Where he had stood, only the short elf’s clothes remained, just as earlier in the day. The echoes of the same terrible screech rang in Jessar’s ears.
The Valkara shouted from her window, “Lynx, the tree’s on fire!”
Sabretha had called him Lynx, the name the Yitrava had given him. The way the Valkara spoke the nickname, well, it sounded almost affectionate, not at all a curse. If the solowen wished to call him Lynx, so be it. Yes, he decided he liked that. As he turned to acknowledge her report, however, he saw Stefir turn lethargic and start to fall.
The sword maiden cried out in alarm, “Nagobrin’s grave, what’s wrong with you, wizard?”
Ogador, who had rushed forward, clutched the wizard under the arms, propping the chronologist against his staff. The Lynx didn’t know whether to be more surprised by the wizard’s fatigue or the disbelief etched in the aged features.
Still, Jessar found his surprise transformed into shock as the wizard commenced chanting strangely familiar words, “Natunya, ruvel ishma vidra.”
Ogador cautioned, “Stefir, no. You don’t have the strength.”
The wizard, however, shuddered, trying to wrestle free of the prince. Stefir licked the tips of his knobby fingers and traced a complex pattern in the air, continuing, “ Lubro pairok idrel klipra.”
Jessar sensed the arcane energy clinging to his friend’s sallow skin. Stefir seemed barely able to hold his head steady on failing neck muscles. Ogador tried to grasp the chronologist tighter, and Sabretha sprang forward to assist.
Somehow, unbidden knowledge welled within Jessar, and he discovered that he knew what the wizard intended, to call forth a shower of water to extinguish the fires raging below.
His voice having gone silent with his failing strength, the wizard silently mouthed, “Zamel fudrok ishlom,” before his lips stopped moving completely.
Relying upon the newfound knowledge, Jessar thought the chant should end with the words “a fount of thy sea,” but the word he spoke was, “shipra,” followed by a couple of nonsensical syllables.
The powerful jolt of a close aboard thunderclap rocked the treehome, reverberating like the inside of a beaten drum. Peering out the window, the Lynx saw a steady torrent of water plunge from a small rain cloud just above the treetops to the grounds throughout his estate. The fires popped and hissed as the deluge struck.
Then the flood stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The cloud overhead shrank in unto itself as if it had been sucked into some other dimension. Below, steamy wisps rose from the ground everywhere he looked. Clinching his teeth against the pain from his stitches, he leaned out the window. The stack of fuel was merely a charcoal skeleton. Not even an ember flickered from the devouring inferno of moments before.
The crowd stood motionless, stunned. Only the Yitrava moved. Covered with the splattered ashes from her quenched witch fire, she hurriedly signed a hex, collected her things and ran off.