The Azure Wizard (27 page)

Ethan didn’t answer but for a simple callous, “No.”

At that the Wizard stood up and left Eikjard and Ross at the bar. He walked up the stairs away from the crowds of the common room. Ross shook his head in frustration and took another draught of mead. “That boy is stubborn. His heart has grown dark and sad since the time that I first met him, an optimistic lad with hopes and dreams. But over the course of a handful of weeks he has changed, largely due in part to the blasted Wizardcraft he’s been cursed with. If you ask me, I think the Three Baronies is much better off without the meddling of Wizardcraft and Wizards and the danger it introduces into our lands,” growled Ross angrily.

Eikjard didn’t say anything in reply, but he watched Ethan Skalderholt ascend the stairs and disappear into the shadows. He was the only person in The House of Chronicles who saw a flash of blue light in the shadows before the darkness once again reclaimed the corridor at the top of the stairwell.

When Ross awoke, got dressed, and walked back down into the common room the emotion of the tavern was much the same as it was the night before, solemn and quiet, but there were even less patrons to fill tables illuminated in the rich golden yellow light that slanted in through the eastern facing windows of the establishment. Ethan was nowhere to be seen and the knight shrugged nonchalantly and approached Eikjard and Molly, who sat together at a round table in the center of the tall chamber talking business.

He fell into a chair at a table across from them and yawned, “Where’s Ethan?”

“He left last night just after you spoke with him,” replied Eikjard as he nursed a cup of darkly-hued tea.

Ross snorted and shook his head, “I figured he would, that hard-ass stubborn kid. You Vharians are all the same, do you know that?”

Eikjard nodded in agreement as he drank slowly of his tea and Molly bit at her thumb nail. Silence pervaded all things in the empty common room. Finally, Eikjard broke the silence by asking the knight in a ponderous deep tone, “Do you intend to travel back to Greenwell City, Sir Ross?”

“All my decades of warring and combat couldn’t give me the edge I would need to survive that awful hike of hundreds of miles through woods filled with warring Woodfolk and bloodthirsty Wizardcraft monsters that have an ancient grudge with us humans. No thank you, fair innkeeper. I think I will remain here in Lumberwall until things have quieted down a bit. The wife and kids are safe in Greenwell City, and they don’t need me going trekking off to get home and getting myself killed in a rather morbid and grotesque fashion,” explained Ross with a grin.

Eikjard nodded and finished his cup of tea. When he set his empty cup back on the table Molly snatched it up and rose. After a brief stretch in the morning sunlight she said, “I had better get back there and start whipping up some breakfast in case a customer happens by or one of our patrons wakes up. We have enough refugees. Business will be good for awhile. You boys want anything?”

Eikjard smiled like an oaf behind his fluffy beard and he replied, “We boys sure could use ourselves some peppered eggs and fresh bread, Molly.”

Ross consented with a yawn and a nod and the barmaid-cook ambled off, following a loving swat on her ample rear by her boss and bedmate. Eikjard looked back to the knight and he asked as his visage slowly transformed back to seriousness, “I could use you here, Sir Ross. I’d give you a steady wage, meals, and a couple rooms for you and your family, once it is safer for them to get here. Times are growing darker, my friend and I’m getting to old for it.”

“I’m as old as you, Eikjard,” interrupted the Greenwellian Knight with an easy grin.

“Shut up and listen. The people hereabouts are getting edgy and uneasy. Tempers are starting to flare and folks are hitting the drink hard to get their minds off of their lost homes and safety. Some folks are bound to snap. I could use you to help keep my place nice and cozy and lunatic-free, you know, to show troublemakers the door,” explained the innkeeper in all seriousness.

Sir Ross didn’t immediately answer the question but instead he replied, “If I was to keep the lunatics out of here then you would be the first to take the old wind-ride out of the front door by the seat of your pants.”

Both the older men shared a mirthful chuckle, the first that The House of Chronicles had experienced in days. After a few warm moments Ross’s smile lessened a bit and he explained in a cautionary tone, “If I was to do this and quit the Greenwellian Knights I could risk a fine or imprisonment—if I was to return to the Barony of Greenwell.”

“Aye,” was Eikjard’s only response as he studied the Greenwellian with deep searching brown eyes. He already knew the knight’s answer, even before Ross was positively sure, but still he remained placid and apparently ignorant to Ross’s internal thought process as it played across his square-cut face and drooping moustaches like the most vivid and well-described tale ever told in The House of Chronicles.

Finally, with a toothy grin, Ross Silverstag confirmed Eikjard Grayshard’s thoughts.

Ethan Skalderholt had spent a very eventful, very nerve-wracking, and very terrifying night in Taedroke, exotic capital of the Barony of Wendlith, or at least it once was. The city was a bustling port of swarming marketplaces vibrant with colored cloth awnings, tall edifices of pale stone, and open verandas decorated in plush ivy and flowers. The people in their silks were master horse-breeders and trainers, merchants, and silk weavers. It was located in Wendlith’s largest bay, the Bay of Wendlith, on the western coast of the land of green hills and plains, and chaotic meandering and snaking shorelines.

The plains were now a yard of fire and flame and Taedroke, choked in smoke and cinders, was finally beginning to burn. The Sun Cats of Wendlith were transformed terribly by the return of Wizardcraft. Their plush manes became blazing white hot fire that matching the fierce roaring intensity of their fiery eyes and the flame they disgorged whenever they yawned open their terrifying blazing mouths. Wherever they strode through the wilds of Wendlith they left raging infernos that swept across the plains with the abundant warm, summer winds so common in the barony.

Taedroke had held out for awhile, slaying any Sun Cats that were spotted near the city, but a couple of days ago some had come into the city during the night and the carnage had begun. People and storefronts were ignited which then went on to immolate neighboring people and structures, and the whole while the Sun Cats prowled the city streets sowing bloodshed and fire upon the unfortunate many that found themselves in their way.

When Ethan had arrived via his Wizardcraft during the early hours of the night he had appeared in the wake of a Sun Cat’s passing, and he had thus witnessed the carnage first hand. A terrified observer came out of hiding and explained to Ethan what had happened in Wendlith. So for the remainder of the night he had stalked the city streets and alleys going ever out of his way to avoid the many Sun Cats that were now entering Taedroke. He was finally near the grand majesty of the Palace of Wendlith, definitely a rival to the Castle of Greenwell with its vast white sweeping halls, open pillared balconies, and perfect golden domes. Or at least it once was.

Now Ethan beheld the Palace of Wendlith ablaze, pouring grey-brown smoke into the dawn light that was slowly fading to darkness as more and more smoke choked forth from the doomed city. Horrid screams of fear and pain could be heard in the distance coming from the palace and from all directions around Ethan.

“Farwell, Baroness,” Ethan whispered to himself as he turned his back to the burning structure. It was too late to warn these people.

He began to collect his bearings and swallow the lump of sorrow that was so prevalent in his throat all the time now, and he readied himself for his Wizardcraft journey back to the Forester’s Compound and, dare he hope, May. But then a shrill scream, a woman’s or the screech of a terrified child, shattered his concentration as it sounded forth from a side street on the other side of a low line of white buildings. When the Vharian shot a glance in that direction he could see the thick yellow-white glow throbbing from the street and he could smell the acrid smoke. A noise like the roaring blaze of a forge answered the horrified screams and Ethan new it was a Sun Cat about to make another victim out of a Wendlithian.

He turned away from the encounter and meant to teleport himself away, but he stood there and did nothing save stare at his shoes. Could he, the cause of all of this death and hardship throughout the Three Baronies, really just leave a helpless person, a woman or child, to the
depredations of a Wizardcraft beast that he had unwittingly created?

After a short moment’s thought the storyteller voiced a fierce, “No.”

He whirled back around, his black cloak flowing like dark mist behind him, and he charged forward. The quickest way to the side street was to just go up and over the low single-story buildings. Ethan looked desperately for some sort of boost to ease his climb to the rooftops, but he could see nothing. He suddenly stopped his searching and smiled shamefully as beads of sweat raced down his tattooed face. His eyes flared blue and, following a sudden cerulean flash, Ethan found himself standing atop the rooftops.

“This Wizardcraft has its uses,” Ethan said quietly to himself.

He risked a quick glance around from his higher vantage point and his blue eyes all aglow, widened in shock at what he saw. The vast sprawling tumble of disorganized structures and streets poured smoke, and lines of fire snaked throughout the city. Screams echoed through the early morning air like a distant cacophony of thousands of pitiful voices. Beyond the edges of the city, in the furthest range of his vision, thick sheets of black smoke ascended from the hills and plains from thin lines of glowing orange fire. “All of Wendlith?” Ethan worriedly voiced to himself.

Oddly he felt sorry for all the wild horses that were supposed to roam those rolling plains, and he hoped to the Ancestors that they would survive the trek to the Forests of Greenwell and relative safety. An ear-splitting scream from the street below him tore his distant gaze and thoughts from the horizon and back immediately to the present. He searched for the source of the scream and quickly found it. A little Wendlithian girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, huddled against a receded doorway of a building. Her long white hair was bound in two tight braids on either side of her head.

She sobbed uncontrollably, her face contorted in terror, as a terribly magnificent Sun Cat advanced on her. Cruel white flames rumbled from its open fanged mouth and its small white-hot eyes didn’t blink. It had its easy prey, but not if Ethan could help it.

In a flash of blue light he vanished from the building and instantly appeared standing before the young girl, between the Sun Cat and its prey. As he turned to face the advancing fury of the Wizardcraft-mutated beast he felt the hands of the young girl tugging at his cloak and heard her cry, “Save me, sir! Save me from that monster!”

Ethan bounded forward, a shred of his black cloak tearing loose in the Wendlithian girl’s small, sweaty fists, and he darted up to the astonished Sun Cat. The heat from the beast has mind-numbing, and he was forced to block out the pain of being near it as he reached his hand up and grasped it by its bottom jaw.  Flames licked promisingly from its boxlike feline face. The little girl then saw a beam of brilliant blue light flash into the air and she covered her terrified face in surprise. When the only sounds she heard were distant screams and the thunderous roars of the Sun Cats elsewhere in the city that she grew up in, she slowly uncovered her eyes.

She was alone in the street. The horrible Sun Cat and the mysterious tattooed man were gone. She walked forward, so very nervously and skittishly in the burning horror that was once the marvelous city of Taedroke. When she reached the middle of the smoky street, the girl whirled around to see a glowing fiery meteor plummeting towards her. She recoiled in shock, and upon some terrified observation she realized with a start that the meteor was in fact a Sun Cat plummeting from the sky far up above the burning city. It twisted and writhed in the pre-dawn smoky sky as it fell, trying in vain to somehow stop its ceaseless descent.

The young girl had not the will nor the sense to move out of the way as the orange glow of the beast brightened around her and its mass bore down unerringly. Suddenly, in a blazing blue flash of light the mysterious tattooed man appeared next to her and with a hand, smoking and blistered from grasping the face of the unfortunate Sun Cat, hugged the girl to his tight abdomen. Then, in the span of a rapid heartbeat, azure light encompassed their existence and the world vanished in a flash of vibrant luminescence. The girl found herself on a flat roof with her savior a safe distance from the street in which she helplessly awaited her doom.

The man with the Wizardcraft pointed towards the street, and only reluctantly she tore her inquisitive gaze from the wondrous hero. It was time enough to see her Sun Cat villain plummet into the street with a bone-splintering crunch that left the violent beast utterly and in every respect dead.

She shakily looked back to the Wizard and managed to feebly stammer, “What are you?”

“I’m a storyteller, little one,” was his solemn reply. He managed a weak smile, obviously to cheer her up in what little way he could provide.

Ethan knelt down before her and explained, “Honey, is your family alive? Are you alone here?”

“They …. They …. In the fire,” she choked before shrill sobs overtook her.

Ethan frowned and pulled her into his chest as he stroked the back of her head, embracing her as much as he could without hurting the poor orphaned Wendlithian. “There there. I’m going to get you out of here. What is your name?”

The girl pulled away from him slightly and muttered, “Nythee. My name is Nythee.”

“Well, Nythee, I’m Ethan Skalderholt, I used to be a Forester of the Three Baronies, and I’m now a Wizard. I’m going to take you with me back to Greenwell City, far away from here where you’ll be safe. Does that sound alright?”