The Sorcerer's Scourge (36 page)

“We have, but we can talk about that later. Please, tell me about Tarth. What horrors?” Maude practically pleaded.

Corana peered into the darkness in the direction Tarth had disappeared then spoke softly. “No one knows where Tarthalis came from. He was found as an infant in the Grove of Heroes in the heart of Everspring, our home. It was nearly a thousand years ago and several hundred years after the Great Rebellion.”

“Wait,” Maude interjected. “I thought the Rebellion occurred only a thousand years ago?”

Corana smiled thinly. “You humans lost a great deal of your history during those first few centuries after the rebellion. We elves struggled to bring peace and unity to the humans, but it was challenging to say the least. After several centuries, we decided we had done all we could for the humans and fled to the far north so that we would not be threatened by the rapid human expansion. We used our magic to create Everspring, a tiny nation like an oasis in the inhospitable frozen north.

“But as the humans continued to spread northward, many of our elders felt that such isolation was not enough. They decided that with the help of the greatest wizard ever known since the banishment of the dragon-elves, they could shift Everspring to a pocket dimension away from all other races.”

“Hold on. What are dragon-elves, and Tarth is not only the greatest wizard ever, but nearly a thousand years old?” Maude asked.

“Six dragon-elves were created by mixing the essence of a dragon and an elven mother. The child grew inside a sort of magical cocoon. The mix of elf and dragon essences created a being capable of unimaginable power. It was the only way to defeat the enemy we all faced.”

“You mean the dragons,” Malek said.

Corana laughed at the cleric’s assertion. “You humans have such short memories, although I suppose it is not your fault. Your task during the Great Rebellion was to battle the dragons. The dragons were merely pawns, the guard dogs, of the true enemy; an enemy even the gods feared.”

“Who were they?” Maude asked attentively.

“The Scions.”

“Who or what are the Scions?”

Corana continued. “The Scions are a race said to be older than the gods. There were five, but the dragon-elves destroyed one during the rebellion. The shock was so great to the Scions that they agreed to banishment.  Eager to end a war that had decimated the population of nearly every sentient race on the planet, the leaders of the three great races agreed.”

“So what happened to Tarth? He came after they were banished, right?”

“That is so. As I was saying, about three hundred years ago, the elders decided to remove Everspring from this world, and they convinced Tarthalis, against his objections, to try. The ritual was unlike anything ever attempted since the dragon-elves banished the Scions. The magic used to affect the shift was beyond anything ever dreamt of. Tarthalis said it was possible but extremely dangerous and fraught with peril. During the shift, something went terribly wrong. A rift appeared and our mages lost control. Instead of shifting to a pocket dimension, they opened a rift to the deepest level of the abyss. A demon lord grasped control of the rift and would not let us close it. Infernal spawn began pouring out of the rift and slaughtering our people.

“Tarthalis knew that the only way to close the rift was from the inside, and so leapt into that void to save his people. What happened in that rift, we do not know. What we do know is that Tarthalis was able to close it, but was lost to us forever. Or so we thought. Ten years later, we found him in the Grove of Heroes just as we had that one day as an infant. His body was shattered and savaged almost beyond recognition. Even our greatest healers were unsure if he would survive. It was not until they made his body whole that we understood the real damage. His mind was all but destroyed.

“For decades he lay in a semi-conscious state, sometimes screaming about tortures that go beyond my imagination to even conceive. His soul mate, Lahilonah, tended him and rarely left his side through all those years. We thought he might never recover. Then he seemed to improve. He woke but was unable to speak. He slowly began walking, but it was like the walk of someone still sleeping. He would cry out in the night as the nightmares continued to plague him. Quite by accident, we found a mixture of herbs, which when burned and inhaled, seemed to calm him. He sometimes went days without bouts of terror. He began talking, but never about what had happened. Then one day he simply vanished. We think being so close to where it all happened was simply too much for him.”

“My poor Tarth,” Maude whispered.

Even Borik was silent throughout the retelling. When he spotted Maude looking at him, he quickly turned away.

“Borik, are you crying?” she asked the surly dwarf.

“No! I have a piece of dirt in my eye! A stupid piece of elf dirt,” he muttered with a sniff as he stalked away.

Maude turned back to Corana and asked, “Do you think he has just been wandering around all this time?”

“I imagine so. Perhaps he sensed some importance in your group and that is why he attached himself to you. Who can say what is happening inside that mind of his?”

“Hey!” Borik shouted out of the darkness. “Your legend is in a tree trying to talk to a bird!”

Maude and Corana gave into their curiosity and went to see what Borik was talking about. Sure enough, just beyond the orange glow of the fire, sat Tarth next to a large horned owl about fifteen feet up a tree.

“Hoo,” the owl hooted softly, seemingly unperturbed by the elf sharing his branch.

“Tarth,” Tarth replied, pointing to his own chest. “Who are you?”

“Hoo,” the owl repeated.

“Tarth, and you are?”

“Hoo.”

“Look, this conversation has seemed to become rather circular. You really must carry on your end of it if we expect it to advance at all,” Tarth informed the owl.

“How did he get up there and how do we get him down?” Maude asked.

Borik began packing a double handful of snow. “I bet I can knock him off his perch with a snowball.”

“Don’t you dare! Just leave him be. He’ll come back down when he’s ready.”

“Maude, you and your group are searching for the lich, correct?” Corana asked when they all returned to the fire.

“Yes. We have been wandering almost aimlessly for the past week. We know we are close, but we cannot seem to find what Tarth and Malek say is the center.”

Corana nodded. “I am afraid my group and I are all rangers, not wizards, but it feels as though there is a powerful spell of disjunction keeping people from finding what we seek much like is cast over Everspring.”

“So do you know how to get past it?” Maude asked hopefully.

Corana shook her head ruefully. “I am afraid not. We did not discover the convergence of energy until a few months ago ourselves and have been searching ever since. We had been following a hobgoblin shaman that we had thought was the source of the disturbances two years ago, but a group of humans ran him off and we destroyed a large number of his abominations. After that, we lost the trail. We approached your group hoping that you had discovered a way.”

“Then it appears none of us are any closer to finding the source,” Malek said. “That is a grave thing for I sense that whatever is happening is near to reaching its crescendo, and when that happens I fear it may be too late to stop whatever it is.”

Everyone, elves, humans, and dwarf, leapt to their feet and drew weapons as a patch of snow at the edge of the camp suddenly bulged upward. The mound continued to rise until it was even taller than Maude was and took on a vaguely human form. The shape shuddered, sloughing off the snow mixed with the underlying dirt, bark, and pine needles of the forest. An enormous, ugly creature nearly eight feet tall now stood before the group gripping a staff as thick as Maude’s arm.

“Perhaps I may be of assistance,” Bron said as he shook the last of the snow and detritus from his large body.

“Who are you? Where did you come from?” Maude shouted.

She, like most of the others, was more surprised at the unexpected arrival than feeling any real threat. The creature was large and obviously powerful, but with three trained fighters and a dozen elves with longbows trained on its heart, it was unlikely to be much of a threat.

Corana was the first to regain her composure and motioned everyone to lower their weapons. “You are a son of Ellanee, are you not?”

Bron gave the elves a small bow and answered, “I am indeed, sister of the forest. My name is Bron, and I believe we all share a common goal.”

“I would never have expected one of your race to be a devout of Ellanee.”

Bron smiled at the elf. “Despite my appearance, I am only half ogre.”

“Yeah, but you got the whole ugly half,” Borik muttered and received a hissing rebuke from Maude.

“Druid, you said you may be able to help us find the evil plaguing this land?” Corana asked.

“I believe so. You may have noticed the brown needles dotting many of the trees and the decreasing number of animals in the area.”

The elves had, but Maude and her crew had not paid any attention to the fact.

Bron continued. “The magical anomaly gathering at the focal point of this confluence absorbs all life. It should be a relatively simple matter for me to find the center by looking for the complete absence of life. There we will find the creature responsible for this.”

“Do you know how far?” Maude asked.

“A few days walk at most. The misdirection spell is stronger the closer we get, but I should be able to reorient quickly by seeking the source of the corruption.”

“So this magic is killing everything around it? What is to keep it from killing us?” Maude asked.

“The magic is a subtle leaching of life from the plants and animals and gets stronger the closer we get, but even at its center, I do not think the drain shall tax life energies as strong as those that sentient creatures possess very quickly. However, it would be ill-advised to tarry within such an area for long.”

“Well, all we need now is a couple unicorns and a dragon to throw in with us and we will officially be the weirdest group ever,” Borik said.

“Shut up, Borik” Maude said reflexively.

CHAPTER
14

The voyage seemed to take forever, but when the ship finally arrived at Bakhtaran’s port, a fresh wave of dread swept over Ellyssa. On the ship, she was a captive but soon she would be someone’s slave. She had decided to behave herself after Captain Jake’s threat, and when she watched the crew unload and herd the other prisoners into cages, she knew she had made the smart choice.

The soon-to-be slaves were all filthy and appeared half-starved. Nearly all had a haunted and defeated look in their eyes, particularly some of the women. Ellyssa shuddered and choked back a sob as she thought of what they may have endured. Captain Jake pushed her towards the gangplank stretching between the ship and the crowded dock. Fear caused her to resist his urging.

“Don’t worry, girl, you’re not going with them,” the ship’s captain told her, guessing at her apprehension.

Ellyssa stepped carefully onto the gangplank and crossed over with Captain Jake who never released his grip from the thick leather belt encircling her waist. Her manacles were clipped to the belt in front while the slaver held a leash attached to an iron ring in the back.

Once beyond the overwhelming smell of the captives, the docks smelled much like those in North Haven. However, once she, Captain Jake, and three of his largest men left the docks behind, that quickly changed. The city was awash in the sights, sounds, and smells of goats, cattle, and some strange animal she had never before seen. A great deal of noise and the scent of strong spices and cooking meat pervaded the streets.