Shipwright

[Shadowlord]

Shadow'd had a little too much absinthe while calling, after the failed Dragon's Gate challenge, thoughts springing to mind unbidden, but pervasive. A whirl of mental chaos, which only clear night air could hope to calm.

With the loss of Dragon's Gate, he'd lost the dojo's primary setting, and would have to readjust the school's setting. But the girls would be off with Rayvinn anyway, on another path leading away from the elf. He was happy for them, really, to have a more stable venue to train in than a dueling manor.

His aimless path took him to the Red Dragon Inn, calm but lively this night as always, but he did not mingle, nor even announce his presence, instead heading directly for the portal leading to Twilight Isle. He could have 'swum' there, using the paths of Rhy'din's water to teleport through the intervening space, but directionless walking suited his mood far better, and using those watery paths reminded him too much of things he wished to forget.

Before long he was standing at the beach of the Lagoon, gazing up at the fountain which was the Tower of Water, aside from the orphanage his only remaining home. Wilson would be displeased to have to move operations from a 'proper' manor, but the old English butler would of course remain loyal to Shadow under any circumstance.

As he stood there, watching the Tower, his gaze drifted to the lagoon, and the 'sea' beyond. Contained in this bubble dimension, it was not perhaps Rhy'din's true ocean, but it evoked many of the same emotions as the waves lapping the city's western shore.

The far green country lay beyond the horizon's edge, in an old elf's mind.

Plans began to take shape quickly, and Beroan popped the top of his head free of the Lagoon to watch, alligator-style with globed eyes observing, as Shadow began to speak to the trees surrounding the Tower's domain. Branches, stripped by the subtle forces of magic, began to coalesce on the beach, first collecting into a vast set of wooden runners, such as a ship might be built upon, ready to send into water.

He worked into the night, far past exhaustion or the mildly psychoactive effects of absinthe, until a ship of white willow, large enough to hold a company of men but steerable by one, rose upon the beach runners. Fiber had been woven, from a patch of hemp which grew nearby thanks to the fertile efforts of the Earth Keeper, into white sails which soared above the seafaring vessel's decks.

"Now to decide how to get this thing into Rhy'din," he commented as much to himself as the lurking (and now dozing) Beroan. Soon his footsteps, now truly weary, took him into the Tower for a long, much needed rest and retreat from city life.

[Shadowlord]

The next day found Shadow awake early, somewhat disoriented by the Isle's perpetual Twilight. He lay in his bed for a time, staring at the ceiling, and reviewing recent events; he'd not experienced elven Reverie in some time, his magically sustained body and spirit requiring much more sleep of late.

At first, of course, last night was as a dream, but that period passed swiftly, as the lingering effects of absinthe dwindled from his mind.

The ship.

If Matt Simon could get an entire battlegroup of jet fighters from Rhy'din to the Isle, Shadow knew he could get a single ship to a shore near the city. It would require much more power than he had ever expended in teleportation, but with the Key, he could do much more than unaided.

Beroan was nowhere in evidence as Shadow emerged onto the roof of the Tower, ArCane in one hand and Key in the other. He was already calling power to himself, a nimbus of azure energy trailing light from him, tendrils of power connecting the elf to the Lagoon itself. This operation would be much like the teleporting technique of 'swimming', but on a larger scale, so that Shadow formed in his mind a vision of a beach south of the city itself he had once visited. Low chanting, and the ship, still on its runners, began to shake; soon it rolled forward, great wooden wheels from its berth churning, until a hefty splash sounded with its entry into the Lagoon's clear liquid embrace.

The entire Lagoon began to shimmer then, and flicker. Visions of another place, another beach, continued to flash through Shadow's mind as he spoke a final word of power, his voice booming in a near thunderclap. The ArCane and Key both blazed bright as any sun, a white, pure light which flashed through the Tower's domain, and was gone.

The beach runners yet remained, and the furrows caused in the sand by the ship's hull, but the ship itself was gone, waves lapping the shore where it had resided.

-------------------------

South of Rhy'din, anchored in a small cove sometimes used by pirates and smugglers, there floated a white ship, sailcloth pale as new snow, rocking gently in its mooring.

-------------------------

"But if you retire the Key, will that not end your life, sir?"

Wilson walked with Shadow on the Lagoon's beach, the two of them approaching the Tower's lowered, watery bridge.

"Only if I do not reach Arvandor in time. I have enough power left in me to linger for awhile, perhaps a few months. And in Arvandor, I will have no need of a key. There, one does not age nor fade." Shadow's voice was calm, chilly, as the aura which surrounded him this day. Even the twilight of the Lagoon had a wintry, grey cast to it, mirroring the Keeper's mood.

"Besides, it is time for younger, fresher minds to live in this place. I've had a good run here. Hard to believe it's been more than a year. So much has occurred...so much changed."

Wilson nodded and grew quiet as they crossed the bridge and entered the soaring, solid-water crystalline vaults of the Tower of Water. Only when they had become situated, with Wilson humming around the kitchen, and Shadow blowing on a cup of Earl Grey, did the old butler break the silence between them.

"I would like to go with you sir. I... do not know if your Arvandor is like heaven, but it sounds it. I thought perhaps I might see Victoria once more. My, ah, wife." Wilson actually displayed some measure of anxiety, his hands gripped tightly together to keep them from shaking. "And after all, someone needs to keep your socks clean, and you looking your best," he added, shuffling his feet as he looked to the floor.

Shadow blinked at the swiftly spoken words, their heartfelt honesty and yearning touching one of the few remaining places of emotional warmth within the elf. Enough, even, that he smiled slowly, and nodded his head. "I will likely have need of you. We will seek out Victoria, then. In the far green lands, all is possible."

Seemingly satisfied, Wilson completed his tea service and went on his way, a subtle bounce in his step, leaving Shadow to linger, his gaze drifting out a window upon the Lagoon as his tea steamed in the room's cool air.