Scrolls of the Scribe

[Topaz]

Return From Shadow (part 4)

The witch stood with the jewel blazing in her hand. It shone brightly through her flesh and illuminated the long, frail bones of her fingers. Her eyes, unblinking, were fixed upon the glimmering promise of Kemoc's holy sword, for it held her in thrall as he bade her speak the truth.
"Answer me now, witch! Are you a sister to the Dark Flame?" Kemoc approached her with caution. She was cornered, surprised by the power of the holy icon. Suddenly off guard, an enemy of consequence before her, she seemed dismayed that she had so sorely underestimated her intended prey. That made her even more dangerous in his eyes. "Answer the command of the sword!" He crept forward. "Speak!" he commanded.
A low, evil hiss was the only answer from her darkening corner.
Kemoc's voice rose. He stood upright and held the brightly gleaming blade before him. A prayer rose to his lips. His words summoned power and it gathered around him like a cloak.
"Don't kill her!" Dundale seized him from behind, startling him from his trance, and the sword tip sought the ground. In the narrow hallway, light momentarily returned to the dancing flicker cast about by the Inn's old oil lamps, some of which were now expired Pools of shadow ebbed and flowed across the floor. "Make her state her purpose, but don't harm her," he pleaded.
"Damn ye!…To the fires of AnaKhbar!.....Damn ye…" A string of curses and spittle drifted from the witch. She shuffled about in the corner as if her shoes were too small and made her feet hurt, testing the air before her with caution. Occasionally she would jerk her hand back as if burned by some invisible flame. All the while she muttered obscenities just below her breath. "………blasted Guardians!"
"Name yourself, witch! By the sacred scriptures of the Holy Bashalla, I command you!" Kemoc's eyes sought his prisoner's, his sword once again raised and illuminating the hall.
The girl cowered, strangling in the corner. She fought the air before her with one hand. Her other one clutched the now blinking and fading jewel to her breast. "Aghhhh…" she groaned. "I…I am Annaria Ar'Darian. At the speaking of her name she fell to the floor in a swoon as if bereft of all her strength and power in one singular blow. Her jewel, no longer brilliantly irradiant, rolled across the dingy, tattered carpet. It was dull and lifeless to behold as it landed at the toe of Kemoc's boot. Dundale scooped it up and tucked it quickly away into the pouch at his belt.
The witch was beginning to regain consciousness, crawling along the worn baseboards and snarling as if she might come at her enemies from below.
"Command her to confess, now! Kemoc, if she regains her wits, she may destroy herself before we can question her. Remember the Old One we captured in the Crags? She turned herself to stone to prevent you using that thing on her." Dundale's eyes went briefly to the living sword in Kemoc's hand. The memory of its brief touch still sent tremors up his arm. "What won't she do not to be bound by its power? Ask of her now! Ask her what she does in these lands, and why we were attacked!"
"Almighty Overlord, Master of the Cosmos and Creator of All, We Who Live in the Light of Your Grace Call Upon Thee In Our Need….."
Dundale stepped back from the gathering fire that unfurled from his companion's sword. Kemoc's prayer filled the hallway with sound. The slavering girl rose from the floor to stand stiffly upright, brought aright by the power in the tone of his voice. But something was uncanny about the way she stood. It was as if she were in truth lifted from where she lay, as one might upright a fallen child, who, in their rage, refuses to stand. The witch bounced two, maybe three times on her sullen feet before she planted herself firmly on her heels, just an arm's length from the touch of Kemoc's sword. Her arms were clamped stoically at her sides, her jaw clenched, and her eyes impenetrable orbs of hatred. But she was silent, for the moment.
"I beg of Thee, Oh Lord, That This Transgressor Before Thy Servant Be Made To Confess and Speak Only The Truth. …….
Kemoc's prayer continued unabated. To Dundale, it seemed to be immediately answered, for the witch began to quiver and moan. Her eyes bulged, and her swollen tongue lolled disgustingly in and out of her mouth. When she spoke, her words were broken and low. A thin line of drool escaped her lip and ventured down her chin.
"Ask me……..aarrrgghh..::retch, cough::…..what you….::gag::…will, warrior!….I refuse you…::choke:;…and your faith!" She spat straight at Kemoc's face, but a swift flick of his sword intercepted the vile projectile and turned it to smoke in mid-flight. The distinct odor of sulfur permeated the hallway.
"State your purpose, witch. And answer of us our questions with the truth!" Kemoc lowered his blade to her shoulder, just above her heart. She writhed away from its touch, but it held her fast. When her knees bowed, and she knelt before Kemoc as if she herself were deep in prayer, it followed her down, ever just above her heart.
"I…I did not know you for what you were, holy one. I did not mean to…" she began pitifully. Her young face looked aged beyond repair. In the dim light, deep wrinkles and crevices appeared down her cheeks; crowsfeet splayed wildly from the corners of her tired eyes.
"That is of no consequence. What did you seek with such intent that you would harm my friend?" Indicating Dundale, who peered over his shoulder at the witch's inquisition, Kemoc continued. "This one. And why do you harbor ill will toward the Guardians of Truth?" Kemoc raised his sword from her bent and cringing shoulder. Under his breath he began to murmur another prayer. The light once again began to gather around him. At his feet, the witch shrieked as if she'd been skewered with a blazing sword brand, straight from the forges, still unworked and dripping molten iron.
"I will say! ………aarrrgggh!! I will say! … Do not invoke the Power! Do not!!.."..
"Speak Then The Truth! And By It Ye Shall Be Set Free!" Kemoc thundered above her. "Tell us what you do here! Tell us or I promise you everlasting life in which to regret it!"
"And of Granym Try! Tell us about him while you're at it!" the scribe tossed in from the shadowy recesses behind Kemoc's commanding righteousness.
The witch whimpered and bemoaned her fate, but after a time, in a fashion, she began to tell her tale.

[Topaz]

Return From Shadow (part 5)

The grim echo of Kemoc's empowered prayer faded slowly from the shadowed recesses of the inn's upstairs hallway. There was a taint to the air that engulfed the three. Similar to the black vapors drifting from several ancient oil burners fastened at head high intervals on the walls, yet noticeably different, the power of his sword when he commanded it left a singed, ruinous odor behind.
"I am Annaria A'Darian……." From the mouth of the witch, her head bowed so low her chin rested upon her chest, a thin monotone poured like dark molasses. "I am a follower of the Scarlet Falcon. I am Wingsister to the Hawk, A'ware."
"No!…" Dundale gasped audibly. "That can't be! You have not the time nor age to be one of the Sisterhood!" Kemoc turned in amaze at his companion's knowledge of their mysterious assailant.
"You know more than you say, my friend. If there's more, pray tell…" An edge of irritation revealed itself in his sharp tone.
"I know of this one from my journeys into Ancient Radurdan. But I know of the order she speaks, the Sisterhood of the Scarlet Falcon, from the early days of my youth. They are an order of WiseWomen who have kinned themselves with the windriders, birds of prey and the spirits that fly among them." Dundale eased forward to have a closer look at their droning captive. "Yes…." he contemplated, rubbing the salt-and-pepper stubble of three days growth on his chin. "I remember something now.." Another lamp sputtered into extinction just behind the scribe's head, plunging him into shadow, yet the light of one to his far right cast a pale orange and yellow glow upon his haggard features. "I heard rumor when the body of Dyvim Tyr was taken from the woods where Kyle slew him, that there was a strange emblem tatooed across his chest.. a bird, red in color and poorly rendered. Something like that!" With a swift step forward, using his blade with which to point, Dundale drew Kemoc's attention to a tiny, evilly rendered insignia of a bird, faded red and ugly, between the thumb and first finger of the witch's right hand.
Annaria's eyes flared sullenly green and she snarled from beneath a look that, if empowered, would surely have brought death.
"Tell us now of what you know of Dyvim Tyr!" Kemoc's eyes fell back and forth from the strange tatoo to the eyes of his prisoner. Slowly he raised the tip of his holy sword until it was directly between her quivering eyes. "Speak!" he commanded with such force the light danced madly around them, as if a sudden, brief wind had swept the hall and threatened each tiny blaze that still remained alive in the lamps.
"Aaaaahhh……." Annaria cowered, raising her hands to shield her eyes. "Noo! I will say!..I will…!"
"Then let it be so!" Kemoc thundered. Dundale drew back into the shadows, feeling the heat of power gather around them once again. "Tell us of the fate of Dyvim Tyr!"
From the witch there came a long, indecipherable string of muttered expletives, strange and mystical utterances that raised the hair on the two warriors arms. It was delivered in a monotonic drone that eventually drifted into coherency.
"……………….Dyvim Tyr was a man who traveled far. He came into Radurdan often, plying his wares of treachery and deceit. He became most useful to us, without the binding of his will to our own. He was already, and had always been evil….."
Kemoc and Dundale shared a brief, knowing glance as they realized the witch had indeed, finally fallen under the spell of the Holy Sword's command. She would not, from this point on, be able to lie nor withhold anything she knew to be the truth. They listened intently as her tale of wickedness and sorcery began to unfold.
"Dyvim Tyr was sent among you to learn certain things. He knew not that he was our servant. He knew not that he was spellbound to return to us and bring us what we needed of him. But he was detained. Slain by Kyle Garyth unjustly!" Suddenly appearing to greatly age, the witch doubled over, wretching, and wringing her hands, spitting as if the name she had just spoken had left some vile taste in her mouth. "….undead, …….creature….. " she muttered.
We came for him! We came for what was ours after you Guardians…." The foul stench from her mouth as she cursed forced Kemoc and Dundale to retreat a step, wrinkling their noses in disgust. We took him from the shallow pit where you laid his carcass. What he knew, what he was sent to learn was still there in his head. OURS!" She stood upright, defiant now. Her hand clenched, then unfurled one wrinkled, aged digit with a black-embossed nail, half its length, protruding dangerously. "You took his eye. You took his arm, and you took his life. But you did not keep us from him. You did not keep us from exhuming his corpse, taking its rotting mass to Radurdan and bringing him back to speak!!"
Kemoc and Dundale retreated yet another step as Annaria spat and snarled her tale.
"And what did this corpse have to say to you and your morbid sisterhood, pray tell?" Kemoc inquired.

[Topaz]

Return From Shadow (part 6)

"I am bound by sorcery to seek the Tome of Tales"
"What the hell is she saying?"
Black smoke slowly rose from the cracks in the flooring of the old inn's upper hall. The witch, cowering near the stairwell, continued, uninterrupted by Dundale's outburst.
"Quiet," Kemoc cautioned. "She is confessing. Be patient, and I think we shall learn more than we bargained for." The scribe sheathed his sword and edged his way closer to the droning, slowly withering thing that was now their captive. Kemoc held his own blade steady, poised just above Annaria's pitifully, bowed head.
"See now the truth!" she screamed, returning suddenly to the maniacal babblings and erratic gestures she had employed before. Her arms flew wildly about her head. Her fingers wove patterns in the air, leaving blue, shimmering trails behind in their wake. The narrow space between her and Kemoc began to sizzle and burn, becoming at first a roiling ball of dim, yellow fire, then transforming to a clear crystal ball of glass. Arms breadth, it danced, suspended before their eyes. Annaria cackled, dragging black nails across her face while the globe filled slowly with smoke, awakening to her call.
"Look!" Dundale crouched before the shimmering orb, reaching out with caution to touch its quicksilver surface. It spun slowly around, suspended at their knees, just above the floor. Where his finger disturbed the gathering images, tiny ripples radiated out across its slowly spinning surface.
The images were at first murky, indecipherable. But slowly they revealed themselves; became cohesive.
Khrysta rode a dark horse. She was blinded by a foul rag tightly tied around her head. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her image rode silently amongst stern captors while the globe spun around and around. Inside the orb, the smoke consumed and created innumerable worlds as it whirled about. A tall, pale warrior Dundale remembered as Daemon drifted past, a sword of power clenched tightly in his hand. Brutal images, some too horrid to behold, came and went in the mist. Ghostly visions of the maiming of KeirinElf and Jon Brightblade caused Dundale to cringe in horror from the memory. Kemoc looked with concern toward his friend.
After a time, at the center of the spinning oracle, there appeared a book. A dark blaze, tainted orange with pale yellow fingers, caressed its tattered bindings. Around the floating, fiery tome, there stood several cloaked, mist enshrouded figures. They were obviously women. They were most certainly ancient, and they all struggled to lay their hands on the book.
"The Sisterhood!" Dundale declared aloud. The orb's rotation seemed to ebb as he reached out once again toward its surface. "Look at their robes. See the hawk insignia worked into the hems of their robes? Its embroirdered in red. The same as Annnaria's tatoo! The same as the markings on Dyvims chest……."
"Whats the meaning of the book, then?" Kemoc's impatience caused the holy blade in his hands to come alive. Its fresh blaze lit the hallway anew. Shadows fled fearfully from around their feet.
"Aaaaghhh…." The witch cringed, wringing her hands. Her meager form diminished with each desperate attempt at resistance. "Stolen!" she screamed. "It is OURS! And it has been STOLEN!" The globe before them became a whirlwind of color, spitting moonbeam rays of light hither and thither around their feet. Annaria moaned aloud when the dancing light came across her. To Kemoc and Dundale it appeared as if its pale, shimmering radiance burned her in its passing.
Within the whirlwind of the globe, a new form began to take shape. With its coming, the quivering globe began to collapse and the old inn erupted in a delirious cacophony of sound.
"I seek the Tome of Tales!" Annaria shrieked. "Krollon! He was the one!" There was thunder rolling through the old inn. From below, a panicked stir of voices could be heard coming alive. They had finally succeeded in rousing the locals. It would be no time before Sharak and his men would be swarming like flies on a hot, summer day. "It was into his hands the thief placed that which is ours! Dyvim was but our servant." she screamed. "You demand that I speak, and that it be the truth… Well, hear it, then!" Even as she diminished before their eyes, that which had been Annaria now grew rapidly old and wrinkled. She rose up on her heels to speak. Her hand rested nervously on the puddle of ethereal mass that had been the shimmering globe.
"The Tome of Tales is a legend….a fairy tale for children. You do not expect us to believe…" Dundale tried to understand, then was suddenly silenced by a stern, unforgiving stare from the witch.
"You understand nothing!" The oozing, melting mass beneath her touch began to take human form. Arms and legs took shape, still glistening from its previous state. Then, slowly, the dark, grimacing visage of an unhappy corpse bloomed where the head should rightly be. It was the face of Dyvim Tyr, long dead, one eye gouged from his head, a thin red fluid running from the gaping orifice where it had once been. And there were limbs missing. "Now you will see!" she cried.
A mist formed around the atrocity of Dyvim's image. His face began to grow more solid, more stable and handsome. The eye, plucked in anger from its socket by Kyle Garyth, healed itself even as his missing limb returned, intact and useful. Kemoc and Dundale knew they were witnessing some simple sorcery, some long gone vision conjured by the witch's wrath. Such was not necessarily to be trusted, but the realism with which Dyvim reincarnated himself was uncanny.
Before the shifting image could speak, a loud clamor arose within the stairwell and from the landing below.
"What goes on here?" came an angry shout. "What are ye wreckin' in me place?" The balding head of the overweight caretaker appeared in the doorway. In the fat man's hand was a short, curved blade. It was usheathed. A thin bead of nervous perspiration rose across his forehead as he surveyed the outrageous scene before him. Dundale recognized the dark-eyed face of the stablemaster when it glared above the caretaker's hefty shoulder. There were others close behind. Before them all stood the ethereal image of Dyvim Tyr, slowly collapsing in a silvery puddle that ran unhindered across the worn and tattered carpet.

[Topaz]

Return From Shadow (part 7)

"What is the meaning of this, Dundale?" The balding caretaker and his armed cohorts squeezed cautiously through the narrow stairwell door. Before their disbelieving eyes, the incredulous scene rapidly deteriorated.
"We will have that which is ours!" Annaria hissed, crouched upon her knobby knees and pointing a bony finger in a weak gesture of accusation. Before her, weak from his exertion, the holy icon that was his sword laid to rest half free of and yet half submerged within the quicksilver puddle that had been Dyvim Tyr, Kemoc touched his forehead to the carpets and uttered one last, inaudible prayer.
"Carrion crow of the false faith! I will never in life reveal the secrets of the Tome!" The witch's garbled curses and screams proved she still understood the words Kemoc softly aimed at her. Her desperate clawing and futile attempts to grasp the air about her head made clear the effect of his intent. "Beware Guardians! And those who bed with them!" Her mad clutching and crawling diminished as she approached the receding rim of silver spread across the floor. She clung to its edge as if it were a hole into which she might somehow escape.
"Stop her! She attempts to trick us by opening some sort of portal!" Dundale suddenly stepped over Kemoc, attempting to bodily seize Annaria's deteriorating form. Her mad cackle echoed back at them from the rafters above as she slipped like shimmering ooze through his fingers, blending with the shrinking, silvery mass at his feet. She vanished without hint or trace of her presence remaining; not even the odorous taint of her sorcery.
Kemoc gasped for air as she disappeared, collapsing entirely onto the carpet. His now dim and silent blade stretched out from his hand like some forgotten, unanswered prayer. As the men, gathered in the stairwell door, began their cautious advance, Dundale maneuvered himself between them and his fallen comrade. From beneath his dark, flowing cloak, he slowly revealed the color of his steel, purposefully drawing just enough of the blade for it to catch and reflect the flickering lamplight that bathed them all. It was enough to establish boundaries in the 'No Man's Land' in which he and they now found themselves. All seemed to step back and breathe with some slight bit of ease.
"What goes here, Guardian? We know you, Dundale, but we cannot abide by this manner of…."
"Be silent, old fool." The scribe seemed for a moment to be listening intently to something no-one but him could hear. He held his free hand up to silence the rumble of questions and demands that rose like lava from the mob's volcanic curiosity. "There's no time for your muddle-headedness, O'Brian. Help me get Kemoc to our rooms before that …..witch….makes her return."
Dundale and two of the men carried Kemoc down the narrow, ill-lit hallway, to a pair of rooms at the farthest end. As they laid him down on the sway-backed old mattress, still firmly gripping his sword, his eyes opened briefly. Seeing he was safe and among friends, the holy warrior let loose his blade, letting it clatter to the floorboards, and slipped away from them into a deep, restorative slumber.
"Will he be a'right?' O'Brian, the overweight and balding caretaker, asked with a most uncharacteristic show of compassion. He snorted in Kemoc's direction, then wiped a runny nose with the sleeve of his shirt. A violent sneeze erupted from the man.
"With rest, he will. And if you don't make him sick.." Dundale turned and passed into the adjoining room, pushing aside the stableboy and two more who looked like kitchen help and were hanging like flies on the doorjamb. "Come out here where we can talk."
The innkeeper waddled from the room, but his eyes remained overly long at rest on the bright blade that lay on the floor, just out of reach of Kemoc's outstretched fingers. "Id say ye have a bit of explainin' t'do, Master Dundale. And if'n I were you, sir, I'd…." He turned his fat nose to rest firmly upon the tip of the scribe's sword. He saw his terrified face reflected in Dundale's dark, determined eyes.
"Don't move, or I'll send him to his maker." Dundale raised his other hand behind him. The slow advance of the stableboy and the cook's apprentices abruptly halted. " 'If 'n I were YOU,sir…….," mocking the fearful innkeeper, "I'd be sittin' me fat arse down and havin' a listen, rather than spoutin' out me blowhole' " The scribe sheathed his weapon, smiling patiently. When he indicated that the man should sit, he quickly scurried to a table at the end of the room, drawing himself up like a rat that has been cornered trying to pilfer the cheese.
"I demand an explanation! I…….."
"Shut up, and listen!" Dundale slammed his fist down hard on the table. A small bowl of salt fell into O'Brian's lap, then hit the floor, scattering white crystals all around their boots. "The first thing you must understand, is that nothing happened here for which there is need of explanations. You must forget what you 'think' you saw. That….apparition…was just some sort of trick. Some illusion perpetrated by one of your more 'magical' guests. I know of at least two in Sharak's Landing at this very moment who have such 'gifts'."
"But, sir! I, I…."
"You nothing! You will do as I say and be damn quiet about it! Do you understand me?" Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Dundale eased the fall of his cloak back from the sheath of his blade. Secured to his belt, just behind the sword itself, something glittered in the candlelight. O'Brian edged closer in his seat to see what the scribe intended for him to see. He sat suddenly straight as an arrow in his chair. His eyes were wide and clear as he nodded his head affirmatively. Just as slowly, Dundale eased back the folds of his cloak, covering his Guardians of Truth Sigil of Service once again from the innkeeper's startled eyes.
"Yessir' Whatever it be that ye say, sir. Me 'n the boys here did'n see nuthin', sir. Not a thing, as it were. C'mon boys, lets us be leavin' the gentleman to tend to his friend." O'Brian made a quick motion to the three boys, casting a glance around at the door to Kemoc's room as if at any minute the other warrior might appear. 'We'll be a'goin' now, sir." The four, muttering amongst themselves, vanished through the door.
Dundale stood laughing quietly for some time. After assuring himself that Kemoc rested comfortably, and pulling off his friend's heavy riding boots, he returned to the table to sit in the flickering candlelight. He left his cloak on a peg by the door, his jerkin hanging loosely over it, and his own boots at rest below. For a long while he sat and stared into the candle's dancing flame, remembering all that the witch had said and shown them.
"Maybe there is another way to the truth," he mumbled quietly to himself. Returning to Kemoc's room, Dundale eased back the man's cloak and slowly untied the thongs that secured a dark leather pouch to the man's belt. Kemoc never stirred as the scribe removed his property, then made his way back into the other room. At the table, standing in his stocking feet, his dark, graying hair falling around his shoulders, Dundale laid the contents of the pouch in the dancing light that played across the table. He gasped in wonder at the sight before him.

[Topaz]

Return From Shadow (part 8)

Through the wee hours of the morning Dundale hovered over a narrow table in the small anteroom of his and Kemoc's lodging. Like a thief who plunders the tombs of the wealthy deceased, he was singularly intent upon his endeavors. In one hand he held a well-worn leather journal, page after page of his own flowing script recording his growing knowledge concerning the mystery he now tried to unravel. In the other he held the mystery itself.
The Adan Stone was neither stone nor jewel. It lay in his hand like a stone, polished to a slippery sheen, yet refracted any light cast upon it into a thousand razored rainbows, then as quickly consuming them, returned full circle to the shadow-rimmed maelstrom that was its core. Oblong, like a shimmering goose egg made of starlight and jam, it weighed strangely in his grasp, rolling side to side as if it had the will to escape his handling. It became warm to the touch as the whirlpools of color gave ground to the darkness that grew within, and gaining weight, forced the scribe's hand firmly down against the table, though he hardly noticed as he steadily read from his notes.
"…..Carran Din Caran.' Note: the last stanza of incantation to be spoken in the Taerabon dialect' he muttered to himself as he read. " ..continues the line of script- believed to be as follows: 'A San A Dan, A Carran D' carrin d' A'Dan' and the stone should become opaque, light to the touch, and ready to use."
Dundale studied the undulating orb that rolled too easily upon his palm. Turning back the pages he had read, he began to slowly voice a broken, stuttering rendition of the spell he tried to translate. It had been copied in haste, and there was no guarantee of its accuracy. For that reason his companion, Kemoc, had kept the stone closely guarded, proclaiming it was dangerous to use, yet assuring all along that as soon as was possible they would explore its potential. But he had seen the witch A'Ru'anelle use it to speak with AnAkhbar. If Lady's Luck might shine he would get the infernal thing to serve him as well.
….A Carran D'carrin d' A'Dan'," Dundale finished, saying a small prayer to himself that he had not misspoken the spell somewhere, some tiny nuance that would awaken in the stone some other use which he did not need, nor was prepared for. A space of time, though short and intense, passed before there was any noticeable difference in the look or feel of the thing. Time and again he was tempted to set it down and begin anew with his research and recitations, but he was more afraid of aborting something sopowerful and unpredictable once commenced. In time his patience was rewarded, and in a grand, spectacular manner.
When the shadow completely consumed the boundaries of the stone, there was a weight, a heft, to it. It lay firmly upon Dundale's hand, his hand pressed tightly to the tabletop, the flickering light from the half-burned candle dancing madly across its outer rim before vanishing as would water down a drain. Then, without warning, its many-hued sheen faded to pearl, holding the memory of a myriad of colors, yet not their shine. And though its dimensions became more defined, it became less substantial to the touch, for it lifted, as if weightless, from his hand.
"The Lady's blessing, ..." Dundale prayed in amazement, not remembering to finish. Before his eyes, dancing in the air a hands breadth above the table, the oval jewel doubled in size and spun slowly on its invisible axis.
Through its opaque sheen the flickering light from the dying candle could only barely be seen; a dull white glow amidst the clouds where no rainbows dared to prance. It was ready; he set his mind to his task.
In his mind, Dundale envisioned the Council Chamber of the Guardians of Truth in the Beacon. There rested an ancient secret there that few remembered. The last of the ancient Palantir, the seeing stones of Nemenor. But would the Adan Stone be able to touch the Palantir? Would there be a way to communicate between them? It took only moments for his questions to be answered. From the other room, Kemoc snored and rolled over in his sleep, nearly breaking Dundale's concentration. Colors rolled violently through the heart of the stone. Its shape distorted as its rotation faltered, though it responded to his renewed attention, returning once again to its pale sheen, slowly spinning in its perfection.
Within the heart of the stone an eye slowly opened. Narrow at first, it widened to reveal a two-dimensional view of the Beacon's Council Chamber, mist-enshrouded and hazed by the rainbow tint of the orb's pearly surface.
"I seek Topaz Eludes," Dundale whispered into the dead silence that engulfed their rooms. "Topaz? Are you there?" Though the outer rim of the stone still seemed to slowly rotate, casting hints of color away from its edges like fire from the sun, its core now seemed to remain stationary, framing the ever-clearing image of the Chamber in bright relief.
A sudden flurry of movement within the image inside the stone sat Dundale aright, both hands caressing the slowly rotating orb at its base. Someone had seen! A pair of surprised eyes peered back at him, bewildered and unclear as to what they truly witnessed. Was it Khrysta? Could it be Dev, or even Trillium? He could not tell, but they looked familiar. Deep brown, round and alive, those eyes peered intensely up through the orb. The thin outline of fingertips appeared around the upper hemisphere of the spinning globe.
"Hello?" A voice, soft and intrigued with this new mystery, drifted up from the orb into Dundale's mind.
"Hello!" he answered, a little too loudly. All he could see and be sure of was that someone at the Beacon was peering down into the Palantir with a goodly measure of curiosity. "Hello there!", he repeated.

[Topaz]

Return From Shadow (part 9)

The Adan Stone spun easily in Dundale's hands, casting strange patterns of shimmering color around the room. He never noticed the wild undulations of 'faerie' light roiling around his feet, nor flashing erratically across the thin blinds that covered his windows. Below where he sat, comforted by his assumed privacy, Sharak's Landing breathed heavily. The docks were still alive, and there were some who moved along the piers with their bottles and wenches that took notice of the strange emanations from the high window. Yet he never knew. He was instead entranced by the visions slowly forming within its source.
'Dundale?' a soft, familiar voice bloomed inside his head. "Is that really you?" A young woman wearingher soft, red-gold curls to her shoulders returned his gaze with a curdling smile that would surely have turned butter in the churn. Yet he sensed an uneasy caution in her eyes. There was good reason for it, he supposed, considering the circumstance of their last meeting. And then there was the matter of his sudden disappearance during Illwind's attack on the Beacon. "Where are you?" she asked, her expression narrowing slightly. Deep brown eyes, soft, seductive, but determined as a hunting fox, peered back at him from within the heart of the stone.
Memories, some hard, most sweet as springtime, flooded Dundale's mind as he recognized her. 'Trillium!' His face filled the surface of the Numenorian relic in the Beacon, but in his darkening room, he held the spinning, eerily illuminated and hypnotizing orb closer to his face, speaking again just a touch too loudly. "I'm so very glad to see you! And to know that you're safe!"
"Safe!?" Her expression changed dramatically. "How would you know? I thought you were dead! Andits been so very long! How…? I mean, …are you well? And Kemoc! Is he with you?" She seemed suddenly anxious, her eyes scanning side to side from within the globe, distorting as if from inside a glass bowl. His quiet chuckle at the illusion must have registered, for she came eyes front, the corners of her mouth tightening and a tiny spark smoldering just behind her eyes.
"I do beg your pardon, m'Lady Trill, but it has not been possible. All will be explained later, and I must beg your leave again. I'm in need of a word with Topaz. There is an urgency, yet I do rejoice to see your face." There was a long pause between them. He caressed the lower hemispheres of the orb, sliding his fingers lightly along its iridescent surface. It was pliant to his touch, her beautiful face at its center. He whispered, 'I'll see you soon. I promise.'
Her hesitation was momentary, but it was definitely there. Or at least he needed to believe that it was. But with a quiet, 'I'll get her for you,' Trillium turned away from the Palantir, then vanished from Dundale's sight. In the Council Chamber, secure behind the walls of the Beacon of Truth, the scribe's eyes filled the larger, more stable oracle, with a humorous distortion of his own. Though through the murky revelations of the Adan Stone, he himself could see very little of the far-away sanctuary.
It seemed much longer than it was in truth before Trillium's face reappeared, smiling with compassion. "She's coming. It may take a moment. She was in her rooms. I think she may have been sleeping." A shifting of the shadows behind her became a fluttering of soft rainbow hues, sharpening into Topaz's sleepy-eyed image as she entered and approached the Palantir. Her tiny hands rested on the girl's shoulders seated before the ancient seeing stone, and she peered curiously around her curls. She seemed to be stifling a yawn when she leaned forward to see.
"Dundale? Trillium said it was you. Its been a long time, old friend."
"Hello Topaz. It has been too long. And much has happened since our parting, but thats a tale that will have to wait for another day. There is trouble afoot, and you may be in danger from ……" Dundale's fervor rose with each word. In his hands the spinning orb sparkled and sent tiny rays of light dancing around his head, ricocheting around the room.
"Calm down, calm down! I can barely hear you as it is. You must speak more cleary. What has happened? And where have you been? We have …"
"There's no time for that now, Topaz. Kemoc and I have returned from a long and dangerous road, only to find more trouble of the same brewing in Rhydin. We are north of the city by only a few days, yet we have already uncovered a dire plot aimed at the Guardians from a dark and dangerous source." He paused to catch his breath; to gather his thoughts before he told her of his encounter with Annaria. "……..and she spoke openly of an old enemy of Kyle Garyth's. Do you remember the one called Dyvim Tyr? It seems he was a secret servant to the Scarlet Falcon coven. And there was more. She spoke
of the dead man's brother. I believe his name was Granym. Do you know of him?"
Topaz cringed visibly at the sound of Granym's name. For one tiny instant she froze, the rapid beat of her fairy wings suddenly stilled, becoming for that one brief moment in time entirely visible. 'Extraordinary', the aging scribe thought to himself before they resumed their frantic fluttering. "Much has been happening here of late, Dundale. There is much to tell. I…"
"I have more," he interrupted. Two pair of fearful eyes exchanged worried glances, then peered up at him as one, anxious to hear his words. "I hate to pain you with memories, dear, but I must ask you something of Krollon. I know he was a scholar, and had in his possession a great many books of knowledge and power. Do you remember any mention while he lived that he had come into possession of an ancient manuscript called the 'Tome of Tales?'
The gasps that escaped the distant pair echoed through Dundale's tiny room. "That's just a legend. A tale for old wives and children. It does not exist. And what has all this have to do with Dyvim and Granym Tyr?" A noticeable shiver passed through the pair.
"That's what I'm here to find out. With your help, m'Lady."

[Topaz]

The Raven's Wing (part 1)

Mearabeth stood beside the glistening pool. Silver moonlight glinted from its mercurial surface, distorting her reflection and enhancing her evil glare. At arms length to either side, their joined hands raised toward a fingernail moon drifting across the southern horizon, eleven other women stood with her. At a single glance they were all nearly identical, yet there was a slight variation in height. The amount of wear on each woman's dark robe revealed more of her age and toil than mere words could express. Some, gray and feeble, yet with eyes bright as coals smoldering in the night, stood side by side with others aflame with youthful ambition, joined hand to hand, sister to sister, on right and left, save for one point in their circle. At due north. There, a pair of sisters, almost twins, stood two paces apart from each other. Their hands were still raised toward the night sky, but did not touch. There seemed to be a thin line of blue, shimmering and forming between them. A pale light, many-hued and quick, flowed among the coven with the determined currents of a mountain stream steadily escaping higher ground. It cascaded by, bathing them all in a rainbow spray of power. And as one, they sang into the night.
On a single note the song of power ceased and all twelve women fell simultaneously to their knees, tugging the hems of their cloaks up from the dust where they knelt. Clad in finely woven robes of good Agaelon wool dyed the color of mist on a winter's eve, the Sisterhood of the Scarlet Falcon embraced the night with arms outstretched. Deep cowls of fine, black silk covered their heads, hiding each ones face from her sister at either hand. But across the glimmering pool of silver light, pairs of eyes peered from beneath those deep hoods, intent upon the pool of wickedness they had collectively conjured between them.
"It is done!" Mearabeth proclaimed into the stillness of the night. In silence they rose as one, awaiting the fruit of their labor. Rising from the hem of each woman's robe, embroidered in fine silk thread the color of newly-spilled blood, a crimson falcon had been emblazoned. The lines that formed the fierce bird's outline seemed to glow in the night as if the thread from which it was fashioned was delicately spun metal instead; freshly wrought from the forge and hastily sewn into the dark gray weave. "See! Even now, she comes!" spoke Mearabeth. As the 'Elder', the witch whose soul had been used to bring forth the Power, she was first to uncover her face and bring forth her jewel to shine as a beacon for what they had summoned.
With the first ripples forming in the very center, several of the younger witches drew close to the shimmering pool, reaching out to, but not laying hand upon, the slowly forming whirlpool. They were the ones who gasped aloud when the first slender hand appeared within its spinning, deepening center. It was coated in silver, fluid in its motion and seemed to blend with that from which it was born, though it struggled to be free. Another came as well, clutching desperately for purchase, dragging a bald, eyeless head and torso up and into the world. Its form oozed forth against the suction, coated entirely in the silver liquid. Its surface mirrored the intensely curious images of its birth mothers in rolling waves of distortion. Where it touched the spinning remains of the witch's dying spell, the sheen there turned black, fading away to deep purples and painful shades of red before spinning slowly away. In places it appeared bruised by the contact, damaged somehow, as if the body tearing itself free itself from the center's pull ripped its fabic asunder. The outer edges also began to deteriorate.
"Come Sister, and be reborn," One of the pair who had stood apart at the north end of the coven's circle rose to guide the now obviously female apparition between the standing stones and into the arms of the group. "Welcome home," as one, they choroused. From all sides they came with their gleaming jewels in their hands, thrusting them as close as each could come to the reflective surface of their sister, Annaria Ar'Darian.
The fire from the jewels burned away the magic's dripping residue and left the young witch to stand naked as a newborn child before her peers. The stone beneath her feet was cold and she began to shiver. But even as one of the older woman came to wrap her in a shawl, she turned quickly back to the rapidly fading portal. Reaching deep into the dark hole, now resembling the night sky if it were set to spin slowly above us, vanishing away toward its center, she struggled to pull forth the last remaining puddles of the silvery liquid. It vaguely resembled a human form, though terribly deformed and hard to grasp.
"Help me, sisters! I have brought us a toy.!" Together several of them, knee deep in the dwindling starlight of the whirlpool, drug forth the limber, oozing mass she so prized. "Without the Life giving power of the Holy warriors blade, I could never have done this thing. Behold the doppleganger! Behold my creation!"
Slowly, then with more vigor as she used her magic to strengthen its development, the muddle it had been rose to be the coated form of a man, tall and broad. With their jewels ablaze the coven converged and burned the mirror fluid from his body. Standing erect, above them all, naked and dripping silver drops the size of dimes from his hair and fingertips, Dyvim Tyr stood slack-jawed and dazed. His shoulders drooped and his arms dangled feebly at his sides. From one corner of his mouth a thin line of drool found its way down his chest. But though his old wounds and amputations still showed on his scarred body, he was alive! And he seemed to realize it as he stood there in the midst of those thirteen appraising women, bare to his bones.
"Bring him along, Annaria. There is now much to do! You must tell us all of what you have learned. And then," she paused to skeptically assess the lumbering, still forming Dyvim as it followed close behind. "There is this 'thing' to train. We have our work ahead of us. Well done, child. Well done."

[Topaz]

The Raven's Wing (part 02)

The Tower of the Raven stood in a lonely valley south of mighty Nazburg, seat of the Black Throne of Radurdan. The ancient countryside surrounding it fell away to the sea in long, narrow valleys overshadowed by steep, scrub-covered cliffs. From its uppermost parapets one could gaze southward across those mist-shrouded vales toward Muir, where land and sea met along stormy, rock-strewn coastlines. Behind the gray stones of the keep rose the dangerous foothills and crags that would form the Shadowrange Mountains, marching away ever northward to the very rim of the world. Deep within the tower's enchanted walls the Sisterhood of the Scarlet Falcon strove through the night to make sense of all they had learned from Annaria's encounter with the Holy warrior, and prepare for what was to come.
"We feel the source you employed to create the doppleganger, and we are impressed by your accomplishment, child," the Elder spoke with subdued agitation in her voice. "What we do not perceive is 'why you have done this thing'? Surely you must know what you have risked in its doing."
"It is simple, Mother," the young witch replyed, still wrapped heavily against a chill that still clung to her as close as the robes in which she was heavily layered. "We failed with the original resurrection of Dyvim Tyr. Though we brought him back to life, his memories were lost to us and he could no longer guide us to what we seek. All we have left to pursue is a name given us as his rotting corpse deteriorated. Now we have another chance to learn who or what manner of being this 'Krollon' is, or was. All we know for certain is that he dwells in the southern lands, as did the original Dyvim. Or did at the time our property was stolen." Annaria snuggled closer to the burning coals that sat amid a round, stone table where all thirteen members of the coven had gathered to hold council. In a dark corner, still as stone but with his eyes wide and gazing at the high ceiling, the doppleganger showed no signs of recognition of where it was, or even if it possessed the will to care.
"When he," the young witch indicated her solemn creation with a slight nod of her head, "comes near one who knew the real Dyvim Tyr in life, something inside of it will stir, and slowly he will regain all that was the original, including his memories. We will take him to Rhydin, disguised as an unknown, and let the buried memories of his enemies return him to true life for us. He will remember, given time, who he was and who he sold our property to. The one called Dundale knew the original Dyvim by word of mouth alone. See how far just that brief encounter has furthered my efforts? Imagine what will happen when he is introduced to his brother, or if and when he confronts one of his old enemies among the Guardians of Truth! He will burn more brightly with each fresh contact, and his true self will emerge, intact and as evil as ever he was!" From the gathering around the table a slow murmur arose as the coven considered the possibilities and implications of her words. It slowly became a low cackling, underscored by a rhythmic tattoo beat out on the stone table by twelve sets of bony knuckles.
"And when we have returned what was taken from us to its rightful place in the Tower, we will set him upon our enemy, Kemoc, the Holy Warrior,...and the threat of Kyle Garyth, the Dark Knight, as well. He will go armed with the Raven's Wing, and with the Tome of Tales once again in our grasp, we shall see that we are finally and utterly victorious!" Screams and howls of approval rolled up through the empty halls of the tower, winging their way upwards and away into the night. Beneath a dying moon, a flock of night-black ravens fled from that outpouring of their evil mirth, speeding away toward a crimson horizon in the east. There, beyond the black towers of Nazburg, a new dawn struggled to be born. A deep silence fell over the valley with their passing. The witch's council disbanded, each returning to her own chambers to take some rest before evening came again, for with it would come the time of deciding. With nightfall also would come the time of departure for those the circle would choose to follow this new questing into the southern realms.
Far away to the south, as the new dawn broke over Sharak's Landing, Dundale slowly covered the now dark and dormant oracle he had employed to speak with Topaz and Trillium with a swatch of dark velvet, then returned it carefully to its leather pouch. Through the narrow window in his room, the day peeked in around the thin blinds, dispelling the shadows that had danced there so wildly just an hour before. The last dying flicker of flame from the candle on the table struggled to survive amidst a puddle of melted wax, which ran now across the table in a thickening rivulet, seeking the floor. Quietly, stepping carefully around a loose, creaking floorboard that guarded the one bedroom's open doorway, Dundale eased the pouch back onto the bed where Kemoc still lay lightly snoring. He covered it with the younger man's cloak, not daring to try lacing the leather thongs back around his belt, hoping he would not suspect he had dared to use the dangerous artifact without his permission or aid, then turned to go.
"Did you find what you sought within the stone?"
Dundale froze just short of the doorway, then turned slowly to face his wide-awake companion. Kemoc, his head turned toward the light shining through from the other room, stared questioningly toward the scribe from the shadows where he lay. The light illuminated his bright blue eyes with a righteousness that burned. "I heard you speaking with someone earlier. I came to see who it was, but you were much too engrossed by your mischief. You must not have heard me." He rose up slowly, painfully it seemed, to support himself on his elbows. There were dark circles under his eyes and his hair was disheveled. Long, blonde curls hung raggedly around his pale face. "The least you could do, if you are to tempt such dangers alone, is to share with me what you have learned."
Scalded by shame, Dundale pulled up a chair by Kemoc's bed and told him as best he could of the mystery he and Topaz had tried to unravel while he had slept.

[Topaz]

The Raven's Wing (part 3)

(In the interest of time here, I've jumped ahead just a little bit. The Dyvim doppleganger has been bonded to the Raven's Wing sword and he and 4 Sisters of the Scarlet Falcon have ridden down from the mountains of Radurdan to the Muirian coast to enlist the aide of the Gatekeeper. Enjoy!)

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The old woman sat astride a mighty rock within the shadow of Muir's tallest and most ancient lighthouse. The silvery spray from the ocean froth danced about her graying mane and glistened like captured starlight upon the weathered staff she held firmly in her wrinkled grasp. Behind her frail form, beating down from the tiny windows high upon the sturdy column of stone that rose like a dark monument at her back, the light of a thousand candles contested the inevitable fall of night; defied the gathering darkness that rolled in from the sea. That gloom rendered her tiny form nearly invisible as she hovered in her twilight-hued robes, awaiting the arrival of her guests while weathering the feeder winds of the coming storm. Far out to sea, roiling above the dark horizon, crimson fire danced in a maniacal rhythm to a thunderous backbeat. The gods were awake tonight, of this she was most certain.
There came a time late in the stormy eve when five riders approached the ancient hag. All were cloaked in dark robes, most likely gray, yet so drenched by the falling rain that they seemed as black as the night itself. Few words were spoken between them, yet all at that gathering knew who stood before them, and their purpose here. The ancient one, who was herself the Gatekeeper of the Amaleon Order, knew to whom she spoke, though she was not of their kith nor kin. She recognized the brilliant falcon insignia that had been shown her by the one who named herself Annaria, she who had made her specific demands and paid the required amount of gold for the service then rendered. That woman had given the proper respect when she had seen the silver gryphon emblazoned upon the old one's own vast, encircling robes. They were not sisters, one clan to the other, yet they bore no hatred between their covens. Therefore she had given the four women the aid they sought, no matter the additional task of making passage for the monstrosity with which they traveled.
The dopplegangar, for that was the only means the ancient one had of describing the abomination in their company, rode in silence behind the four Sisters of the Scarlet Falcon. They hovered near it as if it were some honored Lord, or maybe some precious familiar of their order in dire need of protection. The thing itself sat rigidly upon a black gelding which bore him without complaint. The beast had been doubly blinded, both by a physical hood, so that he might not sense the sight of the malignant creature he had been drafted to bear, and by a spell of dumbfounding, which enabled the poor beast to endure the cold, lifeless touch of its unearthly passenger.
The ancient Gatekeeper had then done her duty and collected her due, in due haste as well. She opened the twin gates as she had been commissioned to do. One she opened within the borders of Rhydin, that indulgent cesspool in the southlands, and the other to a dark corner of the realm known as Sharak's Landing. She deemed it not to be her place to judge the morality nor purpose of those who came seeking her aide, yet she could not help but give a tiny shiver of fear for the consequences her actions had this night incurred. Weakened by her efforts, and not a little concerned for their repercussions, she hobbled inside the dark, swaying tower that was her abode. The thundering crash of the storm's arrival shivered the structure from its foundations to its frail summit, causing the brilliant light from its pinnacle to dance erratically across the rock-strewn coastline of her homeland.
"May the Creator forgive me for what I have done this night," she prayed as she made her stumbling way up the winding stair to her chambers. "I meant no harm to those that lie in the Falcon's path." Yet she had opened the gates the Sisters had asked, and sustained their passage regardless of the pain that had come as an added compensation. But she was soothed somewhat by the soft jingle from the sack of Radurdanian gold now tucked safely away within the deep folds of her robe.
Among the high boulders strewn along the shoreline, below the towering lighthouse, a dim glow of spent magic had faded with the last remnants of the day. On a tiny beach within a narrow, secluded cove, two puddles of cooling glass slag lay opposite each other where the old woman's magic had melted the very sand beneath the portals she had opened. The air, cooling with the night breezes and lightly blowing rain that came in swiftly from the sea, crackled loudly within the narrow cove while thin wisps of rank smoke rose up from the slightly glowing stone, then vanished inland.
Upon a dark path, just north of Rhydin, a remnant of that same tainted wind sprang up from the ground itself, stirring the dust at the center of the well-traveled lane leading down into the village itself. At the center of the tiny, reeking cyclone, a flickering flame burst into life, lighting the night with its macabre, dancing glow. As the wind rose, so did the flame grow, increasing in intensity until each consumed the other entirely, leaving only a dim, pulsating rent in the very fabric of the night.
As if from a great distance, the steady clip-clop of horse's hooves came from within the portal, heralding the arrival of three dark riders. They came through the portal in single file. Two great mares, silver in hue and bearing a pair women in long, flowing gray robes, came first. By tether behind them they led a hooded black gelding which danced madly about as it made its exit. Upon its back rode a figure resembling a man, yet with eyes of solid black and as soulless as the wind. At its side hung sword, sheathed in silver, that cast an eerie glow all its own upon the shadows of the night.
Farther north, in Sharak's Landing, an identical scenario began to unfold.