Chaos Descending (2 page)

“No, but I’d rather ask than just assume they’ll do it.”

Zollin pulled Brianna close and kissed her. The thought of having a baby was both exciting and terrifying, but Brianna seemed so calm. He sometimes had trouble believing that his life turned out to be so so perfect.

“How long will you be?” he asked.

“Just a few hours,” Brianna said. “I’ll be back before dark.”

“Good, I’ll have dinner waiting.”

He leaned against the door frame of his small workshop and watched her leave. She was so graceful, so light on her feet, that Zollin almost expected to see her leap into the air and fly away. She couldn’t fly, not exactly, and he couldn’t help but wonder how the baby would affect her powers. There was so much he didn’t know. He had been planning to travel down to Ebbson Keep to read the scrolls that had been discovered in the Ruins of Arnak, but he had put that trip off. Over the past year he’d felt he had an abundance of time, and so he’d focused on smaller, more pleasant tasks, putting off anything that took him away from the tranquility of their cottage hideaway.

Growing up without a mother, Zollin had learned to cook and take care of the small chores around the house that his father always seemed to forget. And when he’d built the cottage overlooking the river, he’d naturally taken up those tasks again. After completing their home, he’d built himself a small workshop. It was little more than a hut, walled with smooth rocks from the river. He’d added a sturdy wooden bench where he could keep his tools. Building the cottage had been different from making the finer wooden furniture that he enjoyed crafting. The floor of his workshop was covered with wood shavings, and while building the cottage had been an accomplishment he was proud of, it was the slow, methodical projects in his workshop that really interested him.

He didn’t just do carpentry in the workshop either. In fact, he had been practicing magic for months. After his battle with the witch in Osla, he’d been completely drained of magic. When he had first discovered his magical ability, he’d had a vast reservoir of power inside him. Now that void was slowly refilling, but he was grateful for the limits on his magic because it forced him to learn. Whereas before he might simply will things to happen using raw power, he now had to understand magic to wield even the simplest of spells. And he found that the more he understood his power, the more he could do with it.

For the past few weeks he’d been tinkering with alchemy. Before his power had been used to save the Five Kingdoms, he’d turned plain copper coins into gold without much thought or effort. Now it took all of Zollin’s concentration just to focus on the tiny building blocks that made up the copper coins. He thought of them as building blocks, like the children’s toy, but in truth they were spinning, shimmering bits of matter, and Zollin was only just learning what made them unique.

He sat down on a plain wooden stool and set a single copper coin on the wooden bench. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind of the anxiety that learning he was going to be a father had unleashed. He felt the warm rush of magic flowing through him. It was a comforting feeling, one he’d feared he might never feel again after his battle with the witch left him depleted of power and almost dead. The magic moved like a dancer, only Zollin couldn’t hear the music. It pulsed in the items all around his workshop. He was growing herbs—though most people would call them weeds—near one window; there were rocks, an elk horn, even a few cheap rings and trinkets. Each one had a unique magical energy.

There was the usual collection of junk and unfinished projects, but the real work was being done inside of Zollin. Each day he felt his power growing. Kelvich had taught Zollin that working magic was similar to exercising: the more he did, the stronger he would become. Zollin had no control over the amount of magic in his inner reservoir, but he could expand his abilities by learning how his power worked and increasing his magical stamina, thus increasing what he was able to do each day.

He let his magic flow into the coin, his eyes open but no longer seeing. Instead, he was perceiving the world through his magic and focusing all his attention on the coin. The copper was a simple metal, unlike gold. The tiny spinning bits of matter needed to be rearranged, but the concept was easier said than done. Moving the tiny, shimmering building blocks was like trying to pick up a single strand of hair off a smooth stone floor. His efforts were clumsy, his magic felt like fat fingers fumbling with the spell, trying to do delicate work that he wasn’t skilled at.

Still, the matter could be moved, changed, even rearranged. It reminded Zollin of the alphabet. Each of the letters was unique, but arranged in certain orders they spelled specific words. Then those same letters could be rearranged to make new words. In a way, practicing magic was like learning a new language. The copper coin was made up of relatively simple bits of matter and Zollin worked hard to transform the shimmering blocks into gold, which was much more complex. It took a long time and a great deal of concentration to transmute the copper into gold, and he changed the metal’s shape as he worked. It took several hours of hard work, and when he was finished he had a tiny strip of gold, little more than a thread.

Zollin added the strip of gold to the others he had already created, levitating the band, then winding it around and through the other threads in an intricate braid. The ring was almost ready and represented nearly a month’s work. He guessed he had just enough time to prepare dinner before Brianna returned.

After leaving the workshop, Zollin gathered some vegetables from the wooden cupboard inside the cottage. He could have used his magic to slice up and even cook their dinner, but instead he took his time, first chopping then stewing the vegetables. Once he’d gotten the fire burning and hung the pot of vegetables over the flames, Zollin went back out into the twilight. He looked for Brianna, but she was nowhere in sight. The river that ran through the Great Valley was wide enough that it wasn’t unusual to see fishing boats drifting with the current or poling their way upstream.

Zollin closed his eyes and let his magical senses flow out. He could feel the small insects in the grass, the water of the river flowing, and even the fish that swam in the cold depths. He selected a large trout and then cast one of the first spells he ever taught himself. He levitated the fish from the river. It thrashed in his invisible, magical grip, but even though he wasn’t as powerful as he had once been, his mind was much sharper, his concentration almost unbreakable. He didn’t try to hold the fish, instead he enveloped it, moving his spell around the struggling fish so that it couldn’t escape him.

One quick, violent thought cast a spell that snapped the fish’s neck, killing it instantly and painlessly. Zollin had no desire to make the poor creature suffer. He just needed the meat for the stew he was making. Another spell stripped the fish’s scales away, and then with one delicate motion Zollin removed the tender white meat. The rest of the fish, including its small set of organs, skin and bones, fell back into the river where Zollin felt the remains being immediately feasted on by smaller fish.

Zollin levitated the nearly two pounds of perfectly filleted meat toward him until it rested in his hands He held on to his magical senses for several seconds before turning back to the cottage. He felt tired and hungry. As soon as he got inside he seasoned the fish before dropping it into the pot with the vegetables. Then he scrubbed his hands. He enjoyed eating fish, and being so near the river made having an almost constant food source close to hand convenient, but he didn’t like the smell of raw fish that seemed to cling to his skin. He used aromatic herbs, crushing the tiny plants between his fingers and palms as he rubbed his hands together.

Then, he set out two crystal glasses and poured wine for himself and Brianna. She would be back soon; he wasn’t worried about her yet. He sat near the fire, sipping his wine and stirring the pot of fish stew. He was comfortable, warm, relaxed, and yet, at the back of his mind, just out of reach of his consciousness he felt that danger was lurking.

Chapter 2

There was very little for a king to do in the high forest kingdom of the Drery Dru. They were an industrious race and could coax the mighty redwood trees of the Wilderlands to grow into any shape they desired. In the King Tree, Lorik had a lavish home. Most of the huge, towering trees that grew up in the center of the forest’s massive canopy contained small villages, but the King Tree was the largest, and the only tree with dwellings big enough for humans.

Lorik had returned to the Drery Dru—or forest elves as they were known in Ortis—nearly a year before. He’d found the King Tree changed from his last visit, when he’d nearly died climbing the massive tree in order to find the Swords of Acromin. The tree had been a massive tangle of branches when he'd first seen it, but now it housed an entire city, grown by the Drery Dru in the upper section of the tree’s massive trunk. Just like the tree, the city grew upward, toward the bright sunlight above. There were curving stairs and wonderful homes and shops, although most of them were empty. Had Lorik been a proper king, he would have brought the finest artisans and nobles to the King Tree, but Lorik was alone. He had won the right to rule according to the Drery Dru, but in Ort City, the capital of Ortis, Yettlebor now ruled.

Lorik knew that he needed to march south and confront the pompous, upstart king. Being cousin to King Ricard in Baskla did not make Yettlebor next in line for the throne of Ortis, but his well fed and even more well equipped army had caused all other contenders for the throne to back down. Ortis was in chaos since most of the population had been turned into the strange, mutated creatures controlled by the witch Gwendolyn. Most of those pitiful wretches had fled south, leaving Ortis a barren, lawless kingdom. The false king Yettlebor had done little to settle the land. He kept most of his troops in Ort City sending only the bare minimum to guard the Wilderlands, which was more about Lorik than about stopping another Norsik invasion.

Word had spread quickly that there was a king on the throne in the Wilderlands. Lorik was known as the protector and defender of Ortis. Most of the people not captured by the witch’s monsters had fled north, so they had not seen or heard about Lorik’s victories—first against the Norsik raiders, then against the witch’s army, and finally in Baskla. Some of the stories were gross exaggerations, Lorik knew, but since he had not come down from the King Tree to dispute the wild claims, he was quickly becoming a legend among his own people.

“You look downcast, my love,” said Issalyn as she walked slowly along the balcony that looked out into the center of the hollow treetop.

Lorik was standing rigidly near the railing that lined the walk way. He could see the elves moving quickly about their business. Many of the little people came to the King Tree to continue growing the tree into useful forms or conducting business. Lorik had a special love for the forest elves. They had opened the way for him to become the man he always knew in his heart he was meant to be, and yet he felt no satisfaction in his achievements.

“Just thinking,” Lorik said.

“Brooding, from the look of it,” Issalyn said. “You worry too much.”

“I’m not worrying,” Lorik lied.

“Of course you are. You weren’t meant to hide away from your kingdom, my love. Don’t you understand that?”

“I understand that if I go south it will mean more fighting and more death, perhaps even of the people I love most,” he said, trying, as he had done dozens of times before, to explain why he felt he couldn’t leave the forest.

“Yettlebor is no king,” Issalyn said.

“But he will not simply leave Ort City,” Lorik said. “What kind of ruler would I be if I plunged the kingdom into yet another bloody conflict?”

“You would be justified,” she argued. “You fought for King Ricard’s daughter, and now his cousin sits on your throne. You have every right to take it back.”

“Yettlebor has an army, and even if I could match his numbers, one messenger north into Baskla would bring King Ricard marching south to his cousin’s aid.”

“So you are afraid,” Issalyn said.

“You know I am not,” Lorik said, his anger rising.

“Then you simply do not wish for me to be happy.”

“How could you not be happy? What is it you long for that you do not have here?”

“Subjects,” Issalyn said.

Lorik wanted to argue, but he knew Issalyn was right. The idea of having subjects was almost ludicrous to Lorik. He had spent most of his life as a teamster, hauling cargo from the Marshlands into the kingdom proper. He wasn’t a noble, and the thought of being a lord, let alone a king, made him strangely uncomfortable. And while he was a king in title among the Drery Dru, he wasn’t their king. They were a peaceful, industrious people who were more than capable of governing themselves. The King Tree existed to be a link between the forest elves and the men of the Five Kingdoms, but it was slowly becoming nothing more than a hollow tree.

“You need to go home,” she went on. “You need to be around people. You need problems to solve. You’re wasting away here.”

Lorik understood what Issalyn was saying, and even what she wasn’t saying. She needed to be around other people. She was bored, and despite the luxurious lifestyle they enjoyed among the Drery Dru, everything was different. The food they ate was delicious, but there was no meat. The elves drank a sweet wine, but there was no ale. They spoke a different language, even though many also spoke in the common tongue of the Five Kingdoms, but all their songs and stories were in their own song-like language. Lorik loved to hear the elves, but Issalyn had grown tired of living in the magnificent redwood trees. She was a queen, and while Lorik couldn’t imagine any palace being as opulent or as beautiful as the King Tree, he understood that Issalyn longed for the familiarity of her old home.

And while Lorik wasn’t wasting away, he was not the same man he’d been when he first met the Queen. His battle with the necromancer in Baskla started a slow, gradual decline in the magical enhancement to his body that the elves had given him when he found the Swords of Acromin. He was still a large man, still strong and capable, but the bulging muscles were less pronounced now, and his stature had shrunk somewhat. He no longer had to duck his head to pass through the doorways of his home in the King Tree.