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Wet Rainbow

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A change again, but this time when he woke there was something real about the thr(cen)ob of pain in his head, about the way his limbs bobbed and jounced as somebody carried him along, slung over their shoulder. The person carrying him seemed to realize his return to consciousness and stopped abruptly to set him on the ground. It was the man in white.

Mort blinked, unaccustomed to the light of the sun overhead. The man had set him down halfway up a boulder field that sloped downwards below them, slowly metamorphosing into the grassy countryside that had surrounded the druid circle. The circle itself was only identifiable as a small patch of shadow far off in the distance. Twin rails of iron hammered to yew crossties wound between the boulders, disappearing around the curve of the mountain upon whose lower slopes they sat. Apart from the man’s heavy breaths, he did not appear to be sweating or in any other way fatigued. He must have carried me ten miles at least, Mort thought.

“Who are you?” Mort asked at last.

The man smiled. “I guess I did forget to introduce myself. I’m Sage. And the man we left in the druid circle,” he continued, seeing Mort glance in that direction, “is Mirhandar. He was instrumental in your escape.”

“Escape?”

“From Burthorpe. You don’t remember?”

Mort shook his head then paused, uncertain. “I was in a cage,” he muttered, recalling it vaguely. “A cage of crystal.” The last word brought images to his mind: a prison, a tree, a blue flame. “It broke. The cage - he broke it...”

Sage nodded. “A drage, it’s called.”

“and when I woke up it was night and, and...”

“You were in the druid circle. But whatever you saw there, ignore it. Those stones play with one’s mind.”

“Someone was being killed,” Mort said.

“Someone a hundred years ago, probably,” Sage reassured. “Or maybe even a thousand, all the circles do is regurgitate the past.”

“But I was doing the killing,” Mort whispered, and for a moment Sage was quiet.

26-Jun-2008 19:36:08 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 17:14:03 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“We best get going,” he said at last.

~~~

Who am I? The question nagged at Mort as he followed Sage along the iron track, up into the mountains. Seemingly incongruous images washed through his mind: a pitch-black prison cell in which someone screamed, a world made of glass and fire, the druid circle at night, and always, always the woman under the tree. He soon felt that she had always been a part of him, or he a part of her, though where or when he knew her from he couldn’t say. If he had lived a life prior to his captivity in Burthorpe, he couldn’t remember it. When he posed the question to the druid, Sage responded with “You are Mortmyre Dark**ik.”

Their trek passed mostly in silence, an already chill day becoming colder with altitude. To one side mountains reared up into heavy, ominous clouds, while to the other a monotonous countryside stretched into indefiniteness. The tracks they followed, Sage explained, were a failed attempt to connect Burthorpe and Taverly by railroad - an extension of the Burthorpe-Falador line. They had not been in use for over a decade and were heavily rusted, many of the boards rotted straight through. Whenever the druid talked, he did so succinctly, sometimes pointing out the more distinct features of the land - ice mountain, protruding like a giant molar on the eastern horizon; the Misthalin divide, a wall of crumbling stone which seemed to stretch forever along the base of the mountains, purportedly used to separate Misthalin from the hostile trolls and peoples of the west several centuries ago; and the city of Falador seen only as a white shimmer on the brink of the eastern skyline – but always using the least words possible. At one point he began to inquire about Mort. After finding out that Mort could not recall anything of his past, Sage moved on to his dreams.

26-Jun-2008 19:37:43 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:07:51 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“You said something earlier that intrigued me,” Sage said. “Before you passed out, you said ‘crystal’. How come?” Mort shrugged, not remembering. “What did you dream?” Mort vaguely described the dark cell and the cackling man, and Sage contemplated this.

“Do the names Shachtnacht or the White Queen mean anything to you? The Old Aristocracy perhaps?” he asked. Mort shook his head.

Suddenly Sage stopped, and turned to face Mort. “Mort,” he asked, “do you see this?” He held up his right hand and a small ball of flame sparked into life on its palm.

“Yes,” Mort said.

“No, I mean do you really see it. Do you see this?” He pointed at a spot to the left of the flame. There was a hint of desperation in his voice.

Mort looked and thought he saw a shimmer as though the air there were giving off heat. “I think so,” he said, looking back at Sage. The druid peered into Mort’s eyes for what seemed like minutes before closing his hand and extinguishing the fireball. After that, talk petered out.

Occasionally, Sage would stop and scan the area behind them. The first few times Mort attributed this to some nervous tic, a feral twisting of the druid’s mind that led to paranoia in such an exposed place, but soon he too had the feeling they were being watched. The fourth time Sage glanced over his shoulder, right before passing into a tunnel that had been blasted through a ridge to accommodate the train tracks, Mort asked Sage what he was doing.

“I think we’re being followed,” Sage answered. He pointed to a spot behind them where Mort could distinguish a dark shape moving along the tracks. “There’s only one of them, though.” He sounded perturbed. “A scout, perhaps?” He turned back to the tunnel.

“What did I do? In Burthorpe, I mean. To get put in the drage?” Mort asked, wondering why he hadn’t asked the question before.

26-Jun-2008 19:37:48 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:08:48 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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Sage drew a figure in the air and summoned the same luminous creature Mort had seen him call into being in the druid circle. “Arson,” he muttered at last, starting into the tunnel. “You set fire to a bar. The Toad and Chicken I think it was.*

*That’s all?”

Sage heard the note of disappointment in Mort’s voice. “It wasn’t any normal fire, boy. It was magefire. Difficult to create, even harder to destroy. It burned down a large section of Burthorpe and drew seekers from everywhere. You should have seen the crowds. The amount of energy, of Sa that must have taken…” he trailed off and Mort listened to their footsteps on the rails.

So I’m a mage, Mort thought. Is that why Sage saved me? For a few seconds he tried to delve inside himself with his mind, conjure some spark like he imagined mages must. Nothing happened. His footsteps echoed, Sage’s robes rustled, and he soon found himself disenchanted with the idea of magic. A mage, after all, could not survive long in this world. Sage began to whistle and Mort, suddenly claustrophobic, turned back to look for the tunnel entrance, but it was gone, hidden behind a curve in the rocks.

~~~

26-Jun-2008 19:37:54 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:08:34 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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By the time they reached the railroad’s end, the sky had become a steely gray that mirrored the color of the tracks. The rails terminated abruptly upon a plateau of sheared rock, neat piles of abandoned crossties forming a rudimentary banister along one edge of the stone shelf: a rusting guardrail beyond which sheer rock swept down towards an ocean of foothills and valleys. Mort felt drawn to the view, the openness. He watched as a large, white bird soared across the plains below.

“Here’s where we we forge our own path,” Sage said.

Mort looked up. “There’s no road to where we’re going?”

“No. It’s druid belief that one should be able to live on what he can carry. They’ve never seen the need to construct a road.”

“I meant the path,” Mort indicated the worn footpath that continued on around the mountain like a stone extension of the railroad. “Doesn’t it go to Taverly?”

“Yes, but if we’re being followed, I’d rather not take that route. And besides...” Sage paused. “Well, I’m not supposed to have left Taverly today.”

“You’re not?”

Sage smiled. “Our secret. Now, can you climb?”

It turned out Mort could. The rock face to their right was steep, but riddled with cracks that helped the ascent. Even though Mort had to rest, panting, after a few minutes, he seemed surprisingly fit considering the weeks of imprisonment he had spent in Burthorpe. Sage climbed steadily, leaning in close to the rock, and Mort followed as best he could, wedging fists into cracks to anchor his weight. The energy and balance required invigorated Mort, and by the time they reached a horizontal shelf several spans above the regular path, Mort’s body was pounding with adrenaline. Sage gave Mort a moment’s respite, then continued on.

26-Jun-2008 19:37:58 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:09:17 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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The new route was more precarious than the old. For a while it seemed to mimic the conventional path: a vulture path hanging just above the other, mirroring its twists and turns, but then the other path was suddenly gone from below them, and Mort could not figure out where it had went. Often, both sides of their new path were hemmed in by sheer walls of rock, or bordered by a cliff that left the trail dangerously exposed. At one point only a rock ledge extending from a cliff face bridged a gap between two portions of the path and Mort’s energy flagged as a strong wind picked at his clothes halfway across. His legs shook, and he almost collapsed, but closing his eyes and using the flat rock against his back as a guide, he recovered long enough to edge his way across.

As they progressed, pines and evergreens began to dot the landscape. Some wind-gnarled veterans stood several spans tall, their knotted roots tightly grasping at rock. Haggard grasses also intruded, feeble strands struggling up between boulders, and in some places gangly, yellow flowers grew. The flora became steadily more abundant, and by the time they reached the rim of the cirque in which Taverly rested, plants of every color Mort knew covered the mountainside, along with several whose hues he could not name. Here, the land sloped sharply downwards into a natural half-bowl carved out of the mountain. Taverly’* white tents and wooden houses rested at the bowl’s lowest point, forming a white circle around a mirror-smooth lake so that the whole city looked like a giant, gray eye from above. It would be a blue eye, Mort thought, if the sky weren’t so overcast. Or if it weren’t evening... He wondered briefly what color his eyes were and found he did*’t know.

26-Jun-2008 19:39:19 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:09:36 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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The smells that drifted up, even to this altitude, almost overwhelmed Mort: sickly sweet mixed with sweetly sour and sourly rancid. The land was alive, even the magnificent cliffs that rose above Taverly boasted an evening-shadowed profusion of chartreuse mosses and coiling ivies that grew amongst endlessly plummeting waterfalls. As Mort watched, a white bird similar to the one he had seen from the tracks spiraled twice above the city before descending into its midst.

“A roc,” Sage muttered nearby. “A blackguard bird.” And now Mort could see the small, dark rider clinging to the creature’s back.

“Are they waiting for us?” Mort asked. He did*’t know who the black men were, but had decided they were people from Burthorpe, spectral figures groping their way out of his criminal past.

*I don’t know. It’s the druids I’m more concerned about. We’ll try to slip down and hopefully no one will notice I was gone. You ready?” Mort nodded and they began the descent into Taverly.

Afterwards, all Mort recalled of the descent was shafts of dull light streaming between towering pines. It seemed only seconds before they reached level ground and the forest they had switchbacked down through receded into grassy fields. Sage signaled to stop, and peered between the remaining trees towards Taverly. A tense moment passed before Sage whispered: “There’s no one there. We need to be quick about crossing, though. Once we’re in the city we’re safe.”

“What would they do if they catch us?”

“Berate me, maybe, but it** you I’m worried about. Cadantine’s been particular lately about letting unauthorized visitors into the camp.”

“Won’t I stand out anyway? Even if we get there?” Mort asked, looking down at his grubby clothes.

“Oh, no.” Sage grinned, “I took care of that a while ago. To others you look like a novice in traditional garb. It’s the best I can do until I get you some actual druid clothes.”

26-Jun-2008 19:39:24 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:09:57 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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Mort nodded blankly and they moved out of the cover of the trees, hunched over in an attempt to be covert as they traversed the open grassland between forest and city. A crepuscular gloom had crept across the landscape and Mort had the strange sensation of running through gray waves as they dashed across acres of rippling, thigh-deep grass. The susurration of their passage and the wind in the grass made Mort want to run on all fours; even with the oncoming gloom everything seemed so vibrant and full that -

“Sage!”

Sage, who was slightly ahead of Mort, straightened and swore as he saw the white figure jogging towards them across the field. The druid stuck out a foot and the next thing Mort knew he had tripped over it and was lying, face-first, in the thick grass. Giving Mort an admonitory glance, Sage strode forward to meet the other druid. “Ah, Tamarak,” he said, upon getting close enough, “how are you?”

“Is there someone with you?” Tamarak spoke in a quick voice that sounded breathy and urgent.

“No, I was just collecting some herbs in Savine’s wood.”

“Oh, I thought I saw someone…are you sure no one was following you?” Sage must have nodded, because Tamarak continued. “Well Cadantine’s furious with you, Sage. They brought a woman down from the snowfields several hours ago, half-dead it seems, and we suddenly found ourselves a healer short. There’s been quite a hubbub in Taverly, even the novice quarters were searched, and we sent Ran and Mara up into the woods but they must have just missed you, and then there’s been the riders, they...”

“Hold on. You found a woman in the snowfields?*

*Yes, well Larkspur did. He went up there to test the passes, but you know how they are with this month’s snow and he says there was a blizzard up there and he got a bit lost and stumbled across her, half-buried in a snowdrift.”

“Is she still alive?”

26-Jun-2008 19:39:29 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:10:14 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“Who? The woman? Yes, last I heard. Lark carried her all the way down the western path, on his back he says and even with the rocks as slippery as a wizard’s -”

“A woman in the snowfields...” Sage marveled. “What in Sara’s name was she doing up there?”

“No idea. No one knows.”

“Where is she now?”

“Now? Oh, she’s in the healing tent.”

“Alright. Tell them I’m coming. Tell them to stay right there. I just need to get a few herbs and ingredients from my rooms and then I’ll be there. You go ahead.”

“Okay. Wait, did you hear that?” Mort, in the middle of moving to a more comfortable position, froze. “I thought I heard something over there...”

“What? I did*’t hear anything.”

“No, I know I did.” There were footsteps now, crunching through the grass towards Mort. Mort’s heart pounded.

“It’s probably the wind, Tam. We should go attend to this woman.” The footsteps stopped not more than a span from Mort, and he was certain he had been seen. “Come, it’s getting dark.” There were several steps as Sage moved towards Tamarak.

“Yes, perhaps it is the wind,” Tamarak whispered, taking another step towards Mort. “Perhaps it’s just a nice, strong…aha!” Mort barely had time to react before Tamarak landed on top of him. A hand grabbed Mort’s arm and tried to pull it behind his back, but Mort struggled violently and wrenched himself from the druid’s grip, trying to stand only to fall again as Tamarak grappled his legs. “Grab his arms!” the druid yelled to Sage, “he might have a weapon!” Mort kicked and writhed against the man’s grip, trying to twist around to use his hands, but Sage intervened before anything serious occurred, wrestling Tamarak away from Mort and throwing the surprised druid to the ground. “What are you doing?” Tamarak gasped, his eyes flicking wildly to Mort as the boy stood, panting.

“He’s with me,” Sage growled.

26-Jun-2008 19:40:21 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:10:32 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

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“But…but…he’s not supposed to be here!” Tamarak got to his feet indignantly, rearing up to his full height, which was still a head shorter than Sage. Mort was surprised that this ferrety little man had overpowered him.

“Yes, he is. He’s a visitor and I...well, I did*’* want to introduce him until the time was right.” Sage ended weakly.

The little man stood, glowering. “A visitor? You know Cadantine don’t like visitors, Sage. A visitor? Where are you from?” he addressed Mort.

“Um, Burthorpe,” Mort replied, then, “Falador,” remembering the distant city Sage had pointed out during their trek. It had been white. Druid cities were white, right?

“Burthorpe Falador?” Tamarak squinted at him. “Which one?”

“Falador.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sage interjected. “He’s with me. Now get your scrawny behind to the healer’s tent before I tell Cadantine how much time you’ve wasted interrogating guests.”

With a reproachful glare at Mort, Tamarak harrumphed and turned on his heel to start the trip back across the field. Sage reached down to help Mort up. “Falador?” he asked.

Mort colored, sensing the faux pas. “It’* white...” he ventured.

“White for its white knights, not for its druids, few as there are.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, though. Tam won’t give us away.” Sage assured as they finally entered the maze of flowers and buildings that was Taverly.

~~~

It was later that night, after the sun had set and a cloud-wreathed moon hung low in the sky, that a shadow detached itself from the greater shadow of Savine’s wood. No one was there to see it as it flowed across the meadow and into Taverly.

26-Jun-2008 19:40:28 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:11:29 by Wet Rainbow

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