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Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
CHAPTER 4: TAVERLY

White. White buildings, white doors, white people, white pathways of what seemed to be white sand bordered by white stones; the color assaulted Mort from every direction. White sand! Either that or some sort of finely-ground crystal. Each grain glowed with its own unique light so that Mort soon felt as though he was walking along one strand of a giant spiderweb caught in the light of a waxing moon. Nearby, plants and foliage gleamed eerily in the light thrown by the path and the druid novices that rushed by - neos, Sage called them - looked almost infernal, lit by a white glow from below. As though challenging the night’s darkness, everything in the town took on this bone-white hue, a whole cartilaginous city through which druid lore flowed like marrow.
“It’s for night travel,” Sage explained as they walked along the luminous path. “The druid city never sleeps. You should see it when the moon isn’t clouded though; these paths light up like magefire. I think they may become even brighter at night than they are during the day.”
Mort nodded, noticing how similar the buildings they passed looked. The gardens outside each seemed to be their only distinguishing feature; otherwise they were all made from the same white tarpaulin, box-shaped, their sides bending slightly inward in the nighttime breezes. Sage seemed to know his way through them and though Mort soon felt lost, the druid never faltered at intersections, leading them inexorably through the white maze, towards the city center.
“Most of these are residential,” Sage said at one point, sweeping his hand to encompass the nearby buildings, which seemed to have become smaller and more densely packed the further inwards they traveled, “the greater gardens and meeting halls are in the center, as are my quarters. Oh, and one more thing: don’t tell anyone here that I’m a mage. That’s a secret between you and I and a select few others, understand? Here I am a healer, nothing more.”

26-Jun-2008 19:41:14 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:12:12 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Mort nodded. Something black detached itself from the sky ahead of them, and it took Mort several seconds to place it as a person coming down the path towards them. This person, however, was dressed in black, not druid white. As it came closer, Mort was able to discern that it wore armor: black chain-mail and greaves that reminded him of Mirhandar, the man they had left behind in the druid circle. The man in black passed them with no more than a cursory glance, but something in the way the man’s beady eyes glinted as they slid across Mort made his hackles rise, and he found himself suppressing the urge to growl. He concentrated instead on the crunch of his footsteps and the stony silence that had washed in around them and waited for the blackguard’s heavy tread to fade away behind.
“Was that the bird-rider?” Mort asked at last.
Sage nodded. “One of Heril’* men. He might be here on a different order of business, though.”
He’s not, Mort thought. I saw how he scanned us; he was looking for someone - for me. Sage grew even more reticent after the encounter, and several minutes passed in silence. Mort was grateful when Sage stopped and said, “Aha! Here we are. My domi.”
It was a little white tent like all the others. Sage stepped up to a flap of fabric that hung against the house’* exterior, pulled it upwards, and entered. Mort followed.
The inside of the domi was larger than Mort had expected. A bed along with an oak shelf containing several books and a knee-high table inscribed with geometric lines fit comfortably in the space. Another flap hung on the wall opposite the one they’d entered by, connecting Sage’s room to that of another domi.

26-Jun-2008 21:09:06 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:12:34 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Sage moved to the opposite flap and looked through. Finding no one there, he crossed to his bed and bent down to remove a box from beneath it. Light-green metal had been inlaid into the box’s wooden frame to look like leaves, and from Mort’s viewpoint the box looked seamless. Sage muttered some words then stuck his hand into the box, through the wood. “A little magic trick,” he explained.
As Sage rummaged through the box, removing small sacks of what Mort supposed to be herbs, Mort studied the room. Amongst the books in the shelf were several by a man named Xan, two by Teiresias, and one thick volume by Cadantine titled “Applications of Ranarr Weed in the Upper Climes”. Mort moved on to the nearby table and its decoration of overlapping squares, circles, and rectangles.
*What’s this?” he asked.
Sage looked up, a bag of herbs held in his mouth as he tied another closed. “Schacht,” he mumbled around the bag, “a game. I’ll play a round against you later perhaps.” He stuffed the bag into his pocket, then got up. “Alright, you stay here. I need to attend to something.”
“The woman?” Mort asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wait, I’m not coming?”
“Yes. No one will search here. You must be dead tired anyway, get some rest.”
“But I’m not tired,” Mort complained, realizing this was true: he felt more awake now than ever before.
“Rest,” Sage repeated, “I’ll be back soon.” And the druid swept out, into the night.
For the next half-hour Mort prowled around the room. He tried reading one of Xan’s books - “A Pirate’s Life For Me” - but couldn’t concentrate. His ears picked up noise outside: footsteps crunching past, whispered voices, and soon the gentle patter of rain on the domi roof. His nose smelled people passing beyond the tarp; sharp, unshowered scents mixed with fragrant, flowery ones.

26-Jun-2008 21:09:36 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:13:14 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Indeed. ;)
I've even started my first ever reviewing thread. It's floating around here somewhere, called -= The Reviewer Underground =-.
Anyways, I plan to start writing on this again now that I have some time. I have large plans for this story, all I need to do is write... :@

26-Jun-2008 21:38:11

Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
For half an hour he paced, becoming edgier and edgier, until finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. Mort strode to the tent flap, pulled it open, and stepped out into the druid path’s eerie glow, sighing as a gentle rain doused his face.
Swept up in private rapture, Mort did*’t hear the footsteps behind him, but he felt the dagger that was an instant later pressed against his throat. A wet hand clamped over his mouth before he could shout and a female voice hissed, close to his ear, “move and I’ll cut you a new mouth.”
~~~
The hub was alive with activity. Druids flowed between buildings, each intersection a merging of streams. Here and there contained torches flickered, assisting the light from the path. The center of the hub was completely taken up by the lake Sage had seen from above. It stretched before him now, stone-smooth, gently reflecting the fire and white light. To the north a small stream flowed into it and to the south another flowed away.
Sage walked a short distance along its edge, stopping near an official-looking, rectangular building large enough to house several domis. A crowd of people were gathered about its entrance. Sage spotted Tamarak amongst them speaking to a blonde-haired, buxom named Dahlia. She did not seem interested in what the little man had to say. Sage entered the building, whose interior consisted of one giant room with perhaps a hundred beds lined up in four rows. Everything carried the sterile, anesthetized scent of a hospital. Druid healers drifted between the beds, only a few of which contained sedated patients. Sage moved to where the overseer, a bald, mustachioed man whose eye twitched every so often with a nervous tic, stood. “Larkspur brought a girl?” He asked.
The man squinted at Sage, as though he could not quite see him, then suddenly shouted: “Ah! Sage! You’re here at last!” A few heads turned.
“Yes,” Sage whispered. “Where is she?”

30-Jun-2008 16:45:02 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:13:45 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
“Oh! Over here.” The man started to walk towards the far end of the tent. “My name’s Rute by the bye. From the rutabaga plant. So, Larkspur’s woman is who you want. Well of course you do, it’* what everyone’* talking about. He found her near frozen to death in the snowfields. How she got there I don’t know, but she’s got snow-bite bad on her legs, face and arms. Most of the druids think she won’t pull through, but we’ve been waiting for you to work your herblore, Sage. Perhaps you know something they don’t. Personally, I think she’s a tough one, but I’d be surprised if she lasts another hour...” he trailed off as they reached a bed two-thirds of the way down the tent.
Despite his years of practicing medicine, Sage felt bile rise in his throat as he looked at the thing on the bed. It did not look human; the face jutting out from the covers was discolored and bloated: a bulbous nose protruding from between bruised, blue cheeks, and everywhere else the half-warmed skin was mottled with bright-red blood vessels. Shallow breaths hissed in and out of puffed, blue-flecked lips. Rute lifted the blanket to reveal a hand with swollen, sausage-sized fingers. “If, by some chance, she does pull through we will have to amputate. As I’ve said before, it’s not promising. She’s been unconscious for several hours now and her heart rate is slowing.” He looked to Sage, only to find that Sage had gone pale. “Sage, what is it? What’s the matter?”
But Sage did*’t answer. A shiver seemed to run through him, and his breaths came out almost as ragged as the woman’s. Without warning he bent down and started to shake the patient. Her hand slid off the bed to bounce in the air.
“Sage, stop!” Rute yelled, grabbing his arm. “She’s almost comatose, she won’t wake up.”

30-Jun-2008 16:45:06 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:14:05 by Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Wet Rainbow

Posts: 786 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Sage did stop, but his mouth kept going, writhing silently as though struggling to form words. Rute put a hand on Sage’s shoulder. “Sage,” he began, but Sage shrugged him off and, kneeling over the patient so that his mouth almost touched her ear, muttered, “Kaitlyn?” And, without warning, the woman drew a sharp, ragged breath and her eyes flickered open.
Kaitlyn’s eyes darted wildly about the room and her breaths quickened. Then she flinched and shut her eyes again. “Xan,” she whispered.
“Kaitlyn,” Sage said, grasping her hand, but letting go as he realized how cold her fingers were. “Kaitlyn, it’s Sage.”
“Sage?” Her eyes ****ted open, but she couldn’t seem to see anything. She stared straight up at the white-raftered ceiling. “Sage, they’re breaking in. I don’t know how, how - but there are people in coffins Sage. I saw them putting him in a coffin -”
“It’s okay, Kaitlyn,” Sage said. “It’s okay. That was long ago. We’re safe now. It’s only you and me.”
“No! Don’t you see, can’t you hear?” Kaitlyn gasped. “The music...it was beautiful but now it’s - it’s changed. It’s changed, Sage, like fingers dragging on - on - granite.” A shiver racked her body and she closed her eyes and drew in breath as though in pain. When the shiver subsided she spoke again but her voice sounded weaker. “Sage,” she breathed, “I have to - to tell you something. I think - I think I’m dying but I - I have to tell you something. Listen...” She shut her eyes as another shiver passed through her. This time her eyes remained closed. “It’s open,” she said at last. “The portal. It’s open.”
Sage stood in silence for a full minute above Kaitlyn. His hands shook. How? he wondered. Memories rose unbidden within him, memories of the mage wars, of Schachtnight... “No,” he declared at last. “No, you’re not dying. I’ll heal you, the druids will heal you. Rute! Rute, go get me some marrentill.”

30-Jun-2008 16:45:11 - Last edited on 30-Jun-2008 21:14:39 by Wet Rainbow

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