And They Were All Saved
by Thomas Sullivan
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
A Quest: Early Evening, Late Autumn, Present Year
The chanter had an intolerable frog-croak of a voice. “Garrn, Great Protector of us all, awaken now in these dire times to help these people as you always have.”
In the early evening darkness, his silhouette against the dragon’s alabaster gleam stood shadowy and insubstantial, which just made his oration more pathetic. The mountain cave was damp, chilly and utterly boring save for the dragon.
The beast was smaller than one might have expected, though still easily large enough to pick up a human in its jaws. Coiled up in its den, the beast showed no signs of stirring. As far as the Swordswoman was concerned, the ending of this prayer couldn’t come soon enough.
“Don’t bother tapping your feet. It won’t wake the dragon any faster.” The Swordswoman turned to see the Bookworm approaching, her arms laden with hefty tomes. With more boldness than her mousy exterior suggested, the girl sat down right next to the Swordswoman’s feet. “You might want to make yourself comfortable,” she added.
The Sword knew she was being baited but decided to take it anyway. “And in your professional, knowledgeable, expert opinion, how long is this ritual supposed to take?” she sneered.
“Until morning, probably. But hey, at least it’s one more sunrise before we all die of plague.”
There wasn’t much the Sword could say about that.
* * *
Raymond: High Summer, A While Ago
I had spent the better part of the day in the cottage, working on the ridges. That was the real trick; carefully spaced so as to seem random, jagged and uneven, no straight lines to be seen, and there was the texture of it all.
When it was done, I brought my eyes down to be level with the table. Sure enough, the fruits of my labor were a miniature mountain range molded from the wooden furniture. The dark peaks were rugged to the touch, practically indistinguishable from real mountains save for their tininess. I couldn’t help but smile.
People think that the most difficult magics are grand spells: whipping up whirlwinds of fire or floods of quicksand, which, granted, are annoyingly difficult conjurations. But quiet magic demands total concentration. Arts like changing one thing to another, or creating something very, very, infinitesimally small in exquisite detail, especially if that something is an entire landscape.
I had spent the whole day grasping the roughness of stone in my mind, making it bend, and folding and lifting into its own world, one that could fit into the small world that was our cottage, which fit into the much larger world beyond.
Apart from my table mountains, I had cast a spell upon our windows to make the sunlight dim and pale, and then made the air humid and ever so slightly hazy. The cavern-like atmosphere was totally at odds with the bright valley village Brysen and I lived in. Perfect.
“You’ve outdone yourself again. What was the inspiration this time?” Brysen’s bulky frame cast a shadow from the doorway. His smile cut through the murk anyhow.
His question was unexpected, though. “Dunno. Grew up near mountains. Feeling nostalgic, I suppose.”
Brysen was only half-listening, already inspecting every nook and cranny for the details he knew I had placed. In short order, he found the mushroom hiding in the hearth, the stalactites above the bookshelf, and the blinking, luminous eyes lurking in the shadows beneath the bed. He let out a gasp at the latter. It was soft, but loud enough to use as blackmail next time he was being cheeky.
“What’s that grin about?” he asked when he finally turned around.
“Nothing, nothing. Good day?”
“Yeah, the spring thaw’s bringing in good work. The village folk are antsy to get carpentry done.”
“Mmhm.” We went on like this for a while, rehashing the minutia of our days. Willa was with child again, making six total. Nikolaus was driven out after a group of villagers claimed he dabbled in dark magic. Whispers of a great black beast raining fire in the region. Just routine supper chatter.
“Ray.” From Brysen’s tone, I knew that there was no avoiding what was next.
I played dumb anyway. “Hm? What?”
“You know what. The letter! Have you made up your mind?”
Involuntarily, my gaze followed Brysen’s gesture to the parchment sitting neglected upon the bookshelf. For a supposedly urgent memorandum, it did ramble on a bit, but it amounted to a cry for help and an opportunity. The Nation’s Protectors were a cautious bunch, not given to inviting outsiders they couldn’t rely on. Had Kendra really spoken that well of his sorcery?
Anyway, of course Brysen knew I had made my decision. No sense being coy about it. “Yeah, I’m going.”
At that he broke into his Brysen smile. “Good. I think this is good for you. You’ll travel a bit. Dust off some of your spellbooks and stretch those magic muscles. Get to ‘help people,’ like you always say.”
I tried to make my silence agreeable and not awkward, but Brysen was sharper than that. “C’mon, out with it. You’re nervous.”
“Not nervous. More... apprehensive.”
“That’s basically nervous, right?’
“Right. I just... I want this. Truly. I’m even — excited? — about it. Yes, excited. But I’m so content now, y’know? It’s simply not something I asked for.” Once I had said it, I recognized it as the truth. That persistent fluttering that had been eating at me the past day eased, and I could feel myself relax.
“Hey, Ray, don’t worry about this. You’re gonna go on a journey, and do whatever the hell the Protectors want you to do. You’ll meet people, show off how stupidly spectacular you are. You’ll probably even get stolen from me...” He was ready for my punch to his shoulder, and grabbed my wrist as easily as he could pick up a hammer. That grin again, and his eyes locked with mine. Solid brown. Unflinching. Committed. “And when you come back,” he went on, casual as anything, “I want to hear all about it.”
* * *
A Quest: Mid-Evening, Late Autumn, Present Year
The Sword didn’t want to hear about it anymore.
“Wall against floods, peace against war, you bring prosperity to the powerless...” Two hours in, and the chant had turned into a list of Garrn’s historic accomplishments. An extensive list. An exhaustive list. An exhausting list.
“Dammit all.”
“Uh oh, crankiness is intensifying.”
The Sword couldn’t let that stand. “Who wouldn’t be cranky, forced to listen to a geriatric moan about events that never happened in the first place?” That stopped the Bookworm in her tracks.
“You mean... you don’t believe the stories?” Her shocked expression made her look like a child who had been told her favorite bedtime stories were folktales. The Sword couldn’t help but smirk at that.
“C’mon, I’m more surprised a ‘smart’ person like you believed them in the first place.”
“The dragon. Is. Right. In. Front. Of. You.”
“Oh no, I believe there’s a dragon. Obviously. I just don’t believe that it’s going to help us. Or that it’s ever helped us. I mean, why should it?”
The Bookworm was shaking her head, but looked upon the shimmering white serpent with a pensive expression. “It’s true, the last time Garrn woke must have been centuries ago, but... there’s so much evidence to suggest the stories are true. For one thing, every one of the disasters that he stopped actually happened. That’s a fact. But I think you might be onto something...”
Now it was the Sword’s turn to be stopped in her tracks. “I am?”
“Well, I still believe it was Garrn that protected us. But I wonder if the stories are wrong about how and why he did it. Or even what he is.” The Bookworm was talking to herself now, and even the Sword could tell she was wandering some vast archive in her head, compiling and cross-referencing and dissecting everything she knew. But the Sword was stuck on her last words.
“What Garrn is...”
The edge of uncertainty, unfamiliar to the Sword, nicked at the shadows of her mind.
* * *
Raymond: High Summer, A While Ago
It all turned out as Brysen predicted, except for the getting stolen part, that is. There was some group of brigands with a half-baked scheme to sack towns on the river by causing floods with weather magic. The Protectors wanted me to fortify the towns with flood walls, and rebuild if possible. My magic was well suited, so I did that. I also ended up dueling their weather wizard by accident. It went surprisingly well, and the attacks stopped sooner than anyone had expected. It sure made me popular with the river folk, too.
All in all, a good experience. When I returned home, Brysen wrapped me in his arms and kissed me. I hadn’t realized being missed felt this good. For once, he was the one listening raptly to my stories from the road. Brysen had spent far more years traveling than I had, yet he still listened to my dozen or so anecdotes as though they were grand epics. I resolved that I would be as good an audience as him for the rest of time.
Our interior landscape started to change too: brooks and boggy soil crept around the perimeter of the cottage, cattails clawing the air.
Brysen noticed. “You’re home,” he declared one time.
“Um. Yes. A few weeks now.”
“I meant you are home, nitwit. Home is you. You make this place a home.”
“I could say the same to you.” I didn’t quite understand what Brysen was getting at. Why else had we moved into the cottage in the valley, if not to have a home together?
But Brysen was shaking his head. “No, it’s different. Most people, they have to find homes. Hell, I was looking for years. But you, you just... make home. Like an aura. This little space around you where bad stuff just stops.”
That touched me. When I had seen the wreckage of the river folks’ homes, I kept thinking of me and Brysen. And now that I was back, I was thinking of the river folk. Their beds, their gardens, everything warm and beautiful swept away. When I repaired the damage, I did the best to restore those things as well, though I don’t know if I succeeded. I’d heard nothing but gratitude, but talks of a black serpent of fire made me worry the meager housing I had restored would soon be ashes. I said nothing of all of this to Brysen, of course.
“Mmhm. Interesting.”
Brysen chuckled at that. “Would it kill you to talk like a normal person for once?”
“Possibly.”
“Smartass.”
The quiet times continued for a while. All was good, so when the Protectors requested my help for a new problem — ogres, I think, terrorizing the herders down south — I accepted again without much thought. Things went as smoothly as my first adventure did: the crisis was stopped, people were helped, and I returned home.
But then the Protectors sent for me again.
And again.
And again, I accepted.
* * *
Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Sullivan
