Wizard Trials: Chapter 19 (Patreon)

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          Draevin sat with Sylnya in companionable silence for a minute, watching the sun set. His instinct was to be worried about her, but he had to remind himself that it didn’t really change anything. Sylnya was still a dryad, which meant she was already pretty hard to kill, and since he wasn’t planning on letting her get killed in the first place it didn’t actually matter if she reincarnated or not.

          After a minute he asked her, “Do you remember anything from your past lives?”

          “Not really,” Sylnya said without pulling her eyes away from the sunset. “I think I was a fighter though. I always got that sense. Some things never change, you know?”

          “Do you—” There was sudden movement at Draevin’s feet. He flinched before he realized it was just Kot poking his eyes out of Sylnya’s shadow. She stopped what she was doing and leaned down to scratch the cat behind the ears and he rumbled out a dangerous-sounding purr in response.

          “What a good boy you are!” Sylnya told him in her sing-song voice she reserved for him.

          Peter’s head poked up next to Kot’s a moment later. He pushed Kot to the side and started trying to squeeze through the opening. Kot gave Peter a threatening growl and bared his fangs at him, but he stopped short of actually hurting him.

          “Sorry ‘bout that ol’ buddy, but Uncle Istven didn’t really give us a choice in the matter,” Peter apologized to the shadow stalker once he was free.

          “Shalieh okay?” Draevin asked.

          “She’s not comfortable, but she’s alive,” Peter reported. “Good thing I was right about the shadow realm calming her down. She said she had no idea what happened and her memory of events is like a foggy dream.”

          “Awfully convenient,” Sylnya remarked.

          “I think she’s telling the truth,” Peter said. “And besides, if she was really trying to lie to manipulate us that would have been the stupidest plan and cover up imaginable. Most things only have one version that makes sense and for this right now, that version is her being honest with me. She’s a good person if you ignore the whole vampire thing. I really think we’re going to be able to learn a lot from her.”

          “You’re going to learn a lot from her,” Draevin pointed out. “I don’t think anyone else is going to be interested in talking to her. If she even tries to touch me again I’m putting her down.”

          “Of course,” Peter agreed. “I don’t plan on finding people to feed to her either. If I can’t figure out a cure for her I’ll at least take careful notes as she deteriorates. It will be a good chance to learn just how much blood the average vampire needs to survive.”

          “You’re such a caring and loyal friend,” Draevin said dryly. “She’s so lucky to be in your care.”

          Peter scrunched his forehead. “Says the guy that wants to just kill her? I’m not going to intentionally starve her. If we happen across any more bodies I figure she can share with Kot. He wants the meat, she wants the blood, it feels like a good fit.”

          “Kot isn’t supposed to eat people!” Sylnya shouted at Peter. “Didn’t I tell you that earlier? I thought that dead person you dragged into his shadow was only going to feed your vampire.”

          “Well I thought that too, but Shalieh just told me the flesh won’t do anything for her. Vampires only drink blood. She compared eating flesh to eating a banana peel: slightly nutritious, but unpleasant and only for the most desperate vampires.”

          “Then you have to go back there and get rid of it before he tries some,” Sylnya instructed Peter. “Right now!”

          “You said vampire flesh was okay earlier though, didn’t you?” Peter asked.

          Sylnya narrowed her eyes, but nodded. “Yes. But I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up now.”

          “Because Draevin-Two is a vampire now,” Peter said with a sheepish grin.

          “Peter!” Draevin cursed. “Two? What is wrong with you!”

          “Relax, it was just an experiment,” Peter said. “We tried to turn him, just to see what the limitations were. It worked, but he stayed dead. So he’s a vampire corpse; that should be safe for Kot, right?”

          “Is it safe for Kot?” Draevin questioned. “I mean… are there risks of him turning into a vampire shadow stalker? I hope I’m not the only one terrified by that idea.”

          “There have been no reports of any beasts being turned,” Peter pointed out. “I think we would have heard by now if that were possible. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Besides, Shalieh seemed to think a bite was a necessary part of the turning process and he certainly hasn’t been bitten.”

          Sylnya shrugged. “That’s more than good enough for me.” She patted Kot on the head and let him melt back into her shadow.

          “By the way,” Peter said. “That cave is immaculate, aside from where he sleeps and some scratch marks you could hardly tell it’s been lived in. I was actually wondering where the bones from his kills go. If some creature was—”

          Sylnya cut Peter off before he could speculate further. “He eats them. Shadow stalkers love to eat bones.”

          “Bones?” Draevin asked. “Like the whole thing?”

          “Oh yeah,” Sylnya agreed. “Shadow stalkers have some of the strongest…”

          Draevin pushed off from the railing he’d been leaning against. “Well that’s enough for me. I’m gonna go… talk to our passenger maybe.” He felt like the conversation had run its course.

          At the back of the airship Kranin was sitting up in his bunk sipping from a water skin. Draevin came over and grabbed one of the poles strapped to the side of the ship next to the elf’s bunk. “Can I get some help here?” he asked.

          Kranin looked up in surprise and quickly set his water skin down. “Sure, I was feeling pretty useless anyway. I want to help out but there doesn’t seem to be anything to do.”

          Draevin unlashed the pole on his side and gestured for Kranin to do the same on his side. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he told the other elf. “All the controls for the ship are down in that engine room. Trust me. If you tried to go down there you’d just get in the way. It’s designed to be operated by a single pilot once it’s in the air.”

          As Kranin finished unlashing his side Draevin walked him through stretching the poles out and securing them in the divots made for them. In short order they had two more bunks set up. Draevin plopped down in the bottom one and Kranin returned to sitting on his.

          “You know how to cook?” Draevin asked.

          “What?”

          “Cook. Are you any good?” Draevin pointed to the crew in turn, starting with himself. “I’ve never cooked for myself in my life and wouldn’t know where to start”—he gestured to Sylnya—“she doesn’t even eat food”—then to the engine room—“nor does our captain”—to Grrbraa—“he’ll eat anything you make with a smile, even raw onions”—and finally at Peter—“and him I don’t trust. So if you’re really looking to help out around here, cooking some meals could be your contribution.”

          “I… I guess I could give it a try. It doesn’t sound like the bar is set very high.”

          “It isn’t.”

          A long beat passed in silence then. The sun was approaching the horizon and Draevin didn’t really have the energy to care if he’d upset the other man by being short with him. They watched Peter and Sylnya quietly chat while the latter watched the sunset fall and Grrbraa oozed reluctant boredom on the other side of the ship, watching the forest slip by underneath them.

          “Any particular reason you don’t trust him?” Kranin asked.

          Draevin glanced over at the other man to gauge his reaction. It hadn’t been the question he’d expected the elf to break the silence with. “Plenty of reasons,” Draevin answered vaguely.

          “Is one of those reasons,” Kranin said through clenched teeth, “because he’s the one that fucked this whole world up by wishing away magic?”

          Draevin blinked. “Who told you that?”

          “I figured it out. It wasn’t exactly hard, with him introducing himself by one name and your captain calling him by another. I only know one person named Peter that would have a reason to try to hide his identity.”

          Peter twitched his head over in their direction for just a second. It was kind of creepy and made Draevin wonder if he could hear them talking about him. That didn’t seem possible with the ambient wind preventing low voices from carrying so he chalked it up to coincidence. “Well you’ll have to talk to him about all that.”

          “You’re not denying it then?”

          “No. I’m not. But I’m also not confirming it.” Draevin dug under his bunk for his crate of personal effects and pulled out a wad of clean laundry. He shaped it and plopped it down on his bunk where his pillow should have been. “I’m going to take a nap before dinner,” he told Kranin.

          “Sure. I can wake you up when it’s ready.”

          Draevin lay down and closed his eyes. “And Kranin?”

          “Yeah?”

          “If you hurt Peter, Istven will kill you. Better you just forget the past and try to move on.”

          “And did you?”

          “Did I what?”

          “Forget the past.”

          Draevin had to think about his answer. His thoughts came to him sluggishly as sleep slowly pulled him into its embrace, but they were no less true. “No,” he finally answered, knowing it was true. “I’ll never forget the past.”

          Kranin said something back but the words were muffled. He was already drifting off.

          “Whoa there, Drae. Where you headed?” a familiar voice asked.

          Draevin was on his back, gliding slowly down a hill of snow as he watched perfect flakes of crystal ice tumble to the ground just as lazily. He came to a stop by bumping his shoulders into a pair of legs. Tenna’s blue face looked down at him and smiled. It was rare for Tenna to be the one to reach out. “Was I going somewhere?” he asked.

          “Hell yeah you were! You were headed off to that really deep sleep where I can’t follow.”

          “Why’d you stop me then?”

          “Because I never heard back from you about Peter. Did you search the ship?”

          “Oh, that… yeah, we did.”

          “And?”

          “He was here the whole time. He was disguised as our pilot, some guy named Percy.”

          Tenna chuckled. “That’s funny, because after we got done questioning him it turned out the body double hiding in Peter’s cell pretending to be him went by the name Percy. And get this; he was supposed to be your pilot!”

          “Makes sense. Can I go now?”

          “Not yet. You’ve got to tell me when to expect you back. Docking at the garden requires a lot of people so we need to be ready for you.”

          “We’re not coming back,” Draevin said in a flat monotone. He was too tired to muster up the energy to care about all of this at the moment. It felt like nothing was in his control anymore. “I told Istven we had to but he didn’t want to. Said Peter’s too useful. You know he captured a vampire already and is running banned experiments on it?”

          “Really? He sure didn’t waste any time. What sort of banned experiments? Maybe I can find a way to spin this to Boom’ba.”

          Draevin blinked some snowflakes out of his eyes. “Sorry, what? Did you say Boom’ba?”

          “Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know… he’s basically running the Council right now. Two hardline factions have formed up and Boom’ba’s the swing vote. Everything comes down to who can convince the goblins that they’re right. Honestly if it wasn’t so damn sad I’d probably be laughing about it.”

          “How’d that happen?” Draevin pushed himself to a sitting position, actually feeling more curious than he was tired.

          “Well with you,  Istven and Grrbraa’s votes missing the dynamics really shifted around. The caelyns flipped when Taelshin proposed passing an amendment allowing her to vote on the werebeast’s behalf until Grrbraa returned. That one upset a lot of people…”

          Draevin started trying to do some math in his head. It was strange though, as the numbers seemed to combine in weird ways that didn’t make sense. He finally gave up and tried to just use his memory. “Hold on,” he told Tenna, “I know Shea was running an opposition faction, but Alex and Taelshin had a huge majority. It would have taken way more than just the caelyn’s flipping. Did my vote leaving cause problems?”

          Tenna’s lips pulled apart in a strained expression that wasn’t quite a frown or smile. “About that… your vote was given to someone else. Do you know Halidorn?”

          “What? Why would they give out my Council seat!”

          “Well we’ve got a lot of elves, you didn’t really think they were going to be fine not having a representative on the Council while you were gone, did you?”

          “Forget it.” Draevin slumped back down on the ground. He stared blankly up at the sky again. “I don’t want to care about any of this. All caring does is make me upset.”

          “Come on, Drae, that’s no kind of attitude to have.” Tenna leaned forward but Draevin let his eyes go out of focus. She could stand in front of him but she couldn’t make him look at her.

          “I just… want to go.”

          She let him then. She didn’t say anything, just stepped out of his way and let him slide by. And slide he did. Into some empty dreamless void that wrapped him up and let him float away like so many snowflakes on a lazy winter morning.

          Kranin never did end up waking him up for dinner. Or maybe he’d tried and Draevin had just slept through it. But the next morning he’d been pleasantly surprised at what the fellow elf had managed to put together on the flat section of iron above the engine room that doubled as a cooking surface. A medley of fried vegetables from the garden with a crust of toasted bread to go with it. Considering the limited supplies, it had been better than Draevin expected. Another day of lazy travel passed like that, with the only event of note being the talk Draevin had given to Grrbraa about being allowed to get out of his spot if he thought anyone was in danger.

          That next night he hadn’t dreamed of Tenna. He woke the next morning to the sound of Peter and Istven in the middle of an argument.

          “…told you how important that was!” Peter’s voice was saying.

          “And I am the captain. I decide whether or not we are to deviate from the planned path!”

          “What’s up with them?” Kranin asked from the neighboring bunk.

          “Beats me, I just woke up,” Draevin answered.

          “Do you really need me to explain the basics of meteorology?” Peter shot back at Istven. “For all we know it could be disguising a mountain! The point is we don’t know. That’s why we always go around.”

          “Whelp,” Kranin said, throwing his legs off the side of his bunk, “I might as well get started on breakfast.”

          “If you could make what you made yesterday but with some eggs that would be perfect.”

          “A diversion like that could cost us half a day’s travel!” Istven shouted at Peter.

          “And what do you think it would cost us if this ship crashes? It’s hugging the tree line; there will be no way to know if we’re maintaining altitude!”

          There was a brief pause in the back-and-forth. “We don’t have any eggs,” Kranin informed Draevin with no small amount of disappointment.

          “It was a joke!” Draevin told him, lightening the mood with a small laugh. “We haven’t had eggs in two years.” It was funny. Draevin wondered if Kranin realized he’d just referred to their little party as “we” for the first time. He decided not to say anything in case it made things weird. It was nice having a fellow elf to talk to that wasn’t angling for a favor from the Council for once.

          “Ah, good one!” Kranin said. He walked over to the left side of the ship to gather some food for breakfast. It seemed Peter and Istven hadn’t figured out a way to discuss the ship’s heading without using a more reasonable volume so Draevin walked a couple paces to the back railing to relieve himself the way nature intended: into the open air while flying a league off the ground. When he finished he felt the ship lurch a bit. It felt like it was pressing him down, which of course meant their altitude was rising.

          Draevin returned to the ship’s center to oversee Kranin’s breakfast preparations. He preferred his veggie fry with more potatoes and less cucumbers if possible. He saw that Sylnya was standing still with her eyes closed, absorbing the morning rays. Grrbraa was curled in a ball with his ears flopped over his eyes. He looked far too comfortable to wake. “Well I see you two reached a compromise,” Draevin commented to Istven.

          “Yeah, sorry about the noise,” Peter offered. He pointed vaguely off to the South. “We decided to split the difference and just go over that cloud.” The door to the engine room was open and Draevin got a rare look at what went on inside. A panel had been pulled open to expose a roaring fire which Peter was in the process of throwing charcoal into while Istven worked one of the levers with a steady hand.

          “Fuel is a far less precious resource than time,” Istven said.

          The fuel was definitely doing the trick as they were in fact rising rather rapidly. Draevin looked in the direction Peter had indicated and saw that far off toward the horizon there was a thick dark cloud. No… it wasn’t just dark, it was black. And it seemed to be concentrated into one small area that was directly in their path. What Peter had been shouting earlier about “it” being so close to the tree line seemed like an accurate description. It seemed to Draevin like odd behavior for a cloud to make.

          “Hey, uhhh, Istven. Don’t you have a spyglass of some kind?”

          “I do.”

          “You mind if I borrow it for a second? I want to take a closer look at this cloud we’re headed for.”

          He turned back and found Istven reaching into his jacket. He pulled out a collapsible tube of metal and glass. Draevin recognized it as a powerful artifact that had once held the power to shoot beams of light strong enough to vaporize steel. It was a sad reminder of days past to be using it for such a mundane task as looking closer at things, but the Last Wish had essentially stripped nearly every artifact of their magic. He supposed they should be lucky it was still useful at all.

          “Be careful with it,” Istven urged.

          “Of course.”

          Draevin grabbed the spyglass and stepped out of the way of Kranin who was carrying an armful of vegetables. He sucked in a breath when he saw the selection. “Ugh. Any chance of a few more potatoes and a few less cucumbers?”

          Kranin shook his head. “We have far more cucumbers than anything else. I’m not sure why, but we need to eat them before they go bad.”

          Draevin didn’t even attempt to hide his disappointment as he let out a sigh. “Fine,” he said as he brought the spyglass up to his eye. He moved it around until he had the black cloud centered on it. Then he… “What? No. That’s wrong, it has to be wrong!”

          “Hey, I wasn’t there when you guys packed. I would have told them potatoes are a lot more filling. What do you want me to do about it?”

          “Not that!” Draevin shouted, his voice nearly cracking with stress. He pulled his eye from the spyglass and checked again, hoping against hope that he wasn’t seeing what he thought he was seeing. Wings. Black leathery wings. Too many to count.

          “Draevin!” Istven snapped. “Shut up about your breakfast. If you are going to borrow my spyglass I want you to tell me why that cloud is getting higher. We increased our altitude to go over it and now it seems to be following suit.”

          Draevin lowered the spyglass from his face and turned around slowly. Istven’s glowing eyes seemed to hit him like a physical force. He’d turned away from the ship’s controls, though he still had one hand on a lever.

          “That’s… not a cloud,” Draevin told him.

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