Caladin’s Climb—Part Twelve (Patreon)

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          “Well, that settles it then,” Lenny said. “There is officially no trail left.”

          Caladin surveyed the burnt patch of forest before him. It looked like a forest fire had gotten out of control; scorched grass and blackened tree trunks as far as he could see. “Can’t you just pick up the trail on the other side?” Caladin asked.

          “You got any idea how much area that would be to search?” Lenny asked, sounding exasperated. “And I know you don’t got much experience trackin, Cally, but suppose I do find another trail six leagues in that direction. What’dya suppose the chances are that it’s even the same trail? It don’t work like that. You follow it, piece-by-piece. Sometime your quarry jumps in a river or somethin’ and you lose it. Sorry, kid… this is as far as this trail goes.”

          “What about you?” Caladin said, addressing the other tracker, the undead soldier Jaeryl.

          Jaeryl crossed his arms. “What he said,” he replied sourly. “No forest, no trail.”

          “We weren’t even following a trail to begin with,” Caladin pointed out. “You two were just backtracking the route you took while looking for anything familiar. Can’t we just walk through to the end of this burnt section and see if one of you spots anything you recognize?”

          “Won’t work,” Lenny said. “We’d have’ta walk the whole perimeter. By the time we even stumble across anything useful the autumn leaves’ll start fallin’ and muck up the ground. My advice is you find another way to find what you’re lookin’ for. We got you closer, at least. That should count for somethin’.”

          “It’s a waste of time anyways,” Jaeryl said derisively. “Even if we find that camp, it won’t tell us anything. Nobody will be anywhere near that place, least of all that flea-bitten family of yours.”

          Caladin let that insult slide. His mana reserves were limited since leaving Brorn’s estate so he couldn’t afford to waste it on petty stuff like teaching a rude murderer his place. “You forget who you’re talking to,” Caladin told him. “I’m Archmage Caladin, the great and powerful. I have ways of figuring out where they went if we can find that camp.”

          Jaeryl scoffed. “You’re an apprentice at best, and a sycophant at worst. Don’t think you can impress me with your little tricks. We’ll see how powerful you really are when the loyalists catch you.”

          Lenny stepped between them and pointed up ahead. “Hey!” he called. “Does anyone else see that?”

          Caladin looked where he was pointing and saw a flicker of green amidst the charred remains of the forest ahead. “Oh! I saw something move. Something green!”

          “Great,” Jaeryl said, shaking his head. “You saw something green in a forest.” He pointed emphatically to his glowing eyes. “In case you forgot, everything’s green for us!”

          “Quiet you,” Caladin said. He reached into his pocket and triggered one of the many scrolls he’d prepared for his expedition. There was a quick pulse of pink light followed by a glimmer of pink up ahead.

          “What was that?” Lenny asked.

          “Magic,” Caladin said. “Specifically, a bit of cerebromancy I threw together to alert us to any people. Completely useless spell in a city, but out in the middle of nowhere I figured it’d be useful. Turns out I was right.” He liked keeping his cards close, acting like he planned ahead, but in reality he’d just inscribed at least one copy of every spell he could find below the mana threshold to be stable to store on paper. It was sort of like carrying an entire kitchen’s worth of utensils, then being proud you remembered to pack a fork, but it wasn’t like strips of paper took up a lot of space.

          “Very impressive,” Lenny replied, vindicating Caladin’s preparation.

          “Bah, even a child could use small magic like that. I’m not impressed,” Jaeryl scoffed.

          “Well could a child have the foresight to recognize that most detection spells don’t work on dryads and come up with their own version of an existing spell that actually does?” Caladin asked. In truth, the cerebromancy spell had given him just enough feedback on the mind it had detected to tell him what race it belonged to.

          “Telling yourself casting a single cantrip is clever doesn’t make it so,” Jaeryl said. He deliberately turned his nose up at Caladin, a feat made easier by his superior height. “You really seem to like the smell of your own farts too much, kid.” Jaeryl’s attitude so far could best be described as “just this side of actively tempting Caladin to kill him.” Caladin was determined not to. That was exactly what he wanted. Instead, he was hoping to win him over with his brilliance. Fear of torture was one thing, but he’d much prefer enthusiastic cooperation—like he was getting from Lenny. Nothing seemed to impress Jaeryl, though. He’d grown up around magic, so he was easily able to rationalize every trick Caladin pulled as being somehow insignificant.

          “How about this one?” Caladin asked, placing a hand on his own face and then releasing an illusion spell. It gave him the appearance of pointed ears and glowing eyes so he could pass for an eldrin. That was a spell he’d prepared dozens of copies of. Better that nobody even suspect he was human.

          Jaeryl scoffed again. “More tricks. Basic sensomancy. Anyone with True Sight will see right through it.”

          “The trick is not to give them a reason to cast it in the first place,” Caladin said. “So I expect you to play along.” He beckoned with a wave for the others to follow him, including the eight mindless shamblers trailing behind. “Come on, let’s go introduce ourselves. Whoever is out here might have seen something.”

          Caladin led the way, trying to project confidence the way he imagined a real eldrin wealthy enough to have a gaggle of servants following him around would. He started trying to think of a believable explanation for finding himself so far from civilization while his procession crunched their way through the blackened forest towards the point Caladin’s mind alert spell had indicated. He caught sight of a dryad standing very still behind a charred log, watching them approach. No doubt they would have been hard to spot if not for the green of their bark popping against the black background.

          Caladin waved to them in what he hoped was a friendly gesture. “Excuse me!” he called out. “I seem to have gotten turned around. Perhaps you could help?”

          The dryad cautiously emerged from behind the tree she’d been hiding behind. She seemed to be some kind of deciduous tree species, with a bushy head of small, oval green leaves for hair. Her eyes darted around at all the new faces, one hand going to a knife she had at her waist as an unspoken warning. Behind her, Caladin could see a small sapling poking out of the blackened soil that had somehow survived the forest fire that had claimed the rest of the forest. Once the dryad had looked them all over her upper lip pulled back in a snarl. “What do you want, blood sack?” she demanded.

          Blood sack: that was a new insult Caladin had never heard before. He tried a smile. “I am looking for a camp. Some slaves of mine escaped after I was robbed by bandits. I heard they might be hiding out here. If you help me find their camp, I would be willing to pay you handsomely.” It was a likely story, and as his camp actually was a bunch of escaped slaves, it wasn’t even an inaccurate one. The only lie was the part about being the master and offering to pay.

          “Forget it,” the dryad said. “I would not help one of your kind—no matter how many useless metal discs you offered me. It was your people and their war that brought death to this forest.”

          “I apologize if I’ve given any offense,” Caladin said. “I assure you; I personally had nothing to do with whatever happened here. I am as upset as you are.”

          The dryad stood up. She held her knife in a tight grip. “No,” she said, “you are not. This tree was my child. You would not understand. Your kind only cares about what they can use. People, lumber, paper, it is all the same. You do not appreciate the sanctity of life. You do not appreciate anything!” Golden sap leaked into the corner of her eyes as she spoke.

          Caladin immediately regretted his eldrin disguise. He thought if he could just tell the dryad he wasn’t a member of the ruling class she might realize he was more sympathetic than he appeared… but then word might start to spread about a human that could wield magic like an archmage. It seemed no decisions had a simple answer. He tried again. “Okay,” Caladin said, “I might have misled you a bit about why I’m really out here. Perhaps we can start again? I’m not actually a—”

          The dryad sucked in a quick breath, eyes going wide as she stared over Caladin’s shoulders. “Undead!” she shouted. She pointed at the shambling zombies following after Caladin.

          “Now, now,” Lenny started to say, “there’s no need for alarm, miss. We’re just—”

          But Lenny’s eyes shone with the same green glint of unlife. The dryad’s jaw dropped as she noticed that. “You too!” she said to Lenny, backing away fearfully. Caladin cursed himself for the oversight. He’d grown so accustomed these past weeks to everyone around him being a zombie he’d forgotten it wasn’t normal for eyes to glow with green light. A simple illusion could have avoided this, but it was too late now. “A-all of you!” the dryad sputtered, swinging her knife from side to side. She pointed it at Caladin. “I know who you really are!” she shouted.

          “Umm… you do?” Caladin asked, somewhat confused. He’d been hiding out in a swamp for months. He couldn’t fathom how news of his bank robbery could have spread so far.

          “You’re the Necro-King Brorn!” the dryad shouted in an accusatory tone. “You can change your face all you like. Nobody else would travel as you do. We dryads will never forget what you did at the Battle of Halidor Field!”

          “What did I—I mean, what did Brorn do?”

          Rather than explain, the dryad dropped her knife and started moving her hands in a smooth, flowing gesture. By the time Caladin realized what she was doing it was too late to stop her. “This is for Hylasia!” she shouted, pointing her open palm at him and unleashing a beam of bright blue energy. In the space between firing the beam and it reaching Caladin he didn’t have time to inscribe a new spell. Thankfully, he had plenty of those already inscribed ahead of time. He burned one in his pocket; the strongest barrier of armamancy a strip of paper could sustain, which was to say… not a very powerful one. The barrier held for only a moment, before the dryad’s attack punched through it. Caladin felt a moment’s panic, then was knocked to the ground by a powerful jet of water.

          It was possible the attack had been unleashed with enough force to be lethal, but after breaking through Caladin’s barrier the water was only strong enough to knock him on his ass, not carve a hole through his chest. He was lucky the attack had only been water. There were plenty of different harmonics that still would have been lethal. Caladin pulled a new strip of paper from his sleeve and started to inscribe a spell on it while he sputtered on the ground. He didn’t get a chance. The dryad twisted her fingers, then curled them into a fist. The water her first attack had released lifted up from the ground, surrounding Caladin in a sphere of water. He tried to swim upwards to find air, but the water followed him, pushing its way down his nose and throat. He panicked for a second before remembering he had magic of his own, and the spell he’d just been inscribing was more than capable of saving him.

          Caladin knew that in theory the runes he inscribed his spells on didn’t actually use ink and therefore should still work when the paper was wet, but he’d never actually tested that theory. He was immensely relieved when he released the spell he’d been preparing and it worked like it was supposed to. He disappeared from within the sphere of water and reappeared ten or so paces behind the dryad. All those vocomancy drills Brorn had been pushing on him recently had made that particular magic instinctive.

          A pop of displaced air gave Caladin’s new position away. The dryad turned immediately. With a slash of her hand, she pulled a handful of water from Caladin’s now wet clothes and forced it into his mouth. He tried to tell her to stop and that he didn’t want to fight her, but all she did was use the opportunity to shove more water down his throat. He inscribed a quick kinomancy spell to knock her away and break her concentration. She was pushed back but kept her footing and continued pushing water down his throat. Caladin felt his lungs grow cold as water pushed into them. Real panic started to set in. Air. All he could think of was getting air. His chest heaved, but no air entered his lungs. He started coughing involuntarily, but water would just fling out of his mouth before getting sucked back in.

          Over the pounding of blood in his ears Caladin heard Lenny shouting something, but the rest of the zombies in his entourage appeared to have no instinct—or desire, in Jaeryl’s case—to preserve his life. Lenny might be an undead zombie now, but he hardly constituted more than a minor distraction for a trained wizard. Caladin’s mind raced for a way to get air. He cycled through his memories of the dozens of cantrips he’d pre-made for one that could help him. One struck out to him: a hydromancy cantrip, called Dry that Brorn had forced him to learn so he could clean up his own messes. He fumbled a hand in his pocket for the small book of paper scraps and activated Dry, pumping an entire mana bar into the casting to enhance the effect. It worked. Amazingly well. A shockwave of force blasted out of Caladin, taking any water it contacted with it. Where that water went was a mystery. Caladin’s clothes shed their excess weight, the water in his mouth and lungs evaporated, the spell even carved a circular sphere around Caladin’s body, dissolving any of the water the dryad had created in the process. Caladin heaved in a welcome breath of air, then inscribed another instance of the Dry cantrip, in case of a follow-up attack.

          “Stop!” Caladin shouted. “I don’t want to fight you!” His mindless undead servants were simply standing around with vacant looks in their eyes while Jaeryl sneered unhappily at Caladin’s change of fortunes. Lenny had a knife out and was at least picking himself off the ground, soaked in water. Caladin made a note to do something about that. Brorn had bid the zombies he lent to obey Caladin’s command, but apparently hadn’t bothered to imbue them with the same instinct to defend their master’s life that they had for Brorn.

          “I do not care what you want, Necro-King,” the dryad shouted. Her tone of voice made Brorn’s title into an insult. “I will never forgive you for what you did!” She twisted her fingers again. Water collected in the air around her hands.

          “STOP!” Caladin intoned. He didn’t use a scroll that time. He pushed his will into his words and let his lithomancy do its thing.

          The dryad froze, then fell to her knees. The spell she was working on collapsed. “I—I can’t,” she stammered.

          Caladin stepped forward and put what he hoped was a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but you are mistaken. I am not Brorn. I’m not even really an eldrin.” He released the illusion spell giving him pointed ears and glowing eyes. “That was just a cover story.”

          “What are you then?” the dryad asked. She studied his face. “Vocomancy, necromancy, kinomancy, armamancy, sensomancy… even your hydromancy was more powerful than my own. How did you do that?”

          “I am Archmage Caladin,” Caladin said. He liked the title. It rolled off his tongue.

          The dryad looked from Caladin to the small crowd of undead servants following him. “I… am sorry,” she said. “I may have reacted rashly. I have a history with Brorn. I saw your undead servants and I just assumed. I heard that Brorn had settled himself somewhat near here.”

          Caladin waved a hand behind him. “Those undead servants aren’t even really mine,” he explained. “I’m just borrowing them. But you really shouldn’t be going around trying to kill anyone you see with a few undead servants just on the off chance that they might be Brorn.”

          “Are you really an archmage?” the dryad asked.

          “He’s not!” Jaeryl volunteered. He never missed an opportunity to get under Caladin’s skin.

          Caladin shot a warning glare at Jaeryl. He might want Caladin to kill him, but if he didn’t fix his attitude soon, he was going to find out there were worse things than dying. He turned back to the dryad and cleared his throat self-consciously. “Well… archmage in training,” he amended. “Now would you mind talking for a minute? Without trying to kill me? That’s all I want.”

          “Very well,” the dryad replied, bowing her head. “Your compulsion still binds me. I could not move from this spot if I wanted to. I am at your mercy.”

          “Okay, for starters, what’s your name?”

          “I am called Oleno,” the dryad responded in a calm voice.

          “Okay, Oleno. What happened here? Can you tell me how this forest burned down?”

          “There was a battle,” Oleno said. “There’s some kind of civil war going on in Eldesia right now between the new Queen Fayse and the old King Haedril’s brother. They had a battle here about six weeks ago. Someone used pyromancy and didn’t bother stopping the fire from spreading. You blood sacks never do! When the smoke became more than they could bear, both sides retreated. I’m not even sure a single soldier died in the exchange. It was the forest that suffered. It’s always the forest that suffers. Queen Rusalia sent me to determine the cause and save any host trees I could. Eldesia seems to have forgotten about the treaty they signed with Setsya. This forest is supposed to be under the protection of the dryads.”

          “A treaty?” Caladin repeated. “I’ve never heard about any kind of treaty with Setsya. I thought these forests were just wild. I’ve lived out here all my life and never even seen a dryad.”

          “We have been otherwise occupied,” Oleno said. “There is… political strife within the empire. It is no concern to your kind, but allowing forest fires to rage unchecked makes Queen Rusalia appear weak when she needs to be projecting strength.”

          “Hmm,” Caladin hummed to himself. “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of this treaty on you, would you?”

          “What kind of envoy would I be if I did not?” Oleno asked.

          “Think you could let me take a look at it?”

          “Are you a representative of Eldesia?” Oleno perked up. “Perhaps you could tell me whether we should be issuing our complaint to this new King Haedril or Queen Fayse. That was something I was asked to figure out.”

          Caladin held out his hand for the treaty. “I represent… other interests,” he said, opting not to mention Brorn’s name. That would have been a colossally stupid move given her reaction a moment ago. “But if you let me see this treaty perhaps I could help you out.” He released her from his lithomancy compulsion so she could stand up.

          “You can look at it,” Oleno said, reaching into a pouch she kept at her waist and fishing out the document, “but I need it back.”

          “Not a problem,” Caladin said. He took the scroll from her, then reached into one of his pockets and fished out a blank roll of paper. He unrolled the treaty, then used his lithomancy to create an exact copy. He couldn’t actually read whatever language the scroll was written in, so he was careful to capture every detail exactly. He had another lithomancy spell he could use later to translate it, but only if the details were correct. “Here,” he said, handing the dryad her scroll back. He tucked his own copy into one of his deep pockets.

          “What did you do?” Oleno demanded.

          “I made a copy of your treaty. Don’t worry, I didn’t change a thing on the original,” he assured her.

          “You just… just like that? I didn’t even see a hand motion…”

          The surprised look on the dryad’s face at his casual use—and apparent mastery—of magic stirred something inside Caladin. He’d never been important before, but showing off his mastery of magic seemed to change that. He could see himself getting addicted to that feeling of superiority if he wasn’t careful. “Now, I don’t suppose you know anything about a camp of humans out in these woods, do you?”

          The dryad shook her head. “I am sorry. I haven’t been to these woods in several years. If there is one, or was one, I have no knowledge of it.”

          “Well thanks anyways,” Caladin said. “Sorry for disturbing you. I’ll be on my way now.” He started to turn away, then stopped himself. “Oh, and if you tell anyone about me, I’d appreciate you not mentioning that I’m secretly human. The other blood sacks wouldn’t like that.” Caladin winked at her, then activated a copy of the spell in his pocket to return the illusion of eldrin features to his face. Let her wonder which version of him had really been the illusion.

          “Wait!” Oleno said. “You said you’d help me. Which monarch should I deliver Setsya’s complaint to? Haedril or Fayse?”

          Caladin considered that for a moment before answering. He didn’t care too much about the ongoing civil war, but he was on the lookout for King Haedril’s secret base. “Take your complaint to King Haedril,” Caladin advised. “And when you do… tell him Archmage Caladin is looking for him.” With that, Caladin took his retinue of zombies and continued on his way, leaving the dryad with her little sapling to stare after him. With luck, she’d help spread the story of a strange wizard with casual mastery of any harmonic he happened to find useful. She was no slouch of a wizard herself, which was to be expected of an official envoy from the mushroom queen. If Caladin was going to make a name for himself, there were worse places to start.

          “What’s with the scroll?” Lenny asked once they’d traveled a ways further into the burned forest.

          “It’s a copy of a treaty between Eldesia and Setsya,” Caladin explained. “Apparently this whole forest is supposed to belong to Setsya.”

          “I don’t get it,” Lenny said. “Why do you look so pleased with yourself? Did she know something about the camp, or is the scroll just that interesting?”

          Caladin realized Lenny was right; he had a stupid grin plastered on his face. “Well as it happens, I’ve been thinking a lot about where I wanted to set up the first store these last days. The best choice was always right on the border between Eldesia and Setsya. The problem with that plan was that I didn’t actually know where the border between the nations actually was. Few people really do, since the dryads don’t usually enforce their boundaries very often… but now I’m one of those people.”

          “I don’t get it,” Lenny said. “Why does puttin’ this thing on the border matter?”

          “It’s a matter of jurisdiction. Trust me, it’s going to give us a competitive advantage.”

          “Sure… whatever you say,” Lenny said. He shook his head and muttered something about bookworms. Caladin pretended not to hear it.

          Once he was sure they weren’t in danger of being observed, Caladin pulled out the treaty, then used his lithomancy spell to translate it. He spent a few minutes reading through it carefully, then pulled out his map, taking notes as he went. “Lenny, Jaeryl,” he said, calling them over. He pointed a finger at the map. “Is this where we are right now?”

          Lenny rubbed his chin. “I think so,” he said.

          Jaeryl rolled his glowing green eyes. “No,” he said. “Not even close.”

          “Okay… then where do you think we are right now, Jaeryl?”

          “Right here,” he insisted, pointing to a spot right next to the one Caladin had indicated.

          “Seems pretty close to me,” Caladin said.

          “If you don’t care about accuracy…” Jaeryl criticized. He walked away to kick the dirt with his boot. His attitude still needed some work.

          Caladin addressed Lenny, since Jaeryl didn’t seem interested in engaging. “Well reading through this treaty, I think I know where we need to go,” he explained. “There’s a village outside Craistlin that’s right on the border with Setsya. I think Brorn has even sent servants to purchase supplies there before.” He circled a spot on the map that was marked as forest. “This is the area where the fire happened, but if we put the store right here we can both easily go out on scouting missions until we find signs of that camp. There might be a trail somewhere out there we can find, but if not, the rebels might approach us to buy weapons once word spreads. Got it?”

          Lenny nodded. “Yeah, sure,” he said.

          “Then let’s go,” Caladin said. He got up from the ground and used a quick cantrip to clean the soot from the forest fire off himself and his papers while he put the map and treaty away. Now that his plan was finally coming into focus, he took off with a spring in his step.

          A few minutes after they changed direction, Jaeryl came closer to Caladin while they walked. “Uh, hey,” he said.

          “Yeah?”

          “I saw what you did there back in that fight, and I’ve been thinking about it,” Jaeryl said.

          “And?”

          “Well… I can’t figure out how you could’ve cast those spells while you were being drowned. I thought you were just using illusions to hide your spell casting, but…” he trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.

          “But what?” Caladin prompted.

          “Well, I guess what I’m saying is, I might actually be starting to believe you. About being an archmage, I mean.”

          “It’s not really something you can fake,” Caladin replied, knowing perfectly well that that’s exactly what he’d been doing.

          Jaeryl nodded. “I know reviving the dead isn’t possible outside of a wish, and I know I’m just a soulless monster that remembers being me, but… maybe an archmage could do it…”

          Caladin glanced over at Jaeryl. The eldrin soldier glanced away like he’d been caught staring at something he shouldn’t have. “Do what exactly?”

          “You know… bring me back proper. This unlife is wrong but that doesn’t mean I don’t still want to live.” He looked down at his own hands. “I’m not going to be stuck like this forever, am I?”

          “Don’t worry,” Caladin told him. “You won’t last forever. Your body will continue to rot, slowly, until we reach the limits of what I can repair. Eventually you’ll just become another shambling corpse, like those idiots back there.” Caladin hooked a thumb back over his shoulder to indicate the other zombies following them. He wasn’t really in the mood to sugar-coat Jaeryl’s new reality for him with how negative his attitude had been recently. It was going to take more than one half-hearted admission of guilt for Caladin to forget about the role he’d played in the slaughter of his family.

          Jaeryl grimaced. “I… don’t want to go like that,” he said.

          “I know,” Caladin replied. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you repaired for a while, but once your mind starts to go you won’t even be aware of what’s happening to you anymore.” He shrugged. “Or maybe you will. Who can say?” He leveled his most potent stare at Jaeryl. “You butchered my family,” he said in a cold voice. “This is your purgatory. You will serve me for as long as I desire it. And if I ever figure out how to bring the dead back to life for good, I will never use it on you.”

          The eldrin soldier flinched backward. His eyes went hard for a second, then he seemed to think better of it and dropped back, letting his head hang in defeat.

          “If you want even a glimmer of hope for a peaceful death, you’ll help me track down your fellow soldiers and take my revenge. You do not want to be the singular focus of my rage.”

          “Yes… master…” Jaeryl said in a defeated voice.

          Caladin saw Lenny looking at him with judgment in his cold, green eyes. He still remembered what he’d promised his old friend a few nights before, when they’d stood over Jaeryl’s mangled body. It was just a threat, Caladin told himself. He wasn’t really going to go through with it, it was just what Jaeryl needed to hear to keep him in line.

          When he found the others though… When he found the soldiers that had slaughtered his family… Then it wouldn’t just be threats. Caladin would show them the debt that came due from evil like that. Nobody was holding them accountable, but he would.

          One step at a time. Just one step at a time.

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