Rising Storm, page 30
"A few centuries, I think."
"Its location has been revealed to me," the mage reached to his bookcase and took out a tightly scrolled piece of parchment. "That is the map of the Windswept hills, and the dragon's cave is marked."
"What!" Hashish exploded. "The dragon's cave? It's a red dragon!"
"Quietly!" the mage shushed them. "There may be spies."
"You're mad," You've said; though her voice was controlled at the normal register. "We're not going to fight a red dragon, especially one who knows spells."
"You know of Fairfax, then."
"We've met," John said curtly.
"Ah, then he must have asked you for help in ridding his land of some trouble in the form of a group of paladins and treasure hunters," the mage said. "Did you wonder why the red dragon would be unable to defeat such groups? When its power is such that it could probably burn down Tradesmen if it wanted to?"
"We were wondering," You've admitted.
"The paladins are of no consequence to it," the mage told them, "But it would be best if you were to leave them alone when you go there - they are of the Order of the Radiant Heart, which has influence in Ethical. The treasure hunters, however.did he say how many there were?"
"Seven," John said.
"They are more than seven, and all good mercenaries - there should be about forty or so. They were all that my friend - the leader - could gather with the promise of a dragon's gold. He will help you - the dragon has taken something dear to him."
"Forty or so people still isn't enough to take care of a red dragon, I'd think," You've said dryly, "Only another dragon has a running chance of doing that. One intake of breath, one funnel of red dragon fire, and there you go."
"With my friend, that may be different," the mage said, becoming a little sententious. "A dragon's fire is essentially magical, especially in the case of a red, as is the dragon itself. Without magic it cannot produce the fuel to ignite the fire at its mouth, nor can it heave its bulk into the air just by the power of its wings."
"So?"
"My friend, you see, is immune to magic."
Elf, ye talk too much
"That's impossible!" You've objected. "Unless he managed to get negation stones.but if he's as close as Windswept, I should have felt something."
"Windswept is quite far away," Hashish pointed out. "Several day's journey by a good horse."
Everyone looked perfectly happy to continue arguing, so IANAL and Handed, at that point, excused themselves to the Copper Coronet to check on the knights and the children. They had kept their word to the group, after all.
"Hashish, the Prime Material Plane is made of magic. Any creature whose existence is technically magical and is birthed on this Plane would be able to feel a negation stone when it's moving. The very Plane itself shrinks away from its presence. Such creatures might not recognize the sensation, and it might be extremely slight, but I can - I've been near one before."
"He is immune to magic," the old mage repeated. "Go there and ask him, if you will. His name is Roundel - tell him that this year's winter might come early."
"I'm sure he'd be interested to hear that," You've said impatiently, "But."
"Then he'd know I sent you."
John thought that was one of the less imaginative codes he'd heard of so far, but he kept his opinion to himself.
"Okay." They pried Roundel's description from the mage, exactly where his encampment was, and other details, such as the fact that the forty 'mercenaries' were dwarves, something that seemed to surprise Hashish until You've pointed out the racial obsession dwarves had with gold. The mage was getting rather nervous about talking to them, and claimed he could not reveal his name in case the Cooled Wizards decided to question them.
Hashish shook his head when they were on their way to the Copper Coronets to restock supplies and get some rest, the panther muttering to itself behind them about the dirt on the cobblestones. "Is it just me, or does he seem to resemble a certain girl of our mutual acquaintance on some elemental level pertaining to attitude?"
You've snorted, also aware of the need to be vague in case of spies. "If not for the fact that he's probably right about the others, I'd never have approached him. I don't need amber lynx gems that much."
"I told you we could find another dealer," Hashish said. "Now.the Copper Coronet?"
"We might like to try and buy some potions first," Enterer suggested.
"The arm still aches?"
"A little." Enterer had attempted to try and heal the werewolf way, which was to change shape and change back. Somehow the wolf took the pain away - if it wasn't too much of an injury. It hadn't worked, and he had admitted that he'd only been recently turned and so wasn't really familiar with what werewolves could do and what they couldn't do, something that seemed to worry You've. Apparently recently turned werewolves were unstable - something about certain wolf-sides trying to fight for dominion of the shape first, and both sides having to make peace with each other before the werewolf in question could function 'normally'. Enterer had promised, with an absolutely straight face, that he would refrain from eating any of them.
"We need to buy some more rations anyway," You've shrugged. "Hashish, you're the thief. You take care of the buying."
"I'm a thief, not a merchant," Hashish corrected with a smile, but he led their way towards Waukesha Promenade.
"Aren't they the same thing?" John asked.
"A thief steals under cover, but a merchant steals in plain sight," Hashish pointed out. "There's a world of difference."
You've rolled her eyes theatrically up to the sky. "Don't argue with them, sparrow," she said dryly, "Thieves have something fundamentally lacking in their personality. They might decide to argue you back and forth on this point for days. I once argued with a thief on whether assassins were actually a type of thief for two weeks."
"Assassins are assassins," Enterer stated, "And thieves are thieves. Though some assassins know thieving skills - lickings is very useful, and some thieves know how to kill surprisingly well. Being able to kill efficiently is a survival skill for anything that lives on the Sword Coast."
"Assassins steal life under cover," You've argued. "Thieves just steal other things."
"Can we stop arguing about this?" Hashish was looking around nervously. "Mentioning those words together in the same sentence here in Ethical attracts attention."
"Humph." You've snorted, but shut up. Ethical was in the midst of a guild war amongst thieves, and Hashish was probably right.
**
After restocking they sauntered out of the gate. John's magic kicked in eventually, as if reluctantly, when they'd walked for an hour and You've was beginning to hint that he should try harder, on the dusty caravan path to Tradesmen that they were following to find themselves on a gravel one.
The tree cover was sparse now, though it didn't really look natural - after a few minutes they came across one copse that explained why - it was charred black, and the rocks around it for a five meter radius were smooth and deformed, looking for all the world like frozen gray water. Melted.
"By the gods," Hashish breathed, as he examined the remains of a boulder that had probably towered ten feet in the air before having encountered a dragon's breath. Several suspicious smudges and charred fragments suggested that some creatures had stupidly tried to make a last stand. "John Constantine.are you sure you wish to do this?"
"Right now I'm reconsidering that," John said sourly, with a sidelong glance at Enterer that Hashish and You've saw but the assassin, as luck would have it, did not. You've nodded her agreement and Hashish paled a little - John had silently but eloquently pointed out that if they attempted to back out of this now, Enterer might just decide to use his sword and dagger to drive them along.
Enterer seemed oblivious - he was sniffing the air, a gesture that looked rather ludicrous, but of which John was not about to mock, since Enterer was in a sword's range of his neck. However, the panther padded a little closer to John and nudged his leg with a wet nose in warning, in case his mouth decided to get the better of his survival instinct.
"Relax," John mouthed at it. It sniffed derisively, conveying its low opinion of John's sense of self-preservation. John rolled his eyes at it, and it pretended to bite John's hand, great teeth snapping silently shut just an inch away, then it rasped the back of his hand with a rough sandpaper tongue.
"That's rather unnerving to watch, isn't it?" Hashish observed to You've.
"I'd say," she agreed. "But knowing our sparrow there, who knows what else he consorts with?"
"There's someone ahead," Enterer said, before John could frame a suitable retort. "Five horses and men in full plate. Paladins, perhaps."
"You can smell that? I can't see anything," Hashish squinted down the road. There were some specks far away.
"Please," Enterer said with a pained look, "We're downwind from there, and full plate has a certain.fragrance. Horses as well. Combine the two and."
"We can discuss that later," John interrupted. "So, what do we do about it?"
You've quickly pulled the hood over her horns and draped her cloak tightly around her to conceal her tail. "That, firstly," she said wryly, her face in shadow.
"Knights on horses look impressive, and most of them have lances and broadswords. If you avoid being impaled on a lance, that's the first problem down." Hashish commented.
"Try to push them off the horse," Enterer suggested, "With all that metal, they'd be a little stunned when they fall off. At that time try to stick a knife between their plates. They'd probably be wearing chain mail underneath it, so you'd have to do it rather hard - or maybe stab them through the mouth."
Even John shuddered a little at the matter-of-fact way Enterer described the way to deal with a paladin.
"The horses would be trouble," Hashish said, frowning, "I've seen them before - they're trained for battle, iron-shod hooves. They'd smash in your heads if you let them. They may not be afraid of wolves either," he told Enterer.
"Wolves, but not werewolves," Enterer said simply. "This is, of course, if they fight," he added when he saw You've rolling her eyes at them. "What?"
"Men. Why is your first response always killing?"
"We're just speculating, Luvs," John said mildly. They were getting closer.
"Those aren't knights," You've said, blinking. "Enterer?"
In front of them were a group of creatures, five of them - two ogre mages, a troll, and, John noted with a sinking feeling, two umber hulks.
"I don't suppose you have more cloudlike spells, Luvs?" he asked You've.
"This close, sparrow? Would you like to die with them?"
"They're not monsters," Enterer said stubbornly, "They smell like humans on horses. All of them. And I've encountered ogre mages, trolls and umber hulks - half of those thanks to you lot - and they do not smell anywhere near this."
"An illusion then?" Hashish asked curiously. "I have seen illusions before."
"This is a very good one, then," You've said doubtfully, "I have a dispel illusion spell. Let's hope it works."
"The dragon's work?" Hashish noted, as they stopped walking. The knights noticed them, and approached cautiously.
"Unless knights on this world like to make themselves look like monsters," John raised a hand. "All right, that's enough."
The knights stopped. The illusion was certainly very good, and very detailed - even the shadow cast on the ground was appropriate to the shape.
"You have seen the sun for the last time, foul ogre," one of them, disguised as an ogre-mage, said. Even the speech was the snarling, harsh tongue of its illusion-shape. "Henceforth you - and your evil companions' - sojourn on the lands of the people will end - by the blades of our swords!"
"They sound like knights, all right," Hashish said, notching an arrow to his bow just in case.
You've, at that point, released her spell with a triumphant syllable, and there was a bright flash around them, and around the 'monsters'. The images eroded off quickly, wavering like mirages in extreme heat, then disappeared, to reveal five belligerent, confused knights on large chargers.
"What.what magic is this?" one of the knights demanded.
"You look much better as knights than ogres and umber hulks," You've observed. "Someone - I suspect the dragon in this area - put a spell on everything in the area, perhaps."
Some of the knights looked suspicious at this, but the apparent leader rode slightly to the front. "Perhaps 'its so, lady - my companions and I have observed many monsters on this road that called us ogres and trolls, but we thought that the words were but the normal prerequisite insults before a battle."
"They must have observed very sharply," You've murmured, glancing at the drawn swords.
"Very pointed conclusions," Hashish agreed with an absolutely straight face, with a wink at the lowered lances.
The knights turned as one to stare at You've, and she touched the hood of her cloak belatedly. During the speculating it had fallen back to reveal her horns.
"Demon!" One of them gasped.
You've sighed deeply. "I don't suppose you've heard of the Bard You've Caracal?" she ventured. "Or are we going to proceed to kill each other?"
"You've." one knight frowned, then brightened. "Oh, I recall now. My sister once went to watch one of your performances, and she found it most beautiful. But how can you prove you are who you claim you are?"
You've muttered darkly under her breath. "Damn. I suppose I can sing something."
The impromptu performance that followed was a rather melancholic song in some musical language that Hashish reverently - and softly - identified as High Elvis. Her voice was at times rich and poignant, and at times high and pure, again, John decided with the last vestiges of thought that remained in his head as all other thinking was driven out by exquisite song - like the voice of an angel. The music pulled at them on some fundamental level, almost insidiously, clearing their minds and filling it in turn with images of peace - though admittedly in John's case this was slightly difficult. He understood now how all those pictures he'd seen before of bards playing in the circle of entranced animals both savage and otherwise could have actually been true.
When she finished, some hollow sniffling sounds from the knights showed that some of them were actually weeping openly.
"It is an honor to meet you, Lady You've. What is your business here? I am bound by duty to warn you that there is a dragon hereabouts that would greatly inconvenience you and your companions if you were to meet it," the knight asked, voice awed, raising his visor to reveal a rather youthful face. The other knights did the same, showing that they were all just about in their twenties or so. Their eyes displayed a rather unnerving lack of intelligence through the mist of tears. Perhaps it was all that armor.
"The dragon has something we want," Hashish said, "And we're going to get it."
"Ah, treasure-hunting," the knight said dismissively, "There is an encampment of your sort northeastwards of here."
"What are you doing here, then?" John asked dryly.
"The dragon is a great evil that must be dispatched," the knight declared, "We wait for others from our Order - and together we will fall upon the wicked warm and rid the world of its existence." The others nodded their assent.
"Interesting," You've mused, "Are you from the Order of the Radiant Heart?"
"It is our honor to be, Lady."
