Chapter 9: Amlor stands alone
“I hate that your read me so easily,” Ely told the wizard
when they reached a point beyond the king’s hearing and the doors closed
behind.
“I’ve known you all your life, Ely,” the wizard said,
looking around, keeping his voice low, all too aware that the king’s spies did
not all reside abroad.
“I cannot go back to the war empty handed,” Ely said. “I
made promises I intend to keep.”
“Your fate is in the south,” the wizard admitted. “Yet, you
take with you the fate of Amlor and much more when you go. We need to be
careful. I do not trust the priest of Htam, and I fear that if they take you,
they might hold you for ransom or worse.”
“You believe they can take me?”
“You may be a skilled warrior, Ely, but you cannot fight
this alone. I’m not talking about the Htam army. You are not skilled in
fighting the kind of war the priests will wage – they bear the magic from the
Dales, and that is far beyond your skills, and maybe even mine.”
“You act as if the witches of the Dales have taken a side,”
Ely said. “I’ve heard they have not.”
“Sooner or later, they will have to,” the wizard said. “Yet
there is no doubt that the priest draw much of their power from that evil place.
I fear the spirit of Suna resides there.”
“If that is the case, then all the more reason for me to …”
“Shush!” the wizard said. “Don’t mention it here. Not until
we are safe in my quarters, and even then, not by name.”
“So, what is the point of this farce? Why should the king
think I’m under a spell.”
“Because it buys time for me to think, to find some kind of
solution that does not risk ripping open the fabric of the world,” Blyord said.
“If you wield it, then the gods become involved again and we might plunge into
a war far worse than the wars of enchantment. And there is a greater risk than even
that.”
“What could be worse than a war like that?”
“That Suna – in whatever form she currently resides in –
should reacquire the sword.”
“Is that possible?”
“Yes,” the wizard said. “If you take it south, you bring it
closer to her.”
“If I take it, I become invincible,” Ely said, “or so the
myths proclaim.”
“Myths can’t be trusted,” the wizard said. “That blade has
not been wielded by human kind in centuries, if ever. I know the elves bore it,
which is how it came to Amlor when they resided here. But a man may not have the
power to wield it, even a man as powerful as you.”
“I will not be made a prisoner in my own land,” Ely said. “I
made a promise to return to the south, and I will go with or without an army,
with or without the sword.”
“Fate decrees you will go south,” the wizard said. “But my
vision does not foretell whether the sword goes with you. Be quiet, now, we
approach the great hall. We’ll talk more when we reach my chambers.”
Blyord had other things to think about, and needed the quiet
to remember what happened before, the details of the gods and their domains in
the early times, before war stripped them of much of their power. He could feel
their hunger growing, and the hope they might have that they might return to
what once was.
In the beginning, Suna ruled the high places, the mountains
where her chosen people the dwarves resided. It was a domain of fire and ice or
as the elves later called it “Gattus Zirz), the Reign of the Mountains.
It more than a small irony that the land the god Amlor chose
as his home, and which become the principle home of his people, the elves,
should have so many mountains, since the elves-controlled river, lakes,
marshes, swamps, brooks, even underground waterways in what the elves called
Amloritious Reign, or the Reign of Water.
But the real attraction for Amlor and the elves was the fact
for except for a narrow sliver of land at Land Gate, Amlor was completely
surrounded by water, defensible against Suna’s fire, though Suna and the dwarves
lusted after it, especially when dominion over it fell to the hands of men.
Was this war now an extension of that old desire to take that
mighty northern land again?
Would the attempt spark a new even more furious war among
the gods, as they hungered to regain what was lost of old.
Suna had kept much of her power over the long years. But Amlor
had left much of his power flow into the elves in a much more concentrated form
of magic. But there was never an overabundance of elves, and in these later
days, fewer still, and could not be counted on as an ally if war came – the elves
having long since abandoned Amlor as a home.
What of the other gods?
As jealous a god as Toush was, he chose not to take possession
of land or sky, leaving his realm to be wandered freely by foot or wing, his
was the realm of small creatures, too insignificant to wage serious war short
of the god himself returning, also no ally for Amlor to call on in need.
Blyord trusted none of the gods, knowing that in the end
they wanted back what they once had, and might allow the lesser beings destroy
each other, letting the gods sweep in later to pick up the pieces.
What of the others, those imitating creatures early evil brought
into the world: the Morlas, Braketas, pixies and the rest?
Unreliable, Blyord concluded, impish pranksters with no loyalty
to anyone or anything, likely to betray allies on a whim or flee when danger arose,
landless, culture-less creatures that filled in odd places of the world, but often
too troublesome to seek out.
No, Amlor would have to stand on its own, if it was to
continue standing. Even Ely’s wish to befriend Taffar did not offer much in the
way of aid, it was just another small kingdom of many that lay between the
great city state of Htam and the vulnerable borders of Amlor.
Yet with all that said, Blyord feared unleashing the power
of the sword, partly for the reasons he gave Ely, more for other reasons he
could not completely define, some dark shape existed in the world, and he
feared the sword would only increase the danger, to Amlor, and perhaps everything
on either side of the great gulf.
What was he to advise Ely to do? And what would he tell the
king?
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