Enigma
The town of Errolds Grove was extremely isolated. So, too, was the small Tayledras vale nearby, which was run by the Mage Darian Firkin. They did get a large number of changebeasts, due to their proximity to the Pelagir Forest, of course. Even with that, it had been fairly quiet since the last barbarian . . . well, they couldn't really call it an invasion, since they'd only been looking for medical help with a plague, but it was definitely an incursion. One thing they didn't get much of was mages who weren't sent to the area by the Queen of Valdemar. Even Heralds came only rarely, even now, due to their location—just inside Valdemar.
All this ran through Karly Enton's mind as she stared at the stone structure in the clearing before her. It was built into the side of the mountain, and while she would have sworn it was new, well, this was the first time she'd come out this way . . .
As she watched, the large stone door, which she had thought immovable due to its size, opened, and a figure in strange, close fitting clothing came out. It was female, with silver-white hair that dangled in a long braid down her back. Karly couldn't see much of her features because of distance, but she thought the girl was young—too young to sport that head of white hair. She also seemed to be wearing a feather cape of some kind.
A noise behind Karly distracted her from the stranger, and she turned to find herself facing a beast. It looked like it was a cross between a wolf and a couple of other animals she couldn't identify. It had paused a short distance behind her, but now it began to stalk forward toward her. Karly took a step backward, then another. As she took a third step backward, her boot caught on something and she sprawled ungracefully backwards. With a snarl, the thing was on her.
She brought up one arm to defend her face, and felt teeth sink into it as she groped for her dagger at her waist with her other hand.
A bolt of energy caught the beast full in the face, knocking it backwards and off of Karly. Another one, brighter this time, hit it in the chest. It was knocked backward another couple of steps, then fell to the forest floor, unmoving.
Karly lay still for a moment, gasping with shock and pain, clutching her right arm. Footsteps behind her reminded her of where she was and what she'd been doing. She tried to sit up, and gasped, spots twinkling before her eyes, and she only now felt the burnint pain in her abdomen where the thing had clawed her.
Hands on her shoulders pushed her the rest of the way down. "Still be. Injured are you. Not to be moving." A voice said haltingly in Valdemaran.
Karly found herself looking up into the young face of the silver-haired girl she had seen coming out of the stone dwelling just moments before. "Who . . . who are you?" Karly managed to gasp.
"Elissa be I. Healer-Mage be I. Healing I do for you. Worry not," the stranger said reassuringly, if haltingly. Then she placed a hand on Karly's forehead. "Now, sleeping you must be. Healing faster is then."
Then darkness overwhelmed her.
Darian Firkin straightened up abruptly as he sensed the surge of magic nearby. The dyheli he was riding stopped, alert to his riders alarm.
Is something wrong, Darian? the dyheli asked him.
There was a magic surge, rather close by, too. Darian responded absently. I didn't recognize the signiture. Quickly, he sought out the mind of another mage who would have sensed the surge—his adopted brother, as chance would have it. Wintersky! Did you sense that?
Yes. It came from the northeast. Whoever it was, was fairly powerful. Probably close to Adept level. Wintersky's response was prompt.
I think we should investigate. It didn't feel like blood-magic, at least.
Well, that a plus. It felt like it was out past Errolds Grove, so we should be able to pass through there first.
Good idea. We don't want them to panic or anything. Darian directed his thoughts at the dyheli again, Let's go.
They reached Errold's Grove on schedule, despite their brief pause when they had detected the magic surge. They were met, however, by a rather worried group of people. It turned out that an enterprising young dye hunter, a girl named Karly Enton, hadn't returned from her gathering expedition yet, despite the fact that it was getting dark, now. She had left alone, that day, due to the fact that her partner had rather stupidly broken his leg on the last expidition. She had promised she'd be back before night, but there had been no sign of her.
"Calm down," Darion said, for what seemed the thousandth time. He could understand why this girl had gone off alone, if this was what she had to deal with at home. "Tell us which way she went, and we'll search for her."
The girls' mother was too hysterical to talk, so the girls' broken-legged partner spoke up. "She started off to the north, but she was planning on circling around to the east—all the areas to the west have been pretty well cleaned out of dye materiels."
Northeast? Why do I get the feeling that our dye-hunters dissapearance and that magic surge are connected? Darian asked Wintersky rhetorically.
I think we'd better hurry. Was Wintersky's only response.
They extricated themselves from the hunters family and headed off to the north, following the trail left by Karly Enton.
It wasn't exactly easy to follow, even for two Tayledras-trained scouts, like them—apparently this Karly Enton really knew her stuff. They trailed it north, as the partner had suggested, then the trail veered off to the east, almost directly towards the source of the magical disturbance.
When they were almost upon the magical trace, they paused to probe ahead, to make sure they weren't walking into a trap. When they detected nothing, they eased around one of the large Pelagir trees and stopped, stunned.
A large Changebeast lay still against the base of the tree. Its chest was charred, showing the effects of a levin bolt. Blood on one side of the clearing showed evidence of what it had been attacking when it was blasted, and a scrap of cloth on one of the creature's claws matched the description of Karly's clothing.
Darian touched the scrap of blood-soaked cloth and turned towards the blood stains on the ground. "Look at this! A second set of footprints."
Wintersky crouched down beside them, and studied them closely. "Our mysterious mage?"
"Probably."
Something crunched nearby, and Darian and Wintersky melted into the concealment of the shurbbery. There were more crunches, and the two recognized the sound of footsteps on dry leaves. After a minute, Darian risked darting forward to the edge of the clearing.
The clearing was strewn with dead leaves, just like the rest of the forest. A featureless rock wall jutted up from the ground, twenty feet from them. And between the edge of the forest and the cliff, stood a dazed looking girl. She wore close fitting clothing, for the most part, but her tunic was unbelted. Her right arm was bandaged and held in a sling, and through a rip in her tunic, he could see more bandaging around her abdomen.
What do you think?
Wintersky's response was cautous. It could be a trap.
Darian sent out a cautous mental probe. I don't sense anyone else around. I think we should risk it. I'll go out, you watch for trouble.
Agreed.
Darian cautously stepped from concealment. Nothing happened. Karly abruptly sat down in the leaves. Darian went carefully forward, making no sound on the dry leaves, all senses scanning for any sign of something not right. Nothing
I don't think anything else is here.
Then where did she come from? She wasn't there just a moment ago. . .
I think we'll have to ask her when we get her back to the village. Darian leaned down and placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. He switched from Mindspeech to spoken Valdemaran. "Karly?"
She blinked and looked up at him, awareness abruptly returning to her eyes. "What . . . who are you? Where did you come from?"
Darian pulled her to her feet, and she stood easily. Suddenly she gasped, one hand going to her abdomen. He supported her easily with one arm. "I'm Darian Firkin. We need to get you back to the village and get the Healer to look at you."
Between the two of them, they managed to get the girl up onto one of the dyheli they had with them, and rode back to the village.
*** *** ***
Keisha looked up from her examinatin of Karly's wounds. "Well, I'd say these were tended by a healer—a good one, too."
Darian shook his head slowly. "She was in the middle of the forest. There was nobody anywhere around—definitely not a Healer."
"Well," Keisha looked thoughtful. "Some of the trappers have mentioned seeing a hooded figure to the north of her. They couldn't tell who it was, though. Maybe that's who it was."
"This is the first I've heard of it." Darian shook his head abruptly. "Maybe Karly remembers something?"
Keisha leaned over her patient, who was currently unconscious. Keisha placed a hand on the girls forehead, brushing hair back, and concentrated. A moment later, Karly was blinking sleepily up at them. "Karly? How do you feel?"
"Better. What happened, Healer?"
Keisha and Darian exchanged a look. "We were hoping you could tell us. What's the last thing you remember?"
The girl wrinkled her nose sleepily. "Well, I was out looking for fungus for that blue dye everyone likes so much. I think I was heading east—nobody's been out that way recently. That's all, Healer. I'm sorry."
Keisha gave the girl an odd look. "There's something you're not telling us. What is it?"
"I . . . I . . ."
"Darian, could you check for magical tampering?"
"Sure." Darian extended his senses carefully. After a moment of intense scrutiny, he pulled them back. "There's something. It's very hard to detect—I'd say someone put a coersion on her."
"A what?"
"It prevents someone from doing or saying something—whatever the caster doesn't want them to do, really. Like this one, they're usually very subtle."
"Can you remove it?"
Darian examined the coercion carefully. After a moment, he said, "No . . . I don't think so. An Adept might be able to, but I'm not up there yet. I think Firesong should look at this."
A pounding on the door interrupted them. Keisha patted the girl on the arm, and rose to answer it.
The girl's partner was there, along with her mother. Both looked very worried.
"We heard she'd been found. Is she all right? What attacked her?" her partner demanded.
Keisha nodded reassuringly. "She's going to be fine. A Changebeast attacked her, but her wounds aren't serious." She stepped backwards, "Come on in."
As the girls' family clustered around her, assuring themselves that she was all right, Keisha and Darian retreated to the other side of the small room to continue their discussion.
The building they were in was small, so it wasn't very far.
"Wintersky and I will investigate a little more before we return to the Vale."
"Good idea." Keisha looked worried. "If there is someone living around there, we have to know that they're friendly."
"I agree," Darian said. Despite the fact that he no longer lived in Errolds Grove, he still wanted his old home to be safe. "We'll stop by here and let you know what we found."
"Thanks, Darian." Keisha flashed a nervous smile. "Be careful."
"Always." He turned and headed out the door.
*** *** ***
to be continued in part 2