A Dragon's Tale Ch. 42

"If they were always this bad, why start mining here in the first place?" Selene asked.

"They weren't always this bad." He replied. "The orcs were always dangerous if crossed, but weren't eating us when I started the mine all those years ago. They kept themselves to themselves as long as we stayed out of the mountains. Damn, we even had a kid decide to go exploring in the hills years ago and they scared the ever-living shit out of him before herding him out of the hills; didn't hurt him though. He's still in town; good worker."

"So what changed?" Ethan asked.

"Fuck if I know." Horacio replied.

*Dominus, perhaps it was a different orc clan back then.* Beth thought to all of them. *Maybe a new clan pushed the old clan out and that's why things changed?*

*Good thought.* He nodded, then looked at their host. "Horacio, did the clans change? Maybe there's a new clan that's quite different."

"I don't give a shit." The man replied. "Them fuckers are a bunch of bloodthirsty animals who need to pay for what they've done."

*Great diplomat that one.* Alana thought to everyone sardonically.

"Well, I'll start by trying to find them." Ethan replied, managing to not react to his first wife's comment. "I'd try aerial reconnaissance, but the rain makes it hard to see from high up. I'd be worried about being shot if I flew low enough to see well today."

"They probably won't attack today anyway, on account of the rain." Hestia said. "I guess it's no fun to murder innocent miners in the rain. Though they might attack if it stops."

"Is there anything we can do until then?" Ethan asked.

"Not unless you have a healer with you too." Horacio replied.

Taloni perked up at that.

"Well, one of us is." He grinned at his Fey wife.

Both of their hosts looked at him for a moment, then each other, then up towards the heavens and said in unison. "Blessed be He."

"Blessed be He." Ethan and all his wives echoed, him mostly because it seemed like the right thing to do in this situation. 'When in Rome' right?

* * *

Selene found herself going through a whirlwind of emotions during the conversation. Hope, anger and disgust were prominent among them, and they lined up almost perfectly with what she could read of their hosts' body language and facial expressions.

Damn that was weird.

She had started to be able to separate her own emotions from theirs in just the short time she'd been paying attention. However, she would've been lying if she said their emotions didn't affect her.

Ethan and company got up to leave after the lunch was over, and she followed them outside into the rain. Kendra kept close to her the whole time, and occasionally glanced in her direction. The caramel haired beauty was pretty sure the dragon huntress was checking up on her, and greatly appreciated it.

They were walking towards the warehouse that had been converted into a makeshift hospital. As she got closer, she started to feel... unwell. Parts of her body started to ache, and as they got closer they started to downright hurt. Not badly, but definitely some.

"Are you okay?" Kendra asked after Selene unsuccessfully tried to suppress a grimace.

"I'm not feeling too good." She admitted.

"What's wrong?" The raven haired woman asked.

Selene told her, and the dragon huntress put a hand on her shoulder to stop her short, and then spoke to the others. "Hey, go on ahead. I'm going to take Selene back to the Argo."

Ethan turned, looked between them, then at Selene. "Are you okay?"

"She'll be fine." Kendra replied. "I have a suspicion what's wrong, and if I'm right she'll be better than fine."

"Better than fine?" Beth asked.

"I'll explain later once I've confirmed. Go on ahead."

Ethan hesitated a moment, and then silence fell for several seconds as they all looked at each other. Telepathy; Selene was sure of it. She seen it enough to recognize the signs.

After maybe ten seconds, Ethan and his other wives turned and continued on, while Kendra nodded her head in the direction of the Argo. The further they walked from the makeshift hospital, the better Selene felt. They sloshed their way through the rain and muddy streets for a minute or two before arriving at the Argo, boarding, and then going below decks to escape the rain.

"You look better." Kendra observed.

"I feel much better." Selene affirmed. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Telepathy?"

"Well, I was going to say I might be empathic. You think it's real telepathy?"

"I do." The dragon huntress nodded. "Think about it; your amazing win streak yesterday against Raklan via predicting his moves, the dream you had was probably you accidentally casting yourself into Raklan's dream, and now that you've been around other people, you're picking up their moods too. It all makes sense."

"By why only Raklan when there's other people on the Argo whose emotions..." Selene trailed off. "Oh, because everyone else on the Argo has mental defenses, but I'll bet Raklan doesn't."

"Exactly." Kendra replied.

"But how did it happen?" The telepath countered. "I thought that telepathy was supposed to be one of the hardest magical arts to learn."

"It is, but remember that conversation we had the morning after I joined the Argo?"

"Yeah, we did some sparring after it, and we talked about how I was having trouble finding my mana..." The Brazilian woman frowned. "...and you said that--" She stopped as her eyes went wide. "You said that if someone has a strong experience with magic shortly before they learn to manipulate their own mana, then they will likely develop an affinity for that kind of magic. You said that the experience will mold their mana, and then the person moving their mana afterwards will 'harden' the mold. You said it was like baking some bread into shape."

"Exactly." Kendra nodded. "You had about the most violent, powerful experience it's possible to have with telepathy less than an hour before you moved your mana for the first time. The only way it could've been more violent is if you had actually been attacked."

"Holy shit, you're right." Her jaw dropped. "That explains why my mana has a pattern to it but no one else's mana does." The Brazilian woman cocked her head to one side. "How do you know so much about telepathy if it's so rare?"

"One of my instructors was a telepath, and he taught us about it." Kendra replied. "He also made sure our mental defenses were up to snuff before we went active so no one could read our minds."

"Reading minds." Selene shook her head with a smile, then her eyes went wide. "Dude! I'm freaking Professor X!" She hesitated. "Well, I'm not bald, not a man, and not a cripple, but otherwise..."

She grinned.

"First things first." Kendra said. "Let me teach you how to shield your mind so the moods of everyone around you won't affect you. Then you can figure out how to be a bald, male, cripple." She said it with a straight face, but there was a smile in her eyes.

"Deal."

* * *

"Okay, so tell me again why Tee can't heal infections." Ethan said to Rachel as he watched the Fey move around the room visiting various injured people and healing them.

"It's really hard to tell the difference between the other person's body and what's infecting him." Rachel explained. "You can do it in your own body with training and practice because you can feel your own body, and thus feel what doesn't belong. But it's not like that with another person; it's just too hard to tell the difference."

"Oh, okay. I guess that makes some sense." He nodded. "Sad though; it would be really cool if a mage could."

"It would." The redhead replied. "It's only because of mages that we know what causes infections though, so at least that's something."

"Fair." He nodded and looking around again.

The 'hospital' was merely a converted warehouse with some beds. About a dozen were occupied, mostly by men with a battle injury of some kind or another. Many had arrow wounds, some had wounds that looked like they were made with an axe, and still others had crushing wounds almost certainly made by some kind of club.

"That girl is a marvel." The only 'nurse' said. "She's healed four men now and shows no signs of slowing down. She must have an Illuminar-sized mana pool or more experience than a girl her age should have."

"Yeah, she was a healer at another mine for a long time." Ethan replied. "She's damn good at it too; saved my life more than once."

*I'm running low on mana.* Taloni thought to everyone. *Would anyone be willing to donate some regular mana so I can keep going?*

*I will.* Beth jumped up and walked over to her.

"You have some mighty fine wives there Mr. Prophet sir." The nurse said.

"That I do ma'am, that I do." He said proudly.

The nurse looked pleased with his response.

"How did it get so bad here?" He asked.

"It's because our lord is a sack of dragon shit--" She stopped and looked mortified. "I'm sorry, I meant no offense."

"None taken." Ethan assured her with a smile. "Shit is bad no matter which animal it comes from."

"Thank you." She breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, Lord Farbrottan is squeezing us so tight that we can't afford anything. We've got a few young women who've just started their monthly bleeding and the families can't even afford self-cleaning undergarments for their girls." She huffed. "I mean, what's the world coming to?"

"Um, I could help with that." Alana volunteered. "I've got plenty of experience enchanting, so if you got some undergarments that are clean and high enough quality to take the enchantment, I'd be happy to help."

The nurse looked at her for several seconds with her jaw hanging open, then lifted her eyes to the heavens. "Blessed are you Illuminar -- king of the universe -- for providing for your people." Then she descended on the wood elf with a hug that was so strong that Ethanalmost felt like he should intervene.

"I'll have them ready clean and ready first thing in the morning!" The nurse promised as she turned to leave.

"They need to be dry too; exactly in the condition to be worn." The wood elf called after the nurse as the woman hurried away.

Ethan chuckled.

*Hey.* Kendra thought to all of them. *When you guys are done, I think you should come back to the Argo.*

*Is Selene okay?* He asked.

*Better than okay, but I'll let her tell you about that herself.*

Bee and Tee both looked at him.

*I'll be done in five minutes Master.* Taloni thought to them excitedly.

He chuckled. *Okay, but I don't think we'll head back for a little while yet.*

*Why not?!* Beth looked mortified, and was obviously itching to return to find out what Selene had to say.

*Because I thought I'd head back to that tavern and finish my beer first.* He managed to reply with a straight face.

*Dom-i-nus.* Beth sighed.

*Mas-ter.* Tee shook her head while Alana and Rachel rolled their eyes.

He chuckled.

* * *

Sarah waited with bated breath for Lady Ekthros to speak, thinking that this time -- at last -- the older woman would answer her question.

"And you're sure youreally want to know?" The lady asked.

Sarah nodded, both excited and nervous to learn the truth about Ethan-- err, the prophet of Illuminar. He couldn't just be 'Ethan' to her. She didn't want to start thinking about him that way regardless of how desperately she wanted to think about him that way.

"Once I tell you, you can't un-hear it." The auburn haired woman cautioned again.

"I know, but I trust you completely after what you did for me, and I need to know." The innkeeper's daughter replied. "Please tell me?"

The Lady hesitated for several seconds, then finally nodded. "First, you need to know that this information is extremely privileged. I have only shared it with a few people, and I'm only sharing it with you now because I think this 'Ethan' has taken a special interest in you."

Sarah felt her heart start to soar, but that was only until she saw the look on the other woman's face.

"That's not a good thing." Lady Ekthros said. "Let me back up to the beginning and tell you how he came to the Ten Kingdoms. Did you know he's not from here?"

"Yes. Both he and Selene mentioned something about that."

"Of course they did." Lady Ekthros shook her head. "The most convincing lies arealmost entirely true, with only a tiny bit of untruth mixed with them, or a few details omitted." She took a deep breath. "He was brought to this world by dark magic."

Sarah's jaw dropped as her eyes widened.

"It's true." Lady Ekthros said. "A dragon in Lord Delmar's land was attacked and his newly adult son was killed during the attack. The dragon hired a necromancer to bring his son back from the dead, however things didn't go to plan."

"What do you mean? And how do you know this?"

"As you can imagine, rooting out dark mana users is of the highest priority for Lord Delmar." Lady Ekthros explained. "Dark mana drawn from living beings which have died is incredibly corruptive, and even a small amount could turn the most wonderful person you ever met into a sociopath."

"Right."

"Well, when we heard about the dragon -- Ethan -- I had my men track down the necromancer." Lady Ekthros continued. "He confirmed that he used a dark mana resurrection spell, and that's how Ethan arrived here."

Sarah inhaled sharply. "No."

"Yes." The auburn haired woman nodded grimly. "The necromancer drained the life force of a person while that person was alive in order to do the spell. A process that I'm told is incredibly painful."

"That's how he got here? But..." She frowned. "But that doesn't mean he asked for it right? I mean, it could've happened by accident... right?"

"I'm sure you don't know much about the dark arts, but from what I understand -- from what Lord Borden's chief arch mage says -- it's not possible for Ethan to have accidentally hijacked the resurrection spell. I'm not an expert because I've never used dark magic, much less a dark resurrection spell, so I could be wrong. However, the people I talked to know this stuff very well and I trust them on it."

Sarah felt like she had been gut-punched.

Ethan had used dark magic?

No.

No that wasn't possible. Not the prophet of Illuminar.

"Look, I don't want to say that he did it for sure." Lady Ekthros said delicately. "It's possible there was some random event that interfered in the necromancer's spell."

"But you think Ethan did it on purpose."

"It looks that way."

Sarah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Judging from the old woman's expression, she wasn't done. "There's more, isn't there?"

Lady Ekthros grimaced. "Are you sure you want to hear the rest?"

She bit her lip, then nodded.

The auburn haired woman continued. "Well, you know what the Book of Light says about necromancers, so obviously Lord Delmar's men tried to capture Ethan, but they failed. But even more strange, a woman he'd met only hours before seemed willing to die for him."

"You have a theory on that, don't you?" Sarah asked, not wanting to hear it but knowing she needed to.

"It's just a theory though, so I want you to realize that it might not be true. It's the only thing I can think of, but I don't want you to base your opinion of Ethan on it, because it's just a theory."

"Ok, but I want to hear."

The older woman nodded. "Do you know about dragon compulsion?"

"Everyone has heard of it, but most think it's a myth."

"It's not. Dragons can do it, and I know this for a fact."

"Oh." Sarah put her hand over her mouth. "You think he... that he made Alana..." Her eyes grew wide again. "You think that he made all of his wives..."

"I don't want to think so, but consider who is following Ethan around." Lady Ekthros said as she ticked them off on her fingers. "The daughter of the two most powerful wood elven houses, Lord Borden's daughter, Lord Delmar's daughter, and a dragon huntress. How else could he have gotten such an impressive array of women to follow him and share his bed in only a few months?"

Sarah didn't reply. It did seem hard now that she mentioned it; nigh impossible in fact.

"And then Elizabeth Borden was kidnapped, and you've met her so I assume you know she's Lord Borden's daughter?" Lady Ekthros continued.

"Yes."

"We think it was done by Lord Delmar's daughter, Rachel, who I've known since she was little. She's a good person and would never kidnap someone. Not unless..." The auburn haired woman trailed off, seemingly not wanting to finish the sentence.

"Not unless she was being influenced." Sarah finished the thought and bit her lip.

Could it be?

Could Ethan...

"And if she was being influenced to kidnap..." Lady Ekthros grimaced.

The innkeeper's daughter sucked her breath in sharply. "Then Ethan must've been behind Beth's kidnapping."

"I don't know that for sure." The older woman said hastily. "But the timing was awfully convenient, and it gave Ethan -- a dragon -- a direct connection with one of the largest stores of gold in the entire Ten Kingdoms, and a beautiful young woman for his bed too."

"Oh." Was all Sarah could think to say.

It made sense.

It was awful, but it made sense.

The other woman continued. "Lord Delmar tried to catch up with his daughter when Ethan wed Lady Borden, but couldn't find her. He then disinherited her, since the most likely reason that Ethan enthralled Rachel was to gain some kind of hold over Narlotten or Lord Delmar. Lord Delmar was trying to protect her, hoping that the dragon might cast her off, but..." She shook her head. "But she still follows him."

"You think he is compelling all of his wives to..." Sarah sucked in her breath. "But that's absolutelyhorrible if it's true."

"I know." She replied darkly. "Believe me I know, but it gets worse."

"Worse? How could it get worse?"

"You know of the girl whose death he was accused of in Arcanum?"

"Yes, but he was proved innocent in a trial by combat." Sarah countered.

"Was he?" Lady Ekthros grimaced. "Consider, Ethan had no combat experience and was completely unarmed and unarmored, while the Arena champion had years of combat experience, enchanted weapons, and full chainmail armor. How did he win? How could he winfairly."

"Oh." Sarah face fell. "You think that Ethan bribed..." She covered her mouth. "But the Book of Light says a bribe is detestable to Illuminar."

"It does." Lady Ekthros replied. "But it might not have been a bribe."

"Oh?" Sarah said, leaning forward and listening intently.

"It might've been blackmail." The other woman said.

Sarah's heart fell to somewhere below the floor.

The lady continued. "That also explains why the dragon's slave killed him a few nights later; Ethan might've been worried that he would talk."

"Oh, I never thought..." Sarah felt like the breath had been sucked from her lungs and the light pulled from the room. If she had been standing up, she would've sunk to the floor.

Her knees felt weak.

She felt sick to her stomach.

"I told you, you don't want to hear the rest." Lady Ekthros said sadly.

"There's... there's more?" Sarah barely got out in a whisper.

"But you don't need to listen." The older woman said hastily.

"Please, no matter how hard it is to hear, I need to know."

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."

Sarah nodded, not really able to do much else.

"The slave who killed the Arena champion -- Hailey -- was never seen again after she left Arcanum with Ethan." Lady Ekthros paused, then added. "Do you know what the first rule of assassination is?"

"It's a cliché from stories, but the first rule of assassination is to kill the assass-- no." She covered her mouth. "No he couldn't have."

"I'm not saying he did." Lady Ekthros added very quickly. "But it's very strange that the slave -- Hailey -- was never seen in the Ten Kingdoms again."