Druid Chronicle Ch. 02

Orren had no idea how long he slept but the next time he woke up he felt well enough that he wanted to tend to his property. Ephenome opened her flower completely and he reluctantly kissed her goodbye and stepped down onto the grass. His clothes were piled there waiting for him with his amulet on top.

He put the amulet around his neck and looked down at himself. He was naked of course and somewhat sticky with probably an assortment of fluids. He decided it was better to leave his clothes off.

Hallem, the gnome who worked here, walked into the courtyard. Hallem took little interest in what Orren did and did not appear fazed to find him standing there naked.

"This plant wants to tell me what to do. Should I be taking orders from it?"

Orren looked back at Ephenome.

She stared back without comment.

He nodded. "Yes Hallem, she's in charge of the jungle now. The gardens and the fields are still yours to maintain as you think best."

"Whatever." He replied and walked away.

"He's not very friendly but he gets a surprising amount of work done."

Ephenome had closed her flower back as far as her upper chest.

"How do I communicate with you when I'm not here?" he asked.

"What point is there in doing that?"

"I don't know, what if there is danger?"

"I will take care of it."

He didn't have a ready answer for that, but she did offer a partial solution.

"Pull on the root. Pull hard. It will warn me. As for you..."

There was an odd aroma, faintly smoky.

"Will you be able to recognize this smell?"

"Now I will."

"It means I want you to come here as soon as you can."

"Okay, what sort of range does that have?"

"I'll expand, so will my range."

The smoky was gone and now there was a spicy, acrid scent. It made his eyes water a little.

"This one means danger, do not come to me. Get away."

"Understood."

-

Two months passed. He dug the water course deeper and wider from the natural stream into the pools and fountains of his ruined castle. It provided more reserve water for Ephenome. He returned to placing one stone per day and the walls of the ground floor grew higher. The front façade and outer walls were almost complete for that first floor and he had inner walls to repair before he could replace the ceiling and potentially move into the ground level of living space.

He did not leave his estate as he had no need to. He was self-sufficient here. He talked with Ephenome on most days and spent the night with her regularly. She grew rapidly, alarmingly even. It was the shoulder of the rainy season and there was plenty of both rain and sun. He built the supports for his greenhouse and started moving his collection of plants there even without the walls completed. With Ephenome's guidance they thrived beyond what he thought possible.

Once or twice a week he walked the fields that led down to the seashore. He would sit on a bluff and study one of the few spell books he had managed to collect. Sometimes, even looking down at the pages of his books he became convinced he was being watched. He felt uneasy at that wide expanse of water and he worried about the potential for someone or something to arrive unnoticed by sea.

The side of his castle that was opposite to Ephenome's courtyard he left alone for the most part. It was another grassy partially ruined courtyard with a massive banyan tree out in the center of it, well away from the home. It was unlikely he would ever build to heights rivalling that of the tree. Ephenome stayed away from that side as she did with the back, presumably due to lack of dense foliage for her vines to cling to. Towards the front of the estate she had no such qualms. He wasn't sure how far her reach extended now but it was considerable.

He had heard nothing from town.

-

"Is this it?" Dar asked.

"Somewhere across that field." His partner answered. He was squinting at a map in the disappearing twilight.

"Somewhere?"

"Yeah, somewhere. That's all the detail I have. You could learn to read a map too, Dar."

"Fuck off Bailey. That's why you're here."

Bailey bit back a retort and tucked the map back into the bag. He started to loosen the straps on his horse's saddle.

"What are you doing?" Dar asked him.

"Aren't we going to camp here for the night?"

"Here?"

"Why not? We've got protections."

"No, let's go in now."

"Now? It's after dark."

"Yeah so? You said this guy wasn't a real sorcerer."

"He's still a partial sorcerer, and people say he's a little... you know. What if he doesn't let us in?"

"We aren't going to ask him to let us in."

Bailey rubbed the top of his head, then sighed and tightened the saddle again. "Isn't the point to have him cooperate with us?"

"No. That's why you're not in charge any more. The point is to make it clear that I'm in charge and he has no choice but to cooperate."

-

Orren was asleep in his underground room and then he fully woke up all at once. He was wide awake, certain that something was wrong. Ephenome? He sniffed the room and could detect nothing. His own magical protections then, but where? If Ephenome hadn't reacted it had to be from the ocean or from the other side.

He leapt out of bed and put on clothes in the dark. He wasn't willing to use sorcery without knowing what was happening. He decided to go for the banyan tree courtyard first. There was a half moon in the sky casting enough light to see by. It was quiet, late enough that even the insect hum had died down. His alert system was designed to give him more information than this. It wasn't that, so what was it then? Instinct? Had he just had a nightmare?

He touched his amulet and cast his senses about him and found nothing to be alarmed by. The tree caught his attention briefly. The base of the trunk seemed to sparkle in the moonlight. Perhaps it always did that, he wasn't out here much at night. He tried to scan the branches but its canopy was so far above him there was nothing to see. Magical sight certainly revealed no danger there.

Nothing here then, so he decided to walk a little ways towards the ocean. Something caught his attention first though and he turned back to the tree. There was a woman standing not five feet in front of him. He yelped and staggered backwards several steps.

Where had she come from? She was petite with long straight brown hair and she was wearing a short dress that appeared to be made of tiled leaves. She was barefoot and carried nothing. She pointed towards the front of his house with some urgency.

"What is it? Who are you?" He asked.

She pointed again, then shook her head and walked quickly past him around the back of the house. Confused, he followed her.

She crossed the weaving paths amongst the pools back there and then rounded the far side of the house into Ephenome's courtyard.

Ephenome's flower was half open and she was alert and facing away. The faint smoky smell quickly became noticeable.

"We have company." She said quietly.

"Yes we do." He agreed.

She turned towards him and saw the strange woman and said, "Oh!"

The strange woman walked directly to the alraune and thrust both her arms into Ephenome's flower.

Orren had no physical weapons but he quickly summoned an arrow through sorcery which hovered over his shoulder.

"No! Wait!" Ephenome said. "It's okay."

They stood like that for maybe a minute in silence. Then the woman turned to face Orren.

"I am... I..." she spoke. She seemed frustrated and glanced back at Ephenome with a nod.

"Her name is... well it starts with... Let's go with Neive?" Ephenome said. The woman nodded rapidly. "She does not speak the human language well, yet. How did you rouse her?"

"I don't believe I did."

"They... come." Neive said.

"She roused you?" Ephenome guessed. "Our visitors then."

"Where did she come from?"

Both women stared at him. Then Neive managed, "Tree."

"Tree?" He repeated as it dawned on him. "You're... the tree is... you're the dryad of the banyan tree?"

"Yes."

"Some druid you are." Ephenome said.

"Did you know?" He asked.

"Of course I knew. She has not emerged though, that I know of, until now. This is our first meeting as well."

"They come." Neive repeated insistently.

"Yes" Ephenome agreed. "They do. There are two humans, on foot, inside your walls."

"How did they manage that?" He meant it as a rhetorical question, but Ephenome answered.

"They have magic of some sort."

Orren looked to Neive "This worries you?"

Neive nodded to him then looked back to Ephenome.

"You're certain?" Ephenome said. Orren could not tell how they communicated but he recognized the alarm in the alraune's voice.

"She says they have quickfire."

Orren responded immediately. To Neive he said, "Return to your tree, I will keep them away from you. Do you understand?"

Neive stared at him for several seconds before answering "Yes." She walked away.

"I may need your help." He told Ephenome, "I will try to get rid of them nicely first."

"Whatever you think best." She said this in a tone that implied 'nicely' wasn't at all what she thought was best.

Orren returned to his underground rooms and resorted to a sorcery-magic hybrid form of scrying using the system he already had in place. Two men. He didn't recognize either of them from the limited information he could get in this manner. They also didn't 'feel' like magicians. Since they remained on the road, he waited until they were approaching and then walked out of the front door to greet them. He met them a short distance in front of his home.

"Good evening gentlemen."

They glanced at each other. They wore the purple and brown striped livery of the nearby town of Krii. Both men carried sheathed swords. One of them appeared to be a bit older than the other. He spoke.

"We did not know you lived here now. Orren, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's Orren. I find it unlikely you didn't know that though. What can I do for you?"

The younger one spoke now, he had a certain brashness that led Orren to believe he might outrank the other despite his apparent youth.

"We're doing rounds of all the estates in the area. Yours is on our list. We need to look around."

"Now? In the middle of the night?"

He shrugged. "Let's see what you're hiding, sorcerer."

The older one shifted uncomfortably.

Orren ran through several different approaches in his mind. He could almost hear Ephenome encouraging him to just kill them. They had arrived here through his wards though so he was somewhat wary. He decided to play the eccentric but harmless fallen apprentice that many people thought he was.

He laughed aloud. "Hiding? Yes, come see what I'm hiding then."

He turned and walked back towards his home. He ushered them in through the front gate amused at their wariness, as if they expected an ambush. 'Not inside...', he thought.

Once in, they quickly took stock of the half built walls, the open view to the sky and the rubble strewn around the rooms.

"This is where you live?" the younger one asked, incredulously.

"Yes it is. Not a lot of hiding places as you can see. Not a lot of places. Why don't you come on out back to the terrace and we can talk there."

He saw the quick glance the two men shared and felt his ploy here was working.

There were benches by the two long pools out back and he sat on one and invited them to sit on another. They both remained standing.

"So what is it you're looking for?"

"Just anything unusual."

Orren frowned. "Oh come on. You avoided the wards I had at the gate and came in the middle of the night. You knew a magic user lived here but you walked right up the main path. Must we play this game or do you just want to tell me what you're looking for?"

The younger one stood silent. The older looked frustrated. He spoke.

"Come on Dar, this is pointless. Let's just ask him."

The younger one - Dar, apparently, gave in. "What do you know about alraunes?"

Orren stared back for a moment and then laughed, all the while wondering how much Ephenome could hear.

"I know you won't find one in a castle. Any castle, even a ruined one like mine."

Dar looked back at the stone pile. "You're calling that a castle?"

Orren ignored him. "I know what anyone who has studied them knows."

"We are trying to find one."

"Then why are you going from estate to estate? You should be far from the towns in the wilds. You must know that much."

The older one lost his patience with the conversation and just jumped in.

"Do you know if there's one in the southern jungle?"

"I've heard the same rumors everyone else has."

"Do you know if they can... get away?"

Orren did his best to act like they were every bit as mad as he supposedly was.

"Get away? A plant? Like just up and run?"

"Yeah, I know it sounds stupid."

Dar took over again. "What do you know about them?"

"Can you just tell me what you're really asking here? It's rather late to come to someone else's home and play at interrogation."

Dar wasn't great at hiding his annoyance but he did actually manage to let it pass before speaking.

"The Sheriff's son was attacked and killed by an Alraune. He's trying to find it and destroy it."

"Also, one of the Lord Mayor's sons." The older soldier added.

"Which one?" Orren asked.

"Cabot, and Amir."

Orren had strongly suspected this but it was good to have confirmation. The mayor had a variety of children and Amir was even legitimate.

"Well, if you know they were killed by an alraune, and you know where it is, it shouldn't be hard to find it."

"We burned the jungle with quickfire and now there's not enough left to tell if it's dead or not."

Orren winced at the 'we' in that sentence. If Ephenome could hear them she could well take action on her own.

"If you knew it was there and it's not there now, it's most likely dead."

"Sheriff wants proof."

"Then quickfire was a bad idea."

The older one started pacing. "This is stupid. He knows this and he's supposed to be crazy. Everyone knows this. This is ridiculous, we're spending weeks listening to people tell us alraunes can't move and we all know that."

"How do you know it was an alraune?" Orren asked them.

"What?" Dar asked.

"How do you know?"

"It's what they said they were going to find."

"Look, I know you work for the sheriff, you must've known his son. We're talking about Cabot here, right? And with Amir alongside him."

"And?" Dar demanded.

The older soldier rolled his eyes.

"He did have a certain reputation for recklessness. How do you know he found one. What if he found some sort of were-cat, or a lamia, or angry fae? What if he ran across something mundane like a venomous snake?"

"What exactly are you saying?"

"I'm saying if you found nothing after you burned all that, maybe the thing you were looking for wasn't there. Maybe you should be looking for something that moves."

The older one had heard enough. "We're done here. We're done everywhere. This is ridiculous. Let's go Dar."

"You're welcome to spend the night. I have extra rooms available" Orren offered.

They both looked at him. "You really just sleep in there?"

Orren shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes outside."

"Was there really a demon in that tower? Is that what drove you to live like this?" Dar asked suddenly.

The older one pulled Dar's arm away. "No Dar, we're not doing that. It's his home, let's leave him be."

Orren followed them at a slight distance back through the ruined ground floor and out front. They had conveniently avoided both courtyards.

"Thank you for your time." The older one said.

"We'll be back if we need anything." Dar said.

"Perhaps you should knock politely at the gate next time." Orren suggested.

Dar bristled at that and Orren immediately regretted the jab. He should've let it be.

He waited there until they had walked out of sight. Then he waited a bit longer. When he turned, Neive was next to him and he just about jumped out of his clothes.

"Would you stop that? Can't you make a little noise when you walk?"

She pointed down the road after them.

"You don't trust them?"

She shook her head.

Orren sighed. "Yeah. I'm not going to go back to sleep until I know they're out and I strengthen that ward. I will follow."

She touched her fingertips to his arm, briefly, and then turned to walk back towards her side of the castle again.

Orren cast three quick spells to make himself difficult to detect and then ran down the road after them.

Once he had caught up enough to see them he found they were using magical light to guide them. It didn't appear to be a cast spell but an artifact they had brought along. He slipped into the trees and followed a parallel path he had long since designed for just this sort of purpose.

They were talking and soon he could make it out but it was not useful to him. It was just idle chatter and gossip and a very detailed description of a barmaid in town.

He waited for them, out of sight at his gate.

When they appeared, the older one asked "Should we use the gate key again?"

"No. Let's trigger his alarms. I want him to think we're leaving."

The older one sighed. "Are you saying we aren't leaving?"

"You're leaving. Go do the next three on the list."

"What are you doing?"

"I want to look around here a bit more. I don't know if I trust him."

"You don't have to trust him. How many sorcerers do you trust? What do you think you'll find here? He had nothing to do with this. No one had anything to do with this except one charred alraune or something else that we'll never find."

"I'm going to look around, then I'll do the last three places on the list. Just head back when you're done and I'll see you in town. We can be back tomorrow evening if we hurry."

"Splitting up is a bad idea, I'll wait. I can camp out in the field here tonight."

"No, I'm in charge and I don't want this to take any longer than it has already. Keep going and let's get this done. That's an order, Bailey"

The older man stared at Dar for quite a while before finally backing away. "I know Cabot was your friend, but he did some dumb shit and you know that, and now you're going to start making stupid decisions too. Sneaking around the estate of a sorcerer who doesn't know you're there is reckless. Even if he's only half a sorcerer you're taking a big risk."

"I've still got the shield."

"Fine, do it your way. I'd say don't do anything stupid but it's too late for that." He walked through the gate which started Orren's amulet pulsing. Orren quickly clasped it in case the faint purple light could be seen.

The gate was closed. Dar was walking back up the road and as he did so he took out a C-shaped collar and put it around his neck.

Orren chanted a quick verse to more securely lock his gate and took note of the collar to add extra defense against that. He didn't like the idea that a sorcerer - a relatively strong one - was handing out skeleton keys. He had tried not to show excessive magical strength in his defenses but it appeared he was going to have to add quite a few layers.

Dar had something else out now as well and he was referring to it regularly. It led him up the road just until they were within sight of the castle and then he branched off towards the side that harbored Ephenome.

Orren took his own, faster route to her courtyard. The flower was closed and hidden. He walked up to it and carefully slipped into the foliage behind it.

"One left. Can you handle him?" he asked quietly.

"Yes." Came a muffled reply.

"If he pulls out quickfire, I will take care of it."

No response. He crouched down and waited.

He couldn't hear Dar but he soon saw the faint glow of his light. 'What an idiot' he thought. Dar didn't bother to put out his light even when he walked cautiously through the archway into the courtyard. He stopped when he saw the huge mass of vines in the center. He glanced over to the greenhouse and then back to the tangle of foliage.