Lhoran's Tale: The Green Book

[XpYtZ]

<>

Lhoran stepped calmly past the last of the stairs and through the carved ash wood doors leading into the Rangers Hall, or what had been the Rangers Hall. Years ago the Hall had been a shining example of the work the Rangers were capable of; just the three of them. Now, years later, it had returned to the wilderness it was carved from. The once well tended Tree of Life which they had built the Hall around now pushed the floor around it out of shape with its massive roots and had punched holes through the roof with its branches. Here or there Lhoran could see a birds nest resting in the tree or on one of the banisters around the mezzanine of the hall. Vines and brambles shrouded the winding staircase that led to the second floor and mezzanine and as Lhoran shifted his weight and craned his neck to look he could see that here and there a stair had fallen from its place. It was all just as well; he did not currently need to use the stairs anyhow.
Lhoran?s attention was drawn to a bookcase that rested on the northwestern wall of the Hall where the Crystal-Light cut its way through the boughs of the tree and cast a bright circle of light. He remembered that bookcase all to well. He had a story on those shelves, a story to long unfinished. Perhaps it was time it was finished.
We walked over to the dusty, cobweb covered book shelf and found a soft, green leather book and removed it from the shelf. As he did much of the case collapsed on its self. Lhoran heaved a sigh. To long untended. How could people have let things get like this? How could people have forgotten about it all; just left it all here to rot away?
Lhoran turned his attentions to the book in his hand. He would need a pen. Pens were upstairs.
He walked slowly across the room to the staircase and peered up it. Maybe, if he walked softly he could make it. He started his accent and stepped lightly around the broken or rotten stairs until he miraculously ?at least in his mind- reached the second story of the Hall. As he walked down the neglected halls and passages that led to the study he thought of the conversations that he Monketh and Qwaar had had in them. The decisions they had come to, the stories they had written together. Now everything was broken or forgotten; like the Hall.
He reached the door to the study and found it broken in two. He feared what might have done it, what might be waiting inside the study for him but he could not smell anything so he passed through the door. A large spider web covered all corners of the room. Here or there the corpse of some unfortunate creature tied up in it and dangling. Lhoran took a deep breath through his nose. He could only smell death. The Trepor was apparently out for the time being or had met its own unfortunate end at the hands of whatever broke the door. That really did not matter since an ink well and pen were lying in plain view on the floor.
Snatching both up he left the room and made his way back down stairs.
He wandered through the main hall and into the bar and took a stool. He remembered this room better even than his own. It was his [/i]other study. The place he used to escape his own fears and nightmares. It was the last place he hid visited with Monketh and Quwaar as a Ranger. Sorrow wrapped around him like a cloak and he tried to force it off. There had been happy times also he recalled. Yes, there had been happy times.
He looked to the book in his hands and set the pen and ink well on the bar in front of him. Carefully he opened the book and read aloud from it.
?The Legend of my Life: Lhoran En?Elone?
?Chapter one: Fire Child?
Lhoran was born into a small, tribal, Enki family that resided on the third level of the Great Cave, called by some Ylliakum. His tribe and family were mostly hunters by trade and so it was that Lhoran became adept with all forms of weapons and hand to hand combat at a very young age. However it is also true that Lhoran was born into odd circumstances. Odd being the most appropriate word since A?tha had always said that they were in deed, ?odd times?.
A?tha, the En?Elone tribe?s shaman was the sixth in his line to be shaman for the tribe and had inherited a great deal of knowledge concerning Alchemy and the study of Magic from those that had come before him. So it was no great matter to him when a glyph appeared before him in mid air and dropped to the ground while he was walking one day. A?tha merely figured that it was the sort of thing which was bound to happen to someone, eventually. It was more interesting for him though when he arrived back at the village to find that M?ere and Toranu?s baby had been born while he was out since the child was not due for some time still. Even more interesting was that the child had been born with a most unusual pattern of fur on its back. Or so he was told.
After securing the glyph in his tent, A?tha went to the house of Toranu, examined the child and was struck by the resemblance of the pattern on his back to that of the glyph he had found while walking. On further questioning of the parents he learned that the child had been born at the same time he had seen the glyph appear.
A?tha hid all the correlations down inside and never told the parents or any other tribe member what had happened.
Years passed and the child grew in strength and ability, faster than many of his peers. His parents named him Lha?Oran meaning Fire Child since his eyes were red with a yellow-gold ring around their outer edge. A?tha eventually gave the glyph he had found to Lha?Oran as a necklace but never told him what it was.
Eventually Lha?Oran became interested in Alchemy and the Shamanic arts that A?tha practiced. A?tha, having no offspring of his own, saw the opportunity for a pupil and trained the boy as best he could until Lha?Oran reached twelve. It was at that time that a Xaltha Alchemist named Ronacha visited the tribe for some period of weeks and became interested in Lha?Oran as a pupil. He asked A?tha and Toranu if the child could come to train with him near Hydlaa on the first level of the great cavern. They accepted the offer as an honor and so Lha?Oran traveled with the Alchemist to his school.
There the boy excelled in his studies but mostly as a hunter and gatherer. Eventually becoming the leader of a small group of others whose sole responsibility it was to gather the various herbs and animal specimens for the school. All the while Lha?Oran and the Alchemist studied together during the dark hours of the morning. It whas during those sessions that Lha?Oran learned the necklace he wore was actually a glyph. It was in one of those sessions that Lha?Oran had his first vision of the crystal breaking and falling, in burning fury on all of Ylliakum. It was there that Lha?Oran first thought that maybe he was a glyph.
Time passed again, as it always does and Lha?Oran grew into a man and began taking trips of his own for herbs and animals. He had achieved a status at the school that few could even dream of but he was not happy. So he turned his eyes to Hydlaa and the thought of adventure. He grew into a romantic, longing always for his own adventure to begin. It was that very longing that led him to leave the school and stay in Hydlaa longer than he was supposed to. And it was that action that led Ronacha and two students to Lha?Oran, a dark alley behind the tavern. Though Lha?Oran survived his beating he knew that Ronacha would hunt him as long as he thought he was alive. So Lha?Oran became Lhoran and joined the Rangers Guild.
Lhoran put the book on the counter and wrote in it, speaking as he did so.
And it is there that the story of the Fire Child ends for Lhoran and Lha?Oran were very different people, very different indeed.

<>

[XpYtZ]

Lhoran set his pen on the bar next to the inkwell, flipped to the back of the book and ripped a page out. He dipped the pen in the well and began to doodle. What to write next? There was all his time in the Rangers, but most of that was mundane: gathering herbs, studying glyphs, writing stories and fables with Monketh and Quwaar. He could start with?He looked at the paper and noticed what his hand was working on, a chain with two daggers spinning through the air, blood covering their edges and the chain. ?Toebal.? He thought. That was who he should start with; dear, dear Toebal. He sighed, a pause of sorrow washing over him as he looked around the room again. ?It must be the surroundings that makes everything so sad. I should move out to the lake, pick up the story a little. He looked across the bar and out the broken screen doors. There was a lake out there somewhere. The woods seemed to have reclaimed that as well.
Dipping his pen in the inkwell again he decided to stay inside. Soft leather books needed a proper table to be written in properly anyway.
?Chapter two? He intoned. ?Dear Toebal.?
Toebal looked roughly over his shoulder at the destruction behind him. He could see for miles, all the way back to the village. Everything was in flames or in the middle of an explosion, as shafts of blue-green light, as thick as him and at least three times as tall, fell from the sky and crashed into buildings or people with perfect precision. He turned his head back around just in time to avoid one of the shafts as it plunged into the ground a few feet in front of him, leaving a crater and blowing him off his feet.
He tucked his head in and rolled with the blow, back onto his feet and kept running as hard as he could. The shafts of light kept falling on everything around him. He noticed that the shafts were not falling in front of him far but always just near him. He expertly dodged another shaft and felt a slight pain in his side as he rose. He dared not stop running to look at it but he might just touch it. He placed his paw over the place the wound should be but it passed through him. He stopped and looked down. Instead of any wound it seemed that that portion of him was simply gone. It did not bleed or anything it was just?He looked up as a whip of heat and stone shot towards him, there was not time to react to this one. The shaft consumed him.
Toebal woke to a hooded figure standing over him.
?Are you ok?? It questioned.
?Uh, yea?sure. Why would I not be?? he stuttered. The pain was still in his side.
?Just that you were screaming pretty loudly a second ago and I damn near had to punch my staff through you to wake you up.?
So it was Lhoran who was to blame for the pain in his side. Toebal dared not let him know what the dream had been about, Lhoran had enough such dreams. Toebal secretly wondered if the appearance and frequency of his own dreams were somehow tied to Lhoran?s.
?I?m fine.? He shrugged.
?As long as you are ok.? Lhoran turned, and moved back to the fire at the middle of their campsite. As he seated himself the firelight cast under his hood and caught the yellow-gold edges of his eyes. Toebal thought he looked demonic with that hood and those eyes. It had not always been that way. When he had been Lha?Oren En?Elone the eyes had only been an oddity. They always seemed to harbor some dark fear or worry but they did not seem as laden, or as consuming, or as old. Toebal found himself avoiding eye contact with Lhoren as often as possible. There was something about them now that filled him with fear.
Toebal figured that it was just the repercussions of learning the tribe was destroyed, the lust for vengeance and a reckoning with Ronarch the Xaltha Alchemist that had turned out to be a venomous sorcerer. Lhoran had studied under him and Toebal wondered if some of the man?s evil had rubbed off on Lhoran during his time. No, just a silly notion. Lhoran was still Lhoran, just older, much older then when they had played together as kids. Though in reality Toebal was the elder of the two, Lhoran had taken on twenty or even fifteen year over the course of the last ten. Toebal hoped he had not grown so many silver wiskers.
Lhoran?s voice came across the fire, dark in its whispering grind. ?He is only a few hours behind us. But he is resting, like we should be. Maybe more room between us would be better.? The voice softened, ?What do you think??
Toebal considered the idea. If Ronarch was only two or three hours behind them then, moving on now would be better then resting. Lhoran?s herbal knowledge rivaled Ronarch?s in the realm of energy foods and they were Enkendukai, they were made for travel through the wooded areas and the wilds, especially at night. Ronarch would be getting tired of chasing them in circles soon and would either get wise and set a trap or give up and head back to his school. On the other hand, how the hell could Lhoran know where Ronarch was without having gone back and seen him: if that was the case why was the man still alive? Lhoran was a plenty good hunter and even four other students, which Ronarch was sure not to have brought, would not be able to stop him before the alchemist was dead.
Toebal looked back across the fire and met Lhoran?s eyes. His blood cooled and he felt like he was being probed. ?I uh,? He stuttered, ?we should get moving.? He said as he pulled his eyes away and stood briskly.
?Very well. That?s what we will do.? Lhoran responded standing.
They packed the camp and Lhoran doused the fire with one of his shield spells that was supposed to act like a bubble in water. Lhoran told Toebal that most spells had their proper purpose and then the ones they were also useful for.
They gathered the char wood and Lhoran scattered the ashes with another spell. Toebal thought that Lhoran used his magic all too often but there was little he could say. It was better then three hours trying to scatter them physically.
The two set off for what they had started calling the Sanctuary of the Rock. It was a cave in one of the hills of the area that had three rocks over the entrance. Lhoran had discovered it while working for Ronarch as a hunter and kept it hidden in case he would ever need a hideout for any reason. Two of the rocks were part of the hill and could not be moved but the third Lhoran had attached a glyph to which made it far lighter than it really was.
They reached the Sanctuary within three hours. They spoke little. Toebal figured Lhoran was still working on a plan by which they could get revenge on Ronarch. He had come up with a few so far. One required a mercenary force, what Lhoran said he could get at a discount from the guild if he pulled the right strings but he thought that one was to forward and that Ronarch would just poison the guild against him if he could divine the plan. The second was for Lhoran to use the old sewers that ran under Hydlaa to gain access to the school and kill Ronarch in his sleep. That plan though was full of holes. First did the sewers even go under the school, second what if Ronarch had placed glyphs of warning around his chamber, and lastly how to get back out after the murder? The sewers would be useless since they would just lead back to the city where the guards were waiting and Lhoran could not just walk out of the school. Besides all that, Toebal wanted to be there when it happened. He had lost the village as well.
They set up camp inside the Sanctuary and Lhoran set some glyphs in the wall for light. A soft blue-green glow radiated from each of them. Lhoran called it Crystal-Radiation and claimed that it was drawn directly from the azure sun. Toebal really didn?t care, it was light.
?When should we go hunting?? Toebal asked after a few hours of silence in the cave.
?I can?t say without lighting a fire.? Lhoran responded. ?He could be hours from here, back at the school or standing at the entrance listening to every word we say. Lighting a fir will make it to hot and smoky in here for us to breath and the smoke will be sure to give the entrance away if Ronarch is outside.?
The curiosity killed Toebal.
?How the hell does a fire tell you so much? Always with the fire. You  stare into it like the face of Talad, as if it is going to tell you something or another but you never have let me know how the hell it works. For the love of Laanx!? Toebal screamed as he stood up and turned to look deeper into the cavern.
Lhoran?s voice came softly from behind him, the whisper no longer seeming quite so dark, quite so sinister. ?I?m sorry Toebal. I?ve grown so used to keeping people out, making Lha?Oren dead that I?ve even kept my self from you.? Lhoran paused and let out a deep sigh. ?It?s called Divination. I read the flames and know what is happening around us. Anywhere there is a fire I can tell what is happening. It gets harder with distance but it still works. Ronarch claimed that with enough practice and the proper understanding of red way magic a person could even divine things that were going to happen. I?m no where near that good, nor that inclined to red way, but I can tell if Ronarch is within a few miles of us through it.?
Toebal turned and looked at Lhoran hard. Lhoran was looking away, staring at one of the glyphs in the wall.
?Why can?t you do the same with those?? Toebal asked looking at the glyphs.
Lhoran?s gaze pulled suddenly to Toebal, who jumped. There it was again, that calculating look though, slightly softer.
?I should be able to shouldn?t I? I never thought of it before.?
?Well if they are tied to the Crystal they should be able to see anything that the crystal?s energy touches.? Lhoran?s eyes fixed on Toebal and he felt that probing feeling again.
?Quit that!? He said as he tried to pull his eyes away. ?Don?t think I can?t figure out what you are doing.?
The feeling broke. ?Really.? Lhoran said looking away. ?What then, huh? Just what do you think I am doing??
?You?re using those damned Azure spells to read my mind, that?s what.?
?You know Toebal,? Lhoran responded. ?That is exactly what I am doing. You are smarter about magic then A?tha would have thought.?
?What about what you would have thought?? Toebal asked.
?Me? I knew you had a head up there. You can?t master a weapon like that and not have some level of intelligence.? Lhoran said pointing at the free dagger on Toebal?s side.
Toebal grinned. The free dagger was four feet of chain connecting two eight inch daggers shaped like long diamonds. Toebal and Toranu, Lhoran?s father, where the only two tribe members that had mastered the weapon for hunting. Some could do nifty dances with it or hit the targets in training but Toebal and Toranu had a certain grace and form that made them damn near invincible while they were using it. Toranu could even use it to deflect arrows and spears from his body. Toebal had never reached that level, though it was not for a lack of trying.
Lhoran grinned back for a moment, a glint of hope and happy memories touching the edges of his eyes before it faded away, like a stone sinking into a dark lake. Lhoran turned his attention back to the glyphs on the walls and started mumbling to himself.
Toebal congratulated himself on a good idea and decided he deserved a nap. He would have to do his hunting after Lhoran was sure no one was close enough to catch them and he assumed that learning a new spell from scratch was not an easy task. He was right.


<>

[XpYtZ]

From a veranda on the mezzanine Lhoran looked beyond the doors and out into the young woodlands that had taken over the banks of the Rangers Guild?s lake. The light of the Azure sun was beginning to fade and as it did the skydome took on a deep purple. Lhoran could vaguely make out the Great Glyphs in the dome. He was thinking about a rowboat that had once been attached to a dock on the lake. He would have to wander out there the next morning and see if it was still alive or had rotted through. More probably the latter in his opinion.
Beside him, on the railing, sat the green book. He had been writing in it all day and he thought that he deserved a break, but he could not bring himself to set it aside. He felt connected to it, it was after all a story about him. He was glad he had come back to finish it, even if it was long past.
Now and again he heard a Megarar move overhead carrying one of the many sightseers that came to look over this part of the land. There were a lot of them these days, though he could not quite understand them calling it the old-country. It was not that old.
He decided that he should return to his book.
He made his way back to the old study in the third level and again scenting nothing in the room stepped in and looked around for a couple more pens and inkwells. On his way out with the bundle he spied a lamp and decided that he should take it with in case the candelabra in the bar were out of oil.
Once back in the bar he ordered everything and search around under the shelves until he found what looked like a very old bottle of a dark-brown liquor. He vaguely remembered that Monketh had asked him never to drink it again and returned it to its place. Even if he had not seen him in some time he thought, hopefully, that he some day might and wanted to be able to look him straight. He searched about some more and found an old bottle of wine and figured that it would do. He did not want to risk learning if the reason that Trepor was not around was still lurking in the woods over a drink of water, at least not at night.
With everything well ordered he checked the candelabra and was surprised to find them half full. After lighting them he returned to his book.
Ronach sat calmly in a clearing no larger that two meters with his legs tucked calmly under him, his back perfectly straight and his eyes tight shut. Concentric rings of fire moved slowly out from him scorching anything that got in their path. Lha?Oren and that other Enki boy had been here no more than two hours earlier and Ronarch was sure that they had left in no hurry. Perhaps Lha?Oren was getting tired of running. If that was the case Ronarch would have to be prepared. No amount of magical knowledge could save him if that other Enki got him with his daggers before he had time to think. He had made that sort of mistake once already. When he laid waste to the En?Elone village. Lha?Oren?s father had got behind him with one. If not for Teck?s mastery with the needle and Crystal Way he was sure he would not be here at this point.
He wondered if he had made the wrong decision going after the two alone. It was not like he needed to play fair. But he thought that Talad might look more kindly on him if he captured the Incarnate without harming him. That was what he should have done in the first place. Not stormed out in a hissy and tried to kill everything. He saw that now as a mistake. Had he not attacked Lha?Oren the lad might not have escaped and may well have been back in the school in a year. If he had not destroyed the tribe in a vain attempt to draw the boy into a trap he might well not have two Enki leading him in circles in the wilderlands?so many ?if?s. ?If?s did not change things, only action did. All those things were done and in the past now. Now he had to focus and try to find those Enki. All he needed was for them to light a fire. Even if they did not he still thought he could find them. His tracking skills might not be the best but they could not keep the beasts off without a fire or shelter. ?Shelter.? he thought. ?Of course.? If they had shelter they could get on without a fire and just rig the entrance with some traps. He tried to think of any hills that he had tracked them past in the last few weeks. There were some to the northwest he thought.
Releasing his trance Ronarch rose to his feet as the last wave of fire rolled out of existence. It was a wonderful defense against ground creatures but he would have to some day devise a Stone Shield spell.
Walking over to a tree he took his bag in hand from a low limb and recovered his walking stave from the ground next to it.
?Northwest then.? He thought and began his journey.
After a couple hours travel he reached the hills that he had been thinking of and walked slowly to the top of one which he though could command a view of the entire area. Sadly he was wrong and the most he could see was five or six Kilometers in either direction. He sat down and began to meditate again. Darkness would be coming soon and they might light a fire.
He stretched out and felt the energy from the Crystal fill him. Then the fire followed. It hurt a little ?it always did- but he had trained himself into control of the pain. It was not a real pain in his body but from his mind. He knew that he was never injured by it unless he lost control. He floated lightly in a ball of fire feeling campfires and villages, smelting operations and lanterns but never feeling what he was after. At one point he thought he had found them, two Enki sitting across a campfire from each other, only a few Kilometers away. But on closer inspection he found that they were only bandits. Hours passed and he found nothing. He let the ball of fire fade from him and slipped back into consciousness. Looking around he noticed that the night had come on him unexpectedly and he would need to make a camp for the night. He worried that he may be loosing precious time. ?Stop it.? He said to himself. ?They are nowhere that you can not find them?eventually. You?ll bed down for the night. Get some rest and be hot on their tails come morning.?
Camp was a quick thing to make as it consisted of three warning glyphs and a fire. As he drifted off to sleep he could ear Lha?Oren chanting something. ?Good,? he thought, ?I?m close enough for the link to work.? He filled his mind with another mans dreams and drifted off.
***
Lhoren tried again to focus on the Glyphs on the wall. It had been about two hours since he had been able to concentrate. He felt like something was watching him, listening to every thought. He tried again to sense if anyone was probing his mind and found nothing?nothing but the usual static. He had once thought that it was some form of link but had given up the thought after asking Ronach to show him how he might find out. Ronach had simply looked at him with a perplexed stare. ?Child,? he had said, ?no one can link you without consent. You are perfectly safe.?
Lhoran had strongly doubted it until a book in the library had confirmed that no one had linked to another without consent in known history. He reminded himself that that was the known history.
He went back to the glyphs. He was sure that what Toebal had suggested should be possible but was not sure how to do it. He was also aware that the Azure sun had long since waned and he was working with less that the full help of its radiation.
He peeked back over his shoulder at Toebal and suppressed a yawn. His stomach growled at him and he became very aware that he and Toebal had not gone hunting that day. They had long since run out of food rations in their packs and their water was beginning to run low.
?Lha?Oren.? Lhoran whipped around leaping to his feet and summoning a ball of crystal energy that would become a shaft as soon as he released it. Behind him he saw no one. He kept the ball summoned and scanned around the cave. ?Who are you?? he called, ?Who is there?? No answer came.
Toebal looked to be waking and Lhoran moved slowly toward him.
?What?s up big fella?? He asked
?Oh, nothing. I just thought I heard something. I must be getting edgy from the hunger.?
?Go to sleep then. That?s what I did.?
Lhoran looked around the cave again. ?Yea,? he said, ?that is what I should do.? He yawned deeply, lolling his tongue. ?Plenty of time for spell making in the morning.?