Falcon Island: Chapter 2 - The Elder Council

Chapter 2 – The Elder Council

            I receive my summons at the graying of dawn.  Report to the Elder Council at first bell.  I had been awake for several hours before the village woke for breakfast, so a renewed drowsiness had crept into my eyes by the time I arrived.  When I arrive outside the council tent, an Elven chambermaid directs me to sit on the bench outside.  She stands there and watches me, tilting her head slightly at my every shift.

            I can smell the smoke of the incense from outside the chamber.  The Elder Council uses an herbal mixture to clear their thoughts.  This ancient ritual makes me nauseous.  One more reason to dread this meeting.  I hate missions.  I hate journeys.  If not for Aureleus, I would hate all Orcs.  I just want to stay in my hut. 

            “What is that in your hand?” the chambermaid asks.  She speaks in Elven.  She has probably never left this village.  Never seen an Orc.  Never heard the cries or smelled the cinders of a raid.

            My fingers clutch my totem of Charybdax, the Blue.  It is a dark wooden token with a floating duck engraved on one side and a swooping kingfisher engraved on the other.  Like these two water birds, Charybdax, the Blue, is a god of extremes.  He is a healer and a destroyer.

            “It is my holy totem.  I am a priest,” I reply. 

            “Are you an Avox?” she asks in a low tone.  I do not know what the Elder Council expects her to know about me.

            “The other clerics say I am a Blue.  I am unsure.  One is seldom an accurate judge of oneself,” I say, rubbing the token back and forth between my thumb and forefinger.

            “If you are a Blue, then what do you know of this rain?  Is this the will of Charybdax?” she whispers.

            “The wills of the gods, especially the fickle Charybdax, are a mystery, as they have always been.  It is not our duty to understand their will.” 

            This is my default advice.  It has kept me employed and steadily promoted in the Cloud State military since I arrived.  If I were to answer her honestly, I would tell her that the gods are gone.  The Orcs sweep across the island in every direction, the rain would drown us out before the Orcs even arrive, and the island is falling apart from within.  What god would stay and watch as his followers die?  The alternative to the gods’ desertion is divine punishment, and I find that thought even more depressing.

            The maid is called into the smoke chamber, and I am left alone outside.  People walk past me on the porch.  Several messengers enter and exit the smoke chamber while I sit outside and wait.  I think my headache, born of the rain pounding and dripping through the canopy, subdues me into sleep, because I am startled awake to the sound of bells. 

            The second bell is ringing, as it always does after midday meal.  Aureleus’s lumbering limbs slump up the stairs and sit next to me on the bench.

            “Did you receive the summons?  What possessed you to show up after second bell when the summons said first?”  I ask him incredulously.

            “I see I’m not late.  It seems I know this Council better than you do.  I haven’t missed midday meal like you have.”

            The Elf girl exits the chamber. 

            “Please, come in,” she says.  Her thin frame holds the tent flap open, and she directs us to stoop and enter.

            I bend down and shuffle into the room.  “Thanks for making us wait,” Aureleus snorts as he enters behind me.  I cannot believe his gall, but he and the elf chambermaid exchange smiles as he walks in.  I know now, for certain, that she has never seen a true Orc.

            “That is Yisho, the Elf I spoke to.  She is the reason we have an audience,” Aureleus whispers and jabs me in the side.

            “No, you and your foolishness are why we are here,” I cough the words out through the haze from the smoke.  The incense assaults my senses like a wall, infesting my lungs.  It is spicy and hot, but it washes into me like a smooth wave.  The smoke oozes like lava, the same lava that seeps through the cracks in the Falcon Island crust.

            I detest the smoke, and the sensations of drowning.  My first several summons, I immediately created an air bubble around my face with my magic.  The Elder Council members protested endlessly, and refused to continue with the meeting until I allowed the herbs to infiltrate my lungs.  “It is the path to clarity and prophecy,” they always say.  To me, this smoke is a path to delusions and hallucinations, none of which have proven prophetic in my ten-year tenure as Chief Cleric of Charybdax.

            The nine Elders are sitting in a half circle on the wood-plank floor, with the incense spewing from a fire-pit in front of them.  Yisho directs us to stand in front of them, next to each other.

            I want this meeting over quickly, so I cough and hack through the smoke.  My eyes water and my skin glistens with new sweat.  I breathe in and drink the thick herbal mixture until the drowning is over and the waking death begins.

            “Welcome Rus.  And welcome…Graal,” the most wrinkled Elf nearly spits the last word. The Cloud State soldiers were not content to address Aureleus with his given name when he joined.  They were bitter and cruel to him, and it only got worse when he became the best warrior and tracker in the service.  I was one of the few who knew his given name, before his mother died, but I could not protect him all the time.  They all called him Graal. 

            Graal was a name constructed in Pre-Falconic to mean “tall, destructive oaf.” If there is any kind of prophecy at all on Falcon Island, is it through our Pre-Falconic names.  Although each race has its own language, the island-folk (Elves, humans, dwarves, Halflings, and gnomes) all speak modern Falconic.  Our names, however, are all constructed using Pre-Falconic roots, a language in which each letter of a word holds a primitive, basic symbolic meaning. Aureleus’s given name is actually quite beautiful and terrifying, just as he is.  Translated, Aureleus means “man who rises through destruction of the land.”  To be reduced to Graal is heartbreaking to hear.

            Yisho, the Elf, addresses us.

            “This is High Elder Paviq, the eldest of the chiefs,” she informs.

            I have never met Elder Paviq before in person, so I know it is my duty to respond to this introduction.

            “It is an honor to meet you, High Elder Paviq,” I say as I bow over the fire-pit.

            “Thank you, Yisho,” he says to the chambermaid.  He has yet to look Aureleus or me in the eye.  Maybe the herbs have clouded his vision.  “I know the two of you have had scattered experience in the Orc territory of Embertalon.  Rus, you are a very competent mage and cleric, despite your reservations.  Graal…you are a good warrior.”

            To say that he is a good warrior is a gross understatement.  For a good warrior, a weapon is an extension of an arm.  For Aureleus, his great-axe is an extension of his eye.  Once Aureleus spots a target, no terrain, no other enemy, no unforeseen fate can deter him from his game.  Aureleus has slain more Orcs than any warrior since the eruption of Radicus.  Aureleus hears Elder Paviq’s statement as I do—as an insult.

            And Aureleus cannot hold his tongue.

            “And I am unkillable thus far.”

            I do not like their open disdain for him.  They summoned us both, and if I am to believe what Aureleus told me this morning, they are sending us for a mission.  They should not treat him this way.  But I am not brave.  I wish I could say something, but instead, I shift my feet.

            High Elder Paviq shows no indication that he hears Aureleus’s taunt.  His eyes are glazed, and he continues unfazed. 

            “Yisho has brought Graal’s theory to our attention.  The Elder Council maintains that the idea of Dwarven deserters willingly aiding the Orcs into our territory is absurd and ridiculous.  It is clear you should be prized for your muscle, and not for your imagination.”

            Aureleus clenches his fists.  No amount of herbs and smoke can cloud his sense of pride.  He juts his lower teeth out like tusks over his top lip.  I pray that he does not respond, but as always, the gods do not hear.

            “And you should be prized for your long life, but not for how you have filled it!”

            Another Elven master speaks up in response.  “How dare you address Master Paviq in this way, mongrel?”

            “Master Limvay speaks,” Yisho introduces the new speaker.

            Paviq raises his hand and Limvay quiets himself.

            “However,” Paviq continues.  He pauses for a long time and breathes the smoke in deeply, “as the Beating Sea expands, and as the crust of our home cracks, you are clever to consider that we could be vulnerable from underground.  As the two of you have already learned from the reports, we have declared the Dwarven High State as fallen.  We must begin new rescue efforts.  We have run extraction missions across the island before, but the rampaging Orcs have never been as thick into High State as they are now.  Several of our best guides were never found after the Ryeldar incident.

            “The two of you are to make your way across the island to Raptor’s Rock, the High State stronghold.  Lord Drakaz’s younger cousin, Lord Nams, is waiting for you to escort him here.”  Paviq still has not looked away from the dancing embers in the center of the room.

            Aureleus speaks before I can.  “I was under the impression you accepted my request to investigate the Ryeldar Outpost.  Instead, you are sending us to fetch a noble and bring him here.  Despite Master Limvay’s opinion, I am not a dog.”

            “I do not understand,” I interject.  I do not want to be punished for his insubordination.  If we are punished, I want it to be for asking the right questions, not for an insult.  “Why, and how, should only the two of us traverse Embertalon, a barren and torched territory swarming with Orcs? How are we to enter the tunnels of High State, where the Dwarves have even been forced to build walls out of the corpses of their own miners to reroute the Orcs?  Why are we to retrieve Lord Nams, the youngest of the Dwarven lords?  Why not Drakaz, or either of the others?  What about King Ashnard, himself?  How does he propose to escape Raptor’s Rock?  Pardon my manners, but there is no way that this could be the entire plan.” 

            I try to keep my voice calm and forceful, but Aureleus hangs his head deeper each time my voice cracks or wavers.  He hears my fear, and he knows my objections are a veil to mask my anxiety. Another Elven chief, young, slender and calm picks up a small kettle of water and pours it slowly on the fire-pit, sending steam billowing and thickening the chamber with haze.

            “Master Barca speaks,” Yisho informs us.  This elder, however, I already know.  He is the president of Stratos Tower, the Elven school of battle magic.

            “The four Dwarven lords are beseiged in their stone castle.  If we hope to preserve the Dwarven court and its people, we must relocate the kingdom.  Lord Nams is the youngest of the Paleotus family.  In King Ashnard's absence, Lord Drakaz saw fit to send Nams here first.”

            Aureleus speaks again, this time, with a harsh curiosity.  “King Ashnard’s absence?  Where is he?”

            Barca replies, “Lord Drakaz has informed us, through one of Romox’s loyal pigeons, that King Ashnard has been missing for three seasons.”

            “Three seasons!  The attack on Ryeldar happened three seasons ago!” Aureleus exclaims.  “Why did they not inform us sooner? Is he dead?  Why not declare another king?”

            “You know the Dwarves are a proud race.  They are fiercely patriotic,” Barca says, eyes never opening.  As he speaks, he moves his hands in long, swirling gestures.  The smoke dances in his fingers, where it holds shapes for only an instant before it dissipates into new ones.  “In a time when more of their home is seized daily by Orc marauders, and only pain and death are found in their tunnels below, the people look for strength from above.  They look to their King and court.  An empty throne is a sign of weakness for any nation.  However, Dwarven law states that a successor may not be named until proof exists of the current King’s death.  Until proof of his death is recovered, Raptor’s Rock will remain headless.  This is the reason you are retrieving Lord Nams first.  He is the youngest, and is therefore perceived as the weakest.  The court will retain their people’s faith for as long as the eldest heir remains in Raptor’s Rock. It is our hope that their keep will not become their tomb.”

            The haze is getting so thick, I can barely see the Elders sitting in front of me.  The entire chamber is milky with smoke, and I am unable to think straight.  I know it is the incense, but my mind swims with anguish.  I am swiftly overcome by panic and grief. I breathe in fear and breathe out dread.  The Orcs took my village seventeen years ago, but it was only a village.  Wooden huts on an open plain.  We fled, but we were wildly outnumbered and savagely overtaken.  We were only a village.

            But this—Raptor’s Rock, the keep and capital of High State—this is a mountain fortress, protected by highly trained and bred soldiers, fighting in terrain that gives them an undoubted advantage.  The Dwarves have been masters of phalanx fighting and fierce protectors of their tunnels since before the eruption of Radicus, eons before the arrival of the Orcs.  If they are falling back…if they are fleeing, then truly, there is no hope for us all.

            “There have been enough lost to the horde already.  I will not go.  I will live as a coward here in my hut, high off the ground.  You said it yourself, Master Barca.  High State is lost.”  I turn my back and take a step toward the tent flap, and the freedom of the wet air outside, when Aureleus grabs my arm.  He has never gripped my arm as hard as at this moment.

            “Rus, you must come with me.” Aureleus’s words cut into me.  Through the miasma of smoke, I can see his eyes.  I know, somehow, that this is not the incense speaking.  This is Aureleus, pure and free, pleading with me.

            “Rus is not here.  I do not know who you expected the Council to summon here today, but it was not supposed to be me.”

            Barca speaks again.

            “It has been determined that the fewer your numbers, and with the blessings of Crovax and Charybdax, you can make it to Raptor's Rock unharmed.  You will leave at first light tomorrow.  We would like you to stop at the Foothills shrine to Romox and send word of your progress.  We have not received any pigeons from that shrine for quite some time, so we fear that Orcs occupy the shrine.  If the Orcs have indeed overrun the shrine, do what you can to clear it.  We cannot allow them to continue defiling it.

            Elder Paviq addresses us again.  He opens his glassy green eyes and looks at me.  “Rus.  We have anticipated your anxiety.  Trust in your abilities.  Put whatever trust you can in your ally.  We both know how fickle the mighty Charybdax can be."  Paviq contorts his face into a weak smile.  “Graal...Aureleus,” Paviq corrects himself, “Prove your worth. Watch out for Rus and Lord Nams, and bring them back safely.  If you succeed, you will have my full respect.”

            Aureleus responds immediately, “When I am out there fighting to protect this state, it is only your feathery gods and Rus watching my back. Not you. I will hold you to your word.”

            “This is the collective wisdom of the Elder Council,” Paviq announces.  That is the signal that this briefing is complete.  Yisho moves to the chamber flap and directs us out of the smoke chamber. Even as I leave the chamber, I can hear Limvay yelling at how foolish the council is being, sending an Elf-Orc and a human coward to bring back Dwarven royalty.  I throw my head out from under the leafy canopy overhead and let the water run down my forehead, into my eyes, and down my cheeks and my neck.  I cough and hack the foreign fresh air.  A pounding headache rushes behind my eyes, pulsing up from my fingers and toes.  I support myself on the railing outside.

            “I think we both could stand to watch our tongues in front of the council.  We both could have lost our positions today,” I say.

            Aureleus shakes his head and looks into the forest toward the East, where the Orcs march.  “You still do not see it, Rus.  We did lose our positions today.  We have been given a death sentence.  This is exile, and we may not return while the Dwarven court is still under siege.  Our quest is impossible.  We must prove it possible, or we face our doom, as does High State.”

            Of course, I know he speaks the truth.  His entire life, he has been punished for the crimes of his father, and now, he faces the Elder Council’s final retribution for the murder of his mother.  It was raining the day she died.  Raining just like this.  I had a headache just like now.  My temples were on fire.  But I remember her name. Ori, which means, “divided one.”  She screamed as he was born.  He ripped his way out of her, like his father ripped his way in.  I was sick from the sight of the blood, and then Aureleus was here, and she was gone.

            “Aureleus.”  I breathe deep, and then the rain lights my headache aflame.  I grunt and grip my arms around my head. I fall onto my knees by the balcony.  “I remember your mother.  I was there when you were born, when your god-sign was revealed. You were almost a White when I saw that dove perched on the spire near the shrine to watch you arrive.  I had prayed for a White.  Falcon Island so desperately needed a White Avox.  I had nearly declared it.  But then, the moment you landed on the Island, a vulture, large and black as sin, landed on the spire and crushed your poor dove.  There was no disputing it.  You were a Black, and Crovax was watching you closely.”

            Aureleus crouches down next to me, slaps my back, then straightens up.  “I must prepare.  I will see you at first light.  I assume you will be awake before I meet you.” 

            “I will go with you,” I say bluntly.  “I am terrified. I hate travel.  I hate the rain. There are not many men I would go with, but I will go with you.  Into Embertalon.  To High State.  Into the belly of Mount Radicus if I have to. It is the last thing your mother asked me to do.”

            For the second time today, Aureleus leaves me standing alone and mystified as he stomps away into the rain.