Azarielle bolted out of bed, landing in a crouched position with the words of a defensive shield tumbling out of her mouth. A quick look at her surroundings told her that she was in a very large, circular room. There was the bed she had lain upon and two chairs.
“It is alright, young one, you are safe,” a kindly voice said to her.
The mage turned her head in the direction of the voice and found a rather startled old elf holding a worn towel over a metal bowl looking at her. The old elven woman had to be over a thousand years old. Age had left its lines over her face, and bowed her spine. Her hair was almost completely white; a rare sight indeed for one of Faearth’s longest living races.
“Please pardon my rudeness, but who are you?” Azarielle demanded.
The old woman was a mage and Azarielle could feel her earthy power. It spoke of leaves, flowers, and running streams, and seemed untainted. But there was something else, an undertone of melancholic power that hummed beneath the surface. She had never encountered anything like this, and it felt almost as if there was someone else in the room with the old woman.
“The young ones call me the Seer or Old One” she laughed with a sigh. “My name is Arielle, and you are in the Everstar Spire.”
Azarielle nodded her head but did not relax her stance, “Elder Arielle, greetings. Where are my companions?”
“The healer of the Ancient One is resting. She stayed at your side for a very long time, determined to see you through your ordeal. I was finally able to persuade her to rest. The other two, the knight and the gray elf have gone after the servant and the son of Gwenevar with Gubriel and some of our warriors. They set out three days ago.”
The old woman did not appear to be lying but Azarielle was not entirely willing to accept her words, “I’d like to see the healer.”
Arielle nodded and gestured to some clothes set out for the young mage, “I will take you to her.”
Once Azarielle had dressed, she followed the old woman out of the room and down a flight of spiraling staircases. The entire tower did seem to have been shaped from one solid piece of crystal, including the steps of the staircase. The railing was made of living wood, complete with rich green leaves and small, blooming flowers. Small mage globes would light up with each step that they took and fade back into the darkness once they passed.
“Are there many mages amongst the survivors?” Azarielle asked.
The old woman shook her head, “There are only two others beside myself with the gift. You must be wondering what powers the mage globes we just passed by.”
“It doesn’t seem like something you would spend your powers upon, especially if there are only three of you,” Azarielle replied.
“Ah, it would seem Azariel wasn’t an entirely incompetent teacher.”
A sudden surge of power blasted the young mage like the arctic wind, and she sat down hard on the steps, her eyes wide. The old woman turned around, to Azarielle, she might as well have transformed into a totally different person. The way that she held herself, a certain tilt of the chin, a straightening of the shoulders, and the peculiar curve of her lips, had changed. So did the tone of her voice and her inflection of words.
“Puppeteering is a banned Art, Red. I can’t remember if taking over someone’s body was allowed back in your time a gazillion years ago, ” Azarielle said, staring at the eyes she was more used to seeing as two-colored, one green and one silver. “Or, rather, would you prefer I call you Prince Cyderiel of Aztur.”
The corners of the old woman’s mouth curved up into a melancholic smile, “Is your memory really as short as a fish’s? I did tell you that the name I preferred was Red, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but that was probably before you mentioned that you were the Avatar of Acedia,” Azarielle replied.
“Were?” Red lifted one of the old woman’s eyebrows. “Are you certain of this tense usage, mageling?”
“Abihayil knows if I used the right version of the past tense. Only you elves would think of having twelve different versions of it. But, I don’t think we’d be talking if you still are the avatar,” Azarielle replied drily. “You also wouldn’t have let staff out of your sight like that.”
“Not entirely hopeless,” Red replied with a tilt of the old woman’s head.
“So, why aren’t you dead? The sparkly flash at the end should have killed you.”
“Tactful, are you?” Red paused for a moment, as if searching for his next words. “Elucielle meant to destroy the avatar, and she succeeded in that. She cast out the presence of Acedia without killing the host. If she had gone after the host as well, perhaps she would have survived that battle.”
“Well, even archmages are prone to making bad decisions once in a while,” Azarielle replied. “Azariel does stupid things all the time.”
“Like taking in apprentices who don’t seem to know when to shut their mouths,” Red glowered unappreciatively. “I am telling you a sad story and you should be a little more sympathetic! I say, you are most definitely not a cute girl!”
Azarielle shrugged, “Yes, well, I’ve come to terms with that long ago. Does the old woman know you are using her body like this? Can she hear us right now?”
“Arielle and I made a deal a long time ago. Sometimes we share these experiences together. Other times, she sleeps while.” Red regarded the young mage for a moment. “What would you have done if I told you that I claimed her body for my own?”
“I’d try to cast you out. And if I couldn’t do it, someone else will come back and finish the job,” Azarielle answered.
Red lifted the old woman’s eyebrows up in an expression of surprise, “Who? Your master Azariel?”
“Azariel has been too lazy to train another apprentice so he’d probably be mildly annoyed if I went off somewhere and got myself killed. And he is impressively scary. Although I don’t know which one of you is scarier, actually,” Azarielle replied. “But, even if it’s not Azariel, someone else will come along and stop you.”
“Because goodness will always triumph over evil?” Red laughed.
“Evil is simply a perversion of good. The one who created all that is good will restore that which has been perverted.”
No sooner did she finish saying that when Azarielle felt another blast of power slamming into her and knocking her to the ground. The old elf woman had turned to face her, and Red’s eyes, with the weight of centuries, bore into her. Those eyes had seen the world reduced to ashes.
“Truth does not change even after two thousand years, or however long it is you’ve been alive,” she said, despite feeling his power pressing into her and threatening to crush her.
Red blinked and the pressure that she had experienced eased away, “Elucielle believed the same thing. You are both such idealistic fools… so much faith this Uncrowned Prince when you’ve never even seen him.”
“That big sparkly blast Elucielle let loose was powered by faith, and she won. So I’d say she had a little substance to base her faith on,” Azarielle replied. “Also, are you quite done knocking me over? I am thinking about standing back up, but only if I won’t end up back here again in a minute.”
Red didn’t answer. Instead, Azarielle felt his power recede like tide. The old woman’s face became lax as Red relinquished control of her body. Then, like a puppet combing back to life, the old woman’s body twitched. She blinked a few times and looked around herself in confusion. When she spotted Azarielle still sitting on the ground, “Are you alright, young one?”
“That is just creepy, really, there’s no other way to describe it.”
“What… oh… you spoke to Ancient of the Spire,” the old woman smiled kindly. “It is unnerving, isn’t it?”
“He said you made a pact, is that true?” the young mage asked as she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off.
“You know of the Bleeding Rot Plague?” the old woman asked.
“Doriel Kethevar, yes.”
The old woman shuddered, her finger gnarled fingers clenching and unclenching, “I’ve not heard that accursed name for centuries. But yes. The Plague Mist drifted into our village and everyone started to fall ill. Some died right away while others became the ghouls you see wandering this forsaken land.”
“By the grace of the Ancient One, both my father and I were immune to the effects of the Mist. When we saw what became of our neighbors, he took me and ran. We were alright at first when there was food. My father was a skilled ranger and we were able to steer free of the other plagued villages. But then, even the animals and the trees themselves became diseased. Everywhere we went we were surrounded by death.”
Arielle’s eyes were wide as they stared into a nightmarish scenes from her past that only she could seen. She was silent for a long moment, reliving those terrifying days that had not faded from her memory even now. After a long while, she let out a shuddering breath. Her voice was soft when she finally continued to speak again.
“Eventually, we ran out of food and clean water. Father would not let me eat anything because he feared that it would make me sick. He said that we had to the Everstar Spire. It was a sacred place and he believed that we would be safe here.”
“We weren’t far from the Sentinel Grove when we came across ghouls. My father had been able to fight them off before, but we’d been without food or water for almost three days. He told me to run for the forest and charged towards them. ‘Run Arielle! Run and don’t stop until you reach the Spire!’”
“And so I ran. The ghouls chased me until I reached the Grove, but then, for whatever reason they stopped just outside of the trees. I continued to run until I reached the spire, and then I fell to the ground, exhausted. That was when the Ancient of the Spire came to me. He was beautiful, like a herald of the Ancient One. His hair was as bright as the sun and his eyes – he had strange eyes; one green and one silver. “
“He told me that I was safe. The ghouls could not reach me inside the grove. Then, he asked me if I would help him. He told me that he couldn’t move about and speak and asked me if I was willing to be his host. He told me that there would be other people coming to the Spire and told me that he’d be able to help them if he could move easier. He taught me how to use my Arcane Gift, and over the next few years, we would leave the Forest and help other survivors who came this way. ”
“So you were able to save all these people from their villages?” Azarielle asked.
The old woman shook her head, “No, the Anceint of the Spire’s power did not extend that far. Everyone who came here first was immune to the plague and had gotten close to the Spire. He could sense it when they were a certain distance away, and we would lead them back here.”
“Does everyone else here know about him?” Azarielle asked.
“No, he told me that he did not wish to be known, so I tell them only that there is an ancient power in these forests.”
“Did you ever ask him who he was?”
The old woman shook her head, “I never did. He always seems so sad.”
They came to a landing in the stairway with a single door. The old woman pushed it open and gestured for Azarielle to go in. Beyond was a small library with floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with ancient leather bound books. Other books and scrolls lay in stacks on the ground. The room opened up to a balcony where Ofeera stood leaning against the railing.
“Azarielle!” the healer ran towards her friend, relief evident on her face. “You are finally awake!”
The young mage patted her friend awkwardly, “Ah, yes. I did take a rather long nap.”
“I thought…” all of the fear she had felt in the past days crashed over her and the healer burst into tears. “Azarielle, I am so sorry. I couldn’t… couldn’t… do… do anything! I couldn’t… do anything! You and Luthien both almost died, and I just stood there. I couldn’t… I couldn’t fight Lucien.”
“Hey, I didn’t do so well either. My memory’s a bit hazy but I vaguely remember trying to roast the entire forest,” Azarielle replied.
“But I didn’t do anything,” Ofeera gasped a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t do anything. I just… I just sat there. And… Eowyna is dead. I can’t believe it… I can’t believe she’s dead! And Theredoniel… he, he….”
“He has gone mad,” Azarielle shook her head as she gently led her friend into the room. “We have to stop him.”
