The Keystaff Chronicles - Chapter 12 (May)

Chapter 12

The companions fled through the pathway that the young mage had created, the stench of burnt flesh tainting their every breath and the menacing gurgles of the ground chasing closely behind. Luthien took the lead, running as fast as he could and blasting away the ghouls that had somehow escaped Azarielle’s firestorm. Following closely behind, gliding gracefully over any obstacles as if he was following a pre-charted route, was Breaker ran with Ofeera clinging to his back. The deadly elf had his arcane breakers drawn, and made short work of any ghoul that wandered close.

“Azarielle…n…not following us!” Ofeera stuttered, trying not to bite her own tongue from the constant jostling she received as the elf performed gravity defying leaps.

“The mage is in no danger,” Breaker replied, not breaking his stride. “None of those creatures could lay a hand on her with the power she commands.”

“But…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Breaker abruptly plastered himself to the ground, making her words disappear in a gulp of air. She smelled a putrid odor and felt a gust of wind just above her back. Then, the elf was up and moving again, spinning around with such a tight turn that Ofeera was instantly disoriented.

She caught sight of the creature he had dodged from then. It resembled the thing that had attacked Luthien while they were still aboard Azarielle’s flying contraption, with a mummified body and large bat wings. The gray elf’s arm blurred in motion for a moment, and then he was suddenly holding the large throwing star he had used against the troll pirates. As he drew back to throw, Ofeera could feel his entire body growing taunt like a bent bow, and then the throwing star was airborne, cutting a silvery arc through the air.

Spinning so rapidly that it looked like a disc, the throwing star tore a hole in the creature’s wings. The thing let out a wail of pain that was surprisingly human and female sounding as it plummeted onto the ground. Almost immediately, the creature began struggling to its feet, but Breaker was faster. The deadly elf was upon the winged fiend in a blink of the eye, and plunged his arcane breakers through the creature’s skull.

Black liquid flowed out from the wound, but the wretched creature did not die! It reached out its skeletal hands and grasped the startled elf’s legs. Then, it unhinged its jaws and spat fat white maggots at the elf.
Sensing a sudden rise in dark power, the young healer reacted purely out of reflex. The words of a prayer tumbled from her mouth and a soft blue light fell upon the wretched creature and its terrible spawn. The creature was instantly stilled, it spindly limbs becoming as dead tree limbs. As for the maggots, they burst into flames almost instantly. And as they burned Ofeera thought she spotted a shadowy form dissipating into the air like black smoke.

“A priestess of the Ancient One in the flesh!”

Breaker spun around at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, and though his expression remained unchanged, the elf was shocked by the sight that greeted him.

A dozen elves, cloaked in capes that shifted in color to match their surroundings every stood around them, with cross bows aimed at them. They had hair that ranged in color from wheat to melted gold, suggesting that they were High Elven by descent. But unlike most of high elves he had come across, these ones had a pale, almost sickly complexion that was very much unlike the sun kissed bronze of Azturoth’s denizens. And, the inflections and emphasis of their words were so different that Breaker barely understood their High Elven.

“Idiot! Why did you speak!” one of the elves with a hawkish nose glared viciously at his companion. “We should have slain them and be done with it!”

“Who are you?! Are you… minions of the Abyssal Ones?” Luthien demanded, anger and shock evident on his face.

“Silence, faithless knight! It is we who will ask the questions!” the elven speaker snapped back, glaring at Luthien. “Why are you here?”

“Oh well, just trying to stop a minion of the Abyssal One from doing something nefarious, the usual,” a voice responded cheerily.

This time, it was the high elves that were surprised by the sight of a young woman dressed in a flamboyantly red coat, standing casually in their midst.

“Azarielle!” Ofeera let out a gasp, part surprise and part relief.

“I have to say, I am impressed,” the young woman shook her head at her companions. “You people can really run. I mean, I knew the elf, being an elf, could run. But Luthien in all that clanking armor? Do the Knights of Elad get trained on how to make a hasty retreat or is that an innate ability?”

Before Luthien can answer, the high elf who had been speaking had aimed his crossbow at Azarielle, “Silence your nonsense, mage. Why are you here?”

Azarielle rolled her eyes and whispered conspiratorially to one of the other high elves standing next to her in flawless High Elven, “He’s not that bright is he? Didn’t I just tell you that we were here to stop the minions of…”

Apparently losing patience with the young woman’s rather meaningless rants, the first elf let loose his crossbow bolt.

“Gurbriel, no!” someone else yelled.

The bolt stopped a breath away from the young mage’s heart and hung suspended in the air. Azarille glanced at the bolt with an unimpressed expression and then arched her eyebrows at the elf that had shot at her, “A crossbow bolt, really?”

The high elf was suddenly surrounded by a giant pink bubble, which Luthien immediately recognized as the similar to the ones she had used on his men, and bounced up and down in it like a ragdoll.

“Witch! Release him or you shall die!”

Half of the crossbows that had been aimed at her companions were now aimed at Azarielle, who responded, “How much do you want to bet that none of your bolt things are going to hit me, and I am going to polymorph him into a… chicken?”

“Azarielle, stop this nonsense,” Luthien spoke up, frowning at the mage. “She spoke verily. We hunt servants of the Abyssal Ones who are headed to Everstar Spire.”

“Lower your bows,” a voice commanded as a tall elf stepped out from the crowd. Turning to Azarielle, “We acted hastily mage, but it has been a very long time since we have seen living beings in Gwenevar City. Will you release our companion?”

The pink bubble popped, dropping a very disoriented elf onto the ground.

“If we are the first non undead things you’ve seen in a couple of centuries, and assuming you are more fond of living things than dead or undead things, why would you try to kill us right away? High elves always boggle my mind so.”

“How do we… know… speak truth?” the elf Azarielle had released was climbing wobbly to his feet, and looking decidedly more than a little green in the face.

In answer, Azarielle drew the short sword hanging at her side, “Do you recognize the crest?”

“The Gwenevar crest!” the elven leader’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you…”

“I didn’t steal it,” Azarielle gave the first elf, Gubriel, a disapproving look, interrupting him before he could start. “Azariel Gwenevar, its previous owner, would probably polymorph me into a rat and feed me to a cat if I tried.”
“That name is not known to us,” the leader said turning to Azarielle.

“He’s the second son Terciel Gwenevar who is the youngest, and only surviving son of the last lord of this city, Gordaniel Gwenevar,” Azarielle replied. “May the Everstar light your path, brother… or something to that extent.”

“And your name is Azarielle?” the leader asked, cocking his head to the side. “If this Azariel is truly who you say he is, and you bear his name, then that makes you his heir.”

“And elven nobility… weird, I know,” Azarielle shook her head. Glancing around as if she was worried her teacher would appear out of thin air, she continued. “It’s because no sane woman, elf or not, would marry him and bear him children. And since he’s quite old, practically a fossil really, he figured he had to make somebody his heir before he returned to the Eternal Father. And, good sir, I am his one and only apprentice, so I became Azarielle.”

The elven leader looked as if he didn’t quite know how he should properly react at this overflow of information. Luthien, who has heard of Azariel Gwenevar, was aghast, “You are Azariel Gwenevar’s apprentice?! The Archmage, Azariel Gwenevar?!

Azarielle gave a shudder and nodded, “Yeah, that Azariel. And let me tell you, he’s totally horrible. He had me do these calming exercises or whatever nonsense and nearly drowned me. And then, to teach me more about dragon behavior, he left me in the den of this big black dragon… actually Obsidian Star turned out to be a very intelligent and interesting dragon… but to leave his only apprentice at the mercy of a dragon without so much as a word of warning? I mean…”

“You are Archmage Azariel Gwenevar’s apprentice?!” Luthien seemed quite stuck on the idea and looked at the young mage as if she had sprouted a third head.

“Oh come now Luthien, it can’t be that shocking. I already told you I am not Wenriel’s apprentice. Theredoniel is only a few decades older than I am, which in elven terms is like nothing. Raphthanniel, Wenriel’s father, is the Revered Teacher to the Azturothian princes and princesses, so he doesn’t have time to take any other apprentices, besides which he’s got idiot Wenriel’s attitude about humans being slightly above cows in the grand order of things. That leaves Zuriel, Theredoniel’s father, who has been… um, quite dead for the last few decades. Oh, and Queen Illiendarielle… but she’s the queen. I hope you don’t think any of the other fluff balls were my teachers. Well, I suppose Parindielle isn’t a fluff ball, but anyhow, she’s not my teacher either.”

Luthien could not began to make his way through the tangle of elven names and relationships Azarielle had been spouting, but the one idea that was beginning to solidify in his mind was that the often confusing young woman before him was the apprentice of a mage many consider to be amongst the most power to ever walk Faearth. And, as Azarielle has so succinctly stated, he supposed that he should not have been that shocked. He had seen what she was capable of… had known from the beginning that she was strong.

And knowing what he faced in his brother, having someone like the apprentice of an archmage around was definitely reassuring.

“It would seem that much has changed in the world outside of Aztur,” the leader of the strange high elven band remarked, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “We do not know of this new Archmage of yours. But, we do recognize the crest of the Gwenevar family.”

“World outside of Aztur,” Ofeera, who had been mostly silent throughout the exchanged, gasped. “Good sirs, you mean to say that you have lived here, in these accursed Forsaken Lands?”

“Forsaken Lands? Is it what the outsiders call this place now?” the elf Gurbriel sneered. “A fitting name, I suppose, for we have been forsaken by your people.”

“We did not know that there were survivors! The plague killed everyone!” Ofeera shook her head.

“Well my lady, your people were wrong,” the leader smiled sardonically. “Some did survive the plague. In fact, they have left descendants.”

“And some of you at least have been camping out at Everstar Spire,” Azarielle finished. “Doriel’s curse couldn’t overcome Elucielle’s power so her home and its surrounding area didn’t fall victim to the plague.”

The lead elf frowned ever so slightly at the mage’s comments, but it was Gurbriel who confirmed Azarielle’s hypothesis, “And how would you know of this?!”

“Hmm, well, because I am a mage,” she replied with an infuriatingly serene smile. “That’s what Azariel used to say whenever I asked him a question. It’s pretty annoying isn’t it?”

Gurbriel let out a very un-elf like growl and took a menacing step towards Azarielle, who shook her head at him. “Please don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the little bubble so soon.”

“Azarielle, you are not helping,” Luthien glared at the mage. Then, turning to the leader, he said, “I am Luthien Delynd, a knight of Elad, and a prince of the Achienda Empire. I have been sent by my Order to apprehend two servants of the Abyssal Ones who murdered Archmage Patel, who was also a member of my Order. The ones we seek are Theredoniel Gwenevar and… my twin brother, Lucien Delynd. They are headed to the Everstar Spire and we must not let them retrieve whatever it is they hope to get from the Spire!”

Now it was Azarielle’s turn to be surprised, “Did you say a prince of the Achienda Empire? That’s why Delynd sounded so familiar!”

Luthien gave Azarielle an exasperated look but turned to the elf leader, “If, as my companion has stated, you do live at the Everstar Spire, I pray that you will take us there. My brother… Lucien, is cruel of heart and capable of great evil. He would not hesitate to kill anyone there that gets in his way.”

“Yes, entirely unpleasant fellow,” Azarielle agreed. “He is all about the dark arts, you know animating the dead and all, which I assure you is very nasty stuff. Anyhow, Luthien, since you are a prince, do you think you can help me through the whole beauraucratic stuff about obtaining citizenship for the Empire? I am already a legal resident, but the wait…”

Deciding to completely ignore Azarielle, Luthien turned to the leader of the elves again, “What say you?”