Part Four

Running a demo? Let us help.

“Greetings Kinsman,

You who read this must be kin by both blood and spirit for the tree will open for no other. I am Grey Willowbark, once a scholar and teacher now an old elf who has outlived all I knew and loved. The tree calls me, but first I must tell you of our work. These books will lie safely in this chest with the stone to preserve them and the tree to protect them until the day one of the blood comes to claim them. Then, Lord and Lady willing, they may be used to fight this evil that is blighting our beautiful Grandilar. They seem so small, these volumes, not much to show for all the years and lives devoted to them, but there is treasure inside. First is the story of our world as seen by the dragons; the coming of the Pylos and the war that followed, the rise of the human kingdoms and those others who share our world. Second is our own clan history to remind our children’s children of their elven heritage. So many have left the forests, turned to the dark or been lost in the great upheaval. I pray some will survive to continue in the old ways, to preserve the trees and give honor to Forestlord Wildwood and Lady Earth. Here you will find the secret magics of plants and animals. Third is the history and lore of the dragons so that, if none have survived the bloodletting, future generations may know them as real instead of as legends. Fourth is the heritage of the dwarven clans with their knowledge of metal, stone and the elements of earth. Then there are the books of magic, all the precious spells and knowledge of witchcraft, wizardry and shamanism preserved for those who may have need of them in the future. This small black tome will be as difficult to read as it was terrible to write. It holds the accounts of the dragon’s doom and what followed. Here are tales told in tears and blood of kin lost and clans destroyed. Scaravel Brightflame’s story is here, told by his shade. He was broken and torn by Black Bane’s evil draining spells but his strength of spirit still shone in his tattered shade as he told his story to Iron Oak. Our story is here too, we who survived to build this haven and preserve what we can of the wisdom of our age.

I charge you, child of my blood, to keep these treasures safe. If the Valarians survive, take the books to them so they may use the knowledge to heal and help the land. If the Valarians are no more, leave the books in the tree’s heart. It will keep the knowledge safe from the evil ones.

Lord and Lady bless thee, child of my blood, and keep thee safe.

Grey Willowbark,

White Oak Clan”

Thorn laid the letter down carefully. Tears ran down his face as he thought of his mother’s stories and how they had brought him here. These journals were an irreplaceable link to his past, to all of Grandilar’s past. They were his legacy and a treasure for the future. Now he must decide what to do with them.

The first volume he opened was the smaller black book that told of Death Day. Here he found his grandfather’s story.

A Survivor’s Story

Grey Willowbark, White Oak Clan

“We were so young that day, my dwarven friend Marblehand and I. He was an engineer in charge of the water system in the clanhold. On Death Day the dragons were spirit walking so no one would be using the bathing pools or the workroom sluice and he could drain the mains to reseal them. There had been complaints of leaks, especially in the pipe that ran beneath the small scriptorium where I was working. I’d given up my holiday to help a special student. Marcali was a young human/dragon shape shifter who greatly resembled Garmon Swiftwing. Of course, no one would dare comment on the resemblance. To suggest that old Garmon could be tempted by a pretty human lass was just too scandalous to say (out loud). In any case, the lad was a good mathematician but he couldn’t write a coherent sentence if his life depended on it. Garmon wanted him trained as an assistant, though, so here he was, being tutored on a holiday and resenting it. We were joined by a human wizardling, Tremaine, who needed to recopy a spell that had misfired and scorched his master. Rusty (as we called Iron Oak in those days) had just come in with warm currant buns he’d swiped from the bakery when we heard the alarms go off. As we ran out to investigate, Marblehand appeared and stopped us. He said that the keep was surrounded by an army led by dark wizards. Someone had let the enemy in through the old construction tunnels. The guards were caught unaware and were all dead. With their spirits out wandering for Death Day, the dragon were helpless, all was lost. Our only chance for survival was to crawl out through the water mains that had been drained for repairs. We broke through the floor, behind my desk so the hole would not be so noticeable, and went into the pipe beneath. Marblehand led us for hours through dark slippery tunnels until we finally emerged at the water gate by the river. The sky was an evil glowing green over the clanhold. Many of the outbuildings were burning. The flames seemed to reflect the red sunset behind us. Rusty aged decades that night as we fled through the forest. We had to lead him as one does a small child. It was months before he recovered all his senses. Years later he said he could still hear the screaming of the dragon spirits as they were captured and bound by the necromancers. We never called him Rusty after that night. He had a sadness and strength about him after those days that spoke the truth of his name, Iron Oak.

We reached my clan’s grove just ahead of a raiding party. Lily was watching for us and had packs with supplies and weapons ready. Our warriors fought a delaying action from the treetops to give our people time to escape. My son was killed then, defending the heart tree. The weeks that followed were a nightmare of trying to survive the raiders and wild warped magic storms while around us our world went up in flames. As we traveled deeper into the greatwood, individuals and family groups split off, heading for distant clans where they had kinship ties. Finally it was just Lily and I, our daughter, Myrtle, and our friends: Iron Oak, Marblehand and Tremaine. Marcali had gone west to try and reach his mother and her kin. We never saw him again.

Iron Oak seemed more aware by then. He recognized the area as part of the Aspen Clan lands and directed us to a grove he remembered. Imagine our distress to find the grove abandoned, the heart tree lightning-struck and the homes in ashes. With an anguished cry, Iron Oak ran to the ruined stump of the heart tree. He dug frantically and emerged covered in ashy grime with a stone the size of a two-penny loaf cradled in his arms. ‘It lives!’ He said through his tears, they didn’t destroy it. The living heart stone would let us create a new grove, a sanctuary in the deep wildwood away from a world gone mad. We began to make plans.

In a quiet glen we planted the new heart tree with Iron Oak’s stone at its roots. While the heart tree matured, we planted a maze around it to befuddle the warped creatures that were becoming more numerous thanks to the warped magic that was loose in the land. Marblehand dug a tunnel so we could come and go outside the maze in secret. My Lily, a most talented witch, turned the clearing into a garden and encouraged the maze to grow with her earth magic. Tremaine wove spells of protection and concealment over all our work. From time to time one of us would go out. Always the traveler returned with tales of horrors committed by Black Bane and his kind. On one trip, Tremaine found a deserted Elethay temple. He brought a piece of its broken channel stone back with him, saying it would strengthen his spells. He used it to set up a barrier of od energy around our clearing to keep the warp storms at bay.

Iron Oak spent his days training and strengthening the heart tree. He also sought out the spirits of the slain dragons who sometimes wandered the spirit plane, too full of anger or too muddled to find their proper path. It was one of these angry souls who first told us of the Valarians and their efforts to stop the evils by the creation of future generations of shape shifters and the preservation of knowledge. That news inspired us to begin our great work. It also inspired Myrtle to go off to join the Valarians and actively fight the necromancers who were spreading like maggots across the land.

All of us contributed our memories to the history. Iron Oak added the stories from the spirit kin. He also filled one volume with all the shamanistic knowledge and spells he could find and another with all the dragon lore we remembered or could learn from the remaining dragon spirits. He feared that such knowledge might be lost forever if not safeguarded in written form. Lily and Tremaine agreed and each wrote their own book on witchcraft or wizardry. I concentrated on all I could recall of our people’s history, delving into Lily’s and Iron Oak’s memories as well. We had heard of how the old elven clans had shattered during the war years. So many lost. Maybe the history will help their children find their way home. Marblehand wrote his journal in the dwarven tongue saying it held too many clan secrets to chance it falling into non-dwarven hands.

Iron Oak was the first of us to become one with the tree. The tragedy of Death Day had turned him from a youth to and elder in one night. He never recovered his old zest for living. Marblehand gradually became grayer and more gnarled, as is common with his people. He would warm his aching joints in the sunlight while he polished his treasures and did small tasks for Lily. That year there were griffits nesting in the heart tree. Marblehand would carefully polish a gold piece while the fledglings hovered and fidgeted above him. He said he was teaching them patience. I suspect he just wanted to prolong the pleasure their antics gave him. Finally he would fling the coin high into the air. The waiting griffits would explode into a frenzy of chasing, juggling and acrobatics as they vied for possession of the trinket. The victor would go high into the tree to hide his prize while the others waited for Marblehand to produce a new gold piece and start the game again. When he died we discovered that he had given his entire hoard to his ‘winged children’. My sweet Lily slipped away quietly one night in her sleep. As the forest around us grew darker, Tremaine grew restless. He left one night without a goodbye. His note said he felt compelled to go but couldn’t bring himself to say farewell.

The griffits no longer nest here. Each day the forest grows darker and stranger. The heart tree calls in my dreams. Soon I will climb to our favorite place, Lily’s and mine, where we watched the sunsets from high in the tree. If the Valarians survive, I hope our books make their way to them so they may use the knowledge to heal and help the land. If the Valarians are no more, the books will lie safely in the tree’s heart. It will keep the knowledge safe from the evil ones. Lord and Lady bless this land, our Grandilar, and, someday I pray, cleanse it of the horrible evil that was loosed on it the day the dragons died.”

Thorn remained in the sanctuary studying the books and considering the future. He often saw the shade of the old dwarf playing with his winged children. When Thorn climbed the great tree he found tiny caches of gold, the griffits’ treasure. He also found an odd elf-shaped growth sitting where it could view the sunset. One moonlit night, Thorn opened himself to the spirit plane in hopes of reaching his grandparents’ shades. He was never sure of their presence but he told the hazy glow about his mother’s adventures and family. Coming out of his trance, Thorn felt a warm breeze encircle him and caught a whiff of fragrance.

Outside the charmed clearing summer turned to fall and Thorn felt it was time to move on. He decided to leave the journals in the safekeeping of the great heart tree. The stormlands were currently in turmoil. The disasters of Death Day and the wars that followed were still fresh in people’s minds. The necromancers were busy fighting among themselves for power and the people were torn by racial and cultural differences. Thorn could see a time coming when a more settled world would forget the hard lessons of the last hundred years. Already some youngsters doubted their grandsire’s stories about the dragons and they scorned the old traditions. As people aged, the old ways began to disappear and they would need some way to recover them. The Valarians were struggling to organize a network of mentors amid problems of doubters and power-hungry would-be leaders. In time they too would settle and then they would need these spell books and journals to help cleanse and remake the world. For now, these treasures would stay safely hidden within the tree. Thorn thought of the clues he would leave to guide future seekers. When the time was right his clues would lead the Valarians to his legacy.

Story Corner Part Three