The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 01 - The Healing Spring Read online

  There hadn’t been a war with the men of Hydrotaz in thirty years, and that had only been a minor skirmish back in the days before Kestrel was born. All the young starry-eyed elves in the western section of the Eastern Forest had longed for the prospect of glory and violence that came with fighting in a war, and now, based on the reports from down south, at last it was about to happen – for everyone except him.

  Kestrel’s unhappy heritage, the fractional strain of human blood that tainted his appearance, made him suspect with regards to a war against the humans. When the time had come to engage in battle, the leaders of the elven forces had made the snap decision to not trust him in the fray, and had kept him away from the battle, where he couldn’t potentially betray his elven comrades. And so he stewed, and contemplated how to address his frustration. He’d end up in a fight with someone, sooner or later, he was sure. He’d just wait for the elven militia members to come back to their homes after the battle, and when the first one of them made some cheap, cutting remark about Kestrel missing the fighting, he’d end up in a fight that would let him land several satisfying blows on some too-smug elf.

  Cheryl had seen the hurt in his eyes when he’d been dispatched up to the red stag patch of woods, and had tried to comfort him, but he’d wanted no pity, and had brusquely left her behind when he’d stormed out of the guard lodge and left everyone behind. He felt badly for having been rude to Cheryl, and he knew he needed to apologize. Their relationship was on undecided ground as it was, as Kestrel competed with every other full-blooded elf in the western end of the forest to capture the affection of the lovely girl. Kestrel couldn’t compose bad poetry that compared her red hair to the flowers that blossomed in the spring, nor could he offer her combs of honey that the bees magically led some elves to find and confiscate, nor could he offer her riches and prestige, especially not prestige with his shameful heritage. He knew that all of those elements were part of the wooing campaigns that were vigorously exercised by his competitors for her affection.

  But he could make her laugh, and he could listen to her talk about her dreams, and he could empathize with her, in a genuine way, as they shared the same dream of a peaceful glade in a distant forest, where they would be isolated from the worries and petty jealousies of the world. And he was the fascinating, unusual member of the elven race who could successfully appeal to the human race’s deities, which made him a fascinating subject that Cheryl liked to scrutinize, as she bombarded him with questions about the how and the why and the feel of those inscrutable communications.

  There was no commitment between them, but it felt like more than friendship.

  Suddenly, Kestrel’s nostril flared with the faint scent of wood smoke, and his mind almost seized up in panic at the possibility that there might be a fire in his sector of the forest. Kestrel hastily rose from the fork in the tree where he comfortably sat, and began to climb higher, up to where the thin, high branches of the chestnut swayed and bent dangerously, even under his light elven build – light for a human, though Kestrel was comparatively heavy for an elf. Once he was in the topmost branches, Kestrel was above nearly every other tree in that portion of the forest, for the chestnut grew atop a small upward buckle in the ground, giving it an advantage over the others. That was why he had settled into the chestnut for his assignment, that and the fact that it gave him a perfect view of the wide forest track that qualified as the only road in that sector of the forest

  Far to his right Kestrel saw smoke rising from the forest, a considerable, roiling mass of dark smoke that filled his heart with pain and fear as it rose in a pillar. Although he knew the elven commanders hadn’t known what they were doing when they had dispatched him to this distant patch of forest, far removed from the battle, it turned out that they had made a brilliant assignment, for only Kestrel had any hope of fighting the forest fire before it became a threat to the safety of the elven woods.

  Chapter 3 – Prayers for Rain

  Kestrel shut his eyes and grabbed tightly to the tree branches around him as he considered what he needed to do. There was heavy smoke rising from a location deep in the forest. Kestrel couldn’t imagine how a fire could have started there – the sky was clear, without any possibility that lightning had struck, and he couldn’t imagine any other likely cause of a fire. But the smoke from the fire was clearly evident, and posed a clear threat to the inhabitants of the forest.

  The young elf kept his eyes closed and his mind clear as he began to prepare himself to call upon the powers of the human gods, asking them to come to his aid to help alleviate the crisis in the forest. Kestrel understood the irony of the situation, that as much as he wished to deny his human heritage, it was that particular heritage that made him so unique among the elves, and gave him his unrealized value to the society of the Eastern Forest elves. If not for Kestrel, the elves would only be able to call upon the lesser powers of their own deities. Beyond Cheryl, Kestrel had never told others about the ability he had. Now though, in the case of the growing fire, Kestrel was sure that he needed to ask for the human gods’ assistance, because he knew that the elven gods did not have sufficient power to suffocate the conflagration.

  Kestrel began to create the necessary images in his mind, the vision of stark white surroundings that allowed him to focus on the great deities. He needed to decide quickly which of the human powers he would call upon. His closest, strongest relationship was with the Air goddess, Kai, who reached out to him and touched his dreams on occasion. But Kai’s abilities didn’t seem suited to the task of dousing the fire; that would seem better suited to Shaish, the water goddess. Plus, Kai was paired with her mate, Growelk, the fire god, and Kestrel wondered if she would help him fight her own husband’s element. But the water goddess, Shaish, was distant from Kestrel; he seldom prayed to her, and never knew his prayers to be answered, so to call upon her seemed pointless.

  His mother hadn’t taught him to reach the human gods; he had been instructed in the worship of and prayer to the elven entities. But he had been curious about the human gods, the heritage that he wished he didn’t have, and that he was too often reminded of. He had secretly taken the instructions for elven worship and applied them to the human deities, reaching out into the emptiness. He had found no success for the longest time, and would have given up, except that there was no harm suffered from spending his time trying again at random moments when he had nothing else to do, and he felt an intangible pull that urged him to keep trying, to try to find the positive elements of his humanity. Finally, in a lonely dusky hour at sunset, when he had sat alone in his tree and closed his eyes and let his consciousness rise from his physical world, he had felt a brush of divinity upon his mind.

  Kestrel had obligingly opened his mind and heart, and promised his humble devotion to the otherworldly entity that was examining him. It had been Kai. She had found his elven mentality exotic, an interesting change from the pure humans that she normally interacted with – toying with them, granting their prayers, punishing their misdeeds. She had accepted his worship and granted him status as one of her own, knowing that he had the potential to play a unique role if circumstances required.

  And so, as he confronted the dangerous smoke in the woods, Kestrel had to make a choice. In the end, he decided to rely on Kai, and hope that the air goddess would intervene on his behalf either directly somehow, or as an intercessory with Shaish, persuading the other goddess to use her powers to quench the flames.

  “Powerful goddess, answer to my prayers, provider of movement and breath, I beseech your help. You have helped me in the past, and I have felt the warmth of your attention. The flames in the forest threaten my home and my friends; please extinguish this fire. Save the forest where I live – protect us, please,” Kestrel prayed to the air goddess, then repeated his prayer twice, sure that more was better than less when trying to ask a favor of an immortal being.

  “You have been faithful to me, and so I will intercede on your behalf. But know that someday, I will ask f
or a demonstration of your devotion to me in return. There are troubling signs of evil abroad in the world, and I will call upon you to carry out duties for me,” Kestrel was startled to hear the words, implanted in his consciousness in a dreamlike manner. He’d never heard a response from the goddess so directly during his waking hours, and his spirit twisted with a twinge of uneasiness over the prospect of owing a favor to a goddess.

  “I will do your work, great goddess,” he whispered in acknowledgement, then began to descend from the height of the tree, dropping down from branch to branch, then landing on the soft forest floor. He began to run through the woods in the direction of the fire, eager to see how Kai would prevent a greater conflagration.

  He ran directly towards the fire, directed not only by the smell of the smoke, but also by the unerring sense of direction his elven heritage provided. He stretched his legs as he ran, dodging between trees, cutting along game tracks, startling the smaller inhabitants of the forest as he sped past them. As he ran he sensed that the gloom within the forest was growing deeper, a darkness whose cause he could not detect through the thick canopy overhead until he heard a rumbling, rolling, peal of thunder nearby, followed immediately by another and another. Within the next two hundred yards of his sprint he heard raindrops begin to hit the leaves of the trees.

  The raindrops were large and heavy, and the number of them falling increased with extraordinary speed, so that within moments it felt as though the atmosphere contained more water than air. Kestrel’s pace slowed as he began to slip upon the muddy surface of the track he followed, and he resorted to holding one hand cupped over his nose and mouth, protecting himself from drowning in the rain that poured down upon him and every other thing in his sector of the forest.

  Kestrel continued to follow his instinct as he skidded in the direction of the fire. He could no longer smell the smoke, nor could he see anything more than a few feet in front of him, and even though he slowed down further, he still was unable to prevent disaster from striking when he fell headlong into a ditch. He saw the ditch only as he took the very step that fell downward into the cavity. The fall was an experience he couldn’t avoid, even as he saw and felt it happening around him, every motion predictable and unavoidable as he landed awkwardly on his arm that he extended too late to break his fall. He felt a searing pain when his arm bent unnaturally beneath his body, and then he felt his body teeter and slide sideways, slipping into the already deep water that was running in the ditch. Kestrel despondently sat up, in the center of the ditch, the current already strong enough to press against him. Now, he was not only soaked by the rain, but covered in mud from his fall, cradling his wounded arm against his chest, feeling nauseating waves of pain reach up to his shoulder and his chest from the damaged limb.

  After long moments of holding back tears and curses, Kestrel awkwardly rose, holding his arm carefully against his chest, trying fruitlessly to immobilize it as he regained his bearings.

  Once he knew what direction to move in, he climbed cautiously up out of the waterway and began to gingerly trot onward towards the fire. His right hand carefully probed his left arm, finding the location in his forearm that made him wince most strongly from the throbbing pain, while he continued to move towards the fire. As he continued onward, he came to realize that the rain was lessening – he could see farther afield through the trees, and he could breathe more easily.

  Several minutes later, as the sickening odor of wet ashes nearly overwhelmed him, he came to a series of blackened tree trunks, evidence of the fire, and a few steps later he stopped, just as the rain stopped. Ahead of him the canopy stopped – there was a steaming, open, blackness – a large, newly opened hole in the heart of the forest. Steam and smoke rose in hellish plumes from innumerable locations within the opening, but nowhere could he see flames burning brightly.

  “Remember sweet mortal, you are in my debt, and the price to be paid may be steep,” he heard the words of Kai’s immortal voice – commanding, frightening, yet also enticing – sound within his head, and as their reverberations ceased, the dark clouds overhead thinned and departed with extraordinary speed, so that bright sunshine began to fall upon the forest again. He stood with his mouth hanging open in amazement at the display of raw power the goddess had provided, staring upward at a sky that went from turbulent deluge to cloudless dome within seconds, then he lowered his gaze and looked at the world around him.

  In the bright sunlight Kestrel could see the full extent of the fire’s destruction. It was painful to see, but not as painful as he had expected it to be when he had first seen the pillar of smoke rising above the forest. There were trees intact on all sides of the blackened glade, showing that the opening was merely an isolated intrusion within the wider ocean of trees, which promised that men would not be likely to quickly move into the space – men would have to come through trees to try to get to the opening, and when men knew elves were nearby, they seldom ventured into trees, he knew.

  Was there some relationship between this fire and men, he suddenly wondered. There was no other good explanation for how the fire could have started in such perfect weather. All the men were supposed to have been down south fighting in the great invasion that the other elves had gone to, but perhaps some had been up here at the same time.

  He felt another painful twinge in his arm, and looked down at it, having forgotten about his injury momentarily in the double shock from goddess’s message and his view of the scorched parcel. There was an unnatural bend, a wrenching visual confirmation of the terrible pain he felt. He was going to have to leave his assignment in the red stag’s portion of the forest to return to town and have his arm treated by a healer. Mastrin, his commander, would have something to say about abandoning his post, but Kestrel would accept a tongue-lashing in return for relief from his pain. If everything went smoothly, he might even be able to return to finish out his shift.

  He took a last panoramic look around the burn site, examining the charred remains and the trees that still stood on the far side of the new opening in the forest, and as he looked, a swarm of sparrows went swooping across the open space, already investigating the prospects for finding something nutritious among the ashes. Kestrel felt better; he knew the birds wouldn’t find anything at the moment, but given just a few weeks, greenery would start to sprout and forest life would begin the process of reclaiming its property.

  Kestrel gauged his position, then calculated the direction he needed to travel to return to his elven home, where he could report on the fire and have his arm tended to. Perhaps, by the time he was back on base, there would even be some early reports on the state of the southern battle with the humans, he speculated. He plunged back into the greenery of the unsinged forest, leaving the blackened land behind, and journeyed towards the east.

  The trip back to town was not as easy as he had expected. The torrential rains that had extinguished the fire had not only filled the ditch Kestrel had fallen into, but they had filled every brook, stream, swale, creek, and other potential conveyor of surface water, sending torrents of runoff flowing away from the fire site. Black water, loaded with ashes and debris, swept away from the fire, departing rapidly, and raising the level of several small streams so high that Kestrel decided to detour around them rather than try to cross them.

  The trip took longer than he expected, so that Kestrel didn’t arrive at the outskirts of the provincial capital of Elmheng, until dinner time; even on the edges of the city the streams were running high, and he observed some homes being evacuated, while some were already deluged with water that had risen out of the stream banks. There were no walls or gates or guards, as he had heard existed around human cities, so he walked unimpeded, except by his pain, to the fence around his base, and then to the commander’s center, where Mastrin’s office was located on the third floor.

  “The commander has gone to his home for the evening meal,” the guard at the door, an acquaintance of Kestrel’s, had informed him. “You better get to the m
edic to have him look at that thing before you do anything else,” Backsin advised Kestrel, looking at the swollen, red arm which still exhibited its gut-wrenching bend.

  “I’ll see the doc in just a couple more minutes,” Kestrel agreed with a grimace. He knew he needed to see the doctor, but he felt obligated to make his report first. In so doing he would not only complete his mission to the commander, but would also have a chance to catch a glimpse of the commander’s daughter, Cheryl, under circumstances that might allow him to appear heroic.

  He left Backsin and trotted down the street to the officers’ quarters, then walked up the wooden steps to the high front porch that looked down on the foot traffic in the street below. Kestrel hesitated for a long moment as he stood at the door, his hand raised to knock, letting his injured arm hang limp without support. Then he took a deep breath and knocked rapidly for a few seconds, until he stepped back from the door and waited.

  Seconds later he heard footsteps inside, heavy boots striding across the floor inside, then watched the door open and Commander Mastrin appeared, a napkin in his hand as he swung the door inward.

  “Kestrel?” he questioned, surprised to see the young elf on his doorstep. “What brings you here? Shouldn’t you be on duty?”

  “Sir,” Kestrel began. He knew what his message was, but until the moment he faced the commander he hadn’t practiced putting his thoughts into words. At the moment he finally saw his commander, with his mind increasingly clouded by the pain from his arm, he felt at a loss to explain his reason for appearing there.

  “There was a great fire in the forest,” he began, knowing that the fire was the focus of his mission.

  “It’s been a pretty clear day here,” Mastrin answered. “Was there a lightning storm we didn’t know about? I can’t imagine a fire starting under a clear sky.