The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©

Chapter Five: Uninvited Company

The druid was sitting alone in the mage’s garden on the southwest side of the castle facing the castle wall. He had asked the plants to conceal him from prying eyes while he meditated. He had to remove a few pests from their leaves before they agreed to help him, but it was still very kind of them to help a human.

The druid had been meditating all night, waiting for the appointed time when the two in his vision would appear. The vision was a surprise. It had come to him as he tried to enter the elemental plane for at least the hundredth time. It never worked, and success would likely kill him, although he couldn’t help but try on the thin chance that he had grown strong enough to access the astral plane as a physical being. The call to return home was sometimes maddening, but he was still stuck in this physical plane.

The vision had been very specific and was certainly not a prophetic manifestation of some arcane force. He immediately understood it was from the same source calling him home and realized he had been assigned another mission in this physical plane. The vision first showed his old body on a woman’s shoulder next to a castle wall. Then his point of view altered so he was high above them over a map so he could see his surroundings. His memories from Jonathan gave him all the knowledge he needed to recognize Dule Van. Surprisingly, he saw the arcane symbol for the ancient guardians of this world, a nation his people had a non-aggressive treaty with. The symbol and the woman with the bird moved along a path south to a meadow at the base of a mountain. Then the map caught fire, and everything burned away until he was surrounded by white emptiness.

Everything about the instructions was clear to him except the fire. Even the white emptiness at the end he recognized as the in-between, the space astral beings passed through to enter or leave the astral plane, meaning a way to bring him home lay at the end of the mission.  The in-between altered their state of being from physical to astral. That is unless you were powerful enough to hold your shape in either, but that was only possible with higher astral beings.

 As he roused himself from his meditation, he glanced down to see that several spider webs had been crafted on his body in the night. He requested the spiders move to the leaves and waited for them to comply before removing their webs.

A short, pale, thin woman with raven-colored hair appeared out of thin air next to the castle wall. She wore a white robe with a red sash tied at her waist. She was looking around the garden while placing a necklace of some kind in her pocket.

Moments later, a blue-colored bird appeared on her shoulder as if from thin air. The druid recognized his old body, now inhabited by the mage who had been experimenting on him several years ago. The last time he saw his body was just after the accident. He remembered looking down at himself, believing he was dead. He had been overwhelmed by the transformation and made a portal to the woods, his home, and ran. He would have died if a group of dardwain had not found him and taught him how to survive. They taught him the needs of his new body and how to eat and drink. They taught him how to use the magical abilities of his new body, training him to be a human druid after their ancient tradition. They even altered his appearance so he could have a new life unencumbered by recognition.

Although his expanded intelligence from the accident was welcome, old memories emerged as he thought of his struggle since that day. Memories of pain, fear, confusion, and darkness broiled together as his fists clenched. The ground around him rumbled ever so slightly, his connection to nature manifesting in the earth around him. The druid quickly gained control of himself, quieting his mind and the ground around him.

Revenge was not why he was here, far from it.

The woman glanced around at the slight rumbling, scanning the area several times, but she seemed not to notice him. She began speaking out loud as if there was someone else present. It would have looked like she was rambling to anyone else, but the druid knew it was the bird she was conversing with. The bird responded in a perfectly intelligent and fluent voice, a voice the druid knew all too well. Upon hearing the bird’s voice, his anger flared slightly, but he quickly pushed it back down. The druid listened intently as the woman and the bird conversed.

“Jonathan, did you tell Jareth the traps are hidden from sight after you canceled the barrier spell?” she asked.

“No, I forgot, we were busy discussing … the trip,” Jonathan replied sheepishly. “The rune door is probably activated, so I’ll have to use some of our equipment in the attic to tunnel through and communicate with him,” the bird replied.

“Alright, their supplies should be at the stables soon. I’ll make sure their horses are saddled and ready to go while you head to the house to contact Jareth,” the woman said as she turned to leave.

The bird lifted off the woman’s shoulder as she walked towards the castle wall’s south end. After a moment, the bird turned and flew directly into the closest tree and disappeared into its trunk.

He must be using like-matter to teleport to another tree somewhere else, the druid thought.

That is a clever way to travel since it makes it harder to track where the traveler is going. Well, unless you could talk to trees, that is. Between his life as a familiar living in the wild and the druidic training of the dardwain, he was more than capable of communicating with nature. Most plants and animals communicate with images and emotions instead of a spoken language.

The druid waited until the women had disappeared around the corner, then stood and moved to the tree the bird had vanished into. He had learned long ago to be extra polite to trees as they feel superior to anything shorter than them, humans included. After a few courteous exchanges, the druid asked which tree the bird had traveled to. He did not know how trees knew such things, but they did.

To his surprise, the tree only impressed the emotion of humor in his mind. At first, the druid was a little confused, but then he felt someone watching him. He turned around and found Jonathan hovering in the air directly behind him. As they locked eyes, the bird’s color changed from blue to dark black, and he grew visibly in size until he was half the size of a man. The force of the bird’s wings flapping in the air buffeted him, making it difficult for the druid to stay on his feet.

The immediate area around the druid became a vortex of gray and black, and it was obvious that the bird had previously prepared a powerful spell and was ready to cast it. The druid knew he had mere moments before he ceased to exist.

“Katerina needs your help,” he hurriedly said.

Jonathan stopped casting his spell as the area around him slowly returned to normal. However, he maintained his enlarged and darkened appearance.

“Speak quickly, druid,” he demanded while continuing to buffet him with its massive wings.

“I had a vision where a woman stood before me in the air wearing a brown robe. Her golden hair flowed in the air like she was underwater, and she had crystal chains around her body that pinned her arms to her side. Standing behind her was a tall, pale-skinned man with a flawless face. He was dressed in white robes and had long, dark hair that flowed the same as the woman’s hair. He was holding a strand of the crystal chain like a leash. He called her ‘Katerina.’ Another man strode into view and broke the crystal chain holding the woman, and the two of them escaped into a portal.”

It was all a lie. The druid had fragmented memories of Jonathan’s past, including dreams and plans involving Katerina’s rescue. He used those memories and dreams to engineer most of this story. His goal was to gain Jonathan’s trust so he could accompany him on his journey south, following the instructions laid out to him in the vision. There wasn’t given any information about how he would return home. He only knew it had to wait until after he traveled south and whatever moment the consuming fire represented. He decided he might as well use the journey to find a way to swap bodies with him.

Jonathan returned to his original size and color and alighted on the closest tree branch he could reach. From his breathing and movements, it was obvious that he was significantly distressed. As he started to calm down, the druid continued, mixing some of his vision into the narrative.

“Then I saw this garden at the School of Dule Van, and the same man that rescued the bound woman appeared with a different woman at his side. I’m not sure how or why, but I believe you are, or were, the man rescuing the woman in my vision. I have sat in this garden for quite some time, waiting for you to appear.”

This last part was true. His instructions hadn’t included a calender or time stamp since neither was important to a lesser astral being. As a bird, he would have sat in a tree here for years, content to wait until the vision came true. He was no longer blessed with ignorance or a convenient body for such a task and needed to know when to make the journey. The druid had used a spell involving a feather from his old body that he had found on his person after the transformation to discover when Jonathan would be at a specific place and time. It was fairly accurate, but he had still waited two days.

The druid felt a massive surge of natural energy from directly behind him, stronger than anything he had felt before in nature. He turned around and found that the woman had returned from around the side of the castle, except her eyes were now pitch black and locked onto him. The druid felt her presence as she walked towards him, and he could feel the natural energy emanating from her person.

She was not human; she was a dardwain from the sea. The druid knew who she was from his memories but had to conceal that knowledge. He decided to stick with the tradition of the druids he had been taught and immediately fell to his knees and bowed to her. His deferment was partially genuine, as he was grateful to her people for helping him.

“Founder,” he said respectfully.

Instantly the surge of nature he felt before was gone. He glanced up to see her eyes had returned to their sparkling bright green, and a small smile was on her face.

“Student …” she said kindly with a slight pause “… I am deeply surprised to find a druid so removed from nature and aware of such ancient formalities. Please, stand,” she said.

“What?! I get a story, and you get groveling and a title?” Jonathan exclaimed.

Hearing Jonathan’s voice in such a disrespectful tone made the druid angry, and the ground around him slightly trembled in response, but his anger and tremor quieted when he realized Izreea was laughing at the bird’s comment. Her laugh was loud and genuine, but also let her guard down slightly. For a brief moment, the druid could see she was physically exhausted.

There was a slight chuckle from the bird behind the druid, and he realized the bird had made her laugh on purpose.

They must have a great relationship, the druid thought to himself.

 “My vision was quite limited in its information. I would be most grateful if you could enlighten me on the journey we will embark on to save this woman.”

“First of all, there is no ‘we’ on any journey as I have no idea what your intention-” the bird started to say, but the Founder cut him off.

“Jonathan, he is the one that received a vision about your friend, and I promise you his help will be required to bring the vision to fruition. That is just how things work with druids.”

The druid realized the bird, Jonathan, must have been communicating with the woman since she was aware of the vision, which he had only told the bird. His thoughts were interrupted when Jonathan continued speaking.

“My brother has asked for my help to fulfill an ancient prophecy to doom or save an entire species, and I cannot put that on hold to save a single person despite visions, druids, and the like.”

“Be that as it may, you must not ignore his vision,” Izreea responded.

There was an awkward silence of two wills being tested as they stared at one another. Maybe not such a great relationship after all, the druid thought, just before deciding to break the silence.

“Jonathan, could Jareth’s journey be intertwined with your own? A nomad druid in the uncharted wilderness could be a boon. I can find water by speaking to the animals, listen to the winds foretelling of the weather, help avoid settlements, and … “

The druid’s words trailed off into silence as he noticed the countenance of his audience had changed. While he had been speaking, the Founder had moved in a half circle around him to stand next to the tree Jonathan was perched on. Her face was not as friendly as before, and the bird’s feathers were slightly ruffled.

The druid realized he had given himself away.  He had waited to call Jonathan by name until he had heard him called that by Izreea. However, he was not supposed to know Jareth’s name, and he was certainly not supposed to know they were journeying towards the uncharted wilderness to the south, regardless of visions.

The druid looked at the two of them as he considered his options. He thought about coming clean for a moment, but then he remembered Jonathan’s desperation to be restored to a human body. The desire was palpable, and there was no telling what the jilted mage would do to his current body to attain such a goal. Should he run and follow them later? How would he hide himself? These thoughts shot through his mind in the blink of an eye.

“Who are you?” Izreea said cautiously, her eyes returning to their pitch blackness as the druid felt her reconnect to the forces of nature. “There is something … familiar about you, and a spell on your fa-”

As she spoke, the druid used two fingers to pull a small object from the fold of his sleeve, just above his wrist. It was a magically imbued rock designed to create a flash of light as a distraction. The druid closed his eyes, flung the rock to the earth, and immediately transformed into a hummingbird. The moment he felt his body complete its transformation, he darted away from them as fast as his wings could carry him. After one hundred paces or so, he looked back at the two. Izreea had staggered and was rubbing her eyes, but Jonathan had fallen to the ground from the shock. With guilt, he realized Jonathan’s eyes were more sensitive to light in his current form.

The druid put this thought aside and took his bearings. He was well away from the castle, hovering about three hundred paces above the ground. He saw a large two-story stable on the opposite side of the castle from where he had been moments before. A small wagon drawn by a pair of horses was approaching the stable. He knew this was where Izreea was heading to ready the horses for their journey, and that was probably the supplies she had mentioned. It would be close, but he still had a few minutes.

Without wasting time, the druid darted directly towards the stables and, in a few seconds, was at the closed door. Above the large double doors was an open window to the second floor. It was not a glass window but a piece of wood with hinges on top rather than the sides. The window opened outwards from the bottom like a canopy and was propped open with a pole.

The druid darted into the window and found that the second story was a loft holding bales of hay that could be thrown down the open half of the ceiling when they were done curing. The druid flew down the open half of the loft into the main floor and found a long row of thirty stalls on each side of the building.

The druid landed on the ground and returned to his human form. He started at one end of the stables and silently began talking to the horses. Wild animals were always far smarter than domesticated animals, except for cats. Domesticated animals typically only respond with impressions and feelings, sort of like instincts that one could interpret.

However, the druid knew Izreea’s horse would be different, and she most likely used her connection with nature to calm and soothe her horses naturally, allowing some of the wild to stay in the animal. He needed to find the horse that was different than the others. The druid decided to place the image of Izreea holding an apple out for the horses as a treat to see their reaction to the image.

It took only a moment to project her image into the horse’s mind, feel its reaction, then move on to the next horse. For the most part, the druid felt jealousy or longing as a response, most likely due to the apple in the image. After about twelve rows of twenty-four horses, he found one that responded with something other than an emotion.

Izreea, the horse thought to the druid. The horse was completely white and was obviously not native to this land. It had slightly longer legs than most horses, a slimmer body, and two tails rather than one. There was a majesty to it that told him it was undoubtedly Izreea’s horse. He thought there was more the horse was going to impress upon him, but after thinking of Izreea’s name, it fell silent.

The druid looked at the gate on the horse’s stall and saw a piece of wooden plank on it. The plank was held in place with a short, slightly curved metal peg shaped like a shallow hook. He realized that all the stalls had these planks near them, all with different symbols. The pegs would allow the symbol to be moved around and replaced as horses came and went from the stalls.

On the gate with the horse that had thought Izreea’s name, there was a plank with a large, curved seashell and a single rune in the center. He didn’t know what the rune meant, but he now knew the symbol for Izreea’s house. There were four stalls with this same symbol on them in a row.

Three of them were obviously for riding. The white one he had first noticed, a cream-colored one with brown patches, and a black horse with a white spot on its forehead. The last horse was a muscled pack horse and was light brown all over. The pack horse was the one that he wanted.

The druid suddenly heard the sound of the approaching wagon and knew he was running out of time. He quickly opened the gate to the brown pack horse and politely impressed upon the horse to follow him. The horse had been in captivity for its entire life and was used to obeying instructions, so it followed willingly. He quickly walked it down to the first empty stall he could find, not caring what symbol was on the gate, and placed the horse in the stall. He returned to the empty stall, walked in, and shut the gate.

The druid heard someone lifting the large wooden latch on the door. He immediately recalled the image of the pack horse in his mind and began transforming himself into the animal.

Druids remembered the shapes they had taken in the past and could almost instantly transform into those forms. He could have become a horse in the blink of an I, but he needed to become a specific horse with specific markings. This made the transformation process take longer, but he was still done before the stable door was fully open.

The druid took a few steps back and forth in his small stall, adjusting to being on four legs again. Suddenly a man was opening his stall, cooing softly in the familiar manner of someone who had been around horses their entire life. He walked alongside the druid, using a wide hand on his side, which is what humans do to let the horse know they are not a fly landing to bite them on the flank. The man pulled a brush from a toolbelt at his waist and started brushing his coat in preparation for being saddled. It was like a gentle massage, and the druid debated how this sensation compared to a massage in a human body when he saw Izreea walk into view.

She put her hand on his flank, almost absentmindedly, as she conversed with the man, rubbing the druid’s back. He concentrated so heavily on making his mind as simple and animal-like as possible that he did not hear what they were discussing.

Then for a brief moment, her mind entered his, which he was prepared for, and he felt the simple emotion of happiness. He recognized it as the domestic animal equivalent of “good morning” or “pleasure to see you again.” He responded with a similar emotion, carefully guarding his mind so nothing else slipped through. As he did so, he nuzzled her hand with his nose as a physical distraction, just in case. She rubbed his head a few times before moving out of sight towards the stable’s entrance.

After a few moments, she returned with a small sack of supplies in one hand and a stool in the other. That couldn’t possibly be a tenth of the supplies needed for the journey, but it was most likely some of the more important supplies she wanted to prepare herself.

She set the stool down to the left of the stall so that the druid had to turn his elongated head slightly to the right to see her with his left eye. She sat on the stool and began rummaging through the sack, eventually removing a sturdy cloak, needle, and thread. She began sewing something on the back of the cloak. After a few moments, it was obvious that her fatigue was catching up with her, and the tedious task of sewing was becoming frustrating. She closed her eyes, let out a long sigh, and then the needle began moving on its own accord in the air faster than the natural eye could follow. The magic required was so low that the druid could not feel her connection to nature. Within a few seconds, the sewing project was finished. She placed the cloak in the sack and then removed the second cloak to work on.

 The druid felt the weight of a saddle being loaded onto his back. There were also several very large empty saddlebags on the ground waiting to be filled and loaded onto his back as well. He had been correct in guessing that this horse was the pack horse for the journey.

Only then did he allow himself to relax. He decided to put his mind into a meditative trance, the first lesson he had learned when becoming a druid, so he could fully hide his human thoughts from Izreea until they had departed.