2.6 Made of People

General Summary

Day 18

  We have a much- needed sleep and I awake to Bran cooking fish over the fire. Rosalia is still asleep, but Hella is awake and focusing on a little wooden bowl of water and and some herbs - making tea.   Bran and I talk about our plans for Ipth and beyond. We’ve lost so much of our supplies and weapons...hopefully in Ipth Bran will be able to find a guild smithy and outfit us again because for now, we just have some knives and whatever wooden weapons Bran and I can craft together.   Perhaps in Ipth I’ll be able to help him forge more powerful weapons. I remember the vision I had on my fourth day here, of pressing glyphs into a weapon quenched in blood.   “Thalien once told me that if I mastered giving things shape, we could next give them life,” Bran says, “But he said it requires an archwizard. It seems he usually had one handy!” This momentary mirth is broken by the sound of Hella’s wooden bowl exploding. The poor girl had made it from green wood that couldn’t take the heat of her efforts to make tea. It’s a reminder that we still have so much to teach her. My mind has been wrapped up in magical danger and over-exerting herself but even a lack of knowledge of the world itself could hurt her.   The rest of the day is less intense. Rosalia eagerly looks forward to fresh bread in town, Bran to mulled wine, and Hella to sweet cream and berries. Bran tells us about a dish Thalien taught him to make: Oats, honey, and berries. It ought to be made of huckleberries but apparently those don’t exist here. Such a shame.  

Day 19

We break camp and travel towards Ipth uneventfully.  

Day 20

The river widens into a slow swathe of water as we approach Ipth. There are soft rolling hills and farmhouses dotting the countryside, and sawmills and grain siloes. Bran estimates that my stash of silver from the goblins will be enough for a week’s worth of food and lodging and enough to bribe a guard in case they won’t let an elf into the city.   When we approach the gates, people mutter when they see me. I’m not the first elf they’ve seen, but they’re not happy to see me. The guards though...two humans, a dwarf...and an elf.   When he sees me, he drops his weapon and kneels before me, addressing me as Dread Lady.   “I have not forgotten my oaths,” he says, “I never thought I’d see you again. It’s been 15 years. We owe you our lives. So much has happened...how long have you been on this side?”   I hush him gently and tell him we’ll be staying at the Oak and Barrel, and to come find us tomorrow. His name is Alder. He ushers us in without fuss or payment, and shushes the other guards when they look like they might protest.   At the Oak and Barrel Inn, Bran handles the accommodations and gets me a separate room from Hella and Rosalia. We retire with plans to meet early in the morning.   Alone in my room, it is strange without the company of my party. It has been so comforting to be constantly in their presence but now that we’re in a city and sure to meet other elves...other people who know who I am, what I’ve done, and the weight I carry, I wonder if the closeness is fair. Whatever I’m doing is elven in nature and origin and though they’ve sworn to follow me, perhaps there will come a time when their humanity doesn’t want to anymore. I must have been this unfailingly close with Thalien and Dal...perhaps it is not so bad to seek the same with my human companions.   I sleep, and I dream.    

I’m standing in a large tent, dressed for battle. So is everyone else in the tent. There’s a large table holding a map and several designations lie around the map, signalling the size of various units. Enemy forces are marked in green, allied in purple, and several white markers for civilians. Thalien is with me - his eyes glow faintly as he oversees the map. Dal and Lyssa have just finished updating markers on the map. Also in the room are a collection of officers: Three generals and a small handful of fairly junior officers (captains and below). That they’re there is unusual and it shows in their nervousness at being in this place. After a few moments I speak:   “Captain Mirhan, I don’t see any other purpose for your unit here, You’ve done what you can, now you must do what very few of us can do,” I wave my hand and a small unit marker moves towards a white cluster.   “It’s time that you head west. Your men have done their duty, now retire them,”   The officer’s fist is balled up and I can nearly see blood coming from their fist as they quiver with anger,   “Dread Lady, we can still fight, even if we lose our lives to it! The chaos we can sow...is that not worth it?”   Thalien speaks, “You would sacrifice yourselves bravely, and no one here questions that. You’re right, you create chaos where chaos needs to stand, but you spend your lives 5 to 1 and the results would not change the outcome of this battle. If you go with the civilians...that result you can change with your help. Those people can reach safety. Without it, their odds aren’t nearly as good,”   The captain replies, “To leave at a time like this…promise me that we die on the rolls of honour for this. I’ll take my men and one day they may even forgive me for it. But only if you promise me they’ll be remembered for what they did on this field and not how they left it”   Lyssa puts a hand on the captain’s shoulder, “Sometimes we’re remembered for when we do the thing that is hard, even when it’s not the thing that feels right. You’ll be remembered for your victories on the field and for protecting your people as you retire from it. It’s not easy to leave the place you want to stand. But my lady has taught me that sometimes the place you’re called to stand is more important than where you want to stand. Go with honour,”   The captain sweeps out of the tent and vanishes in shadows.

   

Day 21

Hella is in the common area eating porridge when I go downstairs. I join her with some red tea, as do Bran and Rosalia when they arrive.   And I tell them a bit more about my past,

• I serve the Empress and my Mistress. I don’t think there’s anyone else above me.
• I am one of a few Dread Lords and Ladies. I don’t know how many, but certainly not a lot.
• I’ve sworn oaths to serve my Empress and my people - to protect them above all.
• My empire was in the throes of a war when I left. To the best of my knowledge, it still is.
• That I am here means that the war was going badly, and that I’m here to pursue some last hope.

They take this as well as can be expected. Rosalia tells me she’s frightened that who I am now will not survive learning about who I was before. I’m frightened of this too, but I think Dal was right to not tell me everything from the start. He knew that I would grow into myself again, and perhaps grow better than I did before.   Not that I remember, but to have been called as a child and grown up with only the lessons and guidance of my Mistress? Surely I must have been lacking in some creativity. I wouldn’t want Hella to learn only from me - already it is so clear how much she is developing under the tutelage of both Rosalia and Bran.   Bran tells me that in a moment of a thousand decisions, who we are is the reason we can only see the right one. Poor Hella looks like the picture of an attentive apprentice - eyes wide and simply absorbing the information.   Then Alder arrives clad in a thick woollen cloak. He is much more composed than yesterday, nearly gliding across the floor. We move to my room, all of us.   In private, Alder removes his cloak and kneels before me properly. His uniform is familiar but has no insignia or rank. He’s just a foot soldier, but I can see that he’s an assassin. I wouldn’t have known him face-to-face on the other side of the mountains. He’s not even 150 years old but he has none of the youthful hope that you’d expect from someone so young. He’s seen more than he should have.   I introduce him to my party and upon identifying Hella as my apprentice, he salutes her. He understands hierarchy and has clearly placed himself within it.   He is from Captain Mirhan’s unit, it seems. He tells me that his unit hated that they had been sent away from the war to protect the refugees. They had spent months slipping in and out of enemy camps eliminating officers and undermining their plans, and then something changed. The enemy must have learned something because all of a sudden it seemed that nothing worked. They would step into shadows and step out somewhere unexpected, such as directly into the swing of a blade. Half the unit was lost until I gave the order that the unit was to leave with the refugees.   They were so ashamed to have been sent away. It took them 2 months to reach the barrier mountains, attacking the enemy as they ran, protecting their charges as best they could. They still lost people, but without their unit none of them would have made it. It was so hard that it made their shame easier to bear.   In the mists, Alder was separated from his unit. He wandered for days before eventually coming out alone in the woods. When he finally made it to Ipth and looked for work, he found that the humans look down on his skillset. He tells me that they think of our shadowblades as thieves and hooligans.   He also observes that humans don’t fight like we do. They don’t raise armies of shadowblades and wizards and people who feel called to serve. They have no order, no enormous professional army. Their individual lords raies their own troops and spend the lives of their people in petty squabbles instead of settling things with their own duels. Like me, Alder seems to have been called to serve when he was a child. He trained his whole life to be a blade from the shadows. And now he has found his way to Ipth, where he has taken up watch over the city to make sure our people can pass through the gates to safety. In other towns, elves are sometimes turned away, but he makes sure that doesn’t happen here. As Captain Mirhan once told him, “Sometimes we’re called to serve in a way and a place other than what we want.”   “My heart filled with joy when I saw you. For the first time in a very long time, I slept in warm darkness and felt the touch of the Empress, may we live forever in her shadow, and I know that’s because you’re here. Somehow home feels like it’s not as distant as it used to be. My life, my blade, for yours, to serve, at your direction.”   He is so earnest and gracious and my fears at being honest about my memory evaporate. I tell him truthfully that my memory is not intact, and ask him to tell me about the war and our home - basic things that he might think he doesn’t need to mention.

• We have been at war with the Collective for at least 50 years.
• The Collective controls half of the world to the south of the Empire.
• They are many races under one banner, and they cannot be reasoned with.
• 10 years before Alder left (25 years ago), something changed.
• The leadership of the Council changed and they began fighting dirtier.
• They wrote messages in body parts.
• I created Alder’s unit to fight back.
• “You didn’t fight fair either”
• I ordered people to flee and even killed local lords who refused to let their people run.
• “An empire is made of people, not stone”
• For a while, we were winning. They retreated for a year, then came back with four times the resources.

I tell him that our next step is to find Lyssa, who I believe to be alive on this side of the mountains. When I ask him about the Valley of Storms, he has some more interesting information.   Humans describe it as an ancient, unknowable magic in a gleaming silver spire that collects storms. An elven wizard, Ephala, once told him that it is powerful, enduring elven magic. Elves once lived and ruled here. Ephala was collecting information about that. The spire is as powerful as the magic that defends a city. To approach it with less than a full circle (14) of mages would be foolish.   I wonder if he means a greater circle, which is 200 mages strong. That is the appropriate scale for something that would protect a city of millions. I’ve only led two of them, but I don’t remember what for, but it was a tremendous undertaking.   I dismiss him, but not before he asks (and receives) permission to travel with us when we leave. I wonder if the Empress wove fate so that we would collide like this. The woman he spoke about commanding the army does sound like someone I could grow to be, and I can already feel her at the edges of my consciousness. Any time I have to speak firmly about my past or about what I’m here to do, I can feel the strength in my voice and the conviction. I wonder if she made jokes and teased her companions as I do now, or if that is a part of myself that I’ve forged anew.