Sunset of Lantonne

  Sunset of Lantonne

  The Fall of Eldvar: Book Three

  Jim Galford

  Edited by Tricia Kristufek

  Cover art by Darryl Taylor

  First edition 2013

  Copyright ©2011-2013 by Jim Galford. All Rights Reserved.

  www.jgalford.com

  No reproduction of this work may be used in any fashion without permission of the author. For information on usage permissions, please contact the author at jim@jgalford.com

  World, setting, and characters used with permission by CoreLARP, LLC

  “The Fall of Eldvar” books by Jim Galford:

  Book one, In Wilder Lands – 2011

  Book two, Into the Desert Wilds – 2012

  Book three, Sunset of Lantonne – 2013

  Chapter One

  “Hyeth”

  “We do not doodle the old gods, Ilarra.”

  Wincing at the unwanted attention to her lack of interest in the discussion around her, Ilarra tried to cover the half-finished drawing of a dragon being stabbed by soldiers. In reality, she realized that her inability to draw made it look more like a dead cow with wings lying on its back. Still, her father had somehow spotted that she had stopped taking notes and even managed to recognize that the picture was of something that pertained to the topic at hand.

  “Ilarra,” her father continued, smoothing his long grey robes as he stood before the class of would-be wizards, “explain the pertinence of the old gods on our study and the names of the ones recognized by our ancestors. If you have time, that is.”

  Ilarra looked around at the other students, a mixed bunch of young elves and the other races that inhabited the city with them, all of whom stared at her in hopes of seeing her get smacked with her father’s switch. Failure to pay attention was met with sharp raps on the knuckles, even for her. A dozen pairs of eyes, framed either by the soft faces of elves or the dog-like wildlings watched her intently.

  “It’s a trick question,” she answered quickly when she realized her father had his long, thin wooden switch in hand. He would readily smack her hand if she could not come up with something. “Our ancestors thought that all magic came from the old gods and belief in them. They believed that the source of one’s magic was based on whether you worshipped a good or an evil god. Some of the gods were considered of questionable morality, so worshipping them was often viewed as taking your life into your own hands if you used magic. The dragons were like that, caring little for the mortal world and often using our kind as pawns in their games, not unlike the legends of the fae.”

  Ilarra’s father came over beside her, using the switch to push back his graying brown hair, moving it out of his face and behind one of his pointed ears.

  “Why is that a trick?” he asked, leaning closer. The switch remained ready.

  Not taking her eyes off the wooden weapon, Ilarra replied, “Most of us living in Hyeth stopped believing in the old gods generations ago. Our written history goes back more than four hundred years and doesn’t mention one dragon or walking embodiment of the elements.

  “I, for one, don’t believe in any gods and I can do magic just fine. I doubt more than two or three people in this class believe in that foolishness anymore. Those who still pray to the old gods usually do it because their parents chide them if they don’t.”

  “Then demonstrate, Ilarra. If you don’t need faith to use magic, I expect you can show us that?”

  The other wizards-in-training snickered at Ilarra, having seen her put on the spot before. “I’d rather not, Father.”

  Before Ilarra even saw it move, the switch cracked her knuckles. She clenched her hand to her parchments and tried not to cry out, knowing that it would only encourage the others.

  “You are twenty-five, Ilarra. A little embarrassment is hardly the end of your world and might do you good, given your intention to pursue this particular career. A wizardess that cannot take criticism is not worthy of the power at their disposal.”

  Nodding, Ilarra got up from the long bench she and many of the other sat on. Her father pointed at a large melon he had placed on a tree stump at the front of the open-air classroom. The lesson was one that had been taught to her years before…smash the melon without approaching it or throwing anything. Any apprentice could do so easily with the most basic of training. That was actually the easy part of the task.

  Ilarra tried to ignore the other students, pointing her empty hand at the melon and concentrating. All she had to do was focus her mind on the symbols she had been taught and pull a tiny amount of magic across them without losing her concentration. It was the second lesson taught to anyone in the village who tried to learn magic, right after learning how to sense magic itself

  “Any time now,” her father said loudly behind her, just as Ilarra began to visualize the complex patterns in her mind. “If you are waiting for the melon to fall apart on its own, I assure you that we are not going to wait that long.”

  The other students laughed loudly, shattering what was left of Ilarra’s confidence. Struggling, she tried again to pull together the spell, feeling the magic before she had the symbols fixed in her mind. The spell abruptly fell apart, making her a little sick to her stomach as the magic dissipated abruptly, flowing through her before departing in a wave of warmth. She could feel sweat beads on her forehead from the momentary fever that came from uncontrolled magic.

  Ilarra wanted to try again, raising her hands for a second attempt, but realized that she smelled smoke. Looking around, she saw that her parchments were ablaze on the bench beside her. Squealing in panic, she threw them to the ground and stomped them with her sandal until they merely smoked, with little damage beyond some singed edges, though her charcoal sketch of the dragon was ruined.

  “That is why we pay attention, class,” her father announced, drawing another round of snickering. “Lighting your own books of magic on fire is hardly what we aim for before sending you to Lantonne for further training. Remember that and come back here tomorrow, as normal. If your parents ask what you learned, you can tell them that Ilarra has demonstrated that faith in the old gods keeps us from burning down the city around ourselves.”

  The class slowly emptied, the dozen or so students hurrying off to find something entertaining to do before their parents found out they were free and set them all on chores at their family farms. As they went, several other youths joined the students, leaving with them. Only one person remained outside the schooling area, leaning against a tree and waiting for Ilarra, though she did not dare look to him when she was being scolded. Her “brother” would be giving her a worried look the whole time and it would only make her feel worse.

  Ilarra waited where she was, staring at the melon in misery. She knew she could do better and so did her father.

  “You distracted me,” she quickly insisted as her father turned his attention back to her. “That wasn’t fair.”

  “What wizard requires absolute silence before decimating their foes in warfare?” he asked in reply. “Your argument is absurd, Ilarra. Destroy the melon.”

  Flinging her hand at the melon, Ilarra rushed through the symbols in her head and poured magic into the effort. This time, the melon and the table it sat on exploded into pieces that flew at least fifty feet, splattering Ilarra and her father with melon juice and seeds, pelting them with small fragments of wood.

  Once the last of the flying debris had landed, Ilarra held out her hand to her father, who thwacked it hard enough to break the small switch. She winced, but knew that they had been lucky not to have gotten hurt with that much wood flying around. Shards of the table could have injured them both.

  “This is hardly what will be expected of you,” her father groused, throwing the broken
switch aside. “You want to go to Lantonne to study and you can’t even concentrate long enough to destroy a melon without tearing my table apart. Absolutely awful, Ilarra. You have a great deal of potential, but no control. Do you really think that the tower of magic will accept your request for schooling like this?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Then we are both surprised. I received word on the latest caravan that, for some reason that I cannot fathom, they are accepting you in immediately. Two of your classmates are invited for next year, but you are alone this time. I believe they had an unexpected opening.”

  Ilarra stared at her father in confusion, the sting on her hand already forgotten. “They accepted me?”

  “Yes, though I doubt they will tolerate…”

  Ilarra’s father’s muttering was cut off by her nearly tackling him with a hug. When she finally did drop back to her feet, her father smiled at her with a sad expression that she had never seen before.

  “My little girl,” he mused, touching her long brown hair and drawing it back out of her face, “you are not a child anymore, Ilarra. Make the most of this chance to leave the farmlands and live in the city. You will not get another chance like this.”

  She clung to his hand, smiling thankfully and replying, “I know, Father. There are too many distractions here. There, I’ll focus on being the best I can be.”

  “You had better. I’ve tasked your brother with keeping you safe, as well as being mindful of your reason for being there. Lantonne is a large city, and the distractions will be far more…interesting. He will make sure you do not drift too far from your studies.”

  At the mention of her “brother,” Ilarra looked back at the man leaned against the tree. She could not quite make out Raeln from where she stood, but she always could feel his watchful stare.

  “Your mother would be proud, even as she worried about you,” her father told her, smiling sadly. “I’m sure she is still watching from the golden fields.”

  Ilarra bit her lip to keep from saying something scathing about the subtle religious reference. Like many of the younger elves, she had given up on the belief in the golden fields her parents and theirs had believed waited for them all in the afterlife. Life was what she made of it, not some mythical field. Besides, she saw more than enough fields during life and had no desire to spend an eternity among more. Her mother was simply dead and gone.

  As Ilarra let her father dote, another person came into the schooling area, clearing her throat softly as she stood behind Ilarra’s father.

  Looking past her father, Ilarra saw her father’s “sister,” a wildling that had been oath-sworn to protect him from any threats when he was a child. The wolf-woman was nearly all black with touches of grey around her muzzle and neck that gave her a stately appearance of respectful age. Asha was Raeln’s mother and Ilarra’s second mother after her actual mother had passed.

  The complex relationships between the oath-sworn wildlings—who some in the region referred to as “Silent Watchers” due to their oath to not speak—and their elven families had long been viewed as a bad joke by people outside the village of Hyeth and many inside. To Ilarra and others who had been raised with wildlings as quiet family members, it was only normal.

  “Go run with Raeln for a while,” her father told her, raising a hand to let Asha know that he had heard her. The wildling nodded and clasped her hands behind her back. “Asha and I have much to prepare for your trip. You will leave next week with the supply caravan. The gypsies agreed to a fair price for the last-minute ride, which has surprised me to no end.”

  Squeezing her father in another long hug, Ilarra ran off toward the deeper woods, where she could feel Raeln waiting for her. It took her several minutes to find him, searching through the dense trees on the north end of the village for where he might be hiding. He had somehow slipped away when she had been talking with her father.

  “Raeln?” she called out, leaning sharply around a tree, thinking she would find him. In all directions, the woods were silent and empty. “Where are you?”

  A rustle behind her startled Ilarra and she spun, only to find herself staring at the chest of the man who towered over her. Despite his stature and imposing appearance, Raeln grinned when Ilarra punched him harmlessly in the stomach.

  Like his mother Asha, Raeln was a wolf wildling, though his patterning was largely grey with hints of white and black in parts of his fur coat, mostly around his face and chest. He had been bonded to Ilarra when they were children, allowing them to always have a sense for one another’s safety, but also tying their health and lifespans together. If Ilarra got a cold, so did Raeln. For his part, Raeln gained decades of extra life, in return for being obligated to protect Ilarra to keep himself alive.

  Unlike Asha, Raeln was massive. What Asha could accomplish through stern looks and implied threat, Raeln rarely had to even threaten to get, given that he was easily seven feet tall—more than a foot and a half taller than Ilarra—and one of the strongest men in Hyeth. That muscle convinced many who did not know him that he might be slow or clumsy, but Raeln was fast and agile, making those who had tussled with him as a child unwilling to risk ever doing so again after he had filled out in recent years.

  “Did you hear?” asked Ilarra, giggling.

  As expected, Raeln said nothing, but nodded and smiled. That was enough for Ilarra, seeing more in his expression than most people got from words. She had never heard him speak and had grown very accustomed to watching his slight facial expressions for his thoughts. A turn of a fuzzy ear, a tail flick, or a lift of his whiskers all spoke to Ilarra the same way words would from anyone else. His expression showed beaming pride in his “sister.” He already knew. It was entirely possible that he had known for days and not revealed it to her.

  “One more week,” she exclaimed anyway, hopping. “We’re going to Lantonne!”

  Raeln reached down and tapped at the braided rope tassel on Ilarra’s belt. Making a breaking motion with his hands, he pantomimed throwing something away.

  “Right! I almost forgot. Lantonne doesn’t make us wear these stupid things. If I’m in the school, I don’t even have to worry about it anymore.”

  Ilarra wanted to throw the maiden-braid away, but knew she would have to at least get out of the village before lighting it on fire. Waiting even that long was difficult.

  The simple cord braid was a tradition in Hyeth, marking the women that were of marrying age and had not found a husband as of yet. In previous generations, the women had worn the braiding in their hair, under the belief that, given how far-spread their people were across that part of Eldvar, it would help catch the eye of a potential suitor who might otherwise travel on.

  With the beginning of trade with the dwarves of the region when Ilarra was a child, the young elves of Hyeth had found it distasteful that dwarven women also wore a similar style of braid, though theirs was meant to hold valuables and tokens of pride in their hair. As such, the braid had been moved to an accessory by all but the older women. If Ilarra’s wishes came true, the idiotic tradition would be forgotten entirely before she was fifty. Like most girls her age, she wanted to marry…simply not anytime soon. It was far more interesting to flirt with the boys than to even consider being tied down to one. Besides, half the fun was in making two or more of them fight over her and that would have to end if she chose one.

  The one thing Ilarra did have in her favor was that once anyone from Hyeth became a skilled tradesman of some sort, the braids became optional. Tradesmen of either gender were viewed as too busy to be pestered about such things, unless they wanted to be, and thus, they could choose more freely if they wanted to look for a partner. Farmers, hunters, and especially wizards fell into the category of skilled tradesmen.

  So long as she had to wear it, it meant not only would single men continue to follow her around, but also that her father had the right to present suitors to her. He could not force her to marry, but he could strongly suggest men he felt were appropria
te, which required her to be polite in her rejections. Joining the school of magic in Lantonne made her a wizard in training and gave her the freedom to tell men to leave her alone…or encourage those that her father would never approve of. Convincing Raeln to let her get away with that would be a different matter, but perhaps in Lantonne she could keep him busy enough that she could sneak some time alone with the men there.

  The desire to avoid being followed by every bachelor in the small village was selfish, but Raeln benefited from her getting rid of the braid, too. So long as Ilarra was considered available, the women wolf wildlings of Hyeth would continue to throw themselves at him. Every time it happened, the reaction from him was much the same. He seemed to hate the unwanted attention far more than Ilarra. Some days, he had to chase off a half-dozen women that he was not interested in.

  As if on cue, a young wolf woman stepped into their path, dressed in a lightweight dress that hugged her figure. The style tended to be more common on the elves than the wildlings, but many of them, especially the women, had adopted the clothing to their different body shape. Like the rest of their kind, Raeln included, the woman’s paw-like feet were bare despite the rocky ground, and the outfit she wore had been built to accommodate her long tail, which wagged behind her as she purposely blocked Raeln’s advance.

  The woman gave Ilarra a vaguely mumbled greeting without taking her eyes off Raeln, then smiled broadly at him as she pressed a flask of wine into his hands. Without a word, she hurried off, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly before the woods cut off any further sight of her.

  “They’re trying to get you drunk now. That’s a new approach,” teased Ilarra once she was sure the girl was out of earshot. At Raeln’s glare, she quickly added, “I know, I know. Her family works the vineyard, so the gift makes sense. I was trying to be funny. Drink that if it helps get your sense of humor back.”