The Enarlin Athenaeum

[Ashiakin]

((This quest takes place before the events of the current Featured Quest, more specifically about two weeks before the initial events of Scaling Heaven (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=8834). Closed and solo.))

“You’re familiar with the War of the Sixth School?” asked Iorlan Rathaxea, King of Salvar, as he flipped through a dusty tome in a cramped, windowless library situated snugly in the midst of Castle Rathaxea. The room was crowded with rickety desks and haphazard shelves, all piled high with dusty, yellowed books, their titles printed finely in Raiaeran script. The place, the personal library of the kings of Salvar for Raiaeran literature, had the musty smell of knowledge.

“Yes,” said Ashiakin with a slight smile, looking at the elven paintings draped across the walls. The room was lit by overhanging lamps that, combined with the narrowness of the room, gave the place the air of a cave. “There was once a sixth School of Magic in Raiaera, it concentrated on… darker things. They had their own city and army, more or less, and rebelled and were eventually defeated?”

“Correct,” said the King, closing the book and looking Ashiakin in the eye. He was a young king, only in his mid-forties, though his dark hair was already streaked with gray. “But you also know they were not entirely defeated. The remnants fled here. They made a deal with the king—I cannot recall his name, he was obviously not of my line. They reside to this day in the Warded Wood, doing… research, under our protection.”

Ashiakin snorted and then held out his hand as if in apology. “Protection?” he asked. “You aren’t suggesting that the School of Enarlin needs our protection, are you?”

The king’s fingers trailed through his beard. “Perhaps not quite,” he said. “It’s more that they value the anonymity and secrecy we give them. The fact that they live in an enchanted wood with no fixed location seriously prohibits their destruction. Honestly, there are very few people alive that know they still exist.” The king smiled. “It’s been too long since we spoke with them. With all the recent tensions with the Church… I’d like to know that they’re still loyal to Salvar. I want you to go see them.”

Ashiakin’s eyes widened. It was as if Iorlan had asked him to visit the moon. “What?” he asked incredulously. “You said yourself that the Warded Wood has no fixed location. People tend to find it by wandering into it accidentally and never coming out.”

“We’ve been able to isolate its location temporarily,” the King said. “I don’t think it was just happenstance, either… I think that they knew I needed to speak with them.”

Ashiakin was nervous, but he was trying not to show it. He was able to keep himself steady as Iorlan strode over to a small, wooden door and pulled it open.

Inside there was a forest. A shallow creek cut through the brush in the distance, trees rose impossibly high to blot out most of the sunlight, and a whisper of eerie, orchestral music seemed to slither through to the library. “It’s the Warded Wood,” said Ashiakin breathlessly, feeling as if he were standing on the surface of some distant planet.

“Yes,” said Iorlan, looking at the scene through the door scientifically. “I sent an exploratory team through earlier this morning, four of the smartest scouts I know. Only one of them came back—he was babbling incoherently, looking crazed, talking about burning shadows and winged creatures of metal. He died after a couple of hours. They did an autopsy and found that his lungs had been turned to glass and his brain replaced with a miniature violin, playing the same few notes over and over on its own.

“But he had a few moments of lucidity before he died,” Iorlan continued. “He said that they’d been harmed because they had not been invited. He said that Ashiakin Azzarak had been invited to speak with the Councilor of Enarlin and accept a gift.”

Ashiakin was genuinely shocked and could not longer hide it. “Me?” he asked. “What on earth do they want to speak to me for? What do they want to give me?”

“I don’t know,” said Iorlan. “But Ashiakin… I cannot allow you to refuse an invitation from the School of Enarlin. And I do not think that you really want to. I must ask that you go, and you go now, carrying nothing. I have reason to believe that Enarlin will provide for you… in their own way. You must speak with the Councilor, accept his gift, and ensure that the School of Enarlin still pays tribute to Castle Rathaxea.”

Ashiakin gathered himself, doing his best to keep his hands from shaking. He took a deep bow—something he rarely did with the King in an informal situation. When he rose, he looked Iorlan in the eye. “I will depart now, then,” he said.

The king nodded. “You are my most loyal advisor and friend, Ashiakin. I would not ask you to do this if there was another way. I have no doubt that you will return, and that the knowledge and the power you will bring with you will save this kingdom.”

The king turned away and slowly exited the library. Ashiakin stood for a few moments, looking at the wood through the door, feeling the rapid thump of his heart begin to slow. There was danger, yes. But Iorlan was right—an invitation to view all the knowledge of Enarlin was something that most would never dream of. The things that he would see may very well change the course of his life—and the world—forever.

With his thoughts dominated by such ideas, Ashiakin stepped into another world. The door closed softly behind him like some memory carried away by the wind.

[Ashiakin]

The wood itself was a paradox. Though Ashiakin could not have walked more than several feet away from the library, the wood clearly could not be located in a broom closet—if it even had a physical location anywhere on the globe. The forest had an atmosphere that was at once austere and beautiful beyond imagination, a feeling only enhanced by the ethereal music drifting through the trees.

Ashiakin stood there for a long while, taking it all in. His initial nervousness had left him and he felt resigned to whatever he would encounter in this place. He had no idea where he was supposed to go but it did not seem that it mattered. The Enarlin mages would find him when they wanted to find him. He had no doubt of that. I must be cautious, but not timid, he told himself. There will be things to learn here if I am careful.

There was now a light shimmering off in the distance, just barely visible through the boughs of the trees. Ashiakin did not remember seeing it when he first stepped into the wood. He took a moment to compose himself and set off toward the light.

There were no animals in the Warded Wood, as far as Ashiakin could tell. Every now and then he would hear the faintest hint of some woodland creature, but the noises would always die before they fully reached his ears. The only natural sounds in the place were the wind rustling through the trees, the soft echoes of running water, and the steady crunch of the brush underneath his feet. But there was always the music.

Although he walked for a good half hour, the light in the distance began to appear dimmer and further away. The music, whisper-thin as it had been, seemed to fall to a nigh-imperceptible volume. The trees around him grew to be… wrong. Much of their bark seemed to consist of shimmering metal, their branches oftentimes rusty, jagged appendages—more like the ruins of some Aleran machine than a living tree.

Eventually there were few leaves under his feet, and the dirt seemed to consist of only a thin layer used to cover something much sturdier underneath. None of this is real, he thought, not sure if it was true. It’s no more real than the rooms of the Citadel.

Suddenly, an awful, clanking roar tore through the trees like thunder—it sounded as if a dragon had been outfitted with creaking, mechanical jaws. The ground began to shake, leaves and flakes of rust falling from the trees. Something was approaching.

Ashiakin looked around frantically, trying to discern the best path for a sprint through the woods. He caught sight of the light again—it was now closer and shimmering more brightly, luring him either to safety or into a trap. Without time to hesitate, Ashiakin took off running for the light. If it did lead him into a trap, he would deal with it when he got there. It could not be worse than the approaching creature. He hoped.

[Ashiakin]

As he ran, darkness sprinted towards him. Night came without warning or reason, a tidal wave of shadows breaking through the trees. Before him was the deathly quiet of the hungry night and behind him was the roar and clank of some unseen mystery. Without hesitation, almost without thought, Ashiakin dashed through the shores of twilight. The Warded Wood, he knew, had an organic logic—a lunatic morality that would not spare him a moment to stop and reflect on its rules. He could only learn by luck and reflex.

It grew darker, harder to see, more difficult to plot his course through the thickening of the trees. He stumbled. The light that heralded his destination seemed to shrink, switch places, and grow brighter again. He felt like a child being bullied by his elders, frustrated by the lack of his own knowledge only because he was so painfully aware of its absence.

Eventually he tripped over an unseen protrusion, some glimmering log, and fell forward into a pile of rusty leaves that crinkled as they broke under his weight. Somewhere behind him a metallic roar slammed into tree trunks, challenging their resilience. The earth shook as if it something deep and vital within it was being rent apart. I’m outside time and lost beyond the borders of the world, he thought. I’m as lost as anyone has ever been.

Strangely, he found the thought comforting.

Not daring to look back, he leapt to his feet and continued his ragged sprint through the dark arms of the wood’s maniac trees. Their metallic, glassy fringes reflected a dull light in the growing darkness. The dark grew too fast. It was not night, that word failed its purpose—the moon had fallen from the sky and crashed into the colorless sea, the remaining light putting up only a timid fight as it was dragged down its wake.

The sky was black. There were no stars.

His beacon vanished and he was blind. An alien creature lurked in the dark, challenging the validity of the forest with its harrowing cries. The ground shook. Ashiakin was closer to knowing despair than he ever had been in his long life.

Desperate, he whirled around and was greeted with the most shocking thing: a lighted clearing, a haven. The light did not explain itself. Nothing here did. Within the clearing was a small, ruined settlement. Stone ruins were scattered about, crumbling, forgotten, evidently ignored both for their possible artistic value and the riches that might lay within them for pillaging. About these stone ruins, curious columns were strewn. They were shiny, metal things—the memories of some giant, orchestral system. Ironically, he could barely hear the wood’s music over the roar of the approaching creature.

Within the very center of the ruined clearing was a sinkhole, growing, grabbing everything it could and slowly pulling it inside. Two of the hollow columns were being sucked in now, and betwixt them was settled a curious device: the magnificent bow of a violin that seemed to have a sword handle attached to it.

An impulse grabbed Ashiakin and he followed it right onto the teetering columns, the tubes struggling against that which would devour them. He sprinted lightly toward their middle and clasped the handle of the violin’s bow. He looked up. There was a shocking roar and death itself leapt out of the trees to greet him.

[Ashiakin]

The creature was, perhaps, one of the most beautiful things Ashiakin had seen since he watched the mist swirl around the heights of the Ahyark Mountains from the citadel of Caradin ten thousand years ago. It was a thing of sunlight and music. Its metallic shrieks were made absurd by the warm fluidity of its form: it looked as if it was made of molten gold, its limbs shifting and changing as it passed into the clearing. If it could be said to have a face, it was marked only by a warping indention on its vague head, its only teeth drops of melting light that fell and burned the dirt of the ground.

Ashiakin leapt from the falling columns onto the outer edge of the sinkhole, stumbling forward and attempting to keep his eyes on the monster. The stone pillars slipped quietly into the void behind him. His heart was racing and he glanced down at the curious weapon he now held in his hands. The thing was ridiculous. It was a beautiful, well-crafted violin’s bow that had been skillfully attached to what looked like the handle of a meat cleaver, an ornate sword’s crosspiece separating the two parts.

Somehow, though, he knew that the instrument would be able to save him.

The snapping, tearing metallic of the creature’s roar tore through the clearing, wet golden light splashing across the weeded ruins. Its formless mouth was open in a cruel attempt at a snarl. The world seemed to rattle all around them, announcing the instability of a place that existed on no maps, no charts, was laughed at in most records.

The creature lumbered forward, massive and graceful, changing the nature of the setting as it surged forward with its curious light. Ashiakin squared his feet and raised the bow-weapon, golden light sliding across the string like notes of music, glimmering in the dead insanity of the forest. The glimmer held fast as if it were staring the monster down. The thing of light seemed to study this, then cackled like crumpling tin and lunged forward. Its arm swung toward Ashiakin like morning light drifting through a dusty window.

Ashiakin stumbled to one side, shielding his eyes from the light with his free arm, struggling not to slip into the sinkhole at his back. He dashed around the side of the monster, scrambling over a weed-laden platform of stone, feet falling into grooves—sacrificial rivulets that had once run deep with blood. His enemy roared.

The creature struck out again, its golden arm shattering, melting the center of a column that had protected the platform on which Ashiakin ran. The top of the pillar smashed into the stone floor in front of him and he had to leap to avoid it.

Unfortunately, he was a second too late. His foot caught the top the edge of the pillar as it descended into the platform and Ashiakin fell, sprawling, onto the surface of the sacrificial altar. His weapon skittered away from him to the edge of some steps leading up to a higher level of the rotting temple. Silent now, the creature looked at him.

Against the black of the starless night, the monster’s head looked like some bastard sun.

[Ashiakin]

As the creature’s shifting fist slammed into the floor like a fireball, it was all Ashiakin could do to roll away and escape being crushed. He climbed to his feet and scooped up his curious weapon with one hand. His head was spinning and his eyes were burning with the glare of a jaundiced light. The creature regarded him curiously as its fist slipped away from the platform, flecks of gold wafting through the air and only slowly vanishing in its wake. The light around them was indecisive, always changing.

It was in that flickering atmosphere that Ashiakin dashed up the stone stairs to the upper layer of the temple, passing through light and shadow as he moved between the open spaces between ornate columns. The creature shifted its movement and slowly followed after Ashiakin on the ground below, not stepping onto the roofless temple. It roared that same sound of metal crunching under the wrath of a thousand swords. The structure shook, dust and bits of stone spinning down through the lonely rays of light.

Ashiakin reached the apex of the tower, a circular ring of stone around a formless central statue, the floor of the open-air circle standing about ten feet above the creature’s head. He gripped his weapon expectedly, looking down at the beast of light. It was staring.

Quickly, and quite unexpectedly, it lunged forward with a lightning speed that it hand not yet displayed. A column snapped like butter under its golden fist, liquid stone shattering into fragments, spraying in shards across the lofty stone ring. Ashiakin only barely managed to dance away from them, shielding his eyes from the broken rock.

The column was falling, not into the circle, but away from it: toward the monster. Some spark, some impulse, shot up form the bow-weapon in his hands, slid like a poison up to his foggy brain. Somehow, Ashiakin knew how he was going to kill this creature.

He sprinted forward with confidence and leapt onto the falling column, his feet carefully straddling the precarious structure as it crashed toward the monster. The end of the column slid past the vague junction of the creature’s shoulder and neck, a metallic cry so terrible splitting the air that it burned Ashiakin’s ears. He managed to hold his footing as the column slid past the monster toward the ground, his weapon in his hands.

It was as the end of the column passed away from the monster’s body that he leapt off of it and struck out with his curious weapon, the glittering string of his bow-weapon slicing into the golden flesh of the light-monster, splitting it like a melting log as he fell to the ground. The creature’s roars transgressed into wails and shrieks, sounds of pain. It was as if all the light in the world was dying with such suddenness it deserved a memorable lament.

But the bow-weapon melted with the creature and it melted into music.

[Ashiakin]

The monster’s dying wails could not overtake those beautiful sounds. As soon as the bow had touched the thing’s golden flesh, it had spilled out like an orchestra: the wood was alight with music, burning with it. Ashiakin was not sure he’d ever heard anything so beautiful. It made the lament of the monster unworthy even as an afterthought.

Ashiakin’s feet connected with the ground with a softness that surprised him. He gazed up at the dying monster. It was fading. Its arms were outstretched and its head was thrown back, thin and fluid rays of gold streaming forth from its body to the furthest reaches of the forest and the blackened sky. Little by little it vanished, returning itself to the Warded Wood. It was not long before the creature dispersed into nothing, then sheets of light arose from the ground like ghosts rising to the heavens. They drifted into the empty sky that had hung over the forest for so long.

The rays traveled and impossible distance, bending time, moving slowly yet moving far. They coalesced at one central, arbitrary point on the black canvass that they had explored like exploratory strokes of a painter’s brush. They collected into a burning, yellowed sphere that hung there with all the authority of a thousand year dynasty. Blue spread out from the edges of the fiery ball, eating away at the black like worms, like wind blowing away smoke and mist. It was not long before all of the sky was the deepest blue.

Light fell down to the earth like rain and it was daylight again.

As the light ate away at the shadows in the clearing around the temple, a raised platform at the edge of the wood that Ashiakin had not noticed before was presented. Six elves, dressed in a bizarre mixture of Raiaeran fashions across thousands of years, were all standing on the platform side by side. They seemed impossibly ancient and Ashiakin knew that they were wise. They were clapping in unison, the sound like that of an army marching, each volley of noise causing the shadows that clung to the trees around them to fall away like a horde of lizards sloughing off their skins.

“Well done!” cried one of the clapping figures, striding forth beyond the others. “I have not heard such fine music since Ereber Ondolindë and Atanamir Eluriand fell at the Battle of Niadath. These woods grow lonely, you see, without foreign musicians.”

The man smiled. “Circumstances require the School of Enarlin to keep to itself.”