“Ouch!” someone exclaimed as he felt them bounce up against the low-range repulsion barrier he had set up to keep animals from sneaking in to steal his dinner. “That’s odd, who would put up an invisible wall in the middle of the forest?” a decidedly female voice said.
Trisfelt put his book down. How could someone have run into his wards? The aversion spells should have subtly caused the person to walk around this area. He shook his head and peered through the trees towards where the noise had come from. It was quite dark outside his camp, and the spells somewhat obscured his vision, but it appeared to be a good-sized woman in a white dress. Trisfelt made gestures and muttered the incantation to temporarily lower the wards.
“Oh! A campsite!” the voice said. “How unusual.” A woman proceeded forward into the camp, apparently completely fearless. What an odd woman, Trisfelt thought. “Well, hello there!” The oddly bright-eyed and beaming blonde woman smiled cheerfully upon seeing Trisfelt. She was looking around at his camp. “Sorry to barge in; I was in the neighborhood trying to get back to my own camp when I bumped into your invisible wall!”
Trisfelt blinked. The woman seemed to have an effervescent charm about her, almost radiating joy. Definitely not a normal quality of any of the women around the school. Jehenna, for example, seemed to impose a rather dark cloud on those around her. This woman was wearing a layered white silk dress, only slightly muddied around the hem from tromping through the forest. Her gold-trimmed white slippers, clearly not designed for hiking, were coated with mud. As he’d noted, she was full-bodied; rather voluptuous actually, Trisfelt thought. She had brilliant golden hair that he swore almost glowed on its own and seemed to match her beaming eyes and wide smile.
“I’m Hilda!” The woman introduced herself, extending a hand to Trisfelt.
“Uhm, Trisfelt,” he said, shaking her hand after a momentary bit of confusion. “What brings you out into the woods at night?”
“Well, I’d been at this wedding,” she said, gesturing at her white dress. “Not mine though — I was just a handmaiden and was returning to Freehold, and what do you know? There’s an army around it!”
“Uh, yes... it’s been there for a while now,” Trisfelt said, puzzled but still a bit flustered by her intensely brilliant smile.
“Well, it was an alvaren wedding party and as I’m sure you know, those can go on for weeks!” She shook her head, still smiling brightly. “I think it has something to do with them living for thousands of years. Time doesn’t seem to move the same for them as it does for the rest of us.
“So anyway, not knowing who the army was, and why they seem to have brought a bunch of ships and parked them on the ground hundreds of leagues from the sea, well... it just seemed a bit odd and so I was out scouting around the city to try and figure out what was going on.”
“Ah, yes.” Trisfelt was at a bit of a loss for words. “Sensible. Yes, sensible indeed. I myself have been keeping an eye on them as well. Very curious.”
Hilda shook her head smiling. Her eyes moved to his left and widened. “Is that a bottle of Old Vine Meryst? If I’m not mistaken, the label is House Darryne?” Trisfelt blinked. Given the distance to the table, she either had very good eyesight or was very familiar with the house and label.
“Uhm, yes,” Trisfelt confirmed. “A 405, in fact.”
“A 405 you say?” Hilda’s mouth twitched in an appreciating manner. “An excellent year. The next three years were much too wet and the wine was a bit mineral-heavy. Not bad, mind you, but nothing like the 405 or the 402. The 396 was possibly the best, but the 405 does give it a good run for the money.”
Trisfelt felt a strange, indescribable feeling in his gut. A woman who knew her wine as well as he did? He smiled back at her brightly. “My dear... where are my manners? You’ve been trudging through this dark nasty forest all night. Perhaps you would like to have a rest and enjoy a glass with me? I have a few snacks as well...”
Hilda grinned even more brightly than before. “Master Trisfelt, aren’t you the gentleman? I would be most grateful to sit for a bit and share your company.”
A knock came on Elrose’s door, as he had been expecting. The sorcerer rose from his chair and went to answer it. The seer Maelen was there, arriving per his request. “Thank you for joining me,” Elrose said. He stepped back and gestured for Maelen to enter.
Maelen smiled. “My pleasure. After all, before things went crazy, it was you I was coming to see. We finally get to confer.”
Elrose shook his head and smiled grimly as he shut the door. “I apologize; I haven’t had much time since I finally made it into the city, with your assistance.”
“No need, no need. I’ve been here the whole time and have seen the very... er... I have no words to describe what it is that’s been going on.” Maelen threw up his hands.
Elrose chuckled. “Can I get you some wine?” he asked. “Normally, I don’t drink alcohol, but I started again after today’s screening, and I’m not quite ready to stop.”
Now it was Maelen’s turn to chuckle. “I could certainly use a glass for my nerves,” he replied.
Elrose smiled and gestured the seer to an overstuffed chair next to a small table, adjacent to the sorcerer’s own overstuffed chair, where a glass of wine had been already poured. Elrose retrieved another wine glass and the wine bottle from a small cart.
Maelen sat down as Elrose began to speak while pouring the seer a glass of wine. “Well, it appears that the visions of battle I had, which I wanted to discuss with you, are already upon us.” Maelen nodded in agreement with the obvious. “I also noted,” the sorcerer continued, setting the wine bottle down on the table between their chairs, “that your reaction to the name of the third occupant of the magic carpet was similar to my own.”
Maelen shook his head in consternation, remembering his reaction. Elrose sat down in his chair. “I had never heard that name before, but as soon as I did, I was struck by a series of very intense visions,” Maelen said.
Elrose raised an eyebrow. “Really? My shock was that I had heard the name, and seen her face... or at least her aspect with the head of a cat, in my prior scrying.”
Maelen moved his head from side to side, thinking. “Clearly she is critical. Apparently more critical than Ramses the Damned. Which, in and of itself, is disturbing. I was shocked when I first heard the name Ramses mentioned in the hallway with Exador for us, but I received no strong sense of dread or prescient visions with his name. With her name, though...” the seer trailed off uncertainly.
“What exactly did you see?” Elrose asked.
Maelen shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. It was extremely intense. There was a rapid series of images — her face, a sphinx, incredibly verdant valleys, blood everywhere, and massacres. People dying, murdered perhaps, I would say. I saw the Rod, although with very different uniforms than they wear today. It didn’t make a lot of sense.”
Elrose stared at the seer, intent on his words. Maelen continued, “I don’t know, the uniforms may indicate the Rod some time ago. I can’t imagine they’d be changing their uniforms in the same time frame your visions seem to be occurring in.”
“What about demons?” Elrose asked.
Maelen twisted his mouth around a bit, thinking. “Yes, I got the feeling of demons, but not connected to the Rod directly, at least not in those scenes. But again, there were lots of demons, perhaps an army. However, they were more like thought than reality. It was rather tenuous. Perhaps a side possibility?” He shook his head in frustration. “It was very odd, extremely intense. And lots of anger. Actually, that might be part of what struck me; the sheer fury associated with the images.”