Victor

  I'm off on another journey! Nenewyn and Princess Sylfaena had resolved to come with us and of course Princess Illiana and I welcomed the company. The Shadowhawk, Chiyorielle, was going to stay in Caer Caradon in order to assist Cara's spymaster for a time and report to us if anything happened - Princess Sylfaena made it a point to make some single-use scrolls of that cool spell she used to contact us before. Meli was also joining this trip, which actually filled up the whole car; she wanted to be useful to us after all of the business we'd given her and, well, just being good friends to her in general. Sure it meant intimate quarters for the drive, and maybe we now had way too many magic-users, but, think of it more like a road trip than some sort of quest.

  Rather than continue to rent out our suite at Dion's Rest, we put our dear horses in the care of a trustworthy stable: the one at the adventurer's guild! That way we wouldn't keep bleeding ourselves of over a hundred crowns a month - we really should have bought a house, the investment woulda been worth it; oh well, next time, next time. As The Princess suggested, we'd purchased three of those fancy magic backpacks plus a few more nice things - remember that magic short sword I picked up? Well, we had an enchanter transfer the magic enhancement from the sword to my Bowie Knife for a nominal fee. Evidently there are certain monsters which could only be harmed with magical weapons, and I'd been lucky that Vorpal Moose are not among them.

  The plan was to make a beeline straight for the mountains; no side trips - we needed to make this trip as close to "as the crow flies as" possible. All right, so from what I understood, Caer Caradon was approximately a hundred and fifty miles away from the dwarf city which was, in my estimation, cutting it really close. I was about to just bite the bullet and drag the car to the mountains, but then Lady Nenewyn hit me with an interesting idea - more than interesting, it was brilliant.

  "When you explained a few days ago how your chariot's engine worked and how things such as the vehicle's weight affected fuel efficiency, I had an epiphany." She fidgeted, "You see, I have a novice-rank spell that greatly reduces the weight of inanimate objects - I typically use it for carrying large stacks of books. If I charge it with a large amount of mana, I can make it last longer. I - I do apologize, for had I known these facts about the Cadillac I would have offered to cast the spell ere you and Princess Illiana first set out from Tor Anaura."

  "Don't worry about it," I said, "I didn't even know gravity magic was a thing at the time. Seems pretty damn powerful."

  She pressed her specs, smiling, "I am only intermediate-grade in gravity magic, so I would hardly call it powerful - but I am glad that this paltry cantrip can at least be of some use to our cause."

  "What's it mean to be a grade in a type of magic anyway?"

  "Quite simply, it means that a magic-user has learned at least one spell of that specific grade - pumping a lower-grade spell to the maximum strength one is capable of does not count. Even were I to channel all of my might into a novice grade pattern spell so that its strength grows to, say, expert level, if I do not know any expert spells of that grade I shall not be considered an expert in pattern."

  "Got it, that makes sense. So what exactly are your best disciplines?"

  She began to count on her fingers, "Translocation, protection, enhancements, and force. I am awful at pattern magic, and anything else really. Except in theory. "

  "Hey don't go trash talkin' yourself like that," I said, "You're much more talented than I'll ever be."

  "I thank you," she said, surprised, and, appreciative, I think?

  Older elves such as her were a bit hard to read. Not like Val or The Princess who wore their hearts on their sleeves. Apparently that impassioned speech she gave a few days back was a first and she'd usually been so reserved. Most elves her age had that aura of majesty thing on at all times unless they suppress it but hers is like off by default or something. At least that's what I've come to understand.

  "Here's the thing, though, technically this beauty is made up of several parts and I don't reckon it'd count as a single object or anything."

  But she shook her head, "Even if that is the case, 'tis not nearly as taxing as teleportation. I can cast it multiple times ere I tire."

  So that settled it. Yeah even with just a thirty percent reduction in overall weight that'd give us enough juice to make it to the dwarves, but not enough to get to the Gaian Waste. Well just five days after we'd met up with Lady Nenewyn and Princess Sylfaena, we piled into the car and we were off; ha, Mal snatched shotgun right out from under Princess Illiana. I was training a worthy crew of seasoned road-trippers. Don't worry, I gave her newly fried potato chips to placate her annoyance. Sorry, princess.

  The reactions from our first-time riders wasn't as extreme as the last one - evidently Princess Sylfaena had ridden on Snauro on high-speed dives before and loved it, while Lady Nenewyn actually had a kinetic self-buff that made her inured to changes in velocity and elevation.

  There was a great deal of idle banter as we sped through the countryside, nothing especially interesting just rehashing. The two sisters had an especially large amount of things to talk about and, well, I was just enjoying the drive. The landscape of western Cara was as pretty as the rest, very lush, while Andalon had more of a rugged wildernessy beauty to it - I'd visit there on a later adventure anyway so we can save the descriptions for later. Some times it's just good to feel the ground move beneath your feet and watch the scenery.

  Soon we were in the hinterlands in the west of Andalon at the roots of the Anvilgrund mountains; the easiest way would be to drive through a broad gap between the mountains and the coast before swinging northwards towards a well-traversed trail towards the dwarven territory. Thanks to Lady Nenewyn's enhancements we had enough gas to do just that - even with her magic we were still cutting it pretty damn close and we never woulda made it to the Gaian waste either.

  The Anvilgrunds were somewhat more rounded than the ones I'd seen above the Anaura forest had been and I reckoned they were a bit shorter - not that it was a very good comparison, I suppose I'd compare the difference between them to be somewhere like, the Alps vs the Pyrenees; but that's just my personal biases due to both ranges being on the same continent and such. Actually, these looked more imposing than I recalled the Pyrenees being and as we rounded the southern edge of the range I noticed that there were three large peaks clustered together. They were taller than their own neighbors, disproportionally so. I wasn't sure how that worked geologically, but I didn't care - it looked friggin awesome. In fact it was beneath those three mighty peaks where the dwarvish city of Daz Grund was nestled.

  Mal explained, "The dwarves of Daz Grund built many holds across the continent in ancient times, this is one of their greatest. It is easily the second or third largest and most ancient out of the surviving dwarf cities."

  "Did they lose a lot of 'em?"

  Mal nodded, "Especially away north, there are many dragons up there, you see. Not all of them are the smart kind, and even among the Higher Dragons some are downright evil. One in particular, a big red one with one eye and a wicked scar, has yet to receive his comeuppance: for no warrior has the power to unseat him from that chaise of mithril and gold he rests on."

  The princess said, insistently, "Big brother could do it! He just, well, hasn't gotten around to it yet."

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  Actually I sort of believed that - didn't he take a break from adventuring to take care of the princess whenever she was little? I could just picture it. A big red dragon in a gold-encrusted gooner cave lying on his side scratching his backside and eating chips, the stereotypical slacker pose, then one of his underlings comes in to report.

  "Where is the much vaunted hero destined to face me in mortal combat?"

  "He's - gulp - babysitting, your most scaly lordship."

  "Ugh. Bring me a Mountain Dew!"

  My imagination went a little wild with that one. Crap. What if the Black Order has a dragon? I had to slow the car down and roll down the window; ahh yes, alpine air - wait what in Sam Hill do they even call alpine air without the alps to pine over? Nenewyn and the third princess rolled their windows down, too - I had been pulling 70 for a while, it was nice to be able to cruise leisurely.

  Confident that he was clear, Mal continued, "Not to say that all lost dwarven holds were done in by dragons, of course..." he began counting on his fingers "...let's see, there was Dar Shibbloz which turned out to have been built inside a volcano and exploded, Dar Ghor which became part of the dev-" he froze and glanced sidelong at Princess Sylfaena, "-er, the bad place, Daz Ghan vanished entirely and the reason why remains a mystery, Daz Dahma whose gate caved in and the people devolved into cannibalism…hmm what else…"

  Meli chimed in, "You must have a noggin' built like mine if you can remember all that. Very impressive Mister K!"

  Mal and I both said, "Thank you." Yeah we understood the assignment, Mal even gave a wicked grin and a sneaky thumbs up.

  "Part and parcel of a good bard," Mal said, flippantly, "I doubt I've the selfsame eidetic memory as you, Miss Meli - no, I just have a passion for historical facts and geography. Legends and lore. Besides, it helps that much lore of ancient times was written down in the form of epic poetry and heroic ballads, easier to remember when you can recite it to a catchy tune."

  I said, "That's a fact - the only reason I can remember the names of the fifty state capitals is because of a song. Hey princess-"

  Two voices rang out, "Yes?". The older but shorter elf with the twintails said, "it's all right, you can simply call me Sylfie the way my sister does. It seems to grow on people," she smiled at Nenewyn, who betrayed her bashfulness with the subtlest of ocular clues. "From what she tells me-" Huh, why was the princess glaring at the other prin- I mean, at Sylfie? No, still too familiar.

  She sighed, "Pray, pay it no mind. Ask your question."

  We'll deal with the two princesses in one car situation later. I nodded. "Do you know any old songs from ancient times that tell stories?"

  The princess said, "A few of them actually. Elder brother taught me some of them - his favorite has a comical bend to it but it's a true story of guile heroism all the same," her ears twitched up a little, "Hey! The hero from that story is very much like you, Sir Victor!"

  Mal chuckled, I assume because he had heard it too.

  "I'd love to hear it some time," I said.

  She continued, more somberly, "Of course there's also the story of the first king of Anaura, after whom my father is named. We um, spoke of those events briefly some time ago, when we touched upon the dev- ow!" Sylfaena had pinched her sister, "Sorry! When we spoke of that awful place…"

  She began to mumble, seeming to trail off, and then, unexpectedly, she began to sing in elvish - it was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard, and English ain't about to do it justice but I'll try to get the gist.

  "The mighty heroes, all warriors brave and true,

  Did ride unto the waste with dragon and princess, too,

  Through ravaged field and ruined town they came,

  To the heart of darkness burning with shadow flame

  While all the land did cry in deep despair,

  Into the eyes of evil the light of hope did stare,

  The flash of steel, the storm of arcane might,

  The decisive battle through the horrid night,

  The dragon-flame in darkest hour,

  Filled their hearts with hopeful power

  The weakened maker's ruin to the heavens cried,

  And with a final blow the blackest shadow died"

  I told you before, didn't I, about how I thought elvish sounded like singing whenever it was spoken? I also remembered the princess trying to sing along to some of my old world's songs and how even when struggling to belt out English lyrics it still worked out to sounding pretty damn good just cuz of the pipes on her.

  Hearing her sing in her native language was something else - damn, even Mal and Meli were stunned, and of course her fellow elves were just sitting with their eyes closed pensively. Or were they praying? To describe how that voice sounded was like asking me to describe the color of a non-linear equation or something - paraphrase the tree-guy but replace curses with nice descriptive things.

  "Princess…" I was so stunned that I had to stop the car. "That was incredible!"

  "T-thanks. I wanted to skip to the end, the triumphant part, because the stuff before that was really sad, no, that's not even close to doing it justice - it was-"

  "A bad time," I said, she seemed to agree.

  "Reductive but accurate," said Mal, "Bravo, your highness! You'd make a fine songstress if you put your mind to it. Well the long version is too heavy for a, how you say, a road trip, so perhaps another time. The short of it is, after the ancients summoned an ancient evil and created the dev-" Mal caught a glare from Sylfaena, "The bad place, well, tons of mayhem ensued. Then brave heroes led by a dragon and a princess destroyed that unspeakable horror - some fell, some survived, then the world rebuilt slowly and so forth."

  I nodded, yeah even the short version was heavy, "And one of them heroes was Illorend the first?"

  Sylfaena nodded, "Yes, that was he. You may have seen his statue in Tor Anaura."

  Now that she mentioned it, I had seen a big statue of a regal-lookin' elf armed to the teeth. So that's who that was.

  "I've heard enough - no more talk of darkness," I said, the others agreed. Time to forget about wide-eyed fear for now.

  Nenewyn meekly handed a CD to me, having made a selection from the ol' wallet - music it is then. Let's see, I think that we were in the middle of listening to a man with a planet for a name singing about thunder bolts and lightning, when we reached the mountain pass and oh boy was this thing impressive. Of course we waited until the song was over to get out and look - are ya outta your mind? Sheesh! The mountains were even more intimidating this close, with snow-capped peaks piercing the sky; if it were cloudy, I doubted I'd be able to see the top. In other words these three unreasonably large peaks were Kilimanjaro level and capable of snowfall even when it was warm at sea level. It had been, what, three months and some change since I first came here, right? And it was now summer, which means that it was spring when I arrived despite being summer in my former world.

  "The Three Hammers," said the princess. "I never imagined that I would see them again so soon after my first visit. My brothers and I, along with our father, we journeyed here once for the purposes of establishing a trade agreement with the dwarves. It was a bold and fierce move that annoyed many reactionaries amongst the nobility in both the dwarf and elf camps. Ah, how long ago was that?"

  Nenewyn said, "Two-score and three. I was there too, if you'll remember, your highness."

  "That's right! Yes, I do recall you being with us - but-"

  Through her nose and with the knuckle of her index finger pressed to her lips, she permitted a single note of laughter, "I spent most of the time tucked away in my carriage, and you were having so much fun playing in your new surrounds that I'm surprised you realized anyone else but you and Prince Valyrian were there."

  I knew exactly what Lady Nenewyn meant. Every time we found a place she'd never been, the princess would light up - I was guilty of the same from time to time. I'm never going to forget those two moons floating up there, or the majesty of Tor Anaura, or the charming streets of Caer Caradon. Well, anyway, it was only a short distance now - to the halls of Daz Grund!