The Living Dead

20

"You see," Zalyn continued, "I can speak so of Favrid because I've known him for a very, very long time. He's my thirimin."

" There-a-mint?'" Hound-Eye blurted.

"It means they're married," Devis clarified.

"Oh," Hound-Eye said, and squinted his good orb at Zalyn. "He halfling-sized, too?"

"Hardly," Zalyn said with a look that made Hound-Eye fidget.

Mialee felt Devis shift closer to her as he leaned against the table. Mialee had been staring at the point where the back of Devis's leather trousers made contact with the table, and shook her head.

"Favrid and I have been wed for a thousand years. We found thirimin together when we fought the Buried One. Before he was buried," said Zalyn, "as Favrid and I formulated the method that would allow us to defeat Cavadrec. The plan that the three of you and the two of us, Favrid and me, will attempt to make reality. To defeat the Buried One, instead of simply confining him, we must take a new tack."

Mialee looked at Devis, who frowned. What had he expected, that they'd be conjuring pancakes for the downtrodden of Dogmar?

"Wait," Devis said, "you said you had to hide your identity from us. What's your name?"

"Zalyn will do. I have used it for centuries. The Buried One would know me by a different name, one I won't bother to mention, lest Cavadrec hear you say it at a bad time," the little elf explained.

"Something like, 'I can't believe we're being killed and eaten by a wight that so-and-so roped us into fighting with a bit of improvisational prophecy?' Something like that?" Devis asked.

Zalyn smiled. "Something like that.

"The Buried One was once a colleague of Favrid's and mine," Zalyn went on, then turned pointedly to Devis, "and Gunnivan's."

Beside her, Mialee felt Devis start.

"The Buried One was once a cleric of the Mother, an elf named Cava. We learned, traveled, and fought together. Gunnivan rallied our spirits, Cava was the expert in spiritual dangers. Favrid and I explored arcane magic. Cava performed the bonding ceremony when Favrid and I decided to join. No others would marry a pair of eighty-year-old striplings. Even then, Silatham had a tendency toward knee-jerk traditionalism." Zalyn smiled.

"The four of us were inseparable comrades. We traveled, fought, and learned together. But Cava deceived us all. We didn't know it, but he had been studying without us. He abandoned Ehlonna-" Zalyn jerked her thumb at a boarded window-"somewhere inside that mountain, which we called Kesirsilath back then. He found a source of tremendous, frightening knowledge. He secretly embraced the Hater of Life, whose name I shall not utter in our sanctuary.

"One day, while traveling through the far southern forest, we discovered an ancient tomb of a great high cleric of Moradin. Favrid and I, of course, wished to explore the find. No dwarves have lived in the far south for millennia, and the secrets it may have held…"

"Forget dwarves, I've never heard of any 'Great Southern Forest,' either," Hound-Eye growled. "There's nothing down there but sand."

"Believe me, I'm aware of the discrepancy, Hound-Eye." Zalyn said, "I was there when the desert was created."

Mialee couldn't quite make out what the halfling thief muttered in reply, but it sounded something like "smart-arsed immortal bastards."

"Cava refused to enter the tomb," Zalyn said as Hound-Eye stewed. "At first, he simply insisted we did not have time, then tried to convince us it was too dangerous. We thought he'd gone mad, or fallen under the sway of a fear spell. We had faced far more difficult challenges together in our adventures, and Cava was no coward. Gunnivan tried to break any fear effects with an inspiring ballad, in fact, but Cava simply grew more and more angry.

"Finally, Cava exploded. Before our eyes, the sapling staff in his hands twisted into a blackened thing, topped by a skull and scythe. The icon of the Reaper." Zalyn shuddered and looked every one of her thousand-odd years. "Cava told us to call him 'Cavadrec.' We barely escaped with our lives."

"I can see where this is going," Hound-Eye interjected. "You're telling me that the desert-that big one-some death worshipper did that trying to kill you?"

"Yes," Zalyn said, making no acknowledgement of the halfling's skeptical look and closing her eyes. "So much death. I can still hear the forest scream as the trees blackened and crumbled to dust. Cavadrec-" she spat the name-"he must have thought that if his new lord destroyed all life for a hundred miles, it would take care of the witnesses to his treachery. But he forgot about the god he'd so casually tossed aside."

Zalyn thumbed the golden icon around her neck. "As the wave washed over everything in its path, rolling after us, I took up the holy symbol of Ehlonna the fiend had cast away. I can't explain the certainty that filled my being to one who has never experienced it, but I felt Ehlonna of the Forest speak to me for the first time. She was horrified at the reckless destruction of so much of herself-the lifeblood of the forest. As soon as I touched this very medallion, Ehlonna sent an invocation through me. She shielded us from the Reaper, but could not save the rest of the forest. From that day forward, I devoted my life to three things-Ehlonna, my thirimin, and stopping Cavadrec."

"Did a great job on that, really," Hound-Eye snorted, but the others ignored him.

"Cavadrec went on a rampage. He called the dead into his service wherever he went. His armies slaughtered tens of thousands. Most ended up in his ranks." Zalyn closed her eyes again at the painful memory. "We did our best to fight him, but his secret studies made him far more powerful than any on our side. The noble Silatham Rangers died in droves. Farmlands became fetid swamp. The besieged common people-elves, dwarves, everyone-began to whisper that Ehlonna had given up and no longer watched over the Silath wood. In a way, they were right," she acknowledged uncomfortably, "for in the attack that nearly killed Favrid, Gunnivan, and me, Ehlonna was…wounded, if a god can be described that way. Savagely injured by the confrontation with the power of the Hater of Life. Ehlonna had not abandoned us, but had retreated to lick her wounds, sparing me what power she could for my efforts, but not enough to stop Cavadrec's onslaught.

"The last of us who stood against the dark were eventually forced back and bottled up in Silatham. Cavadrec and his armies of the dead surrounded us. Dogmardrukar, the northern dwarven settlement on the far side of Kesirsilath, already lay in ruins. From there, however, came hope."

"I don't think the word 'hope' is in the average Dogmari's vocabulary," said Devis.

"Not anymore, I agree, but a thousand years ago a high dwarven cleric of Moradin survived the slaughter and fought his way to besieged Silatham. With the combined power of Moradin and Ehlonna-mountain and forest, stone and soil-we sealed Cavadrec beneath Morsilath. We would have been lost if not for high cleric Muhn."

For the second time in as many minutes, Devis started beside Mialee. "Muhn? You're kidding."

"I assure you I am not," Zalyn said. "You can see how the destruction of Dogmardrukar and the descent of Dogmar into crime and corruption has affected the family line."

"Elder, I would not think to interrupt," Diir spoke for the first time in an eternity. "But-well-what about me? You told me that my name was 'Soveliss,' that I am from this place, which I can feel is true, and that this," he patted the short sword on his belt, "is needed to fight the Buried One."

"Yet I also said that we are old friends, did I not?" Zalyn said, eyes suddenly twinkling. Mialee recognized the look on Zalyn's altered face-as a "gnome," she'd worn the same expression when Devis suggested they raid the armory at the temple of the Protector.

"Soveliss, I say we are old friends, and I meant that literally. A millennium ago, you fought at our side."

"What?" Devis exclaimed. "Diir isn't a day over a hundred! Look at the guy."

"The sword you carry, Soveliss," Zalyn continued, "is called the Mor-Hakar. The Death-Killer. After we sealed Cavadrec beneath the mountain-renamed Morsilath, mountain of death-"

"Always thought that was because of all the wights," Devis interrupted.

"The wights, Devis, are there because of the Buried One," Zalyn explained. "They were unfortunate explorers who delved into the mountain and discovered his prison."

With Devis mollified, Zalyn continued her tale. "Soon after we imprisoned the Buried One, Favrid, Gunnivan, Muhn, and I learned that our solution for containing his evil was far from perfect. Moradin was more than enough to keep the fallen cleric underground, but Ehlonna can be capricious. She had been injured greatly by Cavadrec's savagery and needed time to heal after she helped us confine the madman.

"I'm afraid the Mother of Elves fell asleep," said Zalyn. "Wanderers in the tunnels below the forest were able to break into the Buried One's prison, as I said before. Ehlonna, more worried about the growth of trees than the confinement of a hated enemy, was not able to prevent their access. These hapless souls were converted by Cavadrec into wights and began wandering back into the world. These wights have plagued Dogmar and these woods for centuries. We elves of Silatham have kept them in check."

The bard nodded. "That explains why so few get out."

"Correct," Zalyn agreed. "The three of us realized we needed to destroy Cavadrec once and for all. He was, after all, an elf, and could easily live as long and Favrid and I intended to. Because of Ehlonna's distraction, however, we needed to bide our time for her to recover.

"You, Soveliss-or 'Diir' if you prefer, that's actually a pretty good joke-volunteered to help. The village could spare only one ranger after our battles with Cavadrec. You stepped forward, the commander of the last remaining troop. You were given the Mor-Hakar to hold, and Favrid proceeded to turn you and the sword into stone."

Diir-no, Soveliss, Mialee reminded herself-was stunned. Mialee didn't blame him. It wasn't every day you learned you'd been a statue for a thousand years, although it wasn't like his transformation was news.

"I am…a thousand years old?" said Soveliss. For the elf, his raised eyebrows were equivalent to anyone else's screaming fit.

"Chronologically, you are aged one thousand and ninety-three years," Zalyn replied, "but the preservation offered by your millennium of transmutation ensured that the Mor-Hakar and the power infused within by Ehlonna would never want for the steady hand of a Silatham Ranger. We buried you on the battlefield of Morkeryth, beneath the ruins of our last outpost to fall before Cavadrec surrounded Silatham. That's the same place where we ultimately confined him. Many, many bodies have been laid low beneath that hallowed ground. You were simply another body beneath the earth, but you held a critical part of Cavadrec's ultimate destruction."

Mialee scribbled a question on a scrap and shoved the paper under Zalyn's nose.

"Yes, he did," the diminutive elf nodded.

"Did what?" Devis said.

"Mialee asked if Favrid released Soveliss from petrifaction. Clayn tells me Favrid left Silatham a week ago. He planned to retrieve you, Soveliss, and bring you to Dogmar to meet the others. I was still in the temple, of course, but Favrid contacted me with telepathy. I warned him not to be foolish, to at least take Clayn with him, but he refused. He has the stubbornness of a millenarian. Cavadrec struck just as the spell to return Soveliss to us was nearing completion."

Mialee drew a finger across her throat quizzically.

"Yes, the spell failed to complete. Much of his mind was left as stone."

"I remembered this place," Soveliss said distantly. "I remember something like it, before this, I mean. And something else. It's close and urgent, but…"

Zalyn produced a pinch of something Mialee didn't recognize and tossed it into the air with a wave of her hand. The little elf intoned a brief incantation, and Mialee saw the twinkling-light aura of a transmutative field fan out from Zalyn's fingertips. The sparkling field wrapped around Soveliss's head like a turban, then dissolved through his helm and into his skull. Soveliss was dumbstruck, his face flooded with recognition of everything at once.