novelxo Chapter Chapter Four
Tanis approached the Tree of Confinement and stood watch over it. He sat at its base for the remainder of the two days that she had to complete inside. The time came for the door to the Tree be opened and Charina to be released. Tanis stood anxiously beside the door waiting for the woman he loved’s mother to appear.
Slowly up the path to the Tree came Charina’s parents as well as the royal family. Charina’s mother wore a small grin on her face that had been there since the beginning of their trial. The small group of druids held to the ritual that the Tree be opened with the dawn so an uneasy wait began for the first rays of dawn.
As dawn arrived, the village gathered to witness the release of the girl. Slowly, her mother approached the Tree. She stared at the lock as if seeing it for the first time. After a moment she inserted the key. Surprisingly, the mother laughed. Turning to the crowd she called on all the gods to do their worst and then turning broke the key in the lock. Charina’s mother turned quickly and showed to the village the sheered key and laughed again. “So much to all of you for true love. Now she will never be released from her prison. The tree holds her forever.”
Tanis ran to the Tree and heard Charina’s mother calling out to him, “It is hopeless. You’ll never get her out of there now. So much for true love!” At that she laughed the harder still and fell to the ground raked with fits of laughter. Her mirth was soon stilled as Tanis grasped the hilt of his sword and drew it and sliced the lock in twain. Quickly the druids opened the door and the girl was released. Charina blinked in surprise at the light and smiled as her eyes fell onto Tanis. Charina walked to Tanis and took his hand.
“No!” bellowed her mother. “This cannot be! He has harmed the sacred Tree! He must be slain!”
The elven people bellowed with rage at hearing the accusations. Tanis picked up his blade readying himself to defend himself and his love, when the dragon intervened. “Stop this!” he bellowed in a voice to make an earthquake seem calm in comparison. “The boy hurt not the Tree. He merely destroyed a lock. Let he who has never committed a wrong come here and try this child before all his family, friends, and peers!”
The elves stopped in their tracks. “Come now, who amongst you is perfect?” he asked. Finally the head druid came forward and took the boy and girl’s hand. He led the way north. Not to the village but away, to the mountain.
The dwarf who had acted as the tutor and mentor to young Tanis ran up and grasped his hand. “Well done my boy, well done. You have made us all so proud. How did you charm that great beast? Did he really come of his own will? Is he your pet now? Is he a friend? Speak boy! Teach your old mentor.”
Tanis shook the old dwarf’s hand and smiled down on him. “I am kind of busy to talk to you now, Artitous. But I promise I will explain all when I am free to do so.”
But the fury of Charina’s mother could not be so easily quelled. Seeing her chance to kill the young couple she leaped for her belt knife and plunged it for the chest of Charina. Tanis seeing the danger leapt in front of Charina and took the knife to the chest. She withdrew the sharp dagger and was grabbed roughly by several men of the village. Her husband one of them.
Artitous seeing the boy fallen to the earth let out a scream flinging back his head and arms. Chanting in the druidic language he began a weaving of magic so great none would have survived, and yet when he finished nothing happened. Looking around the dwarf spied Tanis standing there his hand outstretched and chanting the ward of prevention. He stood and wiped himself of the dirt and grime and smiled at Charina. The plate mail had worked well in his defense, as did the scale of the dragon that rested around his shield, fused to it by the power of the dragon’s own breath. Quietly the couple turned back to the mountain leaving behind all who had not moved quickly enough to begin again the long trip to the mountain.
Artitous called over to the villagers. “See I told you. He is the greatest. He will do great things. I am sure of it.” The king walked over to the dwarf putting a hand to his shoulder he said in a voice so all could hear “Artitous, You first said little to anyone even Tanis until this very day. Now I begin to believe that there may be some halfling in you as well, since they are the ones who supposedly run off at the mouth.”
All laughed at the King’s jest. Yet none laughed harder than Artitous himself.
The world grew quiet as young Tanis led his bride to be toward the great smoking mountain. No one spoke. Nothing moved, not even the birds sang. Amongst this quiet and stillness did the young couple proceed toward the oldest of the great mountains. The people of the village quickly forgot their fears and let their morbid curiosity lead them to follow the young couple. That curiosity that consumes half the general public and annoys the rest of the people. The curiosity that causes a man to stop to see the aftermath of a battle and makes all people thank the Light that they do not lay on that field, the one that says we survived and wish to look at death, so as to fathom what we ourselves will be when we pass.
The young couple made it but a few hundred feet before the girl’s mother appeared before the couple. Before her she bore a sword of great workmanship, but its weight was too much for the woman as she could not keep the tip but a few inches from the ground. Desperately she attempted to wave the blade before the faces of the young couple, but her efforts proved to be futile for she managed to only move the blade a few inches each way before the tip would again fall to the earth. She raised her voice not in regret but in anger at the young couple.
“You stole your father’s affections from me, now you wish to go and be happy with a love of your own! I will never permit this to happen for as long as I still have breath in my body! Leave her here young prince and find one of your aristocratic young sluts to keep you occupied! You don’t need common trash such as this cur at your side!”
Hearing the threats of the mother the warrior druids quickly came and surrounded the young couple, while others of their brethren grabbed the woman and her sword. The rest of the journey went without excitement as they once more set off for the mountain yet again.
The great mountain rumbled as they grew ever closer. The very sound of that rumble kept most of the villagers back away from the summit. The rest stayed behind at the base of the mountain ready to run in an instant if the need arose. The young couple proceeded undaunted by the loud sounds emitting from the fiery hill and proceeded to the summit accompanied by the druids and her parents.
The couple walked casually to the basket that would take them into the heart of the mountain, and the druids began the slow decent into the fiery hell below. Slowly the couple drew closer and closer to the lake of liquid rock below until the elven girl began to moan and cry out about the heat of the mountain.
The basket at this point had weighed greatly upon the two druids that held the cord and so the two druids holding the girl’s mother went to the aide of their companions, leaving the girl’s mother unattended. From the basket all seemed right with the world with their slow swinging decent. Tanis began some old war chants and songs that Charina knew and joined in with him with a fervor that made her forget the heat.
Tanis heard the sound before he realized there was a problem. From the top of the mountain, staring in barely contained horror and rage, the girl’s mother cut the rope securing the basket. From no where Artitous came to aid the young man and woman inside the mountain. As quickly as lightning strikes he had a grip on the rapidly spooling cable and made several magical signs. Slowly the cable stopped and held where it was. Pulling hard once he brought the young couple from the hill. The basket seemed to fly out of its own accord. The young couple lay unconscious as the basket finally let down gently on the side of the mountain where their decent had begun. Druids hurried to the young couple but where shooed away as quickly as they arrived by Artitous, who had already started tending to the young couple himself.
From inside the mountain the young ones felt the jolt of the parting cable. Quickly young Tanis gave his shield to his lady love. As she took the shield and placed it beneath her the bit of armor he wore and the shield in her hand began to glow with eerie light. The girl slowly nodded off to sleep surrounded by that glow. Watching Charina fall asleep Tanis soon found himself growing more and more sleepy until he too lay down and slept in the heat of the great mountain.
After what seemed an eternity to Artitous, he bent from his labors and walked toward the girl’s mother. Eyes colder than the grave and a heart blacker than the blackest pitch peered from Artitous when he gazed at Charina’s mother. She gazed back with even more hate and darkness than Artitous showed. Slowly she raised the blade that had almost cost the young couple their lives. Artitous saw the mother lift the blade and seized the girl’s mother and cast himself and her into the depths of the mountain.
As the two plummeted into the mountain, Charina and Tanis began to stir. Slowly Tanis lifted his head and looked for the dwarf that was his almost constant companion. Instead of the dwarf the boy saw his in-laws to be approaching with blades drawn. Approaching with a rage caused by the indiscretion of Artitous, ready to kill for the mistake made by the boy’s life long friend. Tanis moved slowly to Charina and weakly moved her from his shield. Rising to his knees he strapped the shield to his arm and drew the Holy Avenger. The weight of his arms pulled the young man to the ground. Undaunted, he tried again to rise from the ground to defend himself and his love. Stumbling from the cage he was lowered into the mountain in, he lifted shield and sword in preparation for a fight when the druids came between the two belligerent parties. The druids stood facing each side of the growing animosity. At their head was a tall man dressed in the garb of the ancients. Looking from one side of the conflict to the man spoke loudly and clearly, “Enough! I am called Artitous, and am of the ancient order of Druids. It is proscribed that no bare blades are shown in my presence and if any of you have a problem with that rule speak now! The young prince needs to live, as does the girl. Ask me not how I know these things just suffice to know that I know them. Now lower the blades!”
Explaining the law of the Ancients was wasted on the members of Charina’s family for as soon as the druids moved, the family closed around the Prince. Rapidly he was brought to his knees under the rain of blows from swords, knives, axes, and maces. Seeing the peril of her lover, Charina lashed out using her magic. Seeing the actions of the young girl, she too was quickly set upon.
Seeing the peril of the young couple, the druids wasted no time in charging into the fray to help the young couple. As rapidly as the rain of blows began, they subsided. The girl’s father looking to her with half pain and half love that father always will bear for his daughter, went to the girl and held her as tears filled his eyes. Tanis moved to the front of the crowd and stood before the assembled villagers.
“Why have you interfered in our lives? Have we given you cause to hate us? Yes, Charina’s mother is dead, killed by the dwarf that brought me to this place. But that dwarf now lies at the bottom of the river of molten rock at the bottom of this sacred crater with his victim. The two now burn together in hell for their crimes here today. Yet still you attack us, why? We have completed your tasks and requirements for marriage and I now request that the druids perform the ceremony.”
As he spoke, he sheathed his sword and unstrapped his shield. Grasping the hand of Charina, who has sustained many wounds from the battle and was not yet being tended by the druids, trying to watch every way at once. The druid, Artitous, stepped forward and performed the ceremony and the young couple left that mountain that day as man and wife. Tanis was sure that the name was coincidence but could the dwarf have been this man with the physique of a god and the wisdom to go with it?
The new couple returned to Tanis’s boyhood home and was greeted warmly by his adoptive family. As they entered, the news was not all good. They were happy as could be that the boy had come home from his ordeal. The king stood from his throne and kissed his new daughter-in-law and began to relate the story of Tanis’s birth. Of his mother’s shame, the chase from the village, and of the human Lord McCryden’s attempt to kill the young infant and his mother. He then told them of Lord McCryden’s eventual success in killing the boy’s mother and the child being brought here.
This news was more then the boy and his bride could bear. He looked at his adoptive parents asking again for the details of what had happened in the not so distant past, this time in all the details that his adoptive father knew.
After hearing the tale, Tanis took Charina up to his rooms and began to rapidly pack the things he would need for traveling. Quickly he packed up his things and left the building headed for the edge of town. He still wore the shield, sword, and armor he had worn for his trials and his marriage. The villagers followed closely as the young couple returned to Charina’s home briefly to retrieve her belongings and then as they moved toward the edge of the town. All hoping to catch a glimpse of the young prince and the new princess’s honeymoon night.
Tanis turned and gazed at the villagers following. He blushed when he realized what they wanted to see. He did not expect that this would happen when he was wed. It was indecent. It was crude. He then admitted to himself that he did the same whenever a couple had been wed. If it was possible to blush any redder then he was, he did. The thoughts of him and his new wife’s first night together made his step lighter and his face even redder.