The Naming Read online

  ‘Oh good, more canoodling. We’re never going to get away from here’, Uldini sighed, resignation in his voice. Then he floated up and over to congratulate his old friend too.

  A short time later and they were on their way.

  They all sat on their horses and Jelninolan led them on the broad paths through the trees of Evergreen and so they trotted along at a comfortable pace. The sun was high in the sky and they had only another half a day’s journey.

  Falk had pulled himself together again and every now and then threw a look of gratitude towards Ahren, something that slowly made the apprentice uneasy. He wasn’t used to this prolonged friendliness from his master and didn’t know how to deal with it. And so, he sought refuge by asking Uldini questions.

  ‘How does our plan look exactly?’ he asked.

  Uldini shrugged his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. ‘We conquer, HIM, WHO FORCES?’ the wizard said nonchalantly.

  Ahren suppressed a sigh. When the wizard was in a mood like this, he had to be more precise with his questions. He tried again. ‘Where exactly are we going and what do we have to do there for my Naming to be fulfilled’.

  Uldini became serious and started counting off the stages of the journey on his fingers.

  ‘Well, first we have to make our way through Knight Marshes to King’s Island. That’s the only harbour in this region from which ships take a direct course to the Silver Cliff. The alternative would have meant several weeks detour, and we want to avoid wasting time. So, we’re going to sail southwards from the main town along the coast and disembark when we reach the dwarves. Then we come to the vague part of our plans. We don’t know what task our currently nameless dwarf has to perform on his Lonely Guard or Watch as it’s called. According to dwarf laws only other dwarves are prohibited from helping him in his task. We’ll take advantage of this loophole and give the poor chap a helping hand. Our group has enough exceptional talents that the dwarves are lacking in, so I’m pretty sure we can quickly help him’, explained Uldini. ‘Then it will get easier. We’ll travel by land through Kelkor, grab ourselves a member of the Wild Folk, preferably a fay, and ask him or her to lead us to the Place of Ritual.’

  Uldini was silent and looked at Ahren expectantly. The apprentice mulled over what he had just heard, then stopped short.

  ‘Won’t the dwarves be furious if we as outsiders interfere with the Lonely Watch? It sounds a bit like cheating.’

  Uldini hesitated briefly and then shook his head.

  ‘Not really. The Lonely Watch is there to prove to the community the worth of the individual dwarf. If the candidate succeeds in organising help from outside, then the commonality has been helped, without other dwarves having to assist him. The little people would see that as being pragmatic. As long as things can be completed and it doesn’t cost anything, then they’re happy’, said Uldini with an admiring undertone in his voice.

  Jelninolan snorted and slapped her thigh in protest as she looked over at the magus. ‘Just don’t admire them for their cold-heartedness and callousness as well. They’re little barbarians who send their own children to certain death while these children are trying to earn their right to a name’, she said angrily.

  Uldini merely smiled in return and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘You know me, auntie. I always had a leaning towards the practical. I find a certain amount of efficiency very refreshing. Not everyone lives in a magical forest and has a natural sensitivity towards harmony and balance. We others can only come to insight through hard work. And simply put, our ways are not your ways. The free peoples are fundamentally varied, and that’s good. The Adversary would have won that time if everyone had followed the elf method, and you know that yourself’, he responded.

  Ahren was amazed to see the Arch Wizard arguing so vehemently with his erstwhile mentor. The elf had always seemed to appeal to his softer nature until now, but Uldini seemed to be iron-willed regarding this topic.

  Jelninolan was silent and Ahren was convinced this was not the first time they had had this discussion. He didn’t want to make the argument between them any worse, so he asked another question that had been gnawing at him.

  ‘How much time are we going to need? It seems like a very long way, and if I’ve understood you correctly, the Naming should have been completed by the winter solstice.’

  The thought that the sleeping god was nourishing himself with every breath that Ahren had taken since the blessing of the gods - and that the sleeping charm on the Adversary was thereby being shortened -made the hairs on the back of Ahren’s neck stand up. He himself didn’t sense anything, but the wizard’s assurances that this invisible connection was present and active worried Ahren no end.

  Uldini rubbed his bald head absently with his hand.

  ‘This is the very reason I’m pushing things along. I looked at the stars last night – it’s ninety-eight days until the winter solstice. The journey alone to King’s Island, then on to the Silver Cliff and after that through Kelkor will take a good two moons. That leaves us something over thirty days to release the Lonely Watch and to find the Place of Ritual, and of course there are the inevitable delays. We could be dealing with Dark Ones as soon as we’re out of Evergreen. As you can see, it might be tight’, he explained.

  ‘How is it that you don’t actually know where you are to perform the Naming Ritual’, asked Ahren, a little anxiously.

  Up until now he had seen the Arch Wizard as someone infallible. But the more Ahren asked, the more he realised that even the eternally youthful magician didn’t have the perfect answer to all the questions. This realisation made him deeply uneasy.

  ‘At any normal Naming, the old Paladin passed the power on to their son or daughter. The parent then became mortal again and the next generation carried on the fight. The place was more or less irrelevant. But in this case, there is nobody who can transfer the power to you. Instead of that, the blessing of the gods has been bubbling out of you since the Spring Ceremony. We have to find the suitable place where we can anchor the power within you. There we will use the Naming as a canalisation ritual and then you will be a Paladin. No more ebbing away of power and no more strengthening of the enemy. But finding a suitable place is far from easy. Something like this has never been done before. We have no point of reference to show us the right direction. That’s why we need the help of the Wild Folk. The Wild Folk are practically made of magic. They can point us to a Place of Ritual without any bother, one that will fulfil our objectives.’

  The voice of the childlike Arch Wizard was sounding much more confident again and Ahren breathed a sigh of relief. He had enough to be thinking about, and the last thing he needed was a clueless Uldini.

  But there was one more point he wanted clarified.

  ‘We don’t have to be finished everything by the winter solstice, do we? It isn’t that HE, WHO FORCES wakes up immediately at that point, is it?’ Ahren’s questioning sounded more fearful than he liked.

  Having, it seemed, got over her previous argument with Uldini, Jelninolan now joined in the conversation.

  ‘No, HE wouldn’t wake up at that instant. But during the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, HE will be able to misuse a large part of your blessing for his purposes. HE would awaken completely considerably more quickly after that, and up until that point his attacks on you and the other Paladins would be far clearer and more focussed than at present. HE has not yet even left the deep sleep, but you have already seen what barriers HE has put in your way. Uldini’s approach is totally correct. If we want to have a decent chance of uniting the free peoples against HIM and gathering the Paladins at the Pall Pillar, we are going to need as much time as possible.’

  The elf’s tone of voice brooked no opposition and once the wizard had nodded in agreement, Ahren vowed to himself to do everything to carry out the Naming as soon as possible. The young man had no idea what would follow that, but at least he had a tangible goal he could now aim for.

  Chapt
er 3

  Ahren awoke the next morning from an uneasy sleep. He had been plagued by a recurrent nightmare in which a skeletal hand reached into his chest and squeezed his heart slowly and endlessly, while he wandered through the starless night, calling in vain for help.

  Ahren rubbed his face and shook off the effects of the nightmare. The fact that he was so used to these dreams now should have given him food for thought but if he were honest with himself, he was thankful that he had learned how to live with them.

  He stood up and stretched as quietly as possible. It wasn’t sunrise yet and everyone was still asleep.

  Well, almost everyone, he corrected himself. The blanket on which Jelninolan had been lying was empty.

  Ahren assumed that the elf was saying goodbye to Evergreen. According to Uldini they would return to the Knight Marshes during the course of the day. They would make better progress on the trade paths and save themselves long distances than if they were to continue travelling through Evergreen.

  They had travelled a considerable time the previous day until it had become too dark. The atmosphere had been pensive and subdued.

  Ever since hearing that he would be allowed to return to Eathinian, Falk had been smiling happily, and as they had ridden onwards he had seemed to be conversing with Selsena. The rest of the group had been lost in their own thoughts, and Ahren had been digesting the news he had learned that day and forging plans whereby he could help them make good progress.

  One of which he would now put into effect. Of course he couldn’t speed up their journey significantly, but he could ensure that the others wouldn’t be waiting for him. And he could prepare himself in so far as it was possible for any potential dangers.

  And so, he grasped hold of Windblade and sought out a small secluded clearing where he could practise what he had learned from the armourer Falagarda a few weeks previously in Three Rivers when she had drilled into him in the basics of attacking and parrying.

  Culhen woke up as he was leaving their camp and Ahren gestured to him to be quiet. The wolf immediately crouched down and crept over towards the apprentice. Ahren tickled him between the ears as a reward and then they slipped away.

  Ahren spent a moment finding his bearings before deciding on a clearing they had ridden by the previous day, shortly before they had set up camp. He was stretching and loosening his muscles as they approached when suddenly he stopped stock still.

  He could hear sounds that he couldn’t identify coming from the training spot he’d picked. A sort of rhythmical beating was reverberating through the forest and it certainly wasn’t a natural sound.

  He moved towards the sound carefully, and Culhen did the same. Crouching in the undergrowth, Ahren slowly crept forward and spied out the clearing, ten paces in diameter and barely visible in the early dawn. Surprised, he gave a sigh of relief and stepped out of the branches once he saw the source of the sounds.

  Jelninolan was standing at a fallen tree and was making a dazzling array of movements with her magic staff, hitting the branch in ever-changing angles and thrusts, the staff circling her body in breath-taking patterns. Even as a neutral spectator, Ahren couldn’t predict where the next hit would come from.

  Ahren could see that the elf’s linen clothing was already soaked with perspiration and he reckoned she must have been laying into the tree trunk for some time already. He stepped out of the undergrowth and his relaxed posture was a signal to Culhen that he too could let down his guard. The wolf leaped into the clearing with his tail wagging and raced towards the elf, yelping joyfully. She reacted with an immediate spin around and her staff came down at lightning speed towards Culhen’s nose.

  Before Ahren had a chance to shout out a warning, the staff stopped a hand’s width over the head of the stunned-looking young wolf who sat on his hind legs in shock and whimpered quietly at Jelninolan.

  The elf priestess dropped the staff with a laugh and grasped Culhen’s white fur in her comforting hands. He allowed himself to be cuddled, and she looked over his shoulders at Ahren.

  ‘I really must be rusty if I didn’t hear you from such a close distance’, she said breathlessly. ‘But it still isn’t very clever to sneak up on a trained warrior in the half light. If my reflexes had become even more dulled over the years, the wolf would have a nice big lump on his head now.’

  Ahren lifted Windblade to show her.

  ‘We’d planned on practising here too while the others were sleeping. I have to admit, I never expected to see you training with weapons. Aren’t you a priestess and magician?’ he finished somewhat lamely.

  ‘And are they not supposed to protect themselves? What strange ideas you people sometimes have. My magic covers many things: illusion, healing, mind reading. But I’ve never been able to create fireballs like Uldini. I’ve never had the will to inflict deadly damage and so my battle magic is rather weak and passive. I prefer the staff when it comes to the crunch. It can be very effective when used properly, and with the necessary precision you can put your opponent out of commission without having to kill him’, she said emphatically.

  Filled with curiosity, Ahren stepped closer, all the while fiddling around with the scabbard of Windblade.

  ‘But Dark Ones have to be killed, don’t they? Aren’t you just postponing the inevitable?’ he asked carefully. He found it difficult to contradict the priestess.

  She always seemed so noble and in harmony with everything so it was hard to believe she could be wrong about anything. But her confrontation with Uldini yesterday had shown that the even the knowledge of an ageless elf priestess wasn’t limitless.

  She looked thoughtfully down at Culhen and only said, ‘so every Dark One must be killed? What do you think Culhen would have to say to that?’

  A feeling of shame overcame Ahren for what he had said. He himself had gone against his master when he had found the Blood Wolf’s whelp and had refused to kill the pup. His four-legged friend wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t believed in finding a solution that didn’t involve the spilling of blood.

  Before he could answer, the elf continued speaking.

  ‘Of course, I know what you mean but I’m trying to limit the damage I will cause. Who knows what will happen to all the creatures HE has in HIS power when you and the other Paladins impede HIM. Do they turn back into what they were previously, do they die, or do they have their own free will at last? Imagine you exterminate all the Blood Wolves only to discover you could have saved them all – free of blood lust, taking their place in the great scheme of things.’

  She stroked Culhen’s fur as she spoke and meanwhile the young wolf had rolled over on his back so the elf could tickle his tummy too.

  Ahren bit his lip thoughtfully and decided to mull over the priestess’s words. He had realised from the day before that whenever she spoke it was as an elf, and elves always felt a natural affinity with all things. Ahren shared her conviction that one’s first duty was to preserve life.

  He gave her a nod in agreement, cleared his throat and pointed apologetically at his weapon.

  ‘I need to do my morning practice before the others wake up. I don’t want to be the cause of another delay’.

  The elf looked at his sword with curiosity.

  ‘That’s a Windblade, isn’t it? I haven’t seen one in such a long time. Did you know that it was originally an elf weapon?’ she said.

  Surprised, Ahren shook his head. ‘I thought Windblades came from the Eternal Kingdom’, he answered.

  ‘Well, yes, since then. But they were developed by us at the start of the Dark Days. The people of the Eternal Kingdom had a talent for handling them and developed them further, both in their form and technically. We elves decided to pull away from the horrors of close combat and so we lost the art of manufacturing them. Instead we concentrated on the art of making bows and arrows.’

  She seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, then she looked at him alertly.

  ‘Show me what you can do’, she said. ‘The foot te
chnique is practically the same as with stick fighting and maybe I can give you a few useful tips.’

  Ahren nodded, somewhat embarrassed, and pulled the weapon out of its scabbard. The first rays of sunlight raced silently through the leafy roof of the elf Forest and one of them sparkled on the curved blade of the weapon.

  Ahren floated into the state which Falk called the Void. It was a form of meditation which enabled him to blank out all forms of distraction. Even though the apprentice was now able to achieve the Void regularly when he was practising, this ability often failed him when it came to the crunch. Mostly it lasted for only a few heartbeats but, as during his confrontation with the Warden of the Weeping Valley, an enormous snake, even that short time was enough to do the necessary damage. Instead of tackling the monster head on, he had tricked it. He had shot the magic lute from the tree on which it was hanging, so that Culhen could bring it to Jelninolan while Selsena had distracted the enormous monster.

  Jelninolan was impatiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other while looking quizzically at him, so Ahren shook himself awake from his daydreaming and began to glide through the various movements.

  The elf watched him silently, without saying anything at all. When Ahren was finished, he stood breathing heavily in front of her and she merely nodded.

  ‘Very good. Now do the whole routine again. Only this time backwards.’

  The young man gasped.

  ‘Backwards?’ he asked in disbelief.

  ‘Yes. Reverse the order. The last parry first, then the penultimate attack and so on.’ She gave a smile and waited expectantly, leaning on her stick.

  Much to his horror, Ahren stumbled painfully slowly back through the movements. The transitions were clumsy, his footwork was all over the place and his thrusts were jittery. When he was finally finished, his confidence had evaporated.

  ‘You’ve never changed the order, am I right? Which means that the technique looks beautiful, but it doesn’t fulfil its task. You must learn to vary things. Then you must learn how to react. The parrying and attacking must happen when you need them, not when it’s their turn.’ Her voice was soft and free of criticism, but Ahren still felt the need to defend himself.