Chapter 16 (original edit)

Chapter XVI

Jerrod peered in anxiously at the beach on the Isle of Mists upon which his comrades were waging their life and death struggle with the pirates and their trollkin shaman. As he stared in, he could see coruscating arcs of energy discharge from two spells clashing. Squinting the young mage tried to discern just exactly what was going on on the beach as the remnant of the crew of Wavestrider tried to get her ready to sail once again.

Meanwhile, the last two pirate vessels had disengaged themselves from Wavestrider and were limping away from the Isle of Mists as fast as they could, apparently fearful that Jerrod would unleash another of the spells with which he and Berit had destroyed the other two buccaneer craft which had ill-advisedly assaulted Wavestrider, so the crew of the ilvan warship was able to work without fear of another assault. Their efforts were herculean, but so much damage had been done to the ilvan warship that it would be several minutes before she could get underway once more. Jerrod feared that that would not be soon enough as he watched the mana storm that was brewing on the beach build.

* * * * *

When the trollkin mage unleashed his spell at her and her comrades, it struck Brianna like a physical blow. She had never experienced such magical puissance before and she had barely gotten her shield up in time to prevent the deadly spell from consuming them. The ravening energies of the troll's spell still threatened their existence for they were near to overwhelming her own defensive buffer. As she struggled to fend off their impending doom, Brianna found herself wondering: how had a troll gotten so powerful and what was it doing here in the middle of the sea far away from any major land mass? It didn't really matter she supposed, and she would probably never know, she realized, because there was no possibility of her holding of the troll's magic for very long.

"At least we have some sort of surcease from the physical part of the battle," Brianna allowed to herself. "Although the way things look now, it might have been better had the pirate blades been the instruments of our demise. Then I could have used Heartbreaker to take a few more of the bastards with us." She glanced down at the enormous axe whose haft she held clutched in her blood-covered hands. "For now though, I had better concentrate on warding off the troll's magic for as long as I can. If there is one thing that Wolf has taught me over the years, it is that we make our own luck by working. Perhaps if I struggle long and hard enough, some sort of salvation will appear to save us. But, then again, perhaps not."

The strain of holding back the trolls spell was enormous. It was almost as if its magic was tinged with the direct intervention of a god. Brianna's sinews stretched taught and threatened to strain through her skin from he effort which the human shaman made. Sweat popped out and began to bead her forehead. Slowly she began to sink to her knees as if she was being forced down by some sort of enormous hand. And that was almost literally what it was. The troll's spell had enfolded Brianna's defensive spell like a man's hand cupping an egg. Pressure seemed to come almost equally from all side. More and more tightly, human cleric's defensive perimeter was being compressed.

Forced to her knees, her back slowly bending, Brianna struggled even more fiercely to resist. It was almost as if her physical struggle was some sort of a metaphor for the magical contest in which she and the troll engaged. If she could just stand up again. But the power of the troll's enchantment was forcing her inexorably downward. Her comrades were being forced down as well as Brianna's defensive screen was pushed back. She had to find something more to use to prop herself up. She was so tired though.

Looking deep inside herself, Brianna could feel that the well was dry. She had no more reserves. Soon, the troll's spell was going to crush her and her comrades. Their quest would fail. Seremoreh would fall to Iskandar and his hordes. She would never see Wolf again and he would undoubtedly be slain fighting the archlich. That would be her greatest regret, that she would never see her husband again. Never again to see his enormous, scarred hands gently tend to a bird's broken wing. Never again to hear the gentle caress of his warm, sibilant laughter. Never again to touch his oak-like thews as they enfolded her in his embrace. No! NO!!! She was not going to let that happen! She was not going to leave this life without seeing her husband one more! Fired once more by her love for Wolf, Brianna slowly straightened her back. Signs of strain now began to show themselves of the features of the troll mage. His enormous tendons began to arc and spasm. A tremendous scowl of strain furrowed his brow almost as if a plow had been drug across his broad features. Brianna continued to force her way upright.

First, she pulled her left leg in front of her so she knelt on one knee instead of two. Next, she put her left hand on her knee and began force her back upward as she struggled to straighten her back leg. Bit by bit she began to straighten it. Soon, she had her knee locked. Pushing, straining, Brianna fought to get her legs underneath her. With nearly superhuman determination, the human cleric fought back against the incredible power of the troll's spell. Finally, she was able to stand upright once more. Her spell had once again assumed its original shape. But she could force her advantage no further. The expansion of her defensive sphere dragged to a halt. Her love-driven strength had reached its limit. But she had reached an equilibrium. If she could just hold on for a little longer.....

Locked in a stalemate that stretched minute by minute for what seemed to be hours, the troll mage and the human cleric fought their silent duel. Then slowly, but relentlessly, the troll began to force Brianna down once again. The limits of her human body had been reached. As the troll's greater physical power began to tell Brianna's magical shield began to flicker as if it was about to fail. The temperature inside began to grow as the protections of the spell began to fail and energy from the troll's spell began to pry its way in.

Brianna strained to keep conscious for just a little longer. Fighting the blackness that threatened to sweep over her the shaman began to sway. Soon she was back on one knee again. Then two. Now, she could barely sit up. As the tide of insensibility rolled in over her, Brianna felt a curious lightness about her almost as if she had been given wings.

* * * * *

The remnants of the crew of ilfs finally had sails juryrigged well enough so Wavestrider could head in toward the beach. Jerrod stared in at the shore helplessly. He had barely enough energy to stand let alone intervene in the scene which was being played out on the sands of the Isle of Mists. His dismay grew as he looked in and saw Brianna being forced to her knees by the troll mage and its spell. Unlike his colleagues on the beach, Jerrod could see that the troll had some sort of magical focus or energy source which was hung around its neck. He could see the troll clutching whatever it was and feel the answering surge in the mana. Jerrod had never heard of such a thing. He had never even dreamed that it was possible. Now, his magical education received the lesson that not only was such a device possible, it existed and was being used against his friends and there appeared to be nothing that he could do about it.

Jerrod watched with horror as Wavestrider inched in toward the beach and the mass of pirates who surrounded his three friends. Brianna looked as if her back was about to break as the power of the troll's spell forced her and her companions ever closer to the ground. There must be something he could do. But what? something was nagging at the back of his mind. He just wished he had a device like that upon which the troll mage was relying.

"Perhaps....No, that would be a trifle too convenient," Jerrod muttered to himself. "But I may as well try. Nynaeve did say that their use was determined by the wearer, and our need is certainly great. I might as well try. Mayhap something good will come of it."

Jerrod reached into his pouch and pulled out the ring of adamant and platinum which the ilvan Lords of Rendor had made for him. Slipping it on, Jerrod felt a sudden surge of dizziness as if the entire mana pool around him had been briefly disrupted. Focusing his astral senses on his new ring, Jerrod tried to assense just exactly what had happened to it. It didn't appear to have done what he had hoped it might and become a focus for mana. Nor did it seem to be some sort of storage device from which he could pull mana at need. He did feel curiously well, though. It was almost as if he the energy that he had expended in the battle was being replaced. As he looked down at himself, he realized that the cuts and scratches that he had suffered as fought to prevent the fall of Wavestrider were healing and healing rapidly right before his very eyes. The ring was healing him! He stared amazedly as the worst of his wounds, a moderately deep gash on his left arm that he had inflicted upon himself as he had so inexpertly wielded Berit's sword, closed before his very eyes and disappeared without a trace.

The newly found bounce in his step made Jerrod even more anxious to get to the beach, but Wavestrider was still too distant for him to do anything which would affect those on the beach. He could try a summoning, but that would take too long. If they could just get a few dozen strides closer, perhaps he could cast a fireball. It didn't look like Brianna could last that long though. Her faced was nearly pressed to the sand by the tremendous pressure of the spell against which she struggled. Abruptly, the human cleric began to rise as if she had found some source of inner strength. Inch by inch, she straightened her body and drove herself to stand. Jerrod watched with growing delight as his friend forced herself to one knee and finally surged all the way upright. Her new found strength took her no further, though, and she and the troll were once again locked in a stalemate.

Just a few more strides toward the island and he could hit the beach with a fireball. Suddenly, there was a loud crack as the juryrigging of the sail that was propelling them toward shore ripped free with a loud crack. Wavestrider's forward progress ground to halt. Jerrod looked back frantically at Frothbreaker and screamed. "I need to get closer! How long before you can repair the damage?"

Frothbreaker looked around at his ship and sighed, "Perhaps never, but we should be able to rig something that can get us moving again in about fifteen minutes."

"I warrant that we do not have that much time. I misdoubt but that Brianna will fall ere fifteen minutes is up," the young mage called back. "Is there nothing you can do that will speed the mending?"

The ilvan captain merely shook his head as continued to shout instructions to direct his crew in their efforts.

"Then lower me over the side in one of the boats. I have to get closer quickly," Jerrod bellowed.

Nodding, Frothbreaker bid two of his more hale crew members to do as Jerrod had requested. Soon a boat was in the water with Jerrod anxiously peering in toward the battle on the beach as the two ilfs struggled to row the dory into shore. Slowly, they pushed themselves through the outgoing tide and crawled toward the still too distant shore.

Finally, the boat had come within the range from which Jerrod could cast his spell. Standing in the prow of the boat as it continue toward the shore Jerrod began his incantation. Focusing his will he began to call the mana, when a wave unexpectedly slammed into to the side of the dory and nearly pitched him into the sea. His concentration broken, Jerrod had to regroup and begin to gather together once more the broken shards of his concentration as he looked in toward the beach to see what was happening there. Things had gone from bad to worse. Brianna was once more sinking toward the sand. This time she was crumpling far faster than she had before, and as Jerrod watched her accelerating collapse he knew that his time had run out if he was to save his comrades.

Flinging caution to the wind, Jerrod straightened and made a quick, arcane motion with his hand despite the lurching of platform upon which he stood. Desperately, the mage raced through his incantation and having gathered the mana and shaped it to his will he hurled a tremendous fireball toward the sandy beach.

Streaking toward the unsuspecting pirates like a falling star hurtling through the heavens, the ball of flame sped toward its target. It arrived and struck the troll mage at the very instant that Brianna fell senseless to the sand. A white-hot flash of incandescence flared into existence where the troll had stood only moments before. Concentrating all its energy and power on its battle with the human shaman, the troll had not realized that a magical assault was coming toward it from another direction. It had no shields, no defenses of any sort prepared. When the fireball struck the troll it was killed instantly as it was turned into a living torch. The pirates around it also burst into flames. The three heroes were less affected, having been protected to some extent by the last fragments of Brianna's defensive shield, but even Urki and Derazha were knocked into oblivion as the shock wave from the tremendous blast struck them. The two survivors of the battle of the beach at the Isle of Mists fell to earth as if poleaxed.

The screams of the maimed and dying pirates rose piercingly from the shore and Jerrod knew that he had done all that he could. He feared the worst though. Had Brianna fallen ere his spell arrived or had she lasted just long enough? Had he slain his friends as well as his foes? Only time and the trip into shore would tell. He waited anxiously as the ilfs forced the launch through the waves toward the shore.

They arrived to a scene of incredible carnage. Scores of burnt or dismembered bodies littered the beach. It was eerily silent on the strand of the Isle Mists. The screaming of the injured had stopped completely only minutes before as the last of the victims of Jerrod's fireball had succumbed to the scythe of Thanatos while the mage and his two escorts plied the waves toward the beach. The battle had apparently driven off the local wildlife as well for even the jungle was silent. That made it easy for Jerrod to notice when his comrades began to stir.

Urki was the first of the insensate adventurers ashore to revive. As the prow of the boat finally struck the sand of the beach, Urki groaned and rose tentatively to a sitting position. The warrior looked around at the corpses all around without comprehension, apparently still dazed from the concussion from Jerrod's exploding ball of flame. He shook his head as if he couldn't quite fathom where the noise was coming from as Jerrod called out to him after seeing him stir. Looking around frenziedly as if fearing another assault, Urki finally caught sight of Jerrod and his two ilvan sidekicks in the boat that had just grounded. The sight of Jerrod seemed to sweep the cobwebs from the young warrior's mind and a broad grin made an appearance on the face of the warrior twin.

"You won? Jerrod, you won! Thank the gods and all patrons of fools and idiots, we all survived," Urki crowed. "It looks as if we owe you our lives, or," looking around and seeing the prone and singed bodies of Derazha and Brianna, Urki briefly looked somber amended himself, "at least I do. You've come a long way since when we met. You have my gratitude."

It was at that moment that Derazha began to stir. Snarling a battle cry, the half troll sat suddenly upright with her claws bared and looked wildly about for enemies. Seeing that there was not even a single foe still alive on the beach, the half-ilf relaxed and grasped her aching head with both hands, as she looked over at Jerrod and, grinning her fearsome grin, said, "It was about time! I thought you would never get here, mage! Next time try to make it ere we fall."

The huge half-breed looked over to where Brianna remained motionless. "Is she alright? Has anyone checked on her? Without her efforts we surely would have fallen, and I, for one, do not look forward to telling Wolf that his wife was slain while we sat around and watched helplessly."

Derazha delicately prodded the shaman with her index finger. There was no response. Gently, she took the unconscious human's hand in hers and felt for the thread of a pulse. Moments stretched to minutes before Derazha looked up from the comatose cleric and said, "She's alive, but barely. At first I couldn't detect a pulse, but it's there, faint and irregular, but there none the less. I have no skill at healing. Can either of you do anything for her? What about you, Jerrod, can your magecraft be of any assistance here?"

Jerrod shook his head glumly, "I know nothing of healing. The magic I have learned is not suited to such pursuits. About all I can manage is to keep her warm and perhaps a little more comfortable."

Urki frowned and said, "I can perform battlefield first aid, but that is all. After I bind her wounds, I will be lost as to how to proceed. If we get her back to Wavestrider, perhaps Berit can do something. At least she is still alive and so are the rest of us. Or are we? How bad are the casualties aboard Wavestrider. It looks as if it was struck by a hurricane. Berit is hurt, is she not? Otherwise, I deem that she would have accompanied you, wouldn't she, Jerrod"

The mage nodded and replied. "It is bad aboard Wavestrider, but not so bad as it might be. Both Berit and Frothbreaker survive and will continue to do so, although Berit is unconscious and Frothbreaker lightly wounded. Things went very well indeed or I fear we all would have been lost."

Jerrod and Urki did what they could for Brianna, and then the young warrior called to the two ilvan sailors who were gawping at the extraordinary number of dead who littered the beach. "Come over here, please. We have a task for you to perform."

As Urki was explaining to the ilfs that he wanted them to take the comatose Brianna back to the ship and then return to shore with a burial party for both the ilfs and the pirates, Jerrod went over and looked at their fallen enemies. The pirates were nothing unusual as far as Jerrod could discern. They looked for the most part like what he expected. Perhaps they were in better health than he might have envisioned them to be, and perhaps they were better provisioned as well, but on the whole they were not particularly special. The remnants of the trollkin mage on the other hand, were.

Jerrod had never before seen the results of a spell which he had cast which had slain so many people before. Technically, he supposed, all of the pirates whom he had chopped down aboard Wavestrider were the victims of his magic, but it seemed somehow different to see a beach littered with burnt and disfigured corpses from a spell of mass destruction which he had cast. The mage felt somehow soiled by the deaths of so many -- even if they were foes. It seemed wrong somehow to kill beings who weren't trying to slay him and who never even knew that their existence was threatened. Jerrod knew that his qualms didn't really make all that much sense since the victims of his fireball had been trying to slay his friends, just as the pirates aboard the ship he had burnt had been trying to slay him and sink Wavestrider, but knowing that his feelings were irrational didn't make them go away. These men might have had families. Somehow, it didn't seem likely that many would given their choice of lifestyles, but they certainly had friends and people who cared for and about them and who would be bereft without them. Those people were his victims just as much as these and perhaps some of them were even innocents. Still, these men had chosen the lives that led them to their deaths, so ultimately, Jerrod realized, their deaths were their responsibility.

Not completely satisfied with his rationalization, Jerrod sighed and looked around for the remnants of the troll while he struggled with his feelings of guilt. Strangely, the troll seemed to have disappeared. Jerrod knew that he was looking in the right spot, because the troll had been no more than fifteen feet directly seaward from Brianna as the struggle that they had waged had unfolded. All traces of the enemy's wizard seemed to have disappeared though. The pirates who had stood around the trollkin spellcaster were all there as far as Jerrod could tell. They were charred so badly that Jerrod was sure that not even the mothers would know them, but they were there. The troll seemed to have disappeared without a trace. No body, no body parts, not even a bone or a tooth remained. Jerrod had never heard of such a thing before. Fireballs killed and killed horribly, in some cases they even incinerated the flesh of their target, but they didn't destroy bodies completely. It puzzled Jerrod.

As he sifted with his toe through the sand where the troll mage had stood, Jerrod's buskin unearthed something that shone dully. It appeared to be a fine chain of some sort, almost like that from which a pendant would normally dangle. Looking at his find more carefully, Jerrod realized that that was in fact exactly what he had found: the chain for a pendant. The chain had suffered from his magic though. Golden, like the chains of the pendants which had adorned the other two slain trolls that Jerrod had examined, this chain lacked the crystal that had been the showpiece of those.

No, that was wrong, Jerrod saw as he looked even more closely. There was a crystal, or least the remnants of one. It was bent and twisted and it was no more than a jagged stump compared to the others that he had seen. Its setting seemed to have born the brunt of the heat from Jerrod's spell. That was strange for the fireball had struck the trollkin shaman from behind, so it should have been the chain that melted, not the setting. Even without taking into account that gold was far more vulnerable to heat than most crystals, it was still hard for the young mage to fathom. Even more curiously, the crystal and its setting must have been in front and should have been shielded by the troll's body. Inexplicable.

"It doesn't really matter I suppose," Jerrod thought to himself. "The troll is dead and we don't have to worry about it any more. Now, we need to find the Sword which caused the deaths of all of these beings."

Stepping back over to where Derazha stood, Jerrod smiled tentatively at his colleague and said, "Do you think Urki will want to seek the Sword now or do you think he will wish to wait until Brianna, or at least Berit, is ready to go with us?"

"Why don't we let him answer that question? Here he comes," the half-ilf replied pointing toward the waterline where Urki had finished his instructions and helped the sailors push the dory with the still, almost lifeless body of Brianna out into the sea in preparation for their trip back to Wavestrider. Urki had turned around and was now striding back toward Derazha and Jerrod with his head bowed in thought.

When Urki arrived at where the other two adventurers were standing, the young warrior shook his head and looked up. "It seems that our task now devolves on the three of us. Brianna is unconscious and may not live out the day, so she certainly can not help us any more in the acquisition of the Sword. Waiting for Berit might prove feasible, but Jerrod here says that she is unconscious as well, and, while she will recover if Jerrod's diagnosis is correct, we have no idea when. We could wait for her, but there are still two pirate ships out there that escaped from us, and who knows but that they may have more friends waiting nearby. The sooner we get the Sword and get out of here, the sooner we will be free of worries about an ambush from them, so I think we should seek the Sword ourselves."

"Jerrod," Urki continued, "Brianna said that she could sense magic somewhere off in the jungle when we arrived, but that it was shielded. She didn't have time to tell me any more...if there was any more that she had discerned. Can you detect the magical source that she mentioned and, if so, can you give me some sort of direction to go to get to it? Or perhaps, tell me something more about what the source of the magical presence is?"

Jerrod nodded and began to concentrate. Focussing his spirit, he sent his astral self off in search of the magical resonance that Brianna had detected. Soaring over the jungle through mist which enshrouded the island, Jerrod's ethereal presence sped deeper into the rain forest. It wasn't long before a faint trace of magic manifested itself to him. It seemed to be coming from a cave or a tunnel of sort. The dark maw of the underground passage marred an otherwise verdant hummock in the midst of a boggy marsh near the center of the island. For some reason, Jerrod's astral vision could not penetrate the surface of the knoll despite his most fervid efforts. It was almost as if the place was intentionally shielded from prying eyes. One thing that he could tell though, was how to get to the site of the disruption in the mana field. It was quite simple really, all he and his companions had to do was follow the path that led away from the beach.

Returning his awareness to his body, Jerrod informed his comrades of his discoveries. Urki nodded and said, "I thought as much. Well, one can always hope. Alright, let's go investigate this mound you found, Jerrod. I hope after all this," the warrior swept his arm to take in the corpse-covered beach and the semi-derelict husk of Wavestrider where the crew continued to struggle with repairs, "that our trip was not in vain."

As the trio trudged through the jungle, the trail sloped gently upward and quickly led them into the hanging mists which gave the island its name. As their field of vision decreased, the silence that had marked the aftermath of the battle on the beach lifted. One by one, the eerie noises of the rain forest began to resume. Jerrod had never been in such a climate before and some of the strange wails and groans which rent the murk disturbed him. What sorts of beasts made such unearthly sounds? Were they signals of some sort from one guardian of the Sword to another and were he and his friends walking into an ambush? Or were they merely the novel sounds of as yet unknown, but harmless denizens of the forest?"

Shuddering, Jerrod decided that he had better trust Urki, although recalling just what Urki and his sister had stumbled upon in the warrior's tale about the Spider queen did little to calm Jerrod's uneasiness. He had no better choice as to a course of action, and it seemed safer to stay with the two warriors than to run back to the beach alone.

The trip through the jungle and the subsequent marsh was shrouded in mist and filled with strange and unearthly sounds. Despite the fact that no foe appeared out of the mist, the members of the trio of heroes were kept on their guard by the incessant rustlings in the bushes just out of their sight. Caterwauls and shrieks rent the foggy evening air with blood-chilling effect. Still nothing happened. To Jerrod's mind, it was almost as if the rain forest was calling out a warning to the three remaining adventurers, a warning that they were headed into danger so dreadful that the fierce predators of the jungle were harmless in comparison.

Night began to fall and the pale light that penetrated the mists of the island began to dim despite the newly risen full moon. Jerrod quickly focussed his will and with a gesture conjured a ball of faerie light to illuminate the path for the mage and his companions. Soon they arrived at the opening which Jerrod had espied with his astral vision. Strangely, as they entered the immediate vicinity of the grotto, the jungle grew quiet almost as if it were holding its breath. No creature stirred. Not even the rustling of rat disturbed the silence of the murky night.

Jerrod cleared his throat, "Uhhhmm, are you certain you don't think it would be more prudent to wait until morning, Urki? It seems rather foolhardy to me to enter what looks like a burial mound in the middle of the night on an enchanted island. I'm sure if you consider the situation again for a moment, you will see that I'm right."

"Foolhardy or no, we go in now," Urki growled irritated by Jerrod's return to the pomposity of the days when the two of them had first met. "Jerrod, trust me when I say that sometimes we warriors actually do know what we are about. I know it may not seem like that is true to one with so much learned erudition and vast experience at his command as yourself, but trust me, if we wait we will be in far more certain danger than we are if we enter the cave at his moment. If you can not find the courage to follow Derazha and myself, then I will drag you with us for we need the light which your spell sheds. So come along."

Stung by Urki's rebuke, Jerrod flushed with anger and embarrassment. It was a sign of how much Jerrod had matured from that time of a few hands of five-days ago, that Jerrod held both his tongue and his spells in check. Instead, the young mage merely looked levelly at Urki for a moment and then nodded.

For his part, Urki realized that he may have overreacted a trifle, and gave Jerrod a gentle slap on the shoulder as he said, "Good! Glad to have you with us. I wouldn't want to face what lies ahead without you. Let's go." The warrior drew his falchion and strode forward toward whatever awaited them inside.