Erick's Journey - Part Seven

Erick stared into the fire, but he neither saw nor heard the rumbling conversations of the dwarfs who sat nearby. His wounded right hand was held against his chest, and his other hand was closed over his wrist.

The poultice that Ilaria had prepared and applied to his wound had taken away the pain, and Erick’s distant stare was the result of deep thoughts more than shock.

If the fight had gone different in any other way...

The cub could have scratched Erick in the landing, but he hadn’t. He could have bitten Erick before the collar was on, and then, Erick would have become an outcast who was not welcome in any society anywhere.

Erick wondered if he would have been killed, and he wanted to ask Darryl. But for the time being, Darryl was hiding to avoid upsetting Erick again.

He looked up only when Ilaria stepped between him and the fire. She reached out to take his hand and unwrap the strip of cloth. Using a water skin, she rinsed away the poultice, and then Erick winced as he looked at the savage, ugly wound.

Ilaria spoke softly, still sounding as if she was in shock herself. “I’m going to show you a spell. It’s very easy to learn, but you will need to master it on your own.”

Erick nodded, and he watched Ilaria pull the black cloth into two sections. She passed one section to him, and then she tore the other half into two smaller pieces again.

Ilaria said, “Dimitri showed you how to cast a shadow and give it form. You will need that spell to fill out your prosthetic finger, but in order to make it look real, I must show you how to cast an illusion that cannot be dispelled by daylight.”

The spell was simple, and within minutes, Erick was able to fashion the strip of fabric into a realistic looking finger. The next part of the spell required summoning a shadow form while he applied the prosthetic onto the wound, while the third was a variation on the first. The illusion he cast closed the seams around the false digit, and then it was impossible to visually tell the difference between the prosthetic and his real fingers.

But Erick could tell because he couldn’t feel his finger. When he closed his hand into a fist, the illusion was convincing enough to make fabric feel like skin against his thumb and middle finger. But it could not summon a false nervous system.

Ilaria patted his shoulder as she started to get up. “Practice using a weapon with it for a little while tonight. You need to make sure that you keep those spells running  as second nature.”

“Ilaria.” Erick spoke in a timid voice. “If...if I didn’t get the collar on in time—?”

She cut him off, rubbing his shoulder as she said, “Try not to think about it.”

“But if I didn’t, would you still be showing me how to make a fake finger?” She wouldn’t look at him or answer, and he frowned. “Is this all it requires to be unfit for our world? If I threaten your illusion of balance, then I’m no good to anyone?”

“Erick—”

“Would you kill me, just for this?” Erick asked. But he didn’t expect an answer, and even if she could have given him one, he didn’t want to hear it.

***

Erick decided to leave the palomino with the dwarfs. He couldn’t protect the animal, and he didn’t want to use his horse as bait. Then again, it wasn’t really his horse. Because he recognized that fact, he’d never bothered to give the animal a name.

He couldn’t travel with the party to look for the werekin, or for the orc. Instead, he would have to locate the orc himself. Erick would have to send the chief’s cursed son somewhere far away to keep him safe, both from his own people, and from the elves.

Erick was traveling at night, without a torch to light his way. His eyes were suited to seeing in the pitch black of caves, though his night-vision rendered the world with a sharply contrasted black-and-white palette.

When Dimitri came out from behind a tree in front of Erick, his head was bright white, and almost seemed to glow. The rest of his body was hard to see. Erick could barely make out the shadowy outline even with his enhanced vision.

Dimitri folded his arms and smirked at Erick. “Where are you going?”

“I’m looking for the orc,” Erick said. He didn’t stop, but he altered his path to avoid walking into Dimitri.

The wyrm nodded, turning and walking with Erick. Dimitri matched his stride step for step. “You do not plan to kill him,” Dimitri said.

“No,” Erick said.

Dimitri frowned with sincere frustration on his ancient face. “You’re putting me in an awkward position, Erick. You asked me to complete the king’s mission, and what you’re planning runs counter to our goals.”

“I refuse to complete my mission,” Erick said firmly.

Dimitri’s hand closed over his shoulder to stop him and force him to turn. Leaning over, Dimitri shook his head. “You really don’t understand anything, do you?” He waved out toward the forest in a sweeping gesture. “Without the balance set up by the elves, this world would not be the way it is now.”

“So why is that a problem?” Erick asked. “Orcs kill elves all the time, Dimitri. We don’t kill them for it. We just move them around. We do it with everything. We juggle the chaotic races and force them to stay in their places. But they kill us anyway, and we let them do it.”

“Yes, that’s true, but this orc is different.”

“Why?” Erick challenged. “Because now he’s cursed? I don’t believe it. We can collar him and he won’t be a threat.”

“Won’t be a—now look here, whelp.” Dimitri glared at Erick with a scowl of irritation. “You have just admitted that a normal orc is perfectly capable of killing an elf. So what do you think a werekin-cursed orc will be able to do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Erick said.

“Yes, it does,” Dimitri insisted. “The orc is a danger to the balance, and it has to be destroyed.”

From a distance, they both heard the growling voice of Luther. “He’s right, Erick.”

Dimitri and Erick turned to watch the half-orc approach, and he uttered a long, loud sigh when Erick’s frown became stiff and defiant. “I want to agree with you, but you cannot make this go away just by collaring the orc.”

“Why not?” Erick asked. “If I collar him, I can take him to the wild territories, or to the frozen north.”

Luther shook his head. “It isn’t that easy, Erick. If the other orcs find out that he wasn’t killed, they will go looking for him. Their cause is fitting in the eyes of the elves, so the elves will let the orcs migrate to follow him.”

“If you send him to the frozen north, he will most assuredly be killed by a wyrm, or by one of our children,” Dimitri said. “If you send him into the wild territories alone, he wouldn’t last for more than a few weeks before one of the dire animals got a hold of him.”

Taking one knee, Dimitri laid his hand on Erick’s shoulder. “There is nowhere to take him, Erick.”

“We could take him to Earth,” Erick said.

Dimitri cackled quietly, shaking his head. “The humans would kill him within days of his arrival. You know it is true, and you know that no place is truly safe for him.” His smile softened as he patted the elf’s shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I agree with you too. But if I don’t kill this orc, then I could end up going back in another tree.”

Erick glowered at him. “You won’t fight with them if they do?”

Dimitri shrugged. “The alternative is death.”

Luther said, “Erick, it has to be this way. There is a balance that has to be respected.”

“Of course you can say so,” Erick remarked bitterly. “The balance says that you’re allowed to live, so you’re okay with looking away when one of your own kin is cut down.”

Then Dimitri started to scowl again. “Stop that. You know the orcs aren’t really his people. They would have killed him, if he had been born in their society.”

“Oh, and we live on the whims of the orcs now?” Erick pulled Dimitri’s hand off his shoulder, stepping back from both the wyrm and the half-orc. “If you want to complete your mission, then run along and tag the werekin strays before they bite anyone else. But leave me out of this.”

Luther started to say, “You can’t just walk away from—”

Erick dropped into a shadow portal and sped away without hearing the rest.

***

Luther clenched his fists, swearing in Celtic dwarf for two full breaths before he glared at Dimitri. “What is your game here?”

Dimitri affected a wounded expression, though he was only mildly annoyed by the accusation. “I beg your pardon?”

“You know what I’m talking about. What did you put in his head?”

Dimitri barked a sharp laugh. “Are you so desperate to lay blame somewhere? You know very well that he was running away from the elves before he was ordered to go on this mission. He accepted it without understanding what was fully required of him. So please, tell me how this is my fault, when I’m just following orders?”

Luther didn’t have an answer, and after a few seconds of silence, Dimitri flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture. “Go and get the dwarfs ready for a fight.”

“Why should I take orders from you?” Luther asked.

“Because part of me is still following Erick’s portal,” Dimitri said calmly. “If you hurry, we will be able to kill the orc as soon as Erick finds it.”

***

Erick heard the fight before he found it, but from the voices, he could guess who the combatants were. One of the werekin cubs had found the cursed orc, and even though they shared the same druid curse, the human werekin cub was too feral to recognize the orc as a potential ally.

The orc wasn’t. He recognized the boy as kin, but once the child attacked him, the orc began to react in anger.

Erick came in on the fight early, and in spite of the cub’s tiny size, he was hooked into the back of the grey orc. The boy’s clawed fingers were buried in the flesh of the orc, and he swung his body back and forth to dodge the orc’s attempt to grab him.

His plan seemed to be to wear the orc down before he went in for a killing blow, and Erick worried that he might be able to succeed. But neither Erick nor the cub expected the orc to fly into such a rage that he triggered a transformation. His skin began to darken in color, and then his flesh boiled as the magic began to change the muscles underneath.

His limbs distorted, growing longer and thicker, and black fur began sprouting from his skin.

Within minutes, the cub was riding the back of a giant black bear. He seemed mindless of the change, and he was still trying to hold on when the bear stood up, walked to a tree, and turned around. Then it fell back and crushed the child, who yelped once.

The bear spun and picked up the twitching cub by both legs, drawing back to slam the boy into the tree. The werekin child exploded, leaving only his legs intact. The entire attack took less than three seconds before it was over.

Horrified, Erick slipped out of the shadow portal, and then he moved the portal under the bear. The bear dropped into the shadow, but a moment later, Erick was stunned when he felt the bear thrashing toward the entrance to escape the magical trap.

Erick’s tiny mouth tightened into a thin line of concentration, and he fought to pull the bear deeper into the shadows.

“You can’t contain him like that,” Dimitri said.

Erick didn’t turn around. He gritted his teeth and forced the bear away from the portal entrance by another meter. “I can handle him. I’ll wear him down, and then I’ll take him somewhere. I’ll stay with him, to keep him safe.”

Dimitri’s laugh was cold and infuriating. “You will let the orc kill everything it likes, but you will not let it die. Do you not see how hypocritical that is?”

“I won’t let him kill higher beings. He must eat, and I understand that. But he didn’t need to kill that child.”

Dimitri stepped closer, trying to sound sympathetic. “Erick, it isn’t your fault that this happened.”

“Yes it is,” Erick said. “I told the orcs to burn the forest. I caused them to kill the werekin living in the woods. I’ve started this feud, and now, you’d have me watch you murder a sentient creature, because it has no place in your world.”

In the distance, Erick heard hoof-beats, and his frown became a deep scowl. “You brought the others here?”

Dimitri nodded. “I have to, Erick. I’m sorry. I wish you could understand that there isn’t a choice—”

Erick cut him off, shouting, “There’s always a choice!” He dropped his hand into the pouch on his belt to pull out a collar.

Dimitri reached out to grab the chain, stopping Erick from walking away. The powerful druid magics in the collar burned Dimitri’s shadow-formed body, but he ignored the pain and held on.

Speaking in a calm voice, he said, “Putting a collar on him won’t change anything. You cannot keep this animal alive.”

“He isn’t an animal!” Erick yanked back on the chain hard.

Dimitri still tried to hold onto the chain, and in the short struggle, a link on the side of the collar broke open. The gap that formed was not large enough for the link to fall off, nor was it big enough to catch the attention of Erick or Dimitri.

But at last the effort of holding onto the blessed metal was too much for Dimitri, and the wyrm let the offending collar go.

Erick walked over the portal just as the hunting party arrived. He cast a dome of shadow over the portal, and then he let the bear start to rise to the surface.

When the bear’s thrashing head was high enough out of the portal, Erick held him in place to prevent him from struggling.

He was starting to feel fatigued keeping the bear contained, and he realized that it would be him who was worn down if he tried to hold the werekin for much longer.

Erick tried to summon a shadow in the shape of a muzzle. But the bear pried his mouth open, breaking three muzzles in a row with ease.

Erick summoned a globe of shadow to surround the bear’s head, and then he looped the collar over the top of the black sphere. The metal settled around the bear’s neck, and Erick allowed the dome to become translucent.

He was hardly surprised when an arrow bounced off the shield, but he turned to frown at Darryl. “I never thought of you as bloodthirsty, Darryl.”

The royal guard shook his head as he approached the shield. “I’m not, and I’ve got no taste for this work. Erick, you keep asking why this has to happen. It’s very simple. You’re meant to see how your actions created this situation. Your punishment is to watch and learn how everything you do has an effect in our world. If you still cannot appreciate that, I’m sorry.”

Darryl’s gaze moved to the bear. “He’s wearing you down, and when he escapes, you’ll have to drop this shield. We’ll do our jobs, and then we’ll move on.”

Erick growled in anger, but Darryl was right. It was his punishment, and he was resisting it. Erick could not keep up the fight to contain the orc, and no matter where he ran, Dimitri would track him.

Erick thought desperately through the spells that Dimitri had taught him. Surely, one of them had to allow him away to escape. But he considered one spell after another before realizing that he had nothing.

No! he thought as his mind returned to Dimitri’s memories of opening a portal to Earth.

He smiled at Dimitri and said, “Tell Finrod that I will not leave my portals open.”

Luther started to ask, “What is he—?”

Erick released the bear, at the same time opening a portal to Earth. A ring of brilliant white light tore open the air, slicing through the planes of existence to connect Lissand to Earth.

Everyone was blinded by the flash, and when they could see again, both Erick and the bear were gone.

***

Luther watched Dimitri with open suspicion during the trip back to the camp. The wyrm fell back to walk beside Luther’s black horse, his white face filled with annoyance. “Why must you keep blaming me for this mess, Luther?”

“You taught him that spell, didn’t you?” Luther asked.

Dimitri rolled his eyes, though it was impossible for anyone to notice. “If you say so. I showed Erick that memory because he asked why I’d been kept prisoner in a tree.  I’m sure you think I’m lying, or that I’ve somehow lied to Erick, but I haven’t. I’ve been honest with him to a fault.”

Darryl nudged his horse to move up alongside Luther. He cleared his throat to get the half-orc’s attention. “Dimitri is telling the truth, Luther, so please, let this go. We still have to collar the rest of the strays, and we can do that faster if Dimitri is working with us.”

“I will.” Dimitri smiled at Darryl. “Even if Erick has chosen to abandon the mission, I will see it through to the best of my abilities. Then I will return to Stout Hart and ensure that my debt to the elves is paid in full.”

“What then, Dimitri?” Luther asked.

“I’m not quite sure.” Dimitri shrugged indifferently. “I won’t worry about it until after I know that Finrod is finished with me.”

“Why don’t you go looking for Erick yourself?” Luther asked.

“Because he probably won’t want to listen to me. Not yet, anyway. But maybe, after the humans kill the orc, he might be ready to admit that he was wrong. We’ll see what happens.”