Snooping About

The rest of the night, I could not sleep. A conflicting storm of emotions bubbled up inside me as I tossed and turned in bed. What exactly did I just sign up for? Part of me was actually excited…? Was that actually right? I was not sure of that. Nothing felt right and yet everything felt right at the same time. It felt good to snap at those prissy royals.

“They deserved it”, I told myself.

However… The way they reacted afterward was what made it feel so wrong. I snapped at them. I said they should be blamed, executed even, for what the demons had done. And they said nothing. They couldn’t even admit to their faults. Watcher's Eye, why did it have to be like this?

I tossed and turned for a while more. What was I to do in this situation?

I went out for a walk through the halls of Freehold. For some reason that I was not sure of, I felt the need to explore. Every time a hallway branched off from another, I picked a route to go arbitrarily. Sometimes, I chose left, while other times, I went to the right.

After a while, something started telling me which direction to go. I saw no reason to not listen. After all, the whole thing was just a little bit of curious exploration. Left, right, right, straight, up, left, left, up, right, right, up. I had no clue what awaited me at the end of my journey.

After what felt like forever, I entered a large room with walls adorned floor to ceiling with shelves full of scrolls. I had stumbled upon a library, the largest I had seen in many years. Hilami’s personal library had a few dozen scrolls; this one easily contained thousands. The shelves were even labeled, in the Ogre tongue, of course, indicating which books went where.

At the center of the library lay a most peculiar table. I noticed it had very jagged and seemingly random corners. Some were made of oak, others of glass. Upon taking a closer look, I saw water lapping against the glass parts of the table. How interesting. Looking over the top of the table revealed the true nature of the table. It was a map of the whole known world, from Land's End in the far west to the impassable Mountains of the Moon in the far east.

“Shouldn't you be sleeping?” a familiar voice asked me.

I looked across the table to find Ipas, her face practically buried in a scroll. Her ears twitched at every slight sound made inside the room. But she gave no effort to see what made the noises. Whatever she was reading was just that important.

“Been having trouble sleeping,” I told her. “Thought I'd take a look around while everyone was asleep.”

“Almost everyone,” she corrected me.

She still had not removed herself from that scroll. In the Ogre tongue, the title of the scroll was The Prophecies of King Dabit Lev.

“Never took you as one for prophecies,” I told her as I tried to take a peek at the scroll's contents.

“You've only known me for a month,” was her immediate response, still not taking her eyes off the scroll. “But no, I'm not usually one for prophecies. I find them to be quite silly. But as a scholarly pursuit, they can reveal a lot about the time they were written as opposed to the time people claim them to be about. Listen to this one.”

An eye that sees what is,

An eye that glances at what was,

An eye that peers inward,

An eye that stares outward,

And an eye that spots what shall come.

Should their visions all be fulfilled,

The wicked blight shall be undone.

But the blood of four shall be spilled;

The one who lives rules over all.

“Scary,” I commented. “Also, I had no idea you could read the Ogre tongue.”

“I don't need to,” she replied. She still had not bothered to even look at me, let alone move the scroll to read the next part. “My seer magic allows me to view the words in my language.”

“That's quite nifty. So what's so special about that one? I think you've read that one over four times by now.”

“This is such a strange one,” Ipas explained. “It was written by a king named Dabit Lev. But he ruled over a hundred years ago, and his reign was very prosperous for the ogres. The history books say he went mad towards the end of his reign, suffering from constant visions of things he feared were going to happen in the future. So he wrote this scroll as a supposed warning.”

“I've heard holding onto political power can make someone lose their senses,” I told her. “Makes people see enemies everywhere.”

“Most of the prophecies are like:”

The grain stores will be full for the next ten years.

My successor shall carry on my tax policies, and peace and security will govern the realm.

“And so on and so on,” Ipas continued her explanation. “This one, though… It's written in a more poetic language, elaborate, deliberate. It's fascinating.”

“Wait a minute…” I interrupted her. Something felt amiss about the table. It was an abrupt feeling. Someone had tampered with the map-table, but I could not figure out how. To my eyes, everything looked normal. All the cities and all of the borders, as well as they were laid out, looked just fine. But something felt wrong. “Ipas, can you use some of that gift of sight on this table?”

“Are you sure?”

“Something feels very wrong about this table,” I answered.

“Very well.”

She moved to arrange her seer stones in her special pattern, but stopped herself halfway through.

“Is everything alright?” I asked her.

“I sense it, too,” Ipas answered. “Right where your kingdom used to be, Halliyah.” She pointed at the plateau where the Kingdom of Neshi once ruled. “Someone's drawn on the map with an aura.”

“Aura?” I asked.

“Think of it as like a secret ink,” she explained. “We weren't meant to see it, but it appears whatever they used to hide their tracks is fading away. I still can't see the lines, but I can feel them. Your nation has been divided into three pieces.”

Three pieces… The three nearest nations to where my kingdom used to be were the Ogre Kingdom, the Elven Nation, and the Islands Beyond the Shore. Had I been played for a fool? Were they merely going to use me as a pawn in their schemes to expand their domains?

“What are you two doing here?” asked a weary elven voice.

The two of us turned to see King Edagri standing in the library's doorway. He had hastily thrown his royal robes together and ran over here. We must have caused too much noise for him. Or perhaps we had seen something we were not supposed to see.

“You…” I said, pointing directly at the elf. “What is the meaning of this? And what are you planning with the other nations?”

“What?!” Edagri attempted to feign ignorance. “What are you talking about, Zikatta?”

“The map,” I answered. “Ipas has told me that my nation is being split up. To the victors go the spoils?”

“I… I assure you,” Edagri whimpered. “This isn't what it looks like.”

“I am well aware you said there is no Kingdom of Neshi anymore,” I replied. “But that does not give you, the Demon Lord Ayya, or anyone else the right to claim that land for yourselves.” I started to unsheath the remains of my sword, but hesitated to go all the way. I wanted to consider this elf an ally, a friend even. But I was not about to be betrayed by the likes of him. Not now, and most certainly not ever. “You did not labor in the fields or toil day and night in the mines. What do you or the ogres or the Islanders know about our way of life? What about our languages? Our customs? Our cuisine?”

“Please,” Edagri begged. “Let's be rational people about this. Don't make any rash decisions here.”

“You're absolutely right,” I told him, putting the broken sword back where it belonged. “But let's be clear. If I'm going to help you defeat the Demon Lord, I'm not going to just be a pawn in your game of harata. I want to rebuild what has been lost to me.

“You're awfully feisty tonight,” Ipas commented.

“I promise you, Halliyah,” the Elf King wavered in his speech. “Someone might be trying to set us against each other, but it is not me. I promise we will try to make the world what it was before the Endless Summer. We will bring your nation back.”

“Do you swear it?” I asked the Elf King.

“By all the gods, I swear it,” he answered. “The elves will recognize and respect the independence of the Kingdom of Neshi. No conditions. Just a promise bound by the laws of the realm. If somehow I fail in this quest, allow me to face the wrath of gods and men.”

I wanted to believe him. Truly, I did. He surely recited those ancient words like a true king. But I had to remain firm. Shaking my head, I answered, “No good. If you swear by all the gods, how do you know whether they heard you or not? Do they send you messages by pigeon? Do you claim to receive holy visions?”

“You have it on my honor as an elf,” Edagri replied quickly in an attempt to recover control of the situation. “We will restore the Kingdom of Neshi, together.”

I shook my head once more. “No good. Give an elf enough rum, and you'll see just how honorable they really are.”

“I swear on the soul of my father, Domzidi the Shepherd, the First of His Name, King of the Elves in Niwalos,” Edagri at last replied, “we will recognize and respect Neshi as an independent nation.”

His oath stunned me. It was easy to swear by all the gods, to even swear by gods people only worshipped in the distant past. It was easy to swear by one's honor, though not many could actually hold to that. To swear by one's ancestors… This elf was truly serious about his word. I had to respect that.

“As a seer, I swore an oath to serve people, not kings,” Ipas told us. “But perhaps I can try to talk Queen Rini out of this little scheme.”

“Well then, it looks like we've sorted out this little misunderstanding,” Edagri said with a nervous smile. “Please do get some rest, though. We are supposed to begin making preparations for war when the Watcher opens his eye in the morning.”