“Are you proposing to pay me now?”
“We both know I have no money, but still you want something from me. What is it?”
“The truth. What are you after? What happened here nine hundred years ago?”
The wizard studied Royce for a moment and looked down at his feet. After a few minutes, he nodded. He walked over to a beech log that lay across the granite rock, and sat down. He looked out toward the water and the spray as if searching for something in the mist, something that was not there.
“I was the youngest member of the Cenzars. We were the council of wizards that worked directly for the emperor. The greatest wizards the world had ever seen. There was also the Teshlors, comprised of the greatest of the emperor’s knights. Tradition dictated that a mentor from each council was to serve as teacher and full-time protector to the emperor’s son and heir. Because I was the youngest, it fell to me to be Nevrik’s Cenzar instructor, while Jerish Grelad was picked from the Teshlors. Jerish and I didn’t get along. Like most of the Teshlors, he held a distrust of wizards, and I thought little of him and his brutish, violent ways.
“Nevrik, however, brought us together. Like his father, the emperor Nareion, Nevrik was a breed apart, and it was an honor to teach him. Jerish and I spent nearly all our time with Nevrik. I taught him lore, books, and the Art, while Jerish instructed him in the schools of combat and warfare. Though I still felt the practice of physical combat was beneath the emperor and his son, it was very clear that Jerish was as devoted to Nevrik as I was. In that middle ground, we found a foothold where we could stand together. When the emperor decided to break tradition and travel here to Avempartha with his son, we went along.”
“Break tradition?”
“It had been centuries since an emperor had spoken directly to the elves.”
“After the war, there wasn’t tribute paid or anything like that?”
“No, all contact was severed at the Nidwalden, so it was a very exciting time. No one really knew what to expect. I personally knew very little about Avempartha beyond the historical account of how it was the site of the last battle of the Great Elven Wars. The emperor met with several top officials of the Erivan Empire in the tower while Jerish and I attempted, without much luck, to continue Nevrik’s studies. The sight of the waterfall and the elven architecture was too much to compete with for the attention of a twelve-year-old boy.
“It was around dusk, nearly night. Nevrik had been pointing things out to us all day, reveling in the fact that neither Jerish nor I could identify any of the elven things he found. For example, there were several sets of elven clothes made of a shimmering material that we couldn’t name drying in the sun. This was, of course, the first time in centuries that humans had met with elves, placing us at a distinct disadvantage. Nevrik delighted in stumping his teachers, so when he asked about the thing he saw flying toward the tower, I thought he saw a bird, or a bat, but he said it was too large and that it looked like a serpent. He mentioned it had flown into one of the high windows of the tower. Nevrik was so adamant about it that we all went back inside. We had just started up the main staircase when we heard the screams.
“It sounded like a war was being fought above us. The personal bodyguards of the emperor—a detachment of Teshlors—were fighting off the Gilarabrywn, protecting the emperor as they fled down the stairs. I saw groups of elves throwing themselves at the creature, dying to protect our emperor.”
“The elves were?”
Esrahaddon nodded. “I was amazed by the sight. The whole scene is still so vivid to me even after nearly a thousand years. Still, nothing the knights or the elves could do stopped the attacking beast, which seemed determined to kill the emperor. It was a terrible battle, with knights falling on the stairs and dying upon the wet steps, elves joining them. The emperor ordered us to get Nevrik to safety.
“Jerish grabbed the boy and dragged him out of the tower kicking and screaming, but I hesitated. I realized that once outside, the flying beast would be able to swoop down and kill at will. The Art could not defeat it. The creature was magic and without the key to unlock the spell, nothing I could do would alter that enchantment. A thought came to me, and as the emperor exited the door, I cast an enchantment of binding—not on the beast, but on the tower, trapping the Gilarabrywn inside. Those knights and elves still inside died, but the beast was trapped.”