War of the Wisps

As the blue Wisp rose up the others surrounded it, shrouding it flashes of red and yellow. Jarnvaror hissed his displeasure, and the other three all clutched their heads as the influence of the Wisps grew fiercer. Peter made himself look up at the Wisps. They Were right overhead. He let himself fall onto his back, rather than expend any focus on staying upright. Much more important to keep his head on straight.

“Peter!” Andrew yelled. Peter flinched as the sound pulled his attention away from the Wisps. He glanced at his brother, who stumbled to his knees under the weight of the magic billowing overhead. The older boy tried to control himself, to keep from falling on top of the little girl he still held in his arms.

The Dwarf girl cried out as well and fell back next to Peter. Peter looked at her, grimacing as he tried to keep the Wisps from overwhelming him. It was almost with horror that he saw a smile on the stranger’s face, as she pointed up at the Wisps.

Then the power changed. When he looked up again, the blue Wovering, completely still in the heart of the group. It flashed between the other colors for an instant before returning to its normal blue. No… It was a darker blue, and he could feel that in the influence as well. Before, where it had seemed like an island of calm, sorrow seemed to flow into the mix of otherworldly, or at least, other-creaturely emotions.

The whirling of the other Wisps slowed. Soon the five were just floating in a circle around the blue one. The influence of all of them was still present, but it was so much quieter now, Peter realized, almost with a start, that he could feel his own emotions again. He was more exhausted than anything else. And terrified. But cutting through both was a desire to know what was happening. The same didn’t appear to be true for his brother.

“Come on,” Andrew whispered. “Let’s get away, before they start up again.”

“No way,” Peter said. “I want to see this.”

“I don’t think they’re going to start up again,” Anna said. “Look.”

Andrew turned around, just in time to see all five of Ironhill’s Wisps began to shift color. They didn’t move at the same rate. But first one, than another, than the rest, began to dim, turning grey, and finally becoming a brilliant, deep blue. Peter felt tears in his eyes. He blinked. The influence of the Wisps was so muted compared to a moment ago that he thought he hadn’t felt it. But here he was, tears forming as he tried to understand what exactly the pit forming in his gut was.

He looked over at Jarnvaror. The dragon seemed much less affected by the emotion. He was staring up at the Wisps, his expression all wariness and mistrust. But when Peter looked to Andrew and Anna, he saw each of them had tears on their faces as well.

“They’ve lost something,” Anna said. “All of them.”

“How can you tell?” Andrew asked.

“Can’t you? This feeling they’re putting out… It’s grief. They’re mourning, and somehow, my Wisp made them all realize they’d lost the same thing.”

“You got all that from… this?” Peter asked, gesturing from the Wisps to the trio’s faces.

Anna nodded. It looked like she was going to say more, when the Wisps shifted again. The blue Wisp – well, Anna’s Wisp, there in the middle – shifted color again. It brightened until it was the color of midday sky. It was almost that bright as well. The tendrils of light flowing off the central Wisp spilled from it faster, and it began to bob with excitement. For the first time, it moved, darting up to each of the other Wisps, over and over again, until each of them began getting excited as well.

“You know, I don’t think them being in a good mood will be much better for us if they start pouring out their influence again,” Andrew said. “We really should leave.”

“I can’t just abandon him,” Anna said. “Besides, like I said, I don’t think it will come to that.” As they watched, the Wisps floated down toward them. Now, each was a shade of blue. Some were a little darker and more sorrowful, others were tinged with green as they whirled and bounced amid the others.

Jarnvaror growled at them as they passed his head. “No,” Peter said. “I think they’re safe now. Besides, I don’t think you could.”

“You can actually talk to him?” Anna asked, though she didn’t take her eyes off the Wisps. “What did he say?”

“He asked if he should eat them before they cause more problems,” Peter said.

“Ah. Thank you for telling him no.”

“No problem.” Peter said.

The Wisps came down and hovered over Maddie. The little girl’s eyes fluttered open. It seemed to be the most natural thing that rather than scream at the balls of magic smoke her brow just furrowed in mild curiosity. She looked around. “Andrew? Peter?”

“Here, kid,” Peter said. Both boys knelt next to her. “Are you okay?”

“Headache,” Maddie said. The Wisps began pulsing their blue light. Maddie closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Maddie?” Andrew burst, a shard of his own fear breaking through the influence.

“I’m okay,” the girl said in a sleepy voice.

“What exactly are they doing?” Andrew asked. “I don’t feel anything special coming from them.”

“Should we?” Peter asked.

“I don’t know,” Andrew said.

“I think they’re trying to take her pain,” Anna said. She gestured to the central Wisp. “He did something similar when we were trapped in the tunnel.”

They waited another minute. Then the Wisps rose a foot or so back into the air and approached Anna.

“Look who’s popular,” Peter muttered. Neither of his companions responded. Anna held up her hand, where her bracelet with the gemstone dangled.

One by one, the Wisps dissapeared into the bracelet on Anna’s Wisp, until only one was left on the outside. A bit of yellow streaked through the blue. It was a soft yellow, like summer sunshine. A sense of gratitude touched the calming influence for a moment.

“This one is yours, right?” Andrew asked.

“He is,” Anna said.

“You know, it’ll be weird just calling it the blue one, now that you have six blue ones,” Peter said. “We’ve gotta call him something else.”

“I’ll think of something,” Anna told Peter. Then she stepped forward and put her hand out for her first Wisp. “Thank you. I know you just wanted to help them, but you really saved all of us, too.” The Wisp pulsed. Peter was pretty sure he’d received the message. Then the tendrils of light curled around and shrunk as they flowed into Anna’s bracelet.

The night seemed a lot darker, and a lot quieter with the Wisps gone. Maddie was taking long, slow breaths in Andrew’s arms. “It’s been a long night, huh, kid?” Peter said. He looked up at the others. “Ready to go home?”

“Not quite,” Andrew said. He used his chin to point back into the field. Amidst the scorch marks was the torn up piece of earth where Charles Ironhill lay in the grass. “I don’t think we can leave our governor’s nephew laying in the middle of the valley like that.”

“You volunteering to carry him back to the village?” Peter asked.

“I was hoping your friend would.”

Peter frowned, then looked up at his friend. The dragon cooed a question to him, wanting to be let in on the conversation, so Peter told him, “We’re trying to figure out what to do about the armored guy.” The dragon snorted in response, and Peter could smell the smoke on the dragon’s breath. Then Jarnvaror started walking over to the fallen knight himself.

“Is he going to eat him?” Anna asked.

Peter opened his mouth before realizing he wasn’t sure. He shouted to the dragon, “I think we need him alive.” Jarnvaror looked back, snorting again, and insisting that the three of them decide what to do soon. “We should go check on Charles,” Peter said to the others. “Better make sure he’s still alive.”

The group walked to stand over the knight. Through the armor, cracked as it was, none of them could tell if he was breathing. There was very little blood, which they took as a good sign. Andrew removed Charles’ helmet. The knight’s face was covered in bruises and swollen, a thin line of blood traced up the side of his face to his nose, but it had almost dried. Andrew put his hand close to the knight’s mouth, then sighed. “He’s breathing.”

Peter told Jarnvaror, and the dragon gave an incredulous huff. He bent down to sniff at the Charles, causing Andrew and Anna to scramble away. Peter found himself grinning. “He’s not going to bite you guys.”

“Are you sure?” Anna squeaked. Andrew just glared at Peter.

“I think I’d rather not be next to three hundred teeth, regardless,” he said.

The dragon made a barking sound in his throat, and Peter turned back. “What do you mean, weird?” Peter asked. “It’s not like you torched him or anything. He should smell normal.” The dragon rose, rumbling as he tried to explain to Peter. Scent was always a tough thing to communicate between them. If it wasn’t in the oven or in the privy, most smells were too weak for Peter. As for the dragons, there probably weren’t enough human words to describe all the things they could smell.

“What’s he saying,” Anna asked, stepping up behind Peter, keeping the boy between herself and the dragon.

Peter shrugged. “He says there’s a smell like some metal and storms. Do either of you smell anything?”

Andrew bent over first, trying to sniff at the air, but he shook his head. Anna looked thoughtful though. “What does he mean by storms?”

“I don’t know. I know he’s not talking about rain, cause we’ve talked about it before.”

“Could he mean a lightning smell?” Anna asked.

“Lightning has a smell?” Peter asked. Jarnvaror huffed at him, confirming that yes, this is the smell he was talking about, as well as noting that Peter was useless. “No, its just my nose, Jarn. Lightning is right, by the way.”

“I read, once,” Anna said, bending down to tug at the shards of the knight’s armor, “that, under the right conditions, you can smell some magical effects. For example, if you overload a magical anchor it smells like copper and ozone.” Andrew reached over and helped Anna remove the shard of metal plate from the knight’s chest. Peter noticed the acrid scent now. It was faint to him, but Jarnvaror sneezed as the scent grew stronger.

Charles’ tunic had been damaged under the armor, and a chunk ripped away as the two removed the plate. There, laid into the knight’s collar bone, was a gemstone almost the size of an eye. A Y shaped crack split the dark crystal into thirds.

“That must have been where he was keeping the Wisps,” Andrew said, glancing at Anna’s wrist.

“Probably,” the dwarf said. “I’m worried he might have been using it for something else. Maybe he had spells that made him stronger, and it wasn’t just the Wisps.”

“Could it have been both?” Andrew asked.

“I think so.”

“Hey, um, quick question, I don’t know much about wizards, but they don’t need the crystal to be inside them, right?” Peter said.

“Yeah, that’s worrying me, too,” Anna said.

“Oh, good. Not just me.”

“More importantly, I didn’t think Charles was a mage of any sort,” Andrew said.

“Could he have been studying it?” Anna said.

“Sure, but I don’t know who would teach him. Maybe one of the court mages, but I doubt Lord Ironhill would be okay with letting them teach his nephew this. Whatever this really is.” Andrew rose to his feet. “We’ll need to restrain him when we get back to the village. Then we’ll need to think of some way to get him back to Belmont safely.”

“I think Jarn will be willing to help with that,” Peter said. He looked back at the dragon. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just volunteering you for labor.” A choking cough followed from the dragon, and he saw Anna’s face twist in horror. Andrew just rolled his eyes. One of the few sounds he seemed to have learned in dragon was their laughter.

“In the meantime, Anna,” Andrew said. “Would you mind sticking around to talk to Lord Richard with us? I think it would be good to have you with us.”

Anna relaxed a little and nodded. “I kind of assumed that would be the plan.”