The watcher on the wall stretched his back. He had been up here waiting for the sign for the better part of the night. All signs had pointed him to this spot. To this day. He had gathered what little strength he had left, not much after the last battle, and crawled his way out of the small ice cave where he had been sleeping.
He had been here since the Wizards had abandoned him. Sleeping for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years at a time. It wasn’t what his father had chosen for him. But being injured in the war had left him unable to continue down that path. High Wizard was not his destiny.
Every time he awoke, it amazed him that the world hadn’t changed more. Surely, his brethren had done more with their gifts. He had expected grand towers and luxury to make the day seem long. Humans would be slaves to their baser needs no longer. They could live simple lives while magic handled the mundane.
But it hadn’t changed. Still men crawled the outside of the wall with the same scaffolding and technology that had been prevalent during his days. For a few hours, he had sent messages out to see if any of his brethren would answer. None had, meaning he must be too far. Had they not rebuilt the relays?
A pulse came first, reverberating through his bones. His eyes snapped open, the power evident. He scanned the valley below him, looking for the source. It wasn’t anywhere close. He scanned for several moments until the shockwave hit his body.
Dark energy flowed over him. It was faint from this distance. Closing his eyes, he opened himself to the magic around him. Felt the flow of the Tapestry over the world. Bright lines of magic spread over the world before him like a blanket, covering the landscape and outlining the features. The town below him was bustling with the ice trade, magic weaving and covering the people. It flowed in and out of them, making them seem part of the Tapestry.
He scanned with his Sense, looking over every part of the valley before him. Farm after farm, river by river, he searched for the grimy feeling overwhelming him. It made his skin crawl and his stomach churn.
At the edge of the Valley, where the road lead between a small group of hills south, was a farm. A single thread of darkness had sprung up from the house and wove into the surrounding threads. It pulsed with the time of his heart, tainting the threads.
Dark Magic had returned to the world. And he was the first to see it. This small, the Wizards in Abberaon wouldn’t sense it for years without their relays. And he couldn’t allow evil to take root in the world again. It hadn’t taken everything they had had to get rid of it last time.
Reaching out, he spread his mind as thin as it would go, looking for a single relay he could latch onto. He could then reach his brethren. And get word to them about this.
But there was no relay near him. He cursed a silent word. Had they grown so complacent? Had the Dragons driven them back to isolationism? That had nearly destroyed their kind before.
He focused back on the farm. It was still just a few threads, but they pulsed out along the Tapestry. It wouldn’t be long before the dark spot spread to the entire valley. There had to be something he could do.
The ice crunched to his left. No one should be up this high. That was why he had chosen this point. The human’s scaffolding only came a few hundred feet up. He was close to a thousand feet off the Valley floor.
He glanced over his shoulder at the source of the sound. Opening his eyes, he released the Sight. As the colorful threads faded from his sight, he glimpsed the person standing before him. Rather an outline of a person bathed in brilliant gold light. He glanced away, the bright light blinding him for a moment. It was several moments before his normal vision returned.
“I’m sorry. Not used to this world yet.”
A beautiful red head sat down next to him. She wore skin tight blue cotton pants, a red shirt with some kind of image painted on it of a head with snakes for hair, and rugged leather boots that laced up in the front. The laces looked to be made of some kind of golden weaved cotton. Her pants looked to be made of sturdy material, with embroidered pockets and lines running down the sides of her legs.
“Quite all right, my dear.”
She scoffed at him, running her gloved hands through her short hair. It was standing up on the top and cut short on the sides. He had never seen such a look on a woman before. Out of her canvas bag, she pulled a metal container. Dented and covered in scratches, it had a screw-on lid.
“You know. I could stop this from happening,” she said, pointing down at where he had seen the darkness growing. “It would be really, really easy.”
He glanced up at her freckled face. She seemed sincere as she took a long pull from the container. She offered it out to him. He shook his head. He had water in the skin next to him.
“Why, perchance, wouldn’t you?” he asked. His voice was scratchier than he remembered. “It could spread to the entire world if we let it.”
SHe chuckled at that. A smile spread across her face, reaching up to her emerald green eyes. A single tear rolled down her face.
“I could. But I’m not sure that I should. Haven’t been here long enough to know if I should interfere.”
Been here? Where did she come from? What could be the reason for not stopping the evil? He pondered for several moments as the woman swung her feet over the valley. She seemed different. The brilliant light of her magic was unfamiliar to him.
“What do you mean?”
SHe looked over at him. Her eyes sparkled from the sun and her hair shined brilliantly red. Her smile faded. She placed a hand on the small of his back, over the scar there that had taken use of his legs. She grimaced as he felt heat spread through his back. Her hand trembled against his back.
“There,” she said as she took her hand away. The head died down and his leg tingled. He rolled and looked down at it. He wiggled his toes. A laugh escaped his throat. He sat up and looked around at everything. His legs were slow to respond, but he could pull them up under him and sit. “That I know I can do.”
Tears streamed from his eyes. They flowed down his cheeks and dripped to the ice below.
“I do not know how to thank you, young woman.”
She smiled and looked back over at the farm. Her smile faded, and she shook her head.
“I have to go. I can feel it now.”
“Feel what?” he asked. But she ignored him as she stood up. “Are you leaving?”
She nodded. There was a flash of light. When it cleared, she was gone. He stared at the spot where she had stood. Her boots had left an intricate pattern in the ice slush. He wondered about the strangeness of it all.
The pulse was growing stronger. He had to do something. They couldn’t allow evil to take root again. As he stood on shaking legs, he pulled on a thread from the Tapestry. He tied several knots, preparing the basic web for a spell. When he grabbed the last thread, the knots fell apart and his spell dissipated back into the air.
Closing his eyes, he pulled up the Sight. The world around him transformed into the Tapestry. Below where the farm was, the darkness had spread from a single strand to a tiny black patch that enveloped the entire farm. In the center was a single dot of orange, tied to several of the black strands, whipping in place and pulsing to the beat of the threads.
He pulled his thoughts away from the darkness around the farm. The strands, once beautiful and vibrant with color, were now muted. The Tapestry, closer to the farm, bleached of color entirely, their grayness washing the land in a depressing blanket.
He grabbed a few of the strands around him and wove them into a simple flotation spell to let him glide down to the valley floor below, but again, the spell dissipated. A frown formed on his lips and he sat back down on the edge, letting his legs dangle over. Careful to not lean too far, he looked down at the scaffolding several hundred feet below. It was too far to jump without the spell. He would crash through the wood and stone to the valley floor.
The ice shifted as he stood, reminding him of the precariousness of the drop. The sun was at his back as he strode off across the tundra to his small cave. He had to retrieve his things before he trekked off across the ice. Supplies were scarce enough as it was. And he had a long journey ahead.