Last time, Jibb was forced to return to Hobbler’s Bend once again to seek help for a fallen messenger he encountered on the side of the road, a messenger from the allegedly fallen Kingdom of Swent. It took some convincing, but eventually Jibb got the townspeople to retrieve the messenger and bring him back to the Snotty Badger for treatment. With his conditions stabilized and the town looking to bed down again, the messenger summoned Jibb into his room and promised him a secret that would no one else in the town could be privy to.
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“Don’t be afraid of me, boy,” the messenger said with what seemed like a genuine attempt to calm his nerves. “I likely owe you my life, after all. What’s your name?”
“Jibb.”
“Jibb. My name is Tarsit. I was a royal envoy for the Kingdom of Swent until recently.”
Jibb took this in for a moment and slowly sidled towards the nearest chair to take a seat.
“Is it really gone?” he asked. “The Kingdom?”
“I’m afraid so,” Tarsit replied with the faintest catch in his throat. Jibb saw him shift ever so slightly under the flickering light of the candle. It was odd, seeing a shiver of emotion run through someone so rugged and stern.
“I’m sorry,” Jibb offered tentatively, knowing it was a feeble balm in that moment. “I met Lady Mallia while she was here…”
“Lovely to look at but not much for company, wouldn’t you say?” Tarsit interjected with the hint of a smile. “Something tells me you shook in your boots, boy.”
Jibb felt his face flush with color. Tarsit held up a hand before he could stammer anything and waved the notion away.
“Don’t worry, you weren’t the first and you won’t be the last. And I suppose you met the rest of that motley crew?”
“Yes. There were only six, though. They said they started with nine.”
“Only six?” Tarsit prodded, leaning forward urgently. “Are you sure that was the full company?”
“They said they lost three others, but perhaps I misheard…”
“They must have,” Tarsit confirmed, sitting back heavily. “My, my, my. It is even grimmer than I thought.”
Jibb leaned forward as if to ask a question but stopped himself. Tarsit noticed and cocked a keen eye at him. Jibb froze, unsure of whether or not to venture further, but the messenger was too quick for him.
“Something to say?” he inquired.
“Well…” Jibb began, trying to measure his words carefully. “When Lady Mallia and the others came through they told us about why they were on their journey, and about the Wise One, and the Elven-Kind…”
“And the Draconi, yes, yes, I know,” Tarsit concluded wearily.
“Is it…”
“Is it true? All that?”
Jibb nodded. Tarsit sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling, appearing to collect his thoughts. There was something reluctant, almost bitter about the way he pursed his lips and waited, as if the subject was drudging up a painful old memory.
“I can’t really tell you what’s true,” he said finally, “especially with the way things are changing these days. I still have my doubts about the whole history and the magic and what have you. But, as I said, things are changing. They are changing very quickly.”
“You said you had something to tell me…” Jibb intervened, suddenly remembering what had lured him into the room in the first place.
“I did,” Tarsit replied, suddenly much quieter. “Come closer.”
Jibb quietly lifted up his chair and moved closer to the bed. Tarsit rolled onto his side with some effort until he was facing Jibb dead on. Jibb immediately felt a bit uncomfortable, as if he had moved a little too close, but the intensity in Tarsit’s eyes prohibited him from so much as inching back at all. The messenger had been somber throughout their encounter, even in the brief glimpses of humor he had shown, but now he had attained a new level of seriousness.
“What I am about to tell you,” he began, his voice soft but grave as stone, “you must keep hidden in your heart for the foreseeable future. There may be a time when it needs to come out – and when that time comes, you will know – but until then, it is a secret that must be treated with the utmost care.”
Jibb swallowed the lump in his throat and made as if to ask a question, only for Tarsit to beat him to it.
“Why am I telling you? I’m telling you because I see things. I’ve been all over these lands, master Jibb, and I know people. You’re obviously one of the good ones here, and the fact that you were out on the road in the middle of the night in the first place tells me you’ve got a mind to things other than this little town, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Jibb whispered, once again feeling vulnerable after being seen straight through by yet another stranger.
“As to why you were actually out there – well, that’s your business. As it happens, you are also someone this town pays little mind to, am I right?”
Jibb nodded ruefully.
“Then you’re the perfect person to keep a secret.”
“You should know,” Jibb began, unable to squelch the slightest twinge of indignation in his stomach, “that I am planning to leave here, so…”
“Not a good idea, lad,” Tarsit replied sternly. “Not a good idea at all. If you want my advice, you’ll stay here and you’ll stay safe. In fact, you might even be needed here before long.”
Jibb was about to object when a thought struck him. He wondered if this new visitor would have any insight into his struggles to escape, whether he had any knowledge of magic or the habits of the region’s wilds. Again, he was not quick enough, and Tarsit made use of his silence to continue.
“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “When you saw Lady Mallia and company in here, were they carrying any precious cargo? Anything that appeared to be of great value?”
Jibb’s mind immediately leapt to the image of the single scroll slipping out of the bag he had dropped in this very room while getting the fine lady settled. He hesitated to volunteer the information.
“What kind of precious cargo?” he offered instead.
Tarsit eyed him a moment, seeing that he was holding something back. A hint of a smile crept across his face, but his voice remained as firm as ever.
“You saw them, didn’t you?” he asked. “The scrolls.”
Jibb nodded, knowing there was no point in denying it.
“They showed them to you?” Tarsit asked.
“No,” Jibb replied, “it was an accident. Lady Mallia gave me the satchels to bring in and I dropped one. I didn’t see anything, I swear.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Tarsit said, with just a hint of a chuckle in his voice. “You wouldn’t have been able to read them. Precious few people can.”
“What do they say?” Jibb pried, unable to resist.
“No one really knows,” Tarsit replied softly. “They are thought to hold some sort of ancient magic. All I can say is that they are very, very valuable. And highly sought after. I should know. I helped collect them all.”
Tarsit let those final words slip from his mouth and suddenly fell quiet. He stared off into space, the light of the candle flickering in his vacant eyes. Jibb observed him curiously. It was as if he was lost in a dream, or in shock, or staying completely still so as not to be seen. He stayed that way for a moment before suddenly blinking and shaking his head ever so slightly.
“Is everyone asleep?” he asked, almost as if to himself.
“I believe so,” Jibb replied, training his ears.
“Good. Then I suppose I can tell you the whole story. That is, if I am to entrust you with this secret…”
I was destined to be a Royal Envoy of the Most Sovereign Kingdom of Swent since the day I was born. My father was an envoy before me, and his father before him, and so and so on farther back into our lineage than anybody cares to know. Our family has always prided itself on the virtues of wit, tact, cunning, and humility, the most important tools in brokering power between your own state and another. Some have shouldered the mantle with pride, others with resignation. My father chafed under the weight of responsibility – he even tried to strike out in his own endeavors and take the family with him – but I have always relished the honor.
A Royal Envoy of Swent is a particularly important job – and you’ll forgive me if I sound conceited by saying that – because of where Swent is situated. We are – or perhaps, were – a large Kingdom spread across vast, rolling plains, a haven for farmers and equestrians. Unfortunately, we are completely landlocked and depend very much on our neighbors for a number of things. Trading the fruits of our soil – the finest in the region – for other assorted goods and services can be a complicated and even dangerous enterprise. Relations between us and other countries must be handled in a very precise and balanced manner by all parties – one must strive to serve the benefit of one’s own nation without treading on those we depend on. Subterfuge, threats, even violence – these are the last and most dire resorts. Unfortunately, in an imperfect world, they are never far from indulgence.
I am proud to say that I never resorted in such crudeness – I may have barked a little here and there, just for dramatic effect, it’s true – but I never had need of such crass tactics. I was put to the test, certainly, but I always stood up, even when I was handed my greatest ever mission: to gather, by diplomacy and, perhaps, some creative bargaining, the very scrolls you lugged in here a few nights ago.
It all began with a secret meeting between our King, Cedric the Faithful – a silly name, perhaps, but one he lived up to. Apparently, he was visited one night by one of his scholars, a man named Lidion – Lidion the Idiot, they used to call him. He was not the most renowned of minds in his own circle, and was known throughout the Court as something of a crackpot. But King Cedric was fond of him, as was his father before him, perhaps because Idion appeared to lack self-awareness to such a hysterical degree.
Whatever Lidion said to King Cedric that night stuck with him, and he soon gathered the rest of his advisors among him. It appeared that Lidion had discovered some rather intriguing documents, documents that held the key to an ancient and mysterious magic that had long since passed from memory. Apparently he dug them up during one of his late night “study” sessions and had been working around the clock to translate and interpret them. This was not unusual for him and it would have gone on without much fuss if he hadn’t insisted that there were others like it, ones that together formed a full study of the mysterious magic he was on about. He suggested we send out envoys to the other kingdoms in the area to beg use of their libraries and archives; he figured if we had found such odd relics in our own basements, surely others must have, too.
The whole notion was dismissed rather flippantly by the rest of the King’s council, not to mention by me, though I held my tongue in public. Lidion was not swayed, though, and it was clear he had the King on his side. It was decided that I, as a Royal Envoy, would travel to the nearby Kingdoms and make a polite request to peruse their libraries for the purposes of “scholarly exchange and the propagation of good will via shared intellectual stimulation.” This, of course, meant that I would have to travel with Idion himself, he being the one to “share intellectual stimulation.” I agreed somewhat reluctantly and we set about our task.
For a full year, Idion and I journeyed throughout our neighboring Kingdoms and knocked on the doors of their libraries. We greeted the fishers and sailors of the Kingdom of the Crescent Coast, the woodsmen and hunters of the Great Grendellor Forest, the Dwarven peoples of the Iron Keep and the Pale Mountain, even the Halflings of the Little Glen and their Gnomish cousins in Fullingshire Grove. Each and every one of them welcomed us with a degree of suspicion at first, but they were soon won over when the realized how minor our request appeared – not to mention the fact that each and every people clearly had their own crackpot scholar, every one of which Idion seemed to seek out and bond with on the spot. Remarkable, really. And so, I took on the role of escort, as it were, watching over Idion as he tinkered away in foreign archives, searching for what would surely be his scholarly masterpiece if he could make any sense out of it at all.
Meanwhile, back at court, the whole endeavor became something of a joke, one that was whispered and giggled at softly in the corners so as not to offend the King, who remained its champion. Smiles became unsteady, though, when reports began to filter in from around the Kingdom, and soon others, that the Orcs were becoming restless. Up until that point, Orcs had been rare intruders who were never more than a deadly nuisance. They were cowardly creatures who had neither the numbers nor the leadership to do more than make small attacks on outlying villages and run away with some food, a bit of gold, and a life or two for good measure. This time, though, the attacks were becoming more frequent, the mobs were becoming bigger, and the goal seemed more and more like full destruction rather than just petty looting and the occasional joy kill. There was purpose now, purpose and fervor.
It wasn’t long before I was conducting other business with the representatives of our neighboring Kingdoms. The various nobles began to talk among themselves about the best measures to take. Most advocated having each realm handle their own attacks in their own manner, and for a while that was the accepted convention – after all, when can you get Halflings, Humans and Dwarves to agree on anything, even how to handle Orcs?
King Cedric, however, was having none of that. He reached out to all Kingdoms and begged them to come together and reconcile, if only for the purpose of protecting themselves. Like minds from each Kingdom were soon drawn to him and his promises of unity. They brought with them all their skills and all their knowledge, and together they formed a new ring of advisors to King Cedric, who had set himself up as the leader of a new minority coalition of sorts, a force bent on uniting the good peoples of the region against a common threat.
Meanwhile, Idion was hard at work on cracking the codes of his many scrolls. Apparently, they are packed to the brim with poems, histories, wise sayings, and other assorted literary trinkets, but something in particular caught his eye: mention of the great Draconus, Gerxiden, who I’m sure you heard about from Lady Mallia. Idion himself claimed that his blood ran cold at the mere reading of her name; even in the written word, it seems she is a force to be reckoned with. I am not convinced she ever existed in the first place, but I can say that I, too, and all who took Idion even remotely seriously, felt a shiver run down our spines at the very thought of her.
Worse still, word began to spread that someone else was looking for Idion’s scrolls, someone who coveted knowledge of the old she-beast more than anyone, a necromancer called Odrik the Black. No one has seen him in the flesh – at least, no one alive today – but word of his great power and great evil has spread all across the lands. As a weaver of words, myself, I am often wary of such chatter; usually, a man like Odrik is never quite as powerful as he seems. Nevertheless, his intentions and his manners remain a potent force unto themselves, and the notion that he is gathering dark forces to himself is becoming less and less bizarre by the day. Most importantly, it is clear that he desires these scrolls, whatever their purpose and whatever his intentions, and it would appear he is going to great lengths to get his hands on them.
When word of this reached King Cedric’s ears, he immediately found himself in a conundrum. What should be done with such prizes? Should they be destroyed? Surely if someone like Odrik wanted them then they must be destroyed. But would that stop him from his pursuit at all? And what if what they held within them was something too powerful to be let go? What if it could be used for good? If it were up to me, I would have burned them and taken my chances, but it wasn’t up to me at all. King Cedric paced and pondered for nights at a time until he came to his decision: the scrolls would have to be maintained, protected, and deciphered for good.
But how? By this point, Idion had already reached the limit of his own powers; not only had he come across passages too obscure to crack, he had also determined that the collection, extensive though it was, remained incomplete. King Cedric clung to the belief that the scrolls had to be uncovered, reunited, and interpreted in full, but he was running out of supporters; more and more of his advisors, not to mention his peers from the other Kingdoms, were clamoring for him to drop his little obsession and tend to his own borders. But he remained steadfast, and devised a plan: he would form a band of sorts, made up of peoples from across the Kingdoms, to find the last remaining scrolls, to protect said scrolls, and to find someone who could read them in full and divine whatever magic they may hold.
It remained a controversial plan, at least among those who knew about it. King Cedric decided to keep it a secret, even from those he was borrowing his forces from. He made the band out of like-minded people, people who he believed had the foresight and the courage to do what he felt was necessary. I, myself, considered volunteering for a position – I am not a totally committed believer, as you already know, but I do have skills that would have served the group well – but I knew better than to leave my position. If I knew anything at all, the Kingdom of Swent would need me in my capacities even more than ever before. Indeed, even before the little troupe was sent off, we received word that the small and distant Kingdom of Cerullian had crumbled under the weight of Orc attacks. The other nearby Kingdoms largely dismissed this as a mere misfortune, but my King took it as an urgent message to press on.
With King Cedric’s band united and given his most sincere of blessings, they departed with the scrolls in tow and set about on their wayward journey. I, meanwhile, was charged with delivering the pleas for solidarity from my King to his counterparts, and I spent the following weeks riding nonstop from place to place, practically begging on my knees for counsel with anybody who would listen. So many turned blind eyes to me – some even scoffed and threw me out – until eventually I found myself returning to my King, broken and ashamed, begging him to put me out of my misery, for surely I had failed. I still wonder to this day, in fact, if I couldn’t have done more…I suppose I will always wonder that, no matter how much my King tried his best to comfort me.
In the end, King Cedric and the few who had supported him were proven right. The Orc attacks continued, becoming more and more voracious by the turn. Word began to come in that they had co-opted other beasts into their legions, including Goblins, Trolls, and all manner of insentient abominations. They were attacking each Kingdom where it hurt them the most, drawing the people of the Crescent Coast away from their beloved sea, flushing Dwarves out of their Keeps and into the open, collapsing the underground dwellings of the Halflings and Gnomes. With Swent, the tactic was even simpler: all they had to do was surround us from all sides. At first it seemed they would never have the numbers or the wits to pull it off, but over time it became clearer and clearer that something – or someone – was keeping them organized.
And then, one day, the levee broke. We saw them coming over the hills, a dark, hulking mass ordained with smoke and fire, hurtling towards us in Swenteria, the capital. My King called for all able hands to defend their homes and repel the siege – in that moment, he became Cedric the Valiant in my eyes, alight and yet enraged in vindication. I prepared to take arms and ready myself for the fight, but alas, my King had one last task for me. He urged me to run and seek out Lady Mallia and the others, to tell them of what had happened and to aid them in their quest. I refused at first – I would sooner die at the hands of the Orcs than desert my Lord – but this only propelled the King on. He thanked me for my loyalty, kissed me on the cheek, and commanded that I flee. I did, blinded by tears and with a heart so heavy I could barely walk.
I did not escape without a scuffle, as you can see from my wounds. To be honest, it was a bit of a pleasure to lock blades with some Orcs; they may be brutes but there’s no lack of joy in lopping their heads off. My horse, Fleetfoot, was and will always be my most loyal friend and most valuable asset, and his speed ultimately saved my life. I will never find another horse like him.
Nor, indeed, will I find another home. The last image I have of the Kingdom of Swent I saw in horror as Fleetfoot and I sat upon a hill and watched a dark tower of smoke unfurl into the sky where Swenteria used to be. The world became dark to me that day. Dark and cold, and I feel it. I feel it all throughout me. In my hands. In my head. In my heart. Most of all in my heart.
He patted his chest lightly and fell silent. Jibb saw the faintest trace of tears in the envoy’s eyes and decided to divert his own out of respect. Tarsit lay their quietly for a little while, dwelling no doubt on the gravity of his loss. Jibb considered leaving to give the man his space, but something kept him there, some urge to offer this now homeless man at least a small semblance of familiarity, of comfort.
“That’s the story,” Tarsit finally said with a feeble attempt at cheer in his voice. “Not the best for bedtimes, perhaps, but it’s the only story I can think of now.”
He looked over at Jibb, a hint of moisture still in his eyes. There was something tender about the look, something thankful, as if Jibb had taken a great burden off his chest. Jibb couldn’t help but smile just a little.
“Well, now you know the story,” Tarsit began, suddenly grave again. “Now I suppose it’s time for the secret. You see that bag there?”
Jibb looked over to where Tarsit was pointing and saw one of the satchels lying at the foot of the bed. This one was a bit smaller than the others and was in the most pristine condition of all his luggage; it had clearly been kept close and kept safe.
“Bring it to me,” Tarsit whispered.
Jibb got up, collected the satchel, and gently presented it to Tarsit like it was the finest and most fragile of china. The man took it quietly and set it down on his chest. He gestured for Jibb to have a seat, and only spoke again once Jibb had done so.
“Again, there may come a time for you to reveal this secret – and when that time comes, you will know – but until then it must be kept locked deep in your heart, you understand?”
Jibb nodded, feeling himself tense up with excitement.
“Good,” Tarsit said, before taking a moment to dwell on the satchel and stroke it with his finger. “You know, it’s funny: we don’t know how it happened. I for one think Idion must have put it somewhere and forgotten it in all the commotion. Or perhaps someone – maybe even King Cedric – was keeping it a secret for reasons known only to him. I suppose I’ll never know now. The point is that what I am about to show was put into my hands right before I left and was said to be the most precious cargo I would ever carry.”
With that he reached into the satchel and pulled out its contents: a scroll almost exactly like the ones Jibb had seen days earlier, ancient and strange. Tarsit held it aloft with delicate reverence. Jibb’s heart leapt into his throat and he leaned forward instinctively, unable to resist the shocking allure of this revelation.
“This, young man,” Tarsit began, “is a missing piece of the puzzle. And if my gut is anything to go by, it may just be the last piece.”