Quest of Three: Part Two

Also by Dreagoddess

Jeran had obtained leave of King Skarl to go questing; Darigan assumed that this had involved a reasonably full explanation, but was content not to inquire too closely.

     He'd given a fuller explanation himself, on their trek through the fields and forests of Meridell, of the Three, who they were (or seemed to be) and their preferred tactics. Jeran was kinder about this than most probably would have been in his place, and they had made it to what the knight said was Illusen's own forest before he happened to ask what they looked like.

     "Dim... greenish and black. Cloaked. One is a Skeith, usually a bit translucent --"

     "Do you ever get along with any Skeiths?"

     Darigan blinked. "Quite a few."

     "I just wondered. King Skarl, this... one of the Three, Danner tells me the one standing over him bolted when you showed up on the citadel...."

     "Most of my people don't usually run away when they see me, believe it or not. ...Of course, most of the time I'm neither insane nor just back from presumed death."

     "I don't suppose we first met when you were exactly at your best."

     "I'd say not."

     "Right, go on."

     The forest was a beautiful one, dark and rich with green and black itself, leaf and shadow that made it hard to think of them as even related to the Three's colors. Darigan went around a pair of twisted-together tree-trunks and found his train of thought again. "There's a bearded Gelert whose eyes I've never seen out of shadow, with a massive sword... and a faerie."

     Jeran turned right around to look at him, grinning, and somehow managed not to walk into any trees in the process. He'd said he could find his way to the Glade with his eyes shut, but Darigan had initially taken this as an off-paw exaggeration. "That should make things easier."

     "...Should it?"

     "With Illusen, I mean."

     And then warm light, still green, shafted sideways between the trees and cut the shadows, and Jeran turned around again to walk into the glade.

     Coming from anywhere other than the forest, it probably wouldn't have seemed so bright; most of the light filtered down through thick leaves still, and the sunbeams that made it through in the clear still bounced off so many leaves they might as well have been green. It smelled strongly of leaves and shade-flowers and things Darigan couldn't name that made him suddenly, absurdly homesick -- which made no sense, because he didn't think home had smelled like that even before the curse.

     They must have been getting close to the eastern foothills; there were outcroppings of tumbled rock jutting here and there among the trees on the other side of the glade. Most of them had moss on the sides, though fewer had it on top. If he stared long enough at the complicated interweaving of the tree branches, he started to realize there was some structure there, and --

     "Good day to you, Jeran." The voice startled Darigan. It was kin to that of the faerie among the Three, and in another way to the tinier voices of the lesser faeries he'd heard and sometimes tormented -- but he didn't think it would care for the comparison to either. It was light and warm and strangely solid, and something snapped in his vision so that an entire treehouse structure resolved itself out of the wood.

     And so did the faerie, as she stepped away from a tree and fluttered down to perch on the rock, pulling a strange half-bloomed flower to her and beginning to inspect the petals.

     "Good day to you, Illusen." Jeran went right up to the rock; Darigan considered following him and decided not to presume.

     "I assume, since you and Lord Darigan arrived together, that there's some reason good in your eyes, at least, that he's here."

     "He's beginning a quest, and I told him magic of your strength would be needed."

     She drew a thin gray worm from between the flower-petals and crushed it against the sole of her sandal. "Isn't he a sorcerer himself, with magic of his own? And why should I be interested in any quest of his?"

     "He is, madam, but trust me when I say you'd be of great help. And I can give you three reasons: he seeks to help a friend, I've agreed to go with him -- and he means to spite a dark faerie and rob her of her prey."

     At that, she did look away from the flower. "Well, you might have said that sooner." She arched an eyebrow at Darigan. "I don't suppose succeeding would make him any less likely to disrupt my glade and work again?"

     "I have no intention of disrupting your glade or your work, my lady," Darigan spoke up when it seemed necessary. "And I would be grateful for any help you can give."

     "You've done it twice already, you realize," she said crossly.

     Well, the second time had been Kass, but still his people and his responsibility. And it crossed his mind to wonder, when he could practically feel her power through the earth at his feet, why she hadn't come against him herself on behalf of Meridell if she was so offended -- but it would hardly be politic to ask. He bowed instead.

     "I know, lady, and for that I hope to make amends as I can. I sought... recovery of what may not have been worth the fight, and revenge that I've learned was ill-placed."

     "Some say revenge is a sweet dish, but I've never found any sweetness in it." The faerie's eyes returned to Jeran. "And what do you have to say of this quest? You agreed to help, so you clearly find it a worthy one."

     "Lord Darigan is my friend," Jeran said simply.

     Kass," Illusen pointed out, "isn't."

     "No, and I can't say I've any great desire, for myself, to see him again." The Lupe shrugged and held out deep-blue paws. "And yet he was Darigan's friend once, and I did fight alongside him the first time I was on the Citadel, when Lord Darigan was the one driven mad. If he's been able to return from that and be a worthy leader... who knows? Darigan believes it's possible for Kass as well."

     "I hope it is," Darigan put in softly. "I was given a second chance I never deserved. I ask your help, still undeserved, to give Kass one. I cannot leave him without at least trying."

     Illusen's eyes narrowed. "Do you not have a greater responsibility to the rest of your people? Can you leave them?"

     "I hope not to leave them for long, lady. And I have made arrangements this time so that Galgarrath will not hesitate or be balked in taking the reins in my absence."

     "And what if you die on this quest, or simply never return? Battling a dark faerie is never something to be done lightly, and the power you've described will be formidable to face. Are you prepared to deny your people their leader yet again in hopes of saving the one who betrayed you?"

     The thought of death was better than that of being trapped and under the power of the Three again; Darigan fought a shudder and wondered, briefly, if a cloud had gone over the sun. "I hope not to," he repeated. "If I must... Galgarrath will do well. I would have chosen him to succeed me, not Kass, if I'd given thought to the matter before." He drew a deep breath, and the shadow seemed to lighten from his vision. Perhaps the cloud had blown away. "I do not take this lightly, Illusen. But Kass stood for our people when I had betrayed them, and what he has done is no worse and no more foolish than what I did myself before him. I offered him my help, before he was taken. I cannot abandon him now to the Three."

     Illusen studied him for a long moment, then unexpectedly smiled. "This could be fun. Tell me more about this dark faerie." Her eyes flicked to include Jeran. "And whomever else we might be facing."

     It took a moment for Darigan's voice to start working again. "Fun, Lady? Did you not just say this was not to be taken lightly?"

     The faerie smiled, but her eyes were sharp. "I don't intend to take it lightly. I do intend to enjoy a worthy task. You may have noticed that I poured my power into the land instead of fighting for Meridell directly -- and yes, I know there were earth faeries' wings in the blight you cast -- but I can fight, and I stay here by my own will, even if Jhudora thinks she has the advantage of me." Illusen snorted. "With her little dark cloud right under Fyora's wing. But I've digressed. What of your dark faerie, or did you say there were three of them?"

     "The faerie is one of the Three," Darigan said slowly, "or at least, that is the shape one of them takes. The others are a Gelert bearing a sword, and a Skeith whose bones glow under his fat. I understand that they are, in Neopia, generally invisible except to those they mean to influence. I bargained with them for power to seek out the Orb and take it back; what they wanted of me seemed at first only what I wanted to do. In the end... in the end, they demanded my will as payment for stopping, and my life as penalty for defeat."

     "I think I may have heard of them after all," Illusen murmured. "Did they give you their names?"

     "They gave no names." Darigan met her eyes. "But the faerie spoke always of the desire for power, the Skeith of the desire for wealth, the Gelert...of that for vengeance. I still would have my people whole and prosperous again, but to avenge the theft on Meridell's people now would only destroy us both. It nearly did."

     "And power?"

     Darigan answered evenly, "Is not worth the price I paid them."

     Illusen sat back on her heels and nodded. "I know of them after all, I think. Their names are Ambition and Greed and Revenge, and they whisper of their namesakes to the discontent." Her voice faded into the sound of wind in the leaves, but the words were still clear. "Each impulse, writ small, has its place, but they coax out such desires until they overtake the purposes they were meant to serve. They are hungers never satisfied, and thus they are starvation." She focused on Darigan's face again, and her voice returned to normal. "To drive one victim to his death and then take on his replacement is a common thing for them. That you are free from them after a willing bargain is not."

     "I had help in that too, lady. The last time they appeared to me, I rejected them, and they went away."

     "They won't do that in their own home."

     "I know."

     Illusen tilted her head back, looking up at the sun through the leaves. "If you know how to reach where they live, we can discuss the technical aspects over lunch, and we can start tomorrow if you both -- and anyone else you want along -- meet me here at dawn."

     "I would hardly have expressed an intention to start out on such a quest if I didn't have some idea where I was going," Darigan said wryly. "It's not quite the same as flying across Neopia." He started slightly as lunch quite literally dropped from the trees into their laps. "Illusen," he went on slowly, "if you will forgive my asking -- why have you agreed to help?"

     "Sir Jeran," said the faerie, echoing the knight's earlier words, "is my friend, and he is going with you." She smiled at them both. "And you are not the only one who must learn when to offer mercy, Lord Darigan."

To be continued...