BW XXVII - Milai
Consumed by the pressures of preparing her forces to meet the challenge of defending Fontainver, Milai is, at first, little aware of something tugging at her consciousness. The thoughts are like distant echoes, sporadic and ill defined, easily overlooked by an active brain. Stood at council with the commanders of each of the walls, she is focussed on ensuring strength is appropriately allocated to the most vulnerable areas of the defence. It is only when, having dismissed her captains, she turns to less pressing issues that she first becomes aware of the voice.
“The once forgotten and much reduced Norseman has discovered the hiding place of the most hated Drow…”, the female voice penetrates Milai’s thoughts.
The voice belongs to an elf, speaking an ancient dialect nearly forgotten by those that walk the Prime, but Milai understands it well enough. “I believe you would wish to be aware that the third born, known to you as Perion, has discovered Morgrad,” it continues, the names Perion and Morgrad echoing faintly in the chambers of Milai’s mind.
Distractedly, and much to the surprise of her aids, Milai asks out loud, “Who is this?”
Again, in her mind, the voice responds, “You no longer recognise the voice of the Goddess you once held in high esteem? I am Freya, once dear to all elves on the Prime.”
“Dismissed,” Milai orders, somewhat shocked and, “thank you,” she adds hastily as the aids file out of the room.
Turning towards a window at the eastern wall of her rooms, high in the keep, she looks out over the sea and clears her mind to concentrate on the Goddess. “A light provided by the third born has allowed me to see beyond the Prime and into the darkness, to the very heart of the Drow,” the voice continues.
This time Milai converses in her mind, whilst pacing the room slowly, always looking to the sea “Are you able to show me, my Lady?” she asks.
“You will need to travel that way, when the time is right, and I will guide you. For now, you may see such glimpses that are afforded me…” and with that, Milai is plunged into darkness.
The air is so cold that it stings her exposed skin, forcing an involuntary shiver. Milai’s senses are heightened by the complete darkness which envelops her. Her infravision is obscured as if everything is the same temperature or there is something screening her sight. She smells charcoal; indeed, the freezing, heavy air is dense with the acrid smell of smoke. Is it burning wood, or something less natural? From all around, she hears dripping – like water onto stone - which echoes to her front; in her mind, Milai pictures the sound to be like drops of rain on a slow flowing river, where the ripples extend and collide creating a complex, distorted reflection carried downstream, away from her. Something is close by, lurking, watching, immobile. Milai does not understand how she knows this for she is blind, there is no noise other than the incessant dripping, and there is no smell able to permeate the stench of smoke. She waits, occasionally shivering, expecting more than this. Suddenly, light shatters the darkness and she jumps. Brief though the flash of lightning is, it illuminates a long fissure in the massive, black rock, which extends high above her head and as far as she can perceive to either side. Behind her is a sheer drop into a void. Black, shiny droplets cascade in a myriad of tiny falls all around her, smashing onto the stone at her feet before joining others in streams, carved into the rock over many lifetimes. There is no smoke; the source of the smell seems to be the floor, which is covered with ash, except where the dark liquid runs into the cavern, like many long, lean, black snakes, or over the cliff edge on a journey into the void. Another flash emanates from further away behind her and reveals the enormity of the rock face in front of her.
The same brief light outlines a humanoid, on one knee to Milai’s right, by the entrance to the cave. Half turned away from Milai, staring into the massive cave mouth, he is motionless. Dishevelled blonde hair, lank from constant exposure to the liquid, partially covers the man’s face, but Milai knows him to be Perion. Dressed in torn, weather beaten furs, black in places where the wet ash has made its indelible impression, and clutching a bastard sword close to his chest, he seems unaware of the elf. What is he looking at? Is he waiting for something? It seems wrong for Milai to make her presence known, to interrupt his thoughts or distract him from his mission. No thunder breaks the quiet monotony of the sound of dripping liquid. Just as she evaluates her next move, in unison with another bolt of lightning, Perion springs up and charges into the cave. The image of the rock wall where Perion had rested, imprinted on Milai’s retina during the flash of light, and the echo of his footfall is all that remains of the Norseman when the dark closes in again.
Arms stretched out in front of her to avoid collision, Milai takes a cautious, silent pace forward…and then a second, and then another…Using the sporadic, piercing light to outline obstacles, her forward momentum is glacial. Nevertheless, she eventually ‘sees’ the Norseman again, or rather senses that he is close by before gaining confirmation when he is briefly outlined by what light reaches into the cave. Emanating from the latest bolt of electrical discharge from the ink-black sky, up and behind the elf, the blue-white light is reflected by the liquid streaming down the walls and in the many channels along the cave floor. Refracted, the light is dispersed into a weird indigo-violet spectrum as it penetrates the multitude of liquid falls inside the fissure, distorting her view of the man into some form of purple beast. Perion is leaning forward, looking into a rough-hewn hole in the cavern floor, into which several rivulets flow. Another flash…Moving silently, the man slowly transitions onto all fours, sword laid to one side; yet more electric light reveals Perion to be almost lying down to get closer to the mouth of the hole in the floor. What seems like an eternity passes before the darkness is split again. Milai presumes that the Norseman must be holding his breath as he is undetectable in the darkness. In the purple glow of the cave’s next brief illumination, Perion’s head disappears quickly into the hole, followed by his body rolling forward and down silently; a gentle scraping sound, like metal on stone, close to where she last saw him leads Milai to believe the Norseman remembered his weapon.
This seems too real to be merely a ‘glimpse’ of what Perion has discovered. Is she actually with him in Morgrad? Should she follow and offer her help? Frozen, as much by the severe cold as by indecision, Milai is surprised to see the Norsemen’s head reappear as the purple light once again splits the darkness. This time Perion is looking straight at her, or rather through her. “Odin, if you are still with me, now is the time I need your help the most,” he whispers, eyes still fixed on Milai. A pale blue light begins to fill the cavern, its origins centred on the elf. As the light becomes increasingly intense, Milai sees Perion hop up, turn around and haul a seemingly lifeless body from the hole. The man is an Oriental, old, frail, with taught, waxy skin that reflects the blue light eerily. Despite being wrapped in an ash-stained fur cloak that once belonged to the Norseman, the body shivers uncontrollably.
Hoisting the oriental across his back, Perion sets off slowly back up to the cavern’s entrance, muttering what sounds to Milai like the verbal component of a spell, “Through ash, earth, fire and snow; through limbo by the path only Gnomes know; through water to dwarrowdelf and valley low, to home this man and burden must go…”
With Perion’s voice still echoing in her mind, Milai finds herself back in her rooms staring out across the cold, wintery-blue sea, to a distant horizon.