Sanctuary

Safe for the time being, Muld, Syndi and Aloea try to figure out how to escape the clutches of the Archdruid Calarom.

16.

Sanctuary

 

“Do you think he’ll come after us?”   Syndi asked Muld as they sat on the white sand of the cave.

“Probably not; this pool is holy to him so he won’t desecrate it by coming after us.   Instead, he’ll be waiting for us to come out sooner or later.”

Syndi nodded with a weary sigh, then glanced over at Aloea, who was seated a short distance away from them, gently rubbing her hugely pregnant belly.

“I don’t know anything about Lizard People, but she has to be very close to giving birth.”

The Lizard-woman heard her and turned her head, nodding.

Syndi got up and went over to her, “Were you taken from your family?”

Aloea nodded, holding up three fingers.

“Three months ago?”   Syndi asked and the reptilian lady nodded.

“How horrible!   Was it the Imperial Legions?”

Again, Aloea nodded.

“Why would they take you?”

Aloea patted her belly.

“They took you because you were pregnant?”

She nodded.

“Probably for their amusement, “ Muld chimed into the conversation, and again the Lizard-woman nodded.

“Yesh have mercy!”   Syndi exclaimed, “Were you married?”

She nodded and a look of pain crossed her eyes as she protectively cradled her tummy.

Syndi knew immediately what had happened to her mate and she knelt and touched her arm, her eyes filled with tears, “Oh Aloea, I am so sorry…”

The Lizard-woman nodded, then took Syndi’s hand and placed it on her belly.    Syndi’s face brightened a moment later.

“Oh, he’s really kicking, isn’t he?”

The Lizard-woman grinned her toothy grin.

“Aloea, I promise you that we’ll get you back to your home when we get out of this mess,”  Muld told her.

Aloea slowly shook her head and wrote in the sand:   HOME DESTROYED.

“Then we’ll find you a place where you can raise your baby in peace,”   Muld promised her, and she nodded with a slight grin.

“Um… how long until the baby…”  Muld asked awkwardly.

Aloea held up one finger.

“A month?”   Syndi asked, but she shook her head.

“A week?”   Muld guessed, and she shrugged, indicating that it would be some time in that vicinity.

Syndi gave Muld an anxious look, “Muld we’ve really got to get her out of here and some place safe!”

“Calarom and his tribe might have other thoughts about that,”   Muld answered, “We’ve got to think of something.”

Syndi began to pace back and forth in the sand, “If only we could teleport!”

“I’d settle for a crystal ball to contact someone,”  Muld commented, and upon hearing his words, Aloea’s head popped up and she struggled to get to her feet, her pregnancy hampering her only for a few moments.    She made a chirping sound and beckoned to Muld and Syndi to join her at the edge of the pool.

“Do you have something?”   Muld asked hopefully, “A way to communicate?    But how… wait!   The water!   You can use it like a crystal ball?”

Aloea grinned at him.

“Wonderful!   But you’ll need to know who to contact… Let me think… you wouldn’t know most of the people we know.   You’re from the southern swamps near Aeropolis, aren’t you?”

Aloea nodded, tilting her hand back and forth as if indicating ‘somewhere fairly close to that’.

“I was from Aeropolis, but I don’t know if you know of the same people… let’s see… um… you wouldn’t happen to know Matron Mother Zeatt, would you?   She was the bishop of the Drow in Aeropolis some years ago before they ran out all non-humans.    Have you heard of her?”

Aloea nodded.

“If you’ve seen her that should enable you to try to open a link to her.    I’m not sure if she has a crystal ball, but her daughter Sophia the Sorceress does and-“

Aloea made an excited chirping sound and wrote with her foot claw:    KNOW SOPHIA.

“You know her?”   Syndi asked in amazement.

Aloea nodded and wrote:   YES AND KHORD.

“Well, they did grow up in Aeropolis,”   Muld said, “We may be in luck, Aloea, because we know all of them and they live in Westmark now.    Think of Sophia and see if you can contact her.”

The pregnant Lizard-woman squatted on the sand and began chirping and croaking, waving her hands over the water for a few minutes, before the water began to sparkle as if rain was falling upon it.    Then it cleared and they saw an image of a lovely, but rather bored looking elven lady who jumped up wide-eyed when she saw something in the crystal ball in front of which she was seated.

“That’s Lady Deborah!”   Syndi exclaimed as sound began to come to them as well.    The amplification effect of the magic pool was boosting the effect of the spell.

“Sophia!   Sophia!    Come here, quickly!”   Deborah was shouting to someone out of view and suddenly a multitude of faces were peering at them from somewhere else.

They recognized Khord and Sophia and Syndi was very surprised to see her parents also glancing at them.     They all tried to talk at the same moment, leading to a chaotic jumble of speech until Deborah whistled and cut everyone off, and then nodded to the Drow lady.

“Yesh be praised, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.   Not only do I see the two people we are searching for, but a dear sweet face that I had assumed had died in violence near Aeropolis.    Aloea, my friend, how are you?”

The Lizard-woman chirped an answer and reared up to show her pregnancy.    Sophia grinned prettily and stepped back from the crystal ball, “Well we have something in common, dear girl!”

Aloea gave a happy sounding chirp, but then gestured to Muld and Syndi.

“Yes, we can have the details later.   Master Muld, it is wonderful to see you and Princess Syndi as well.    Are you all well and safe?”

“Yes, ma’am, for the time being.   We’re in an underwater cave in the middle of Mórálach’s  Pool.   We think we’re in-“

“You are in the middle of Albyia; we’re just now approaching the island.”

“Approaching the island?!”

“We have a fleet of airships coming for you!  Well, maybe not a ‘fleet’ but four of them.    We’ve been flying for days to get to you as soon as we could.”

“We didn’t think anyone knew where we were,” Muld answered, humbled at their compassion for them.

“We didn’t know!”   Syndi’s mother spoke, wiping tears of joy as she did, “Lady Deborah and Sophia along with Queen Mathlyn, Princess Valmiai and Lady Elina helped pinpoint where you were.   Praise Yesh, they were right!”

King Eiolmoel leaned in close to the crystal ball, “Nin yenda, my heart is overjoyed to see you.”   He looked at Muld and added, “You as well, Nin Ion.”

Muld was speechless to hear the Elven words by which the King had addressed him - ‘Nin Ion’ which means ‘My son’.

Muld just nodded, too emotional to reply.

“Four airships will be approaching from the south,” Eiolmoel told them, “We don’t know how long it will take to arrive, but I suspect several hours.”

“Actually, it will probably be closer to about four hours,”  Deborah corrected from somewhere out of sight of the scrying device, “We were having a meeting in one of the airships, but we were not traveling at full speed.   We’ll inform the captains of each vessel and be underway soon.”

“We may have a problem seeing you,”   Muld replied, telling them about the Arch Druid Calarom.

“He’ll have mastery over the elements of nature, “  Sophia told them, “But Aloea knows all about that as she is the daughter of a Lizard-Folk Arch Druid.”

Muld and Syndi looked at the reptilian woman with admiration, “Can you counter him, Aloea?”

Aloea shook her head, but chirped once and pointed at Sophia.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence, but Arch Druids are in their element - so to speak- in outdoor natural settings.     Hopefully, Deborah, King Eiolmoel, Queen Synthaeia and I… as well as the magic users on the ships… will be able to counter him.   But he probably has at least a couple of advanced students assisting him, so this could be quite a battle.”

“We think we’re safe here in the cave as this is holy ground for the elves here and they probably won’t desecrate it to get us,”   Syndi told her, “But if we wait out there in the pool, we may not have a chance.”

“Stay in the cave until we arrive,”   Deborah suggested, “We can contact you by spell, if Aloea can cast a spell of Enabling on the water so it will act as a scrying device when we contact you.”

They glanced at the Lizard-woman, who nodded that she had such a spell memorized.

“Good, then rest and be prepared.     By the way, we flew over a large fleet of Imperial ships from the Southern Empire and they are about a day’s sailing distance from landing on the island.”

Muld nodded, “We knew they were coming, but they actually might help us escape, since Calarom is very concerned about stopping them.    Maybe he will decide to focus on them rather than redeeming his wounded pride over our escape after bettering him.”

“Let’s hope so,”   Sophia responded, “We need to make preparations, so we will see you all soon.”

“Okay, and thank you all for rescuing us.   We didn’t know what exactly to do.”

Sophia grinned prettily, “I would suggest that you and the Princess marry as soon as we get back to civilization so we won’t have to come get you two again.”

Both Muld and Syndi blushed at the implication of her words, but the Drow Sorceress just laughed and waved as the scrying connection faded away.