In Defiance of Nature

The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. Rocks rolled up the mountainsides, trees bowed to the ground in homage and lightning coiled just below the clouds in vicious, whip-like formations. Such were the weighty implications of her absence, and the natural world, the druidic realm from which Queen Roghet, the first dwarven queen in the history of the great land of Ambrosinia, had learned most of her magical skills, took the greatest notice of all.

In the prince’s private study, a halfling advisor asked King Wyver, “Where has she frolicked off to this time, do you suppose?” while half-absorbed in a technological experiment spread across the royalty’s largest table.

“Frolicked?” replied the king, a muscular man with a trapezoidal birthmark across his jaw and neck. “Grindle, you do not take the circumstances seriously enough.”

“Perhaps not,” the tinkerer admitted, “yet, the last time you had wondered where she had gone, she was found naked and drunk among the royal gardens, just several hundred yards from the castle itself… ahem, sire.”

“Do not remind me,” Wyver replied, wincing. “Does she really wish that fervently to escape the stress of her royal duties?”

”Evidently, sire, yet something in your tone seems to indicate that you think something is greatly different, this time.”

Wyver nods. “Indeed, Grindle. Will you please fetch Katalina, the famed fortune-teller, from her tent on the capital’s east side, and tell her to meet me for a meal and libation at the hour when the sun is highest?”

Grindle arches an eyebrow, but does not argue. “Yes, of course, sire.” He stands and leaves the study, to complete his royal order.

Wyver consults with the royal cook to discern what dish would persuade the ever-busy fortune teller to provide the best possible information regarding Roghet’s whereabouts; together they decide upon lamb in a succulent brown sauce, with boiled spiced apples and bruschetta upon hearty baguette bread.

Soon, a young woman, brunette with a dimpled smile, arrives, having been given special passage by the castle guards. She carries a large rounded knapsack on her back and wears a multitude of scarves, woven in tight knots through her hair and around her limbs.

“Did someone offer me food?” she says playfully, while curtsying to honor the king.

“Katalina! So good to see you once again. The royal family is in desperate need of your services.”

After feasting along with Grindle and two manservants, the pair get right down to business. Katalina manages to squeeze a glass of wine out of the king, stating that she accomplishes her best divinations when as relaxed as possible. She nimbly sips it with one hand while retrieving from her pack a crystal ball, with the other hand.

“Where is the Queen?” she asks the divine soothsayers. “What shall we do to find her and bring her back to the castle where she belongs?”

An image appears in the crystal ball, of Queen Roghet. She lies on her back upon a large pile of treasure, with what looks like the wall of a cavern just a yard or so away, behind her. The queen waves her arms and legs therein, up and down, up and down.

Wyver covers his face with his hand. Katalina remarks, “Is she making the equivalent of a snow angel?”

Grindle says, “Her Highness does not appear to be playing with a full deck, as the saying goes, your Majesty.”

Wyver retorts, “What I want to know most is what kind of danger she might be in.”

At that, Katalina changes her focus of concentration, and another image appears in the ball, that of an old male druid, surrounded by his pack mates in the middle of a dense evergreen forest.

Wyver says, “I know him. Before I returned to take the throne from my brother, I left him in charge of the pack’s future. Darby is his name.”

“The fates invite us,” Katalina recommends, “to enlist his magic and entrust to his knowledge.”

Grindle speaks, raising a concerned hand, “How so? And is it worth it, sire, for you to risk your life by leaving your post, when sending a dozen of your best knights to find the queen would accomplish much the same?”

Wyver frowns. “You are a blackguard to ask me such! Of course it is worth it! And for all your doubt, you shall have babysitting duties for the prince while I am away.”

Grindle shudders, but says no more.

——

“I have asked the trees,” Darby professes in a rough voice to Wyver and Katalina, “and I have beseeched the rivers, and I have read the winds, for this unfortunate event was foretold by prophecy, yet mourned by all of nature.”

“What are they to do for us in our search, sir Druid?” Katalina asks.

“Do you see?” Darby asks, “where the tips of the branches turn, and the way the water hesitates against the rocks? Follow their cue, and a path will unfold, for nature sees all and knows all.”

Katalina scratches her head. “Like… a god or goddess?”

Wyver nods. “You could say that. But few living beings catch the attention of this deity quite like Roghet.”

The pair closely examine the bunched-together vines and entanglements as they trek westward into the setting sun. It seems as they go that extra movement and initiative personify the wildlife as well as the unliving; even when once, Katalina stumbles over a large log, nearly spraining her ankle, a stag seemed to come out of nowhere to catch her before she fell and might have dashed her head upon the rocks.

“Oh, hello!” She says to it, gratefully scratching it behind the ears.

Soon, thunder beckons the pair forward, and rain pelts them until Katalina must spend every other movement sweeping soaked hair out of her eyes.

A lightning bolt strikes the ground, just up ahead! The surroundings are illuminated just well enough for Wyver and Katalina to discern they are approaching a mountainside. Probably that of Mount Mudd, a stronghold famously used in the Battle of 1362 to drive away a band of orc marauders, postulates the fortune-teller.

“It occurs to me,” Wyver cautions, “that no one, at least within royal circles, has had reason to set foot in these caverns ever since that fateful battle.”

The pair’s footing changes abruptly over the next quarter mile to gravel and pebbles, and the vegetation thins out, allowing Wyver to light a torch without risk of setting anything else on fire.

“Are we sure about this?” Katalina whimpers, “it’s getting dark and extremely uncomfortable, and for all we know…”

“Come…. Humans….”

The deep bass voice came from within a nearby cave mouth. Inside the mysterious entryway is pure darkness. Our pair of heroes gets closer, seeing smoke emanate from the opening and smelling what can only be described as rancid rot and decay.

Wyver peeks into the cave, extending just enough of the torchlight to see… his love and light of life itself! Queen Roghet spins in circles within a tight corkscrew pattern, and above her looms the scariest creature in the kingdom.

The famed final black dragon and evil scourge, Xelbane.

“The queen,” he booms, “is mine now.”