The Burning Expanse

"There weren't always dragons in the valley," proclaimed Arin prophetically.

"There still aren't," grumbled Tollin.

Arin and Tera shared a glance that floated down to the landscape below them. The three of them were still on horseback, peering down the mountainside.

To their backs laid Belun Wood, a thick forest with great green pines jutting into the air, as far as the eye could see.

In front of them lay, Modesta's Playground, a once lush green landscape teeming with flora and fauna, flanked on all sides by mountains, now sat dead and dark.

Of the fauna, there were no signs. In fact the only signs of past life were the burnt husks of some of the more stalwart trees. The rest of the sprawling valley was charred and black. There were still a few small smoldering fires.

"Maybe not," replied Arin, "but you mean to tell me it doesn't make you wonder?"

"They're just stories, Arin. There will be no great dragon god come to save us from this," Tollin responded sullenly.

"Enough," Tera interjected, "the sun is setting. We need to start heading back to camp."

With that, she wheeled her mount around and started the slow descent through Belun.

Tollin fell in behind her, sour look constricting his already sour features into something altogether unpalatable.

Arin spared one last dejected look at the scorched landscape.

This valley was a place beloved by many. It had the unfortunate geographical fate of being right in the middle of four kingdoms, and as such had been a hotly contested piece of land. Hotly contested, but none had dared to fight in it, for none had dared to bring war to such a place of peace. Until now, evidently.

He heaved a sad sigh and gave Pepper's reins a gentle tug towards the woods.

Whoever was responsible for this would pay in kind.

_________________________________________________

Remis sprinted headlong through the forest. Bare feet slapping against mostly soft earth, save the errant root he would catch his foot on.

He wasn't sure why he was running. There was no sign of pursuit. Even with his breath hammering hard in his head, his heightened hearing would have surely heard it.

Maybe he was just running from the memory of what happened.

The last thing he remembered, he was in his room in Terith Moi, practicing a divination from a book he had found locked away in the library. The book was a compendium of divinations to open Gates.

He was planning to make a trip to Terith Lant to speak with some old friends, but something had gone wrong in the weaving of the Gate.

The next thing he knew, he woke up on his back with the world burning around him.

There was an instant after he blacked out, but before he had his senses fully about him, he remembered seeing a face wreathed in fire. It was a familiar silhouette, but his rattled brain couldn't pick out any specific details.

For all Remis knew, he wasn't even on the Material Plane anymore, though it certainly felt as though he was.

His first order of business was finding out where he was.

He slowed his pace, getting his breathing under control and looking for high ground or an outcropping where he could see the sky. With none forthcoming, he scrambled up the nearest tree. There was an abundance in this wood but the canopy was too thick to see all the way through.

At the top of the tree, he got a good look at the night sky. Stars and a moon peeked through the clouds, reassuring him that he was on the Material Plane. Where exactly, was the more pressing concern; after all, it was a very big world.

Remis gazed out over the sea of protruding branches and foliage, looking for any signs of life. He eased his Pineal open, painting the world in different hues than the normal spectrum of light allowed for.

He could see far off to the east there was a large congregation of activity, the energy from the fires, coloring the sky above it a dull orange.

He tracked his eyes to the left, making a slow circle around the top of the tree. There were dull glows of life, barely perceptible; mostly animals, though none he'd seen before based on their auras.

To the west, from where he'd been running, another mass of people, this one much larger. Though they were much further than the congregation to the east, their fires had created a mass of roiling orange-red energy high in the sky.

Two different camps with sizable forces, no more than two days travel from each other.

Had he found himself in the middle of a war? It hadn't been the first time, but normally he had some stake in at least one of the sides.

He had fully opened his Pineal to scout the area for auras, and the overload of senses was beginning to wear on him. He eased it closed, lest he pass out from overexertion again.

As he was finishing his small circuit of the horizon, he found something he might have missed for the sheer fact that it was passing almost directly below him.

The dull glow of three torchlights bobbed their way past the tree he was perched in. Not the most optimal place or time to have a conversation, but Remis' need for information far outweighed his hope for the best circumstances.

He cast a quick enchantment on himself, just in case these people didn't take kindly to being questioned in the middle of the woods this late into the evening.

Just a minor speed and sight enchantment, there were many places on the Material that did not look kindly on the Arts, so he opted for something less telling.

After whispering the incantation and tracing the runes in the air, his senses sharpened.

A light breeze rolled through the woods, breathing life into the canopy. The leaves and branches shifted in concert but also independently of each other. Remis could observe the specific movement of each dancing piece of foliage, while still tracking the greater choreography of the forest around him.

He was getting very good at these enchantments.

___________________________________________________

"We should set up camp," Tera said, "don't want to go shattering one of our horses' legs because we can't see a damned thing."

Arin and Tollin nodded their silent agreements. Dismounting, and unslinging their gear, they went through the well rehearsed routine of the forward scout.

Arin tossed down his bedroll and set to work on starting a fire. They were well enough into Marten territory to worry about any foreign scouts catching them unaware.

He took flint to steel, trying to spark the small patch of kindling, but a pesky wind picked up and snuffed his efforts.

Sighing in frustration, he began the process again. A presence roamed up behind him, Tollin come to criticize his progress most likely.

"Need some help?"

Certainly not something Tollin would ask, and more worrying, not a voice Arin recognized.

Arin subtly inched his hand towards the dagger at his feet.

"No need for that, friend," the voice said.

The figure strutted to the opposite side of the campfire, hands raised in a placating manner.

Given different circumstances, he might have laughed at the state of the man in front of him. They were of a similar age, no more than 30. He had dusky skin with long hair twisted into braids that hung like ropes past his shoulders and he wore an unkempt beard. His clothes did not suit the outdoors, they were more akin to the sleeping robes Arin had seen in some of the more expensive store fronts in Ulreya. The strange man was also barefoot, which seemed like a very large oversight to Arin.

By all reasoning he looked like someone who had rolled out of bed onto the forest floor.

"My apologies for interrupting you at this hour, but I seem to have found myself in a bit of a tough situation."

"It certainly looks that way," Arin responded, a small smile playing across his face, "I’m afraid I can't offer much more than some dried beef though."

The man let out a gentle chuckle, "Ah, no need for that, though I appreciate your hospitality. I'm actually in search of some minor information if it wouldn't trouble you too much."

Arin's reply was cut off by the sound of Tollin coming back to the campsite, "Arin, I couldn't find too many dry branches, so we'll have to . . ."

His sentence trailed off when he broke into the small clearing, "Who in the Nine is this?"

"We actually haven't gotten that far," the stranger said, "I am Remis Dal'Corten. Where is your last companion? There were three of you, yes? It would be much easier to have a conversation with everyone present."

Tollin bristled at that, "You been following us?"

"My reckoning is we've been following him," it was Tera's voice materializing out of the woods behind Remis, "I can smell the smoke on him from here. You happen to just come from the west?"

She came out with an arrow knocked, but not drawn, so that was a bit of a relief. Things were escalating far too quickly for Arin's liking.

Remis slowly glanced over his shoulder. Upon noticing Tera's tense posture and her knocked arrow, he deflated a bit. Not in fear, but mostly in a mild disappointment.

"Tera, I really don't think there's any need for that," Arin said.

As the words left Arin’s mouth, there was a flash of movement from Remis.

Barely anything changed, but when Arin looked back to Remis, he was holding the arrow and twirling it nonchalantly in his hand.

"There really is no need for that," Remis said slyly, tossing the arrow over his shoulder back to Tera. It landed point into the dirt, standing perfectly straight on end.

There was a long silence after that, the three scouts shared varying looks with each other, ranging from confused to horrified. Tera landed towards the latter end of the spectrum. It looked like every muscle in her body was telling her to get out of these woods and away from whatever Remis was.

Tollin finally broke the silence, "Who are you really Remis?"

The dark skinned stranger gave vent to a soft sigh that was almost a chuckle.

He strode a few slow steps towards Arin. The whole party tensed, reaching for weapons. They were pretty sure at this point they'd do little good in a fight with this strange man, but people are want to cling to whatever small hope they have.

Remis put his hands out, displaying no weapons, or even any malintent for that matter.

"I have a proposition, but I have always found that deals are best done with full visibility. The true mark of an individual is in the eyes after all."

He stopped across the unlit campfire, settled down on his haunches and extended his empty palm to Arin.

"May I see those?" he asked, looking down at the flint and tinder in Arin's hands.

Arin didn't see that he had much choice in the matter, so he placed the worn fire starter in the proffered hand.

Remis then dropped to both knees and settled back on his heels, closing his eyes. With one hand on the stone and steel, he started whispering something in a sing-song sort of language, while tracing his other hand in the air in practiced motions.

Arin shared wide-eyed looks with Tollin and Tera. It was only a few seconds, but Arin found himself immediately entranced by whatever was happening.

Satisfied that whatever he did had worked, Remis rocked up from his kneeling position.

There was no noticeable change. Arin half expected dancing lights to flash into existence and illuminate the whole forest, like they did in some of the fairy stories his sister was so fond of.

Instead Remis gathered the flint and steel and stooped to the disappointing fire pit. With one fluid motion he swiped the metal against the jagged rock.

Arin was expecting the normal flash of sparks, so when a gout of flames jumped into the fire pit, it caused him to reel backwards off his log.

Scrambling to his feet, Arin started backing away from the scene, but as he looked again the fire was a controlled, albeit bright, blaze right where he had set up the kindling.

The fire gave a new life to Remis' features. He was all angles, his wiry frame might have been mistaken for frail, but Arin noticed the chorded muscles on his forearms. His face seemed to be perpetually upturned in a half mocking smile.

"Now that we have some proper lighting, let's get to my proposition," he gestured around the fire, "please, get comfortable, you're making me nervous with you standing all around me. It's your fire after all, I'm merely a guest."

The three of them obliged, if not a little warily. They were justly anxious, which ended up with them all sharing the same log opposite of Remis.

He noticed their apprehension, which in fairness was written all across their, well, everything. It looked like it genuinely troubled Remis.

He scratched his head, "It appears I may have started this off on the wrong tack. I apologize for that. May we start over?"

There was an expectant silence then. Arin was having trouble finding his tongue after witnessing two impossible things happen in the span of a minute.

Tera recovered her voice first, "What's your proposition? We'll see about starting over after we know what you're after. I have some questions that need to be answered before anything.

"Ah! Well that is a remarkable coincidence. As it so happens, my proposition wholly revolves around questions and honest answers," Remis assured.

He gave an expectant pause, a smile still confidently plastered across his face.

He was met with silence.

"Right . . . so since there are three of you, let's say three questions. One a piece. I'll answer your questions first, as a show of good faith, but I expect three answers of my own."

"If we refuse?" Arin asked.

"That's one question down!"

More silence.

"I see there's no lightening this mood. Very well. If you decline my offer, then I will be off to find people who are more willing to."

"That's it?" asked Tollin.

Remis' face split into a grin.

Tera quickly cut him off, "Don't say it."

Remis put his hands up innocently and slyly responded, "That's it."

Tera looked to Arin and Tollin, "I don't know about you, but I'd like to know more about the mysterious stranger romping around the woods barefoot, smelling like fire."

"Let's hear what he has to say," Tollin conceded.

Arin nodded his assent, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He hadn't smelled the smoke on Remis earlier, and it brought a memory bubbling to the fore of his head.

"What do you know about dragons?" Arin asked, "That's my question."

He felt Tera nod in approval at the question, and Tollin tense at the mere mention of the word.

The question seemed to catch Remis off guard, his permanent smile faltering a fraction.

"Aside from the fact that I'm nearly certain they don't exist? Not much. My hunch is they were contrived as an allegory, as most 'monsters' are. An exaggeration to scare and warn children about the real horrors of the world, human nature. In the case of dragons, they were a warning about the very human trait of greed."

Remis paused in contemplation, "Of all the questions you could start with, why dragons?"

"Is that your question?" he replied.

"Ha!" Remis burst out, "Oh, very good. Arin was it? I think I like you, Arin."

He seemed to mull the idea over for a moment.

"As a matter of fact, that is my question now. You've sparked a curiosity in me."

"Oh," Arin hadn't expected that.

Remis looked on expectantly.

"Well, there is a story passed through generations in our kingdom, about the creation of the lands and how the Marten family came into power. It speaks of a dragon named Elsindrel that took the form of a human and bestowed great power upon Galand Marten. With it, he unified the major tribes of the land into an army and set about forging an empire."

At the mention of Elsindrel, Remis' smile melted away, replaced by an altogether darker expression.

Arin carried on anyways, "The story says that Elsindrel would return again, at a time the kingdom most needed him. That he would come on the precipice of a great war, and his return would be marked by fire and devastation. We just so happened to stumble across quite a lot of fire and devastation. Right before you found us."

Remis' countenance turned stormy. Tera and Tollin noticed too, Arin felt them tensing for an attack.

They sat like that for a while, Remis silently fuming while everyone else sat on edge.

Of the calm and friendly demeanor Remis had displayed, there was no more. Just silent contemplation. Arin imagined he could see Remis running through different calculations in his head, and did not like the sum he was arriving at.

Just when Arin thought they would be getting nothing more from Remis, the mysterious man stood up and brushed off his pants.

"Very well then, let's go," he said, then started striding east.

"Woah, woah," Tera called after him, "What do you mean? Go where?"

Remis didn't slow down, "About a half day's walk east. That is where you're camped, correct?"

The three scouts shared startled looks, but made no attempt to follow him.

"Oh come now, you've seen me do two things that you would have thought impossible. I saw it on your face. What's one more improbable act?"

"So it's true then? The prophecy. You're Elsindrel, come to help us in the war?" Arin asked.

Remis whirled at that, a blur of movement, then he was nose to nose with Arin, gripping the collar of his shirt and pulling him close.

"Do not call me that," Remis hissed, "there is no prophecy, there is no dragon, no great deliverance. There is just death and destruction and a war far greater than you can imagine, and it will be here far sooner than you're ready for."

With that he released his grip on Arin and turned away.

Arin, Tollin, and Tera jogged to catch up with his long strides.

"But you're going to help? You'll fight with us?" Arin asked.

Remis nodded briskly.

“Though it’s more likely I’ll die with you.”