A Warlock's Gamble

Dominion. Temptation. Gambling. Retreat.

Snaked around Godwick’s neck, Greymalken licked at the air with a forked tongue emerging from a tiny snout of jagged teeth. Telepathically, the pseudodragon observed, “He’s resisting.” 

Wearing a spectral iron crown, Severain Yim, a healthy, young Gaelwyn Man in his mid-thirties and cousin to the King of Nodderton, resentfully gnashed his rotting teeth. He was armored, wearing a green and black surcoat and a sheathed broadsword hung at his hip.

A heavy metal key trembled in his ashen hand. 

“He’s a formidable intellect. He understands what I am doing, what I want,” Godwick winced, responding to his familiar within the recesses of his own mind. Concentrating, Godwick Emberfoot, a Halfling Warlock enslaved to the Arch Fae Aurusel the Gardener, pressed two fingers to his temple to reassert his will over Severain Yim. “Sentries?”

Greymalken squinted into the darkness. “None. Yet.” 

The magic of the iron crown had aged and withered Severain Yim; his hair had thinned and turned the color of bone to hang like a whispy veil from his scalp; his pallor had bleached a ghostly white; his skin was made dry and flakey as if his body were just inches from the grave; his eyes had recessed into bright yellow orbs.

Godwick’s gaze moved from Severain’s hand to the gate’s keyhole. Hesitantly, Severain Yim inserted the key, twisted his wrist, and opened the gate.

“Walk. En-enter the san-sanctuary,” Godwick stuttered, and at his command, Severain lumbered forward, his gait stiff, jerky, and apprehensive.

Following from behind, Godwick gripped the wrought iron bars, closed, and locked the gate. Layered under his colorful patchwork cloak, Godwick wore ripped and stained tan leggings and a soiled tunic while a dirty yellow cotton cravat tie hung loosely around his neck. Together, Godwick and Severain ascended a small flight of stairs.

“That’ll mind the guards.”

“Until they find another key,” Greymalken reminded. Nested in the hood of Godwick’s cloak, the pseudodragon examined the shambling form of Severain Yim. “Why does your enchantment alter his appearance?”

“We see the Crown of Madness as a manifestation of the energy I’m channeling from the Faewild,” Godwick replied. “It’s as if I were dumping a continuous stream of water over his head.”

Impressed, Greymalken sinisterly purred, “He is charmed, your dominion over him utter and complete.”

“Yes,” Godwick agreed, grimacing, “but he contests me, and as time passes, my own resolve weakens.”

Standing at a little less than half Severain’s height, Godwick appeared behind him and entered the castle’s sanctuary. It was the dead of night, and the sky was full of faint pinpricks of stars. They stood in a round, cobbled courtyard built high atop a bastion overlooking a green valley. Four colorful flags bearing the crests of Nodderton’s royal families hung from the walls as tapestries. Uncoincidentally, four limestone curule seats encircled a rowan tree, its branches bearing clusters of ripe red fruit; the tree grew from a brick surround in the sanctuary’s center.

“A Gifting Tree!” Greymalken said avariciously, coiling on Godwick’s shoulder. “Gaed Hok told no lies!”

“The dead cannot lie, Greymalken, only obfuscate,” Godwick affirmed, meandering the perimeter to regard the tree with wonder. Godwick rested his palm against its bark. It was cool and smooth. Looking mournfully overhead, Godwick frowned, and added, “Unlike the living.”

Greymalken bounded from Godwick’s shoulder to the tree’s branches and scrabbled up its side.

Godwick circled the trunk, his attention drawn to its fruit of knowledge. “S-Severain Yim?”

“Yes,” Severain replied in the grainy, haunting voice of the possessed. His yellow eyes watched over the valley.

“You w-will answer my questions hon-honestly, with no intention to de-deceive.”

Severain tilted his head and ground his teeth. “Yes.”

“I m-must know if more clippings from this t-tree have been t-taken,” Godwick asked.

“None,” Severain sneered, “to my knowledge.”

Godwick cringed, feeling Severain’s spite push against his mind. “Have you st-stored or p-planted its s-seeds?”

“No.”

“H-Have you preserved its fr-fruit, in any f-form?”

“I have not.”

Greymalken rested as a cat might in the boughs of the rowan tree to look proudly upon Godwick. “Behold: the last of the Gifting Trees found in the mortal realm. Aurusel will be pleased.”

Approaching Severain, Godwick scowled and pressed his will into the man. “Have you con-consumed the tree’s f-fruit?”

Severain’s hands clenched, his gaze descending to meet Godwick’s stature. “Yes.”

“Hmm,” Greymalken delightedly cooed from his perch, and his reptilian eyes glared skeptically at the man. “The plot thickens.”

Godwick extended his right hand at Severain, and the iron chain binding Godwick’s wrists - a representation of his subservience - collapsed, clanked, and jostled. “You will t-tell me for what purpose.”

Severain sneered, “Its fruit imparted foreknowledge of the frosts for three years. It foreshadowed pestilence. It granted insight into the timing of harvests, ascertained soil fertility in my fiefdom, and helped determine the likelihood of crop failure.”

“Well, color me surprised,” Greymalken crooned, smiling as much as a dragon can smile, stalking the limbs over their heads. He arched his tail where at its end rested a scorpion-like stinger.

Dubious, Godwick paused, then communicated directly with Greymalken. “If he speaks truthfully, he’s used the knowledge to instruct his farmers. He staved off losses; thwarted famine and death. This lord aided his people.”

Greymalken rolled his head, issued a low growl, and exposed his teeth. “A selfless Man who acts on the behest of a greater good? Godwick, there’s no such thing! He lies - destroy him!”

Severain Yim sneered contemptuously at Godwick, sending a sharp, intense pain coursing across Godwick’s skull.

Reflexively, Godwick reeled, braced against the tree, and pressed the butt of his palm against his eye as if to push the ache out of his head.

“Godwick?”

“I can’t tell if he’s lying,” Godwick mentally replied, struggling to subdue Severain’s consciousness.

“What would it matter?” Greymalken retorted.

“I’m hesitant to destroy the tree. Without his foresight, hundreds more may be lost to famine.”

“You mean hundreds who would otherwise die are kept alive,” Greymalken argued.

Godwick peered over his shoulder to the lush green valley beyond the ramparts of the sanctuary. “You refer to natural balances, cosmic harmonies, but those are divine questions. Suffering is a mortal experience. Severain Yim’s intentions-”

“We are no moral arbiter for Man!” Greymalken seethed, glaring at Godwick from the branches. “Who are we to question Aurusel’s designs? Or decide what is right or wrong? We are to obliterate this tree, that is our sole commission - Godwick, what are you doing?”

Climbing the base of the rowan tree, Godwick scoffed, “What do beings like Aurusel know of suffering?”

“Godwick!” Greymalken exclaimed in alarm.

“If this t-truly is the last Gifting Tree in the mor-mortal realm,” Godwick whispered, his eyes honing on a berry cluster, “it would offer p-perfect insight. I would kn-know Severain’s truth. I would kn-know the lesser of the two evils-”

His body compliantly rigid, Severain Yim’s ghostly face sneered in pleasure.

“Do not be tempted,” Greymalken shouted in Godwick’s mind.

“-I’d know … what hap-happens at the end,” Godwick breathed, seizing a juicy red rowanberry to bring it to his mouth.

Greymalken arched his back, splayed his wings, clawed at the air, and fiercely hissed, “Fool!”

The fruit tasted bitter on Godwick’s tongue, and as he consumed it, his pupils dilated, and he could barely breathe. Time crawled. His ears were filled with the steady thrum of his slowing heartbeat. Far above him, the light from the stars intensified as the spiral arm of the galaxy came into sharper focus. In the distance, Godwick could see fine details of the valley. He saw every rock and tree and field, and he knew of every worm in the soil, every wolf in the forest, every fish in the river, and the gentle flap of every butterfly.

Godwick could see clearly, more perfectly than any mortal, shattering his earthly concentration.

Severain Yim pitched to the sanctuary’s stone floor. Godwick’s Crown of Madness had disappeared, and its enchantments were dismissed, revealing Severain’s strong, youthful self. His skin was taut - young - his beard brown and healthy again, and his haunted expression was replaced with grim, fervent hate.

“Godwick!” Greymalken pleaded.

Perceiving the entirety of creation, Godwick gasped. His eyelids twitched and spasmed, and his hands shook, blindly reaching out to grasp at the world around him. Greymalken’s voice sounded echoey and muffled by Godwick’s own heartbeat pounding in his mind.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

I ask of Severain Yim.

Refocusing his addled mind, Godwick saw a translucent image of Severain sitting contemplatively on one of the curules, his head cradled in his hands and addressing three tonsured scribes who wrote copious notes on rolls of parchment. Thereafter Godwick saw those scribes directing groups of workers. He saw shadows of hunched-over laborers tending crops, bundling and basketing vegetables, pitching hay, and working the land. He saw acres of snow made green by the return of spring. Godwick saw villages - entire families - living, thriving, healthy and happy.

“Godwick!” Greymalken exclaimed.

Beneath him, Severain Yim stumbled angrily to his feet. Gripping the hilt of his broadsword, Severain withdrew his blade from his scabbard with a steely ring.

And physically impaired, Godwick remained immobilized at the foot of the tree, his eyes staring into a void.

Armed, Severain growled, advancing menacingly on Godwick to gut him alive as a flutter of red bat-like wings burst from the tree. Greymalken clawed at Severain’s eyes, and his wings flapped wildly around Severain’s head. He stepped back to regain his balance and to address the dragon.

Godwick’s pupils, consuming nearly all of his irises, beheld the whole of the universe.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

What becomes of Severain Yim’s intervention?

Godwick saw images of sprawling villages and cooking fires. He saw the population grow. The translucent shadows of people trading, building new homes, erecting stables and churches, blacksmith forges, banquet halls and inns, markets, banks, and centers of commerce. Then he saw Severain Yim’s fiefdom drastically out-compete its neighbors. Godwick watched as Man constructed terrible machines to roll across the countryside. He saw black smoke rising from the horizon, an invading army, murderous pikes thrust through the bodies of helpless women and children. And he saw a darker, more ominous shadow stab Severain Yim with a dagger, whereas the fruits of the Gifting Tree fell into the hands of a new leader, vile and corrupt.

“Godwick!”

Greymalken’s cry sounded far, far away.

Severain Yim sent his blade high and wide, narrowly missing the dragon in counter-flight. Circling to attack, Greymalken soared above Severain, spun upside down, and then dove to land behind his shoulder. Greymalken plunged his tail’s stinger only for it to be deflected by Severain’s chainmail.

Lowering his weapon, Severain threw back his arm to bat Greymalken away, and the drake crumpled at the impact and was thrown to the ground.

Dazed, Greymalken stirred to peel away from a crashing strike delivered by Severain’s sword. Hobbled by an injury suffered to his right front leg, Greymalken scrambled, his nails scraping frantically across the stone, then leaped into the air. Straining to beat his wings hard enough to gain lift, the dragon caught a draft to propel himself upward and out of Severain’s reach, sailing wide around Severain’s backside.

“Godwick!” Greymalken screamed, “Wake up! Godwick!”

Severain shouted a fierce cry as he turned around, taking his sword two-handed in a high arc to meet Greymalken’s flight path. Dodging Severain’s erratic swing, the dragon darted between Severain’s legs to soar unopposed into the space behind him.

Leaning against the tree, Godwick’s unwavering eyes bore witness to everything.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

“Behold,” Godwick recalled Greymalken say, “the last of the Gifting Trees found in the mortal realm …”

Godwick slowly raised his chained hands before him.

He felt a cold sweat. 

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

Perfect knowledge, Godwick heard himself say.

And then selfishness overtook him.

How am I to be freed from Aurusel’s thrall?

Pushing past the dragon to the center of the sanctuary, marching straight to the rowan tree, Severain Yim raised his blade to drive its tip into Godwick’s defenseless body.

Dipping out of the sky, Greymalken raked the back of Severain’s neck in a surprise attack. A trail of crimson splattered across the cobblestones, and Severain was knocked off-balance to careen and collapse, sending his sword sliding across the stone.

Godwick saw a shadow of himself standing in the Faewild surrounded by a kaleidoscope of soft, multicolored light. Perpetually under a twilight sky, the leafy forests of the Faewild were vibrant and shimmered. Tall green and purple grasses rolled from a gentle wind.

But Godwick was afraid. This was more than a land of fairies and elves, and supernatural beauty. The Faewild was home to some of the most ferocious, terrifying things. Creatures of such immense presence and power that they were long denied access to the mortal world. Thorny vines ripped from the earth and coiled at his feet to tear at his flesh, forcing Godwick to his knees.

Rising above the forest, a towering form appeared soaring a hundred feet above him, dwarfing the treeline. It had the torso of a man but the hind legs and hooves of an elk. It was a black shadow with simmering amber eyes, pointed ears, elongated arms and claws, and a head crested with twisted antelope-like horns.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

It was Aurusel the Gardener.

Godwick cried out, cowered, and threw his manacled hands over his head.

“You dare?” it hissed in a malevolent, corrosive voice dripping with poison. Aurusel’s enormous hand arrested Godwick by his cloak.

Godwick’s heart raced.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

Wide-eyed and panicked, Godwick spun his body about in the real world to claw at the sanctuary’s floor, to pull himself away.

Meanwhile, Severain Yim, wincing upon reaching behind his neck to touch his wound, cursed the meddlesome dragon, and arose to his feet to reacquire his weapon.

“Godwick! Help!” Greymalken shouted, banking along the curves of the sanctuary’s walls.

Shocked, terrified, incapable of wresting himself free of the fruit’s influence, Godwick could only watch as Aurusel the Gardener planted Godwick’s body into the soil.

Aurusel’s monstrous voice growled from inside his mind, and its burning amber eyes went to the horizon. “As you are gifted with truesight and beyond my reach in the mortal realm, you shall bear witness to your answer - the only true means of escaping my charge.”

Godwick screamed in horror, drowning in a sea of agony with waves of pain crashing into him, as black claws the size of a house wrenched the soil to rend his flesh and till him back into the earth.

And briefly, Godwick’s heart stopped.

“You will destroy the Gifting Tree, maggot,” Aurusel demanded. Its shadowy, horned gaze turned menacingly from the horizon to Godwick’s composted, rotting body, and concluded, “So neither you nor Man may eat more of its fruit.”

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

Godwick gasped and started as his consciousness returned.

And as Severain lunged to pierce the prone halfling with his blade, Greymalken slammed into the side of Severain’s head, dragging his talons and raking Severain’s right ear to shreds.

Marred, Severain instinctively dropped his weapon again, snarled, and brought his hand up to cover the side of his head, gushing with blood.

“Godwick!” Greymalken shouted from inside Godwick’s mind, racing on a wind current up the side of a royal tapestry. He banked and turned his wings ninety degrees on his axis.

Wobbling to his feet, still traumatized - scared out of his mind - Godwick stumbled and wearily opened his arms wide, as far as his manacled wrists would allow. He tilted his head back in surrender, to draw upon the immeasurable energy of the Faewild - a power granted to him, a servant, by Aurusel, his master.

“No!” Severain Yim cried, diving at the tree to grasp whatever he could of its living berries.

Summoned by Godwick’s rageful howl, a blue-flamed fireball erupted from the base of the rowan tree to send an explosion of cobblestone, fire, and crackling embers into the night sky. Screaming, Severain’s body, burned within the maelstrom of the fiery inferno, was thrown by its concussive force, launched over the ramparts, and flailed uselessly in the sky above his fiefdom to plummet a hundred feet to the rocks below.

Godwick’s body was kicked into the wall of the sanctuary, where he weakly fell forward to land on his belly.

Blackened and charred, the Gifting Tree was consumed in the blast of swirling flame. Its ashes took to the air to drift over the fertile valley.

Circling above the sanctuary at a safe distance, Greymalken angled his snout and tucked his wings, sending himself sailing through the remnants of the fireball to land by Godwick’s side. “Godwick! You idiot halfling-”

“I-I,” Godwick stuttered, his voice quavering, and he dragged himself forward across the stone. His face and neck were matted with blood and severely burned. Godwick trembled, and his hands clenched involuntarily from the pain, and he gasped, glaring at Greymalken, “I ga-gambled … I l-lost.”

Greymalken crawled on all fours and wormed himself into Godwick’s arms. “Damnit, Godwick - you need a cleric, a healer - I will not let you die! Concentrate! Take us to Mosshollow, on the border of the Aevalorn Parishes. Focus, do it now!”

Godwick teetered between life and death.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

Grasping at his cowl with his shaking, blistered hands, Godwick issued a sickly, wet gasp as he threw it up over his head, causing a flaming circle to envelope them both, and together, they fell through a hole punched into the fabric of the universe.