Helen's Interlude: A Spider and Silver

Helen's Interlude 1:
A Spider and Silver


Helen was accompanied by a chill breeze as she stepped between stands of aspen.  The air moving around her felt like a cold hand against her skin, and she understood that she had just crossed some unseen boundary. 
         She stopped walking, instead paying close attention to her senses and trying to more thoroughly understand what could have caused this feeling.  At first glance there was nothing different, but her finely tuned sense of detail caused her to look more closely at the trees directly around her.  They grew slightly taller and thicker than they had in the rest of this forest, and when she looked higher in the branches she could see black sores that oozed a thick sap on the white trunks.  Looking beyond the closest trees, she could see a clearly dividing pattern.  On one side of a clear border the vegetation was sick, and on the other it was whole.
         Something is killing these trees, she thought to herself.  Some kind of bore or blight.  It's amazing that none of them have fallen.  She resumed her pace, but her dark eyes were still careful.  Now past this strange border, the air held a distinctly flat taste. It was stagnant, despite the cool air.  A mixture of pine needles and fallen leaves broke under Helen's boots.  They felt like dried insects.
        She continued forward for nearly half a mile before stopping again, this time sitting down on a large and flat rock and drawing a small book from a pocket inside her cloak.  Unclipping a quill from the top of her notebook, Helen applied some magic to the tip, touching it with her fingers and soaking it with a black shimmering liquid.  She then put the quill to paper:

Journal Entry, week 45, 1475 A.F.  After months of frustration, I believe I've tracked down the location of my next subject.  The strange disease carried by the vegetation and the distinctly stale aura could be signs of an extremely old spell-construct, and fits the verbal description that I obtained from the locals in the village of Nemen.  I really think this is it.

She inhaled, and then watched the wisps of her breath float down beyond her nostrils as she released the air in a nearly tangible sigh.

With any luck I'll have a positive sighting by the end of the day.  The rumors said that he hordes treasures and keeps to himself, but I could find no one that has gotten close enough to know any more than that.  They say he kills people that come here, but there is no record of any actual deaths.  Their stories call him Silver, and I have yet to discover whether that has something to do with the wealth he might have accumulated or perhaps some other minor detail about his appearance.  Andrast's creations have all been immortal, and have all been marked-with one exception-by white skin, fur, or feathers.

Helen again touched the quill to her fingers to renew the spell-construct she'd applied, and then continued her notes.

This will be the sixth of them that I've found, out of the twenty-one that past research has documented.  As of next week I will have been conducting this study for one-hundred and fifty years, but I feel confident that I will eventually succeed in personally documenting every of them.  On a personal note, I'm a little nervous this time around.  Others in the past have possessed no more than an animal intelligence, but the locals describe him as a person as often as they call him a monster.  This will require some patience.  A good measure of caution never hurt anyone.
         "So, what brings you to my prison?"  Her blood seemed to freeze when someone spoke, but she exercised enough control so that she wouldn't appear physically startled.  It was a male voice.  It sounded tired, but had an impatient edge to it.
        So much for caution, she thought, and raised her head.  The man who interrupted her thoughts stood perfectly still no more than ten feet in front of her.  He had gray hair, cropped short so that it stuck out at odd angles, and his posture betrayed a hint of broken nobility, distinguished and tall.  The shape of his face reminded her of cast metal.
         Helen's nerves went as taut as violin strings.  "I was just wandering," she replied as coolly as she could.  His eyes were hard, and as he watched her it made her feel uncomfortable.
         "Not often does someone 'just wander' through this place."  He lifted his hand to scratch his face and Helen breathed in sharply.  His left hand was mostly bare, and the bits of cloth hanging from his sleeve did little to cover the medley of scars, large and small, that covered that arm.  A metal splint had been bound to his arm with a leather cord in order to support movement that must have been at least a little painful.  "The fact is, I don't like it when they do."
         "Doesn't that hurt?" Helen asked.  His only response was a sick smile.  He put his left arm behind his back and held it there with his other hand.  She waited for him to speak, and reminded herself of the fact that this man was known to have killed many travelers like herself.  She readied a spell-construct in her mind, preparing for the possibility of an attack.
         He glanced at the arm and then nervously from one side to the other, as if making sure no one was watching from the trees.  After a few moments of tense silence, he spoke:  "So, are you looking for a fight?"
         Helen wanted to ask who it was that made him cut himself, but she instead answered his question.  "No, I'm just traveling through."
         His eyes narrowed.  "Nobody just passes through here.  This is my home.  It's not easy to find, and those that come here don't do it by accident.  So tell me, what is it that you are looking for?  Is it treasure you're seeking?  Is it intrigue?  Maybe you're here out of morbid curiosity?  Did one of the great ones tell you to come for me?"  For a moment his eyes dilated strangely and he got a distance look in his features.
        She shrugged and let him collect himself before answering.  "I am a traveling scholar.  I was on the road to the south when someone told me that the vegetation was strange here, so I explored."  She gestured around them.  "This area is a little different, wouldn't you say?"  She started to sweat.  "I think it might be due to some kind of a blight or maybe a change in the soil composition."  She hated to lie to him so, but understood that his behavior would be more natural if he did not know he was under scrutiny.  "I would be willing to hire a guide to show me around the area, if you're interested."
         He looked at her with an expression of hate.  "No.  There's nothing else you need to see here.  Pass on through and continue out the other side.  Don't stop."  He briskly walked away, moving further into the half-dead forest.
Blazes, he's leaving, she thought.
        "I'll kill you if I find you again."  The voice seemed to echo between the trees, as he hurried away.  Helen snapped her book close before standing up and walking after him, but was surprised to find that he had disappeared.  There was a pause, a nervous silence before he spoke again.  "You'd be wise to go away."  Helen couldn't tell from exactly which direction the voice came.
        "Wait!  I'd like to talk to you!  Who are you?" Helen called after him, and then mumbled to herself.  "Curse my luck!"  She scrambled off in the direction she thought he would have been most likely to take, trying to catch up.  "It's terribly rude of you to just leave like that!"
         She wasn't expecting the fist that struck across her left temple and blackened her vision.  She heard him step around her and felt him grab her arm then sling her into a tree-another hard strike-before he backed off.
        They didn't speak to each other as her vision focused and she met his eyes.  She could see a cold stillness there, like an underground pool that had sat for far too long.  He spoke slowly, with sudden clarity:  "Rude?  You're the one who is following a stranger."  He looked her over deliberately.  "I'm going to give you one more opportunity to leave, but only after answering this question.  Why are you really here?"
         She brushed the blood on the back of her head with her right hand.  "I just-"
         "Don't you dare lie to me!"  His face twisted with anger, and she thought she saw a hint of returning fear as his posture sunk slightly.  "You know very well who I am, or you would not have followed me.  This is very simple, wandering mage.  Speak the truth or you will die.  I'm a very good judge of a liar."  His calm expression convinced Helen that his threats were quite serious.
        All right then, no subterfuge.  This could have gone much more smoothly, she thought, and then regained as much of her bearing as she could and introduced herself.  "My name is Helen Riley.  I am from the Interi, commoners often call us shade-weaver, and I am currently ambassador for the city of Majeir to the capitol city of Rhui Tan.  You are one of Andrast's immortal creations, and I have made it a lifetime occupation to study your kind."  She took a slow breath.  "I've come a long way and I've put a lot of time and effort into this study, and I mean you no ill will.  I merely mean to observe you and record my findings."  Exhale.  "Is that good?"
         "Maybe, but maybe not."  He breathed heavily, even nervously as he stepped fluidly backward.  "Stay right here.  I'll be back in a few days.  I need some time to think, time to talk."  At that statement, he walked off again between the trees, leaving her alone.  She thought it best not to follow him this time.
         She began rubbing her neck and pacing a short circle.  That was close.  Helen again opened her notebook and continued writing.

         Blast my inattention and bad luck, he took me by surprise.  In past encounters I have always been ready to neutralize anything that Andrast's creatures have been able to throw at me, but this time was different.  Silver is very fast, and what's worse is that he moves extremely quietly.  I'll have to be better prepared for him when he returns.

"So stupid," she muttered, with a hand over her eyes.  Helen had always taken pride in her intellect, and she began to dissect and analyze the implications of everything that had happened in a very systematic way, formulating a plan on how to improve their next encounter.

It is now very clear that he is much more intelligent than the others that I have studied, but his contradictory actions lead me to believe that he is also somewhat mentally unstable.  He appears to be a social creature, capable of conversation, which is something that I was not prepared for.  The effects of living here alone for all these centuries are daunting.  He said he'll be back, so I'll wait right here.  I will be significantly better prepared for our second meeting.

         She scribed the map co-ordinates in the margin before closing her book with an audible clapping noise.  "This is as good a place as any to set up shop, I suppose," she said to herself.

***

It took a full ten days for him to return, by which time Helen had made a small and semi-permanent camp at the exact location where Silver had left her.  She was boiling water over a small fire-preparing a strong tea-when he tripped her magic.
         She had crafted a complex pattern of delicate arcane webbing that lined the border of the camp and extended exactly fifty paces in all directions.  The semi-spherical web of particle thin magic looked something like a black thread, and was very difficult to see without close inspection.  Helen was confident that Silver could not have found a way through the complicated  pattern, no matter how fast or quiet he managed to be.
         To his credit, Silver did notice the thread before he touched it, and in a telling show of arrogance he had attempted to slip between the gaps in the pattern.  He made it as far as twenty-five paces in before actually touching any of the threads, but he did, and it broke.  The web snapped in on itself, the whole construct rebounding upon the intruder.  Helen smiled at the small 'whisp' sound it made, and stood up to pour her tea.
         It was a short walk to where Silver lay, wrapped from head to toe by miles of the shiny black thread.  Helen knew that he could see, hear, and feel, but that he couldn't move in the slightest.  His eyes were open, which was rare.  Most people blinked when they heard the string snap and were caught in that moment of motion.  The look on his face showed stronger signs of the nervousness that he had demonstrated before, but it was tempered with an amused smile.
         "My apologies, Silver, that was just a small precaution to protect me while I sleep.  It was nothing personal."  She drew the magic from the string, and it faded like moonlight, freeing its captive.  And now we're on level ground again, unless he's the vindictive sort.  She almost regretted it when she released him, but hoped that such a show of good faith would instill a better confidence.
         He stretched slowly, eyeing her carefully.  "Strike for strike."  With a nod and a nervous glance he offered her his left hand, stepping forward.  "We might just get along after all.  It's been a long time since even a mage has been able to catch me like that.  I was going to kill you and be done with it, but this changes my decision.  Now, what is it that you'd like to know?"  She hesitated, holding her breath for a moment as she tried not to look at his injured arm, but then took his hand anyway.  It was very warm, and the strength of his grip surprised her.
         His attitude had again changed significantly.  The way he stood now seemed cordial, friendly with a touch of formality.  Only a slight shiver and twitch in his grip and expression interrupted the otherwise casual demeanor.  This creature is disturbed.  She smiled as she started talking with him.  This will be a fascinating endeavor.