Below the dreary overcast and the cold mist, a bunch of trolls trudged through the sludge and reeds slaughtering the population of sentient lizards. It was in their nature; to trudge and slaughter without giving it a second thought. Their massive battle axes were covered in mud, rust and dried blood. They wore an expression of boredom and disgust for the mud, and reeds, and mist that threatened to turn into an icy drizzle.
There were no other plants around except reeds, their coloration from dirty brown to dirty gray, and this in itself was pretty depressing.
The other depressive thing was that those sentient lizards didn't bother to put up even as much as the slightest opposition as if they didn't give a shit after all. Eel - young prince and wizard, leading the expedition, looked around, thinking how senselessly he wasted his time, trying to deal with all those endless, minor issues and inconveniences besieging the kingdom day after day.
This stream of constant shit was never-ending. Today it was sentient lizards. Yesterday there were rebels. Tomorrow it would be something else, equally boring, meaningless and tiring.
Also, he didn't like slaughter and violence in general. Too bad, it was the only effective and sensible way to deal with such troubles. Like, those who fell victim to this consistent application of violence didn't mind it. And time and again, it worked, but the stream of troubles continued, and each new day something new emerged requiring immediate attention.
Eel looked around, noting the arrangement and positions of the troll units. The settlements of sentient lizards were surrounded and blocked from three sides. They could flee while there was time, but they lingered, and the trolls moved forward, tightening the encirclement. Then with a mechanical and emotionless efficiency, they destroyed and killed everything in their way. Still, there remained an opening on one side, through which lizards could run away, effectively leaving the sovereign territory of the kingdom.
Eel left this opening on purpose as a gesture of mercy, but the lizards were either too dumb or too stubborn or both and remained where they were to be massacred. The Eel puzzled over their motivations. Twenty years of studies hadn't prepared him for the peculiarities of this kingdom.
He learned about the evolution of civilizations and principles of societies, religions, philosophies, art of politics and wars as the means to the ends of politics. Having sharp and rational mind, the Eel always admired, how everything always comprised a system, a structure beautiful in its logic and consistency. One, who knew the rules of the system, could deduce the meaning of every small event and anticipate the outcomes. As if it was a chess game.
Eel prized himself on his ability to get to the bottom of things, understanding what mechanisms eventually drove them. Then he could predict, what would come next, and what would come after that. The whole chain of events. He had a special talent for this. It made him proud when he was able to see this far in the future, while everybody else around him grappled helplessly in the darkness.
This skill lent him a position in the diplomatic corps of the Cloud Empire. He played a complicated game, trying to reconcile the interests of two Empire neighbors and one Rebel faction inside the Empire.
Neither of the players had a single interest in common. The two neighboring countries deeply hated each other, this hate perpetuating through generations fueled by religions, inferiority complexes, and occasional massacres. Each of them wanted to see the Empire as their sole and committed ally and wouldn't tolerate double-crossing.
Meanwhile, the Cloud Empire needed both of them for different reasons, and at the same time wasn't at all interested in giving them what they wanted. What they wanted always boiled down to quenching their bloodthirst towards their respective neighbor and organizing some bloodbath.
The rebels, on the other hand, presented a different kind of problem. They knew about the weak and decrepit state of the Empire and dreamt about taking control. Also, this had been promised to them by some revered prophet from their obscure and bizarre religion. The Rebels played their own diplomatic game, trying to establish alliances with Empire's neighbors exploiting their mutual enmity. At the same time, they kept some form of a dialogue with the King and the ministers of the Empire, peppering them with a shower of platitudes and bullshit. This is what the Eel had to deal with.
The bulky shape of the troll captain emerged before Eel, interrupting his reverie. The troll captain briefly reported the success of the operation. His tone of voice conveyed utter boredom, and it seemed that he was on the verge of yawning.
"We captured several prisoners, by the way" added the troll in an offhand way, obviously not considering it a matter of any consequence. This was an instruction he got from Eel, and he carried it out with his usual meticulousness.
"That's a good thing, thank you," said Eel friendly. If nothing else, interrogating the lizards, he would be able to figure out their motives. It wasn't for the first time they illegally crossed the borders of the Kingdom and spread their camps just near the border without moving any deeper inside. Eel would be glad to let the matter go if it wasn't for a small problem. Lizards inhabited one small neighboring republic that was technically at war with the Kingdom. It was another conundrum Eel tried to puzzle out.
Lizards were neither belligerent nor particularly intelligent race. Also, among all the documents Eel was able to find, there wasn't any mention of how this war had started. At that moment it was a state of a frozen conflict. The documents of twenty years ago referred to it as a frozen conflict. So did the documents, dated hundred years ago.
Among earlier documents, there weren't any mention of lizard republic and its relations with the Kingdom whatsoever. Eel hoped that interrogation of captive lizards would help to shed some light on this enigma. Also, their strange behavior; them stubbornly crossing the border again and again.
The leaden gray sky became darker as the evening approached. The cold drizzle started adding the dull and monotonous sound to the generally bleak picture of the endless swamp, densely overgrown by reeds.
The Eel could see that the job was more or less done, and he could return to the temple and busy himself with something more palatable than supervising a massacre in the swamps.
The most dispiriting thing for him was that he wasn't able to think clearly in the cold and drizzle. Thinking, scheming, playing with the ideas, applying logic, and drawing deductions. For Eel it was essential. He felt somewhat paralyzed and helpless.
The flames in the fireplace cast orange glances around the room. Eel went once again through the old scrolls, describing the state of affairs in the bordering kingdoms. It seemed like they changed with incredible rapidity. Switching to the notes written several decades later, Eel could see that either the names of the kingdoms changed or they turned into something different. Or sometimes they were populated by totally different races and species.
Eel consulted the old Orc name Galizef, who was in charge of the foreign affairs for over a century before Eel started preparing himself to the position of a ruler and became interested in the matters of Kingdom.
The old Orc usually could be seen wearing his ancient and exquisite gold-rimmed glasses and perusing some papers, filled with incomprehensible legal jargon. This time he sat near the fireplace, wrapped in a colorful woolen shawl. He, as usual, leafed through some papers, but his eyes behind the glasses were dreamy and unfocused. He was about to nod off lulled by the warmth of the fire and the peaceful atmosphere of the room.
Draperies covered the stone walls, depicting dainty bright flowers and tender landscapes with creaks, meadows and sparkling waterfalls. Where the bare walls weren't disguised by those pieces of art, they were decorated with artfully wrought, elegant lamps, designed in a form of some fantastic golden plants with delicate sparkling leaves, attached to bizarrely curved, sinuous twigs. The central parts of these lamps emitted bright, milky luminance, ranging from peach orange to green, to cherry pink.
Every time Eel asked the old Orc about the nature of those lights, the Orc smiled enigmatically and suggested that it was powered by elvish magic. Eel pointed out that there were no any Elves around ever.
Orc's face took a thoughtful, meandering expression. After a while, he explained that elvish magic was something that had nothing to do with Elves. It was called so because it usually manifested itself in such beautiful and refined ways. In fact, those artifacts were created by the race of Ruby Dwarves who themselves were so exquisite and refined creatures that everybody thought they were Elves.
The race of Ruby Dwarves had been extinct long ago. Although, they stayed in legends, plus there were those strange artifacts. Those artifacts contained magic that nobody was able to reproduce after Ruby Dwarves were hit by the outbreak of flu and ceased to exist.
The Kingdom was able to procure enchanted color lights that never went off. In addition to their soft, gentle glow they produced a feeling of lucid calmness. Which was perfect for the library. Eel asked the Orc if he understood the nature of magic in the enchanted lights. The old Orc answered that he did. Although, he hardly would be able to explain it to Eel. Because Eel wasn't prepared.
"Suffice to say," grumbled the old Orc "It has to do with the way how this all what we see is constructed. You can imagine it as a violin. But it has really many strings. Those string produce different sounds, each string produces its own sound, and together they form the music, which we perceive as, well, everything. Everything we see or hear, what constitutes our reality is this music played on this violin. But what happens when the string of the violin breaks. It snaps into a tight knot, and it doesn't produce the sound anymore, but it produces something different. Suffice to say, those things that we call enchanted lights are produced by the vibration of the broken string."
For Eel this explanation sounded vague and somewhat weird and it didn't really clarify anything but he had to be content with that. Otherwise, the Orc suggested, the Eel could prepare himself for more elaborate elucidation because he in no way was ready now.
Along the walls at safe distance from fireplace stood the stacks of bookshelves stocked with fat volumes, crumbled decrepit manuscripts, and piles of notes.
All those things were a small part of the contents of the main library, located in the vaults of the castle. The main library presented a huge labyrinth of dark and dusty corridors spread under the castle. The corridors were filled with books, manuscripts, parchments, old stones, and metal plaques with inscriptions engraved on them.
The manuscripts and pieces of parchment referred to various convoluted legal affairs of the Kingdom, starting from its foundation. Somewhere among the dust and cobwebs laid a stone plate with the very first laws carved on its surface with a bronze knife. Nobody bothered to extract it from the obscurity of murky corridors, and nobody even knew where exactly it was.
Eel spent some time trying to find the venerable document, but the multitude of corridors bewildered him, and finally, he gave up. Also, there were more urgent matters to attend to.
Most of what constituted the contents of the upper library - a cozy room with a fireplace, was brought here by the big Toad when it ruled the kingdom. While Eel was a human and had been called "Eel" only because of his obscure pagan ancestral ties, the big Toad was naturally a toad with the only difference from a regular toad, that it was big as a calf.
Some said the Toad was also more intelligent than a regular toad, but this point had been debatable, to begin with. And after a decade while the Toad ruled the Kingdom everybody agreed that the Toad had the level of intelligence of a normal toad.
In fact, before it ascended to the position of power, the Toad was a lawyer. This could explain its passion towards various scrolls, containing the multitude of convoluted and perplexing laws and amendments. Plus the accounts of legal precedents mixed up with religious texts.
Five of the fifteen religions of the Kingdom strongly influenced its laws, notwithstanding that those religions contradicted each other, and two of them were in a direct conflict, with fanatics killing each other on the streets.
The images grew silently, slowly approaching from the horizon. The translucent stripes of colors swirled, mixing into the whirlwinds above the dim surface of the endless swamp and the dull brown rows of reeds.
Eel gave an inquisitive glance to the Orc, accompanying him. The Orc caught the hint and said briskly "Elvish magic." It seemed that any phenomena that couldn't be explained were referred to as "Elvish magic". Eel curious about this strange play of colors in the sky and not satisfied with the answer tried to pull more information from the Orc. "What kind of Elvish magic is that exactly?"
The Orc seemed to hesitate for a bit like he didn't really want to talk about it. Eventually, he answered
"There is an old legend about it. In the very old times, before dwarves, orcs, and humans populated this land it was inhabited by a different race. That race had the power over the elements. They had bodies as we do, but we have our bodies and our spirits as one unbreakable thing. Our consciousness is trapped inside our bodies and cannot exist separately. When our bodies are destroyed our spirits disappear. With this race it was different. Their consciousness and their bodies existed independently from each other. They needed bodies to operate things in the material world, but their consciousness wasn't confined to their bodies. It could travel freely. They could exchange their consciousnesses or fuse them together in order to exchange knowledge and experiences,"
The Orc paused for a second and studied the picture, that kept unfolding in the skies above the swamp.
The view at that moment was magnificent and strange. The faint ribbons of various colors bent and spun, dissolved to the point of being imperceptible and coalesced into vivid flashes. They intertwined as snakes, all the time maintaining a mesmerizing undulating motion.
At some point, they produced a vague shape of a gigantic rhinoceros straddling uncertainty above the marshes. Its indistinct contours were outlined by the whiffs of slight vapor, dissipating into untraceable shreds of mist. Then the semi-transparent shape of the beast devolved into chaotic swirls of spinning rainbow bands.
"Their souls were also connected to the things around," continued the Orc "like rivers, creeks, forests, clouds. At that time this place wasn't all covered by marshes like now. Actually, as the saying goes, this transformation happened when their souls were consumed by the spiritual plague. When their consciousnesses became boggled in contradictions and doubts they weren't able to serve as the foundation for the reality anymore. And the reality began to deteriorate."
Eel gave the Orc a curious glance "You mean the reality here is a byproduct of their consciousness?"
"Something like that"' admitted the Orc "It's a legend. One of those, trying to explain the origins of everything. According to this legend, those creatures were demigods or deities whose consciousness created the reality itself."
He went silent, watching with interest as the translucent, rainbow rhinoceros limped clumsily above the marshes. It was brighter than the bleak air of the cloudy day as if it emitted some luminescence of its own.
"So the state of reality was considered being tightly connected with the spirits of those creatures," continued the Orc
"When their spirits were in a state of clarity and balance as it were at the beginning, this place presented a kind of a paradise. Crystal, sparkling creeks crossed the luxurious meadows, covered by vibrant blooming flowers. The forests and groves boasted lush and exuberant foliage. Fat silvery fish splashed in the rivers, and the flamboyant birds frolicked and chattered on the meadows and in the groves."
The Eel watched thoughtfully how the figure of misty rhinoceros dissipated in the air. When the last traces of it were gone, there remained only the dreary plain of marshes and reeds in a dreary dim light filtered through the thick layer of leaden gray clouds.
"What does the legend tells of Elvish magic? Those strange things we see."
The Orc pondered the question for a while
"Those things are the manifestation of their souls," he said reflectively "In other words, it's their thoughts or dreams maybe."
"But isn't it just a legend?" the Eel lifted an eyebrow quizzically.
They trudged through the forest for several days; Eel plus several Orcs and the Old Wizard named Az accompanying him. The path they followed at the beginning disappeared in the evening of the first day of their travel, so they had to dismount and continue on foot through the tangles of roots concealed under the coverlet of velvety emerald moth and the boughs, constantly blocking their path.
They had to duck, and dodge, and jump. They espoused curses and obscenities, and the thoughts of how little progress they made put them all into a depressive state of mind. At night the constellations of pale lights emerged on the branches and moss. They shimmered and fluctuated, silently hovering in the air. When the morning approached, they disappeared one by one dissolving in the air.
"Elvish magic?" asked Eel, and the Orc nodded in affirmative. Eel realized at some point that this phrase meant "I have no idea" in practically all the contexts it had been used. It was just that nobody understood the nature of the strange visions, infesting these lands. Neither anybody understood the principles, powering various artifacts, including magic lamps, and mirrors, and multidimensional boxes.
The old Orc tried several times to explain to Eel the concept, saying that everything around was, in fact, a big violin, and the sounds produced by its strings manifested itself in the form of reality, and when the strings broke and coiled into knots, it produced some anomalies known as "Elvish magic". Eel considered it as another speculation and a fairy tale similar to the legend about "Red Dwarves."
"How do we even know for sure that this horse is going to be there?" complained the youngest of the Orcs when they sat in the evening near the campfire and sullenly roasted on spits various small animals they were able to capture during the day. The old Wizard Az fiddled with his beard and said,
"First of all, it's not really a horse; it's more like a mix between a Centaur and a lizard. It has the back side of a horse and a torso of a human female. Its head is a mix of the human and lizard heads, and it has a huge lizard tail. Which, by the way, is a dangerous and deadly weapon. All in all, enchanting creature. I know for sure it's going to be there because it has always been there. For many generations, Wizards went on a pilgrimage to this place to seek the advice of this creature, since it also happens to be a sort of Oracle or something."
The young Orc didn't look convinced, he fidgeted near the fire and chewed a grass blade.
"Did you personally see it?" he asked eventually.
"Not really" answered Az "but I participated in the arrangement of a similar expedition when I was an apprentice in the Magic Order. As far as I can remember, we wanted to find out about the animals that started appearing on the borders of the Kingdom. Those were strange animals. They showed obvious signs of intelligence, and we couldn't make up our minds how to deal with them. Really, we didn't know what to expect. So we sent an expedition to consult this Centaur Lizard Oracle, and it suggested to kill them all. Which, as far as I remember, we did."
From the dark depths of the forest came hooting sounds mixed with a strange, eerie laughter. Eel felt a wave of uneasiness passing through him, and he stood up and started to pace back and forth, trying to focus on his plans.