Almare - The White Mirror

In Welkin, there was complete and utter turmoil. The city had less than half an hour to prepare the storm of the millennium and set it loose on the greatest and most evil threat ever to plague the Kingdoms. Tempers were running high.

“Where’s Tony?” Wolf asked Virginia with more than a little exasperation in his voice. “I haven’t seen him for hours.”

“I don’t know,” Virginia answered, scanning the huge expanse of rolling clouds that was the area between the edge of the city and the beginning of ‘battle stations’. “But he had better show up soon because he has Patrick and I want to be with him when this storm starts. The last time I saw them was in Lorelei’s house.”

Wolf sighed. “I’d better go back and get him. You know he’ll never come out of that place on his own if there’s danger outside.”

Virginia was going to protest to this attack on her father, but she realized that it was very true and said nothing. “You might as well.”

A few minutes later, after a frantic search for the right house, Wolf found Tony, Patrick and Nicholas the elf sitting at a table inside and talking. He ran in and broke up the party, with a frown at Tony who just gave him a sly grin.

“What could you possibly be smiling about...” Wolf asked him incredulously when he was still grinning later as they walked back toward Virginia. Nicholas had flown off somewhere in the other direction. “... when the fate of all the Kingdoms rests right now on a crazy old man, and we could all quite possibly be killed, and... Cripes, stop it, you’re scaring me!”

But Tony kept right on smiling, and the only thing that finally wiped the smirk off his face was Virginia’s expression when they reached her.

“We have to hurry,” she said urgently as they approached, taking Patrick from Wolf’s arms. “They’re about to start...”

Half walking and half running, the four started for battle stations, and the almost - invisible city completely disappeared behind them. Virginia couldn’t see more than a few feet in front or to any side of her, but she kept her eyes ahead and tried not to think that she could get lost again. Lorelei had assured her that all she had to do to get to battle stations was walk in a straight line away from the edge of city. Virginia didn’t know anything about what the battle stations actually were, but she just hoped she could find them anyway.

Gradually she began to realize that the cloud was thinning. From her earlier walk when she had lost herself in the clouds and found the spot where she could look out over the Kingdoms, she recognized that there was more light coming through the mist than normal.

“Wait,” she ordered Wolf and Tony. Holding Patrick tightly, Virginia inched through the haze. All at once she was no longer standing in the cloud, but at the very edge of the clear force field that made it possible for them to walk. When she looked down she could see, for miles below where she was standing, the green of the Kingdoms and blue of the sea. It looked very much like she was standing on nothing at all, over the land so far below. She sucked in her breath slowly and took a large step backwards. Patrick’s eyes widened and he clutched his mother in fear.

“What is it?” Wolf asked. He and Tony came closer and joined her at the end of the cloud.

“Whoa,” Tony whistled in surprise. “I didn’t know we were that high up.”

Virginia didn’t answer. She was looking across to the clouds parallel to the one they were on. What she saw surprised her almost as much as suddenly finding herself standing on nothing at all over miles of empty space.

It was, she supposed, the battle stations, but it was not what she had been expecting. Scattered all over the sky, for almost as far as her eyes could see, there were hundreds of little puffy white clouds. The clouds were lined up in straight rows, diagonally back and forth, each one carefully spaced. And on each cloud was a person. Men and women, old and young, hundreds of people on hundreds of clouds. The women wore long white dresses like Lorelei’s, and the men wore white garments covered by cloaks. It was difficult to differentiate between person and cloud.

“So that’s where everyone in the city was this whole time,” Wolf said. “They were camped out here.”

“And now it’s time for them to work,” Virginia added. “But the sky is still blue. We’re not too late.”

The sky was blue. From so high up, it was a deeply rich blue, and the sun was shining almost blindingly bright. It was hard to imagine what was about to happen.

Virginia could see that far away, at the front of all the people and where they were turned toward, stood the only figure that was cloaked in brown. Even from such a long distance, she recognized him as the Guardian. He looked stronger and taller than she had ever seen him before, ready to lead his people into battle. Next to him was a single woman standing on her own cloud. The woman looked up and saw Virginia, Wolf, Tony and Patrick, and started moving toward them on her cloud. The way she rode on it made Virginia think of a flying carpet. Lorelei swooped up gracefully to where they were standing at the edge of the force field and stood with her arms crossed. She looked at them, raised her eyebrows, and frowned.

“I really don’t know what to do with you,” she said in an irritated tone. “Before, whenever we’ve had the Seers here during a storm they’ve stayed in the city, where it was safe.” She stared at them pointedly, but when none of them, not even Tony, made any move to leave back for the city, she sighed and went on.

“Fine. If you really must see this, I guess I’ll have to put up a temporary force field around all of you. Humans (including half-wolves) simply cannot be in a cloud during a thunderstorm without protection. Certainly not during a storm that’s as bad as this one is going to be.” Lorelei looked at them again for a moment, and suddenly her tone softened as her eyes rested on baby Patrick. “Don’t worry,” she said, allowing herself a smile. “It will all be over soon.”

With that, she raised her hands into an arch and spoke a few strange words. The next second, Virginia found herself and her family in a transparent dome that she could see out of clearly. When she touched the surface, however, the substance swirled and twisted but did not break, and snapped back to its original form with a sound like splashing water. She knew that nothing could penetrate the dome, and that they couldn’t escape either.

“Wait!” Tony called after Lorelei just before she sped away on her cloud again. “How will we breathe? We’ll run out of air!”

“You have breathing rings,” she called, rolled her eyes, and headed off in the direction of the Guardian again.

Virginia had almost forgotten about the golden breathing ring on her finger. Quickly she checked Patrick’s hands for one, and found a tiny ring there on his right ring finger. He must have had one anyway, she thought, because no human could breathe in the high altitude air without a ring.

Lorelei moved again to her place beside the Guardian. From the bubble, Virginia could see them conversing with each other. Then the Guardian turned to his people, who were waiting patiently and began to speak. The four observers in the bubble could hear him clearly. Strangely, the force field dome did not block the sound at all.

“People of Welkin,” he shouted, his voice somehow made louder so that the ones on clouds in the far back, thousands of feet away, could hear him, “The time is now.”

In total unison, the hundreds of people raised their hands. The power in that movement was phenomenal. Virginia was grateful for her dome of protection. Any one of those people could change so much with their powers, could alter the lives of many. Luckily they knew how to use their powers for good, but still they were frightening, all together in one place, about to let loose their magic and storm upon the world...

The horse stirred nervously beneath him and kicked at the ground. Not for the first time that day, Wendell wondered about the accountability of his steed. It was a horse he had not ridden before, a beautiful jet black one that was supposedly one of the strongest in Rapunzel’s possession. But, perhaps that was a bad point, too, the simple fact that it belonged to Queen Rapunzel. He would certainly not be riding one of her horses, if only he had not volunteered his own favorite horse to the scout who had been sent ahead, bragging that it was the fastest in the Kingdoms. Wendell, sadly enough, had not a single extra horse to spare amongst his whole army, which left him in the piteous position of having to ask to borrow one, and Rapunzel was the first to have volunteered her service. Well, he would make the best of it anyway.

An alarmingly large fly buzzed across his face. As he swatted it away, Wendell’s hand bumped into his nose. He groaned and looked down in shame. Almost, for half a second, he had forgotten about the unspeakable humility known as his nose. It was still long and stretched out by the lie he had told in Pinocchio’s town. Every time Wendell chanced to look in a mirror, he gritted his teeth and walked on staring at the floor. Hardly anyone had said a thing, but he saw how they all gave him more than a passing glance, and looked at each and smiled when he walked by. What was it with him and magic curses that caused him to become so nauseating? First he was a dog and now... the nose problem. After this war was finished he would be able to take some of the antidote from the trolls, if such a thing existed; he wasn’t sure it did. And that was only if he managed to live through the war, of course, which in itself was more than questionable.

He was sitting on his horse at the very front and center of the army. That meant that he would have the privilege of being the very first soldier into battle. Oh, joy, rapture! he thought. But in truth he was proud to be able to lead his kingdom, and all the Kingdoms, into the most important battle they had ever known.

The scout returned, riding Wendell’s own horse. Enviously, he watched it gallop gracefully down the hillside to where the entire army stood silently in the valley. When the scout reached him, Wendell immediately noticed the expression on his young face, excitement and courage and terror all rolled into one. He supposed it was the same expression that could be read on his own face at that moment. The scout nodded, an effort to say that the troll camp was still in the valley, and that they had to face them. There was no turning back now.

Slowly but surely, in the heat that had baked the earth all day and was just now beginning to ebb, in the blinding light of the setting sun, the army made its way up the hillside. An occasional breeze whipped the soldier’s hair and cooled their faces, but overall the air was still and the sky blue, except in places where it was painted by the setting sun. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, save for a few puffy white ones hovering on the horizon.

Presently Wendell gave the two generals on his right and left the signal to break off into separate groups. Each group went to a different side of the field, north, south, east and west. It took a few minutes for everyone to get into position. When they finally did, Wendell found himself in an unlucky position at the front of the section to the east of the field. The brilliantly bright setting sun was shining directly in his eyes. He tipped the rim of his helmet further down over his face to block the light. The black horse was for once standing still as Wendell gripped the reins, silent like all the rest of the army.

“This is it, then,” King Wendell murmured under his breath. He turned around in the saddle to look back at his army, and imagined how many of them were going to live to see the next day.

Prompted by a single motion of his arm, Wendell’s army followed him over the crest of the hill and down the slope into the valley where the trolls were waiting. In unison they let out a cry that could be heard miles and miles away, so that people in villages nearby looked up from their work and wondered what all the noise was about. They ran onto the field from all four sides with spears and swords upraised, and didn’t even notice at first when the trolls, giants, Sasquash, and pixies didn’t do so much as blink an eye.

Wendell, being one of the first on the field, was also one of the first to realize what was happening. He and the other generals on horseback exchanged bewildered glances.

“Stop!” Wendell cried to the men, and the other generals repeated the order. Everyone froze and looked around incredulously. They were walking right through the enemy. It was like a field full of ghosts.

Wendell’s midnight-black horse trotted through an ugly Sasquash and a fairy flew right into his eyes. Wendell had no idea what was happening, but he knew it wasn’t good. Somehow, in a way he wasn’t quite sure of, they had been tricked.

The king heard a noise like strong wind and looked up. What he saw along the edge of the field on the crests of the hills nearly made him fall off his horse. The red dragons hovered there, beating their insanely huge wings against the air and waving their long tails behind them so they made sounds like cracking whips. Their savage eyes gazed fearlessly, hungrily at the aghast soldiers. Even though Wendell knew that the trolls had dragons, he had no idea that they were going to look like this. The gold dragons were still waiting behind so they could come later as a second wave of troops (that plan was being torn into a million pieces), but even when they came, Wendell was having doubts that they were a match for these evil monsters.

Before anyone in the Kingdoms’ army in the valley could do so much as catch their breath, the trolls, giants, Sasquash, and pixies appeared under the dragons with maniacal grins on all their faces.

At this point, three things happened at once. First: All the soldiers in the valley lost any shred of hope they had had for winning. Second: The hologram that was walking through the soldiers flickered and died. And, finally, third: An enormous bolt of lightning illuminated the sky, followed instantly by a deafening thunderclap.

Everyone, Kingdom soldiers, troll soldiers, and dragons alike, looked up. The sky that had without question been a perfect, bright blue only moments before was now blanketed by dark, ominous storm clouds. A cold winterish wind, even though it was late summer, swept through the valley and chilled the soldiers to the bone. This was almost more perplexing than the holographic army, Wendell thought.

Suddenly, as thunder roared against their ears, a second lightning bolt split the sky. This time it touched the ground at the top of the corner of one of the hills. But it didn’t stop there. The living bolt of electricity started to move across the top of the mountain, and in its wake there stood a fifty - foot high wall of... of something that was clear and shimmered like water. The lightning, making a frightening crackling sound, continued along the crest of the hills until it had completely walled in Wendell and his army with the strange barrier. Then it started to close up the top of the huge box it had made to hold them by spiraling around the top until it created a dome. Then the freakish lightning disappeared, and everyone blinked a couple of times to make sure they were actually seeing what they thought they were seeing. The Kingdoms’ army was now cut off and protected from the trolls’ army and dragons by the strange water like substance, but they could still hear and see everything that was going on outside. The trolls, Sasquash, giants, elves, and dragons had recovered from their shock and were now trying angrily to break through the transparent wall to their enemy, but nothing they tried worked. The giants kicked it, the trolls stabbed it, and the dragons flamed it, but the wall simply twisted and reformed itself under their vicious attack.

Wendell and all the others in the valley didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Apparently they had been saved, but by whom and for how long? They could do nothing but wait and see.

They didn’t have to wait long. Several seconds later, the rain began. It started as few drops that splashed against the roof and sides of their clear shelter, seeming to become a part of the water- like substance but actually running off it and down to the troll army’s feet. Quickly those few drops turned into a heavy downpour, and the smiles of the soldiers inside the dome grew wider as everyone outside started to curse and howl in fury.

It was unbelievable how fast the rain came down. In only three minutes, the troll army was up to its knees in rainwater (except, of course, for the giants). The elves and dragons had to land because of the powerfully strong wind, and because the air was practically a wall of falling water that was impossible to fly through. After another minute when the rain came down with even more force, they decided that something had to be done or they would all drown. So, they all ran back toward the beanstalk forest as fast as their legs (or wings) could carry them, planning supposedly to climb up the stalks and go back where they came from.

Now Wendell and his army were officially rejoicing, as the water level outside the dome climbed to over their heads. It was the most powerful flood the Kingdoms had ever seen, and probably would ever see again.

And then another huge bolt of lightning came down, and over the tops of the hills they could see it reach into the beanstalk forest, which was stretching now into the dark storm clouds. Seconds later, smoke started to rise from the forest and soon after full-fledged flames appeared. Impossibly, in the torrential downpour, when everything outside under the sky was soaking wet and utterly opposed to fire, the home of the trolls, the beanstalk forest and the Third Kingdom, was burning to the ground.

Wendell simply stared. In a matter of seconds and in some remarkably unusual way, the war had just been won.